Energized (5 page)

“We've got staff for all that.”

“Wrong.” That single word had come out harsher and louder than he'd intended. Counting to ten again, Niall reminded himself that pummeling his brother into the cement floor would only drive their mother to tears. “The people who work for us are waitstaff and cooks. You don't want people fixing the toilet, then handling food. This is why you and I are here. We do the maintenance, the hiring and the firing of staff, and the paperwork. The waitstaff handle the food. Period. Since I'm going to be out for the rest of the day, and there's no one to hire or fire, that leaves you to clean.”

Ross's cell phone beeped. He grabbed it from the holster on his hip and checked the message. His face fell. He looked like the sad little boy he'd been the day Niall had told him he was leaving to join the Marines. “Uh, we might have a small problem.”

A knot formed in Niall's empty stomach. “What do you mean?”

“That was the client. The guest list just grew.” Ross inhaled a deep breath and said quickly, “She's just added twenty more people to the dinner. We're going to need to hire more servers to keep it covered.”

Fucking perfect.

*   *   *

H
ANNAH CLASPED THE
heart-shaped sterling silver locket in her hand and allowed the psychometric vision to take over. All around her, present-day Tidewater dulled to gray shadows and muted sounds. Her consciousness spiraled down to the world captured in the metal between her fingers.

Instantly, she was in someone else's body. Thinking someone else's thoughts. Feeling someone else's feelings. It was bittersweet, because for the moment, she was in her mother's body.

Her
first
mother. The woman who'd loved and nurtured her until Hannah had been three years old. Until the breast cancer had snuffed out the woman's life just shy of her thirty-first
birthday. And this was the closest Hannah could come to touching her. Dipping into the memory carried by the energy wrapped in the locket.

Clutching the pendant tighter, Hannah let go of the modern world and delved further into her mother's memory. The scent of the magnolias sitting on her mother's table was fragrant and sweet. The hazy watercolor painting of three roses hanging on the wall came into sharp focus. And the connection was complete.

Love overwhelmed Hannah as she watched through her mother's eyes, while the woman carefully cut and glued the picture of three little girls into the pendant's right half and her own picture in the left. “Never forget me, my darlings. Momma loves you.”

Less of a participant and more of someone who had no control over the body she temporarily inhabited, Hannah mentally stepped back and just observed. Her mother's consciousness mingled with hers and she temporarily became her mother.

She glanced out the front window. Across the street, a royal blue Geo Metro was parked in front of a pitched-roof brick church. A circular stained glass window depicted Jesus dressed in white robes with arms spread wide, as if beckoning welcome to all who passed by. A pair of three-foot-high Japanese maples stood as proud red-leafed bookends on either side of the front steps. The small patch of neatly trimmed bright green grass lined the walkway to the front door. Someone had even taken care to edge the white public sidewalk.

Pain stabbed from the center of her left breast. She sucked in a breath and held it as she glanced from the pictures of her daughters to the church across the street. Her chest ached and not just where the doctors had stitched her up after the biopsy earlier that week. Slowly, she expelled air and pain. Not much longer now. Two months or two years, the doctors weren't certain. But what hurt most was the knowledge she'd never see her daughters marry in their church.

In the distance, a horn beeped rhythmically five times.

“Two bits,” she sang, finishing the seven-note musical couplet out of habit.

Her heart sank as realization set in. Earlier that day she'd learned exactly what kind of selfish bastard he was. Her husband, the father of her children, was a polygamist. And she'd thought the cancer diagnosis was bad.

Sick to her stomach, she watched the old green Chevy truck turn into the driveway and debated her decision. If she did this, her daughters would have no father and, all too soon, no mother either. But she couldn't live a lie and the selfish jerk had hardly been there since Hannah had been born.

The man behind the wheel tugged off his baseball cap, revealing a swath of hair so black it appeared almost blue with the sunlight beating on it through the windshield. He wore large sunglasses, had a bushy black mustache and a weary smile. He hopped out of the truck just below the Woodshire Avenue street sign. He carried a small red-wrapped package with a silver bow.

A gift from his trip. Another lie meant to convince her their life was something it wasn't. The sight of it made her stomach pitch and seemed to ignite the pain in her chest again.

Aching and gasping with redoubled pain, she glanced at the picture of the three smiling siblings and whispered, “I'm sorry, my darling girls, but it's better to be alone than with a liar.”

Hannah pulled back from the vision and released the pendant, letting it dangle from the chain around her neck. She took a moment to center herself.

“I'm Hannah Halloran.” She slowed her rapid breathing and let go of the last of the lingering pain from her mother's cancer. But it was hard. The only time she could even remember what her first mother sounded like was during a psychometric event.

