Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Malcolm took another reluctant glance at the garden he destroyed, and winced. He shared a look with Hades.
“Do you think I can fix it?”
Hades whined, and his short bobbed tail wiggled uncertainly, and Malcolm could feel the dog’s mental attempt to bolster his confidence.
“Thanks, buddy…”
Drawing a deep breath to help him focus, Malcolm lifted his hands up, hoping to open the pathway to his magic.
It was like trying to navigate a rocky, bush-covered path in the mountains during a thunderstorm at night, where each step was uncertain, and every rock and tree held potential danger behind it.
He closed his eyes and searched for something, anything, he could grab onto.
Heat shot out from his palms. When he opened his eyes, he cursed.
Flames had exploded from his hands, setting fire to the ruined pumpkins and the vines.
Hades barked at the sight of the spreading fire, backing cautiously away.
He had wanted to fix the vines and pumpkins, not roast them into a pie!
“Shit!” Malcolm hissed as turned and sprinted toward the old Victorian house.
He frantically searched the garden for a hose.
This was why he hated magic. He had a good control of everything else in his life, his software company was booming, he could always get a date when he wanted one, but magic?
It was a trainwreck that kept him off balance.
The back door of the house burst open and a woman screamed.
“Oh my God!”
A woman rushed past him in a panic into the garden, and for a moment, time seemed to slow down.
Her chestnut hair fell in tumbling waves past her shoulders.
In those seconds that she passed him, she came close enough for him to see the full profile of her shockingly pretty face, and he caught the most enchanting scents of honeysuckle and hyacinth.
That single glimpse of her was like a punch to his gut, and he sucked in a breath.
When the moment passed, so did she, speeding toward the epicenter of his crash landing and accidental arson.
The woman threw her hands up in the air, and the clouds above her coalesced and darkened. A torrent of rain poured down over the small inferno. The woman moved her hands, guiding the rain to extinguish all of the flames. Malcolm could actually feel the power rolling off her.
She was a witch. And a strong one at that.
When the last flame died under the torrent of rain, the clouds dispersed.
The woman had her back to him, Her shoulders slumped and her head sagged in defeat.
She bent to lift up a burnt vine, clutching it to her chest before she slowly let it drop back to the ground.
Then she turned around, her gaze searching the garden until it locked onto him.
The moment their eyes met, something rippled beneath his skin like quicksilver, and he sucked in a sharp breath.
It was as though a chill and a wave of heat had passed through him in rapid succession.
The woman stared at him, her hands perched on her jean clad hips.
The t-shirt she wore had the cover of an old book on it, featuring a headless horseman holding a pumpkin in the air and storm clouds above him.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving was written in scrawling script across the bottom.
“Who the hell are you?” The woman marched toward him, her hips sashaying in a most distracting way.
Damn, she was cute, even though she was angry.
She marched up to him and jabbed a finger into his chest. Her eyes were a brilliant shade of hazel, like honey mixed with nutmeg.
Her long hair curled at the ends and he had the sudden urge to reach out and wrap that dark hair around his fist to feel its silkiness.
“Who. Are. You?” She punctuated each word with another jab. “And why did you set my prized pumpkins on fire?”
“Your prized pumpkins? I—” he tried to say, but she cut him off.
“What do you have to say for yourself, fire starter?” Her eyes turned golden yellow as a spell began to weave above her head.
“If you just let me talk—” His magic suddenly woke up like a sleeping dragon in response to this witch’s magical threat. A bolt of electricity shot out of his hands as he held them up in surrender, zapping her right on that adorable bottom of hers. “Crap!”
She screeched, clutched her bottom, and the spell above her head shot out at him.
He flew through the air and landed on the back steps of the porch with a grunt.
There was a sickening crunch and pain like a hammer striking an anvil, with his right arm caught in between.
Malcolm sprawled across the house steps, his broken arm cradled against his chest, and stared at the witch.
He hadn’t been hexed since he was in grade school.
She gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” She ran toward him, but Malcolm held up his good hand to warn her off.
“Stay back!” he snapped. “I really don’t want to get hexed again.”
