Free Witch Is The New Black by Dakota Cassidy Page B

didn’t know anything about being a witch.
    If she was going to try to figure this out, she was going to have to bluff her way through. And Ridge’s sudden easy conversation, his interest, was something she had to fight against for all she was worth before she opened her big mouth and let too much information slip from between her lips.
    Still, she was curious. “So I won’t get in trouble? Says who?”
    “Says me. I told you about the rules.”
    Bernie’s eyes narrowed and her cheeks flushed hot. “How would you know what the specifics of my parole are?”
    “I told you, I asked Winnie. I didn’t want you to have to keep calling me Mr. Donovan if at all possible,” he said on another chuckle.
    He’d asked about fraternization between them? Even on a level as simple as a first-name basis, the thought warmed her. “So I will get a snack after dinner? There is a God…ess. Goddess .”
    “Looks like it. And you can call me Ridge. Also, you can have a social life. You know—date, make friends, and do all sorts of things within reason. You’re here to be rehabilitated and that has its requirements, but you’re not on lockdown. So if you’re worried people will talk, don’t be.”
    “I can date?” she squeaked, regretting the moment the words spewed from her mouth. “Not that I would. I mean, my life’s a mess. I don’t need any more complications. Who’d want to date a bank robber anyway? Never mind. I just find it so strange—so lax. Parole means structure and rigidity and urine tests once a week. I robbed a bank, for heaven’s sake. There should be harder-core rules for bank robbers, don’t you think?”
    Bracing his hands on the shelf above her head, he winced as he stretched in their cramped quarters, making her shrink as far back into the shelving as she could to avoid more touching.
    “You want things to be tougher than having to wear those shoes?” he teased, but it was nothing like the catty words Violet had used.
    “Are you hurt?”
    “Nah. Old injury from high school.”
    “I should have known you were a football player.”
    “Cheerleader,” he said on a groan of discomfort.
    She ducked under his arms and managed to get behind him, affording her the opportunity to hide her grin. ”Did they make you wear the skirt?”
    “Duh. It matched the pom-poms.” Ridge moaned when she pressed a flat palm against the middle of his back and pushed.
    “I’ll just die if you had the matching little ones to put on your shoelaces,” she joked as she wrapped her arm around his waist.
    “You want me to call the funeral home, or can you handle it?”
    Now she really did laugh, just as she pushed down with one hand and jerked his enormous frame upward by leveraging her arm firmly around his lean waist.
    Ridge bolted upward so fast, he knocked her backward…into the pantry door…which broke…splintering and exploding into many, many pieces.
    Leaving Ridge on top of her in the middle of Winnie’s kitchen floor while a bunch of eyes stared down at them, wide open and astonished.
    Winnie peered at them from behind a kitchen towel, her cheeks bunched up in a smile. “Sorry about that. Sometimes the pantry door sticks.”
    Ridge rolled to his stomach instantly, falling off her. Clearly unfazed by the looks they were getting, he turned his head and gazed over at her. “Wow! That was amazing. Where’d you learn to do that?”
    “One-Eyed Lorraine from cellblock C.”
    Ridge laughed, and despite herself, despite the scene they’d just made, despite the curious eyes, despite the insinuations, Bernie laughed too.
    And it was nice.

Chapter 6
    F ee skipped ahead of her, his tiara bouncing on top of his head, bow securely tied around his tail as they wound down the long dirt road from Winnie’s house to Ridge’s farm.
    He attempted to vault over the wildflowers in the field lining the road, his dark head disappearing and reappearing as she followed. Winnie always offered her a ride to work but she took