Any Witch Way She Can Read Free Page A

it? How the hell was she supposed to add regret to a bowl of soggy stationery? Clearly some witch had not thought this spell out thoroughly.
    â€œEh, I’ll just skip it,” she scowled at the flickering candle. Suddenly the warmth it gave off felt more like an inferno than a tiny flame. “It’s only one ingredient. And I think by this point the idea of me being patient for this whole thing is ridiculous anyway. What’s the worst that could happen?”
    The candle sputtered, and Randy glared at it before reading the final instruction. “‘And stir three times with willow for to bring thy love to thee.’”
    Okay, this was it. Taking a deep breath, Randy lay aside the book and picked up the wooden spoon she’d found in the kitchen drawer. She couldn’t swear it was made of willow—how the heck could a person tell?—but it was a wooden implement specifically designed for stirring. What could be more appropriate?
    Ignoring the disconcerting heat of the candles and the unexplained buzzing in her ears, she bit her lip and slowly lowered the spoon into the disintegrating mess in Cassidy’s mixing bowl. With her heart in her throat, she stirred three times and repeated the phrase the book had instructed to seal the spell.
    â€œâ€˜As I will, so mote it be.’”
    That’s when the room exploded.

Chapter 4
    â€œWell, well. What have we here? A late arrival?”
    Randy frowned into the blackness and tried to remember where she was. She couldn’t see anything, but she could feel a distinct chill in the air and something hard and rough under her legs. She could also hear. Oh boy, could she hear, because those questions had been asked in a voice as dark and smooth as cocoa.
    But why didn’t she recognize it? She really ought to recognize a voice that made her want to purr, shouldn’t she?
    Her frown deepened.
    â€œMiranda Louisa Berry! What exactly is the meaning of this?”
    Okay, that voice, she recognized.
    Stifling a groan, Randy forced her eyelids open. That took care of the blackness, but no matter how many times she blinked, she couldn’t manage to brush away the pinched, disapproving face of her grandmother that currently hovered over her.
    â€œOh, shit.”
    â€œMiranda, I will thank you to watch your language in my home.”
    In “her” home? She was at her grandmother’s house? How the hell had she managed that? The last thing she remembered was sitting cross-legged on Quinn and Cassidy’s floor casting that silly love spell. “Shit in a shitstorm!”
    â€œMiranda!”
    Randy struggled to prop herself up on her elbows and glanced around her. Not only was she in her grandmother’s house, she was in the harridan’s formal entry hall lying smack dab in the middle of the hideously expensive oriental carpet that covered the marble floor. Being stared at by at least two dozen people in formal wear. And she still had on her pajamas. No wonder she was freezing.
    â€œYoung lady, pick yourself up off the floor this instant. You are causing me a great deal of embarrassment in front of my guests.”
    â€œSo what else is new?” Randy muttered, but she found herself pushing to her knees anyway. That was how things always went with Adele Berry. No matter how much Randy wanted to thumb her nose at the old biddy, she inevitably found herself obeying the woman’s orders as if Randy hadn’t managed to come of age more than fourteen years ago. Adele’s power of arrogance both awed and mystified mere mortals.
    â€œAllow me to assist you.”
    The cocoa voice slid over her skin again, raising goosebumps that had nothing to do with the temperature in the room. In fact, that seemed to rise every time it spoke, and this time the speech came accompanied by a lean, tanned, masculine hand that extended into her line of vision from somewhere above her.
    High above her.
    Craning her neck, Randy