She halted, eyes still round with shock as she stared at him.
“I didn’t mean to you hex you, I…” she seemed to realize her words were coming out all wrong. “What sort of creature are you?” Her head tilted to one side. “Wait… you have magic too, don’t you?” she answered her own question.
“Sort of,” he admitted and nodded to the ruined pumpkins. “I did all that, but I didn’t mean to. Hell, I don’t even know where I am, or how I got here.” He slowly got to his feet and whistled for Hades, who was watching this interaction from a safe distance.
“You don’t know where you are?” The witch then jumped as Hades trotted past her to stand beside Malcolm. The dog sighed as though he deemed it was safe now to stand between him and the witch.
“A few minutes ago, I was in Boston. Hades and I were on my motorcycle, driving down the street and then, wham! A witch wormhole opens and here we are.”
The witch studied Hades with fascination. She caught her lip between her teeth, and a tiny line appeared between her eyebrows as she examined the giant schnauzer. “Is he your familiar?”
“Yeah, he is. Fuck …” His arm was really starting to hurt and he could feel his body going into shock. “I’m sorry, I need to cut this talk short. I’ve got to get to an ER.” He groaned as the pain made his knees wobble.
“Oh, that? I can fix your arm.” She took a step toward him.
Malcolm flinched, his instincts kicking in. “I think you’ve done enough,” he growled. “I don’t want my other arm broken.” He tried to stand, wobbling for a moment as pain shot up his arm and threw him off balance.
“Don’t be such a baby.” She grasped his good arm.
Despite her forceful words, her grip was surprisingly gentle.
Something traveled between them, an electric current that broke through the pain and created the strangest awareness of another person he had ever felt in his life.
She continued to guide him toward the back of the house, not acknowledging the feeling.
Perhaps she hadn’t felt it? He grudgingly let her take him inside her home.
Despite the pain radiating from his arm, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the witch’s house.
It was unlike anything he’d ever seen. He’d grown up with magic, but this was something else entirely…
it was magic that felt… magical. The silver weaving of spells actually danced through the air, spinning and twirling like magical snowstorms. Potted plants hung in the air, and vines grew down the center stair railing, with exotic blooms so big they almost didn’t seem real.
Scents of cinnamon, vanilla, sage and other flowers perfumed the air.
The portraits on her walls moved about, but were far more animated than his own stiff ancestors.
Most were happy, smiling men and women who waved at him before they continued on their journeys.
If his arm hadn’t been broken he probably would have waved back.
This place felt liberated, free, expressive in a way his old home in Boston never had been.
There was a charm to the old world magic feel that came with his father’s world, but this…
this was a witch’s house built around the magic of the natural world.
“Your spells …” he said as the witch led him into a kitchen.
“What about them?” The woman urged him to sit on a stool facing the kitchen island, which was covered with platters of cookies and pies.
Some of them definitely made with pumpkin by the smell of it.
He’d stick to the apple pies if she offered him any later…
pumpkin wasn’t his favorite flavor right now.
“They…”
“One sec, the timer on these cookies was beeping just before you exploded my prized pumpkins.”
She bent over in front of the ovens and removed more edible cookies.
He completely forgot what he’d wanted to say.
His gaze wasn’t on the cookies, but on her very cute, shapely bottom that made him want to sink his teeth in and nibble and…
what the hell? He wasn’t some damn vampire.
Then he noticed the small burn mark on her jeans pocket from where his magic had zapped her.
Oops…
She set the baking tray of cookies down on the cooling rack and turned the oven off.
“Sit.” She pointed at the stool like she was commanding a dog. He hadn’t realized he was still standing, trying to get a better look at her ass.
When did I get so horny? Malcolm had had his fair share of girlfriends and flings. He had a healthy sex drive, sure, but something about this witch was doing crazy things to him. He couldn’t think straight.
“Let me take a look at your arm.”
She came over and placed one of her palms on his elbow, just above his broken arm. Her other palm cupped his cheek. She closed her eyes.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Shush.”
Her hand was warm and soft, and he felt oddly soothed by that simple contact in a way he couldn’t explain.