Witch Is The New Black (11 page)

The vehicle landed on top of the shed with a sploosh of water spraying upward around its sides, smashing it against the rocks beneath.

Then nothing but a distant cow mooing and the wind greeted his stunned ears.

Gus closed the distance between him and Ridge to stand beside him. He slapped Ridge on the back. “Towel? Maybe if we give ol’ Betty a good wipe down, she’ll be good as new.”

Clive used his lips to play a mournful, spit-flying-everywhere version of
Taps
.

Ridge’s shoulders sagged as he took off his Stetson and held it over his heart in mourning.

Goddess rest Betty Boop’s soul.

Chapter 7

B
ernie paced the floor of her bedroom, stopping only to hike up her yellow velour tracksuit pants before she retraced her steps, worrying her lower lip with two fingers.

Fee leapt from the bed to the dresser’s oak top and paced with her. “You kissed a boy, and you liked it,” he teased.

“No! No, I did not like it! Stop saying that, Fee.”

Nay, in fact, she’d loved it. Loved every hot, dirty, silky-tongued moment of it. Loved it so much, her love almost outweighed her horror.

“Bernie baby, stop. So you kissed him. Big stinkin’ deal.”

“It was wrong. I don’t know why I did it, Fee. It just happened. I was hot and I was cranky and if I heard his name coupled with the batting of someone’s eyelashes one more time, I think I might have screamed. And I know that’s not his fault. He’s just a nice man. But everything sort of overwhelmed me. One minute I was fine. Then he was waving his handsome all over the place and I just nailed him. Out of the blue. Bam! Grabbed him like he was the last man on earth and planted one on him.
Who am I, Fee
?”

“You’re just a girl who likes a boy who likes you, too.”

She shook her head hard, stopping momentarily to squeeze her temples. “No. I can’t like him. I don’t have time to like anyone.”

“Bernie girl, what’s the scoop? What’s all this talk about time? Where are you rushing off to once your parole is up? I thought you didn’t have anywhere to go. What aren’t you telling Miss Fee? Hmmm?”

“Nothing,” she answered, too quickly even for her own taste. She just wasn’t ready to share everything with Fee yet. Not until she had a plan in place.

Fee sat down on the dresser’s top, his tail swishing. “Liar, liar, pants on fire.”

A chuckle burst from her mouth as she pulled at the ungodly yellow velour pants she was wearing. “If only I was that lucky. Instead, I trashed a truck.”

“Aha! That’s the real problem here. You think somehow your sucky-face with Ridge was the reason his truck rolled into the creek?”

Yes! Maybe. She didn’t know. All accidents usually led back to her. Seriously, no one could be as unlucky as she was, and at this point, coincidence had to be ruled out. As she’d been kissing Ridge, as her stomach had turned inside out and her libido had sounded a cheer worthy of a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader, she’d had that feeling again. Just like the one right before she’d set the barn on fire.

“Bernie? Please say you’re not blaming yourself for Ridge forgetting to put the emergency brake on? Girl, you heard him say he must have forgotten to use it.”

Zipping up the front of her matching velour jacket, she shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe. I don’t know. Stuff like this happens all the time when I’m around, Fee. It always…”

Fee’s ears twitched beneath his tiara. “Always what?”

She grabbed her house key and stuffed it in her pants pocket. “Forget it. I have to go or I’m going to be late for bingo.”

“Bernie, you’re always running off before we have the chance—”

But she wasn’t listening. She popped the door open and escaped before Fee could dig any deeper, flying down the wide set of stairs and almost crashing into Winnie.

“Whoa there, B! You okay?” Winnie gripped her upper arms and rubbed them.

All this concern, all this kindness, it was beginning to overwhelm her. “Fine. I’m sorry. I was rushing. I don’t want to be late for bingo. I promised Calla I’d call the numbers.”

Winnie’s dark head bounced, her body language rippling with excitement. “I know, but I have a surprise for you before you go. Now, before I show you what it is, I want you to keep an open mind, okay?”

Bernie cocked her head, but allowed Winnie to pull her out to the front porch with the order to keep her eyes closed. Heat, even at almost eight o’ clock at night, swarmed her face.

Winnie stood behind her, placing her hands on Bernie’s shoulders. “Okay, now remember—open mind. Like, so open it’s a big ol’ field.”

