But when the others left, the second set of arrivals began. Candy and Daniel, of course, who were always at the house or nearby. And then Richard and Wendy showed up. And they began talking to each other in the dining room. The four of them were going deep into history and creating their own party.
“It’s a little busy in there,” Aidan noted, putting a dish away.
“Not quite our private haven, is it?” she asked. She came over to him, pressing him against the counter and touching his lips in a brief kiss. “You know,” she said, slipping her arms around him, “there’s an incredible hotel near us, here in Tarrytown. It’s the Castle Hotel and Spa and it really looks like a castle. The rooms are gorgeous. And there’s room service with things like champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries. We could slip away, and then just come back here in the morning. I’m pretty much packed. There are suites at this place, so Rollo can even have his own little room.”
“Sounds...private,” he murmured.
She smiled. In another ten minutes, they were leaving, but their guests didn’t even notice them.
As he stood by the driver’s door, ready to open it, Aidan found himself looking down the river toward Sunnyside, the home Washington Irving had loved so much.
The sun was setting, and the light seemed to be doing strange things.
But he thought he saw Irving standing there, straight and regal, supported by his walking stick, as if he were out for a constitutional.
A train went rumbling by. The vision of Washington Irving lifted his stick at the metal monster, shaking it.
Then he saw Aidan. He smiled and doffed his hat.
Aidan smiled back and waved, then slid into the driver’s seat and started the car.
He’d come home. He’d found home.
Sleepy Hollow would remain part of him.
But with Mo...
He would always be home.
*
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE HEXED by Heather Graham.
“Graham deftly weaves elements of mystery, the paranormal and romance into a tight plot that will keep the reader guessing at the true nature of the killer’s evil.”
—Publishers Weekly on The Unseen
If you loved The Betrayed, be sure to also catch all the titles in the popular and dark Krewe of Hunters series by New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham. Available now wherever ebooks are sold!
The Hexed
The Cursed
The Night Is Forever
The Night Is Alive
The Night Is Watching
The Uninvited
The Unspoken
The Unholy
The Unseen
The Evil Inside
Sacred Evil
Heart of Evil
Phantom Evil
Looking for more Heather Graham? Then don’t miss Waking the Dead and all the titles in the Cafferty & Quinn series.
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1
Every once in a while Devin Lyle couldn’t help herself. People did such outrageous things sometimes that she just had to step in.
She stepped forward, positioning herself a little closer to the group standing by the memorial so she could hear what they were saying.
“Burn, witch! Burn!” a young man said. Despite his words, he was actually reverently placing a flower on the bench dedicated to one of the victims of the witch trials.
“How horrible. I can’t even imagine burning to death,” an older woman said.
“Excuse me,” Devin said. “None of the condemned in Salem were burned. Nineteen were hanged, and one man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death.”
“Really?” The older woman sounded relieved. “Not that hanging must have been less than horrible, but to burn...” She shuddered.
“Almost any tour you take in Salem is going to tell you about the victims—and tell you that no one was burned,” Devin said. They were all staring at her, and she suddenly felt self-conscious. She wasn’t a tour guide, after all. She wrote sweet, fun children’s books about a slightly crazy “witch.”
But Salem was her home. And she hated the misinformation about it that spread far too frequently.
“I saw it in a movie,” a kid said, nodding sagely. “They burned them in the movie.”
“That movie took license with history, I promise you,” Devin assured him.
“And men were called witches, too? Not warlocks?” the older woman asked.
“Yes, they were all accused of being witches. And at the time, witchcraft was punishable by death,” Devin said. “So, if you ‘hexed’ a neighbor—just cursed him, or say you had a voodoo doll, whether there was any real magic there or not—you were considered a practicing witch and subject to execution.”