Lainie stared at him.

It wasn’t fair that he’d been genetically gifted with the blond-haired, blue-eyed looks of a careless beach boy, the crooked grin of a man who didn’t sweat the small stuff. He’d also wound up with the preternatural athletic talent to be one of the top skiers in the world, a millionaire, a media darling.

And with, of course, the preternatural ego to go with it.

“What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere in New Zealand, embarrassing yourself on camera?” She could cheerfully have bitten her tongue the minute the words were out.

As for JJ, he just grinned. “And here I didn’t think you cared. You keep track of me. I’m flattered.”

“I keep track of hurricanes, too. Mostly because I’m hoping they’ll go somewhere else…”

Under His Spell

KRISTIN HARDY

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To Stephen,

River deep, mountain high

KRISTIN HARDY

has always wanted to write, starting her first novel while still at school. Although she became a laser engineer by training, she never gave up her dream of being an author.

Kristin lives in New Hampshire with her husband and collaborator. Check out her website at www.kristinhardy.com. Under the Mistletoe, the second book in Kristin’s HOLIDAY HEARTS mini-series, was nominated for a RITA® Award for Best Long Contemporary.

Dear Reader,

Sometimes books go together as you expect, and sometimes you wind up with characters that are so feisty, they do what they like, whether you want them to or not. So it was with Lainie Trask and downhill ski racer JJ Cooper. I had plans for Lainie when I first tucked her into Where There’s Smoke, the first book of the HOLIDAY HEARTS books. She was supposed to meet the South Shore lawyer of a series that I’m cooking up that takes place in Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. I figured Lainie would be the tie from HOLIDAY HEARTS to the new books so that we could keep visiting with the Trask family for another year.

Then JJ walked on stage in Under the Mistletoe and that was that. The chemistry between Lainie and him formed spontaneously in the air, like steam – all I did was write it down. Of course, they pretty much demanded that I give them their own book, and they weren’t about to take no for an answer. I guess the Cape Cod lawyer will have to find a woman of his own, because Lainie is…well, read on and find out.

And when you get done, drop me a line at kristinhardy.com. I’d love to hear what you think.

Happy reading.

Kristin Hardy

Prologue

July, Crawford Notch, NH

There was nothing, J. J. Cooper thought as he pushed off, quite like the feeling of being at the top of a mountain. Granted, he was on a mountain bike instead of skis, and hurtling down a steep slope of grass, not ice and snow, but the adrenaline fizzed in his veins just the same. It was the speed, the motion, the challenge.

The risk.

Going fast in a car had never done much for him; he wanted—no, needed—to be out there making it happen himself, just his body, the environment and as little equipment as possible.

The wind of his passage ruffled his dark-blond hair, sun-streaked by weeks of activity in the northern New Hampshire summer. He swerved off onto a newly built ski run that he’d watched the graders build to his specifications earlier in the summer. Director of ski at the Hotel Mount Jefferson Ski Resort—not a bad off-season gig for a World Cup ski racer. Now he just needed to test his work.

Going off the knoll he’d had built into one side of the run, he caught a few feet of air and came down with a bone-rattling thud that the bike’s graphite composite forks couldn’t entirely absorb. For a moment he swerved dangerously on the steep slope but he wrestled the bike back into control. This was what it was about, the buzz of letting it all hang out there and dragging it back in.

This was when he felt most alive.

And for once he wasn’t orchestrating every moment of his day around winning races. For once he was doing something for the sheer kick of it. Early summer, his time to play. Not that he didn’t also spend time training—he always spent time training—but in this summer idyll it was less about the focused repetitions of the weight room than about moving outdoors, about running and hiking the hillsides, mountain biking, doing his jumps.

No, there was never really time to slack off entirely, not if he wanted to keep the steel hawsers of muscles and tendons in his quads strong enough to hold his line while he was flying through a turn at ninety miles an hour, pulling three Gs of force. But it didn’t all have to be boring reps. He could work himself to exhaustion and still have fun doing it, because ultimately, fun was really what it was all about, right? A challenge? Sure. An adrenaline rush? No doubt. But the day his life as an athlete stopped being about the pure joy of the moment and the competition would be the day he’d retire.

Good thing it hadn’t happened yet, because the idea of life without racing was nearly unfathomable. Sure, he’d hit thirty a couple of years back, but he was still going strong. All those people who talked about him retiring were nuts. He’d come in second in the World Cup overall the previous season, won it all the year before that. Oh, and a gold medal in Torino. That wasn’t the performance of a tired old guy who needed to go out to pasture, was it?

To wipe away the question, he attacked the slope headlong, wrenching the bike into a turn, feeling the pull in his shoulders and arms. The speed, the motion, the risk. Today he was in New Hampshire in the late-July sun. In a couple of weeks he’d be blasting through training runs on an icy slope in New Zealand, then heading to speed camp in Chile, all while people back home were still grilling on the back deck. A World Cup ski racer lived for winter, and if the winter wasn’t where he was, then he’d go find it.

Ahead, a water bar designed to provide drainage during rainy months and snow melt cut across the trail. A grin spread across J.J.’s face and a moment later he’d turned straight toward it.

And a minute after that, he’d parted ways with the bike and gone flying. At least, he thought, he’d been going less than ninety….

Gabe Trask stared down at the clipboard in his hand, ignoring the throbbing roar of earthmovers as they worked to smooth the final hundred yards of the new ski run, where it came down to the lift house. Between running the hundred-year-old Hotel Mount Jefferson and overseeing the upgrades to the newly acquired ski resort across the highway, he was beginning to have a lot more sympathy for those circus clowns with all the plates on sticks. It had taken some mad spinning, but so far he was keeping it all on schedule and under budget. If the new run passed muster with J.J., they’d be all set. The Hotel Mount Jefferson Resort and Ski Area would be the hospitality powerhouse of New Hampshire.

“So I’ve got good news and bad news,” said a voice behind him.

Gabe glanced over to see J.J., who sported an odd grin on his sunny beach boy face. “What have you screwed up now?” he asked, glancing back down at his clipboard.

“The good news is that the top of the run checks out fine,” J.J. continued, ignoring him.

“And the bad news?” Gabe glanced back up. J.J. stood there with his right hand curled around the gooseneck of his mountain bike and his left arm hanging down loose. Weirdly loose. Almost as if—

“The bad news is I’m calling in my marker on all those rides I gave you when we were in high school,” J.J. continued, a little note of strain tightening his voice.

“You need a ride home?”

“I need a ride to the clinic.” He gave Gabe a wry grin. “I think I dislocated my shoulder.”

Chapter One

August, Salem, Massachusetts

“Nice pair a melons you got there, lady.”

Lainie Trask glanced from the cantaloupes she held to the fruit vendor standing behind his table. Her brown eyes glimmered with fun as she hefted them higher. “They are, aren’t they?”

“Buck for the two of ’em. Can’t do any better than that.”

Lainie handed over a dollar and tucked the fruit into her canvas carrier bag. “And here I thought I already had a nice pair of melons,” she said out of the corner of her mouth to her girlfriend Liz.

Liz glanced at her judiciously as they turned away from the fruit stand. “More like guavas, I’d say.”

Lainie laughed and swept her glossy dark hair back from her face as they walked deeper into the confusion of color, noise and scent that was the Salem farmers’ market. Tables and pushcarts groaned under the weight of baskets filled with crimson tomatoes, sunburst-yellow lemons, green zucchini, the strange, otherworldly fuzz of kiwi.

“Get yer bay scallops here. Bay scallops, fresh off the boat. Hiya, Lainie.”

“Hey, Pete.” Lainie stopped at the stall and studied the seafood on ice, then the man who stood behind it. “Fresh, huh?”

The weathered, sixty-something fishmonger gave her a roguish wink. “Any more fresh and it’d be hittin’ on you.”

She grinned and looked at Liz. “Scallops for dinner?” she suggested.

“Nah, I’d rather go out, assuming there’s anyplace around here you want to go to.”

“There’s a McDonald’s on the highway. We could splurge on Chicken McNuggets. Sorry, Pete.” She gave him a quick smile. “Next time around. Come on, Liz, let’s go get coffee.”

