Free Witchy Woman by Karen Leabo Page B

were on a path toward intimacy, and their destiny was hurtling toward them at an alarming rate. Time was a fluid thing within the psychic world she knew, but she’d learned to guess.
    A week, no more.
    Destiny
wasn’t quite the right word, though, because free choice was always an option. Shadows of thefuture weren’t carved in stone. Paths could be altered, the future could be changed.
    “Tess! Are you okay?”
    She realized she’d been staring at a blank wall, trancelike, for interminable seconds. Now she looked at Nate. The concern on his face, in the depths of those velvety brown eyes, was very real.
    “I’m fine.”
    “You’re zoning out on me, and I know you didn’t have that much brandy.”
    “I was just thinking about something.” She cleared her throat, trying to bring herself back to full, here-and-now consciousness. “I should go home. Just promise me you won’t do anything with the statue until you talk to me.”
    “Huh, don’t worry. I’m not going to touch it. Um,
will
you talk to me?”
    “Yeah,” she answered, her reluctance somewhat feigned. She didn’t want to say good-bye forever. There was too much there to walk away from. “You’re right, I can’t stick you with the cat. I’ll help you get rid of it.”
    “Let me get my car keys.” He started to duck back inside his apartment.
    “No! I’m not riding around the streets of Boston with that
thing
in your trunk. I’ll take a cab.”
    “Okay, okay. I’ll walk you down a few blocks to Cambridge Square. There’s always a cab hanging around there.”
    She nodded.
    Nate stepped inside his apartment to grab a jacketoff his coatrack—a leather bomber instead of his tweed blazer. Then he and Tess emerged from the building into the night. The wind had died down, but it was colder, and a malevolent mist hovered around the streetlights.
    Tess shoved her hands into her skirt pockets and hunched against the harsh environment.
    “Jeez, I forgot you don’t have a jacket,” he said. “Take mine. He started to remove the bomber, but she shook her head. Besides the fact that it was leather—cows didn’t die pleasantly, she’d discovered long ago—it was also intimately Nate. She’d had enough of that for one evening. Her body still tingled from holding his hand.
    They walked to the corner, and when no cabs were apparent, Nate found a store with a front stoop they could sit on. A cab would be along shortly, he assured her.
    “So,” he said, “do you really think a story about your past would be terrible?”
    “Are you kidding? It would do my career irreparable harm. I’m a software developer with a conservative company. What do you think would happen to my reputation if people found out I was—that I used to be—that people once thought I was a witch? That I was called Moonbeam?”
    “You were only a child.”
    “A seriously disturbed child in a radically dysfunctional home who underwent years of therapy. That kind of mark on one’s past doesn’t go away. Even in this enlightened age, people aren’t tolerant of mentalaberrations. I do not want my past bandied about as fodder for anyone’s entertainment.”
    He said nothing for a while. Then, abruptly, he changed the subject. “What were you doing with my hand?”
    “Witchy stuff,” she said flippantly.
    “No, really.”
    “That’s what you’d call it. Let’s just say I have a highly developed form of woman’s intuition.”
    “You were touching my hand the way you touched those antiques the other day,” he pressed. “And you got that same look on your face.”
    She’d revealed enough of herself for one day, particularly if Nate was ready to rush home and type up her answers into a story she didn’t want written. “There’s a cab.” She rose from the steps, intending to step to the curb and wave the cab down. Suddenly a dark, solid form stepped in front of her.
    Her breath caught in her throat. It was him, the swarthy man from Judy’s neighborhood. “Excuse