Witchful Thinking Read Online Free Page A

now.
    “If you had listened to me, none of this would have happened.” His tone wasn’t angry, more wistful than anything, as if he were imagining a completely different outcome, one in which he’d been spared from witnessing my death.
    I shook my head and smiled up at him. “No harm, no foul.”
    “So stubborn.” He chuckled. “Jolie.” He tilted my chin up and gazed down at me lovingly. “It’s been too long since the last time I kissed you.”
    Before I could even respond, his warm and sumptuous lips were on mine and I melted into him, feeling my body wilt against his. He chuckled and held me more firmly, running his hands through my hair as I felt his tongue enter my mouth. Suddenly, in my own mind, I was transported back to 1878 when Rand loved me freely and neither of us had to hold back. The thought depressed me so much I thought I might start crying. So I pulled away, thinking I should focus on the rest of my story. I had to get it out in the open, just to get it over and done with.
    “I nearly froze to death when I arrived in 1878 but two maids helped me. One was named Elsie.”
    Elsie had been one of the attendants at Pelham Manor, the same manor Rand now inhabited and owned. But in 1878, it had belonged to Rand’s best friend, William Pelham. Upon Pelham’s death, William had bequeathed his property to Rand. Either way, the name Elsie wasn’t ringing any bells in Rand’s head. I could tell by the blank look in his eyes.
    “It was Pelham Manor, Rand,” I admitted finally. “Mercedes was responsible for bringing me back in time to Pelham Manor.”
    He blinked for a few seconds and then eyed me inquisitively.“Pelham died in 1878. I was in residence at the manor.”
    Hmm, about Pelham dying—that was another issue I had to address with Rand, but it wasn’t at the top of my list. I’d sort of taken it upon myself to heal Pelham while I’d been his guest. As it was told, Pelham had died of cholera, but the ailing man I’d cured seemed to be dying of something else; his symptoms were different from those of a cholera patient. Well, I’d have to shelve that subject for another day. Now I had more serious stuff to get off my chest. Big stuff.
    “Yes,” I said firmly. “You were there.”
    “I was there?” he repeated, his eyes narrowing as he considered my words.
    “You gave me your mother’s ring.”
    He shook his head as if he was finding it difficult to believe. “I have no recollection of any of this,” he said and pulled away from me, beginning to pace as he always did when agitated. “When I first met you in your store, there was nothing that seemed in any way familiar about you.”
    I nodded, but I had no clue what the laws were about time travel either. “I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe I didn’t seem familiar because you didn’t know me yet at that point? Maybe technically you hadn’t met me yet?”
    “But if you traveled to 1878, we had already met—over one hundred years earlier.”
    I shook my head. Somehow I had to tell him that we’d bonded. But suddenly it was like a figurative light switch went off in my head. Rand and I were no longer bonded. Of that I was convinced, because when you’re bonded with someone you’re one with them—you can feel the same emotions they do, hear their thoughts. And I couldn’t feel any of Rand’s emotions. Nor could I hear his thoughts, and it didn’t appear that he was cognizant of mine. In traveling back to my own time and Randnearly dying, the bond between us had to have been destroyed … We were two separate beings. With this discovery I felt nothing but an isolating numbness.
    I swallowed hard as I further considered it. There was a big chance that Rand might not take news of our bonding very well. Bonding had nearly killed him, and I didn’t imagine that would be easy to swallow, especially since over the past one hundred years he’d carried with him the void of believing that his partner had died. So, really,