The two women began walking again. “Chicken McNuggets,” grumbled Liz. “You know the owner of Tremolo just opened up a new bar and restaurant two blocks away from me? Small plates to die for and a six-page cocktail menu. You should have come down and visited me in Boston for the weekend.”

“It was your turn to drive up here,” Lainie argued. “I’m sick of driving down.”

“Then move down. I mean, why are you still living up here in Siberia, anyway?”

“Salem,” Lainie corrected, leading the way out of the farmers’ market and onto the main drag.

“Salem, Siberia…it’s north and it’s cold. Same difference.”

“It’s not that far north.”

“Far enough. You don’t belong up here. You belong down in the city. I thought that was the plan. I mean, you don’t have a life up here.”

“I have a life,” Lainie objected. She did, and one she increasingly loved.

“Oh, yeah? When’s the last time you had a date?”

She glowered at Liz. “Don’t start sounding like my parents. It’s not my fault. Most of the people I know are married.”

“Of course they’re all married. You’re living in the burbs. You’ve gotten it out of order. You get hooked up first, then you move to Siberia.”

Lainie rolled her eyes. “Sorry, I guess I missed that part in the manual. Anyway, I don’t even know if I want to date,” she said grumpily.

“You don’t want to date?”

“I mean, come on, be honest, it sucks. You sit around, trying to make conversation, trying to figure out what you’ve got in common, trying to remember why you ever even bothered to say yes. I’d rather be at home watching a movie.”

“But it would be better with some guy’s arm around your shoulders.”

“Well, is it my fault they never ask me out?”

“Maybe you intimidate them.”

“Is that because of my six Nobel Prizes or my seven-figure income?” Lainie asked.

“Ha, ha. No, it’s because you’re…you. I mean, you’re never exactly shy of an opinion.”

“You’re shy of an opinion in my family and you’ll never get a word in edgewise. So I say what I think, is that a crime?”

“No, but maybe it’s a little much for the average Joe right off. Maybe you could tone it down a little.”

Lainie stared at her. “Whatever happened to the ‘be yourself’ advice? Isn’t a guy supposed to love me for who I am?”

“He can’t if you chase him away before he figures you out.”

“Forget it. I’ll stick with my idea about taking time off.” If it took pretending to be a fragile flower for her to lure a guy, she wasn’t interested. It was too much work, anyway. She was happy to give the opposite sex a rest for a while.

Liz wasn’t, though. “I know a couple of nice guys I could introduce you to but you’re G.U.”

“G.U.”

“Geographically undesirable.”

“For God’s sakes,” Lainie grumbled. “It’s only forty-five minutes to your house.”

“The way you drive, maybe. It takes me an hour. Guys don’t want that. They want someone who’s right there. When are you moving?”

Lainie shrugged a shoulder. “When the time’s right.”

“When the time’s right? That’s what you’ve been saying for almost four years.”

“When I find a job down there.”

“Have you been looking?”

“Museum jobs don’t exactly fall off trees. I’ve been keeping my eyes open.” Lainie stopped in front of a storefront with the legend Cool Beans painted above a rendering of a steaming cup of coffee.

“There she is.”

Lainie turned to give a brilliant smile to the grinning, grizzle-haired man behind the counter. “Hey, George.”

“You’ve got some kind of sixth sense, don’t you? I just pulled a pan of blueberry coffee cake out of the oven. I shoulda known you’d be here. What is it, some witch thing?”

“That’s me, using my powers for baked goods.”

“Hey, if you’ve got powers for baked goods, come over and do something about my oven,” he invited. “It’s been running hot for the last two months. I’ll pay you in coffee cake.” He waved the pan before her.

Lainie sniffed blissfully. “My powers work best in the presence of an appliance repairman. Get one over here and I’ll come chant a success spell. For advance payment.” She reached for the pan but George pulled it back.

“Nope, I’m not buying it. Maybe I’ll just stick with the repair guy.”

“Probably best,” Lainie agreed. “Does that mean I don’t get any coffee cake?”

“I don’t know. We start the new project next weekend. You gonna show?”

“Have I ever let you down?”

“Not so far,” he agreed, and reached for a plate. “So who’s your friend?”

She grinned. “George, this is Liz from Boston. She was my college roommate.”

“Any friend of Lainie’s,” he said, nodding at Liz. “What can I get you, young lady?”

“Some of that coffee cake and a mocha, if you’ve got it.”

“If it’s got coffee in it, we’ve got it,” he told her, putting together her drink with quick, economical motions.

“Aren’t you going to ask what I want?” Lainie pouted.

He set an already filled mug on the counter and put a slice of coffee cake beside it. “I already know what you want.”

“Marry me, George,” she said seriously.

“I couldn’t afford to keep you in coffee.”

“Wow, that coffee cake was pretty amazing.” Liz patted her belly as they wandered along the Salem waterfront, past docks lined with fishing boats and white sailboats.

“See? There are some good things about Salem.”

“‘Some’ being the operative word. You really are just a small-town girl at heart.”

“I’m not a small-town girl,” Lainie replied, stung. “At least not anymore.” She wasn’t. She’d left the tiny burg of Eastmont, Vermont, where she’d grown up, and she’d never once looked back. She was a cosmopolitan girl who knew her way around a Cosmopolitan, and she fully intended to live in the city one day.

When it made financial sense.

And if lately her visits to Boston had seemed mostly noisy and rushed, that was probably just coincidence. “I’m going to look harder,” she said, as much to herself as to Liz.

“It’s about time.” Liz stared out at a nearby boat where a shirtless deck hand was raising the main sheet. “Yum. You suppose Popeye over there would give us a ride if we asked pretty?”

Lainie grinned. “Down, girl. You’re cradle robbing. He happens to be in high school.”

“How do you know?”

“I know his parents.”

Liz rolled her eyes. “Do you know everyone in this town?”

“I know enough, and unless you want to get arrested, you might want to keep away from Jared. At least until he turns eighteen.”

Liz squinted. “He looks older from here.”

Lainie patted her shoulder. “It’s your eyesight, dear. Anyway, we’ve got a job to do before we can relax.” She steered them toward the shop-lined pedestrian street that circled near the wharf. “I’ve got to buy wedding and shower presents for my cousin Gabe’s wedding.”

“I seem to remember you asking me up to have fun, not do your errands.”

“But this will be fun, and you’ll find it even more satisfying knowing you’re helping me get a little item or two out of the way.”

“Somehow I doubt it.”

“Not at all. So, what should I get?”

“Dish towels,” Liz grumbled.

“Too boring.”

“Candlesticks?” Liz moved to step inside the crafts store they were passing.

“Wow, and you’re calling me small town,” she said firmly, closing the door Liz had opened. With a wave of her hand, Lainie headed toward an art gallery down the way.

“Hey, he’s your cousin, you figure it out,” Liz protested.

“It’s not like I was— ‘The Salem Witch’?” She stopped in front of a gift boutique and stared at the gothic letters painted on the window. “Is that like being the town mascot?”

Lainie turned around and came back to her. “She certainly manages to show up here and there.”

“You have an official town witch. Are you people nuts?”

“Hey, you play to your strengths.”

Liz opened the door.

“What are you doing?”

“Playing to your strengths. Maybe you can conjure up a present for your cousin. Among other things.”

“It’s a gimmick, Liz,” Lainie protested, following her in. “You know this stuff doesn’t work.”

“What? The woman who runs the witch museum says witchcraft doesn’t work? Aren’t you an honorary Wiccan by default or something?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s me, the family witch.”

“So you should feel right at home. Besides, every marriage needs a little magic.” Liz wandered along the wall, studying the candles and herbs, the spell packets and charms. “So, let’s see, how about a potency charm?”

Lainie rolled her eyes. “I’m thinking Gabe can do without that.”

“Oh, really.” Liz’s eyes brightened. “Does he have any brothers?”

“You’re about a year too late. They’re all spoken for.”

“Just my luck.”

“We could always get you a love spell,” Lainie said, picking one off the wall and scanning the back. “Here. You just make tea with these herbs, light the candle and dance buck naked in the moonlight for three nights running.”

Liz eyed her. “Buck naked?”

“I’m just reading you the directions,” Lainie said blandly.

“I live in the middle of Boston.”

“I’m sure if your dance is quick, you can get it over before you get arrested for indecent exposure. Better yet, do it on Friday night and the spell will probably be effective immediately.”