While she took the pendant with her everywhere, she'd touched it only a few times since her adopted parents had given it to her last winter.

The morning after she'd spent the night with her handsome Marine.

A different sort of pain snuck into the space in her heart he'd somehow claimed in those few hours, but she refused to let it ruin the memory. She'd known he'd leave and not
return. She'd seen the signs before their first kiss and still she'd taken him to her bed. Thank God!

The snippet of sorrow at his never calling was worth every second they'd spent together. Not that she'd had much time to grieve that day.

Her parents had surprised her with the news that her birth sisters were searching for her. She'd grown up with the memory of her adoption at the age of three. Still, having a private detective come to Fincastle looking for her was unexpected. Something she'd had little time to process that morning because her parents followed up the big news with something even more amazing. Her mother's locket.

They had expected her to be angry for keeping the chain and pendant from her for almost twenty years, but anger was the last thing she'd felt. She understood their reason for keeping it sealed in a bag in their home safe. Their care of the locket kept her mother's energy undiluted. Had it been handled repeatedly for twenty years, the vision Hannah received would likely have dimmed with time.

She tried explaining this, but it didn't erase the worry from their faces. It was their worry that kept her from returning the call to the private detective of Tidewater Security Specialists. As illogical as it seemed, her wonderful, caring parents feared she'd choose her old family over her current one. Like adoption made their bond somehow less.

Sometimes parents could be so silly. She loved Axel and Rosalind Halloran for giving her a home and a family and better life than she could ever have hoped for in the system. So she'd waited six months before telling them she intended to spend the summer in Tidewater getting to know the sisters she only vaguely remembered. Perhaps it was illogical to want more when she already had so much. But as her father had so often said when she asked why they'd chosen to adopt her and not another child, “The heart wants what the heart wants.”

And right now, her heart wanted to find her sisters. But her head buzzed as she fought to withdraw from the vision.

She'd sunk too far into her mother's memory and the present seemed like a faded dream. “I'm Hannah Halloran,” she said again, trying to center herself firmly in the current reality.

She tugged off the necklace and dropped it into the small zippered pocket of her tie-dyed backpack. She repeated her name twice more before she broke with the past and was fully herself again.

The Woodshire Avenue from her vision was a bit different from the Woodshire Avenue of present day. The car across the street had changed from a Geo Metro to a Prius. The maple trees were no longer dwarfish but towered at eighteen feet. The pitched-roof church with the stained glass window still stood tall and proud.

Hannah turned on her heel and sought her mother's house. This was the right spot. But it wasn't her mother's cottage. The little house had been torn down. It was now a parking lot for a restaurant.

Hannah stared at the old, two-story, Victorian-style building and something tickled her memory. Laughter and toy dolls at a tea party on a rickety porch came and went quickly like a dream.

There was nothing decrepit about this building. It had clearly been part of the city revitalization project, along with every other building on the street, save the church. Only the church had remained ageless.

The restaurant's mauve walls and dark blue shutters gave it a charming old-world appearance. The front porch was freshly painted with sturdy steps that led to the grassy front yard. At the edge of the short yard, someone had hung a large wooden sign with an orange tabby cat wearing only gloves and boxing with its shadow.

Now that had definitely
not
been there all those years ago.

Hannah couldn't suppress a grin at the whimsical feline drawing. It was a sign to keep fighting. Keep going. Exactly what she needed.

A breeze kicked up, carrying with it the salty scent of ocean on the Tidewater air.

Man, you really can smell the salt in the air, even five miles from the beach.

The wind also carried the delicious smells of cilantro, bacon, and oregano carried from the restaurant's open window. Her stomach rumbled. Okay, maybe she needed a bit of food too.

A tall blond man wearing a garishly bright Hawaiian shirt plopped a Help Wanted sign in the front window of the Boxing Cat.

Hannah couldn't stifle the grin. Another sign that her trip to Tidewater was destined. They needed help and she needed a job for the summer.

Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

“Momma,” she whispered into the wind, “I'm home.”

“Y
OUR
AURA
IS
off. Did you have another fight with your brother?”

Hannah sat at the bistro table near the window, toying with the business card of the private detective. She wasn't trying to eavesdrop on the pretty waitress and the man who had posted the Help Wanted sign. Not that she could help it. At three thirty in the afternoon, the place was virtually empty.

Hannah had walked in as eight people, in boring business suits, shuffled out. Only four other people were in there and they sat around the corner in the next room. An empty place wasn't uncommon in Fincastle, but in a city the size of Tidewater with more than a million residents, it seemed strange.

So why weren't more people here? The food was excellent as was the décor.

