Energized (12 page)

“That's what his lips say. His aura tells a whole different story. Trust me, meet with TSS at the restaurant and everything will work out.” Karma's smile was big, bright, and a little too optimistic.

Hoping she was making the right decision, Hannah agreed
and tried to ignore the niggle of doubt tickling at the base of her neck.

*   *   *

T
HE SHOWER POUNDED
down. The jets so hot Mercy imagined the pinpricks of water could flay the filth from her skin. Rocking in the shower, she struggled for control.

It should have worked. He should have wanted her last night. She had it all set. The candles. The drugs. The chocolate and roses. But he didn't show. She had dressed for nothing.

Nothing.

Now she needed to rethink her plan.

To truly set him free, she needed three days with him. But the first day was already gone.

Why? Why hadn't he shown last night? He always shows.

Grabbing the bar of soap, Mercy scrubbed her skin the way her mother had taught her. Thoroughly. Roughly. Never leave a speck of dirt behind. No spot missed on the body. And double wash: her face, her hair, and the dirty parts. Always with efficiency.

Mother had given icy showers, but Mercy preferred hot ones. The hotter, the better.

Time to rethink the plan. Perhaps she'd been wrong about him. Maybe he didn't need her mercy after all.

That was fine.

It was a new day. Two days before the weekend.

Plenty of time to find someone else who needed her.

N
IALL
RUBBED
HIS
eyes and tried to focus on the computer screen again. The morning sun filtering through the high window of the tiny room highlighted the dust motes floating in the air. They danced in front of his face. He reached for his coffee cup. Empty.

He pushed to his feet and out of the office into the big kitchen of the Cat.

This was the best time of day to be a restaurateur. At barely eight thirty in the morning, the building was silent, except for the distant sounds of traffic outside and the nearby morning song of birds. And he was blessedly alone.

No one to crowd him. No one to clean up after. No one depending on him. He was truly free for a few hours. Normally, this was his best time. He'd get up, go for a morning run, shower, then get paperwork done. Except this morning, he was antsy. His run hadn't helped. Neither had his shower. He was left with the distinct impression he'd left something undone. Sleep.

He hadn't slept much the night before. And when he had, Hannah Halloran of the bewitching eyes had taken center stage. First in her room in Ohio, then in his truck last night, and then in his own bed. The dreams had been so realistic. He woke aching and frustrated. And dammit all, worried for her. She'd looked so lost.

Sure, she was with Karma, queen of the weirdo psychic stuff, but was that really what Hannah needed? She said she'd come to town to find her sisters, not to find him. He might have doubted her but she was guileless and open as she stared at him.

Sonofabitch.

Why couldn't she have come looking for him?

Not that he wanted a stalker in his life.

I'm losing my fucking mind.

The screen door creaked and Ross stumbled in, sunglasses on, hair mussed, wearing yesterday's wrinkled clothes. He stunk like he'd slept in a vat of cheap wine.

“Oh, man, I didn't think you'd be here.” Ross groaned and came to a sudden stop. The door swung back and hit him in the ass. “Don't you normally go for like a ten-mile run in the mornings? What're you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” Niall set his mug on the workstation behind him and crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you in last night's clothes? And since when do you show up for work before ten?”

Ross hiked a thumb over his shoulder. “I slept in my car.”

“It wasn't out there last night or this morning.” Niall leaned to the side to glance past his brother into the still empty parking lot. “Where'd you leave it? At the bar?”

“Ha. Ha. Funny, man. It's where it was yesterday. Parked on the other side of the Dumpster. Since you're too high and mighty to take out the garbage, I took it out last night. Then got in my car.”

Niall counted to ten but couldn't quite ignore the heat burning his cheeks. “And what do you mean, I'm too high and mighty? That's bullshit and you know it. You're trying to distract me from your latest screwup.”

“What screwup?”

“You smell like you climbed into a case of wine in your car. Do you want to get our license pulled for the Boxing Cat? Because that
will
put us out of business. We cannot compete in Tidewater without a liquor license.”

