ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      Margot Early has written stories since she was twelve years old. She has published more than twenty books with Harlequin Books; her work has been translated into nine languages and sold in sixteen countries. Ms. Early lives high in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains with two German shepherds and several other pets, including snakes and tarantulas. She enjoys the outdoors, dance and spinning dog hair.

      A man who believed me to be a witch once asked me,

       quite gravely, if I’d put a spell on him. I thought it a remarkable question and told him, “Not on you.” This book is for him.

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      EPILOGUE

      CHAPTER ONE

      Logan, West Virginia

      MARY ANNE DREW was at her desk at The Logan Standard and the Miner when Cameron brought the news. Cameron, who was Mary Anne’s first cousin and best friend, grabbed a chair and straddled it, facing Mary Anne. “They’re engaged.”

      Mary Anne did not ask who. She said, “No,” in a way that was sort of like a prayer.

      Her face showing that she knew she was causing pain, Cameron said, “Yes. Angie and her friends were drinking martinis at the Face last night and Rhonda waited on them, and she told me that’s the news. She doesn’t have a ring yet, though.”

      It couldn’t be true. Mary Anne smothered her feelings in a cascade of repetitions of this thought.

      She’d been in love with Jonathan Hale for four years, ever since he’d arrived in Logan from Cincinnati to manage the public radio station, WLGN. She’d never experienced anything like it. At first, she’d thought nothing of the tall dark-haired man with his wire-rimmed glasses and matter-of-fact manner. Yes, she’d been impressed with the time he’d spent working overseas as a correspondent for Reuters. She knew he’d seen dreadful things in war zones, things he didn’t discuss. Then, one day when she’d come in to record an essay, he’d sat listening and watching her with brooding intensity. Afterward, he’d said, “That was good work, Mary Anne. I’m going to try to get it out to as many other stations as I can.”

      She’d looked into his blue eyes and she had felt something that was almost like an arrow through the heart. She’d never understood where that image of Eros had come from until that moment; she’d been nailed by the arrows of Aphrodite’s son. The sheer force of the experience convinced her that Jonathan Hale was meant to be hers.

      She believed it still.

      Cameron asked, “Are you okay?”

      “Sure.”

      No, she wasn’t okay! She was dying. How could she go through the next five minutes, let alone the rest of her life, knowing that Jonathan Hale planned to wed that tacky and tiny thing, Angie Workman, who was manager of the Blooming Rose, the closest thing Logan had to a boutique. To bolster the notion that this news meant nothing to her, she said, “Aren’t you working?”

      Cameron was director of the Logan County Women’s Resource Center, located next door to the newspaper office.

      “Coffee break. A client’s mother came in and told her marriage is for life and she’s ashamed that her own daughter should seek a divorce from the fine man who broke three bones in her face last week. She wound up by calling yours truly and our legal-aid attorney godless man-haters. I’m cooling off.” Cameron switched back to Mary Anne’s concerns. “I have a last-chance idea. Just for fun. Not that it will work. But it would be fun to find out if it could work.”

      Mary Anne studied her cousin. Like Mary Anne, Cameron was blond—or somewhat blond. They had the same light brown hair, which became lighter in the sun. But there the resemblance ended.

      Cameron, to Mary Anne’s envy, was small. In fact, genes had granted her the kind of body that was currently in vogue—boyishly small hips and a pair of tatas that made men stare. She was a natural athlete who never drove if she could walk, run or ride a bike to get where she needed to go. Her idea of a good time on weekends was leading Women of Strength events for the women from the resource center’s shelter. She had a black belt in tae kwon do and was an experienced caver. Mary Anne, on the other hand, knew that her own rear end would benefit from less time in chairs and in the driver’s seat of her car.

      Cameron was five foot five. Mary Anne was five foot ten. And Mary Anne lived for haute couture—after all, before settling in Logan she had worked for two different women’s magazines in New York and could swear that everything in The Devil Wears Prada was true. Cameron’s clothes came from thrift shops. Mary Anne indulged in highlights, and Cameron wouldn’t dream of it. Mary Anne was an editor and reporter for The Logan Standard and the Miner; Cameron had the aforementioned challenging job of