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After another moment or two of staring, however, she made up her mind and passed on her order – taking extra special care, of course, with what she ordered for Ethan.

“Coming right up,” the woman laughed. “Hope you’re hungry!”

“Oh, believe me – I am,” Chloe assured her, before she turned to join Ethan where he was still sitting moodily by the window.

“There,” she said, as she slid into the seat opposite him. “All done.”

“I don’t know what to think of that,” Ethan said bluntly. “Did you at least order me a potato salad, so I can have some vegetable content?”

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” Chloe shot back. “It’s a surprise.”

“I’ve never been overly fond of surprises,” Ethan muttered, turning to look out of the window again, as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders – but then, Chloe remembered with a jolt, he was apparently being haunted, so maybe he did.

“You don’t say,” she said. “But we have a minute to wait for the food.” She leaned across the table, pressing her palms flat on its surface. Suddenly, she couldn’t wait even another moment longer for an explanation for the sudden turn of absolute weirdness her day had taken.

Honestly, if I hadn’t seen Curtis with my own eyes, I’d think somehow I was being pranked, she thought.

She glanced over her shoulder, checking for hidden camera crews.

Really, this being a kind of elaborate prank did seem, somehow, a way more likely explanation than ghosts and magic and witches really being actually real…

but somehow, Chloe knew in her heart of hearts that what she’d seen wasn’t fake.

Ethan and the strange woman at the bookshop – Margot – weren’t trying to trick her or make her look stupid.

She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she simply felt it on an instinctive level.

Somehow.

And besides which, if someone wanted to persuade me to believe a bunch of supernatural hooey, they would have chosen a more charming deceiver than Ethan, she thought as Ethan finally turned to face her, a somewhat mulish expression on his face.

He looked like he was preparing to go into a particularly annoying battle. Well, Chloe was in the mood to butt heads.

“You seemed pretty unsurprised by that whole ‘Margot being a witch’ thing,” she said, making sure to keep her voice low. “Was that something you already knew about? The existence of witches, I mean. Or did you learn about them while you were trying to find out about ghosts?”

She found that she was holding her breath in anticipation of his response, her fingers pressing into the table.

Ethan’s face twitched a little as he appeared to think over his response. Chloe could almost see him thinking up responses and then discarding them.

Then he released an almost imperceptible breath, appearing to come to a decision. “I did know that witches existed before Curtis… made my acquaintance, yes.”

Chloe leaned in closer, a thrill of excitement coursing through her. It was hard to believe that she was both having this conversation and taking it seriously, but apparently that was just what today was going to be like.

Her voice dropped to a bare whisper, her face mere inches from his. The crystal blue of his eyes was almost irresistible.

“And how did you know this?” she asked. “Are you a witch? Or a wizard, I guess.”

Ethan blinked for a moment. “No! Of course not. I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with that. I suppose.” He looked like he was having some sort of internal argument, but Curtis wasn’t here with them, so Chloe didn’t know who he could be arguing with.

She was a little disappointed with his answer, but she guessed it wasn’t really a surprise. After all, if he was a wizard, surely he would’ve used his own magic rather than having to find a witch to do it for him.

Still, the suspense was killing her! How on earth did Ethan know about these things?

He seemed pretty indifferent to it all, so she doubted that he was new to all this – this magic stuff.

What kind of corporate law guy just casually dropped in on witches and hung out with ghosts? Was there such a thing as ghost law?

“Okay. So you’re not a wizard,” she went on.

“Just what is your deal, then? Because I don’t buy for a second that you’re some random guy who’s getting haunted for no reason.

There has to be something special about you.

” Something other than your amazing eyes, and your chiseled cheekbones, and the rock-hard abs that I’m sure must be hiding beneath that perfectly ironed shirt…

A strange look crossed Ethan’s face – and at that point, Chloe knew that he knew more than he’d been letting on. No normal person would get cagey about this kind of thing.

A thrill ran through her. To think that a few short hours ago, she’d been thinking about paint samples and making sure her internet connection was working, and now she was hanging out with an incredibly sexy guy who thought that magic was something so common that he was completely blasé about it!

“Do you really want the truth?” he asked, voice low.

