Jake took her hand, and the shock of connection answered her question. There was something here, something she wanted. Maybe, just maybe, something she needed.
"But if Alejandro rubbed the lamp, why did you come to me?"
She looked at their joined hands and wondered why it was suddenly hard to breathe. "The magic wouldn't work for him; he has perfect PH balance."
Jake's eyes widened. "His alkaline/acidity levels are balanced? What does that have to do with anything?"
She laughed and took a deep breath of fresh lake air. "No. He is Perfectly Happy. He has no need for wishes; the magic doesn't work on him."
Rose's voice suddenly rang out through the open window to the bedroom. "If I wanted you to remind me how to breathe, I'd ask you. Go shoot some vampires or something."
Alejandro's quiet response, reassuring and soothing, must have worked, because Rose let him stay in the room. Jake and Donya locked gazes, and then both of them had to fight back the laughter.
"Anyway," he finally said, when the danger of a stressed-out garden witch hearing them laugh while she was in labor had passed. "That doesn't seem fair. Happy people deserve wishes, too, right?"
Donya's smile faded. "But they don't deserve the dark twists of Djinn magic. Have you never heard the expression 'no good wish goes unpunished'?"
"Deed."
"What?" He was still holding her hand, and it confused her thinking.
She ... liked it.
"We say, no good deed goes unpunished. For you, it's wish?"
Because she liked it so well, she forced herself to pull her hand away from his, and then she stood and walked over to the railing. "For me, it was always about the wish. If a man wished to be surrounded by gold, the magic took him literally and encased his body in molten metal, so he died screaming. If a woman wished to be beloved of all, love turned to obsession and her lovers killed her from jealousy. Alejandro is perfectly happy with his Rose, so he deserved none of that."
Jake walked up behind her and put his hands on the railing on either side of her, surrounding her with his strong arms and the tantalizing scent of his body. "But I deserved it? Twice, even?"
She shuddered at the thought of the magic backlash harming him. "No. Which is why you came to no harm. You weren't selfish, greedy, or destructive. You were funny, and kind, and you didn't try to manipulate or capture me."
"And this time?"
"This time the magic bounced to you, as the nearest person to it who wasn't perfectly happy," she said quietly, daring to lean back and rest her head against the hardness of his chest. "But you weren't greedy this time, either. This time, you set me free."
He rested his cheek on her head and wrapped his strong arms around her. "It was the right thing to do. You should never be anything but free; wild creature that you are."
She turned in his embrace and looked into his golden eyes, feeling her heartbeat speed up and then settle into a matching rhythm with his. "And now I always will be, Jake Cardinal."
"May I have a wish after all?" His voice was husky; silken smooth and whiskey rough all at once.
"Name it first," she whispered.
"I wish you would kiss me."
She raised her hands to touch the sides of his face. "Oh, Jake. This wish I gladly grant."
She kissed him, first gently and then with a hint of the longing he'd ignited in her. She kissed him, and he pulled her into a breath-stealing embrace.
He kissed her back, and she caught fire.
Their magic exploded between them and sang out in a symphony of desire and heat and passion. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't resist him.
Never wanted to resist him.
When they finally had to break apart, just long enough to breathe, she found herself clutching his shoulders so she wouldn't fall. Her legs were trembling.
Her entire body was trembling.
Jake inhaled a deep breath, and then a fierce smile of purely masculine joy lit up his face. "How many wishes did you say I could have? Because I'd like to request that same thing, over and over and over."
She wanted the same thing, she tried to tell him, but she couldn't force the words past the tightness in her throat. She wanted to kiss him, forever. Didn't she? She did.
Except ...
She'd never been free. Could she--would she--truly give that up to the first man who'd kissed her as a free woman?
"Jake, I--"
The indignant wail of a newborn babe interrupted her. Jake shouted out a wordless cry of happiness and relief, lifted her into his arms, and twirled her around.
"Rose's daughter is born, and she's healthy," Donya told him, smiling.
"It's a baby! I mean, a daughter? A girl? We have to go see her," Jake said, and his joy was so bright she almost needed to shield her eyes.
He grabbed her hand. "Let's go see her. Them. And then we can talk and wish and anything else we want to do, for as long as we want to do it."
"You go ahead," she told him. "I'm right behind you."
And then she smiled like her heart wasn't cracking in two.
