WILLEM (The Witches of Wimberley Book 1) Read online

  Willem

  Title Page

  Prologue

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Willem

  The Witches of Wimberley, Book 1

  Victoria Danann

  Copyright 2016

  Prologue

  In the year 1838 in England, only a handful of highwaymen still practiced the highly romanticized profession of stand-and-deliver. Deck Durbin persevered, fancying himself smarter and faster than the arms of law enforcement who were determined to make the roads safe for noblemen, and their women, once and for all.

  After a particularly successful haul on the old Roman road that ran south all the way to London, Deck’s trail was picked up. He was chased through the Yorkshire Dales to his home base in Aysgarth, but couldn’t stop because he’d been unable to lose his pursuers. He doubled back to the southwest and crossed the River Ribble. Still they came.

  He pushed his horse on through the hilly forest and knew that he was getting dangerously close to Pendle Hill. That didn’t bother him. In fact, it was his plan. He was counting on the widespread superstitious beliefs about the witches of Pendle Hill to cause the men who were after him to turn back.

  It was a good plan, but they didn’t turn back. They didn’t even slow. Deck’s horse was slowing and couldn’t take much more. So when he saw a light in a cottage at the base of the hill, he galloped straight for it. There was a small barn off to the side that was visible by moonlight. He dismounted and pulled the horse in behind him.

  Inside the cottage, Pleasant’s mother asked if she’d heard something outside.

  “I did,” she said. “You stay inside. I’ll go see.”

  Taking a lamp she went out into the night. It was cold and still. So she stopped and listened until she heard a horse’s snuffle and stamp of the foot.

  The barn door was closed even though she was sure she’d left it partially open. Inside she held up the lamp.

  “Who’s there?”

  When Deck Durbin saw Pleasant illuminated by the lamp held aloft, he was so struck by her beauty that he temporarily forgot he was running for his life and, in fact, might have only minutes left to live.

  “I, Beauty,” he said stepping into the light so that she could see who had addressed her.

  Pleasant was just as taken with the highwayman who had run into her barn to hide himself from authorities. She didn’t particularly care what he’d done. What she cared about were the shiny chestnut curls that fell over his forehead and the warm golden-brown eyes that caused a flare of heat in deep in her heart and body.

  “I’m running from the law,” he said. “If they catch me they’ll likely gibbet me.”

  “I see. Why did you think stopping here would help you? Don’t you know where you are?”

  “I do. But you don’t look like a storybook witch.” His eyes ran over her long, wavy black hair, pale green eyes, unnaturally red lips, and down to the nipples that stood erect from the cold pressing against the white underdress that showed above her black laced bodice.

  “Appearances can be deceiving. Are you saying you’re not afraid of me?”

  He took a step closer wearing a smile that belied the danger he was in.

  “Should I be?”

  Before she had a chance to answer that question, he grabbed her and pulled her into a kiss. Pleasant was just under twenty, but had never been kissed. The fact that she was kissing a stranger in her barn was scandalous, but she didn’t pull away. Her lips tingled from the contact that had ignited a fire.

  When he pulled back, they both turned toward the sound of horses approaching.

  Without thinking through all the implications and ramifications, Pleasant held both hands palm out in the direction of the sound and said something in a language Deck Durbin didn’t know.

  At once the sounds of shouting and hoof beats vanished.

  “You’re safe,” she said.

  He was reevaluating his position on fairytales. “What did you do?”

  “I caused them to forget why they are out riding in the middle of the night.”

  He stared at her for a few beats before breaking into unrestrained laughter.

  “Now what will you do for me?” she asked.

  Deck came close, nuzzling her cheek, breathing on her neck, and said, “I have enough gold to go to Texas. Come with me. I’ll make you my wife.”

  Pleasant Wimberley was a powerful witch who found herself powerless to access reason when she looked into the highwayman’s eyes. She was also not of an age to weigh fully the consequences of impulsive decisions.

  So she said, “Alright. I’ll come with you, but make me your wife first.”

  “A Christian wedding?” He raised his eyebrows.

  She laughed. “No. My mother will perform the rite. But make no mistake. You’ll be bound nonetheless.”

  And so it happened that they came to Texas in 1839, just a few years after the Battle of the Alamo. On the way to San Antonio, Pleasant pulled Deck to a stop.

  She had a vision showing her that the road between San Antonio and Austin would become well-traveled. Pleasant recognized that the crossroads on the Blanco River and Cypress Creek would be an excellent site for an inn. That and, since she was pregnant by that time, the ride on the buckboard was very uncomfortable. She was ready to be done with the rigors of months of traveling.

  Deck was dubious, but one look at the limestone ledges rising from the river was all he needed. They reminded him of home in Aysgarth and, taking that as a sign, he agreed to Pleasant’s proposal.

  Comanche raids were still common at the time, but warding the place against violence wasn’t a particularly difficult task for Pleasant. For good measure, she extended the charm’s range of effectiveness for twenty miles in every direction.

