To Love A Witch (A Novel Nibbles title) (7 page)

Now she just stared, cheeks full of bread.

He went in with his final blow. “I think you’re
a secret optimist. You mean for some of those kids to make it.”

“It’s just drama.”

Like hell it was. “Yeah, and it’s just
pizza.”

Whatever Romy was about to say got interrupted
by his computer ringing. That could only mean one thing. Everyone
else in his life called his cell. His mother used Skype—she liked
to see his face while they talked.

Then the phone in his pocket started to vibrate.
Damn. That meant Mom was serious.

“Sorry,” he said, walking over to his laptop.
“I’m being paged.”

“Sentinel alert?” Romy asked.

“No. Mom alert.” He held up his vibrating phone.
“And a fairly insistent one if she’s using multiple channels.”

Romy laughed. “Take your time—then I won’t have
anyone fighting me for the rest of the bread.”

The woman could put away enough food to please
even Franco. He clicked on the Skype button to open video chat.
“Hi, Mom. What’s the emergency?”

“Hi, sweetheart. Who’s the pretty redhead?”

Like Jolie, his mother could see bits of the
future. There were so many ways this could end badly. Jake cursed
whatever insanity had made him answer the call and tried to avoid
catastrophe. “Just a new friend, Mom.”

“I don’t think so, my son. I saw her kissing you
on a big rock, with more than one kind of magic in the air.”

Jake looked over at Romy, apology in his eyes.
She was a fascinating mix of embarrassed and horrified.

“Jacob Stanley Hayes, is that girl there right
now? Call her over where I can see her.”

He shrugged helplessly and waved Romy over. She
looked ready to impale him on her fork, but she came.

“Oh hello, dear,” said his mother. “I’m Deva,
Jake’s mother. You are indeed a pretty little thing. Good for you,
kissing my son like that. He needs a little excitement in his
life.”

“Mom.” Jake growled, but he didn’t expect it to
do any good.

“He’s a bit of a daredevil, but I imagine that’s
half the fun. He’s also one of the most steady men I know.”

To his amazement, Romy grinned. “Somehow, I
don’t think you like your men steady and predictable.”

His mother was delighted. “Indeed I don’t,
darling, but I think that maybe you do. I won’t keep you. You go
back to eating and contemplating whether you want to kiss him
again. Jake, call me soon, so I don’t have to embarrass you again.”
With that, she was gone.

Jake badly wanted a bag to pull over his head.
“I’m so sorry. My mom can be a bit overwhelming sometimes.”

Romy shook her head. “You have a mom who loves
you, Jake. Don’t apologize for that.”

Okay, now he needed a hole big enough to crawl
in. “She’s always been this big force in my life, and especially
growing up, that could sometimes be really embarrassing. My mom,
the fortuneteller.”

“Like a real one?” Romy looked fascinated.

“Yeah. No one sees more than a few bits of the
future, but she gets more than most. I always swore growing up that
she only got the parts where I was going to get into some kind of
trouble. Wreaked havoc with my dating life as a teenager.”

He reached out to tug on Romy’s hair.
“Apparently, it still is.”

She went absolutely still, and he was suddenly
very unsure of his next move. Nothing moved, not breath, not
thought. Just the touch of her hair on his fingers, and a fierce
need for more.

“I didn’t thank you for earlier today.”

She wanted to talk? Jake tried to get his verbal
brain back in motion. “Thank me for what?”

“I’m actually not entirely sure what you did.”
She looked away for a moment, as if trying to remember. “While you
were touching my face, there on the rock. I was fighting to tamp my
magic down, the way I have my whole life. I’ve never believed I
could handle it—but you did.”

He nodded. The memory of her face glowing with
hope and power unleashed was shutting down his verbal brain
again.

“I could feel some kind of flow coming from you.
Was it magic—were you helping me?”

He shook his head slowly and closed his eyes as
truth hit. He was such an idiot. His mother hadn’t called about a
kiss. She’d called because she’d seen the moment he’d fallen in
love.

“No,” he said softly. “It was just me, believing
in you.”

Her smile trembled. “Why?”

Words failed. He tugged again on her hair and
pulled her in close. The kiss shook his world.

Then he realized his world really was shaking.
“Shit.” He cupped Romy’s head under his chin. “Sorry, give me a
moment.”

The plates on the table started rattling. He
hadn’t lost control of his magic this badly since he was
sixteen.

Romy looked up, eyes huge. “We don’t get
earthquakes in New Mexico.”

“Nope. That’s me. You spark, I make the ground
shake.”

He’d managed to get the shaking down to mild
tremors, but the tears that sprung to her eyes set the shaking off
again. “Please, don’t be scared. Just give me a minute.”

She shook her head and put her hands up to his
face. “Not scared. I thought I was the only one.”

Misbehaving magic made conversations hard to
follow. “The only one what?”

“The only one with stupid leaky magic.”

“Heck, no. When I was a teenager, the ground
shook every time I kissed a girl. Apparently that’s not as romantic
as the books make it seem. Hasn’t happened in a long time,
though.”

She grinned. “I bring out your inner
teenager?”

No. She flattened him, and he hadn’t let that
happen in a very long time.

Romy resisted the urge to throw something. It
was time to rehearse the big fire-escape love scene, and her two
lovebirds were spitting at each other.

“Tina, you’re supposed to be in love with
him.”

“Maria’s smarter than that,” snapped Tina. “She
would never fall for this little weasel.”

“That kind of disrespect doesn’t fly here; you
know that.”

