A Pinch of Kitchen Magic Read online

  “It will come. You just need to practice.” At the snap of his fingers, a bushel basket full of ripe, juicy tomatoes appeared on her cutting board at the snap of his fingers. “Again.”

  “That’s not fair!” A knot of dread grew in her stomach. It may have well been a thousand tomatoes since she couldn’t slice even one.

  “Nothing in life is. When you have mastered the art of cutting the tomatoes in half, call me.” He handed her his card. “I expect nothing less than your best effort. I don’t make house calls for mere amateurs. You’re either serious or you’re not.”

  Aidan scanned the silvery print on the smooth indigo card. “Matteus E. D’Luca.” She chuckled, opened her mouth to comment on his lyrical-sounding name, but he was gone.

  * * * *

  When he spied the huge pile of tomato bits in the woefully small kitchen, Matteus sighed. He’d only asked that she cut the fruit in half, figuring she’d never make it through the bushel. Instead, she had succeeded in putting a fine dice on them, resulting in a leaky, watery mountain of orange- red tomato flesh.

  It had only taken her two hours to accomplish the task. His chest swelled with preliminary teacher-student pride. That’s my girl. He shook his head. Not that she was his girl in any sense. He wasn’t attracted to her like that.

  But magical aptitude as she had might be an issue—for his peace of mind. She had the potential to become a problem. He didn’t have time for problems. Especially problems that possessed masses of blonde-brown hair and big brown doe eyes he could easily lose himself in. He hadn’t left his responsibilities at the Institute to become romantically involved with her. There was too much at stake for him to get sidetracked by a kitchen witch.

  He forced himself to remember his motto: “If you don’t get involved, they can’t get hurt you.” Inhaling and then slowly exhaling, he nodded to himself. He would teach her to use her magic in a responsible way, then leave. Nothing more.

  “Well done, Aidan.” He leaned a shoulder against the doorframe while she wiped her fingers on the stained white apron she wore. His insides tightened when a proud smile parted her full pink lips. “How were you able to achieve such an even dice on something as unstable as tomatoes, especially when you’ve never directed your magic before?”

  “I have no idea.” She shrugged. The slight rise and fall of her shoulders pulled the fabric of her t-shirt taut over the ample curve of her chest. “I set out to cut them in half, like you asked. Once that task was done, I found with just the simple nudge of my mind I could convince the knife it wanted to dice the tomato.” She focused her wide eyes on him. “The knife obeyed me. Before I knew it, I had this.” She gestured to the culinary artwork in front of her.

  “Excellent.” He jammed his fingers into the pockets of his jeans. “But you’re a tiny bit wrong. The object didn’t obey you. It’s not a living thing and has no brain or consciousness.”

  “Oh?” Confusion shadowed her eyes.

  Great, now I’ve undermined her budding confidence. “It’s not bad. For a moment, you became the object in question until you could manipulate it.” He pushed off from the doorframe. “You moved it with your will, with your energies. You were so connected to it, you made it move.” When she gave him a doubtful glance, he sighed. “In basic terms, you made the knife move as if you had an invisible hand.”

  “Makes sense. I felt…powerful.” She closed her eyes as if she contemplated her recent feat. When she opened them again, he found himself surrounded by the chocolate velvet of her gaze. “I felt somehow different when I used my magic.”

  “Remember power corrupts if you don’t use it correctly…or if you allow it to rule you.” He waved a hand in the air, watching in satisfaction as the pile of chopped tomatoes leapt into a waiting stockpot on the stove. “You must be in control at all times when exercising your energies. Otherwise, you could be stuck in a dark, evil place.”

  Aidan nodded. “What if I don’t want this magic? Can I send it back? For that matter, where did it come from?”

  Matteus ignored the enticing curve of her hip as she rested it against the counter. “Hettie didn’t explain why you might have a trace amount of power within you?”

