It Must Be Magic by Jennifer Skully Page A

children. I see you with —” he shrugged, eyeing her “— two. I want to make sure you give me a chance before you meet him.”
    Where did the man come up with the idea? About
her,
of all people? “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
    He spread his hands. “Is it?”
    “I don’t have a mothering bone in my body.” She was a driven businesswoman like her mother. But her mother had succumbed to the biological-clock tick when she was thirty-eight. She hadn’t needed a husband, though she had wanted a child. That wasn’t going to happen to Kate, but she steered clear of the future family-man type to be sure.
    He smiled. “Then just having sex is fine by me.”
    She found him attractive and funny, but his profession — yuck. “It’s not a good idea to have sex with my biggest customer.”
    “You have an answer for everything.”
    “You’re right. I do. I’m exceptionally flattered, though.”
    “I haven’t given up. I will keep asking.”
    “No means no, Joe.”
    “If you’d said I made your skin crawl, I’d be willing to accept that no means no. But you didn’t.”
    “Is that all I have to do?”
    “Yes.”
    She thought about it. She really, really did. But he didn’t make her skin crawl, far from it. She wasn’t that mean or unfeeling to actually say that out loud, anyway. Maybe she enjoyed the chase, too. Not that she’d give in, but as long as he knew the score up front, what was the harm? “No —” she put a finger over her lips “— means no.”
    “It’s only a matter of time before you succumb.”
    Cocky bastard. Still, she liked him. She wouldn’t date him or have sex with him, but she liked him nonetheless.
    A PRIL WAS USUALLY A RAINY month, but this year hadn’t brought the typical deluge, so the meadow was dry, the late evening sun was warm and the breeze whispered through the long grasses. For the first time ever, the soft shush raised goose bumps along Lili’s arms, and she kept looking behind her as if Fluffy’s murderer would jump out of a gopher hole. Though she hadn’t bothered to change her skirt, she’d worn her hiking boots in case she stepped into one of those cavities. Boots helped avoid a sprained ankle.
    She realized now, she wanted to avoid a lot more than that. Meadow, forest, oak tree. That was what Fluffy had shown her. She’d made it to the middle of the meadow, then gotten scared. Actually, she’d been scared when she’d left her house, tramped through her backyard and hit one of the narrow trails that wound through the trees. To the south, east and west, the semicircle of surrounding houses was separated from the meadow by a ring of forest that took a few minutes to traverse. To the north, it was woods all the way to the summit. As the crow flies, most of the houses were well within walking distance, even Buddy Welch’s. Luckily, she’d never seen him out here. Sometimes she wondered if he was nothing more than an urban legend. Then again, encountering Buddy Welch was better than scanning for — gulp — vultures flying overhead. She didn’t want to find a body, not now, not ever, at least not while she was alone.
    “This is really stupid,” she whispered to herself. Seducing Tanner Rutland into letting her communicate with Fluffy was a darn sight better than trying it on her own.
    Several yards away, Einstein’s tail cleared the waving stalks as she jumped at something, probably a gopher poking its head up. It was said that you couldn’t walk a cat the way you could walk a dog, but Einstein often accompanied her on hikes. She also quickly disappeared when something caught her fancy. Even as Lili tried to keep her eye on it while she walked, the cat’s tail was swallowed up by the long grass.
    Her boot caught on something. Then she tripped. Over a body. And screamed.
    And kept on screaming when it sat up.
    “I know what you are,” it droned as it rose to its feet.
    Lili started to breathe again. It wasn’t a dead body, it