“Hades, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore,” he muttered.
CHAPTER TWO
Malcolm took another reluctant glance at the garden he destroyed, and winced. He shared a look with Hades.
“Do you think I can fix it?”
Hades whined, and his short bobbed tail wiggled uncertainly, and Malcolm could feel the dog’s mental attempt to bolster his confidence.
“Thanks, buddy…”
Drawing a deep breath to help him focus, Malcolm lifted his hands up, hoping to open the pathway to his magic. It was like trying to navigate a rocky, bush-covered path in the mountains during a thunderstorm at night, where each step was uncertain, and every rock and tree held potential danger behind it.
He closed his eyes and searched for something, anything, he could grab onto. Heat shot out from his palms. When he opened his eyes, he cursed. Flames had exploded from his hands, setting fire to the ruined pumpkins and the vines. Hades barked at the sight of the spreading fire, backing cautiously away. He had wanted to fix the vines and pumpkins, not roast them into a pie!
“Shit!” Malcolm hissed as turned and sprinted toward the old Victorian house. He frantically searched the garden for a hose. This was why he hated magic. He had a good control of everything else in his life, his software company was booming, he could always get a date when he wanted one, but magic? It was a trainwreck that kept him off balance.
The back door of the house burst open and a woman screamed.
“Oh my God!”
A woman rushed past him in a panic into the garden, and for a moment, time seemed to slow down.
Her chestnut hair fell in tumbling waves past her shoulders. In those seconds that she passed him, she came close enough for him to see the full profile of her shockingly pretty face, and he caught the most enchanting scents of honeysuckle and hyacinth. That single glimpse of her was like a punch to his gut, and he sucked in a breath. When the moment passed, so did she, speeding toward the epicenter of his crash landing and accidental arson.
The woman threw her hands up in the air, and the clouds above her coalesced and darkened. A torrent of rain poured down over the small inferno. The woman moved her hands, guiding the rain to extinguish all of the flames. Malcolm could actually feel the power rolling off her.
She was a witch. And a strong one at that.
When the last flame died under the torrent of rain, the clouds dispersed. The woman had her back to him, Her shoulders slumped and her head sagged in defeat. She bent to lift up a burnt vine, clutching it to her chest before she slowly let it drop back to the ground. Then she turned around, her gaze searching the garden until it locked onto him. The moment their eyes met, something rippled beneath his skin like quicksilver, and he sucked in a sharp breath.
It was as though a chill and a wave of heat had passed through him in rapid succession. The woman stared at him, her hands perched on her jean clad hips. The t-shirt she wore had the cover of an old book on it, featuring a headless horseman holding a pumpkin in the air and storm clouds above him. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving was written in scrawling script across the bottom.
“Who the hell are you?” The woman marched toward him, her hips sashaying in a most distracting way. Damn, she was cute, even though she was angry. She marched up to him and jabbed a finger into his chest. Her eyes were a brilliant shade of hazel, like honey mixed with nutmeg. Her long hair curled at the ends and he had the sudden urge to reach out and wrap that dark hair around his fist to feel its silkiness.
“Who. Are. You?” She punctuated each word with another jab. “And why did you set my prized pumpkins on fire?”
“Your prized pumpkins? I—” he tried to say, but she cut him off.
“What do you have to say for yourself, fire starter?” Her eyes turned golden yellow as a spell began to weave above her head.
“If you just let me talk—” His magic suddenly woke up like a sleeping dragon in response to this witch’s magical threat. A bolt of electricity shot out of his hands as he held them up in surrender, zapping her right on that adorable bottom of hers. “Crap!”
She screeched, clutched her bottom, and the spell above her head shot out at him.
He flew through the air and landed on the back steps of the porch with a grunt. There was a sickening crunch and pain like a hammer striking an anvil, with his right arm caught in between. Malcolm sprawled across the house steps, his broken arm cradled against his chest, and stared at the witch. He hadn’t been hexed since he was in grade school. She gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” She ran toward him, but Malcolm held up his good hand to warn her off.
“Stay back!” he snapped. “I really don’t want to get hexed again.”
She halted, eyes still round with shock as she stared at him.
“I didn’t mean to you hex you, I…” she seemed to realize her words were coming out all wrong. “What sort of creature are you?” Her head tilted to one side. “Wait… you have magic too, don’t you?” she answered her own question.
“Sort of,” he admitted and nodded to the ruined pumpkins. “I did all that, but I didn’t mean to. Hell, I don’t even know where I am, or how I got here.” He slowly got to his feet and whistled for Hades, who was watching this interaction from a safe distance.
“You don’t know where you are?” The witch then jumped as Hades trotted past her to stand beside Malcolm. The dog sighed as though he deemed it was safe now to stand between him and the witch.
