Witchy Woman (3 page)

“It’s okay,” Judy said, dismissing the apology with a wave of her hand. “Anyway, you were right. Aunt Dora doesn’t even like cats. Come on, let’s get going. I have an aerobics class to get to.”

Per long-standing arrangement, Tess walked Judy to her car, then Judy dropped Tess off at the Copley Square T station.

As soon as Tess pushed her way through the turnstile, it hit her. The subway! That was the atmosphere she’d sensed in her vision. Now she wished she had taken the time earlier to relax with Nate’s business card. Maybe she could have encouraged him to take a cab or something. Because what she’d seen in her mind’s eye had already taken place. She knew it.

Tess breathed a sigh of relief after she closed and bolted the front door of her condo in South Boston, her personal refuge. The vibrations she’d dealt with during the day had been particularly taxing.

Most unsettling had been her run-in with Nate Wagner—both physically and mentally. His bodily presence had done wild things to her restless hormones. But the vision she’d experienced when holding his business card … Just by closing her eyes, she could vividly relive those fleeting, exquisite images that suggested a future sexual encounter.

She kept her eyes resolutely open as she hung her purse on a hook by the door and kicked off her shoes. She ordered herself to focus instead on the pleasure of being home.

She had scrimped and saved for years to buy this two-bedroom, split-level town house. The building was brand-new, made of clean stucco with a Spanish-tiled
roof, oddly out of place in Boston, but she liked it anyway—especially the commanding view of the ocean.

She wiggled her stockinged toes against the plush white carpet. Most everything she owned had been purchased new when she’d moved in, from the white furniture, to the pictures on the white walls, to the snowy sheets and towels that touched her body so intimately. She hadn’t yet found a place completely free of the psychic vibrations that plagued her, but this was as close as she’d ever come. This was her haven.

Tess still intended to have that hot soak in the tub. But first there was the matter of Nate Wagner. She would have to call him, or she would drive herself crazy wondering what had happened to him on the subway.

She took the card out of her purse again and sat on her sofa, leaning back against the pastel silk pillows. She didn’t consciously seek vibrations from the card, but a few reached her nonetheless. This time she got a distinct impression of deception—not an evil or malicious sort of lie, but a mild omission of the whole truth. Nate Wagner, apparently, hadn’t represented himself with a hundred-percent honesty. Interesting.

She dialed his number, her heart thumping wildly. The phone rang once, twice. Come on, she thought. Please, be okay. Despite her apprehension, she was actually breathless at the idea of talking to him again.

He answered the phone on the fourth ring.

She was unbearably relieved to hear his voice. Whatever bad luck had transpired, he was still alive. “Hi, this is Tess DeWitt. From the antique store?”

“Yes. Hello, Tess.” He sounded both surprised and
pleased to hear from her. “Did you remember where you saw that other vase?”

Oh, yeah, the vase. She had lied to him too. She didn’t like lying, but sometimes it was a necessity. He wouldn’t have understood if she’d told him the truth—that the instant she’d touched the cool, artificially aged porcelain of the “Ming” vase, she had seen a sweatshop in the Philippines where those vases had been manufactured en masse no more than two years before.

“No, I really don’t remember,” she said.

“Oh.” She could almost hear what he didn’t say: Then why are you calling?

“Actually, the reason I called is …” She thought about telling him of her premonition that the two of them would become lovers. Depending on how much the idea appealed to him, he might or might not accept her ridiculous explanation. “… because I was wondering,” she said instead, her words coming totally from impulse. “Do you want any help with your antiques story?”

“What kind of help?”

“Well, I’m no expert or anything, but I do know most of the shops, and sometimes I can distinguish a reproduction from the real thing. I might also be able to point out some of the more ridiculously overpriced items. Would that be helpful?” What was she doing? she thought in a mild panic. Making a date? Was that smart? Was that sane? Was she trying to bring on a self-fulfilling prophecy?

“As a matter of fact, it would. But your friend said you didn’t like antiques.”