Whoever had thought to use a Victorian-style house as a restaurant had been a genius. Instead of one large room, the first floor of the building was sectioned off into four eating areas and a kitchen. Glass French doors separated the rooms,
making it simple to see all of the customers while still offering a bit of privacy.

The Boxing Cat was as charming inside as it had been outside. Tiny bistro tables draped in antique-style lace tablecloths lined the front windows. The dishes and the cutlery were mismatched. The hodgepodge of pieces appeared intentional and added an old-world feel to the place. Against one of the Nantucket blue walls was a large hutch.

The waitress, with caramel-colored skin, a short cap of curly black hair, and light brown eyes, hitched up her hip and half-stood, half-sat on a lower shelf. The blond man, who looked close to Hannah's age, leaned on the hutch next to her. Neither paid her any attention.

“You know my brother. He's always got a stick up his ass about something when it comes to me,” the man said. The smile on his lips didn't quite reach his pale green eyes. “It's nothing. You know I'm really grateful that you got us the catering job, right?” He folded his arms and pressed his thumb against his bottom lip as if contemplating what to say next.

The woman arched one black brow. “Mm-hmm.”

“You were right about the bride too. She left a message. She's added more people to the reception.”

“Ha! I told you!” The waitress pumped her fist in the air once in obvious triumph. “I told you, Ross. I saw her staring at the guest list and her aura kept shifting between yellow and blue. Auras don't lie. She was indecisive. I told you she'd call back and add more people. But did anyone listen to me? No, they did not. But don't worry. You
can
handle this. All you need to do is hire a couple more servers for the night. You'll be fine and everything will work out.”

Ross's cheeks reddened. “I don't need just any servers. I need people who are going to impress the hell out of the bride and groom. If something goes wrong, the catering idea will end before it begins. My brother's already not happy with my new venture.” He gave the waitress a calculating look. “Think you could fill in?”

“I'm already filling in. I'd offer suggestions for other servers, but everyone I know in town works here or will be
at the wedding as a guest. Except Zig.” She shook her head, frowning. “Don't get any ideas about asking him. He won't do it. Trust me, you won't convince my boyfriend to cater no matter how much money you offer him. You're just gonna have to find servers yourself.” The waitress patted his shoulder sympathetically.

“I don't know what I'm going to do, Karma.” Ross shrugged, then pulled the band from his ponytail, letting his golden-blond hair flow casually around his shoulders. The man had the kind of shiny hair any woman would envy. “What if I offered him an easy two hundred?”

Karma laughed, then scooted until she completely sat on the wooden countertop. “He won't agree. Besides, there is nothing easy about this upcoming gig. Your brother may not be able to see your aura, but I can. And I know despite the show you put on for all the staff here, you are so stressed out about making the right impression that you're going to make yourself sick instead.”

Hannah couldn't pretend not to hear anymore. She'd been watching the reflection of the pair in the restaurant's front window. Turning to face them, she met Ross's gaze. “I need a job.”

Ross blinked. Then did it again before he closed the distance between them. He settled into the chair across from her while Karma scraped a chair over the polished wood floor. She settled herself next to Ross and stared intently at Hannah.

Maybe speaking up hadn't been such a good idea. But she needed a job if she intended to stay in Tidewater for more than a week. After last night's conversation with her parents, she'd promised herself that she'd find a job of some kind before she contacted them again. They worried.

“Do you have any experience waitressing?” Ross asked, letting his gaze slide over her. The expression in his eyes was assessing but not speculative or even disapproving. Both of the latter happened all too frequently with strangers since she'd arrived in the city yesterday. Perhaps it was her multicolored peasant skirt and white blouse paired with her
sandals that made people give her a double take. Or maybe it was her mass of unruly brown hair coupled with a pink braid. Or the new tattoo on her wrist. Okay, so she didn't look like a city girl. She wasn't. But she had the training to be a great server.

“Definitely. My parents own a bar in Ohio. I served food until I was old enough to tend bar. I worked there all through college. I opened, closed, served, and stocked the bar. Not much I didn't do. Being the daughter of the owners meant I got all the grunt work. I even helped out my dad with repairs.”

She didn't mention that she'd lived above the bar rather than on campus because her parents had worried the exposure to too many metal objects might overload her system since her visions were brought on by direct contact with all types of metal. Or the fact that her parents had either ripped out metal where they could or simply covered it with plastic or wood where they couldn't to reduce the number of accidental visions she might have had.

Ross clasped his hands together and rested them on the table. Then he turned his head to the waitress and said, “What do you think?”

Karma narrowed her eyes at Hannah, assessing, then smiled wide. “Hire her. I like her aura. It's a vibrant orange. Strong, creative, confident, and detail-oriented. She'll need it if she's going to work with your brother.”

