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

The night in the pantry had sparked this renewed search, and it also left her with many questions—not just questions about her instant attraction to Ridge, either.


For instance, how had she fallen asleep in the pantry when she’d last remembered being in the garden?

“Bernie?” Fee jumped up on the split-rail fence and followed along, the green-and-brown pasture his backdrop.

“Uh-huh?”

“Question?”

“Sure.”

“I’ve waited all week for you to explain, but it’s obvious you’re retreating again. So I’m yanking your ass out from under the covers, like it or not. Here comes the cold bucket of water over your head. What the hell were you doing in that pantry with Ridge Donovan?”

Instead of hedging, she said the first thing that came to mind. “Lunchables.”

“Don’t play with me, Cookie.”

She gave him a wide-eyed look of innocence. “I’m telling the truth, Tiara Wearer. He offered me a Lunchables.” Which was true.

“Bullshit.”

“You say bullshit; I say tiny crackers and cheese.”

“Stop right there, Bernie!”

She ignored him and kept walking, hauling the Frozen Elsa and Olaf backpack Lola had loaned her over her shoulders, loaded with bottles of water. “I can’t afford to be late.”

“Bernie, I’m gonna learn you a thing or two, baby girl. When I say stop, you do it or I make you do it.”

Bernie giggle-snorted and kept walking, kicking up dust with her ugly brown shoes. “Oooo, are you gonna go all ballerina-ninja kitty on me and put the hurt on with your fluffy tutu and dagger-like tiara?” She laughed at her own joke, continuing to stroll at a brisk pace.

But then the air grew thick and a scent similar to a layer of ozone burning accosted her nose. Just before she was unable to take another step.

Fee skittered to face her from his fence perch, stopping in front of her glaring eyes. “I said stop. That means you collaborate and listen.”

Bernie attempted to move her feet, but no luck. It was as though they were stuck in concrete.

She narrowed her gaze in his direction. “What did you do to me, Fee?”

If cats could give haughty glares of disdain, Fee was giving her one. “I stopped you. Now, you don’t get to move an inch until you answer the question. How did you get in the pantry with Mr. Delicioso?”

Her feet were literally rooted to the ground. “Fee!”

He tilted his head and yawned. “Answer or it’s the next level. Swear it on my Liza with a ‘Z’ DVD, honey.”

“You mean the one with her in the Bob Fosse costume?”

“The very one,” Fee offered with deadly calm.

Damn. He was serious. “What’s the next level?”

“I’ll give you a rash on your tender bits to rival all rashes. In fact, I’ll turn your entire body into a rash. You’ll itch until your damn creamy, peachy flesh falls off your bones. Answer, Bernice. Why were you in the pantry?”

She let the backpack fall from her shoulders and shrugged, giving in, but her eyes couldn’t meet Fee’s. “I just woke up there, okay? I don’t know how I got there. I was in the garden after my escape from Violet ‘Breasty’ Hammond, and then Ridge was waking me up in the pantry.”

She’d been too afraid to ask what could have left her sitting in the garden one minute and in the pantry the next. Thankfully, there’d been no residual fallout. That she knew of anyway, but she hadn’t decided to shelve the idea that the other shoe could drop at any moment.

Fee appeared to ponder that for a moment before he said, “You don’t remember leaving the garden? Are you blacking out, Bernie? Has something like this happened before? You have to tell me if I’m going to be able to help you, Sugarsnap.”

Blacking out? She’d never referred to it as such in the past, but then, this particularly weird witch benefit had only begun to manifest in the last year or so. “It’s happened once or twice.”

“When? Wait! Did you…did you black out when you pulled off that heist?”

“Well, that would have been impossible. How could I black out and pull off a bank heist at the same time? The two don’t add up.” She wasn’t ready to talk about that day just yet. So much of that brisk October afternoon had a huge question mark attached.

Besides, her side of the story sounded crazypants.

Any more crazypants than the fact that you’re a witch?

Fee bristled, the fur on his spine ruffling. “You know what I mean, Bernice! Help me help you, Princess. Tell me about that day. Every single detail.”

A horn blared to the tune of The Partridge Family theme song, making Fee tumble from his perch on the fence and lose the focus he’d kept so intently on her feet. Her orthopedic shoes shifted then, leaving her unglued.

Calla, whom she’d found out was one of Paris’s rare werewolves, stopped the beat-up bus in which she drove the seniors to and from the farm alongside Bernie and pulled the creaky doors open. “You want a lift?” she asked with a grin, her pretty eyes glittering, her glistening black hair in a messy ponytail.