Free Dangerous Lover by MAGGIE SHAYNE

though.”
    He looked at her and finally, he nodded. “All right.”
    â€œAll right?”
    â€œYeah. I’ll come to the cabin with you. I don’t see anyone making me any better offers right now, do you?”
    Her smile was quick and unplanned and it damn near floored him when she flashed it, because it reached her eyes, and made them sparkle. “I’m really glad.”
    Yeah, and he knew why. She wanted him. Was as turned on by him as he was by her. And who the hell was he kidding? He’d taken her up on the offer mostly because he was pretty sure he’d get laid before it was over. And he could hardly wait.
    She turned the corner and took the dirt road, which wound uphill, through ever thicker woods. “I know I can help you figure this out.”
    â€œAnd what makes you so sure?”
    She smiled even bigger that time. “I’m a Witch,” she said, as if it made all the sense in the world.
    It was really a crying shame she was a card-carrying lunatic, he thought. A crying shame.
    Â 
    Vidalia Brand couldn’t sleep. She’d tossed and she’d turned and she’d worried for hours, and finally decided she couldn’t wait any longer to have a long-overdue talk with her youngest daughter. She’d raised her girls well. Too well for this nonsense. Well, she would be damned herself before she’d stand by and watch her youngest headed straight for hellfire. Not without a fight.
    She flung back her covers, got out of bed and stood for just a moment, looking at herself in the full-length mirror and feeling way older than she ever had. Her nightgown was flannel. Her bathrobe, terry. Her slippers were fuzzy blue ones, and her hair was pulled into a long, still-black ponytail on one side of her head.
    When had she stopped wearing slinky satin nighties and slippers with heels and clingy red robes? It had been awhile. It had been awhile since she’d had any reason to wear them, anyone to wear them for. For a time, it had been enough to wear them for herself, to remind herself that she was a woman, not just a mother or the matriarch of the Oklahoma branch of the family. But a woman.
    And then, slowly, it had kind of stopped mattering so much.
    She sighed, and refocused on her daughter, the current problem of the day. She knew Selene was awake. She’d heard the sounds of her steps in the house for the past fifteen minutes or so, first in the kitchen and then in her bedroom. It was a good time to talk. And yes, maybe she’d made a mistake in having Reverend Jackson waiting for her when she got home. Maybe it would have been better to talk to her privately first. Witchcraft. What was that child thinking? If that wasn’t enough to throw a God-fearing parent off track, Vi didn’t know what was. So she’d messed up. But hell, she’d never claimed to be perfect.
    Yanking the bathrobe’s sash tighter, she opened her bedroom door, and strolled to the kitchen to make hot cocoa. Maybe if she showed up at her daughter’s door with an offering, the way she used to when Selene was little and pouting over some dead ’possum she’d seen along the roadside on the school bus ride home or something—maybe then they could have a civil conversation.
    Selene had always been different. Always.
    Vidalia filled the kettle from the tap, and set it on the burner, then turned to the cupboard to get down mugs, and set them on the table.
    And that’s when she saw the sheet of paper, folded once and resting on top of a book on the kitchen table. Frowning, she glanced toward the stairs. She could still hear Selene moving around up there. What on earth?
    Unfolding the note, she read the words in Selene’s elegant handwriting.
    Mom, I love you, but I can’t be around you right now. I just need some time to get my head together. And don’t worry, I’m not leaving town and breaking my word to the chief. If you ever calm down enough to