Those were just a few of the smaller incidents she’d experienced since she’d hit the age of thirteen. Unexplained occurrences that left her in a pile of shit at home, at school, at every job she’d ever had.
But this last time? Phew. It had been the mother of all occurrences, and was exactly what had landed her here.
As many times as she’d tried to explain she didn’t even understand what was going on or how she made these things happen was the same number of times Baba Yaga and Bernie’s fellow cellmates had cackled hysterically and mocked her thespian skills.
The witches in cellblock D had actually crafted a makeshift Academy Award out of a toilet paper roll, Q-Tips, and glitter-glue, handing it to her with much flourish in the cafeteria to gales of laughter on SpaghettiOs night.
After that, she’d learned to shut up—quit protesting her witchiness out loud, quit denying she didn’t know thing one about being a witch, and slowed her roll entirely.
She’d gone along with all of it as if she were a secret agent, infiltrating the coven. Like some supernatural Sydney Bristow, pretending, listening, learning.
And still, she was baffled. How could she be a witch if neither of her parents were magically inclined? She certainly wasn’t adopted—a theory she’d toyed with, but only momentarily. Both her parents were gone now, but there was no denying she was the spitting image of her mother, right down to her wide green eyes and strawberry-blonde hair.
Baba Yaga’s voice droned back into earshot, making Bernie stand up straighter when she heard the word “Paris”.
She was going to Paris to do her parole? She didn’t know anyone in Paris. She didn’t know anyone anywhere except in Boston.
And she sure as hell didn’t know French. As if it wasn’t bad enough she was a witch who didn’t know how to be a witch, now Baba and the Council of spooky goons were sending her to a foreign country?
She’d better find her Sydney Bristow pants if she hoped to pull this one off.
“…Texas,” Baba finished with a smirk, her eyes gleaming.
What did Paris have to do with Texas? If ever two words warred with each other…
Bernie squeezed her temples, and asked, “Texas? Like y’all and George Strait?” The connection between the two places just wasn’t becoming clear.
“Yee and haw, motherfluffer!” Baba Yaga shouted before she let her head fall back on her creamy shoulders and cackled.
Wait! her mind said without aide of her mouth. She needed to clear up some things before she was sent off to Paris. Like, how long did parole last? Where would she live?
Most importantly, who was going to keep her from robbing another bank?
But Baba was clearly done talking.
Lifting her arm high, as a wind out of nowhere whipped her hair and the lights flickered, Baba snapped her fingers…
Chapter 2
Testicles.
Big and sprinkled with sparse hair, testicles were swaying near her left eyeball.
They were the first things Bernie saw when she opened her eyes.
She’d landed flat on her ass and fallen backward, hitting the hard ground with a bone-rattling dump of limbs and pieces of cat hair she had to spit off her tongue.
She flattened her palms against the surface she’d landed on to find it felt like grass. “Sweet Susan! What the hell?”
A rush of oppressive heat wrapped around her face like a blanket as she lie there, too stunned to move. It coated her, swarming her skin, leaving beads of perspiration forming on her upper lip and forehead.
“Incoooomiiing!”
Fee fell smack on top of her with a yowl, right out of the sky and onto her face.
Bernie spit out a wad of pink tulle and clenched her eyes shut then popped them open again with a grunt. She moved her head to the side to dislodge Fee and looked up at the shadow hovering over her.
The shadow with testicles. How did a set of testicles the size of oranges get in the middle of Paris? Paris had testicles just all out in the open like that?
Of course Paris has testicles, nitwit. They have testicles galore. Testicles belong on men and there are gobs of men in Paris.
Yeah, but those don’t look like testicles from a man. Furthermore, why are they hanging in my face in Paris? I know it’s a pretty progressive place, but I didn’t know everyone went rogue.
There was no way to rationally reason this in her head. Instead, she opted for the if-you-can’t-see-it, it-doesn’t-exist mantra.
“Maybe if I don’t open my eyes, none of this is real.”
“Bernie girl, you’ve spent your entire sentence with your eyes closed. Open them and face the music, Sugarlumps.” Fee tickled her nose with his tail, using his paws to knead her hair.