Chloe was practically vibrating with curiosity. “Of course I want the truth! What kind of person do you take me for? Who wouldn’t want to know what’s going on?!”

Ethan’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment, Chloe was certain that he was going to find a way to weasel out of telling her what she wanted to know.

But then he squared his shoulders and opened his mouth, and Chloe’s fingers twitched in anticipation.

“Chloe, I –”

“Here’s your order, fresh from the kitchen,” a way-too-friendly voice interrupted, and it was all Chloe could do to not scream and pull her hair out. Ethan had been just about to tell her his deep, dark secret, and it’d all been ruined! And for what?!

… Well, okay, for what did look like a pretty stunning array of top-notch diner food, all of which was somehow being maneuvered expertly from the blonde woman’s arms to the table in front of them.

If Chloe had tried the same thing she would’ve ended up with half a dozen plates shattered into oblivion on the floor, but the waitress made it look easy.

I’ll stick to dealing with angry cats and overenthusiastic dogs, I think.

And the food smelled… well, just as amazing as it looked.

Which was pretty damn incredible , Chloe thought.

Everything here looked so fresh and colorful – the hot dog with everything really did seem to have everything, the cheese on the cheese fries was gloriously yellow, and vibrantly green lettuce and slices of deep red tomato peeked out from the edges of the fluffy hamburger bun.

Right on cue, Chloe’s stomach rumbled so hard that it practically turned inside out.

Okay, I might be able to forgive her for interrupting Ethan’s revelation, whatever it may have been. But she’s on thin ice!

The woman kept on seemingly pulling plates out of thin air and depositing them on the table, to the point where Chloe was pretty sure there was more than she had actually ordered.

She opened her mouth to protest, but the waitress cut her off with a raised finger and a shake of her overly coiffed head.

“I won’t hear a word of it,” she said, a twinkle in her eye. “You’re new in town, and what kind of hostess would I be if I let you go hungry? There’s a lot you can say about ol’ Eula, but don’t ever let it be said that she skimped on hospitality.”

The woman – Eula? Ol’ Eula? – was smiling, but there was definite iron in it, and Chloe knew that it would be pointless to protest. Even though she was pretty sure that either some of this food would go to waste, or she would explode in the attempt to get it all down.

She was certain that Ethan wouldn’t be much help, what with the way he was eyeing the food off like it was going to jump up and attack him.

“I heard you saying you wanted vegetable content, so I threw in some onion rings as well,” Eula went on.

“Thank you,” Ethan murmured, and Chloe marveled at the way that this older woman apparently had him cowed. “That’s very kind of you.”

“Yes, thank you,” Chloe echoed. “You really didn’t need to do that, but we appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome,” Eula replied as she sashayed away. “Enjoy your meal, you two.”

Chloe could almost hear the implied lovebirds at the end of Eula’s speech, but thankfully she didn’t say it out loud.

Chloe didn’t know how she would’ve reacted if she had said it.

Sure, Ethan was hot, but he’d only been in Chloe’s life for a few hours, and possibly he had some kind of crazy magical secret.

And Chloe didn’t have time for dating, anyway, even in the alternate universe where Ethan was interested in her that way. So it was all pointless and irrelevant.

She looked up at Ethan, who still seemed a bit stunned by the turn the conversation had taken. She didn’t think she could entirely blame him.

“Let’s eat,” she said in a tone that brooked no argument, “and then we’re going to pick that conversation right back up where we left it.”

Ethan didn’t look very comfortable, but he nodded. “Agreed.”

Chloe looked down at the vast spread before her, unsure of where to start. This really was more than what could be considered a sane amount of food for six people, let alone two!

She reached over and picked up one of the fried pickles, before dropping it quickly back into the basket again. That thing was hot! Eula hadn’t been kidding when she said that the food was fresh.

But she really, really wanted the pickle, with a sudden intensity that shook her to the core.

With a napkin protecting her fingers, she picked it up again, bringing it to her mouth and blowing gently on it until she thought that the burns it would inflict on her would be in the ‘tolerable’ range.

She was starving , and it looked so good that she was willing to put her tongue on the line for it.