A smart, lovable, loving woman might be able to offer a boy stability. A smart woman with a career and a once-in-a-lifetime-love might even become the marrying kind.

Melody sighed. Too bad she'd figured it all out so late. She leaned against the cold door, missing the sounds of life behind it, missing Logan and Shane. Mel, the ditz, would have gone after them, no second thoughts, no responsibilities holding her back, but the new Melody, Salem's Kitchen Witch, couldn't afford to screw up the best job she'd ever had.

She would have to find another way.

A few days later, Mel's latest show arrived in Chicago, express mail. Logan and Shane watched it the minute Logan got home.

Melody wore the sizzling electric blue wool dress she'd worn the night they made love, the one she'd worn to get his attention. It worked then. It worked now.

On the set, royal blue candles glowed softly amid potted ivy and mistletoe, and a small potted cedar that twinkled clear light. As Mel prepared a Yuletide brunch, she cast a spell on an artichoke and lemon souffle, so it would "rise as high as the stars," and when it fell flat, Logan chuckled at the look on her face.

"Apples," she said as she peeled one, "can divine your future mate or restore a relationship." She cut the fruit lengthwise and held it up to the cameras. "See how the seeds form a heart? An even number of seeds means marriage. There are six in this apple." Logan sat straighter as she followed that statement with a spell for unconditional love.

Her Honeycomb Pudding, Apple Fritters, and Rhode Island Johnnycakes all turned out great. When the show came to an end, she came around to the front of the island counter. "From all of us here at WHCH, I'd like to wish you and yours bright blessings and the longing in your hearts during this Yuletide season."

She picked up her wand. "I'd also like to end our Yuletide program with, not so much a spell as a wish, though I rather hope it works like a charm." She waved her wand in a series of graceful arcs.

"I have a dream that's dear to me,A longing in my heart,A little boy,A man so tall,Two cats called Ink and Spot."

"Da-aad..."

Logan hauled Shane onto his lap as Mel swirled her wand again.

"I have a dream that's yet to be, A family made of three, Come home to me, I yearn to see, You both beneath my tree."

The camera framed her, and as she finished, Melody looked at them with the longing in her heart, there, for the world to see, then she waved her wand and left the stage to the song Logan couldn't get out of his head.

"She wants us, Dad."

"I think she does, son." What if she really is a witch? Logan didn't care anymore. Melody made magic all right-bright and alive, glittering, energizing magic-love, it was called. She had already given his son more love than his real mother could scrape together in a lifetime.

Jess had been right. He couldn't let the past ruin the future-his or his son's. Yes, Shane missed Melody, but Logan missed her more. He loved her... like crazy.

Crazy in love with Melody. That figured. He'd known all along that he'd have to be crazy to fall for her. Logan rose, taking Shane with him. "What say we go home?"

"To Mel?"

Logan nodded. If he hadn't known before, he knew now: Home and Mel were one and the same.

Logan called his mother to say they were coming, then he called Jess, because he wanted her to see how fast he could get a marriage license. She knew the answer already because she and the D.A. were getting one for themselves.

He was still smiling and booking their flight to Boston when he got a call-waiting, from a TV station in Rhode Island, offering a contract for a series of New England documentaries. He was shocked, amazed, flattered, and he would never be able to thank Mel enough. He set up an appointment with them the following week.

Melody had once told him that if he were happy, Shane would be happy, too. A shame, they'd all had to become so miserable before he discovered she was right.

"Now we have more than one reason to go home," he told Shane as they went to get their suitcases from the basement. "Though I don't suppose that even a new job is as important as telling Melody we love her and want her to marry us."

"Yes!"

"Guess that settles it, then."

When they arrived in Salem, Logan went straight to Jessie's, where a "For Sale by Owner" sign sat in front of her house. "How much for the house?" he asked as she opened the door.

Jess screeched when she saw them. "I'll make you a deal," she said, hugging them.

Logan raised a brow. "Make it as good as the deal you gave Mel on my Volvo, and you've got yourself a buyer."

Jessie chuckled, but her cheeks turned pink.

He'd always loved the house, and she knew it. She'd probably put the sign out this morning. "Keep the kid for a while, will you, you old meddler. Oh, and get your robes out of mothballs. Who did you say we have to see for a quick license and blood test in this town? I'm not waiting a minute longer than I have to."

"If Melody will have you," Jessie said on a wink. "She's not the marrying kind, remember?"

