Witch Is The New Black (12 page)

Fee paced in front of the glass door like a tiger in a cage.
Bernie! Knock it off. Walk away!

Violet’s curly red hair swirled around her perfect face just as a hot wind picked up. The air had that funny smell to it, just as it had when Fee had cemented her feet to the ground.

Magic? Was that magic in the air? Did magic smell?

Violet’s eyes lit up, the color changing, swirling as the wind continued to blow.

Well, if this was magic, Violet sure had a leg up on Beyoncé and a wind machine.

Bernie! You’ve done it now. Head’s up!

The air began to tear at Bernie’s velour tracksuit, pulling the already loose pants down along her hips as the zipper on her matching jacket began to unzip itself—

And then Ridge was there, scooping her up and planting a delicious kiss on her lips before setting her back on the ground with a grin. “Sorry I’m late, Snuggle Puff, but one of the cows got out of that damned fence again and it was an all-out Amber Alert to find her. By the way, did I mention how hot you look in that tracksuit? Love it.”

The wind died down instantly, leaving Bernie glowering at him while her buttery limbs fought to hold her up.

But Ridge took her hand and kissed the back of it, sending a sweeping shiver along her spine. “Can you forgive me? Promise I’ll make it up to you.”

Bernie lifted one eyebrow in question, but okay. She was game. For whatever he was doing.

Thrusting out her lower lip, she pouted with a coy bat of her eyelashes, looking right through Violet and her shock. “Oh, my little Love Machine, you’re sooo good to me. You know what this means, don’t you?” she asked, swinging their entwined hands back and forth.

Now Ridge looked as confused as she felt. “Um,
Project Runway
marathon?”

Bernie let her head fall back on her shoulders as she laughed and shook her head. “No, Snookie-Wookie. It’s way better.
Way
.”

He lifted his chin, his eyes amusingly suspicious. “Narrow your definition of ‘better’.”

“
Housewives
marathon. Orange County to be precise.”

Ridge returned her pout, adorably so. “Aw, c’mon. If I have to listen to that OG of the OC Vicki screech woohoo and talk about her love tank being on empty, it just might drive me to drink, Smooshy Face,” he groaned, stepping around Violet as though she wasn’t there and pushing the glass door open for them.

“You said you’d make it up to me. It’s
Housewives
or drowning your sorrows—
alone
, I might add—in a bottle of vodka,” she teased back until they were safely inside and the door swept shut behind them.

He pulled her to a corner behind an enormous potted fica tree and grinned. “Love Machine?”

“Oh quiet. You caught me off guard with Snuggle Puff. I was improvising. And
Snuggle Puff
? Really?”

Ridge barked a laugh. “You saved me, you know.”

“From?”

“Violet’s man-eating clutches. I swear, that woman has eight arms, and the minute she sees me, I become prey.”

Unlike Bernie, who had only two arms and had used both to accost him in his barn. “She did say she was here for you…”

“I bet she did. But she said wrong,” he said, his response solid and quiet.

“Why are you here then?” Didn’t he have somewhere else he could be irresistible?

He cocked an eyebrow. “I’m here because I happen to like bingo. Good thing, too, or Violet was going to let you have it, judging from the spell she was conjuring.”

“She doesn’t like me much.”

“Yeah? Well,
nobody
likes her much. She can’t stand the seniors and hasn’t been ashamed to say as much.”

“You didn’t have to kiss me if you needed saving.”

“But I thought we were going steady now?”

Bernie’s head snapped upward, her mouth going dry. “Steady?”

He stuffed a hand in the pocket of his jeans and nodded. “Well, yeah. If you kiss me in my barn, it means we have to go steady.”

“Says who?”

“Legend says who.”

“What legend?”

“The one I’m going to make up so you’ll be convinced enough to be my steady?”

Bernie’s stomach nosedived. He was, of course, teasing her again. He’d never ask her to be his steady. “Steadies are overrated. They demand way too much of you, they always want to do couple things, and they call you ridiculous pet names like Snuggle Puff.”

“I can call you something else. What’s your preference?”

This was getting too intimate. Too much like flirting. Too. Much.