“Sorry. But I can’t act what I don’t feel.”

“Sure you can. That’s the whole point of
acting.” Romy grabbed a hat off a nearby kid’s head and plunked it
down on the ladder standing in as the fire escape. She sang Tony’s
part of the “Tonight” duet, going just a little bit over the top.
It was the ultimate young-love-about-to-turn-tragic song, and she
knew how to milk a good tune.

When she finished, everyone applauded, including
Jake, who had just come in the door.

Romy ignored him, placed the cap on a chair
right about where Tony would stand, and motioned to Tina. “Sing to
the hat. Make me believe you.”

It started a little flat, but by the time Tina
hit the finale, every guy in Delinquent Drama wanted to be the
hat.

Romy dropped it on the head of the kid playing
Tony. “Now, do exactly the same thing with Rizzo.”

Tina scowled. Long experience told Romy now was
not the time to pick a fight, which left humor or bribery as her
choices. Nothing funny popped into her head, so she opted for a
bribe. Knowing Tina well, she picked a big one. “You pull this off,
you get a freebie.”

That got pretty much everyone’s attention. She
didn’t give out freebies often; they were hard on her ego. Skate
had scored the last one, and he was making her twirl and kick in
the back row of his dance number.

Tina smirked and drew a finger along Rizzo’s
cheek. “You’re not going to know what hit you, lover boy.”

Rizzo had a pretty good voice, but Tina carried
the duet on her stunning vocals. She leaned over the fire escape
and melted star-crossed teenage love over the entire room.

Romy wondered if any of her theater connections
knew someone in New York. Tina had the kind of voice that deserved
a chance at the big leagues.

Tina looked over at Romy when she finished. “I
earned my freebie.” It wasn’t a question.

“You did. That was seriously good.” Romy was
well aware there was plenty of insecure girl hiding in Tina’s
darker corners. “What do you want?”

Tina grinned and pointed at Jake. “I want you to
sing ‘Tonight’ with him.”

She’d never, ever welched on a freebie. There
was a first time for everything. “Illegal ask, Tina. It’s got to be
something I can do. No innocent bystanders.”

Tina waltzed over to Jake. “Can you sing, hot
stuff?”

Jake shrugged. “What are you going to do for me
if I do?”

“I already got the freebie.”

“From Romy. You want me to sing, I get a freebie
from you.”

Hello, no taking advantage of a minor on her
watch, Romy thought. Then she mentally backpedaled. Jake had been
nothing but awesome with her kids. There were good reasons she
assumed the worst of most people, but he’d earned a free pass. A
permanent one.

Tina was still eyeing Jake with serious
suspicion. Smart girl.

“So long as it’s not nothing illegal, okay.”

Jake walked over to Rizzo, grabbed the hat, and
plunked it on his own head. He hit Romy with a total bad-boy smile.
“You ready?”

Maria started the duet, so Romy kicked into the
first lines on autopilot. When Jake started to sing, her legs
turned to goo. She knew classically trained when she heard it. He
had the kind of voice that could travel from West Side Story to
opera and back again.

He winked, and she realized he was cycling back
through his verse. Oops. Even a totally gobsmacked actress wasn’t
supposed to miss her cues. She found her voice somewhere and let
the first half of the song pass back and forth between them.

Then they hit the second part of the duet, the
part Maria and Tony sang together. Romy sang, and Jake wove around,
above, and below her. Every word punched into her heart.

When the last note died, she was terrified and
in love. And she was pretty sure it wasn’t temporary stage
madness.

The man who’d just sung straight into her heart
turned his back on her and spoke to Tina. “You have any free time
in this joint?”

She nodded in slow motion. “Yeah. Right before
dinner.”

“Good,” Jake said. “I’ll come tomorrow.”

Tina hardly breathed. “Why?”

“I’m collecting on my freebie. We’re going to
make an audition tape.”

Romy felt the tears coming and cursed.
Quietly.

“You know a record label?” Tina was frozen in an
agony of hope.

Jake shook his head. “Nope. But I know the head
of student admissions at Julliard. I can’t promise you anything,
but I want him to hear you sing.”

Tina frowned, mystified. “What’s Julliard?”

“It’s a school where they train performing
artists. A lot of the best singers in the world have trained
there.”

“Is that where you learned?”

“Yup.”

Tina nodded once. “Okay. You sing pretty good.
I’ll make a tape for your Julliard man.”

Jake’s reply got drowned out by the dinner bell.
Tina stared at him a moment longer and then headed for the
door.

Romy pulled Jake down the hall after the exiting
herds. “She has no idea what you just offered her.”

“I know. I think they’ll take her. She sings
like a demon angel.”

Romy laughed. “I won’t even ask what that is. I
was hoping to hook her up in the theater. She has a voice that
could do Broadway.”

Jake tweaked her nose. “Theater snob. She can do
Broadway after Julliard, if that’s what she wants.”

Romy opened the door of the Center and walked
out, lacing her fingers in with his. “So why aren’t you some famous
singer?”

He shrugged. “Not quite good enough. Tina
is.”

“Repeat that performance from inside, and I know
a community theater group that would fall at your feet.”

Jake cupped her face, his eyes fierce. “That was
for an audience of one, Romy.” The kiss was almost frantic in its
demands.

Fear and longing tangled inside. The words he’d
sung into her soul rose up in welcome. She wanted this.

As she reached for his face, sparks flew out of
her fingers.

Romy watched the angry welts rising on his face
in absolute horror. Then she turned and fled.