Kitabı oku: «Touch and Go», sayfa 2

3

CARRIE STANFIELD WAS just as sexy as he remembered. Her hair was a little longer now, but otherwise she looked just the same as she had the last time he’d seen her. And touching her, feeling the warmth of her smooth skin against his after fantasizing about it all this time—

It had been worth it.

Patrick couldn’t believe he was actually shaking, and it had very little to do with the freezing cold temperature at the end of January. He stood next to his car in the parking lot after brushing the snow off his windshield and stared down at his trembling hands.

“Oh, come on,” he groaned. “Get control over yourself, will you?”

He was fine. Seriously. Just fine.

There was a time when Patrick could get a read on someone simply by being in the same room with them. It had been a very handy, very powerful tool he’d taken for granted. Back then, touching someone skin to skin helped hone in on certain feelings. He could tell, if he concentrated, when someone was lying. And sometimes he could even glean specific thoughts.

A powerful psychic ability like that had taken him to the top of PARA pretty damn fast, and it was a gift he’d had complete control over. He could turn it off if he didn’t want to be bombarded with details about another person’s life and turn it back on when he needed it again.

Then he’d had the accident. Thankfully, it hadn’t led to permanent paralysis, but spine injuries were a bitch to heal.

His fiancée, Julia, hadn’t stuck around very long once he’d landed in a wheelchair and had to start painful physio sessions. He wasn’t sure if she’d left because of his own miserable attitude at suddenly being physically challenged or that she simply didn’t want to be with him any longer. In any case, she’d broken up with him, returned the engagement ring and walked away. He heard she’d gotten married recently to a CEO in Los Angeles. The news hadn’t hurt half as much as he thought it would. Maybe they’d grown apart well before the accident and just hadn’t realized it, but his injury provided the perfect catalyst for Julia to make her life somewhere else. With someone else.

He preferred being alone, anyway. It was easier.

Being stuck in that wheelchair had been torture. He was used to being physically fit and completely independent. Working in an agency that dealt with enchanted objects on a daily basis could only lead to certain temptations. And he’d successfully been tempted by a healing charm a couple of agents had brought back from Egypt. Patrick began wearing the silver disc on a thin leather rope around his neck.

And it had worked like, well…a charm.

In a single day, the pain was gone and he was able to walk again as if the accident had never happened in the first place.

It was too good to be true.

Only, like many things that were too good to be true, his restored health had come at a price. Now he couldn’t get a read on someone simply by being in the same room. He had to actually touch them. That alone would have been fine. He’d have been willing to give up a fraction of his former power in order to recover from his injury in record time.

But now when he touched someone, he experienced their emotions and thoughts like a bone-crushing, mind-numbing wave that threatened his sanity and frequently gave him nosebleeds. The pain was too much for him to handle, and he had a high tolerance to begin with.

Sure, he could walk. Hell, he could run marathons like he used to—and he did take great joy in running five miles every morning at sunrise. But if he touched anyone, he was brought to his knees by the agonizing pain.

As a result, he didn’t touch anyone. Pain avoidance. Sanity preservation. He’d prefer his head not to explode. He needed it right where it was.

His BlackBerry, once a useful tool, had become his lifeline. He was never without it anymore. What information he used to get from touching someone, he now tried to get through the smart phone. He had a connection to the PARA database through it—a wealth of info about everything he needed to know. It wasn’t the same as before, of course, but he was adapting. It wasn’t as if he had much choice in the matter.

With his reduced capabilities, he’d known he couldn’t be the agency manager anymore, but PARA was his life. He wasn’t willing to simply walk away from it and start fresh elsewhere. He’d been asked to reconsider his decision, to be the boss again, but he wasn’t ready for that. Not now. Maybe never.

Not touching anyone had become second nature to him by now, but he knew it marked him as an outcast. His friends and coworkers were confused by his behavior, but he couldn’t tell them the truth. No one knew his secret. If news got out that he never tapped into his abilities anymore, he’d lose his credibility—and job.

Then along came Carrie Stanfield. She’d called him out of the blue a couple weeks ago, worried her telekinesis was completedly out of control. Telekinetics were rare and valuable—he knew this from years of managing psychics. He’d wanted her on staff two years ago when he’d sensed her burgeoning power. He hadn’t changed his mind about that. He’d hired her while he still had the authority to do so.

But she was going to be trouble.

The woman even looked like trouble with that long, sexy raven-colored hair and those cinnamon-colored eyes and lush pink mouth. A mouth that was a little too wide for her face, a feature that kept her from being just another generic and forgettable beauty.