Hannah wasn't sure why that compliment sounded so ominous.

*   *   *

F
IFTEEN MINUTES LATER,
Hannah had been introduced to a half dozen people including two cooks, a shy busboy, and two waitresses, one very tall, one her own height. Both with big hair and bigger attitudes. Hannah had also spoken to a delivery driver with the kind of leer that made her want a decontamination shower after shaking his hand.

And she didn't remember a single name. So much for her aura indicating she was detail-oriented.

Ross filed her past the workers and into a cluttered, cozy
little office. He pressed his hands on her shoulders and gave her a polite push onto a stool that doubled as the desk chair.

“Here, fill out this tax form and the application. You'll also need to provide three references,” he said, dropping the papers on the desk.

Hannah stared up at him in surprise. “
Three
references? Is that typical?”

“No, it's not. Most places ask for two but my brother's a little
careful
about who we hire.” He paused and muttered under his breath, “He'll trust Karma's opinion but not mine.” Louder he added, “It's why I'm scrambling to hire people to work the upcoming wedding. You have experience catering? It's not the same thing as waitressing, you know.”

“Nothing as formal as weddings, but we used to rent the bar out for graduation parties.” She chuckled. “Can my parents be a reference? No one will give you a more honest assessment of my character than they will.”

“Your parents. As a reference.” Ross frowned. “The last time someone asked to use parents as a reference, the guy had a criminal history as long as the menu here. Oh God, please tell me you don't have a criminal record. My brother will never go for me hiring another convict. He's a stickler about the staff being reputable. If you even have a pot arrest on your record, we should stop now. I'll never live it down. Even if Karma liked your aura. Hiring you is still my call.”

Hannah didn't know whether to laugh or be offended. “No pot arrest. No arrest of any kind. I've never even had a speeding ticket. And I can provide references, besides my parents. They're all out of town though.”

“That's fine.” The relief on his face was almost comical. The man practically sagged in place. “Still, we have to call all of them. Better to waste the money on long-distance calls than to lose everything to a thief. At least, that's what my brother says.”

Ross patted his pockets and pulled out a pen. A very nice, very expensive Cross pen. Made of metal. “Here you go, sweetie.”

Hannah hesitated. Given his strong emotional reaction
to learning she didn't have a criminal past, the little writing instrument was probably singing with psychometric energy.

Did she really want to risk delving into a psychic event right in front of a new boss? Then again, he'd find out soon enough. Of course, Ross had been okay with Karma's gift but he knew her. That comfort didn't always translate to a stranger walking in claiming to have a supernatural ability.

While most people in Fincastle accepted her gift as more reliable than the mail, strangers' reactions were unpredictable.

Better to find out now if her potential boss would freak out or be cool with her psychic gift.

“Thanks.” She let her fingers close around the cool silver metal.

Yep. Instant connection.

Energy sizzled through her fingertips, up her arm, and straight into her brain. The gray office faded to smoke around her and she was in Ross's body.

“Hey, Paulie, wanna hit the clubs tonight?” he said around a mouthful of crisp, tart apple. His heart fluttered and his pulse raced past his ears.

Paulie turned from his spot at the stove and smiled. The brief curl of those beautiful lips made Ross's heart rate kick up a notch.

He's finally going to say yes.
The urge to dance in place was almost too strong to resist.

Then Paulie cut a quick glance to Ross's left and the smile died.

So did Ross's hope. He didn't have to look to know Paulie had caught sight of Ross's brother.

Ross's heart sank.

He opened his mouth to say something else to Paulie but the chef had already focused his attention on the mushrooms marinating on the stove.

Dammit! Why did Paulie have to draw that particular line? Didn't he understand that coming out of the closet to the ass-kickingest Marine of them all wasn't something that could just be done? It needed finesse. And Ross needed to
give his brother time to get to know him before he messed with the jarhead's narrow way of thinking.

Staring at Paulie's back, the message was clear. Ross had to come out of the closet completely or nothing could happen between them.

His eyes stung but he couldn't show weakness around his brother.

Ross inhaled a breath, then glanced to his left. His brother's mouth was a grim line of disapproval. With a tick working in his cheek, his square jaw looked almost painfully angular. Niall rolled his eyes and scrubbed a hand through his short military-cut black hair.

Hannah dropped the pen.

It rolled off the desk and clattered to the floor. Breathing, always a challenge when withdrawing from a vision, was almost impossible. Her heart pounded so hard against her ribs, it could have been trying to punch its way out of her chest. But holy schmoley, even trapped as she was between Ross's memory and reality, one thing was crystal.

Her Marine was about to become her new boss.