  Deck was honest about his inclinations. He said he was no innkeeper, but he’d keep himself busy trading horses. His gift for spotting fast horses had kept him alive long enough to put together the gold necessary to strike out for Texas. There was no reason why he couldn’t put it to good use.

  For a year they were happy. The Charmed Horse Inn had quickly gained a reputation as a place where travelers might get a good meal, a clean bed, and a good night’s sleep. They had a little girl with her mother’s black wavy hair and her father’s golden eyes. Both parents doted on her like she was the first child ever born.

  Deck was fairly certain he would never be apprehended so far from England, but thought it would be prudent for the family to take Pleasant’s last name, which was Wimberley, just to be extra safe.

  Try as he might, Deck couldn’t remake himself into a family man. The dashing devil-may-care highwayman who exuded a sexy recklessness, had a heart that couldn’t be tamed.

  He left during the night and rode to San Antonio, attracted by the many tales he’d heard in the tavern. Tales of Spaniards, French, Creoles, civilized Indians, and half-breeds; all engaged in hunting buffalo or in contraband trade with Louisiana, which had been going on ever since Jean Lafitte had made Galveston a pirate base.

  When Deck reached San Antonio and considered his options, he didn’t fall in with buffalo hunters or contraband runners. He joined the Texas Rangers. It would have been ironic, highwayman turned lawman, except that it wasn’t unusual for Rangers to have been on the other side of the law at some time or other.

  When Pleasant realized Deck was gone, she was
devastated and inconsolable. Not so much so that she was willing to turn the man she loved into a pig and serve him up in a bean and ham soup to customers at the tavern. But enough to raise the innate power of the crossroads, and use it in a spell to ensure that any witch who came to that locale would be courted only by a man besotted with true love.

  What she didn’t understand was that she was loved truly by Deck Durbin. It seems that love, even when potent and profound, cannot always prevail over a wild nature. When Deck got leave from the Rangers, or passed close to the Charmed Horse Inn, he would stay for a few days, make love to his wife, and kiss Pleasant’s tears away in the night.

  She lived from one visit to the next, but was occupied running a business and raising a family alone. Even though Deck visited a few times a year, he fathered two more daughters with Pleasant. All three were equally beautiful. And powerful.

  The power of the spell she cast over the crossroads at Wimberley attracted witches from far and wide. Because after all, power centers act like magnets to witches.

  In time the town that sprung up around the inn and horse ranch, would come to be called Wimberley after the witch who founded the settlement.

  Wimberley is a magical place where local residents expect the unexpected.

  CHAPTER ONE

  So, yeah. Here I am in the Texas Hill Country wondering if I made the right call. I was given a travel allowance, but it didn’t stretch far enough. I had to beg, borrow, scramble, and pawn to get enough money for a plane ticket from L.A. to Austin. But once I got on the plane, things started going my way.

  Turned out I could get a limo from Austin to Wimberley for less than a one way bus ticket, taxi, or Uber. I have to laugh at that, but really I’m used to it. I may not get enough modeling/acting jobs to support a flea circus, but stuff like this happens to me. If I borrow a car, I get good parking places. If I need to supplement the rising star income with a bartender job, there’s usually an opening at the exact place where I want to work.

  Needless to say, I grabbed the limo opportunity with both hands and pulled up to downtown Wimberley in stretch-style. Black, of course. Naturally I was hoping somebody would tell the witches I arrived in style.

  I’m one of the lucky ones holding a key to a single at the hotel. Single means double bed, but just one person. There are only sixteen rooms total and about a hundred guys, potential suitors like me, who were hoping to score a room at the Charmed Horse Hotel. I read the card in my room when I checked in.

  Apparently there was a Charmed Horse Inn on this site almost two hundred years ago. The card said the place is famous for its location on the river and its ghost. Huh.

  Somebody once told me that there are only two kinds of people, those who’ve seen ghosts and those who haven’t. Those who report having a personal encounter believe in the supernatural. Those who haven’t had a brush with unusual occurrences think it’s primitive nonsense.

  The guy who shared that wisdom at a bar many, many beers ago was wrong. I’ve never seen a ghost, but I’m not a hard ass skeptic either. I like to keep my opinion and belief options open until cornered.

  I took the old-fashioned wide staircase down from my second story room that overlooked the river. When my foot hit the bottom step, I saw that there was a little crowd of about seven people standing around the woman who was playing a small town desk clerk.

  Well, I guess it’s not playing if desk clerk is her real life job. I usually just see things like that. All the world’s a stage and all.

  I stopped to listen. What can I say? I’m curious about attractions and these people are rapt.

  “The original Charmed Horse Inn was just a few yards away. It was built in 1840 and torn down a hundred years ago. In the sixties, there was a tourist trap in this location. They sold, you know, local art, pralines, jackadillos, the usual Hill Country souvenirs. Lightning struck it one Halloween night and burned it to the ground.

  “What was built in its place was a café. It had a good run, popular with the locals, lasted about forty years. But right after the turn of the century, this century, workers just showed up one day, bulldozed the café and built the Wimberley Tavern. Five years later this hotel was built in the style of the Driskill in San Antonio. Smaller and not as luxurious, of course. So it looks old, like it was renovated, but it’s not. It’s new.