There’d been something about her that day in the restaurant. It wasn’t an unusual situation. He’d been interviewed before, but his reaction to her had been out of the ordinary, to say the least.

Instant attraction. He’d never felt anything like it before. The only thing that held him back from doing anything about it—and, possibly, making love to her right then and there—was the fact they were in a public place and he was engaged to be married.

No woman, not even his ex-fiancée, had ever affected him so strongly. His cock hardened even now at the memory of her skin against his and the cautious desire he’d seen in her eyes. It was a mutual attraction and one that he’d sensed when he touched her. Carrie had wanted him.

No one but Patrick knew he’d kept the article she’d written in his top desk drawer just so he could look at her picture every now and then. He’d been convinced he’d never see her again.

And yet here she was. The brief handshake a few minutes ago had confirmed to him empathically that nothing had changed. She was still attracted to him after all this time.

But nothing could happen between them. A few seconds of the intensely pleasurable feel of her warm skin against his—a torturous tease for someone who’d been celibate for longer than he cared to admit—before his power kicked in, making his head feel ready to explode with agonizing pain. He couldn’t imagine what a more intimate exploration of her beautiful body would do to him. Just the thought of her naked flesh pressed firmly against his gave him a hard-on.

He’d empathically read something other than attraction from her today, though. She was scared. Nervous. Uncertain.

She hid it really well.

He wanted to help her. He could help her. He’d worked with dozens of telekinetics over the years. Carrie was just going to be a greater challenge for him. Their relationship would have to be hands-off—literally. Professional only. If anyone found out about his secret, his job was in jeopardy.

He could do both. He could help Carrie master her psychic abilities so she’d make a great addition to the PARA team, and he could keep his hands to himself.

When he felt better and less shaky, he got in his car and adjusted the mirror so he could look himself in the eye.

You can do this, he told himself. The pep talk didn’t help much.

Given enough time, Carrie would learn to keep her distance from him like everyone else at the office now did. Their first assignment together would take them to the Bahamas for a couple of days. It was to be a routine assessment and recovery of an allegedly magical object.

Business only.

This was how it had to be. There was no other choice.

He’d touched the beautiful Carrie Stanfield for the last time.

4

A SUB-ZERO, FROZEN landscape one day, palm trees and blue skies the next.

Carrie thought she might be able to get used to a job like this. She’d had no idea her first official assignment as a PARA agent would be a trip to the Bahamas, but she wasn’t going to complain. She just hoped and prayed that nothing would go wrong. Patrick seemed to have a lot more confidence in her ability to keep her telekinesis under control than she did.

A warm tropical breeze that held the barely-there scent of coconut suntan lotion wafted gently past her as she stepped from the taxi onto the pavement. The late afternoon sun was low in the sky, and she closed her eyes for a moment, letting her pale skin absorb the sunshine she’d been craving since winter hit New York State full-force in late November. The Vitamin D would do wonders for her.

She’d been concerned about the flight to the Bahamas—wouldn’t want to accidentally break a window at thirty thousand feet altitude the way she had with her father’s windshield—so she’d gotten a prescription for Xanax that pretty much knocked her out for the entire trip. She’d also stopped drinking coffee three days ago. Caffeine made her jittery.

She missed coffee.

She had packed a bathing suit for any off-time she’d get while down here. As they said, when in Rome… Or the Bahamas.

“You ready?”

The words jolted her out of the pleasurable moment and she opened her eyes. Patrick stood in front of her. He’d finished paying the taxi driver.

Her gaze swept the length of him, over the dark jeans and black button-down shirt that clung to his arms and chest. Her appreciation for what she saw stayed hidden behind her sunglasses. “Of course.”

This had been the way conversation had gone between them since landing at the Nassau International Airport an hour ago—short and to the point. She was almost used to it by now. Just as Amanda said, Patrick was not the same as he’d been the first time Carrie met him. He was more serious now, and kept to himself unless contact with other employees was unavoidable.

He’d spent a little time with her in the office the previous week, outlining her job responsibilities. Showing her files on past assignments. She’d studied them and learned. It amazed her to think it wasn’t so long ago that she hadn’t believed in the supernatural world at all. Now she was a part of it.

Patrick also gave her a stack of paperwork to read about telekinesis—he called it TK. She spoke to another telekinetic agent—one who worked at a branch of PARA in Texas. He’d given Carrie a half-hour talk that made her hope for the best.

Since she was a realist, however, she didn’t set her hopes too high.

Being close to Patrick made it difficult to concentrate. She hadn’t had enough time to figure out what he was hiding yet. They were rarely alone, and every time they were, he usually found a reason to leave after a few minutes.

