CHAPTER ONE

 

 

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Nobody, but nobody told Kelly what to do. She was a witch, a good one. Of course, she was a witch – so she could be as meddlesome as the next witch, but on the whole, she never felt the need to apologize for her actions – until now.

“I know – I know – and I’m sorry,” she groaned, she grovelled, and she hated every single second of it.

On the other hand, Mrs. Peacock looked like she was quite enjoying the fact that Kelly was sorry right down to her little black pointy-toed boots. The elder tossed the long strands of her silvery mane of hair over her shoulders and eyed her with contempt.

“We’re witches!” Mrs. Peacock announced like that should have been news to Kelly.

“Yes, but…”

“We do not go around dressing the part and flaunting it,” Mrs. Peacock’s cut glass tones and snootier-than-thou attitude really took on a new meaning as she berated the younger witch for her ill thought out choice of costume to the Summer Fair. Tongues were most certainly wagging, and in a small town like Seaview that was a bad thing.

“Ever heard of hiding in plain sight?” Kelly’s eyebrows pinched together as she frowned slightly and she offered a lame and somewhat sheepish look to the elder.

Mrs. Peacock’s eyes widened, and she offered her a steely gaze that told Kelly that her little joke that was supposed to put the gossips noses out of joint, had truly backfired in spectacular fashion, right at the pointed toed boots of the witch herself.

“I’ll just let myself out,” Kelly muttered as her chin practically rested on her chest, and her body lost the will to stay straight.

Her shoulders sagged under the weight of her troubles as she padded toward the back door of the elder witch’s cottage that always seemed to smell of Sage and Honeysuckle, one for burning and the other for cleaning, and reached for the door handle. A sense of humor was definitely lacking in the little coastal town of Seaview.

“There’s nothing for it, you know?” Mrs. Peacock called after her. “You’ll need to go visiting relatives for a few weeks, maybe a month or two until the tongues stop wagging and the chatter dies down.”

And there it was, Kelly had received her marching orders and wasn’t welcome in town a moment longer. She’d broken the first rule of witch-club. Never get people talking about witch-club.

 

 

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Kelly finished packing her meager belongings into the back of her Jeep and slammed the door shut on her life. With a flick of a look behind her, she took one last look at the little cottage that had been her home for the last six months, rented from Mrs. Peacock, and vowed not to look back again.

She fished out the keys from her pocket and walked to the driver’s door. The best thing that she could say about the town of Seaview was that it … well, had a sea view.

Kelly sighed as she offered up a little wish on the winds so that her life might turn out differently on what was yet another house move, and just as she took in that sea view one last time – so the heaven’s opened and Mother Nature peed down on her.

She guessed she’d gotten her answer.

What Kelly didn’t know was that the night before, a young witch named Bree had spilled a potion that had travelled on those very winds that were blown her way, and from that moment on, as the rain touched her skin, and the magic filled the air – her life was about to be very different indeed.

 

 

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Kelly was done with the sea. Now she found the mountain’s more to her liking. She headed inland and thought the change of scenery might do her good.

The only place a witch could hide in plain sight was in the big cities — there were enough strange looking people, doing strange things, and with out-of-the-ordinary events happening all the time that most folk just blended into the background. But that wasn’t where Kelly wanted to be.

She liked the smaller towns and the sense of community that resided in them — the only problem with small towns was the chatter. And boy, could there be chatter?

Once that finger was pointed in your direction, you never got a second chance to make things right. She’d like to point a finger at Seaview, but it was her middle finger that she’d offer the gossips, as she firmly put the town in her rearview mirror and out of her life.

Kelly decided that when she finally found a town that she liked, and might like her right back, she would indeed hide in plain sight. No more flaunting the fact that she was a witch. No more setting tongues wagging with stupid stunts and bravado. She was turning over a whole new leaf.

It wasn’t that she wanted the quiet life — she didn’t. She liked a bit of spice, variety, and excitement in her day. But, she really didn’t want to have to move on again.

She was tired. Physically, she was fine, but one town after another was dragging her down on a whole different level. One day, she wanted a family, and she didn’t think that dating on a hit-and-run in every town that she came across would make that dream happened. Not that she’d had in date in the last year.

Kelly noted the road sign that warned her she was approaching a new town and she knew that it was time to refuel — her Jeep, and herself. A small sense of excitement welled up within her for what she would find — could this be the place of her dreams? A little slice of heaven? Home? Probably not — not the way her life was going at the moment, but she could still hope.

Chased out of town by a snooty old witch and a band of humorless gossips, maybe small town living just wasn’t her thing.

She tooled the Jeep onto the forecourt and cut the engine. She’d fill the tank and her belly and get a coffee for the road, maybe chocolate – hell, there was no maybe about it. Chocolate was an important food group, and she needed a regular supply.

Once the tank was full, she paid in the shop, and armed with a couple of handfuls of chocolate bars, pulled her car into a parking spot and set off on foot to the food joint that the attendant had told her wouldn’t kill her with food poisoning. That was always a bonus. Chocolate was good, but she needed food that would stick to her ribs for the long journey ahead to – she didn’t know where.

Just as she was about to push open the door, it was yanked back away from her hand, and the space in the doorway was filled with the man-mountain sized frame of one big-sucker. She’d almost tipped into that large chest as she stumbled forward, expecting her momentum to connect her with the door and not a Hulk.

Kelly started to tip her head back on her neck to look up at his face when the sound of a car horn made her jump in place – the very feminine voice that screamed out from the open window made her pivot to take a look.

“I win – you lose – next time Satan’s minion!” Bree yelled with glee.

Mason took a long, deep breath in and held it in his chest as he rued the day that his beta had found a witch mate and her sidekick. The sight of the witch driving out of town was the best thing that had happened to him in two very long days, and it explained the sense of the supernatural that he was getting from the air around him.

Or did it?

His beast rumbled a low growl in his chest, and he snapped it off as the short, flame-haired woman slowly turned back in his direction, and he thought he saw a hint of recognition on her lips for that sound. Impossible, that would mean she was a w…

His heart hit his ribs, probably in an attempt to get him off and running in any direction away from the little troublemaking witch that stood before him. He was an alpha, damn it, and no little witch was going to get the better of him – again.

Kelly slowly craned her head back on her neck as if she didn’t want to see what she was about to see, and her wide-eyed scrutiny of him involved a look of suspicion. Suspicion turned into a curl of her top lip, and a steely look of daggers being thrust in his heart from her eyes, and she held her ground.

Now he’d gone and done it! Or rather, Bree had. He didn’t want any more witch trouble in his town, and he certainly didn’t need any more mischief-making witches littering the place.

“Weren’t you just leaving town?” Mason said with all the friendliness in his tone of a troll that resided under a bridge.

Kelly’s brain snapped to attention after it had fled at the sound of his growl. Shifter – in her mind the alarm bells were ringing, creepy clowns were waving big banners that read – danger here! – And there might as well have been a big neon, flashing sign over his head pointing down to trouble.

Yikes! She should just turn on the heels of her pointy-toed boots and get the hell out of Dodge while the going was good.

“You’re not the boss of me,” she bit out in a cut glass tone that would have made Mrs. Peacock proud.

Then she put her little balled up fists on her curvy hips and offered him the stink eye that she saved for only the truly tragic cases of butthole-i-ness. But, he was an alpha, of that she was sure – so she felt it fitting that he got the very best of her scorn.

It wasn’t like he’d said hello – oh no, the man was giving her-her marching orders.

The nerve of him!