Bad Boys Southern Style. JoAnn Ross

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      He was idly flipping through the pages while the phone rang and he paused on a scene where Brianna, Morganna’s virginal good witch twin—who represented the white magic side of the duo—made love to a mortal male in a sacred circle of stones.

      The black and white frame depicting the snow falling on the naked lovers caused the dream to come crashing back in vivid detail, which in turn had the muscles in his belly knotting painfully.

      “Hello,” the familiar voice on the other end of the line answered. At least that’s what he thought she’d said. It was difficult to tell with all that hot blood roaring in his ears.

      “Hey, Emma, darlin’.” His southern drawl, a legacy from those halcyon days growing up in Savannah, rasped with unsatisfied lust as he struggled to drag his testosterone-crazed mind back to reality. “I’ve got a favor to ask.”

      Five minutes later, Sloan was online, booking a flight to Savannah.

      Then went into the bathroom for yet another cold shower. One he damn well hoped would be his last.

      Four

      Seven months after her grand opening, thanks, in part, to Savannah’s tourism trade, business was booming. Enough so that Roxi had even been able to hire a part-time employee, a descendent of a long line of voodoo practitioners who moonlighted as the lead singer in the Papa Legba Voodoo Priestesses.

      Named for the most powerful of all the voodoo spirits, who, along with all his other responsibilities was in charge of all things erotic and sexual, the pop group was starting to generate crossover appeal, which Roxi attributed in large part to Jaira Guidnard’s mile-long legs, poreless dark chocolate skin, and a body that caused males from eight to eighty to trip over their tongues.

      “Do you believe this?” Jaira asked ten minutes after a busload of Swedish tourists had descended on the shop, located on the city’s colorful Riverwalk. “It’s like a damn Viking invasion.”

      “They’re also paying our rent for the next three months,” Roxi said. “Not to mention your salary.”

      “Well, there is that,” Jaira agreed. “And some of them are actually kind of cute if you go for the hunky blond Scandinavian type.”

      She flashed a blindingly bright smile at one of the Vikings, who immediately walked into a display of pewter wind chimes hanging from the ceiling.

      The temperature and humidity outside the shop was approaching the nineties; the constant opening and closing of the door, as customers left with their packages to make room for others to enter, was putting a strain on the hundred-year-old building’s air conditioner, making it nearly as hot inside. Her hot pink Hex Appeal tank top was beginning to stick to Roxi’s body and her hair felt like a thick dark curtain hanging down her back.

      While Jaira went over to model jewelry and flirt with a trio of bedazzled males ostensibly shopping for their mothers back home—if, in fact, Swedish mothers actually wore chandelier garnet and seashell earrings—Roxi wrapped up a voodoo doll for a tall, stunningly voluptuous woman her own age who easily could’ve been a member of the Swedish Bikini Team.

      Interestingly, none of the Vikings who were swarming around Jaira seemed to be paying any attention to her, which Roxi took as validation that blondes didn’t always have all the fun.

      As the blonde left the store with two more members of the team, all sporting fuchsia Hex Appeal baseball caps with its signature witch logo, the phone rang.

      “Bonjour, Hex Appeal,” she answered, tossing in a bit of her native Cajun French, which customers seemed to enjoy. “Love spells for the sexy sorceress.”

      The laugh on the other end of the phone was rich and familiar. “It’s me,” Emma Broussard said.

      “I know. I recognized the number on the caller I.D., but wanted to try out my new branding line. You’re the first person to hear it. So, chère, what do you think?”

      “I like it better than the one you’ve been using.”

      “I do, too,” Roxi agreed. “I decided this morning that more people would rather be sexy than sassy.”

      The revelation had come from last night’s hot, hot dream. The one that had her waking up with her hands between her legs. And still, dammit, unsatisfied.

      “How’s the creature from the deep lagoon?”

      “Should I be offended that you insist on calling my unborn child a creature?”

      “Hey.” Roxi shrugged and grinned. “You should’ve known you were taking a risk when you sent me that sonogram.” Her voice, and her mood, turned suddenly serious. “You and the baby are okay, aren’t you?”

      “Of course. I’ve never been better. After I started drinking that ginger peach tea you sent me, my morning sickness disappeared.”

      “That’s what it’s supposed to do.” Ha! She might not be a card-carrying member of a coven, but thanks to growing up with a Cajun traiteur for a grandmother, Roxi definitely knew her herbal remedies. “So, what’s up?”

      “I have a favor to ask.”

      “Anything.”

      While they now lived a continent apart, there wasn’t anything Roxi wouldn’t do for her best friend. And she knew the feeling worked both ways. Plus, she figured she owed Emma for having let her choose her own maid of honor dress instead of sticking her in pink taffeta. Or worse yet, the southern belle, Gone with the Wind fantasy that continued to be a popular wedding theme south of the Mason-Dixon line.

      “Well, actually, it’s more a favor for Gabriel.”

      “Better yet. Tell me you’ve grown tired of the sexiest man alive and want me to take him off your hands.”

      “Thanks for the offer, but I believe I’ll keep him a while longer,” Emma said, proving her talent for understatement.

      Roxi figured Michelle Kwan would be doing triple toe loops in hell before Emma wanted out of the marriage she’d been dreaming about since seventh grade, when she’d taken to writing Mrs. Gabriel Broussard all over her notebook.

      “Funny how you can grow up with someone and not realize what a selfish bitch she is,” Roxi teased. “So if you’re not ready to recycle the drop-dead sexy father of the lagoon creature, what do you need?”

      “It’s about the Morganna, Mistress of the Night movie.”

      “Coincidentally, I was just talking with a local witch about that yesterday afternoon.”

      “Given your tone, can I deduce it wasn’t a very flattering conversation?”

      Emma might not be a witch, but her intuition was usually right on the mark. Including when she’d tried to break off her engagement to the dickhead. Unfortunately, her mother had laid the guilt trip of all time on her, so Emma had caved.

      Bygones, Roxi reminded herself. Besides, not only had Emma overcome the collapse of a marriage that should have been declared dead at the altar, she’d emerged from the rubble a strong, bold, kick-butt СКАЧАТЬ