She had to admit that she’d enjoyed reading all about the history of the agency and liked meeting everyone in the office. She hadn’t expected to feel so welcome—especially with her extremely conflicted feelings about her own psychic predicament. But everyone had been amazing and the job seemed both interesting and challenging.

Each case was like figuring out a mystery. That appealed to her. When she was a kid, she told everyone she was going to be a detective like the ones she watched on television. She devoured Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys novels. Something about solving a puzzle challenged her. She hadn’t become a detective, but some of her articles had required extra digging. Those were the ones she loved writing the most.

Patrick McKay was a puzzle for her to solve, no doubt about it. And it only made him more intriguing.

Occasionally, she’d look over at him and find that he was staring at her. Their eyes would meet and hold. And she felt it—there was heat between them. Moments like that didn’t last long. Patrick would turn away, leaving her hot and bothered and determined to get to the bottom of the enigma that he was.

Come what may, Carrie had one hell of an inconvenient crush on her handsome new partner and spent too much time fantasizing about tearing his clothes off and shamelessly having her way with him.

But that would require him to touch her. And for some reason he had issues with that. Since their strange handshake on her first day, they hadn’t had any physical contact. Nor had she seen him touch anyone else. She’d been watching.

He definitely had a secret, no doubt about it. The only question was—what was Patrick McKay hiding from everyone?

“This place is gorgeous,” she said, taking in the green grass, the red, orange and bright pink hibiscus flowers twice the size of her hand, and the Royal palms that lined the cobblestone driveway leading to the front doors of the Violet Shores Resort.

Patrick glanced down at his BlackBerry. That thing always seemed to be in his right hand, as if it were surgically attached to him. “The owner and his wife ran this place together, but she died a year ago and he’s stayed on by himself. It’s a couples resort—mostly honeymooners. Smaller than a lot of the other resorts in the area, but this is a nice piece of beachfront property that includes a small private island.”

Across the street was the Loa Loa, a five-star resort Carrie had read about in the in-flight magazine before she dozed off. It dwarfed this place, but didn’t hold a candle to the unobstructed ocean view that Violet Shores had.

“Welcome,” a voice said. Carrie turned to see a man approach. He was around thirty, attractive, with short light brown hair with sun-kissed highlights. He was dressed in a casual green golf shirt and tan pants that hung a bit loosely on his thin but athletic frame. “Thank you for coming. Patrick McKay, right?”

“That’s right. You’re William Crane?” Patrick glanced at the man’s outstretched hand, but didn’t make a move to shake it.

He smiled. “Guilty as charged.”

“Good to meet you.” Patrick nodded at her. “This is Carrie Stanfield, my partner.”

“Please call me Will.” He reached his hand out to take Carrie’s and she didn’t hesitate to shake it. Firmly.

It hadn’t escaped her notice that Patrick had blatantly refused to shake William’s hand. Then again, she hadn’t expected him to. Patrick glanced at her and their eyes met. She looked down at his hands, which he quickly slid into the front pockets of his jeans.

“Something wrong?” Patrick asked pointedly.

“No, of course not,” Carrie said. “You have a beautiful resort, Will.”

“Thank you.”

“Where did the name Violet Shores come from?”

“My wife’s name was Violet. I officially changed the name six months ago because when I’m here…she’s still with me.” Will’s smile faded at the edges. “Since she’s been…gone…times have been tough. Bookings are down. Way down. I’m desperate for a solution or I’m going to lose the place.”

Carrie couldn’t help but feel his grief, and her heart ached for this man she’d just met. She glanced around. Now that Will mentioned it, it was extremely quiet here. No cars other than their taxi had pulled up since they’d arrived. Considering the hotel was located in a popular area of Nassau, there should have been some activity.

“Where is everyone?” she asked.

“I have a few guests right now, but…well, come inside and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Will led the way and into the lobby, which had a shiny indigo teal tile floor. The skylight above showed a section of bright blue sky. A woman behind the main desk nodded at Will in greeting.

Doors to the left led to the pool and beach area, and a young, attractive couple walked through them into the lobby.

“I hate you!” the woman snarled. “I wish I’d never married you.”

“The feeling’s mutual,” the man snapped back. “Do you know how much that wedding cost?”

“I know because my parents paid for it. Your parents were too damn cheap to chip in on anything but the flowers.”

He glowered at her. “I should have hooked up with your roommate instead of you.”

“I knew you had the hots for her, you bastard!” She burst into tears and ran off toward the elevators and he stomped back out to the pool area.

A chill moved down Carrie’s arms after witnessing the squabble.

A couple of moments later, they arrived at Will’s office. “What you just saw out there is one of the many problems at Violet Shores right now.”

