“Isn’t this great?” I exclaimed as my eyes swept down the path winding between the tidy rows. Woody vines grew straight out of the Iowa soil as their branches reached out like open arms to embrace the hot, August sunshine. Dark green leaves draped those branches, and peaking out from beneath them, clusters of deep, red grapes hung heavy in the sun. The scene looked like something out of a Grant Wood painting.

Darci lowered her sunglasses, and her blue eyes rimmed with black mascara studied me with skepticism. “Who are you and what have you done with the grumpy Ophelia Jensen we all know and love?”

“Ha ha,” I shot back, giving her a playful shove. A bubble of excitement tickled through me. “I’m just having a good time, that’s all. This is a great party,” I said with a sweep of my arm.

“Exactly my point—you don’t
like
parties. You hate socializing—”

“Since I’m the librarian in Summerset and this
is
a fund-raiser for the library,” I interjected, “I couldn’t very well not attend.”

“True—Claire did a terrific job organizing the event—but you always try and wiggle out of stuff like this.”

I shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe I’m trying to change.”

Darci crossed her arms. She didn’t look convinced.

Ignoring her, I turned away from the railing and watched the crowd assembled on the deck of the winery.

Men and women gathered in small groups and large groups, some sitting in lawn chairs and some standing. Their laughter rode on the breeze and mingled with the sound of the live band that played in the arbor located on the lawn below. Everyone held long-stemmed wineglasses, while plastic buckets with dark bottles of wine nestled in clear cubes of ice were within easy reach. A couple of men were casting surreptitious glances our way—Darci’s way.

I understood the attention. With her big, blond hair and her curvy figure, in black cigarette pants and a hot pink halter top, she was gorgeous. Add a blinding smile that could charm almost anyone, and you had a pretty potent package. But there was more to the package than just Darci’s appearance—intelligence hid behind those big, blue eyes. And any guy not smart enough to recognize it usually lived to regret it.

Me? Did men notice me?
Dressed in my navy sun dress, I looked okay, but not outstanding. Just your everyday small-town librarian. In my thirties, five-four, brown eyes, brown shoulder-length hair, with no noticeable scars or impediments. Someone passing me in the street wouldn’t give me a second glance. I smiled to myself. I looked normal—and normal’s good. It’s something I’ve wanted to be all my life. Unfortunately, I didn’t fall into anyone’s definition of “normal.” Not with the witch-psychic thing that ran strong in the women of my family.

My eyes traveled to my grandmother, Abby, someone else who always drew attention, deep in conversation with her elderly boyfriend, Arthur. Her voice still carried the soft cadence of the mountain in Appalachia where she’d been raised. I didn’t know if it was her voice or the air of
gentleness that always seemed to surround her, but people were drawn to her like moths.

Today, her silver hair was coiled in an elegant knot on the top of her head, and her flowing skirt, stirred by the soft breeze, floated around her ankles. A very classy woman, my grandmother, and I felt a stirring of pride as I observed her. She didn’t consider herself, or me, peculiar at all. She might not broadcast her talents, but still reveled in her ability to see things and cast spells.

Not far from Abby, Claire Canyon, our library board president, talked with a blond man I didn’t recognize.

I poked Darci. “Hey, who’s the guy talking to Claire?”

“I don’t know…some politician. The place is crawling with them, all stumping for votes in the upcoming election.” She smirked. “But whoever he is, Claire isn’t happy with him.”

With her glasses lowered, Claire was peering at him over the rims. It was “the look.” The look that made a person feel like they were something to be scraped off the bottom of a shoe. She raised her other hand and pointed a finger at his chest as she made her point.

Glad it was him and not me
. I avoided such confrontations with Claire at all costs.
Wonder what he’d done to irritate her?

Darci interrupted my thoughts with a nudge. “Let’s get back to the ‘new’ Ophelia.” She leaned against the railing, her back to the vineyard, and studied me closely. “What’s brought on this big change?”

Tracing the beads of moisture trickling down my glass, I tried to think of a way to explain.

A feeling best described as part anticipation, part anxiety, seemed to chase after me wherever I went these days. A sense that something waited right around the next corner. Okay, so I’m a witch and a psychic, and that might have
something
to do with what I was experiencing. But the dreams…

My skin grew suddenly warm. Fanning myself with my hand, I let a long breath escape from my lips.

Darci pushed away from the railing in concern. “What is it? You’re flushed,” she said, laying her palm on my arm.

Touching my cheek, I gave a nervous laugh. “Seems to be happening to me a lot lately.”

She grabbed the bottle of wine we were sharing from our bucket and filled my glass with the pale pink liquid.

I took a drink and let the sweet cool wine trickle slowly down my throat. When I lowered my glass, I felt her eyes still on me.

“Okay, spill it—what’s going on?” she demanded. “Are you worried about Tink?”

“No, not really.” I gave my head a little shake. “It was hard to watch her walk out the door today—the kidnapping wasn’t that long ago, but I know she’s safe with Nell and her mom.”

Her lips tightened when I mentioned the kidnapping of my soon-to-be adopted daughter. “I hope those two crazies, Winnie and Gert,” she said grimly, referring to Tink’s kidnappers, “are locked up for years and years.”

“Oh, they will be.” I took another sip of wine. “The district attorney has refused their plea bargain, so they’re looking at a long stretch in prison. Tink will be grown, with children of her own, by the time those two get out.”

“Good, serves them right,” she replied emphatically. “So if it’s not Tink that’s bothering you, what is it?”

