Making Magic by Donna June Cooper Read Free Book Online

aspirin, crumpled takeout bags and a dirty white towel—probably the dog’s.
    He carefully moved the laptop, book bags, briefcase and shoes into a niche in the backseat between a stock pot crammed with towels and a wooden block full of knives, then he cleaned out all the trash and sat the flute case on the console. Walking back around, he opened the driver’s door, reached in and unbuckled Thea from her seat.
    The dog growled at him and Thea protested with a slur of words he couldn’t understand. He frowned, reached for the dirty towel and tossed it over the dog. It seemed to help. Then he steeled himself for the complaint of his injured muscles, leaned in and scooped Thea up, dog and all.
    The Woodsman’s granddaughter. That was the way he had always thought of her back then. Even at nineteen, his deep respect for the man had kept him from any lascivious thoughts about her. That and her temperament. He hadn’t nicknamed her “Matchstick” just because of her auburn hair. Now, here he was with his arms around her. Of course, she was practically unconscious and her stinky dog was along for the ride.
    And from the feel of it, both of them were a bit too skinny. He looked around as he carried her to the other side of the car, but no one was really up this early on a Saturday to remark on him manhandling an unconscious woman. The dog only growled once from beneath the towel as Jake settled Thea gently into the passenger side.
    Some of Ouida’s cooking and Grace’s remedies would get her back into fine shape. Not that her shape wasn’t real fine right now. He squeezed his arm between her and the growling dog to get the buckle on the seat belt to engage. She needed a tad bit more padding though, so she didn’t blow away in a stiff breeze.
    He picked up the flute case and started to slip it in at her feet, but her hands reached out and grasped it, pulling it to rest across her and the dog. “Thanks,” she said.
    Watching her curl one arm around the case and the other around the filthy stray in her lap, he wondered about Thea and her precious things.

Chapter Three
    “You precious baby. Precious, precious girl,” an unfamiliar voice cooed above Thea. “Come with your Auntie Mel and we’ll clean you right up.”
    The warm but very smelly burden she had been holding was lifted out of her arms. Thea tried to open her eyes and protest, but couldn’t manage it.
    “Bailey?” she said, but it came out garbled. She couldn’t get her mouth to operate properly either.
    “I think she rescued it somewhere along the way.” That was Jake’s voice. “She wasn’t making much sense.”
    “Well it’s no wonder.” And that was Grace. Thea smiled. At last. Now she knew she’d made it home. When soft cool fingers stroked her forehead, Thea finally slid into a dreamless, untroubled sleep.
    It was the rumble of her empty stomach that finally woke her. For a while she blinked at the bedside table, then at the wall. She had been in the car and there had been a dog. And then there had been Jake Moser.
    She closed her eyes in embarrassment. Wonderful. And he had carried her. Even more wonderful.
    But she was home, in her old room from the looks of it. Where was Bailey? She ran her hand frantically down her body and found she had been stripped out of her disgusting clothes and had someone else’s nightgown on. Then she felt a warm weight resting against her backside and turned over to find a strange white dog staring at her, wagging its stubby tail.
    “Bailey?” The dog bounced on top of her and licked her face. “Is that you, girl? Where’s the rest of you?”
    She recognized those huge expressive eyes, though. Definitely Bailey. But she was so very skinny now, stripped of all her hair. Who on earth had taken on the Herculean task of clipping off all that filthy mess and bathing her as well? She smelled far better than Thea did at the moment.
    There was a polite knock on the door. “Sissy, you awake in there?”
    That voice