  She shook her head as she added pinches of various herbs to the pot. “She only said the women of my family have showed an affinity for magic since the early 1700s. Something about leftover energies from immigrants to America. I didn’t really pay much attention since I thought they were made-up stories from her.” Aidan measured out chicken stock then dumped the liquid over everything else. “Hettie said if a woman was going to recognize and use her powers, they would manifest sometime in her twenties. Mine didn’t.”

  “Until you turned thirty.” He frowned. “That’s odd. Have you been extremely focused on something else? If a subject is relaxed or if they allow their mind to empty, that’s when the magic will make its first appearance.” Something stirred deep within him when she brought a wooden spoon to her mouth in order to taste the seasoning of the sauce. “How have you been passing the time?”

  Lips lifted in a smile, she met his gaze. “Trying to cook, or to be more accurate, trying to keep my cooking projects from burning, drying out and otherwise becoming radically inedible or unstable.”

  “Now it becomes clear.” He lifted a towel draped over a metal bowl. A ball of dough reposed within the warm depths. “I suspect you’ve always had the energies in your genetic make-up but they’ve been channeled into your cooking. Because you weren’t aware of them before now, it’s been the magic that’s been thwarting your success in the kitchen.”

  “So, if I can get a grip on my magic, you’re telling me I can learn to cook?” Excitement bubbled in her voice.

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “I’ll take the culinary world by storm.” She threw in a few pinches of salt, followed by two grinds of the peppermill. “I can have my own cooking show. I’ll show those arrogant chefs what cooking’s really about while putting my own spin on things.”

  Matteus winced. And yet another student has delusions of grandeur without thought to the risks. This was not a positive development. “That would be a grave mistake on your part.” He closed the distance between them. When he dropped his hands on her shoulders, he sucked in his breath at the immediate reaction he experienced. His fingers tingled with sparks not of his making. “Arrogance and magic do not mix. And white magic such as yours should be cultivated toward the humanities or ecology. Definitely do not dabble in Hollywood aspirations of fame and fortune.”

  “But I want to be a great chef. If magic can get me to my goal, why shouldn’t I make use of it?” She wrinkled her nose. “I’ll have an advantage.”

  Letting his hands dangle at his sides, he backed a few steps away from her. It was safer to maintain breathing room between them plus the tingling sparks ebbed. “That’s exactly why I’m here. Using magic for personal gain has dire consequences.” He backed up another few steps until he bumped into the island. “You would either forfeit your power or the power would become a deadly cancer, eating away at your soul until you became a dried, useless shell of your former self—full of magic certainly, yet you’d have given away everything else of use and value.” How many times had he seen magic—or more directly the love of power in conjunction with magic—destroy people he’d known?

  “But…”

  “No.” He quickly cut off her objection. “I’ll teach you the essentials you need to know, but mark my words, if you use it to grow your own ego, you will sign your death warrant. Don’t disappoint me and be that person.”

  “Matteus.”

  He refused to listen to her argument, he refused to look at the tip of her pink tongue as it traced her full, lush lips to wet them and leave them glossy. And he most certainly refused to go over there and kiss those lips even though every fiber of his being urged him to. “I’m serious. It’s my job to protect you from yourself.” But who will protect me from her?

  “Good grief, you’re so annoy
ing!” As she vehemently shook her head, a few more tendrils of hair drifted down to curl about her neck. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “No more discussion on this topic.”

  She emitted a sound of frustration. “The pizza dough is about to blow up and if you don’t move away—”

  An explosion rocked the kitchen.

  Matteus lifted an eyebrow as globs of sticky, yeasty dough dropped from the ceiling to land over every available surface with soft plops. “You could have warned me.” He removed a wad of dough from his shoulder then threw it to the floor, exasperation warring for dominance over desire in his mind. The woman is much too volatile for magic of any kind. This incident would definitely end up in his report.

  She planted her hands on her hips. “I tried but you kept on talking. A big bunch of blah, blah, blah on how I’ll destroy myself and the world with magic. Please, give me a little credit. I’m light years away from becoming the next super villain, all right?”

  “I’ll give you that.” He couldn’t defend himself against the truth. He removed a mushy mass from his hair, not reassured when he spied the sparkle in her eyes or her laughing countenance. “I’m leaving to change clothes. I expect this mess to be cleaned up by the time I return.”

