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

Who the hell was Doris and what did she want with Bernie?

Calla had hacked into Bernie’s bank account after checking the cache on Winnie’s laptop, and tracked payments she’d made via an account labeled “Mom and Dad”. An account Baba Yaga had frozen when Bernie had entered prison, allowing only payments for the storage unit to clear.

His hand reached for another box, tearing it open and silently praying they found something—anything—that would lead them to Bernie.

Clive jumped up from a corner of the unit where he sat on a beach chair, parsing through some old Tupperware. The box fell to the storage room floor, spilling the plastic containers. “Hold that damn scrapbook up again, Glenda-Jo!” he demanded gruffly.

Glenda-Jo stopped what she was doing and lifted the worn brown-vinyl book to show Clive.

“I’ll be damned!” he shouted.

“What?” Ridge pinned Clive with his stare.

“That picture…” He dug his reading glasses from the pocket of his plaid shirt and looked closer. “That’s Marie Haversham! Ooo-wee, she was a hot number back in the day. Heard through the grapevine she was dead though.”

Ridge grabbed the scrapbook from Glenda-Jo and looked at the woman posing with someone he assumed was Bernie’s mother. They had their arms around each other at a lake, the sun glistening off the water and their eyes lit up from wide smiles.

Bernie hadn’t lied when she’d said she was her mom’s spitting image. Beneath the photo, words cut from a newspaper or some sort of article read, “Not flesh of my flesh, nor bone of my bone, but nevertheless, still my own.”

“You know her, Clive? She’s a witch?”

“Damn right, I do, Ridgie-boy. We used to paint the town red. She sure could drink—like a damn fish, that woman. Good, good soul, she was.”

Time was ticking away, along with the minutes of his possible future with Bernie. “What does she have to do with Bernie’s mother?”

Winnie snapped her fingers, making a heavy book appear. She set it on top of an old dresser and began flipping pages. “Marie Haversham. Here it is! Coven of The Blood. Known for their ability to change forms.”

Flora’s head snapped upward, her sharp eyes zeroing in on the book. “Blood magic witches are shifters! Seven hells, how did I miss that?” She pressed a hand to her temple and bit her lip.

“But what does that mean for Bernie now, Flora?” Ridge asked, fighting his soaring frustration.

Flora slapped her thigh. “Didn’t Fate say something about Bernie sick in the hospital and blood?”

Winnie’s mouth fell open; clearly she was on to something he was missing. “Oh my God, Ridge. If Marie was Bernie’s mother’s friend, and she was a blood witch, she must have saved Bernie’s life!”

Then it all fell into place. Marie Haversham had spared Bernie with her blood magic—going against every white witch law known to their kind, because she’d turned a human into an immortal in order to save her. Blood witches were a rare, often hunted breed of witch.

And whoever had Bernie wanted her blood magic.

Which meant…

“Wine!” Fee yelped again. “Wait…” he murmured. “Damn it, B-Bop, stop panicking enough to let me into your head!”

Ridge held his breath for what felt like hours until Fee asked, “Where the hell is there wine in Paris? Wait—damp. It’s damp and dark and there’s expensive wine.” He paused altogether now, as though he were listening intently to something they couldn’t hear.

It was all Ridge could do not to shake the answer out of Fee while his tail swished and his tiara trembled atop his black head.

“Witches?” Fee asked.

“What?” Winnie yelped.

“Who the hell is Finn?”

Like a bolt of lightning, Ridge knew where Bernie was. “My storm cellar!” he yelled, snapping his fingers and disappearing.



“You killed my parents? You son of a bitch!” She fought to stay alert, stay focused on Eddie.

“Collateral damage, I’m afraid, Bernie. I had to find that book. The time was approaching when you’d come into your own special brand of magic, and I couldn’t finish what I’d started if I didn’t have the book.”

The book. The book. The book. “Why did Marie have this book?”

Eddie’s face remained calm, almost passive, as her hysteria swelled upward. “The book in question is given to the most powerful witch in the Blood Coven for safekeeping. The blood witch who guards the book is, at all costs, to watch over it in order to ensure no one uses the book for ill gain. Who would have thought gentle, kind Marie was the reigning blood witch? But when Marie saved you, she used her blood magic and a spell she recited from the book. I saw all this merely by accident, of course.”

“Which begs the question, why didn’t you find out where the damn book was before you killed her, Genius?”