Realizing she was still holding his hand as if he belonged to her, Bernie pulled away from his grip. “Obviously, judging from the wind Violet was whipping up, you saved
me
, too. Thanks for that. Consider us even. Now I have to go call numbers for bingo.” Tucking her purse to her body, she waved as casually as her pounding heart would allow. “Catch ya later.”

As she made her way across the wide, shiny floor, George, Clive, and Gus, huddled at a table covered with bingo cards and a bowl of pretzels, snickered and catcalled. “Bernie’s got a boyfriend! Bernie’s got a boyfriend!”

Clive grabbed her hand and pinched the back of it with a chuckle. “I thought you were savin’ yourself for me, young lady?”

“Who says I’m not?” she teased back.

Clive bumped an age-spotted fist with her. “Woohoo! I like ’em sassy!”

Flora scooted up beside her and rubbed her shoulder against Bernie’s. “Judgin’ from the way Ridge’s lookin’ at you like you’re a plate of fried chicken topped with his mama’s gravy, I’d say
he
says you’re not.”

Bernie blushed, fighting the impulse to run. She shook an admonishing finger at them. “All right, matchmakers. Enough, or I’ll make sure you don’t win a single game. You do know who’s in charge of the spinny thing with the numbered balls, don’t you?” she joked as she left them to make her way toward Calla.

The center was enormous, cheerful, bright, scattered with folding chairs and sturdy wood tables. Messages of encouragement like “Older Is Bolder” were stitched and framed and hung on the walls.

One wall in particular caught Bernie’s eye and made her smile. Hundreds of pictures of the seniors and their families and the staff at the center were tacked onto a wall made entirely of cork.

Gus with his daughter and her two boys, smiling. Flora with her handsome sons, her arms wrapped around their waists. Happy memories from the field trips the seniors had taken were all proudly displayed. She loved that the people she was coming to enjoy spending time with had such full lives.

And a small part of her, maybe the one that had been neglected for so long, wanted pictures like that to hang on a wall someday—wanted a place to belong.

Calla’s husband Nash—tall, dark, and a perfect match for the werewolf physically—waved her over to a set of stairs leading to a podium. “Hey, Bernie! Thanks for doing this.”

Dropping her purse on the podium, she smiled at him. “No big deal.”

He gave a sidelong glance at his wife before he said, “Oh no. You have no idea what a big deal it is. Believe me.”

Calla rushed up beside him, pinching his waist. “Don’t scare off the volunteer, honey,” she said with clenched teeth.

“You didn’t tell her, did you,
honey
?” Nash asked, his eyes narrowing playfully.

“Tell me what?”

Calla’s shoulders sagged beneath her flowered maxi dress. “Okay, so sometimes things get a little heated. I might have under-exaggerated the behavior of my seniors when I told you about bingo today in the barn. They like to win, and when they don’t, they…”

“Throw things,” Nash provided with a resonant chuckle. “Call each other creative names. Sore sports, the lot of them. They behave as though the numbers called have nothing to do with a randomly generating machine. They blame you
personally
. Swear, last bingo night I thought Effie Adams was going to take the top of Lenny Ford’s head right off with her fiery wand of nuclear destruction just to get at me.”

Calla huffed, rolling her eyes up at Nash before she gave a resigned sigh. “I won’t hate you if you want to leave, Bernie. Nash has a sick calf he needs to tend to. I usually man the floor, you know, in case they start lobbing food at each other, and Nash always calls the numbers, but the calf is more important. So if you want to go, I’d totally understand.”

Bernie couldn’t help but grin. She’d heard all about bingo night from Winnie and Lola over dinner. Lola was no longer allowed to attend because her mommy said Mr. Boudreaux had toilet lips.

“Nope. I made a commitment. I’m in. I’m not afraid of a little swearing and a food fight.”

Calla breathed a sigh of relief and blew her a kiss. “Bless your heart. Bless it so hard.”

Nash gave Calla a quick kiss on her cheek then held his hand out, fist forward at Bernie, bumping hers. “May the force be with you. And if you hear someone yell duck, do it. I mean, get under a table and stay there until the dust settles,” he said with a chuckle, tipping his Stetson before he made his way across the wide floor and out of the center.

Calla eyed Bernie, entwining her fingers behind her back, her smile facetious. “Soooooo…”

“More instructions? Should I watch out for the floods and locusts?”

