Witch Is The New Black (Paris, Texas Romance #3)

He didn’t want to frighten her. He just didn’t want to have to deal with her or any of this when everything was already in such disarray.

“Something wrong with your face?” she asked, her thickly fringed eyes peering at him.

“I’m fine. This will all be fine, Bernie. Nothing was really damaged that can’t be cleaned up. And you can call me Ridge, by the way.”

She finally lifted her eyes, so green and round, so full of all sorts of things he found himself wondering about. “Mr. Donovan’s fine. I’ll go start cleaning up,” she said stiffly, wiping her brow with the arm of the burned fabric of her prison jumpsuit.

Brrrr. She was freezing him out—and he found that disturbed him. “Why don’t you go grab some lunch first?”

“Is that mandatory?”

“Eating lunch?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not mandatory, but it is necessary. Look, Bernie, you’ve had a long morning. Go and catch your breath then we’ll meet back here for cleanup. I hear it’s tuna casserole day. Wash it down with some of Winnie’s homemade lemonade and you’ll be good as new.”

She blatantly ignored his mention of tuna casserole. “Is that an order?”

What the hell? Why was she suddenly so defensive? He put his consulting hat back on and took control. “If you choose to put that slant on it, so be it. I don’t want you passing out from lack of nourishment and dehydration in this heat on my watch. So go get lunch now, Sutton.”

Without another word, she smoothed her tangled hair back, pivoted on her makeshift slippers and headed toward the farm, her fancy familiar hot on her heels.

And with no warning at all, he chuckled.

Because if she could get a tiny glimpse of the mess she was right now, her jumpsuit clinging to her back, her strawberry-blonde hair sticking out at odd ends all over her head, those crazy shoes flapping up dust, she’d probably be pretty pissed.

He’d bet she was damn cute when she was pissed.



“I don’t need lunch,” she muttered under her breath, stomping her way toward the rambling white house with the enormous front porch and a row of dead hanging plants swishing in the wind.

“Were you trying to take ‘burn this mother down’ to a whole new level, Vigilante Barbie?” Fee teased as he ran beside her, hopping over tall clumps of sun-dried grass.

Remorse twisted her insides. “Did you hear what that one senior Glenda-Jo said about the barn?”

“You mean that it was where Ridge’s parents got married?”

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying. “Yes, and it was his mom’s favorite place to read so she could be by the horses. Shit, Fee. I’ve been here twelve-point-two seconds and already I’ve screwed up something of sentimental value. I didn’t mean to do it.”

“I know, I know. Take the heifer of all chill pills and relax. I was just bustin’ your balls. Speaking of chill pills, what the hell was all that about with Ridge?”

“I don’t know what that was about. It’s too hot to think clearly.”

She knew damn well what it was about. It was about landing in those arms—those thick-with-corded-muscle arms of Ridge’s—and feeling safe, comforted.

It had set her on an already slippery slope, right at the tip of a ledge she didn’t want to venture any farther out along.

Fee hopped in front of her when they hit the flagstone path leading to the porch steps. “Stop right there and take a minute. You were downright rude to him. You’re being petulant and spiteful to the guy who’s gonna be your boss for two months. Like it’s going to be some skin off his nose if you don’t eat your parolee vittles? Not coolio, Fruit Cup. He reports to your parole office. You need all the good reports you can get if you want out of this mess come time for your hearing.”

“I wasn’t being spiteful. I just wanted to get on with it. I don’t need to eat. I need to make that barn right.”

“You won’t make it right if you pass out because you haven’t had anything to eat or drink since this morning at six before Baba The Horrible showed up. Besides, you heard the hunk with the sweet, sweet tuchus. It’s tuna casserole day. Turning that down is just plum es stupido. This isn’t about the suggestion of lunch, Ray of Sunshine, and we both know it. Now what’s got you so vexed?”

She closed her eyes and swallowed, trying to wipe out the memory of all those people on the horses staring at her in horror as she’d burst out of the barn and fallen into Ridge’s bulky frame.

Fear welled inside her. More fear than when she’d found herself in a bank vault with fistfuls of cash and absolutely no clue how she’d gotten there.