Stone Cold Fox Read online

  The fox looked up at her and whined softly. Suddenly, he sat up in her lap. Standing up on his tiny hind paws, the little animal lapped at her cheeks which were wet and salty now. His warm little tongue seemed to bring Jo back to herself.

  “I’m sorry, little guy,” she told him, sniffing. “I’m just so tired of going and going and never getting anywhere. I’m sick of being alone and scared all the time and having no place to stay at night. I’m just tired.” She sighed and stroked the soft, flame-colored fur. “I wish I could find someplace to stop for a little while and just catch my breath—you know?”

  The fox yipped again and then jumped off her lap. It trotted down the porch steps and around the side of the house.

  “Hey!” Jo called after it, feeling immediately lonely. “Hey, don’t leave! Where are you going?”

  She stood up and was about to go looking for the fox when the huge man with the curly, reddish-brown hair and brown eyes came suddenly around the corner of the house.

  “Hi,” he said. “It’s me again.”

  Chapter Two

  The big man was barefoot and he was pulling his white T-shirt down over a set of impressive looking abs, as though he’d been getting dressed around the side of the house for some reason.

  Not that Jo was interested in his physique, no matter how nice it was. The relative peace and safety she’d felt melted away at the sight of the big, male body approaching her own and she took a step back and reached for her athame.

  “Hey, it’s okay. It’s all right.” The big man stopped in front of the porch and held up both hands, giving her plenty of distance. “I’m not going to hurt you—I’ll stay right here.”

  “What do you want?” Jo pointed her athame at him for the second time. The silver blade was heavy and reassuring in her hand and she felt a little less frightened even though he looked as huge and muscular as ever. At least this time she was out in the open, not cornered in the shed. She was also well fed—it made her feel stronger and more solid to have some food in her belly—less likely to faint and make herself vulnerable to attack.

  It occurred to her that the food that was making her feel better had been given to her by the man she was now pointing her athame at. Either that or he had left it on the porch while he went off for some reason and now he was going to be pissed off that she’d eaten it.

  “What do you want with me?” she demanded again, still pointing the long silver dagger aggressively at him.

  “What do I want with you? Well . . .” He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck as though trying to think of what to say. At last he shrugged, his broad shoulders rolling under his white t-shirt. “I guess I just want to offer you a place to stay—a place to catch your breath for a little while.”

  Jo frowned—he was repeating her own words back to her. Had he been spying on her? Watching her while she talked to his fox and listening to what she said?

  “Why would I stay with you?” she demanded.

  He shrugged again. “Because you don’t have anyplace else to go. Right?”

  Jo stiffened. “How do you know that? And why would you offer me a place to stay? You don’t even know me.”

  “We can fix that pretty quick.” He gave her an easy smile. “Hi, I’m Reese. Reese Cooper but most everybody here in Cougarville calls me ‘Coop.’ And you are?” He raised his eyebrows inquiringly, waiting for her to fill in the blanks.

  “Jocasta Ferrell,” Jo said unwillingly. Names had power—she didn’t know why she’d let him know hers—it just came out somehow.

  His eyebrows shot higher. “Jocasta? That’s an unusual name.”

  “It’s from a Greek tragedy. My mother was a professor of Ancient Mythology,” Jo said. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

  “Sure, from Oedipus Rex, right?” Reese asked. “Although she could have picked a name with a less tragic story behind it. Why didn’t she name you Dianna or Athena or something like that if she was so hung up on Greek Mythology?”

  It was Jo’s turn to look surprised.

  “You know about that . . . that kind of thing? About Greek mythology?”

  He grinned. “What? You think because I’m a hick from the sticks I don’t know my ancient myths and legends?”

  “I just . . . nobody ever knows. That’s all.” She shook her head. “I go by Jo for short.” Then she bit her lip. She’d done it again. Why had she given him her name? It too, had power—it was how she thought of herself, though no one but her mentor, Miranda, had ever called her that.

  “Well, Jo, now that we’ve been introduced, do you want to crash at my place?” Reese asked.

  “I don’t have any money,” Jo said. “And I have no intention of paying for lodging in the way you’re hoping I will either.” She glared at him.

  Reese frowned. “Give me a little credit—I wasn’t thinking that. I’m not a bad guy—I won’t bother you.”

  “I don’t believe you.” She lifted her chin. “And I’m not afraid of you, either.”

  “Oh, I think you are, darlin’,” Reese said quietly. “Or you wouldn’t be holding that big, scary-looking knife on me.”

  “It’s an athame,” Jo snapped challengingly. “A ceremonial dagger used when casting spells. I’m a witch.”

  “Okay, well . . .” Reese shrugged apparently unperturbed by her statement. “I’m a mechanic. Nice to meet you.”

  “That’s it?” Jo frowned at him. “You’re not going to freak out or think I’m strange for being . . . what I am?”

  “Nope.” He shrugged. “You’re a witch, I’m a mechanic—so what?”

  His laissez-faire attitude towards her profession confused Jo. She hadn’t declared herself to many people outside her coven, but on the few occasions she had, they either feared her or thought she was crazy. When she went outside of Avalon, she told people she was a yoga instructor and left it at that. The fact that Reese just seemed to accept her as a witch was troubling. But not nearly as troubling as something else she had noticed about him.

  “You’re not just a mechanic,” she said. “There’s something about you—your aura . . .”

  Jo squinted at him, letting her eyes go out of focus for a moment to pick up the colors around him. There was something strange in the soft cloud of pigment radiating out from around his slightly curly reddish-brown hair . . . something she’d never encountered before but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was.

  The trick to seeing an aura was to focus until you saw the thin, white band floating around a person’s head—that was the first layer of their aura—the emanation of personal energy everyone on Earth carried with them. The next step, seeing the other colors each person emitted, was much more difficult and had taken her years to master.

  As she watched Reese, a line of pale red appeared above the white band that surrounded him—that meant strength and courage. The pale red deepened into crimson—loyalty and passion—and then moved into silvery green which meant compassion and nurturing.

  Hmm . . . could it be that Reese really was offering her a place to stay out of the goodness of his heart? Jo couldn’t help thinking of the aura of the man who’d pulled over on the side of the road and tried to get her to get into his car with him. She’d hesitated long enough to read him and had seen the blackish-red color of lust swirling around him, leading into the grayish-green of greed and the dark pink of dishonesty.

  Reese’s aura was pretty much the opposite of her attacker—well, one of them anyway. She hadn’t gotten a chance to read the Skin Walkers in the forest.

  She looked at the big man again, seeking another layer. Above the silvery green was a thin band of blue. Jo frowned—that was interesting . . . blue usually meant intellectual ability. It wasn’t something she’d generally expect to find in the aura of a mechanic.

  Reese had called himself a “hick from the sticks,” but he’d known the true origin of her name. Could he be smarter than he looked? Not that he looked stupid, just young. Jo placed him around twenty-six o