Witch Way to Turn by Karen Y. Bynum Page B

the doubt? And what had Myles expected her to say when he’d said he cared about her?
    Ever since the blue light shot out of her hands and she’d woken up in Myles’s apartment, things were different between them. She couldn’t nail it down exactly, but her relationship with Myles had changed. What that meant, she didn’t know. But every fiber of her being told her something wasn’t right.
    She dried off, put on a couple more layers of makeup than her norm then slipped into the billowy, satin dress. It was beautiful. She felt beautiful, and hell, she deserved to go out with someone who liked her wholeheartedly. Someone who didn’t pull back every time they got close.
    Fussing with her hair, she heard a knock at the front door. She decided to leave her hair down.
    Orin wore a charcoal gray, two-button suit with a forest green tie that matched her dress. His bangs were perfectly swept to the side and the golden ring around his green eyes almost twinkled as he looked at her
    “You look stunning.” He held out a small clear plastic box.
    A wave of heat flooded her cheeks. “What’s this?”
    “For you.” He lifted the lid to pull out the corsage. African violets. “They remind me of your eyes.”
    She let him place the flowers on her wrist. “Thank you. I love it. And the dress.” She did a quick twirl.
    “I’m glad.” When Orin smiled, she couldn’t remember what she’d been worrying about earlier.
    And she didn’t want to.
     

 
    Chapter 10
     
    Did Orin just order for her?
    Hell’s bells.
    So not cool.Breena knew how petty it seemed, but the little things turned into big things.
    Of course, he had bought her the awesome dress, and she was pretty sure he’d spring for dinner too. She’d never been to Cafe 242 before, a fancy by-reservation-only kind of place with very little seating. The restaurant–a renovated Victorian house located at 242 Main Street in downtown Hickory–was the closest “big city dining” within an hour’s drive.
    Still. She made her own decisions.Myles couldn’t tell her who to date, and Orin wasn’t going to tell her what to eat. Petty-schmetty.
    “Excuse me, ma’am.” Breena looked at the waitress. “I’d like the fillet, medium well, and the potatoes au gratin with a sweet tea.”
    “Certainly.” She took their menus.
    Orin eyed her for a minute before his sexy laugh burst from his lips. “Feisty tonight.” As he reached across the table to stroke her knuckles, his ears rose. But they retracted in less time than it took for her to blink. No one would even notice, considering how dark they kept the room.
    Cutting her gaze to him, she pursed her lips with a raised brow for added effect. A modified Jenny-move.
    “Sorry, Breena. I don’t normally do this. I thought ordering for a woman was part of dating etiquette.”
    “Um, maybe in the 1950s. What don’t you normally do?”
    “Date, per se.”
    “What do you normally do?” She immediately regretted the question.
    He thought for a minute. “Stuff.”
    Oh boy, did she imagine stuff. She even imagined them doing stuff. But she told herself that would be moving too fast. She wouldn’t make the same mistake she’d made with the computer geek.
    “So you mean to tell me, in three hundred years you’ve never had a girlfriend?”
    “Guilty.” He looked sheepish.
    “Why?”
    “My job keeps me…” He looked down at his hands, opened them flat, palm-side up. “Busy.”
    “Here you are.” The waitress handed Breena her sweet tea and set Orin’s water in front of him along with a mini loaf of bread.
    When the waitress flitted off to check on other customers, Breena turned her attention to Orin. “Why won’t you talk about your job? Are you part of the mob?”
    “No. But I did realize the other night what I do for a living isn’t always right.” He sawed into the bread with a dull steak knife and lifted a piece in her direction as if to change the subject.
    He wasn’t getting off that easily. “What