“I’ve got a better idea.”

“What’s that?”

Liz’s eyes gleamed. “A love spell for you.”

Lainie cast a glance at the ceiling. “Trust me,” she said. “The last thing I need is a love spell.”

It was the fondest wish of Al and Carol Trask to see their children all married off eventually, with families of their own. Lainie didn’t have any problem with the idea in concept; she just had a few differences of opinion with her parents on the particulars. Like, for example, their definition of the word eventually. To Lainie, that meant before she turned, say, forty. Or fifty, if it suited her.

To her parents, twenty-six was high time to start thinking about settling down.

Which was why she was happy, quite happy to be going to her cousin Gabe’s Jack and Jill party as part of the run-up to his wedding to Hadley Stone. After all, Gabe’s wedding would buy her at least six months of peace from the reminders and questions. Given that, springing for a shower gift and driving a couple of hours to the party was a pleasure. She’d cheerfully have driven twice as far, if that were the sacrifice required.

Although, to be honest, it wasn’t much of a sacrifice. She and Hadley had become good friends over the past year. Lainie was looking forward to a nice, long gossip after the party. Besides, it was a perfect day for a drive and she was itching to see the renovated ski lodge where the party was to be held.

Gabe and Hadley had bought the eyesore as a fixer-upper the year before. And fix it up they had, Lainie realized as she pulled in. The grubby, underprivileged-looking buildings she remembered had disappeared, replaced by a soaring complex of two-and three-story cedar-and-glass structures that were the architectural equivalent of a breath of fresh air. The Crawford Arms, the once-faded Victorian grande dame at the edge of the property, had been pulled back from the brink of seediness to boast a subtly gorgeous multicolor paint job and windows that sparkled with newness.

Even the brilliant white stripes on the freshly paved parking lot gleamed. The positively enormous freshly paved parking lot, she amended as she whipped into a spot and turned off her car. In fact, if a natural disaster ever hit the New Hampshire International Speedway, they could probably just move the race to Gabe’s lot. Clearly, her cousin and his bride-to-be knew how to do things right.

Lainie stepped out into the summer afternoon and reached into her back seat to pull out a gaily wrapped package. None of that tired, old white-rose bridal paper for her. A person should make a statement, she figured; all the better if it was red and silver stripes.

A light, warm breeze whisked under her pale aqua skirt, lifting up the short flared silk, making her laugh. Summer might have come late to the north country but it was well worth appreciating when it finally arrived. And appreciating it, she was, with her stretchy, bare midriff top and strappy high heels. After all, in two or three months they’d be back in the frigid temperatures of late fall.

And three-inch heels didn’t go so well with snow and ice.

Nope, she was a summer girl at heart, happy to toss aside her tan-in-a-bottle for the real thing. Fall was for prickly people; winter was for the melancholy; spring was for the ambitious.

Summer was for people who knew how to enjoy life.

Ahead of her, the path curved toward the broad double doors that led into the main lodge. Ski racks flanked the wide cedar porch; come winter, they’d be filled with colorful snowboards and wide downhill skis with their bindings. Come winter, the whole area would be frosted with snow and ice, and crowded with people. She was looking forward to seeing it.

But not before she’d gotten everything she could out of the warm weather.

The breeze whisked at her skirt again, flipping it up as she stepped up onto the porch. Hastily she reached behind her with one hand to push it down. And, distracted for a crucial instant, caught her toe on the underside of the wooden step.

The next thing she knew, she was pitching forward, trying desperately to hold on to the gift package and trying equally hard to avoid doing a face plant on the deck. When the door opened before her, she gave up, dropping the box and groping for the door handle as though it were salvation. The shower gift would survive; her nose might not. Somehow she missed the door anyway, though, and instead found herself doing a four-point landing on the cedar.

“Falling at my feet again, Lainie?” The voice was lazy and mocking, and she recognized it instantly, even before she looked up to see the hand before her eyes.

J. J. Cooper, golden-boy ski racer, finding her sprawled before him just as he had fourteen years before, on the mountain where she’d tumbled into the snow with a broken binding. Then he’d been her knight in shining armor, helping her up, dusting her off and, to her infinite astonishment, piggybacking her down the mountain on skis, his shoulders strong under her fingers.

Was it any wonder that her twelve-year-old self had fallen madly in love with him? She’d pined, positively pined over him for the four long weeks that stretched from that Thanksgiving weekend encounter to Christmas vacation. Writing his name in her notebooks, she’d dreamily imagined how he’d look at her with those denim-blue eyes and hold her hand when he came back from his ski academy for the holidays, her grown-up high school boy.

Of course, when he had, he’d demonstrated quite clearly that he had no interest in a skinny little kid like her. He hadn’t insulted her, he hadn’t been mean. He’d just been…oblivious. Ski god J.J. was exclusively interested in the very curvy and very grown-up blondes who buzzed around him like a bunch of flies, Lainie had thought ungraciously. He hadn’t even bothered to snub Lainie when she’d hung around, desperate for his attention. He’d barely recognized her at all, until she’d crashed before him, trying to daredevil ski in a desperate attempt to attract his attention from the inept ski bunny he was escorting around. “A little kid like you shouldn’t be up here,” he’d scolded, hauling her up like a sack of potatoes. “You could get hurt.”

“You’re so sweet to help that poor little girl,” the ski bunny had cooed as they’d schussed off, leaving a redfaced, furious Lainie to watch them go. Clearly, J. J. Cooper had no use for Lainie.

And from that moment forward, Lainie had had zero use for J. J. Cooper.

She scowled and rose, ignoring the hand and smoothing down her skirt. “Well, well, well. Speed Racer. How lucky can a girl get? Here I figured you’d be in training by now.”

He raised a brow. “Why, Lainie, I didn’t realize you kept such track of me.”

“I prefer to keep an eye on minor annoyances. It helps me avoid them.” She dusted off her hands. “Let me guess. You’ve broken training to show up here.”

“Considering that, as best man, I’m the host, it seemed like the right thing to do.” He leaned over to pick up her box, tucking it under his arm. “Want an escort in?”

Lainie folded her arms and stared at him. It wasn’t fair that he’d been genetically gifted with the blond-haired, blue-eyed looks of a careless beach boy, the crooked grin of a man who didn’t sweat the small stuff, a chin and jaw only sharpened by his Vandyke. He’d also wound up with the preternatural athletic talent to be one of the top skiers in the world, a millionaire, a media darling.

And with, of course, the preternatural ego to go with it.

“I’m fine. Why don’t you go inside and find your posse?”

His eyes crinkled irritatingly. “You should know I’d never bother with a posse when I have you.”

Scorn radiated off her. “Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere in New Zealand embarrassing yourself on camera?” She could cheerfully have bitten her tongue the minute the words were out.

As for J.J., he just grinned. “And here I didn’t think you cared.”

“News bulletin,” she told him, reaching for the package he held just out of reach. “I don’t.”

He lifted the box just a few inches higher. “But you do keep track of me. I’m flattered.”

“I keep track of nor’ easters, too, mostly because I’m hoping they’ll go somewhere else. And if you’d give me back that box, I’d go somewhere else myself.”

He burst out laughing. “Oh, Lainie, life just isn’t the same when you’re not around.”

“That’s funny, life’s always the same when you’re around,” she said sweetly. “You’re nothing if not predictable.”

That wiped away the smile. “Maybe when it comes to going fast.”

She shook her head pityingly. “Oh, Speed, everything you do is predictable. Where do I start? Let’s see… I’m betting that your last six girlfriends—the ones for this season, I mean—bought their lipstick using euros.”

“Give me a break. I live in Europe seven months out of the year. Who else am I supposed to date? After all, you never come to visit me,” he said with a leer.

Lainie folded her arms. “Okay, how about the CD changer in your car?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s got at least one oldie disc by Lynyrd Skynrd.”

“Lucky guess.”

“Not a guess. Like I said, Speed, predictable.”

It was his turn to scowl. “None of that counts.”

“Speaking of your car, twenty bucks says you bought a new one a week after you hit the ground in Montpelier last spring.”

“Yeah, so?”

“You did buy a new car, didn’t you?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. The question is what?”