“I don’t happen to have any in my own home, but I still appreciate their quality and beauty.” As long as she didn’t have to touch them a great deal. “Are you interested?” Why was she doing this to herself? She was uncomfortable around old things; the older the object, the more vibrations it stored.

“Sure. How soon can we get together? You could bring Judy too. Sounds like she might have some interesting anecdotes to get me started.”

Tess was a bit disappointed that he’d requested extra company. But he probably wasn’t interested in her as a woman, she reminded herself. Maybe the “vision” she’d had was nothing more than the fantasies of a frustrated, twenty-eight-year-old virgin who in all likelihood would remain a virgin, until someone invented a way to make love without prolonged touching.

“I’ve committed myself to help Judy pick out a gift for her aunt Dora on Saturday,” Tess said brightly, “but maybe we could meet you afterward—say around one o’clock?”

“Great. How about in front of that same store?”

“No,” she said quickly. She didn’t want to go anywhere near that shop. “There’s a store on Newbury Street called the Picket Fence, at the corner of Gloucester. Horrendous prices. Let’s start there.”

“Sounds good.”

Tess realized the conversation was quickly winding down, and she still hadn’t achieved her true purpose. “How’s your finger? Did you wash out the cut?”

“The cut was so tiny, I couldn’t even find it when I
got home. I appreciate the concern, but I don’t think you need to worry about gangrene.”

He was teasing her, but in such a good-natured way that she actually enjoyed it. “You can never be too careful,” she said. “I had an uncle who once got a splinter in his toe. He ignored it, and they ended up amputating his foot. Danger can lurk in the most unlikely places.”

“Hey, no kidding. I almost got killed in a T station today.”

“Really?” She was relieved at how easy it had been to manipulate the conversation. “What happened?”

“There were a bunch of people waiting for the next train. When it came into view, this nutcase bulldozed his way through the crowd, knocking people over right and left, screaming something about being first to board. I got pushed onto the track right in front of the train. If I hadn’t scrambled back out of that pit in a hurry, I would’ve been dog food.”

Tess shivered as the scraps of her vision took on a new meaning. “Thank goodness you have quick reflexes,” she said. The memory of Mr. Woodland, the talk-show host, and his tragic end came suddenly, uncomfortably to mind. He had touched her shoulder, and she had immediately envisioned the accident. She’d always regretted that she hadn’t given him a better, more specific warning.

Not that he would have believed her. He had enjoyed having her as a guest on his show, but he’d been a total skeptic.

Tess quickly concluded her conversation with Nate,
worried that in her present state of mind she might slip and reveal something she would rather keep to herself.

When she was alone with just the silence around her, she once again held Nate’s card between her hands. She was suddenly voraciously curious about him. This time, however, she felt absolutely nothing, indicating she had already sensed all the stored information that was hers to receive from this particular object.

It was probably just as well. It wasn’t fair for her to learn things about Nate with extrasensory methods when he couldn’t do the same with her. She resolved that she’d have to glean any other information she wanted about him in the ordinary way.

Nate couldn’t believe his good luck. He had asked Tess to bring Judy along on their antiquing jaunt because he hadn’t wanted Tess to feel pressured or uneasy. He was going to play this little fish very carefully. But as it turned out, Judy was busy with something else. Nate had Tess to himself for the entire afternoon.

He couldn’t even hint, of course, that he harbored anything but a professional interest in her knowledge of antiques—although he did. The more he talked to her, the more he saw of her, the more he was drawn to her.

Maybe it was a good thing he couldn’t act on his attraction. How wise was it, after all, to become involved with a witch?

She looked even less witchlike than she had at their
first meeting. Wearing a fuzzy, oversized lavender sweater that skimmed her thighs, white corduroy jeans, and lavender canvas sneakers, she presented a wholesome-but-sexy image that made him want to protect her and seduce her all at the same time.

But she was Moonbeam, of that he was sure. The warning she’d given him as they’d stood on the sidewalk had been enough to send a shiver down his spine; almost getting squashed by a subway train not twenty minutes later had been downright spooky.