“I can’t shake the feeling something’s about to happen—”

“Oooh,” she said, cutting me off. Her face glowed with excitement. “Mur—”

“Stop right there,” I said, holding up my hand. “It’s not that kind of feeling.” I made quotations marks in the air with my fingers.

“Shoot,” she said in a voice tinged with disappointment. “No psychic premonition?”

“Shh, your voice will carry,” I hissed as I glanced over her shoulder at the nearest group of revelers. Taking her arm, I guided her down the deck’s steps to the shade of a big maple tree.

Stopping under the tree, Darci watched me expectantly as I tugged at my bottom lip and tried to frame my words.

“It’s weird…I’ve been having strange dreams almost every night. Then I wake up with this feeling…like there’s something I’m supposed to do, but I can’t remember what it is.”

She tapped her chin with a long red fingernail. “Have you mentioned this to Abby?”

I gave a snort. “Are you kidding?” I pictured my seventy-plus grandmother’s bags of potions, herbs, and magick spells. “You know how she’d react. She’d look at the moon signs, whip out her crystals, and want to do a little hocus-pocus.” I shook my head. “No, I’m handling this one on my own.”

“Why?” Darci asked, sounding perplexed.

“I, well, hmm,” I stalled. “See these dreams are…ah…well—”

“Are what?” she asked with a flounce. “If they’re not prophetic?”

I felt hot blood rush to my face again. “Ah, you see…” My voice faltered. “I don’t think they’re visions of future events. I play a starring role and I never have premonitions about myself. My talent doesn’t work that way. The dreams are…well,
really
personal.” I inhaled sharply. “And they’re, um…erotic,” I finished in a whisper.

She ripped her sunglasses off and scooted toward me. “And you don’t want Abby to pick up on them?” she asked, her eyebrow arching.

“My God, no!” I said with passion. “Would you want
your
grandmother to know that you’re dreaming about some hot guy in a field of wildflowers?”

She giggled. “No. Hot guy, huh? Who? Rick, Ned, Henry?” She rattled off a list of men who’d drifted in and
out—mostly out—of my life over the past couple of years. Darci snapped her fingers. “I’ve got it, Ethan!”

Ah yes, Ethan, slash, Cobra, the elusive DEA agent who kept popping up when I least expected it.

“No, it’s not Ethan—that’s the strange part—it’s someone I’ve never met, but it’s like I’ve known him all my life.”

“Maybe you’re dreaming of your own true love.”

I took a step back. “My own ‘true love’?”

“Yeah.” Her face took on a dreamy expression and her voice seemed to trill. “Your soul mate, the man you’ve been waiting for all your life. Two hearts calling to one another through—”

“Don’t go flying off into some romantic rapture,” I scoffed. “It’s not like that.”

She fisted her hand on her hip. “So what
is
it like?”

“I don’t know.” I shoved my hands into the deep pockets of my dress. “I’ve never experienced anything like this before. I’ve had plenty of dreams involving murder or mayhem, but these…” Staring off into the distance, I recalled one of the dreams. “We’re in this field of wildflowers, and I’m dressed in a long, loose dress. Bees are flitting from flower to flower, and the sky’s scattered with white, puffy clouds. He’s waiting for me at the top of a rise, and it’s like I can’t wait to be with him.” Another blush began to creep up my neck and into my face, and I stopped.

“Go on,” she prodded with anticipation, “what happens next?”

“Never mind,” I said, waving the images away. “Let’s just say for a witch and a psychic, these are pretty
good
dreams.”

She tapped a foot on the hard, cracked ground in annoyance. “Okay, if you’re not going to give me the details, at least tell me what this guy looks like.”

“He’s dressed in a white shirt, with billowing sleeves…” I paused. “You know, like the ones pirates wear?”

Darci rolled her eyes. “Maybe you’ve checked in one too
many romance novels and the cover art seeped into your subconscious.”

“Listen,” I said in a curt voice. “Do you want to know what he looks like or not?”

“Okay, okay,” she mumbled. “Sorry.”

“He’s blond, tall with wide shoulders, and his eyes are blue—an incredibly deep blue. As dark as sapphires. Eyes that just pull you in…” A softness stole over me as I imagined the man in my dreams. The way he made me feel, the way his arms…I shook myself out of my revelry, banishing the gooiness I felt inside. “That’s about it,” I commented, trying to put a hard edge back in my voice.

“Does he say anything?”

“No, he just smiles a lot.”

“Humph, I bet,” she said with a knowing glance.

I felt my cheeks bloom bright red.

“Okay,” she said, her eyes scanning the crowd. “Tall, blond—”

“Yes, but,” I interjected swiftly before she jumped to conclusions, “he wasn’t the man arguing with Clair.”

“Okay, so blue eyes, wide shoulders.” Her eyes stopped. “How about the guy surrounded by all the women? He’s tall, has wide shoulders and blond hair, but I can’t tell if his eyes are blue. He’s wearing sunglasses.”

I spun around and followed her gaze to where it rested on a stranger.

The man Darci referred to wore dark navy jeans and a bright white sport shirt. From the side view, he fit Darci’s description—built exactly like the stranger from my dreams, but I couldn’t know at that distance without seeing his eyes.

Feeling my stare, his head moved in my direction and he removed his sunglasses.

A slow smile spread across his face, and, as our eyes locked, my heart almost stopped.

It was him—literally the man of my dreams.

BOOK: The Witch’s Grave

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