Yesterday's Magic by Beverly Long Read Free Book Online

that?
Hadn’t he promised to protect the citizens?
    So just where the hell had he been the night
her father had run into Toomay? Was he at home, yearning for his
old life, his old job? If he’d been at the saloon, watching out for
trouble, her father would have never needed to follow Toomay up
those steps. The curse would never have been made.
    Maybe if he’d done his job, she wouldn’t have
had to leave her own family, her own job, her own time.
     
     

CHAPTER THREE
     
    Aunt Freida woke Bella up in the middle of
the night. She seemed to not only expect her to get up but to also
be cheerful about it. She set a lantern down onto the table next to
Bella’s bed. “It’s six o’clock, Girl. Time to get up.”
    “Six a.m. ? Bella asked, her eyes still
closed.
    “Well, it sure as heck isn’t six p.m. ,” Aunt Freida replied, sounding amused.
    There was nothing remotely funny about this
situation. Especially since Bella had managed to put off a trip
outside the night before which now caused her bladder to feel like
it was about to burst. “I have to…use the…uh…privy.”
    “I imagine you do. Once you get back inside
and get washed up, I’ll have ham and eggs ready for you.”
    No one had cooked her breakfast for the last
ten years. Neither Averil nor her father ever ate breakfast. But it
had always been Bella and her mother’s favorite meal together. Once
her mother had died, she’d stopped eating it and had started up the
practice of having a donut or a muffin mid-morning.
    Suddenly going outside to pee didn’t seem all
that horrible. Bella threw back her covers. “Give me ten
minutes.”
    Aunt Freida nodded and backed out of the
room. Bella swung her legs over the bed and gasped when her bare
feet hit the cold wood floor. She reached for her suitcase and
pulled out the dress on top. It was pale yellow with long puffy
sleeves. The waist was cinched tight and there was a ten inch
ruffle around the bottom of the long skirt.
    She stared at it, thinking it looked sort of
familiar. She held it up against her body and it suddenly came to
her. Averil regularly had her nose in a romance novel and this
dress was an exact replica of one that the heroine wore on the
cover of the book that was currently on Averil’s bedside table.
    Oh good grief. Averil had been desperate
enough to use magic but not confident enough to act without props.
Bella reached inside the case again and grabbed a bra and panties.
Averil had done her best to convince her to wear some kind of loose
cotton panties and a corset but Bella had drawn the line. There was
no way she was leaving her new Victoria Secret purchases at home.
Averil had been worried that her underwear would give her away but
Bella wasn’t worried about that—nobody was getting close enough to
see her underwear on this trip.
    Bradley had liked her underwear. Maybe even
loved it. After all, he’d said he loved her—that probably included
her underwear.
    She hadn’t loved him. Not his red silk bikini
briefs or his hand-sewn leather briefcase or his shiny Mercedes.
She’d tried. Bradley was responsible. He was a vice president at
one of the largest banks in Chicago. Averil had introduced them
after she’d done some management consulting work for his
company.
    He’d done everything right. Flowers,
candlelight dinners, long weekends at the ski chalet. Most any
woman would have been thrilled. Bella had been bored out of her
mind.
    Finally, when she hadn’t been able to stand
another fancy bottle of wine, she’d called it quits. He’d asked for
an explanation and she’d given him the best one she could.
    Bradley, you make me laugh but never hard
enough that I fall on the floor and pee my pants. You make me cry
but never hard enough that I lose my breath and get the
hiccups.
    She could have added You make me come but
never hard enough that I forget that’s what I’m supposed to do. After all, she didn’t think she needed to be deliberately
cruel.
    He’d left more