"What did you do, miss her last show? I think I can talk her into it." But Jess had a point. Melody could be stubborn sometimes. Then again, her Christmas wish had been clear. A family made of three, or four, Logan thought, anticipating the challenge of a future with Melody in it.

By the time he got to WHCH, she was in the middle of her Christmas show. Oh man, Santa's sexiest helper stood before the stove in red spikes and a red velvet miniskirted dress, trimmed in white fur, looking like something he'd seen in an old Christmas musical. A floppy red Santa witch hat crowned her lush, waving hair. A sight to soothe a longing heart.

Logan wanted to rush the stage, forget the show, and take her into his arms. Instead, he stepped quietly into the wings to watch and wait for Melody to finish. He took in the Christmas set, where a beat-up old circus train circled a huge Victorian tree in the corner, trimmed in cranberries, popcorn, fruits, nuts, and cinnamon sticks. Ruby candles-red for passion, Melody had once said-and matching poinsettias had been set about. Christmas scents assailed him, peppermint, cinnamon, cloves.

A perfect plum pudding dusted in confectioner's sugar and topped by a sprig of holly sat on the counter. Beside it sat a fruitcake and a cut-crystal dish of steaming cranberry sauce.

Melody cast a spell for harmony and good fortune, while she basted a Christmas goose as if she'd been born cooking... until she looked up and saw him standing there.

Startled, she squeaked, stumbled over the spell, and overshot the goose by a mile, damned-near basting a video-grapher, who tried to jump from the scalding liquid, only to trip and take his tripod down with him.

Logan ignored the resulting commotion, the waving director, the chuckling audience, while he held Melody's gaze, and she held his. She dropped the baster into the pan, forgot the goose, and met him halfway across the set.

Screw live TV, Logan thought, as he stepped in front of the cameras, backed his sexy-as-hell witch up to the wall, and kissed her senseless.

Watching at home, Phyllis and Jessie high-fived each other. Shane shouted, "Yes!" and jumped from his grandfather's lap. "Wait! I know that train."

On the show, as their reunion kiss lingered, the orchestra struck up a festive jingle-bell rendition of "Do You Believe in Magic?"

"I believe in magic," Logan said, loving the feel of her curves under velvet. "I'm holding her in my arms." He kissed her again. "I love you."

"Took you long enough to realize it."

"Like I'm the only one?"

Melody blushed. "I love you, too."

"Too bad you're not the marrying kind."

She toyed with a button on his shirt. "I... might have been mistaken about that."

Logan raised her chin, saw that her eyes were bright. "I got the feeling that you sort of... proposed... on your last show, but before you confirm or deny that wild assumption, you should know that I'm about to become an independent filmmaker, not exactly a steady job."

The smile she gave him could rival the sun. "That's all right," she said. "I have a steady job. You can provide the excitement in the family, and I'll provide the stability."

Logan grinned. "In that case, bewitch me, please, for as long as we both shall live?"

Melody unhooked her mike and tossed it. "Hell, yes," she said, "I love raising the devil," and she gave herself up to his kiss.

A roar of approval rose from the audience, and her candied yams came out perfect.

Dear Reader, Salem, Massachusetts, is a wonderful city to visit, and the majority of the events I portray in The Kitchen Witch are available to visitors, some all year long, and others only at Halloween. Owing to my experience as a special events' coordinator, and to the evolving nature of such events, I renamed those herein to fit my story and to protect the actual events from my imagination. Among the figments of said imagination are WHCH TV, "The Salem Museum of Witchcraft," and "The Keep Me Foundation." For more information on Salem, please visit their website at www.salem.com.

Annette blair www.annetteblair.com Turn the page for a special preview of Elizabeth Minogue's novel Coming soon from Berkley Sensation!

Chapter One.

ROSE twisted through the crowd, sweating in her heavy kirtle as the relentless sun beat down upon her uncovered head. Safe within the press, she dared cast a quick look over her shoulder. As far as she could tell, she had not been followed.

Yet.

Two weeks on shipboard had left her legs uncommonly stiff. The wooden planks rose to meet her, jarring her off-balance. Clap clap, clapclap. Heel and toe of her wooden pattens hit the planks more quickly as she found her land legs. She hurried on, breathing through her mouth against the oily smell of fish, thick as fog on the unmoving air. She kept to the most crowded places, head down, meeting no man's eye. Yet still the sailors noticed her.

"Slow down, Jenny-sweeting-chevra," they called after her. "What can be the rush? Stay a moment, let me show you-"

Despite the paralyzing heat, she wished desperately for cloak and hood. The past year of silent solitude had stripped her of defenses. Even before that, she had never been the focus of so many eyes. On the few occasions she was permitted to appear in public, her cousins were always present. The two of them rendered her as invisible as any magic cloak could ever do.