Not that he believed in psychic stuff. But he did believe in subconscious suggestion. His own carelessness no doubt had caused the near accident, carelessness brought on by his preoccupation with the warning.

He wondered if Don Woodland, too, had been rattled by Moonbeam’s stark admonition, so rattled that he’d walked out in front of a car. That might be an interesting angle to explore.

“Have you eaten?” he asked Tess as they browsed among the fussy-looking displays at the Picket Fence. He noticed that although she looked at things with lively attention, she held her slender hands behind her back, rarely touching anything.

“Now that you mention it, Judy and I got so involved with the shopping that we forgot to eat. I’m famished.”

“There’s a great sandwich shop across the street. Let me buy you lunch. I’ll charge it off to the magazine—professional consulting fee.”

She laughed at that. “Some consultant. I haven’t
found anything interesting for your story except some slightly overpriced furniture.”

“Hey, we’ve only just started. Who knows, in the next store we might find a fake Chippendale or a forged Picasso lithograph.”

“Uh-huh.” She looked skeptically down her aristocratic little nose at him—as best she could, since he was almost a head taller than she was. Then she laughed again.

Her laughter caused a pleasurable sensation to ripple down his spine and settle in a more provocative area. How could mere laughter have that much kick? he wondered as they headed out into the bright October sunshine and crossed Newbury.

The street was crowded with shoppers eager to sample the finery inside the many pricey boutiques. The sandwich shop was crowded, too, and Nate and Tess waited in line at the counter for several minutes. He stood close enough behind her that he could smell her hair. Fascinated by the light, herbal fragrance, he was on the verge of asking her what shampoo she used.

His decision not to act on his attraction was rapidly crumbling.

Finally the woman behind the counter was ready to take their order. Despite Nate’s insistence that Tess splurge on whatever she wanted, she limited herself to a grilled-cheese sandwich, a cup of tomato soup, and mineral water. Surely she wasn’t dieting, he thought. She was already so slender, he could easily span her waist with his hands. That little bit of imagery did nothing to bolster his resolve.

“So,” she said when they finally were seated at a table by the window, “what else do you know about phony antiques?”

Nate was ready for this one. He had actually done some reading on the subject, and he was half-serious about writing the story. “It’s a big racket right now, and often as not, the shop owners are as victimized as the customers. Big-time dealers make up fakes by the hundreds, then sell them one at a time to the shops, never too many in any one area.”

“So poor little Anne-Louise probably doesn’t know that her vase is phony.”

“Right.”

“That’s good. She seems like a nice lady.”

“Oh, she is. In fact, she took it quite personally when you and Judy left without buying the stone panther.”

Tess visibly shivered.

“Hey, what is it with you and that statue?” he asked, remembering her reaction to the cat. She had actually backed away from it, as if it were some loathsome creature.

“I just thought it was ugly,” she said offhandedly. Her manner wasn’t convincing.

“But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it? And Judy liked it. Why didn’t you let her buy it?”

“It’s like I told her—that cat was not an appropriate present for an elderly maiden aunt.” She took a sip of her drink and stared out the window, a pensive look on her face. “Probably would have frightened the old girl into a case of the vapors.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” he said thoughtfully. “It wouldn’t look good sitting among pots of African violets and crocheted doilies. A statue like that would appeal more to a man, I guess.”

“Mmm,” she said, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “As a matter of fact, I kind of liked it. Maybe I’ll buy it myself.”

“No.” A definite look of panic flashed through her eyes, then was gone. “It’s not a good buy. All that stuff about the palace of Versailles was nonsense. I’ve seen lots of statues like that—postwar junk from Japan.”

He could tell she was lying. Why? he wondered.

“If you’re really interested in acquiring an accent for your home,” she continued, “I could help you pick out a quality piece, something that would be a good investment.”

“But I don’t want an investment,” he argued, enjoying the spirited banter, wondering how far he could push her. “And I don’t care how old it is. I like that cat. It would look good on my bookshelf.”

“Believe me, you wouldn’t like it once you got it home.” Her voice had taken on that ominous quality that intrigued him and gave him the chills at the same time.

“What makes you so sure?”