Serpent's Kiss: A Witches of East End Novel Read Online Free Page A

Norman had been gathering some momentum, the machine sounded a long beep, cutting him off. It reminded her of that Gong Show from the 1970s and she laughed out loud.
    “Hi, this is Harold Atkins calling Joanna Beauchamp,” piped in yet another male voice, this one more self-assured and to the point. “I wanted to follow up on that little conversation we had about letting me take you out to dinner. I heard about some new place down by the waterfront. Would you like to try it out? By the way, how’s that raven of yours? Hope to see you soon. Tomorrow at the preschool? Are you picking up Tyler?”
    Harold Atkins, a dashing gentleman widower, had recently moved to North Hampton. His daughter and son-in-law, both doctors at the local hospital, worked long rotation hours. Harold had proposed that rather than raise little Clay with a series of nannies who came and went, better to have the child’s own grandfather for the job. He was retired from his veterinarian practice in New York City and had nothing keeping him there any longer. His wife had died of ovarian cancer three years earlier, and the city was filled with painful reminders of the woman he had dearly loved. So Harold had sold his Manhattan brownstone for a handsome sum to buy a house on the beach in North Hampton and be a grandpa.
    Joanna didn’t find Harold’s message intrusive; it was flattering that he had taken such an interest in her instead of that bunch of sexy grannies at the preschool. What did Freya call them? Not cougars— snow leopards —slim, glossy silver–haired ladies with their light work (expressionless foreheads), weekly manicures, and monthly visits to the salon, who eagerly sidled up to him or threw him salacious sidelong glances. Harold was a very young, very urbane-looking seventy-year-old, and it didn’t hurt that he was also rich.
    She and Harold had become friendly since early September when school had started, and he always appeared especially pleased to see Joanna. She had noticed that her jeans fit more loosely lately; maybe it was that she had lost a few of her extra pounds and didn’t look so bad herself. She and Harold had exchanged numbers to set up playdates for Tyler and Clay, who were buddies.
    It’s raining men , she thought with a sudden bout of angst. How funny to find herself the object of two suitors. Norman wanted to talk. What was it that would be “truly terrific,” she wondered. It was hard to imagine stodgy old Norm excited about anything. He was so ensconced in academia, very much fulfilled by life in the ivory tower—although his small, monastic cell had elicited a twinge of sadness in her. Now here was Harold Atkins asking her out on a date. The truth was that Joanna had grown comfortable in her singlehood; she enjoyed being alone. Plus she had Tyler now, who took up much of her thoughts, although perhaps it was a way to assuage the longing she felt in her son’s absence. Joanna deleted both messages and replied to neither.
    It was all so overwhelming. But finally she had to admit hearing from the two men wasn’t what was troubling her. Something was not sitting right, and it had to do with the girls, Freya in particular. Freya was hiding something. Joanna could not exactly pinpoint how she knew, but she trusted her mother’s instinct that something was wrong.

chapter four
Girls, Girls, Girls
     
    There was someone skulking around the Dragon , and even asleep Freya heard it: creaking in the crew cabin starboard, then in the salon and kitchen galley. It wasn’t Killian. He was lying next to her with his arm looped around her waist. She needed to wake up but couldn’t quite push past the layers of sleep to the surface. There was the noise again. This time it was footsteps on the companionway. She forced her eyes open, her ears finely attuned, but now there was nothing. The night was still, and the only noise was Killian’s soft breathing.
    The glow from the lights on the dock shone through the portholes