“No, but you could tell me what that was all about outside. You know—you and Hot Bod Donovan smooching.”

She bit the inside of her cheek, damning Ridge for interfering. “I’m sorry. Ridge…he…caught me off guard. It was nothing. Do you want to write me up and give it to Greta? I’ll sign off on it.”

Calla looked surprised before she scoffed. “
Write you up
? Because you kissed a delectable man who defended you from that viper on heels?”

“How do you know he defended me?”

She tugged her ear, where a small hoop earring was lodged. “Werewolf. We might not be able to conjure up things or cast spells, but by God, our hearing is magical.”

Good to know. “Did Greta leave you one of those pads with the pink slips? We had them all over the prison. The guards carried them everywhere in case of infractions.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Bernie! I’m not your jailor, and I don’t have any pink pads, and even if I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t write you up. Violet’s a witch, and I don’t mean a welcome addition to your kind. If Ridge stuck up for you, good on him.”

“I shouldn’t have let him kiss me.” But God, it had been so outstanding. It hadn’t lasted long, and it was only out of pity, but Ridge’s lips on hers, his arms around her, playing at being a couple, made her heart throb in her chest and her knees melt like butter.

“Why the hell not? He’s hot, Bernie, and you’re gorgeous. Gorgeous women should be kissed—thoroughly. Now, listen to me. When tonight’s over, you and me are going to sit down and have a talk—”

“Why are y’all talking when tonight’s over?” Greta asked, strolling up to the podium, making Bernie stiffen.

Calla rested her elbow on Bernie’s shoulders and rolled her eyes upward. “Because Bernie seems to think she’s in trouble for kissing Ridge Donovan.”

Greta frowned, twisting her whistle around her neck. “Why? Did you kiss him wrong or something?”

First a car, now permission to kiss her boss from her parole officer.

Bernie shook her head with a smile. “Forget it. That’s just me trying to keep my nose clean.”

Greta waved a chubby finger at her. “While you’re keeping your nose clean, how about you start calling numbers? Natives are gettin’ restless. When Glenda-Jo starts shifting her troll dolls around, trouble’s a-comin’ soon thereafter.”

Bernie got behind the podium and saluted Greta. “Aye-aye, Captain.”

“That’s Bitch In Charge to you, kiddo,” Greta said with a grin, pivoting on her sensible shoes and heading toward a table in the back.

Bernie grabbed the mic and began to turn the cage housing the balls as she looked out on all the seniors, their faces expectant.

But there was one face way in the back, beyond the table set up with coffee and cookies, beyond the bookcases and game tables.

A face she thought she’d never see again in her life, chatting amicably with Violet Hammond.

The face of the woman Eddie had cheated on her with.

Doris Dobbs.

Chapter 8

R
idge watched Bernie call numbers, her beautiful face hiding something he didn’t understand. Her soft voice floating into the microphone and swirling around the room had a slight, almost undetectable shakiness to it, making him wonder what was going on in that head of hers.

What kept her so skittish? What made her put up roadblocks over things like calling him Ridge? Why was she always apologizing?

If Baba would just return his damn call, he might be able to get some answers.

He’d come tonight specifically because Bernie was going to be here. He was hoping to talk her into a beer later. As he sipped his coffee, he reflected on how easy it was to joke with her when she wasn’t censoring her every word and move.

Something else that was easy? Kissing her. He damn well liked it. They hadn’t even discussed their first kiss, knowing full well they should. Yet, they were on to number two and he was rarin’ to add number three to a notch on his belt.

He couldn’t explain why he liked her. What it was that attracted him to her besides the obvious—she was gorgeous—but attracted to her, he was. When he’d caught Violet pulling her superiority act, looking down her nose at Bernie, he’d wanted to choke the life right out of her with a suffocation spell.

So he’d reacted—protectively, no less.

That meant something. He just didn’t know what, but the onslaught of thoughts about Bernie needed exploring. He’d hoped to talk her into that drink after bingo in an effort to try to get to know her a little better. But she’d shut right back down again once she felt as if she’d overstepped her invisible boundaries.

Bernie’s eyes kept floating to Violet and the woman at the table behind him, but he couldn’t figure why, other than the fact the woman was a virtual stranger in Paris. But how would Bernie know that anyway? She’d only been here a week or so herself.