“Mawnin’, y’all,” a soft voice murmured from above, the timbre deep and rich with southern tinges. A voice that sounded just like Lou Rawls.
Holy shitballs of fire. Lou Rawls was here, too?
Bernie rolled to her side, her eyes wide open now. She grabbed Fee and pulled him close to her chest, her heart pounding so violently, she heard it in her ears. “Who was that, Fee?”
“It was just me, ma’am.”
Bernie’s breathing quickened, but no way was she looking up. “Are the testicles talking, Fee? Please tell me the testicles don’t sound like Lou Rawls and they aren’t talking.”
Fee made a clucking noise while he struggled out of her grip. “Can’t do that.”
“Where the hell are we and why are there talking testicles involved?” Her panic was taking on a new but familiar feel. Much like the panic she’d experienced when the Boston PD had first arrested her after finding her in the bank vault of Boston First Mutual.
Still, the Boston PD didn’t have talking testicles. Well, not technically—maybe metaphorically. This created a whole other level of panic in the pit of her stomach.
“Bernie baby, didn’t you listen to anything Baba Yaga said?”
Fee finally came into focus, his dark fur sitting against a grassy backdrop, with nothing but puffy white clouds above his head and the glare of the angry sun on his glittering tiara beneath.
“I heard ‘you flew too long under the radar, Bernice’ and something about Paris blah, blah, blah and then Texas.” Yep, that was about the gist of it.
Fee fell back on his haunches and blinked at her. “Aw, hell, Bernie. You hafta stop escapin’ to that place in your mind where this isn’t all happening. Because, newsflash, it’s happening. Right here in Children of The Corn country. And the testicles belong to a bull in a pasture that goes on for miles and miles with no freakin’ end in sight.”
A pasture. Okay. That connected with Texas, for sure. “And the bull talks?” She winced at her question.
Of course he talked. Cats talk and wear tutus, and witches exist, Bernie Sutton.
“He does, ma’am,” the quote-end quote bull said, a hint of amusement in his tone.
“Why do the testicles, er…I mean, bull, sound like Lou Rawls?”
The bull chuckled, deep and resonant. “That’s a mighty fine compliment, pretty lady, but most folks just call me Bitty. Good to meet ya. I’d offer ya a hand up, but well, you know, I’m all two left testicles.”
“Hah!” Fee squawked, jumping in the air and rolling to his back. “The testicles made a funny. You know, left feet—testicles? I love it here already!”
Bernie shook her head, using the heels of her feet and hands to scoot backward. “Talking bulls? Not funny, Fee.”
Fee rolled upright to rub up against her side. “Okay, cool your jets. I hear hysteria in your voice and it reminds me that I forget sometimes you’re still not used to our world, where crazy shit happens every day. So let’s talk this out.”
She sucked in air that felt as though it had just escaped an oven. “Talk me down, Fee. Hurry. Before I pass out.”
“Did you even hear the terms of your parole, Bernie girl?”
She pulled her legs close to her chest and let her chin rest on her knee
s with a sheepish gaze focused solely on Fee. She wasn’t ready to look at Bitty just yet. “Well, not all of it.”
“You heard none of it,” Fee admonished.
Bernie let her head hang in shame. “Guilt be my name. You’re right. I heard none of it. So what happens next?”
Fee turned his back on her and began weaving in and out of Bitty’s legs. “So here’s the deal. I am so your familiar. Whether you like it or not. So sayeth that lunatic with a scrunchie and a ‘Total Eclipse of The Heart’ fetish. No one else applied for the job, so suck it.”
“Aren’t I the luckiest witch ever?”
Bernie actually bit back a smile. She’d never tell him, but she was relieved Fee was here with her, wherever here was, talking testicles who sounded like Lou Rawls and all.
“I could’ve applied to mentor that head case over in cellblock B, you know. At least she’d be grateful.”
“The one who eats toilet paper and hoards her hair from her brush?”
“The one and only.”
Bernie smirked. “God, you’re such a giver.”