  With a snap of his fingers, he was gone.

  * * * *

  Aidan frowned at the empty space where Matteus had formerly stood. How did he do that? Will I be able to do that too?

  More importantly, how could she expel the runaway pizza dough from her kitchen? Remembering Matteus’s words regarding living things, she spoke directly to the yeast.

  “You’ve had your day, you’ve had your fun, now form a ball, before I run.” Giggling at her lame attempt at a rhyme, she huffed her annoyance when nothing happened. A bit of dough dropped from the ceiling onto her arm. “Just pull yourself into a dang ball before he gets back. I’m not in the mood for a lecture.”

  Two seconds later, the bits of dough pulsed and throbbed with life. A medium sized glob jumped from the island onto the floor. It paused, quivered for a moment, and then rolled around the checkered tiles, collecting smaller bits as it went. As the mass moved about the floor, other pieces of dough became absorbed into the larger wad until it was as big as a basketball. It crawled over the walls, moved along the ceiling, skimmed through the cracks and crevices of the kitchen until it incorporated every renegade bit of dough into itself.

  The resulting dough formed a round before her. Now a good four feet in circumference, the dough ball shuddered, before slumping, its movement finished. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

  She tapped a fingernail against her front teeth as she contemplated the giant mass of dirty, dusty pizza dough. The tip of a pencil even poked through a portion of the dough. She tried to concentrate on the ball but it refused to move. Annoyed and embarrassed, Aidan yanked an industrial-strength garbage bag from underneath the counter. “Fine. If you won’t move, I’ll just throw you out. It’s not like I can use you now.” Especially after it had briefly been alive. She shivered. This magic stuff is going to take a while to get used to. After grabbing the chef’s knife from her board, she hacked the dough mass into smaller, manageable sections. Finished with the task, she chucked the pieces into the garbage bag, tied it off, and threw it into the trash bin in her garage.

  A tick over her left eyebrow superseded her feeling of accomplishment.

  When she returned to the kitchen, her gaze alighted on the bored face of Matteus as he sat perched on the now clean countertop.

  “I’ll give you points for cleverness, but as a general rule, that was cheating. We’ll begin again.”

  With a strangled sound of frustration in her throat, Aidan untied her apron, threw it in his general direction, and fled to the living room.

  Chapter Two

  Kill more flies with honey

  Aidan sensed Matteus’s presence behind her long before she saw him. The slight crackle of energy in the air confirmed his identity as did the tingling sensations rushing over her skin. “Why do you do that?” She inhaled his scent then bit her lip to suppress a sigh. Only he had the power to make her feel turned inside out. Why was that?

  “Do what?”

  Annoyed, she danced out of his gravitational pull, dropped onto a plum colored suede sofa and crossed her arms. “Popping in and out of the air. Why can’t you just walk through the house like a normal person?” She resented his spotless, clean clothes since her own faded jeans and t-shirt sported questionable bits of crusty food and stains. She hadn’t wanted to change into something else for fear he’d pop in on her while she was halfway through.

  “Using magic is more fun and a great way to exercise the mind.” Matteus shrugged. “And normal is subjective anyway.”

  She frowned. As he drifted through the sparsely furnished room, his gaze swept the purple and turquoise hued rug as well as the glass topped coffee table. “Where do you go when you disappear?”

  “Home or back to the Institute. It depends.”

  Obviously the man didn’t buy into the theory that conversation was a necessary part of successful civilizations. “Why the disappearing act?” She picked at a splotch of tomato sauce on her jeans. “Is it even a form of transportation?”

  “It is—at least for our kind.” His lips twitched. “I maintain a property on the island of Santorini as well as a townhouse in New York.” He stared at her. “Surely your Aunt Hettie explained to you the basic premise regarding Astral Projection?”

  “She did, but I wasn’t very interested at the time. Can’t you just tell me the crib notes version?” She settled in for what was most likely going to be a boring lecture. Is that all he was capable of?