Given his image, the ultrasexy sports car would be the obvious pick. But she knew better. “The biggest mean-ass four-by-four hemi on top truck in midnight-blue metal flake.” She smiled in enjoyment. “And if they didn’t carry it in midnight-blue metal flake, you had them do a custom job for you.”

To her infinite pleasure, his mouth fell slightly ajar.

“Well, am I right?”

He recovered. “You could have looked right out in the parking lot and seen it.”

“Maybe, except that if I know you, you tucked it away in the back row.” When he was silent, she merely crossed her arms and looked satisfied. “Oh, yeah, Speed, I know you. I know you through and through.”

And she plucked the package from his hands and walked inside.

Chapter Two

One thing she had to give him: he threw a hell of a party. At a glance, Lainie would have sworn the spacious lodge held the entire population of Crawford Notch, where Gabe lived now, as well as Eastmont. People crowded together in the main room, laughing, joking, sipping drinks. Off to one side, in the lounge, a band played U2. As far as opening events, it was a humdinger.

Then again, so was the lodge. Gabe and Hadley hadn’t bothered to renovate. Instead they’d just knocked down the old structure and put up something inspired, something open and airy and inviting. The cathedral ceiling of the main room soared overhead; skylights brought the day inside. The two walls of the lodge that faced the mountain were sheets of glass, looking out on the vivid-green turf of the final slope of the ski runs. In five months the grass would be covered in snow, dotted with the bright flashes of speeding skiers. Then this room would belong to the après ski crowd.

But for now it was theirs.

Lainie watched the bartender in the lounge pour a martini. Discreet waiters circulated with canapés. She took a blissful sniff as a tray of scallops wrapped in bacon passed by. Later, she promised herself. For now she needed to find the guests of honor and figure out someplace to drop her gift.

“Look who’s here, it’s Witch Girl,” she heard a loud voice say.

“Gabe!” She found herself swept up in a bear hug by her dark-haired cousin. “How have you been? It’s been forever since I’ve seen you.”

His teeth gleamed in a smile, and she thought, as usual, that he could have made a fortune in Hollywood. “Not that long. Nick’s wedding was, what, three months ago?”

“Two,” corrected the slender blonde who stepped up beside him. “Still too long, though. Thanks for coming.”

“Hadley, sweetie, no way would I have missed this.” Lainie hugged her in turn. “I am so happy for you guys.”

Hadley pushed back a sheaf of pale hair and gave her a skeptical look. “Don’t give me that. You’re happy because we’re keeping your parents off your back. You don’t fool me.”

Lainie grinned. “You love me and want me to be happy, don’t you? Besides, I really am thrilled for you. You’re perfect together.”

Gabe gathered Hadley against him, his dark hair mixing with her light. “That’s what I keep telling her. We’re made for each other. I was made to look good and she was made to wash my socks. Oof.” He released her, rubbing his side where she’d elbowed him.

Hadley smiled prettily. “We’ve already agreed, he’ll wash his own socks.”

Lainie laughed out loud. “I think you’ll both do fabulously.” And an arm looped around her from behind.

“What do you think, Lainie,” J.J. asked, “will you wash my socks? Ow!”

She removed her elbow from his side and turned to see him bent over. “I’ll wash my hands of you, if that’ll do.”

“You’re roughing up my best man, there,” Gabe said mildly.

“Consider it for the good of mankind.”

“That’s not very friendly,” J.J. complained. “What did I ever do to mankind?”

“For the good of womankind, then,” she amended. “On general principles.”

“Underneath that mask of hostility lies complete devotion,” J.J. told Hadley.

She stuck her tongue in her cheek. “I can see that.”

“If I wanted to be devoted to you, Speed, I’d have to line up behind the entire female population of Scandinavia,” Lainie said. “I mean, granted, with your attention span, you’ll go through them quickly, but I don’t have that kind of time.” She winked at Gabe and Hadley. “So where do I put this?” She raised the gift box.

“I’ll show you,” Hadley said, leading the way across the room.

“So are we going to be able to get off somewhere this weekend and catch up?” Lainie asked as they threaded their way through the crush. “We are so due.”

“I think it sounds like a great idea.” Hadley set the box on the gift table and flicked her a conspiratorial look. “How about now?”

It didn’t take them long to find a table in the corner and order wine. “So what’s going on? How’s the wedding?”

Hadley sighed. “A headache, mostly.”

“Why? It sounded like you guys had it all worked out.”

“We did. Or at least we thought we did. Then my mother got involved.”

Lainie frowned. “But you guys are paying for the wedding yourselves, right? I thought the whole point was to have it the way you wanted.”

“You haven’t met my mother.”

“Come on, sweetie, you’re standing up to them now, remember? You’re not letting them run your life anymore.”

“And I’m smart enough to pick my battles,” Hadley said as their wine arrived.

Lainie raised her glass. “To Gabe and Hadley and happily ever after.”

“Assuming we get that far,” Hadley muttered, and clinked her glass.

“So what’s going on?”

“With my mother? Everything. I’ve managed to keep her out of it all so far, but now she and my sisters are having fits about the wedding party.”

“What are they having fits about? Your sisters are in it, aren’t they? They ought to be happy.” They ought, in Lainie’s opinion, to consider themselves lucky to have a sister like Hadley.

“There are two of them, and Gabe’s got three groomsmen.”

“So? Small weddings are the new black.”

“They’re worried about the exit processional. My mother insists that the numbers should be even.”

“But you guys are going low-key. Give one of them two guys to lead out, it’s no big deal.”

“It is to them,” Hadley said grimly. “No one throws better fits over nothing than they do.”

“But it’s your wedding.” Hadley’s complicated relationship with her family was a source of constant amazement to Lainie. No wonder the woman had moved three states away.

“Like I said, I pick my battles. I’ve kept her out of everything else. I figure this one’s not worth it.” She let out a breath. “So I have a favor to ask you. I really hope you won’t be offended at the late invite but, pretty please with sugar on top, will you be in our wedding?”

Lainie blinked. “Be in your wedding? But don’t you have a childhood friend or someone that you’d like to ask?”

“This is me, remember? The compulsive overachiever who didn’t have time for friends? Anyway, people have a tendency to get offended at being asked five weeks before the wedding.”

“People can be idiots,” Lainie pronounced, slinging an arm over Hadley’s shoulders.

Hadley grinned. “That’s part of why we get along so well. Anyway, I’m sorry about the short notice. Just please say you’ll do this for me. It’ll save me a world of grief.”

“Hadley, sweetie, whatever I can do to make your life easier, let me know.”

“You just did. My mother will be thrilled. It’ll be so symmetrical, my sisters with Gabe’s brothers. You’ll be maid of honor. That’ll put you with J.J.”

That’ll put you with J.J.

Lainie glanced across the bar to where he stood with his arms around two women who looked about eighteen. He whispered something to one of them, and she burst out giggling and pressed a kiss on him.

Lainie scowled. “Great. J.J. and me. Just what I’ve always wanted.”

J.J. leaned against the lodge wall, beer in hand, listening as Tom Phillips, a guy he and Gabe had known in junior high school, hit the punch line in a joke. So it wasn’t an après ski party in Gstaad. It was still good to be entertained, especially now, when he was sitting around at loose ends. It made him feel itchy in his own skin. He was accustomed to having a focus. He was accustomed to having a goal. He should be finishing up with speed camp in Chile right now, ready to head to Innsbruck in a couple of weeks to prep for the first World Cup race of the year at Sölden. Instead he was here, trying with admittedly little grace to be patient with physical therapy and the healing process of his shoulder while he waited for clearance to start training in earnest. He wasn’t used to being forced to sit back and let other people get a head start on him.

He wasn’t used to feeling like he was falling behind.

Of course he wasn’t, he reminded himself. Maybe he’d be starting the season at a slight disadvantage, but he’d catch up quickly. Dry-land training would help, and once he got on the slopes, it would all come back.

And he wasn’t going to think about what the future held, the all-too-near prospect of the day he’d miss speed camp not because he was rehabbing, but because he was retired.

J.J. made an impatient noise. Only a putz worried about things he couldn’t change, and the future wasn’t now. Right now he was just biding his time until he got going again. So if he was stuck waiting, he’d make the most of it. There were beautiful women in New England. He could hang out with friends, see his family.