“A married couple arguing about their relationship.” Patrick crossed his arms. “Not all that unusual.”

“Yeah, but they only got married yesterday. Here, on the beach at sunset. They invited me as one of the witnesses, since they decided to elope. They were madly in love, no doubt about it—so much so that I envied their happiness. Now? I don’t know.” Will sighed. “And they’re not the first to have a falling out right after their vows. Almost every couple that stays here and is obviously in love leaves miserable and, uh, not in love. I assume other guests are repelled by the arguing and fighting and end up going across to the Loa Loa, hoping there are rooms available.”

“And you think this is a curse?” Carrie asked.

He spread his hands. “What else could it be?”

“You said you believe you’re in possession of a cursed amulet. It says here—” Patrick studied the small screen of his BlackBerry “—you’d give more details once we arrived.”

Carrie took a seat across from Will’s desk when he indicated that she should. Patrick remained standing.

“Yes.” Will lowered his voice to a whisper and looked around nervously. “It’s Erzulie.”

“Gesundheit,” Carrie said.

“No, I didn’t sneeze. That’s the name of—”

“The Caribbean goddess of love and sex,” Patrick finished.

Will nodded. “It’s all her fault.”

Patrick eyed his screen again for a long moment. “You think a mythical goddess cursed your resort.”

Will’s jaw set. “Yes, I do. And I’m surprised you sound so skeptical considering who you work for.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t believe you, but it’s very unusual. I’ve never, in all my time at PARA, come across anything like this before. I typically deal with curses and enchantments cast by magic-using humans, not…goddesses.”

Will looked at Carrie hopefully.

She shrugged. “Patrick’s the expert here. I’m new at this.”

His shoulders slumped. “Well, that’s just great.”

“But…” she began. “Why would a—a goddess of love and…uh…”

“Sex,” Patrick said.

The sound of that particular word leaving Patrick’s very enticing lips caused a pleasant but unexpected shiver to run down her spine—similar to the one she felt every time he said her name. The sensuous reaction was instant.

She cleared her throat, feeling warmer all of a sudden, wishing she wasn’t wearing a long-sleeved shirt. She’d have to take a swim in the pool later to cool herself off.

“Why would a goddess of love and sex want to curse your property?”

“Because I pissed her off.”

“You pissed off a goddess.”

He nodded gravely. “When Violet passed away I was out of my mind with grief—I just couldn’t accept she was gone. I acquired the amulet from a museum auction—had to mortgage the resort since it was a huge amount of money—I was told to hold the amulet and think very hard about what I wanted in order to summon Erzulie. So I did. I wanted to see if she could…” His voice trailed off.

“Could what?” Carrie prompted after a moment, disturbed that Will’s expression had grown strained.

“Could bring Violet back to life.” His eyes were glossy now. He rubbed the back of his hand over his forehead. “Anyway, little did I know, she hates being woken by humans and our petty little problems. She refused to help me. After that, everything went to hell. Not only was I in debt thanks to buying the amulet, but the property’s now cursed. I can’t pay the bills and I’m going to lose the resort. The Loa Loa has already made me an offer. They want to expand. But I—I just can’t give up that easily. So I called your agency hoping like hell you could help me.”

Carrie glanced at Patrick. There was genuine concern on his face for their grief-filled client. One thing she knew for sure about Patrick, he sympathized with people in distress. She was the perfect example. Will’s pain had reached him. It had reached her, as well.

“Of course we’ll help you,” he said after a moment.

Her heart warmed and she was relieved he wasn’t going to argue about it.

Will nodded. “If there’s anyone in the world who can get to the bottom of this I know it’s you, Patrick. Your reputation precedes you. That’s why I asked for you specifically.”

Patrick smiled. His lips were a major distraction for Carrie, especially after the mention of sex. “We’ll try our best to find out what’s causing your problems—whether it’s really a curse or something else entirely.”

“Good. Thank you.”

“Where is the amulet?” Patrick asked.

“A couple miles from here on the west island. It’s a tourist trap only accessible by private boat, lots of great photo ops. I buried it there hoping to be rid of it once and for all, but it didn’t make a damn difference—the damage was already done. My boats are both in the shop, but they’ll be back tomorrow so you can head over.”

“Sounds fine.”

Will glanced at Carrie and smiled. “Till then, why don’t you two have some fun here at the resort? I’ll give you a honeymoon suite with a heart-shaped hot tub. It’s way classier than it sounds, I assure you.”

Carrie shifted in her seat, feeling a line of perspiration slide down her spine. Great. Now she had a very clear image in her head of a wet, naked Patrick rising out of a steamy tub, the hot water trickling down his chest, over his flat stomach, and down to his—

Suddenly, the coffee mug on Will’s desk shot off the side and crashed to the floor.