  “Of course. Heaven forbid you actually gave magic a hundred percent of your attention.” Clearing his throat, Matteus cocked an eyebrow in her direction. “Think of the Universe as a swimming pool. When you swim laps, you only occupy one lane. Your lane is your own reality or plane of existence. You may be doing the backstroke, and the guy in the next lane is doing the freestyle. You’re both totally independent of each other, but you move at different speeds at the same time but through a different plane. Many planes exist, independent of each other but each with their own timelines. Reality is much the same way. When I disappear from here, I slip into a different plane.”

  “That’s… confusing.” Aidan closed her mouth with an audible click of her teeth. “Unless… Oh, I get it. You time travel.” She grinned, curiosity pinging around her brain. “Can you take me with you?”

  “That wouldn’t be advisable.”

  Yup, tall, dark and stubborn. “Okay. Will that be part of my training?” Prickles of awareness lifted the hairs on the back of her neck when he smiled. He should do it more often. “It sounds interesting, and you did say you’re here to teach me everything I’ll need to know if I want to use my magic responsibly. You wouldn’t want me flying willy-nilly all over town, would you?”

  His grin widened. “Ah, no, not at this time. I’m here to teach you to use your magic in a practical manner. Once you’ve mastered that, then you can start on the more difficult practices.” He reached out a hand to her. “Let’s move on to lesson two.”

  Aidan slipped her fingers into his. Tiny barbs of electricity danced from their clasped hands and along her arm. “Why did you say I cheated before?” She yanked her fingers free, wary of him but very aware of him at the same time.

  “You can’t just make up a pretty rhyme, ask an object to do your bidding then skate away without consequences.” The aggravation she associated with him flowed through his voice. “You need to determine why the dough exploded in the first place.”

  “I have no idea. You lifted the towel. You bumped the table. I was nowhere near the area when the dough grew in size.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Annoying.” She wondered why he was exasperated with the dough incident. “What’s the big deal? I cleaned up the mess.”

  “I’ll
overlook it since it was your first time.” His lips pressed into a tight line. “Now, I want you to change the pattern on your rug.”

  She shot him what she hoped was an incredulous look. “Why? I like the rug like it is now.”

  Matteus made a sound of exasperation in his throat. “I don’t care. Just change the pattern.” His fingers flexed at his sides.

  “What’s the point?” Aidan glanced at the blue-green paisley rug then met his tempestuous gaze. The air between them reverberated with a low-pitched hum. “I mean, what am I supposed to learn from messing with the rug?”

  “Must you be impossible?” He raked his fingers through his hair. “Just do what I ask! Please.”

  “Fine. No need to get your boxers in a bunch.” Which opened an interesting question: did we wear boxers or briefs? Aidan let her eyes relax as she stared at one of the paisley forms in the pattern. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t convince the fibers of the yarn to reorder themselves. She told the rug it would be happier displaying a peacock instead of the paisleys, but still nothing happened. “I don’t understand why it’s not working.” She raised her gaze to his, her breath dying in her throat at the intense look he bestowed on her. A storm at sea could never be as turbulent and tossed as his eyes were now.

  “Forget about anything that’s distracting you and try again.”

  “I’m not distracted.” Much. It was his fault for being so drool-worthy. She dutifully stared at the rug again. “Come on, you stupid rug, just change your pattern so my big, scary magic teacher will stop badgering me.”

  “If you insist on being irreverent about this, there’s no point in my being here. If you don’t want to learn to control your powers, I’ll just go ahead and drain them from you and I’ll be on my way.” Matteus raised his hand, his fingers poised to snap. “My time is more valuable to someone else.”

  Panic gathered in her throat at the thought of his leaving. “All right, I’m sorry. I get snarky when I’m frustrated or embarrassed.” She laid a hand on his arm, again caught off guard by the curious tingling sensation in her fingers. Her cheeks warmed when me her gaze. “But I’m telling you the truth. I can’t make the rug change patterns.” Disappointment sat like a lump in her stomach. She really wanted to impress him, to see his eyes light with pleasure because of her.