And maybe harass Lainie some more.

Lainie.

Something about her today seemed uncommonly delectable.

He looked across to see her standing and talking to a guy whose eyebrows seemed to blend in with his hairline. As he watched, she threw her head back and laughed, not a giggle but the full-fledged belly laugh of a woman who wasn’t afraid to have a good time.

J.J. took a drink of his beer, letting the conversation flow over him. He wasn’t sure if he enjoyed needling her so much because it was so easy to get a rise out of her or because she generally managed to give as good as she got. Or maybe he just liked watching those brown eyes dance with devilry when she hit him with a really good zinger. If Lainie Trask were an animal, she’d be one of those seals that balanced balls on its nose, with her sleek dark hair and her quicksilver sense of fun. There was something irresistible about her, something happy and feckless and free.

Even when she was glowering at him.

Their sparring was so long-standing, he hardly remembered when it had started. One minute she’d been the skinny little drink of water who’d hung around him and Gabe when the two of them were in junior high. The next, he’d come back from his first modest experience in the Winter Olympics to find her all grown up into a leggy high-schooler with the eyes of a woman—a woman who seemed completely immune to his charm.

At first the acerbic retorts had annoyed and then they had begun to amuse. Sure she was hot but she was also the next best thing to Gabe’s kid sister. Dating her was out of the question—even if she had had more than two civil words to say to him.

It was better this way, he thought, studying the long legs and smooth, golden skin left exposed by her stretchy white top and little blue skirt. If they’d dated, it wouldn’t have lasted, and it all fell too close to home. When things went south, he’d not only lose a girlfriend, he’d maybe lose two people who were the next best thing to family. This way it just kept being fun.

Except when he had to watch her being monopolized by some guy. Not that it was jealousy or anything.

“…let’s ask J.J.,” a loud voice said beside him.

J.J. tuned back into the conversation. “Ask me what?”

“Whether Eastern European women are more beautiful than Swedish women.” The speaker was another old school friend named Dennis, currently glowering at Tom.

“Everybody knows that Swedish women are the babes of Europe,” Tom argued. “Except Dennis, here.”

“Didn’t you look at your last swimsuit issue? It’s the ones coming from Russia and Eastern Europe who are the beauties. Anyway, J.J., what do you think? You’re probably hooked up with one of each right now, right?”

J.J. grinned. “Ah, gentlemen, I’m flattered by your faith in me but I’ve given up my evil, worthless ways. No more gorgeous blondes with mile-long legs and big, uh,” he glanced at a nearby mother with kids, “personalities. I’m dating only schoolteachers and librarians, now.”

The remark earned him snorts and jeers.

“Give us a break, Cooper. Who’s the babe of the month? C’mon, fill us in,” Tom demanded.

J.J. grinned and finished his beer. “Not on your life. I’m going after another drink,” he announced, and ambled across the room toward the bar—and Lainie.

She never glanced in his direction as he walked over. “The bar’s to your left,” she said pleasantly as he came to a stop beside her.

The guy with her looked at J.J., goggle-eyed. “Hey, J.J. Cooper, wow, I saw you in the Olympics. Remember me, Bart Ziffer? You dated my sister.”

“Now there’s a surprise,” Lainie said under her breath.

“I’ll have to tell her I saw you. She lives in Worcester, now. Got three kids. Hey, I bet they’d like an autograph. Can I get one?”

Lainie gave J.J. a derisive look. “Sure, Speed, give him an autograph. It might be worth a buck or two on eBay if you ever do anything impressive.”

J.J. picked up a cocktail napkin. “Got a pen?”

Bart gave a blank look and patted his pockets. “I don’t think so. Lainie?”

She held up her empty hands. There was something to be said for a woman who didn’t bother with a purse, J.J. thought. It showed a certain independence of spirit. He grinned at Ziffer. “Catch up with me when you’ve got a pen and I’m all over it,” he said, “but right now I need to talk to Lainie for a minute.” He caught her arm, ignoring her suitor’s crestfallen look, and began leading her away.

“That happened to be someone I’ve known since junior high.” She pulled loose from him.

“You’ve known me since way before junior high.”

“I know, and I never have figured out what I did to deserve it. So what, exactly, did you need to talk with me about?”

“Something important,” he told her, trying to figure out just why he’d been compelled to get her to himself.

She crossed her arms. “Oh, really?”

“They did a nice job with the lodge, huh?”

She raised an eyebrow. “I’m waiting.”

“So, uh, what are you doing with yourself these days? Still working at the witch museum?”

“Yeah. So?” She tapped her fingers, but he noticed she was in no hurry to go back.

“Just wondering. Still living in Salem?”

“It’s as good as anywhere else.”

“What ever happened to New York and Europe and all that? Or do you just like small towns?”

Her chin came up at that. “Salem’s not a small town,” she retorted, ignoring his snort. “And I’ll move on when I’m ready.”

“I guess that means you never did take that trip to Vienna and Prague you were talking about.”

“I will at some point. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Look, Gabe and Hadley are starting to open their gifts,”J.J. said hastily, stepping back to lean against a nearby wall.

With a glower, Lainie subsided to lean next to him.

J.J. watched Hadley exclaim over a set of dish towels. “Now there’s an exciting gift.”

“It is if you’ve got dishes to dry,” she said.

“I suppose orange and yellow stripes will be easy to find in the dark.”

Lainie shook her head as Hadley tore open another package. “Okay, a magenta and gold lava lamp. Now that one’s worse.”

“Not necessarily. I think it’s got style.”

She looked at him as though he’d sprouted another head.

“Style? You want look at those two people out there and tell me that’s their definition of style?”

J.J. glanced over at Gabe and Hadley and pursed his lips. “Maybe.”

“Oh, wait, don’t tell me. That was your gift.”

“Nope, but it’s not a bad choice.”

She just snorted.

“Well, what did you get them, anyway? Since you’ve got such great taste,” he added.

She opened her mouth and stopped. “None of your business.”

“It’s not a state secret. Yours is in the on-deck circle anyway, unless I miss my guess. Come on, Lainie, spill it.” When she only stared at him mutinously, he tilted his head. “Okay, then I’ll guess. I’m thinking you didn’t get them anything they registered for. ‘That’s for people with no imagination,’” he mimicked, doing his best imitation of her.

Lainie looked at him, startled.

“Nope, I’m thinking you didn’t even go to a store for house stuff. I’m guessing you either went for the Trump factor and got them a statue of Venus or something at an art gallery or got something off-the-wall like a set of wrenches or an extension cord. Am I right?”

She set her mouth and glared.

“Let’s make a little bet. If I’m wrong—”

“You leave me alone the rest of the night.”

“I leave you alone the rest of the night.” His eyes gleamed in enjoyment. “If I’m right, you dance with me later.”

“Does the phrase ‘a cold day in hell’ mean anything to you?”

He just crossed his arms and leaned against the wall with an easy smile. “This is the north country. Gets cold early around here. Look.” He pointed. “You’re up.”

Gabe set the red-and-silver-striped box on the table in front of Hadley. She peered at the tag. “Oh, this one’s from Lainie.”

Lainie gave her a halfhearted wave from across the room as Hadley began tearing off the paper eagerly. She opened the box inside…

And pulled out an extension cord.

“Yes!” J.J. crowed and pumped his fist. “Now who’s got who down?”

“It’s not an extension cord,” Lainie protested.

“What’s that orange snaky thing she’s holding there, witch lady? That would be an extension cord. Score one to the gentleman in blue.”

“The present isn’t an extension cord,” Lainie repeated as Hadley dug into the box. “It’s a—”

“Mosquito zapper?” J.J. fell against the wall laughing. “Oh, Lainie, Lainie, Lainie, you are priceless.”

Her cheeks tinted. “What? They have a lot of mosquitoes here.”

“I’m sure they do,” he said, wiping his eyes.

“It’s practical,” she muttered. “Stop laughing.” She thumped him in the stomach. “Anyway, what did you get them? Something goofy that you picked up on your travels, I’m betting.”

He looked down his nose at her. “Something refined and stylish. Something that didn’t come from a hardware store, and don’t tell me yours didn’t because I recognize that orange sticker on the side.”

In the center of the room, Hadley read a tag. “The next present comes from J.J., our host.”

