Beguiled by Maureen Child Read Free Book Online Page A

“Who is he?”
    Apparently, the opportunity to talk about the great Devon was too good to miss. Even if it meant speaking to an adult you were trying to ignore.
    “He is so cool, Maggie. He’s new in town and he’s totally cute and all of the girls like him, but he likes me and he’s really smart and funny and—”
    “New?” Maggie stopped at a red light and slid a glance at her niece. The girl’s eyes were sparkling and her cheeks were flushed. Oh God, she was in love. “How new?”
    “He moved here last week and Amber told me today that he told her that he kinda liked me and then when you were late picking me up, he showed up and kept me company and he was totally nice and he likes the same music as I do and the same TV shows and”—she paused for breath, but first had to give a little sigh of female satisfaction—“he is sooo cute.”
    Maggie took from that that Eileen’s best friend, Amber, was the go-between until Maggie herself had given new boy an opening to talk to Eileen himself. Should she be glad the kid had arrived to keep Eileen company? Maybe. And maybe she should just worry about this a while longer.
    “Does he go to your school?”
    “What? Oh. I don’t think so. I only see him after school sometimes.”
    Didn’t go to school there. And he was new in town?
    Was he human new? Or demon new? Was he really a teenage boy with rampaging hormones? Or was he some kind of bizarre creature with different plans entirely? God, she didn’t know which of those two bad ideas to hope for. And how would she ever know for sure?
    Only one way. She’d have to get this Devon alone at some point and blow Faery dust on him. If he exploded, then she’d know he was a demon and she’d apologize to Eileen later. If he didn’t , then he’d just think Maggie was weird and she’d apologize to Eileen later.
    Seriously? When had her life gotten so peculiar?
    “I went on the Internet again at the library,” Eileen was saying, and Maggie pushed her own thoughts away to listen up. Apparently, they were finished with Devon for the moment, which was okay by Maggie.
    “The librarian is so a control freak.” Reaching down for her backpack, Eileen unzipped it, pulled out a sheaf of folded papers and straightened again. “She like hovers over us when we’re online like we’re going to be attacked by some cyber monster or something, even though they’ve got so many child locks on the computers, we can barely sign on.”
    “It’s her job,” Maggie said, stepping on the gas, then signaling to pass a car moving so slowly it was practically going backward. But, she thought, this is how it would be for the next few weeks at least.
    With Thanksgiving over, the hard-core shoppers would be cluttering up Main Street every day between now and Christmas. There would be traffic jams, too many tourists looking to buy something from one of the gift shops and not enough parking spots for the locals.
    But all the storekeepers in town would be happily ringing up their cash registers, hoping to make enough to tide them over during the slower times until their next big season, summer.
    “Did you get your driver’s license in a pet store?” Maggie shouted at the woman who had stopped dead in the middle of the street to make an illegal U-turn.
    While Maggie tapped her fingers impatiently against the steering wheel, Eileen said, “Someone should tell the librarian that seventy-two percent of all children thwarted in their attempts to use computers become cyber-hackers in retaliation.”
    Maggie snorted and glanced at her niece. “ Thwarted ? What’re you, thirty?”
    Eileen grinned and just like that, she was back to being her old self again, irritations—and budding romance—forgotten. “It’s a good word, huh? I saw it online and had to use it.”
    To support one of the statistics she was forever quoting. Maggie wasn’t sure where she picked up all of these obscure facts, but she was pretty sure Eileen made up most of