Bernie tensed but kept her eyes closed. She didn’t like surprises.

“Bernie, honey?”

“Yes?”

Winnie kneaded her shoulders with a sigh, grinding her knuckles into her flesh. “You’re so tense. Relax already. Just for a little while. You’re always so on edge. It’s nothing bad. I try to make all my surprises happy ones.”

Bernie blew out a shuddering breath. Winnie was right. She did always expect the worst. “Sorry. Okay, I’m ready.”

Winnie squealed with excitement before she said, “Open your eyes!”

Bernie opened them to a set of keys dangling in her face.

Just beyond the keys, a car…shaped like a bubble…with a
Summer’s Eve
douche—no, really; a
douche
—on the side.

Winnie spun her around, her eyes glittering. “Okay, so I know, I know. It has an advertisement for a douche on the side of it, and it’s a hundred years old,
but
!” she said on a breath. “It works, and I just can’t bear seeing you walk in the bloody heat every day if one of us can’t come and grab you from the farm because Lola has a ballet class or you miss a ride with Calla because you want to finish one last chore. Plus, all that really matters is that it works, right? And it does work. Promise.”

A car. She was letting her use a car? She’d robbed a bank, for the love of Cheetos, and Winnie was just handing her the keys to a
car
? Okay, the car had a douche on the side of it, yes. It was ancient, too. But a car?

She was stunned into silence.

Winnie winced, her gorgeous face crestfallen. “You hate it, don’t you? Damn, I was afraid of that. I know it’s not much to look at, but I drove it cross-country, from prison here to Paris, and it runs great. Well, mostly, but we had Guthrie Adams give it a good once-over before we put it back on the road, just to be sure.”

Bernie instantly regretted hurting her feelings. “I robbed a bank.”

She planted her hands on her slender hips, peering down at Bernie. “And?”

“And you’re trusting me with a
car
?”

Now Winnie’s face went soft, and she curled her fingers under Bernie’s chin. “It has to start somewhere, Bernie, right? I was in magic-abuse jail, too, remember? Listen, I’m going to give you one long-winded speech here. You in?”

Bernie nodded.

“Someone once trusted me, and I did some pretty shitty things—like blowing up my now-husband’s warehouse because I thought he was cheating on me. Look, Bernie, at some point, you’re going to have to accept that we like you. We like the shit out of you. You’re reliable, hardworking, kind to all those seniors, good with the animals on the farm. Along with liking you comes extending the hand of trust. Trust is just as important on both our parts. I want to help you be the best witch you can be. You have to trust that I’m making decisions based on who I believe you really are. Not the person you showed everyone to get into prison.”

Goddamn these people and their nice. Her eyes filled with tears. She’d long forgotten what it was like to interact with other people without doing so for the sake of survival. She’d forgotten what it was like to forge friendships. But she wanted to remember how to let someone in again after Eddie.

Rather than say a word, because she almost couldn’t speak if she tried, she threw her arms around Winnie’s neck and hugged her hard.

Winnie tugged a strand of her hair and smiled, thumbing away one of Bernie’s tears. “Now off with you. Bingo calls. Goddess knows, you don’t want to be late or Roscoe Brown gets so jittery he might miss the eleven o’ clock news, he conjures up an earthquake. I lost a perfectly good set of dishes the last time he did that.”

Bernie laughed as she grabbed the keys. “Got it. Curfew?”

She waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, whenever. I’ll probably be up when you get in anyway. Benny’s teething is killing me. So we can dish on whether Flora finally gives it to Clive while my little man takes another ten years off my immortality, screaming his little brains out.”

Bernie squeezed Winnie’s hand once more before she hopped down the steps, feeling lighter than she had in more years than she cared to count.

“Jacques, the GPS, is set to take you to the senior center,” Winnie yelled as she waved. “Have fun!”

As she climbed into the car, the lingering smell of pork rinds and Schlitz Malt Liquor assaulted her nose, but it didn’t matter. Someone trusted her enough to let her borrow a car.

She’d been in prison longer than she’d been anywhere else since she’d become an adult. Because she’d had no choice during her incarceration. She couldn’t run away when everything went sideways—and it always went sideways.

No one had ever specifically blamed her for all the strange things that happened when she was around. How could they? They didn’t know magic existed. But certainly she’d heard her fair share of jokes about the evil cloud hanging over her head or her bad-luck spree.

