Serena's Magic by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online Page A

dropped her purse from her lap. She ducked after it.
    “I’ll get it, Serena,” Marc murmured.
    “No, no,” she gasped. It wouldn’t take long enough for her to merely retrieve her purse. She hit the clasp with what she prayed was an unobtrusive motion and allowed its contents to spill out. She closed her eyes for a second as she heard the clink of glass upon the table.
    But then the waitress was asking if she could help.
    “No, really!” Serena called up from the floor brightly. “I just about have everything.” She was sure Marc was thinking her crazy now—and wondering why the hell she had picked this particular evening to apparently lose her grace and dignity. But things could be far worse.
    “What are you doing down there?” Jerry demanded.
    “My, ah, lipstick rolled.”
    It really had. Serena slipped from her chair to reach far beneath the table. She began to shimmy back out, then noted with horror a pair of boots on the other side of the table. Somehow she knew before she heard the voice.
    “Excuse me, but what are those things?”
    Jerry Kloon laughed and beckoned the waitress to return with the drink menu. And Serena froze.
    Marc dipped his head quickly during the exchange.
    “Serena! Would you get off the floor!” he hissed.
    He noticed the interchange. “Have you dropped something? Allow me.”
    She tried to get to her feet, but her heel caught her dress. She was still on the floor as he came around. She was forced to slowly, slowly meet his eyes as he knelt before her.
    He didn’t say a word; the shock registered in his eyes. She gave him a look of raw horror that mixed once more with the electrical impact of feeling him near once more.
    She literally wanted to die.
    But some self-preservation instinct suddenly rose to save her. She accepted her lipstick from his frozen, outstretched hand and managed to get to her feet. “Thank you,” she mumbled before dashing out an “Excuse me” and finally making good her retreat—a mad dash out of the lounge and into that sanctity of sanctities, the ladies’ room.
    It was the coward’s way out, she chastised herself. She should have had some cool. She should have thought of something to say—she should have managed to pretend she had never seen him before in her life. Right now she should set her chin high and waltz back in to regain her seat with calm and poise.
    No way.
    She remained in the ladies’ room for a good ten minutes. Even for Marc, even for the cause of his book, she couldn’t walk back into that lounge. Her mind began ticking; she prayed that the man would retreat with his knowledge of the drink. They were in Boston; he might be staying in that hotel. Maybe there was a weight lifters convention, a Mr. America contest going on. He had only been on a day excursion to Salem; she wouldn’t run into him again.
    Marc and Jerry would eventually have to leave the lounge.
    Marc was probably going to want to kill her.
    But so, apparently, did he , Joe Jock. She had seen it in his shocked stare. And he was definitely the worst of two evils.
    No, no, no, she was not going back in the lounge. Not if the devil rose from hell to drag her in.
    She began to wish that she were a practicing witch, that she could cast a spell that would make the ground open beneath his feet and swallow him up in a single bite. Or that she could cast a spell that would glue his tongue to the roof of his mouth, make each of those defined muscles of his weigh a ton and drag him halfway through to China.
    Oh, God! How had a single day turned her life into a nightmare?
    She washed her face with cool water and gritted her teeth as she ventured out into the hallway. Thank God. Jerry and Marc were walking from the lounge toward her. Marc looked puzzled and not a little angry; Jerry Kloon merely looked concerned. Serena looked carefully for anyone behind them, but they were alone. She waved a hand. “Here I am.”
    She walked toward them with an apology on her lips. “Please,