She froze. Oops.

Will frowned as he looked at the broken glass. “That’s odd. Is there a breeze in here?”

Carrie cleared her throat and looked away.

“Carrie is my business partner only,” Patrick said, not acknowledging the most recent telekinetic accident. “We’ll require separate rooms. In fact, I’d like our rooms on separate floors, if possible.”

“If you insist. This place has four full floors to play with.” He sighed. “The Loa Loa has twenty-five.”

Carrie eyed Patrick with surprise. Separate floors? She knew he didn’t want to touch anyone, her included, but that was a bit excessive.

Then again, maybe he was just scared he’d get hit by an unidentified flying object if he were too close. She couldn’t say she blamed him.

Damned breakable coffee mugs.

She remembered her mother switching to plastic travel mugs for her coffee since regular ones had a mysterious habit of breaking. Carrie was dismayed to realize that probably had been her fault.

Will went to see that their bags were taken to their rooms. Patrick’s arms were still tightly crossed as Carrie got up from her chair. She studied his body language, her gaze moving over him and ending at his green eyes.

“What is it?” he asked, watching her carefully.

“I’m just trying to figure you out, that’s all.”

He was quiet for a moment. “There’s nothing to figure out. With me, what you see is what you get.”

“Sure it is.”

His poker face gave her no clues about what his problem might be. “Settle in, freshen up, and meet me by the pool in an hour. We may as well use the extra time we’ve been given to do some telekinetic exercises.” He raised an eyebrow, and she had a momentary glimpse of the warm humor she remembered once seeing in his eyes. He drew closer to her, so close that for half a second she actually thought he’d brush up against her. “So there are no more accidents involving glassware.”

Her face flushed at that and she chose not to comment. Instead her attention moved over his face to his throat. He’d undone the first couple of buttons on his black shirt, showing off a tantalizing glimpse of his toned upper chest. “What’s that?”

“What?”

“That.” She pointed at the small, crudely engraved tarnished silver disk that he wore on a thin black leather strip. “Doesn’t really suit you.”

He brushed his fingertips over it. “That’s why I wear it under my clothes.”

“What is it?”

“Just something I picked up.”

“It looks Egyptian. Are those hieroglyphics?” At his raised eyebrow, she added, “I took Egyptology as an elective in college.”

He covered the pendant with his hand, then did up a button so it was hidden again. “Like I said, meet me by the pool in an hour if you want to practice. If not, I’ll catch up with you later.”

It looked as if she’d hit a sore spot by questioning him about that pendant. Interesting. “No, I’ll be there. Practice makes perfect, after all.”

“We’ll get the amulet first thing tomorrow. If it really is a danger, I’ll destroy it here. Otherwise, I’ll take it back to PARA to go into the vault. We can be back in Mystic Ridge in forty-eight hours or less.”

“Barely enough time to get a good tan before we’re trudging through snow again.”

“Try to remember that this is a business trip, not a pleasure trip.” He blinked. “Why are you smiling at me?”

“You sound like a boss.”

“I’m not.”

“You used to be.”

He exhaled. “I used to be a lot of things.”

“I noticed you didn’t shake Will’s hand.”

He was silent for a moment. “What’s your point?”

“Just a bit strange, is all,” she said. He fisted both hands at his sides. “Why don’t you touch anyone anymore?”

“Because I choose not to.”

He was close enough that she could feel the heat from his body. If she wanted to touch him, all she’d have to do was reach forward and slide her hands over his chest. But she didn’t.

“Ever?” she asked.

“Rarely.”

“You touched me when I started last week. Am I special?”

He began to look vaguely amused by her onslaught of questions. “It was only a brief handshake. Don’t get too excited.”

Again her cheeks flushed. Patrick McKay was the first man capable of making her blush in years. “But you didn’t shake Will’s hand, and he’s a client. I’d think you’d make an exception for him, too.” She cocked her head as she studied his tense expression.

“What?” he asked warily.

“What would you do if I touched you right now? Right here?”

He held her gaze for a long moment. “Nothing. But I’d probably consider it very unprofessional behavior that you couldn’t keep your hands to yourself, Ms. Stanfield.”

She’d take his rebuff as a slap on the wrist if she didn’t see the heated look in his eyes. “Yes, sir.”

His jaw tensed. “Pool. One hour.”

“Okay.” As she turned and walked away, she realized she was smiling. After all, she did love a mystery.

And Patrick McKay was a tall, blond, handsome mystery she was determined to solve. Whether he liked it or not.