The Witch and the Englishman Read Online Free PDF

anything, would you mind checking to see if we’re alone?”
    He did this often, which I appreciated. He was reminding me to double-check that we were alone on the line, as my bosses were sometimes tempted to listen in on us...and even record us for “training purposes,” they claimed.
    Of course, it was hard to sneak up on a psychic, and I always had a feel for when they were on the line, and so I told him to hold on and scanned the line. “We’re alone,” I reported.
    “ Good, so we can talk dirty?”
    “ We never talk dirty,” I said. “And you had better be wearing pants, mister.”
    He laughed deeply at that. I knew, of course, that he was wearing clothing: shorts, in fact. He was sitting out on his upper deck—yes, he had lower deck, too—his preferred spot when he called me.
    Conn mostly wore clothes when he called me. I said mostly because sometimes his clothing was no more than a partially closed robe. Today, he was wearing shorts and a tee-shirt, and he looked tan and healthy and full of life. An iced tea sat next to him. There was a mint leaf in the iced tea, and a slice of lemon. Yeah, he had it rough.
    “ So, when will we meet, Allison?”
    “ The answer to that is never.”
    “ You sound so...firm. Is there any room for negotiation?”
    “ No,” I said firmly.
    “ There you go again. But that’s okay, Allison. I have you here with me now, and all is good in the world.”
    “ You’re a nut,” I said.
    He reached for his drink and sipped it and sat back. I was tempted again to get a full view of his face. Was the rest of him as handsome as the lips and jaw promised? What did his eyes look like? It would be easy enough for me to see...all I had to do was focus...
    But I refused to look. Not now. Perhaps, not ever. No, I would look, someday. But, for now, I liked this game we were playing.
    “ I want to meet you for dinner someday.”
    “ That’s not going to happen,” I said.
    “ Aren’t you curious to see me?”
    He’d gotten me there, and I faltered before answering.
    “There!” he said excitedly. “There’s a chink in your armor. You do want to see what I look like.”
    “ Fine. You got me. My interest is piqued, but it’s not going to happen. Not in this life.”
    “ So, you’re saying there’s a chance in the next life?”
    I laughed at that.
    “So, all I have to do is die and wait?”
    “ Now, don’t get crazy on me,” I said.
    “ I like you a lot,” said Conn, “but not enough to kill myself.”
    “ Hey, I think I’m offended,” I said.
    We were silent for a while. I was sitting forward, watching Conn in my mind’s eye. Watching him from behind, to be exact, noting his wide shoulders and the way he loosely held his phone to his ear. I liked what I was seeing.
    After a half minute, he said, “Is it possible to fall in love without actually meeting?”
    “ No,” I said.
    “ I think,” he said, “you might, for once, be wrong.”
    “ Don’t say it, Conn.”
    He didn’t, but I felt it.
    Dammit, I felt it.
     
     
    Chapter Eight
     
    I had been a personal trainer before all this craziness.
    I still did some personal training, which I enjoyed very much. The next morning, I met my new client, Ivy Tanner, who was even cuter than her IMDB pictures. I now remembered her from the movie, Marley & Me . She’d had a small role, but an important one.
    We met at Gold’s Gym in Beverly Hills, where I quickly assessed her strengths and weaknesses. She had a sore elbow from a fall off a horse while filming in South America with Russell Crowe not too long ago. She wasn’t bragging. It was all very matter-of-fact. I nodded matter-of-factly as I put her through some lunges. I was so matter-of-fact that no one could have guessed that I had massive crush on Russell Crowe.
    “Ah,” she said, as she turned and looked at me, hands on hips, and lunging, “you are a fan of Russell Crowe, I see.”
    “ That obvious?” I asked. I was lunging right alongside her.
    “ Well,