“Let’s go get a drink,” J.J. said quickly.

Lainie gave him a look. “Not a chance, Speed. I want to see this.”

Hadley tore away the paper to reveal a large carton.

“A cardboard box,” Lainie said. “How clever. Just what everyone needs.”

Gabe tore open the flaps of the box and dug into the pool of packing peanuts inside to pull out—

“A cuckoo clock?” Lainie snorted. “Refined and stylish, my ass.”

“Hey, it’s practical,” he defended as Gabe turned the ornately carved dark walnut clock to and fro. “Besides, it’s handmade. I got it in Bavaria. Anyway, don’t change the subject. You owe me a dance.”

“I do not.”

“Did she, or did she not pull out an extension cord?”

“Well, yes but—”

“No buts.”

“It’s a technicality,” Lainie protested. “It was an accessory, not the gift.”

He shook his head. “Did she or did she not pull out an extension cord?”

“You can be truly annoying sometimes,” she muttered.

J.J. grinned broadly. “And I’m not even trying.”

“Do you live to harass me?”

“No, I live to ski. But harassing you makes the time off the mountain go faster.”

* * *

The pile of gifts had long since been opened and the toasts were over. Champagne fizzed pleasantly in Lainie’s bloodstream as she nodded to the sound of the band. Good thing she was staying with Gabe and Hadley, who lived directly behind the Hotel Mount Jefferson, across the highway. She could hitch a ride with the happy couple, or walk, if need be. The night air would probably do her good.

She finished dancing with Ziffer, shaking her moneymaker to a Dave Matthews cover. It was impossible to be heard over the music or to move much on the crowded dance floor, but she did her best to come up with sign language for “thanks,” and “I’m going to take a break.”

A glass of water, maybe, and a few minutes of sitting would be just fine with her. She stood at the bar nodding to the beat, swaying a little, and then a hand stole around her shoulders. “You owe me a dance, remember?” she heard J.J. say, his breath warm on her ear. Something fluttered inside her.

Fluttering?

It was the champagne, that was all, Lainie told herself. Everybody felt a little giddy when they had champagne. It didn’t have a thing to do with J.J.

Almost certainly not. Still, it made her want to do nothing so much as get away from him, pronto. She knew that look on his face, though, the look that said he was enjoying himself hugely. She could dig in her heels and refuse, and only wind up amusing him even more, or she could just get it over with. After all, it was a dance, three minutes. How bad could it be?

Then the band swung into the Romantics’ “What I Like about You” and she was immediately energized. “I love this song,” she crowed and dove into the crowd on the dance floor without even bothering to see if J.J. followed.

It seemed everybody else had had the same reaction. In seconds, the area before the bandstand had transformed into a mass of surging bodies, driven by the beat. Lainie stopped in a small patch of open floor and the irresistible chorus of the song took her over. With giddy joy, she raised her arms, head whipping back and forth, and stepped and spun in time to the music.

She wasn’t dancing with J.J. really, just in his vicinity. She might just as well be dancing with every person on the floor, just a part of the motion and flow and sound of the crowd surrounding them. Then the music shifted to another dance staple with an irresistible bass hook, and it just became about the beat, nothing else. Jostled by the crowd, they bounced and shook, hot and sweaty and laughing, drawn on by the song, and the song after that. The band played the crowd, knowing that when you have the floor filled you never relent, just keep pushing them with one more irresistible song, and one more.

Finally, when people began filtering off the dance floor in self-defense, the band gave in. “Okay, we’re going to slow it down a little,” the lead singer said.

Breathing hard, Lainie looked at J.J. as the band swung into a slow ballad. “Okay, you got your dance.”

“And then some.” He grinned. “You’re more talented than I realized.”

“I’m so glad you approve,” she said dryly.

“I always approve. In fact, I—”

And just in that moment, a slightly worse-for-wear Bart Ziffer barreled drunkenly back into Lainie, sending her off balance. Sending her into J.J., pressing her up against him for a blinding second, so that his arms went around her reflexively.

Something happened then, something that she didn’t even want to know about. Champagne, Lainie thought, but she was very afraid it wasn’t, because it was the same treacherous thing that always happened every time they got a little too close. Normally she kept her distance. Normally she could laugh him off and get away until her system settled. But this night, with the champagne fizzing in her system, the dancers holding them together, it was too late.

She looked, she couldn’t stop looking, and it was as if some part of her vision widened so that he was all she could see, looking more alive, more real, more there than anything or anyone else in the room. Everything else faded away, and there was just J.J., looking at her first with surprise, then confusion, then some special attention that sent a shiver through her. His hands tightened, pulling her closer rather than releasing her.

She should look away, she knew, but she couldn’t stop staring. And, dammit, she couldn’t stop feeling—the hard lines of his athlete’s body, his arms tightening around her even as they stood, the warmth of him as he leaned just a bit closer…

And utter panic vaulted through her.

Lainie wrenched herself away, turning without another word to flee blindly through the couples dotting the dance floor.

“Wait a minute.” A hand landed on her shoulder, and J.J. spun her around to face him, staring at her with a hint of the same confusion she felt herself. J. J. Cooper, the man with the ego the size of Mount Washington, the man who couldn’t even commit to a facial-hair style for more than a few weeks.

Not to mention a woman.

And it was that that had her turning toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

She barely threw him a dismissive glance. “Sorry, Speed, but my fairy godmother told me to be home at midnight. I’m out of here.”

“Out of here? The party’s just getting started.”

“Clock ticking, got to go.” She definitely had to go, before she got caught up again. Before she threw common sense aside and planted one on him just to find out what it was like.

Before it was too late.

Chapter Three

It made her cranky, pure and simple, Lainie thought as she shepherded a school tour into the main room of the museum. Fourteen years after her brief obsession with J.J., and here she was, once again thinking about him every time she turned around. Only, this time she was twenty-six, not twelve.

It was ridiculous.

So what if they’d had that weird little moment of chemistry at Gabe’s party? He was a lightweight, a good-time guy who was only out for himself and his own fun. Skiing, parties, women. She didn’t know many things conclusively, but one thing she did know was that she’d be better off volunteering as a crash test dummy than starting something with J.J. Cooper. In fact, if she got involved with J.J., she’d be a dummy, of high proportions. He didn’t bear thinking about, not even for a minute.

Realizing that she was, in fact, thinking about him just put her in a bad temper. Better to concentrate on work.

Lainie looked around the throng of avid-faced fourth graders before her, and her mood brightened. “Okay, who knows what a witch looks like?”

The whole crowd of them raised their hands.

“Ugly,” offered one.

“Warts.”

“Flies on a broomstick.”

“Plays Quidditch,” someone shouted. “When does the match start?”

Lainie smiled. “If you want Quidditch, you’ll have to come back Halloween week for the Hogwarts Festival. But let’s talk about witches, okay?”

“Yeah!”

One thing she loved about working at the Witchcraft Museum was that the kids showed up eager and bright eyed with curiosity. They were lured by the promise of witchcraft, the sensationalism of the trials. Instead of a lot of dry display cases to stare into, they saw the story told by the characters. The learning almost sneaked up on them while they were concentrating on other things.

“Who knows where the word witch comes from?” Lainie asked.

A little girl with dark corkscrew hair and red shorts raised her hand. “Wicca,” she announced.

“That’s right—the word witch comes from Wicca, a religion of the earth.”

“Religion happens in churches,” the little girl countered.

“Not always,” Lainie corrected. “Religion happens wherever a person wants it to. There were and are people who worship the earth outdoors. Some of them call themselves Wiccans. Long ago, that word turned into witches. A lot of times they learned how to use herbs to help people feel better. Sometimes people appreciated them for the good they did. And sometimes people persecuted them as being in league with the devil. Sometimes even non-Wiccans were persecuted as witches. Do you know what persecuted means?”

The little girl raised her hand again. “People were mean to them?”

It was the most apt definition she’d heard. “Yes, people were mean. If you got accused of being a witch, there was no real way to prove you weren’t. Lots of times, people accused of being witches were killed.”

“By mean people.”

“No, by ordinary people who just didn’t know any better. That’s what happened here in Salem. But instead of me telling you the story, I’m going to let the people of Salem tell you the story. Look above your heads.”

