Interrupted Magic by Karla Brandenburg (best reads of all time .TXT) 📕

accepted that his daughter shared a family tie with me, but judging by the way he shifted his shoulders, he was uncomfortable sharing “feelings.” I broke the tension by asking about Georgia. “Has she shown any more family traits?”

He grimaced. “You said LeAnne and Georgia canceled each other out.”

“They did, but they didn’t fulfill the requirements of the spell. I know LeAnne lost her extra abilities because the harm she sent out reflected to her. As for Georgia, the spell was incomplete. While she might well be what you’d call normal again, she might be more along the lines of normal like me.” Or at least like I used to be. My extra abilities had disappeared, too. “She might still grow into her gifts, or they might be dormant.”

Jason winced. “Can we not talk about this right now? Everything has been fine. Good. Normal. I’m hoping it stays that way.”

I nodded. “Thanks for sharing with me.”

He made a move to start for the dining room and stopped. “This guy. The one you got close to. My two cents as a man says he got what he wanted and moved on. Sorry to be so blunt, but if he really cared, you wouldn’t be wondering if he was out of the picture.”

We’d already shared more of our personal lives than we ever had. He didn’t need to know the details. “It is what it is.” I swallowed the pain of Ian’s rejection one more time and followed Jason to the dining room.

Conversation centered on the usual getting-to-know you stuff with Travis, what he did at the bank where he and Jeannine worked, how they met, if his family was in the area. Everything seemed benign. No confrontations, no passive-aggressive jabs.

I stared at my plate, pushing the pasta around, afraid to take a bite. Even the garlic bread threatened to send me to the bathroom again. Instead, I drank my water.

Travis asked Jason about the kids, and Jason told him about his first wife, LeAnne, leaving out the details about her hidden talents and how she’d enchanted Jason to increase her chances of having a “gifted” child. Instead, he talked about how he’d always regretting breaking up with Sharon when LeAnne had turned his head. He took Sharon’s hand and smiled at her. “We managed to work through that and now we’re right where we were meant to be.”

Sharon beamed under his attention. She was so different from LeAnne, who’d courted my hidden abilities when her talents had been suppressed by pregnancy hormones.

My heart skipped a beat and the world around me went fuzzy. I took a measured breath and a sip of water.

Pregnant?

Jeannine clasped my hand under the table and leaned toward me. “I’m worried about you,” she whispered.

That made two of us. I cleared my throat once more. “You know,” I said, addressing the table, “I don’t think I’m feeling well after all. Would you mind if I left early?”

“Do you want me to drive you?” Jason asked.

I shook my head. “No. I can make it.” Along with a stop at a drug store for a pregnancy test that no one else needed to know about.

I couldn’t be.

I closed my eyes to remember the last time I’d had a period. I’d had one Fourth of July weekend. Had I had a period in August? Yes. Tomorrow was September first. Nothing to panic about. Calculating thirty-one days in August, I was a couple of days late according to my 28-day cycle. Stress would do that. Right?

White spots exploded inside my head with the ensuing panic, and I spilled my glass of water when I tried to set it down.

Jason pushed away from the table. “I’m taking you home.”

I held up my palms. “No. I’ll be okay. I promise. I’m so sorry. I guess everything is catching up with me.”

Georgia ran to me and threw her arms around my legs. “Don’t go.”

I bent to hug her, grateful for the love of this child, for the family I’d never expected to have around me. “I’ll come visit you again soon, okay sweetie? Or your mommy can bring you to visit me. I promise.”

Georgia pouted but nodded.

Jason stood beside me, studying me intently. “You sure you’re okay to drive?”

I nodded and forced a smile. “I can call you when I get home.”

“Do that.”

I squeezed his hand, grabbed my purse and left.

Inside my car, I rested my head on the steering wheel. The ginger tea I’d mixed as a special order was still on the seat beside me. I hadn’t sold it. Was it meant for me?

I turned the key and started toward home, watching for a drug store along the way. The first one was within the first two miles. I stopped, went inside and stared at the pregnancy tests on the shelf, my pulse racing.

I couldn’t be.

No harm buying one, either way. Knowing was better than worrying.

What would Ian say? Should I tell him?

Cart, meet horse. I held my breath and grabbed a box from the shelf. The checkout clerk gave me a secretive smile and slipped the box into a bag as I paid for it.

Pratt was on the way home—sort of. I took the detour and found myself in the turnaround across from Ian’s folly. Should I knock on the door? I glanced at my phone, at the lack of response to my last text. If I told him I was pregnant, he’d probably think the baby was Kyle’s.

I couldn’t be sure I was pregnant, not before tomorrow morning, at any rate, if then.

I sat in the turnaround for fifteen minutes, tears streaming down my face—tears likely released by elevated hormones.

All these tears might be due to PMS. My period was due. Overdue. Ian didn’t need to be subjected to this.

I blew my nose, wiped my eyes and drove home.

I set the bag from the drugstore on my kitchen counter and stared it down.

Ash came bounding through the house and leapt to the counter beside me. She arched her back under