The Witch Next Door

TWND-Chapter One

Copyright © 2012 Dionne Tuttle

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Chapter One

A/N: this book is currently finished and is available in its entirety on Amazon.com but comments and votes are always welcome. Enjoy :D

The day that I discovered that I was a witch was the worst day of my life. Of course, I didn’t know then that I was a witch. First came the bad day.

That day started out with my fiancé taking me out for a fancy lunch at the local country club. I was very flattered that he had cleared his busy schedule to spend time with me until he dumped me.

Okay, maybe I wasn’t exactly crying in my cornflakes over losing Kyle but I was a little surprised. I’d thought that he had asked me to lunch to set a date for our wedding.

Boy was I wrong.

To give him credit, he did try to let me down easy. He was gentle and even a little sad when he explained over a plate of overpriced salad that he was having second thoughts about the wedding. Stupid me, I thought that maybe he was getting cold feet and I tried to explain to him that all grooms get nervous.

Then he sighed, that annoying sigh that he gets when he’s trying to explain something and he thinks that the person he’s talking to is too slow to understand. He tried to explain that he just wasn’t ready to be tied down yet. So I very reasonably asked him why he had given me a diamond ring if he wasn’t ready for marriage. A pinched look came over his face so I quickly told him that we could put our engagement on hold and go back to dating for a while. After seeing my mother go through four divorces, I was determined that my marriage was going to work no matter what.

Then he explained in great detail why he didn’t just want to break the engagement; he also didn’t want to continue dating me. I really loved the part where he told me that I was boring and that he couldn’t stand being with someone that was never late, who never forgot to run an errand, or who never had a hair out of place. In conclusion, I was too perfect and too boring for his tastes. Ouch.

Okay. I was fine. A little hurt but I could take it.

Then my new car decided to die on me in the middle of nowhere.

Okay, the outskirts of Bakersville, the small town that I live in, isn’t exactly the boondocks. But it’s still a three-mile hike into town. I looked down at my sandals and decided that today was not the day to be hiking three miles. The heels on these shoes alone would be enough to kill me. Not to mention the fact that they’re brand new and I have yet to put in the mileage to break them in. Plus, I have always found it to be true that the more money you pay for a pair of shoes, the more uncomfortable they are to walk in. And let me tell you, these babies cost a fortune.

I briefly considered looking under the hood despite my total lack of mechanical knowledge. After all, that’s what women always seemed to do in the movies when their cars break down. Or they wait for a handsome man to come and save them. I decided that the first option was a non-possibility for several reasons. One, I barely knew where to check for the oil dipstick. And second of all, the steam was still rolling out from my car at a rapid rate. Call me crazy, but I didn’t really have the urge to develop first-degree burns.