He took a step, then whirled around and kissed her again. "Hurry!"
Donya laughed. "I'm coming, I'm coming. Get in there already."
When Jake turned around, she was gone.
Exactly one year later ...
JAKE TOUCHED A FINGER to the edge of the lamp that his cousin had given him the year before at the lake, when all of their lives had changed. Rose and Alejandro had a beautiful baby girl, and the entire family had gotten together today for Bryony's first birthday.
He shuddered. Nobody had needed to see Granny making out with the guy she'd met at Senior Yoga, though. There wasn't enough eyeball bleach in the world for that.
He opened a beer, the strongest thing he drank these days, and tried not to think about how his life had changed that day. The day he'd fallen in love with a Djinn.
The day she'd left him.
His family was trying--hard--to set him up with a nice witch. They'd even brought a pretty and smart woman who taught at the local Magic Munchkins preschool to the party. She'd been sweet and kind and funny.
But she hadn't been Donya.
A cool wind swept through his house, and he knew the windows weren't open.
"I see you kept my lamp," she said, and he forgot how to breathe, all over again.
He turned around, slowly. Just in case he was dreaming; he didn't want to move too fast and wake himself up.
But she was there. Wearing a red dress and a hopeful expression.
"Hello, Donya. Was freedom everything you'd hoped for?" He could hear his voice trembling, and so could she, because she started toward him before he got all the words out.
"It was glorious and wonderful. I had many amazing adventures, and I saw the world on my own terms," she said, her smile tentative but growing as she walked into his open arms.
He almost didn't dare to hope, but he asked, anyway, because she was here, and because he could do nothing else. "Are you here to grant my wish?"
She tilted her face up to look into his eyes. "Actually, Jake, I'm hoping you'll grant mine."
"All of your wishes," he said, already kissing her. "Always."
So the wizard fell in love with the Djinn, and they lived happily and magically ever after. But their families? That was, as they say, a whole 'nuther story ...
Alyssa Day is the New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of more than thirty-four books, including the Warriors of Poseidon and Cardinal Witches paranormal romance series and the Tiger's Eye Mysteries paranormal mystery series. Her many awards include Romance Writers of America's prestigious RITA award for outstanding romance fiction, and the RT Reviewer's Choice Award for Best Paranormal Romance novel of 2012. Her books have been translated into a zillion languages, but she's still holding out for Klingon.
You can find her at http://alyssaday.com or on Facebook and Twitter talking about her future pug ranch.
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This anthology is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writers' imaginations, have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, locale, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
SECOND CHANCES: A ROMANCE WRITERS
OF AMERICA(r) COLLECTION
Copyright (c) 2017 by Romance Writers of America(r)
"The Fisher Men: Levi's Story" copyright (c) 2017 by Lauren Billings and Christina Hobbs "Scandalous" copyright (c) 2017 by Cassandra Dean
"One Hot Mess" copyright (c) 2017 by Christina Morgan Ferraro "Something Old, Something New" copyright (c) 2017 by Lizzie Shane "Reload" copyright (c) 2017 by Tara Wyatt
"When Life Imitates Art" copyright (c) 2017 by Marilyn B. Weigel "Under a Burning Sky" copyright (c) 2017 by Renee Luke "Just Looking" copyright (c) 2017 by Maggie Worth
"Covert Hearts" copyright (c) 2017 by Ariella Moon
"One Night" copyright (c) 2017 by Julie Kenner
"The Jilt" copyright (c) 2017 by Sharon Rebecca Sobel "Fortune's Treasure" copyright (c) 2017 by Liliana Hart "Twice Shy" copyright (c) 2017 by Damon Suede
"Love Is in the Air" copyright (c) 2017 by Rachel Hauck "The Family Tree" copyright (c) 2017 by Brandi Willis Schreiber "Homecoming" copyright (c) 2017 by Kerri Carpenter
"Jake's Djinn" copyright (c) 2017 by Alesia Holliday
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this anthology may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
ISBN: 978-0-9862282-1-6
Cover Design by Frauke Spanuth at Croco Designs
Interior Layout Design & Typesetting/eBook Production by VMC Art and Design, LLC
Editing by Mary-Theresa Hussey at Good Stories, Well Told
Published by Romance Writers of America(r), Inc.
J. Kenner, Second Chances: A Romance Writers of America Collection
(Series: Stark World # 2.50)
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