“No! Christ, you're an asshole!” Ross ripped off his sunglasses. He squinted his bloodshot eyes and got up in Niall's face. The stink of stale sweat and staler alcohol had Niall's lip curling. “I went to the bar last night during my shift, okay. I got drunk. Fuck. I got shit-faced. But when I came back you were all up my ass, like you've been since you came home. God, you're such a tight ass. No one is ever good enough for you. Everyone has to be perfect. Except news bulletin: I'm fucking human. I decided to go home instead of trying to prove my worth to the perfect war hero, Niall Graham.

“But I was too fucking drunk to drive. So I slept in my goddamned car. Alone. No drinking. No drugs. Just me asleep in my car behind the Dumpster! I figured I fucked up enough yesterday that I didn't want to get pulled over for drunk driving and tarnish the pristine Graham name. Is that all right with you?”

Niall stared down at his baby brother and saw both fury and hurt in the younger man's eyes. The fury pissed him off, but the hurt had him taking a calmer tack. Something had seriously set off Ross last night beyond their fight. Niall had sensed it then and could still see it now.

“It's fine, Ross. Why don't you go home and get a shower?” Niall reached to pat Ross on the shoulder but his brother shrugged away from the touch.

“That's why I came in here.” Ross pushed past Niall and scooped a set of keys from the desk.

Christ, I didn't even notice they were here.

Sunglasses back in place, Ross headed for the back door again.

“Ross, how'd you get in your car if the keys were in here?” The moment he asked the question, Niall knew he'd made a mistake.

Ross cocked his head to the right and said in an almost bored tone, “I leave my car unlocked. It's ancient. There's nothing anyone would want to steal. Unlike you, I can't afford a brand-new truck. I put every dime of my savings into moving into this goddamned building—”

“You really need to lock your car when you're not in it,” Niall said, ignoring the remark about the savings. It wasn't like he hadn't invested in the Cat too. Arguing that point wouldn't do a fucking thing to calm his brother right now. “We live in a city filled with criminals. There's a killer on the loose—”

“Yeah, yeah. Can we save the lecture for later? I'm not in the mood for any more brotherly love.”

Ross didn't wait for a response. He was outside and roaring out of the parking lot in seconds.

Niall lowered his head and exhaled.

What the hell was he going to do? Maybe Ross was right. Maybe he was a tight ass.

But that didn't mean no one measured up. Well, most people didn't. But some did. As soon as the restaurant was in the black, he'd show his brother how not-a-tight-ass he could be.

Maybe he'd even break a few of his own rules along the way.

Yeah, like taking a certain staff member with a penchant for the weird on a date.

Maybe not something quite so complicated.

Perhaps, just to bed.

One last time.

Who's the tight ass now?

*   *   *

S
UNLIGHT GLINTED OFF
the steel worktables in the Boxing Cat's kitchen. At ten in the morning, the room, awash in a silvery glow, was as welcoming today as it had been the day before. So why did Hannah hesitate before heading inside? Oh, right. The vision.

Her hand hovered over the wooden frame of the screened-in back door. What if she touched something else? What if she saw another grisly murder? She hadn't told Karma or Zig or
even her parents about the nightmares she'd experienced last night. Her stomach pitched at the memory of the terror on the man's face before the knife plunged into his throat. The flecks of blood hitting his cheeks, his nose, his eyes. The way red-black blood burbled from his lips.

“Morning, Hannah.”

Hannah jumped at Niall's voice behind her. She whipped around so fast she knocked him over with her backpack. He stumbled backward over something sticking up between the sidewalk and the doorframe. Then he kept falling. Over the curb, over the two milk crates the employees sat on during breaks, and slamming into the front of his truck.

That would have been bad enough but he'd been carrying what had to be four dozen eggs. The cartons flew up, the eggs crashed into each other, and yellow and clear goo slimed Niall from the top of his blue-black hair to the knees of his pressed khaki slacks. Slime dripped from him like he'd been the star contestant on some cable network kids' show.

“No! Oh, crap,” Hannah said, tossing her backpack aside and rushing to kneel beside him. “Frackity fracking frack! I'm so sorry, Niall. Are you hurt?”

Niall blinked at her, yolk sliding slowly down his brow between his confused green eyes. “Out. Stand. Ing.” He said each syllable as if it were a word he needed to enunciate for her benefit.

She reached for the broken cartons and plucked the cracked shells from his body. He stared at her with such intensity she did the only thing she could think of: retreated into humor. “I'm so sorry. The good news is that it's not tar and I don't have any feathers.”