  “Now as to the ghost. People say that at night, right outside, near the crossroads, if everything’s quiet, sometimes you can hear galloping hoof beats. A few people say they’ve seen somebody dressed like a highwayman ride past and disappear. Others said they’ve seen a ghost in or around the tavern or here in the hotel dressed like a Texas Ranger.

  “He wears a wide-brimmed hat, a loose-fittin’ shirt, and a gun belt with holster and pistol. The old folks say it’s Deck Wimberley, still looking out for his girls. Deck and his wife built the Charmed Horse Inn. She stayed, ran the inn and raised their girls, three of ‘em, but he went rangerin’.

  “Some say he’s sorry he left his wife and can’t move on until he thinks he’s made up for it, but I don’t know about that.”

  “Have you seen him?” a kid in a tee shirt and baseball cap asked.

  The clerk shook her head. “I haven’t seen him, but I’ve seen people right after they saw him. Those folks looked a fright. Made a believer out of me.”

  Jesus. No wonder it’s hard to get a room at this place. With a hook like that, this place is probably full year round.

  I walked around the little group and headed out the front door.

  Name is Willem, by the way. I know. Depending on who you talk to it’s either pretentious or nostalgic. I guess, in my case, it was the second. My mom’s great-great-grandfather on her mother’s side was named Willem.

  Circumventing the whole pretention/nostalgia speculation by calling myself Will is the easiest way to go. People assume it’s short for William and that’s okay with me. Not sure I understand why William is less pretentious than Willem, but whatever.

  I grew up in Alabama, but headed for L.A. after two years at Alabama State. I took mostly core courses, but had a few classes in my chosen major, which was Metaphysics, Mythology, and Paranormal Psychology. I loved those classes. Gobbled up the info like a living vacuum and asked for more. The problem wasn’t that I didn’t want to study MMPP. The problem was that I didn’t want to have to wade through Western Civ, English Composition, Algebra, Geology, a foreign language, and a host of other equally yawn-inspiring courses just to get to the good stuff.

  The comments of all the people who’d told me that I was good-looking enough to be a movie star came back to me. I believed them. I mean, I have eyes and a mirror. Just sayin’. It sounded like a cool enough gig to me and I’d heard that there’s a lot of time wasted on set when actors just sit around for hours. I have dark hair and eyes such a deep blue that people usually think they’re black.

  It’s fun to watch the surprise when they see me in sunlight or bright lights and hear them go, “Hey. Your eyes are blue!” They always say it like they think I didn’t know or that I’ve been deliberately hiding my eye color.

  Anyway, it sounded like it could be the best of two worlds, earning mega-money while being able to study what I wanted to study independently, the old-fashioned way. Reading.

  The first couple of cattle call auditions, I found out that my southern accent was going to be a problem.

  I needed money for diction lessons, not to mention food, housing, clothing, etc. One of the guys waiting in line to audition told me that food and beverage service is the only way to go for wanna-be’s because you can usually get a little schedule flexibility.

  Tried waiting tables. That lasted all of two nights. So I located a bartending school. When I told the woman in the office I wasn’t rolling in cake, but could pay a little at a time, she tilted her head to the side, smiled, and said, “That might not be a problem.”

  That’s when I found out that “people” were right. My looks could open lesser doors on the wa
y to stardom, if I was willing to get my body involved, enthusiastically.

  You might say I went to bartending school on a fuck scholarship, which means I got a free ride, figuratively and literally, for getting off with a woman instead of my hand. I’m telling you. Life is strange.

  Well, between my looks and my ability to do a few tricks, I did okay bartending, especially if I made liberal use of winks and the smile that made the one dimple pop out on the left side of my face. I had a no-drink rule for myself when I was working. If I was on the clock, I was all business. Afterward, I sometimes took advantage of the free drinks perk, the one the owner didn’t need to know about. I guess technically that would be more a liberty than a perk, but whatever. I sat at the bar and had a drink or two when the cleanup crew was, well, cleaning up.

  My days were regimented. Get up at noon. Call my agent. Yeah. I have an agent. Got her the same way I got through bartending school. I see if she has anything for me. If she doesn’t, I show up at the new “spot” on Sunset Boulevard where people who have actual tip money come to experience “the scene”. Even the dives have valet parking and secure lots for the beems, benzes, Porsches and Audis, along with the occasional Bentley or Lamborghini. They get to play like they’re still relevant. I get tips. Everybody wins.

  If she does have something, which - I gotta hand it to her - is more than half the time, I get copies of “Billboard” and “Variety” and go get in line with hundreds of other guys who migrated to L.A. because they were told they were pretty enough to be in movies and it sounded more exciting than whatever else they saw in their future.

  I’m not dumb. I know it takes more than beauty. So I go to acting classes on Mondays and Wednesday. And let me tell you, they’re not cheap. Every extra penny goes to coaches and diction lessons. The latter has caused my family to look at me like I have a rare and contagious disease.