I hated this, but I nodded. "Okay."
Sherry's eyes began to glow deep purple and as they did, the magic surrounding Sarah became visible. With a whispered word, the magic began to pull toward the witch. She grasped it in her left hand, twisted and a loud screech burst through the room as she severed the cord between Sarah and her demon almost fiance. The woman slumped to thefloor.
I gasped in alarm, but Sherry shook her head. "Give her a little while. She'll wake up in need of some orange juice and food." Her lips twisted in a bitter smile. "Probably a therapist,too."
I snort laughed. Sherry was a real piece of work. "Thankyou."
She shrugged and stood, tugging down her leather skirt. "My pleasure." A vicious grin split her face. "Now I'm on my way to track down the SOB who did this to her. He should be writhing on the floor in pain for awhile. Plenty of time for me to get tohim."
I gave her a little salute. "Goodluck."
Sherry winked. "Luck has nothing to do with it." She disappeared in a puff ofsmoke.
I thunked my head down on my desk. This was my first client of the day. How much worse could the dayget?
Sarah began to stir and almost immediately began tosob.
I let out a deep sigh and got out from behind my desk to help herup.
So muchworse.
6
Ihadto switch around the next two appointments to follow Sarah because she was a hot, blubbering mess after the magic severed her bond. I was in no way equipped to be her therapist considering my own long and sordid history of screwed up relationships, but I was able to talk and commiserate with her long enough for her to dry her tears and finally make her way out of myoffice.
By the end of the day I hadn't granted a single wish, but I had made quite a bit of money. That was the thing about my contracts. You had to pay half of the fee upfront no matter if I granted your wish or not. The fee was nonrefundable. Thank goodness because I refused to grant a lot more wishes than I actuallygranted.
Martin's truck was still in my driveway. I glanced at the dash clock surprised to see it was past six o'clock. I pushed into my house, feet dragging, and the sound of Etta James and power tools hit me. A smile reached my mouth at the soulful yet jarring sounds in my house. I slid off myshoes.
"Hello?"
No one answered me, but a hammer was strangely keeping time with the music. I rounded the corner only to gasp in surprise as I saw Martin and his very, very nice derriere leaning over my counter top, hammering something into the side. My palms grew sweaty and something I hadn't felt in a long time spooled into my stomach.Desire.
His blue t-shirt rode up his back, exposing powerful lean muscles. His blue jeans cupped a pretty nice back view and the rips in the calf area showed Martin was just as golden on his face as he was the rest of hisbody.
The sound of a throat clearing jerked me back to the present. A young, handsome man stood to the right of me, holding a power drill and wearing an amusedsmirk.
I quickly blinked the look of lust off my face. "Sorry," I rasped. "I was just surprised to see you still here." The hammering died down and Martin stood up looking at the two of us, a nonplussed expression on hisface.
"Surprised?" the other man said. "Huh. Seemed like something different to me." He winked and reached down to put the drillaway.
Color bloomed in my cheeks. Martin gave me a weird look but shook his head and went back to working on my lower cabinets. Before he started hammering again, he looked up at me. "I wanted to finish this up before I left. We'll be out of your hair in less than anhour."
Wordlessly, I nodded and spun on my heel and headed for mybedroom.
Once the door was shut, I let out a hysterical laugh and a groan right after. Martin Roma was smoking hot. I knew he was very good looking. I was not blind. Or maybe I had been for the last several weeks thanks to stupid Jeff. The absolute last thing I needed right now was another man in my life. I could not handle getting left at the altaragain.
Someone who didn't want anything in return might be fun, but I had never been the kind of person who could do something with no strings attached. I was the kind of person who let feelings get involved and then screwed it all up. On the flip side, I was also the person who apparently jumped into marriage only to get crushed when, once again, I was left standing by the preacher with my groom nowhere insight.
I couldn't even think about the amount of money I'd spent on dresses, hair and makeup because I would probably throwup.
I let out a sigh and quickly changed my clothes into something decent but not too revealing since there were still contractors here. I threw my long hair up in a ponytail, smoothed down my t-shirt and stepped back out to see Martin and the other guy packing up for thenight.
I steadied my voice. "Can I use the kitchentonight?"
Martin's dark glance went over to the cabinets he'd just worked on. "It's pretty dirty in there." He glanced at my feet and frowned. "I'd put some shoes on. We're careful to pick stuff up but you never know when we may have missed a nail or screw. Better safe than sorry. If you have leftovers, I'd eat those before trying to get in there and make anything. Or better yet, go out to eat. We should hopefully be finished with the kitchen within the next week. I'll have to turn off the gas and water tomorrow, though, so if you need any jugs filled you may want to do that tonight. Or better yet, stay somewhere else tomorrow night. I should have it back on the nextday."
"Dang. Okay. I'll have a look in the fridge." I didn't need to look. My fridge looked like a frat house fridge, minus the copious amounts of beer. Some moldy cheese, a bottle of expired milk and some suspicious orange juice was all I could think of. I needed groceries.Bad.