Lainie pressed the wireless control in her palm. Even as the lights went down, the Wiccan wheel of the year set into the floor began to glow a pulsing red. A little murmur of excitement and alarm passed through the crowd of children. They all backed away from the medallion a little as a basso voice greeted them.

“Witchcraft…possession…trials and hangings. The story you are about to hear really happened here in Salem. The year was 1692. It began with a group of girls…”

On the perimeter of the room, on a level above their heads, a roomlike section grew bright to reveal the figures of three young girls crouched by a fireplace and staring up at the figure of a housekeeper wearing a colorful headkerchief. In the next moment the figures began to move and speak, drawing “aahhs” from the audience, taking them back to the seventeenth century and a time of madness.

One after another the dioramas lit, and bit by bit the tragic dance played out. And Lainie felt the familiar sadness. Fear, ignorance and boredom, a toxic brew under any circumstances. Add a little fanaticism and power lust and you had a destructive force that had spelled the ruin of dozens. It might have happened long before, but the story still touched her every time.

As it touched the people who visited the museum. They came from near and far, young and old, all drawn by the story. And the numbers were rising by the week. Halloween was the high season for a town whose name was synonymous with witchcraft. Ghost walks, festivals and galas, costume parades and reenactments, the events began at the start of October and ran all month long. Of course, the planning started well before that, which was why only a day or two into September, Lainie found herself with barely time to think.

Even as the show went on, she was busy reviewing her to-do list. Her alarmingly long to-do list. Phone calls, e-mails, requisitions, contracts, and no thoughts of J.J.

Specifically no thoughts of J.J.

Finally, the show ended. Lainie pressed her remote to bring the lights back up and bring them all back to reality.

The kids stood around, blinking in the sudden light, looking interested, even sober. It was a lot to absorb, and they were just getting to the age to do so.

“So, what did you think?” Lainie asked.

One of the boys nudged another. “Tituba looks just like Emma.”

The little girl in red scowled. “Does not.”

“Does too!”

“Does not.”

“Emma! Boys!” the teacher said reprovingly.

Lainie stuggled not to smile. “Well, I think Emma looks just like herself, and I don’t think—”

The words died in her throat. Because there, leaning against the wall at the back of the room was J. J. Cooper, a grin on his beach-boy face.

In the first instant of surprise, all she could do was stare, heart thudding in her chest. He didn’t belong there amid the confusion of kids. It was the last place he should have been, and yet somehow, curiously, he looked at home.

Then again, J.J. managed to always look at home, no matter where he was.

There was a cough from the teacher. “Miss?”

Lainie tore her gaze loose from J.J. and cleared her throat. “Sorry. I was going to say, I don’t think Emma’s the type to accuse anyone of giving her fits.”

“Only Cassie, maybe,” Emma grumbled.

“Who’s Cassie?”

“My little sister.”

J.J., Lainie noted, looked amused.

“But witches don’t give people fits, remember?” J.J., on the other hand, was pretty good at it.

“How do you know witches don’t give fits?” one of the little boys demanded. “Are you a witch?”

“Joshua,” the teacher said warningly.

Lainie laughed, relaxing a bit. “It’s all right. No, Joshua, I’m not a witch. I’m not even Wiccan. I’m just a plain old ordinary person, just like Bridget Bishop and the rest.”

“How come you work in the witch museum?”

“Because it’s fun and because I think their story deserves to be told. People need to remember what can happen when they get scared and stop thinking.” She pointed to a case on the back wall that held the figure of a storybook witch, complete with warts, pointed hat and broom. “This isn’t real. The Wizard of Oz is just a movie. Real Wiccans are people just like the rest of us. They don’t do spells, at least not that I know of.”

“There are spells in Harry Potter,” Emma piped up.

“Well, Harry Potter’s something different.”

“I love Harry Potter,” Emma announced.

“So do I,” Lainie said. “The Harry Potter books are great. How many of you have read them?”

Hands shot up all over the room.

“The author of the Harry Potter books has a great imagination,” she continued. “That’s why we read, to get carried away by our imaginations. I like getting carried away. How about you?”

Across the room, J.J. raised an eyebrow. Lainie could feel the flush stain her cheeks. “Getting carried away by your imagination is a good kind of carried away, but you want to watch other kinds of carried away, the kinds of carried away that can hurt people. Like the way the Salem witchcraft trials got carried away.” She paused. “Anyway, if there are no more questions, that’s our tour.”

“What do you say?” the teacher asked.

“Thank you, Ms. Trask,” they chorused obediently.

Lainie smiled. “Thank you for spending the morning with me. The exit’s right through here.”

There was nothing like being the head of a procession of fourth graders to give a person dignity, she thought wryly as she shepherded the tour into the gift shop.

“Lainie, do you have a minute?” a voice called. Lainie turned to see her boss, Caro Lewis. Small, dark, positive, Caro had taught Lainie a tremendous amount in the three and a half years they’d worked together. Somehow in that time, they’d also become fast friends. Because they were both scrupulously careful to do their jobs to the nth degree, it worked.

“What’s up, chief?”

Nearby a pair of little boys menaced each other with goblin heads. Caro watched them, the corners of her mouth curving up. “They look like they found the museum intellectually stimulating. Who do you have today?”

One of the boys crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue. Lainie’s lips twitched. “The fourth-grade class of Daniel Dunn Elementary School.”

Caro glanced beyond the boys to where J.J. stood, leafing through books. “Fourth grade, huh?” she said, eyeing him. “My, my, they just get bigger every year. He must take a lot of vitamins.”

Lainie snorted. “He’s just a delinquent.”

Caro laughed so loud that J.J. glanced over. “But a tasty-looking one. Listen, Jim over at the Seven Gables Inn had to reschedule our planning meeting. He wants to know if we can do eleven.”

“Eleven o’clock?” Lainie glanced at her watch and frowned. “That’s only fifteen minutes from now.”

“I know, but the next window he’s got isn’t for another week, and Halloween’s coming for us.”

“I have to print out the schedule and get my laptop.”

“I know. I’ll head over now and get started. You come on as soon as you’re done. Have fun with your fourth-graders.” Caro winked and sashayed away.

Lainie stood at the doorway to the store and eyed J.J. As though he’d felt her look, he glanced up. Definitely too gorgeous for his own good, she thought. The Vandyke had changed to a Fu Manchu, she saw, sharpening his chin, making that mouth of his look far too interesting.

A crash made her jump. She looked around to see a display of wands and spells scattered on the floor, courtesy of the boys with goblin heads.

“Richie, Matt, that’s enough,” the teacher scolded. “Now you go over and help clean that up.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Lainie said. “I’ll take care of it.” The last thing she wanted was for them to walk away with bad memories of the museum. She knelt down next to the colorful pile of plastic and glitter, righting the magenta canister that had held the wands.

Out of the corner of her eye saw J.J. head over. She glanced up at him.

And it took her breath.

She’d known he was there, she’d watched him walk over. Even so, there was something about the jolt of that blue gaze that sent adrenaline flooding through her system. She frowned at herself. It was one thing to have the heart-thudding thing happen when he’d popped up out of the blue. It shouldn’t be happening now.

He bent down next to her to help, picking up the packets and examining them. “Love potions?” he asked, holding one up.

She took it from him. “What’s the matter, Speed, losing your edge?”

“Not me.”

“What a relief. It would be the end of civilization as we know it. Although I use that term loosely where you’re concerned,” she added, picking up the rest of the wands and rising. “To what do we owe the honor of your presence?”

He grinned. “I’ve got an appointment.”

“In Salem?”

“In Boston.”

She snorted. “I hope you’re better at staying on the piste when you’re racing than you are at following directions. This isn’t Boston.”

“I thought something looked funny,” he replied.

“South. A long way south. The highway’s right out there,” she added helpfully.

He didn’t move. “Trying to get rid of me, Lainie?”

“Why, Speed, whatever would give you that idea?” She reached out to toy with a leaflet that promised step-by-step directions to putting a hex on someone.

“Should I be nervous that you’re holding on to that?”

“No, the time to get nervous is when I go after the voodoo doll.”

He gave her a quick glance. “You wouldn’t, by any chance, have broken one of those out already?” He rubbed his shoulder. “It would explain a lot.”