But today Melisande and Berengaria were far away. She was alone in a place where no respectable woman would be seen. No woman at all just now, not in this unrelenting heat. Even the dockside whores had retreated to some shady chamber to wait for evening's cool.

But she could not afford to wait. She must go now, and swiftly, before her absence had been noticed. Eyes fixed on the wooden planks beneath her feet, she concentrated on her destination.

I must be calm, she told herself. Or, she amended, wincing as a sailor trod upon her toe, I must look calm. But that should present no problem. She was good at looking calm; so good, in fact, that those who knew her best would swear she was half-witted.

But he must not think that. He must believe her story, strange as it might seem. She would be bold. Bold and firm... yet not overbearing. After all, she was a supplicant. Or would be, if she ever got there.

Almost running, she crashed into a bearded sailor no taller than her chest with a broad basket balanced on his head.

"Forgive me-please, sir, could you tell me-"

"Piss off," he snarled, shoving her away.

She took a few stumbling steps toward the edge of the dock, but was halted on the edge by a hand fastened on her wrist.

The moment she regained her balance, her plump dark rescuer released her and turned away, wiping his palm fastidiously upon his flowing crimson robe.

"Wait!" she cried, hurrying after him. "Pardon, sir, but could you tell me-"

"Channa zayra," he snapped, not slowing his pace.

"Alet amia," she answered sharply.

He stopped instantly and turned, one hand moving to his brow. "Forgive me, serra. How may I serve you?"

"Can you tell me where the Prince of Venya may be found?"

He shut one eye in the Jexlan manner, a courteous gesture denoting careful thought.

"I have not seen him," he said at last. "And had I done so, I would not tell you."

"But I must find him! Please, serrin, it is a matter of life and death."

He sighed. "Daughter, whatever this matter is, you should take it to your family. The... one you speak of cannot help you." He clicked his tongue, a tsk tsk of disapproval. "To so much as speak his name is to sully your honor."

Perhaps in Jexal; if it were so in Valinor, every maiden in the country was already sullied beyond redemption, for the Prince of Venya's name was shouted out constantly in every market square. Despite a dozen edicts, half the troubadours in the country made their living courtesy of his adventures.

"But I must speak to him," she insisted. "My family is dead; they cannot help me, and I haven't a moment to waste."

He studied her face for a long moment, then gestured toward the row of stalls. "If the Venyans are here at all, that is where you will find them."

He touched his brow again, this time with one finger only. Why, the man thinks I am a whore, she realized with a shock as he turned away without the customary bow. Jehan help me, will he think the same?

I must behave with dignity, she thought, turning toward the stalls. Dignified, bold, calm, and spirited- "Good day, master," she said to the man behind the counter. "Are there any Venyans here?"

"Oh, thou dost not want those sly sorcerers," the man said with an ingratiating smile. "Whatever they have, 'tis no match for what I can offer you. See, here is-"

"I thank you, but only Venyan will do."

His smile vanished. "I cannot help thee."

She tried the next stall.

"Venyans!" A burly man spat at her feet. "I have no truck with their kind. Move off, you're blocking the way."

An hour later she was soaked with sweat and so thirsty she could barely rasp out another question. But all that was nothing to the anxiety gnawing at the pit of her stomach. She started at each footstep behind her, heart leaping to her parched throat. What if he was not here? What if she had misheard or Captain Jennet had been mistaken?

She had no food, no water, not a single coin with which to buy the most basic necessities, let alone passage on a ship. And soon, if not already, she would be hunted.

She dragged shaking hands across her eyes. I'm not giving up. Not yet. Not while there is still the slightest hope.

She reached the end of the row of booths and turned the corner. A single stall stood in the deserted stretch of dock. She held her breath as she approached it.

The shelf was not crowded, but what was there drew and held the eye. A knife with a plain silver hilt, two rings, a glittering crystal on a stand of twisted strands of gold and silver. A tiny bejeweled windmill whirred and chirped a merry tune without a breath of air to stir it.

The man who stood above these offerings was no less exotic. He was immensely old, his eyes lost within a network of wrinkles. Hair the pale silver of carna blossoms fell nearly to his waist.

"The blessing of the day upon you," she said cautiously in Venyan. The man's eyes lit and he smiled.

"And upon you, acelina," he replied in the same tongue, his weathered face creasing in a smile. "How may I serve you?"