The screen door slammed. The sound was immediately followed by Virgil's voice. “Boy, whatchu doing on the ground? Pretending to be a rooster? Don't you know you're supposed to get the hens to lay the eggs for you, not pelt you with them?”

Hannah closed her eyes, her cheeks flaming.

I'm so fired.

Niall snorted, then chuckled, and finally laughed.

Hannah opened her eyes to see Niall locking his gaze
with the old chef. Both men laughed as if they'd shared some fabulous inside joke.

Virgil extended his hand to Niall, then pulled it back before Niall could take it. “Why don'tcha help him up, Hannah? You're already a sight.”

Hannah glanced down at her newly purchased clothes to find she hadn't been spared the egging. She'd been kneeling in the mess and the slime made her knees cold. “Yes, sir.”

Virgil headed back inside, leaving the two of them alone in the parking lot.

She offered to help Niall up, but he shook his head and pushed to his feet in one fluid move that made her wonder what his muscles looked like when he did that naked. Niall naked was a sight to behold. Niall naked and doing calisthenics might just set her ovaries on fire.

He turned back and offered her a hand. “No harm.” He glanced at the catastrophe. “Well, there's harm, but nothing we can't recover from. Just a cleanup and another run to the store. How about you?”

His gaze zeroed in on her shirt. Yes. Yes, that was egg yolk splattered on the center of her right breast.

Her cheeks flamed even more.
God, I'm such a freak.

He definitely noticed the splotch but continued to search her body for injury. “Are you sure you aren't hurt? You jumped when I walked up. I thought maybe you stepped on a nail or something.”

“Nail?”

He gestured to the one poking up from the frame of the door. Odd, she hadn't noticed it yesterday. Definitely not good construction if it was already pushing out of the wood in a building as recently revitalized as the Boxing Cat's.

Niall frowned. “I told my bro—I mean, I meant to fix that this morning. Serves me right for procrastinating. Egg slop aside, you sure you're okay?”

“No, I'm fine. I didn't trip. I'm really sorry, Ma—” She cut herself short from saying
Marine
. No intimacy. That had been the deal. She was his employee now, nothing more. “It was an accident, Mr. Graham. I can pay for the damages.”

Niall's grin faded and his eyes went distant. He swiped a hand roughly down his face, then flung yoke off to the sidewalk. “Hannah. You can call me Niall. Everyone here does. People will start to wonder if you get formal around me.”

“Oh, right. Sure.” She nodded, stepping back and glanced around. “I can get this cleaned up. If you tell me where to find a hose.”

Niall cocked his head as if studying her. “You want to clean up this mess?”

“Well, I made it.”

“
I
made it. You were just standing in the doorway, not stepping on a nail.” Niall brushed eggshell and slime from his button-down shirt and slacks. “What made you jump anyway?”

“Nothing . . .” she began, then shook her head. “I was looking at all the metal in there and worried that I might get another vision, like last night. I don't think I could handle it right now.”

Niall straightened with a grimace. A myriad of expressions crossed his face, all too fast to decipher or catalogue. Finally, he fixed a decidedly flat smile on his face and said, “I'm sure nothing like that will happen again. I don't hire criminals.”

Only weirdos
. He didn't say the words but the wary expression he gave her was loud enough.

“Look, I need to change and replace the eggs we've lost. The hose is in a storage box behind the hedges on the side of the building. Hose the area down and sweep up the shells while I'm gone, then go home and change.” He made a face. “Damn, I forgot to ask how you're doing this morning. Did you get settled in at Karma's last night? You're wearing different clothes, so I assume you were able to borrow some from her. Can you borrow more?”

“I bought these an hour ago before the egg-tastrophe.” And now she was going to have to buy another work outfit. Perfect. She was going to run out of money before she received her first paycheck. Maybe she should just go home. Between the vision, losing all of her things in the fire, and needing to buy
another work outfit, it seemed as if the universe might have changed its mind about her coming to Tidewater.

Niall put his hands on his hips and surveyed the mess on the ground, then her. A slow smile curled his lips. “Tell you what. We'll call what happened here a draw. Go home and shower. I'll send Karma along with a replacement uniform for you, on me. I'll take care of the sidewalk if you can pick up eggs on your way back. But I need you here in an hour.”