Maybe if she just opened up, explained, shared something instead of keeping this all so close to her chest, trusted just one person, maybe this time she wouldn’t have to run away.

Bernie pressed the button to turn on the GPS and sat back just as Fee appeared on the passenger seat, his nose still bent out of shape, evident by the way he turned his head to look out the window.

As the screen for the GPS lit up, it said in a cheerful voice, “
Bon jouuuuur
, Bernieeee! It’s bingo night! N-thirty-three!”

The GPS talked, too. With a French accent.

With a smile, she found that didn’t surprise her at all.

* * * *

“Left, Berniee! You must make ze left zis instant!”

Fee screeched as she made a sharp left as instructed, pulling into the senior center parking lot with only five minutes to spare. The brick structure, housed beneath Calla’s grandfather’s apartment, was welcoming and friendly. Flowers in big pots dotted the stoop and a sign with a hand-painted moon and stars swung in the light breeze from the side of the building.

Yanking up the emergency brake, she looked over at Fee, who clung to the passenger door with his claws unsheathed. “Oh stop, Drama Llama. My driving wasn’t that bad.”

Fee huffed, turning his head back toward the window. “If I were talking to you, which I am absolutely not, I’d tell you that your driving sucks the ass of a goat. It’s a modern-day miracle you didn’t take out the entirety of Main Street with those two wheels you were driving on, Dale Junior.”

She popped the door open and stuck a leg out, gathering her old-lady purse made of vinyl and plaid cloth before nudging Fee with her finger. “I haven’t driven in a long time and Jacques here is a little rusty on his directions, methinks.”

Jacques’ screen lit up in greens and blues. “Oh, Berniiiieee,” Jacques cooed. “Do not be so cruel. My spelling, she ees sometimes not so, how you say…”

“Good?” Bernie teased.

“
Oui
. My apologieees.”

Bernie tapped the screen affectionately. “It’s all good, Jacques. See you in a bit.” She pressed the button to shut down the GPS and pulled the key from the ignition. “C’mon, Fee. We have a job to do.”

Fee harrumphed as he hopped out of the car, but he wouldn’t even look at her as they crossed the parking lot and headed for the glass doors of the center, where light streamed from the inside and the seniors milled about, cups of coffee in their hands.

Just as she grabbed for the door and allowed Fee entry, another slender, perfectly manicured hand covered hers, shutting it behind the cat. “Bernie, right?”

Boobs, right?

Fee hissed in her head, his words swirling around
. If I were talking to you, which I still am not, I’d remind you about resting bitch face and walking away from this woman. I don’t know what her angle is, but she’s got one. I can smell it on her. She can’t hide whatever the hell her issue is with all that expensive perfume she bathes in.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Violet was here. Why would she come to bingo night? Weren’t there malls to bankrupt? Car dealerships to empty?

Bernie nodded, removing her hand from the door and squaring her shoulders to turn and face Violet. “Yes. It’s Bernie. Nice to see you again, Miss Hammond. Are you joining us for bingo night?”

“I’m joining Ridge,” she cooed.

Bernie remained silent and fumed rather than let Violet bait her.

“Sweet ride.” She hitched an elegant thumb over her bare shoulder at the Pacer.

Bernie bobbed her head once more, fighting the impulse to get back in the car and run Violet over with her sweet ride.

“A feminine product right there on the side of your car for all the world to see. How interesting.”

“Yeah. Seems douches need love, too. If anyone gets that, you should.”

Violet let out an airy chuckle from tight lips glossed to raspberry perfection. “New outfit?” she drawled, scanning Bernie’s shorter frame from head to toe with a scathing glance.

Borrowed it from your mother.

Bernie. I can hear your thoughts when I’m in your head. Don’t do it. Get the eff inside here. Now
, Fee whispered, his words reverberating in her brain.

But Bernie’d had enough of playing doormat to Violet’s stilettos. Sure, she was on parole, and she was afraid she’d fuck that up at every turn, but she didn’t have to take a blatant attack.

She turned the tables, scanning Violet’s outfit from head to toe, lingering on her very short white shorts and her barely there halter top in flamingo pink. “Yep. I like subtle and mysterious. You know; the opposite of ‘show them your girlie bits up front’?”