“No, it’s an inspiration I’ve never had until now. Worth keeping in mind, though,” she added thoughtfully. “Why, are you having problems?” Not that she should care, of course.

J.J. shrugged, a little stiffly, now that she noticed it. “Ah, I screwed up my shoulder back in July.”

“Screwed it up?”

“Dislocated the son of a bitch.”

“What, did you trip over your ego?”

He grinned. “Mountain biking.”

“I am so not surprised.”

Suddenly his eyes seemed darker and he was much closer than he had been. Suddenly she was neatly boxed in between him and the corner shelves. “You know, Lainie, one of these days I will surprise you.”

For an instant she didn’t move; she couldn’t. Then she forced herself to swallow with a throat gone bone dry. “Yeah, well, I’ll be right here holding my breath for when that happens.” She pushed past him, out into the center of the shop.

But he’d gotten to her in that moment, and he knew it. She could tell from the enjoyment flickering in his eyes.

“Gee, it’s been fun, J.J. I’ve got to get to a meeting,” she said briskly.

“Over at the Seven Gables Inn?” At her startled glance, he shrugged. “I heard you talking with your friend.”

“My boss, but yes at the Seven Gables Inn. Anyway, I’m late, I’ve got to go.”

“Nice day for a walk,” he added.

J.J. stood in the museum courtyard, waiting for Lainie. He wasn’t entirely sure what ridiculous impulse had led him to stop in Salem, only that when he had an impulse, he usually found it worthwhile to ride with it. Traffic had cooperated on the drive down from New Hampshire. When he’d glanced at the dash clock and seen that he had a few hours to kill, he hadn’t thought but just gone with the first thing that came to mind.

And in the two days that had passed since the party, Lainie had come to mind a lot.

It wasn’t an entirely unfamiliar situation. She’d always had a way of flickering through his thoughts at the most unexpected of times—when he was thousands of miles away, flying down an icy mountain, standing at a party in a room filled with the music of a dozen languages.

And sometimes, unsettlingly, in his dreams. Best not to think of that, he reminded himself. Better to banish those pulse-pounding images to the dark corners of his mind where they belonged. The problem was, this time out of the gate he wasn’t being so successful at the banishing stuff, maybe because he was at loose ends, maybe because he wasn’t involved with anyone.

Or maybe because of that moment at Gabe’s party, that strange little snap of connection that had whipped through his system before he’d been prepared for it.

“You still here?”

It was Lainie, frowning at him, laptop slung over her shoulder. She wasn’t wearing the little skirt and crop top this time but a long summer dress made of some intriguingly fragile-looking fabric that shimmered over the slip beneath and flowed around her calves like water.

It should have looked demure, with its faintly old-fashioned looking pattern of pale blossoms, but all it did was make him itch to unfasten the row of buttons that ran down the front, beginning with the hem and rising to where the fabric dipped down around the slender column of her throat. She wore a necklace with a single bead like a flat pearl, pierced from side to side with a string-thin leather thong so that it sat atop the hollow where her collarbones came together.

“Earth to J.J.”

He’d been staring, he realized.

“I have to go. You shouldn’t have waited.”

And she clearly hadn’t wanted him to, though that didn’t bother him. Not when he saw the faint pulse begin to beat in her throat. “Salem could be a tough town. I owe it to your parents not to let you walk around alone. Although—” he eyed the black bulk of her laptop case “—that thing probably counts as a lethal weapon.”

“Try to remember that,” she advised him.

He reached out and curved his fingers around the black webbing of the strap. Her eyes widened. “Maybe you’d better just give it to me to carry,” he said.

She tugged it back from him. “I thought you had a bad shoulder.”

“It’s the other one, and it’s getting better all the time,” he told her. She finally gave up, and he slung the bag over his shoulder, trying not to look smug. “So, where to?”

She didn’t bother answering, just headed toward the iron gates that led to the street, and the trapezoidal town common beyond.

She could needle him, she could pretend all she liked that she didn’t want him around. He knew better.

He was used to women with quick hungers, women who knew what they wanted. And what they wanted was him. He’d had more memorable times than he could count and none of them were anything as hot as that moment in the gift shop when he’d stood just a little too close to Lainie and seen the flare of desire in her eyes.

He wasn’t sure what to think about it, what to do about it except that he knew there was no way he was just going to walk away.

Not until he figured it out.

She didn’t know what he thought he was up to, but the last thing she needed before an important meeting was a distraction. Especially a distraction like J. J. Cooper. Out of habit, Lainie walked between the stone pillars that led into the common itself. Even if it was only a few dozen yards, she liked wending her way along the graceful oaks and the grass-edged paths instead of the narrow concrete sidewalk that threaded along the street. On drowsy, Indian summer mornings like this one, it was quiet and tranquil.

Usually.

She blew out a breath.

“Careful,” J.J. said. “Hyperventilating isn’t good for you.”

Lainie glanced to the heavens for patience and headed toward the side of the common by the hotel.

The warm breeze slipped over her skin as they walked a few steps in silence. “Nice common,” J.J. said. “Do you spend a lot of time here?”

“Sometimes.”

“I can see why you would. It must be something in the fall. There are some beautiful places in the world, but there’s nothing quite like New England.”

Lainie stopped to stare at him. “I thought you had an appointment.”

“I’ve got time.” He just smiled and began ambling again with that loose, careless stride. He didn’t move with the controlled grace of an athlete, and yet something in the way he held himself suggested that he could do just about anything he wanted to with that body of his.

Like she needed to think of that.

Lainie made an impatient noise and caught up with him. “What’s the appointment?”

“Dry-land training. Rehab.”

She snorted. “I don’t think you can be rehabilitated. I think you’re stuck with yourself just as you are. And so are we, sadly.”

It didn’t do a thing to wipe away that confident grin. “You know, you talk tough, but deep down inside, I think you’ve got a soft spot for me.” For an instant, there was something almost velvety in his voice.

“So young to have terminal delusions,” she said.

“In fact, I think deep down inside, you can’t resist me.”

“It’ll be an enormous effort, but I think I can just about see my way to it. In fact, I think I’ll manage pretty well.” She threaded her way between the stone pillars on the side of the common and started across the street to the Seven Gables Inn.

“I don’t know if I buy that.”

There it was again, that velvet note. He flicked a glance at her and their gazes tangled for a moment. Awareness of him dragged at her like some kind of a gravitational field. His smile this time was slow, almost dangerous.

A horn tapped and Lainie realized that she’d come to a stop in the middle of the street. “Well, you stand right here until you’re sure.” She shook her head and strode across the pavement as he followed. “Anyway, you told me why you’re going to Boston. That doesn’t explain why you’re here harassing me.”

“Because it’s so much fun?”

“There’s something deeply twisted about you,” she muttered.

He laughed in genuine amusement. “So I’ve been told.”

“Why are you here? A town like Salem can’t hold anything for a guy like you.”

“Maybe I came here to sightsee.”

Lainie snorted. “Next thing you’ll be telling me is that you came here to get your fortune told by the Salem witch.”

“No. I came here because I wanted to see you,” he said simply.

It stopped her in her tracks. In the middle of the sidewalk that ran in front of the plate glass windows of the hotel, cars whizzing past in the street, she turned to stare into those blue-gray eyes. And for the first time since she’d been twelve, found herself at a loss for words with him. She moistened her lips. “Why?”

He reached out for her hand. Heat vaulted up her arm, making her dizzy. “I don’t know,” he said, staring at her palm as though the answer might be there. “I thought maybe I’d figure it out when I got here.”

And suddenly she was very afraid of hearing what that answer was. “I have to go,” she said faintly, telling herself to pull her hand away. But instead she just stood there, staring stupidly at him.

“I know.” He placed something in her fingers and closed them over it, then raised her hand to his lips.

Heat bloomed through her, making her dizzy. She wouldn’t let him throw her off balance, wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of playing Casanova and making her look the fool.

“Is that one of those moves you’ve learned in Europe?” Lainie asked unsteadily.

“We haven’t even scratched the surface of what I’ve learned in Europe yet,” J.J. said. “I’ll see you around, Lainie.”

And he turned and walked away.

She opened her hand and found one of the serenity stones they sold in the gift shop.

Carved into its surface was the word beginnings.

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