She breathed out shakily, imagining how his hands might feel on her body.

      Their conversation had been preempted by the theft of the statue, but before that, Gorgeous had sounded as if he was seriously considering a trip up here. Turning toward the wiccans, she cleared her throat, straightened her shoulders and read:

      “O, ye spirits, do hear me

      In a crystal ball do see

      An eve of sexy revelry

      With a man I call Garrity

      And if we should be good in bed

      I beseech ye, we should wed

      And now that this has all been said

      I give this handkerchief of red.”

      Turning, she dropped the handkerchief into the boiling water, then had the strangest falling sensation, as if a rug had been jerked from beneath her feet. Her breath caught as it went under the bubbling surface of the water, the pointed tail of it swirling once before it was lost.

      Surely it was nothing—just fanciful thinking, as if the spell might work—nevertheless, the hairs at her nape were prickling her warm skin when she exited the circle. The feeling lingered as Diane cast a spell to make her business, Wacky Weekends, thrive, and as C.C. angled for another promotion. Only when the women began stripping and running into the lake did the feeling start to dissipate.

      As C.C. pulled a sundress over her head and weighted it down with a rock, Signe said, “wouldn’t it be kind of creepy if these spells really worked?”

      Mara was wiggling out of her shorts. “Creepy?”

      Signe shook her head. “I don’t know,” she murmured. “Back there, I got this…weird feeling. Like it was real. Like it’s going to work.”

      “And you’re going to marry Gorgeous Garrity?” asked Diane.

      “Or just sleep with him?” asked C.C.

      “You wish,” chimed Mara. “C’mon, get undressed.”

      That changed the subject. “I’m not swimming in that lake.”

      Mara shot her a long look. “Why, may I ask?”

      Signe laughed. “Because when I free-associate, lakes make me think of words such as rocks, fish and slime.”

      “No excuse,” declared C.C. “If I can do this, you can.”

      “What the heck,” Signe said on a sigh, stripping off her shorts and panties, and glancing around as she downed the last gulp from her pewter mug. “What if someone sees us?”

      “There’s nobody out here,” assured Diane.

      C.C., wearing her bra and panties, grabbed her friends’ empty mugs and said, “I’m getting us all refills before I get in.”

      The stuff was definitely tasty. Usually, Signe didn’t indulge much, but her friends were right. This was a girls’ night. No men were in the woods. And the lake really was beautiful, the crests of its softly lapping dark waters glinting with light from the glowing full moon. If Gorgeous Garrity really did show, he probably wouldn’t mind if Signe was just a little tipsy….

      The alcohol seemed to be making her quite bold.

      “Make mine a double, C.C.,” she suddenly called.

      And then she pulled off her panties and, tired of the other women teasing her for being relatively body conscious, she made a point of throwing the scrap of silk to the night breeze. As a gust of wind caught her underwear, Signe ran for the water.

      Which meant her back was turned when C.C. returned with the drinks and pulled the age-old camp joke of hiding the rest of Signe’s clothes.