“If they are quickies, never. Too risky for witches. But if you think he’s your soul mate, don’t you think you’ll have to tell him sooner or later?”
“I would love to have him know me as I know him. But that’s the kicker. I don’t know him. It was just a moment of knowing last night. So I could be wrong.”
“But you want to be right.”
“Goddess, yes. He’s so sexy.” They both turned to watch Dane push snow off the sidewalk outside.
Had she made a mistake by not encouraging him to have his way with her last night? “What am I going to do? He’s only in town for a week.”
“You can make him love you, then spill the beans about being a witch. Or you can tell him now and challenge his beliefs.”
“Sounds like a game. I don’t play games.”
“Oh yeah? What about the one where you think he’s your lost love and you want to keep him close to you without saying anything?”
“That’s not fair.”
“All is fair in love. War just sucks.”
They both laughed, and Eryss couldn’t find an argument against Mireio’s suggestion to challenge his beliefs. She’d invite Dane to dinner. Tonight she’d prepare a feast to seduce. And she would pay attention to every sign she saw or felt toward him. If her soul really did recognize him, she wanted to be sure. And do what she could to help him recognize hers.
* * *
She had prepared a meal to seduce, Dane thought as he rolled the rhubarb wine across his tongue and inhaled the savory scent of tomatoes, garlic and pine nuts from the plate before him. But he didn’t need to be seduced by food. The dress Eryss wore was more than amply urging his desires to the surface. She had on a soft, pink velvet dress that stopped at her thighs and was fringed with delicate lace about her décolletage, which kept drawing his eyes right there. And when she laughed her breasts jiggled, and then he couldn’t remember what he was doing.
Oh, right, eating. With a fork. That he’d almost dropped onto the plate.
Making the save, Dane cleared his throat and offered, “I liked shoveling this morning.”
“I noticed. You shoveled the whole block. The pet store next door appreciated that.”
He shrugged. “I think I could handle Minnesota once in a while.”
Eryss lifted a questioning brow.
“Mostly. Probably. In the summer, for sure.”
“Does surfer guy miss the waves? Do you surf this time of year?”
“Oh, yeah. Some of the best swells roll in during January. Put me in a heavy wet suit and I’m good to go.”
“But even with a wet suit, the water must be cold.”
“In the fifties. So you see?” He pounded his chest with a fist. “I’m hardy.”
“Then I challenge you to do the polar plunge. I think that’s happening sometime next week over in Saint Paul.”
“Is that what it sounds like?”
She nodded. “Jumping into the lake through a hole cut in the ice. But don’t worry, there are towels and hot beverages waiting to warm you up after.”
“I think I’ll stick with fifty degrees and epic surf.”
Eryss’s giggle lifted her breasts in a jiggly don’t-look-away come-on. The water glass Dane held tilted, and cool liquid splashed his wrist.
“Whoa!” She grabbed the glass and pressed a towel to the spill on the table. “Got it.”
“Sorry.” He reclaimed the glass and set it carefully before his plate. Even a child could manage such a skill as lifting a glass to drink. Of course, children’s distractions were far different from a grown man’s. He smirked at Eryss’s darting look. So he confessed. “You distract me. Your cooking distracts me. The warmth from the hearth fire is distracting in a good way. And everything about you and this house is distracting. I’m normally much more pulled together.”
She stroked a finger along his wrist. “And here I thought I was the only one having a hard time concentrating on the pasta. You know you have a few silver hairs in your beard stubble and above your ears that are devastating to a woman’s better judgment.”
Dane rubbed his stubble, which was trying to become a beard. He wasn’t that old, but indeed, he did have a few silver strands. Had he inherited them from a father he’d never known? The only photo his mother had ever saved of Edison had been taken from the side, and was blurry. He had dark hair in it, but it was hard to tell if gray had yet invaded. “They say a few gray hairs give a man a distinguished air.”
“I’d call it downright sexy. But I assumed you were about my age.”
“Which is?” He managed to fork in a bite of pesto without spilling. Points for the distracted scientist.
“I celebrate my thirtieth in a week. What about you?”
“I’m a January baby, as well. My day is the twenty-eighth. We’re both looking at thirty.”
“That’s interesting! I’d love to read your cards.”
“My cards? You mean like tarot? Wait. Don’t tell me.” He cast his gaze about the kitchen, seeing what he’d seen once before, but this time really taking it in. “You’ve got all the plants, the minerals and crystals sitting everywhere, and you told me you believe in magic. Of course you do tarot.”
“Tarot is not done. It’s read. And yeah, I’ve got skills.” She licked her fork clean, and the sight of her tongue dragging along the silver tines disturbed Dane’s sense of propriety. “I just find it interesting that two people born one day apart have found one another. Our souls are clinging to each other.”
“Souls, eh? Tell me you don’t believe in the afterlife and reincarnation and all that blather.” A necessary rebuttal. He had made the comment to her yesterday about witches being silly. It was a standard reply in his line of work. Couldn’t let anyone actually know he believed in real witches.
“I innately know that I have lived many lives. And your lack of belief in an afterlife, or that souls exist in many forms for many lifetimes, doesn’t bother me. You are a scientist, after all. You’re designed not to see the greater picture.”
“Is that so?” Dane pushed his plate forward to lean an elbow on the table. “All scientists do is seek the greater picture.”
“Unless you’re a microbiologist.”
She had him there. They tended to study the small stuff. But still, there was a vast and greater world within their study.
And Dane’s sudden rising indignation settled. He didn’t want to start a fight debating science and fantasy with this beautiful woman who had successfully plied her seduction skills on him. Not when his eyes again strayed to her cleavage and he suddenly wondered what dessert she would offer.
“You mentioned you’re also a geologist,” she stated. “Besides the debunking stuff, you study rocks, right?”
“That’s a vague and expansive way to summarize what I do. But sure, I study rocks.”
“So if I tell you I use crystals to gain insight and heal myself, then where do you stand on that?”
He chuckled, then saw her nodding as if she’d expected him to react that way. “Well, seriously. Rocks don’t heal.” And that wasn’t a line; he simply knew it to be fact. “And people who claim to read stones or get some kind of voodoo vibrations out of them are...”
“Are?”
He was not going to answer that one, even if she threatened to have him stomped on by a thousand elephants. He might stand on the side of logic, but when a man was trying to impress a woman it was far better to plead the fifth at times.
“Everything is energy, right?” Eryss said.
“Of course. We are all atoms bouncing up against one another.”
“Including this table, the chairs we are sitting on, the rocks on my kitchen windowsill, the ones in the copper bowl down the table there, and those outside hidden under the snow. Yes?”
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