“Damn right, I am. Now, the next bit of bizniz. We’re in Texas. Paris, Texas. A town primarily made up of witches and a few werewolves and the occasional paranormal who checks the ‘other’ box. Also home of the infamous Winifred Foster-Yagamowitz you heard so much about from Chi-Chi—and Baba Yaga’s niece by marriage, as well. She and her husband Benjamin run a rehabilitation house for wayward witches like yourself. You’ll live there while you serve out your two-month parole doing community service.
“If, and I stress if, you do your time clean, you’ll have one more hearing, where Winnie, your parole officer, and members of the community give their testimony on how you fared. If all goes well, then and only then will you be free to run amok wherever people like you—who don’t care about the enormous sacrifices their familiars make for them—live.”
Most of Fee’s explanation went in one ear and out the other. Who could think when it was this hot? The one thing she had heard? Community service.
“Community service? What kind of community service? Like chain-gang, pick-up-litter-on-the-side-of-the-highway community service?”
“Horse puckey. Cow patties, too,” someone said. Someone male.
Someone with a voice very different than Lou “Testicles” Rawls, but equally as deep and resonant—maybe even a little shiver-worthy.
Bernie’s eyes lifted as she followed the new, long shadow stretching out before her and blocking the sun.
“Seven hells and an extinct unicorn. If I had opposable thumbs, I’d fan myself! Who are you, Cowboy, and are there more where you come from?” Fee purred the saucy words, deserting Bernie to rub shamelessly up against the calves belonging to the male voice.
“I’m her boss.”
Bernie’s eyes decided finding out what the face attached to the voice looked like was probably prudent, so she let them roam all the way up—past his scuffed brown boots, over his lean hips encased in tight denim, beyond his rippling stomach and along his broad shoulders—until they landed on his sun-weathered face.
And what a face. Deeply tanned, hard-jawed, with clear skin stretched tight over sharp cheekbones. Grooves on either side of a full mouth and eyes so stunningly blue with dark lashes rimming them, she inhaled a breath.
The fringes of his chocolate-brown hair hung just beneath his white Stetson, not quite touching his jaw. His stare was even and steady as a rock. No blinking.
“Ohhh, saints be,” Fee cooed with delight. “We hit the hottie jackpot, Bernie girl!”
“You’re Bernice Sutton,” he said, deadpan, without addressing Fee’s forward comment and minus a single hint of emotion.
She was still trying to formulate her words. Rather than stumble on them, she nodded, her mouth dry.
“I’m Ridge Donovan. Your boss for the next two months. Baba Yaga told me you’d be arriving today. I just didn’t expect it to be out here in the middle of someone else’s pasture.” He scowled down at her as though she had any control over whose pasture she’d landed in.
Fee hopped into her lap and brushed his cold nose against her ear. “Don’t just sit there, Bernie. Get up and greet hotpants right and proper!” he whisper-yelled.
She struggled to her feet, wobbling a bit when the confines of her sticky orange jumpsuit and the heat of the sun mingled, hitting her with their blazing impact.
Licking her dry lips, she wiped her sweaty palm on her thigh and held out her hand. “Yes. I’m Bernice Sutton. But Bernie’s fine.”
Ridge didn’t reach out for her offered hand. Instead, he turned on his booted heel and pointed a lean finger toward a distant dot on the scorching-hot horizon. “The farm’s this way. Better get a move on. The horses’ stalls need cleaning before they get back from their morning walk with the seniors from the center. Oh, and don’t forget your fancy toilet paper roll.”
Her eyes fell to the ground, where her jailhouse Academy Award lay crumpled.
Ridge slapped Bitty on the back. “Good seein’ ya again, old man. Give Nash and Calla a howdy from me, would ya?” Then he stalked off over the brittle grass, his boots crunching a path toward the dot.
“Can do, Ridge,” Bitty responded cheerfully.
Fee took off, skipping his way over the distance between him and Ridge, his tutu fluttering wildly in a pink cluster as he tried to keep up. “Hurry, Bernie!” he called over his shoulder giddily, breathless excitement in his words. “You have shit to shovel!”
Fuck.
Left for a hot cowboy in tight jeans and a Stetson.
