Witch Is The New Black (Paris, Texas Romance #3)

He gazed down at her, his eyes, fringed with dark eyelashes, confused. “That’s the second time someone’s used the word inappropriate with me tonight, and if you mean Greta, she’s a softie. I can handle her.”


“Well, maybe there’s a reason the word inappropriate is bandied about where you’re concerned, and of course she’s a softie. You’re not an ex-con on parole. Also, you’re Ridge Donovan. I’ve noticed you simply have to exist and it does all but make everyone around you swoon-y.” Ridge, Ridge, Ridge.

“Bernie?”

“What?”

He held up a square plastic container with a smile. A delicious, beautiful smile. “Lunchables?”

Bernie couldn’t help herself, she giggled—and that giggle turned into a belly laugh, one she had to cover her mouth to contain.

She shook her head. “The crackers are always stale.”

“Wow. You’re hard to impress. There’s not much else up here but a stray plastic Spork and a lone raisin. How can I win you over with that?”

Bernie frowned, her hand going to the stiff collar of her shirt. “You’re not supposed to want to win me over.”

“It’s just an expression. Why so skittish?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you?”

“Can you do it in numbers instead? English was my worst subject. All that reading. Romeo and Juliet and Hemingway. Worse, possessives and dangling parti-somethings. I’m much better at adding and subtracting.”

Pressing her back into the shelving, she tried to make herself as small as possible and avoid giggling. “Okay, obviously I have to spell it out. This looks bad. For me because I’m sure there are rules about being behind closed doors with your boss when you’re on parole; and for you because, well, I’m an ex-con. You don’t want people talking, do you? Fine, upstanding farmer Ridge Donovan caught in close quarters with felonious Bernice Sutton. So in math-speak, one plus one equals two. That means, when someone finds us, they’re going to add up this little scenario and I’m going to end up with a negative balance.”

He sighed with a roll of his eyes then grinned. “Clearly, math wasn’t your strong suit because that made absolutely no sense. But here’s something I learned today after I talked to Winnie about your parole. It’s not really parole, per se. It’s rehab. Yes, there are rules for your quote-end quote parole—curfews imposed, chores to do here at the rehabilitation house, etcetera. But the rules are catered to your circumstances and conviction.”

“I robbed a bank. I’m pretty sure that means no snack after dinner for me.”

“Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Did you really rob a bank?”

Did she? She didn’t remember the incident. But she’d sure been in a bank vault when the Boston PD had pointed their guns at her and screamed orders for her to get on her knees. That was something she’d never forget for as long as she lived.

“That’s what I’m told.”

“What you were told?” he asked, astonished.

She gave him a sheepish look. “Well, there’s police testimony, too.”

“I’m confused.”

Hah. “You should be me.”

“Did you have an attorney during this?”

“Nope. Things never got that far. One minute I was processed and in a holding cell, the next, Baba Yaga swept in, snatched me up while the Boston PD watched, took me to that place that’s hauntingly like the Salem Witch Trials I saw reenacted on TV—”

“The Council?”

She snapped a finger in the air. “Guys with no faces and smelly robes, sitting behind an imposingly tall thingy with this electrical hum for a backbeat?”

He chuckled, deep and low. “That’s them.”

“Right. BY took me to the Council and they sentenced me.”

“Without a trial?”

“Without a word. The guys with no faces aren’t big on conversation, I hear.”

“So let me get this straight. Baba took you from human jail and sentenced you with no trial to magic-abuse prison, and you didn’t at least protest?”

Right, because she could have gotten a word in edgewise while Baba was waving around her gavel and trying to keep her neon-pink leg warmers from poking out beneath her judge’s robe. She’d been petrified. Not that she’d admit that to Ridge.

“To whom?”

“As a witch, you have the right to a fair trial, Bernie. It’s just like human trials. You could have called sanctuary and they would have had to give you the time to find representation.”

Another word she’d have to add to her witch thesaurus. “Sanctuary? Look, I don’t know what any of that means. I just know it wasn’t like I could have googled witch lawyers. I didn’t have time to do anything. It all happened pretty quickly.”

He rubbed his hand over his jaw, now littered with delicious stubble, so late in the day. “I can’t believe you didn’t demand sanctuary.”