Some familiar, her Fee.
Traitor.
* * * *
Bernie fell against the opening to the barn door and gasped for breath, clinging to her crushed award. Cheese and rice, it was GD hot here.
She’d followed the outline of Ridge’s back for what felt like miles, struggling to keep up as they crossed the field, her Kotex slippers tripping over hard patches of thick grass, dying from the heat while the sun ate her face off, only to be told to wait here.
At a big dilapidated barn that looked as if it just might be on its last legs, positioned next to what might have been a storm cellar with two rusty doors. The red paint was peeling everywhere on the face of the structure, the stench coming from inside was enough to gag ten men, and the fence posts surrounding the property were falling down.
Overall, her new gig, though bar-free, was pretty rough.
Though, she had to give it up for the landscape. There were enormous trees everywhere, dirt paths that led to places she’d, under other circumstance, like to explore. Chickens roamed free in a large pen with a small red wooden house, and pigs rolled in a pen full of mud, and cows dotted the outlying pasture, contentedly chewing on grass.
Yep. Bernie Sutton from the city was on a real live farm. Boy howdee.
The shade of the wide entry to the barn did little to cool her off. If anything, the shadows served only to keep her from catching fire.
Bales of hay lined the entryway to the horse stalls, the stink heightened and cloying from the muggy heat. Fee hopped up on a block of compact straw and settled back on his haunches. “So yammer at me, Bernie.”
“About?”
“About how ssssinfully hot Ridge Donovan is.”
“You’re drooling.”
“Hell yeah, I’m drooling. He’s hotter n’ habaneras and Chris Hemsworth.”
She wrinkled her nose and wiped the sweat from her brow. No drooling over men. A man was part of the reason why she was in this predicament in the first place. If she’d just gone with her gut, she wouldn’t have ended up in a bank vault with fistfuls of cash and no recollection of getting there.
“That’s not why I’m here, Fee. I’m here to do my time. I have zero interest in anything else.” And from the looks of Ridge Donovan and that stone set to his jaw, he had nothing else in mind either.
“Doesn’t hurt to look.”
She rubbed her temples with her thumbs and
squeezed the beginnings of a rousing headache. “Are you advising, as my thrust-upon-me familiar, that I should ogle my boss while I’m on parole? I’m pretty sure that breaks some enormous parolee rule.”
“Excuse me, I wasn’t thrust upon you. I was chosen, thank you very much. You know, like by a panel of celebrity judges for the Miss Familiar Pageant?”
Bernie almost grinned, but couldn’t manage it because it was too hot to move her facial muscles. “Is ‘chosen’ the new word for ‘begging and scraping until Baba Yaga gives in’?”
Fee’s straight back slumped a little as he sank into the hay. “I only scraped a little, you dreadful beast. I needed a new gig after…”
“Yeah. You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you, Fee. Why did you need a new gig anyway? I thought witches were immortal and they kept their familiars forever?”
She’d always wondered what had drawn Fee to her—what had made him stick around even when she’d ended up sedated after he’d first “spoken” to her at morning exercise.
He lifted his chin haughtily. “Why didn’t you know you were a witch?”
“Touché, pussycat.”
“Still not ready to share your secrets with me, are you?”
She rolled up her sleeves and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not ready for anything else but doing what needs to be done for my surprise parole so I can get the hell out of this place and go back to Boston. It’s scorching and it smells like a hot brew of sewer and toxic waste in here.”
“That’s good to hear,” Ridge said, strolling toward the opening to the barn, all big and muscle-y. “If you’re in the mood to make good on your parole conditions, it’ll make your time go that much faster. Idle hands, as they say.” He held out a rusty shovel.
Fee collapsed on the hay and let out a soft and, if Bernie wasn’t mistaken, flirty meow.
Bernie fought a roll of her eyes. Okay, so Ridge looked good, even sweaty and dirty. In fact, he smelled good, too. Like hard work and fabric softener. There was no denying his enormous frame was easy on the eye.
But freedom was easy on the eye, too, and that was the prize she was focused on.
Witch Is The New Black (Paris, Texas Romance Book 3) Page 2