“I see,” Willow said although she didn’t really.
Willow’s eyelids slipped shut. Iciness enveloped her, encased her like armor. She felt so cold she wasn’t sure she could move, so cold her flesh seemed numb. And through the numbness she felt, very vaguely, a stroking pressure that passed all over her body—repeatedly—before resting heavily on her head. Her neck wobbled.
Once again the exploration of her body began, so intimate she tingled, but she couldn’t say a word or try to evade these invisible hands.
“Willow?”
Her eyes wouldn’t open. Under her hair and around her neck passed firm pressing fingers. Surely she felt
fingers. Her mind wouldn’t stay focused. Small, sharp pricks tapped on flesh that felt thick, as if it was anesthetized.
Over her shoulders the fingers passed, down, beneath her arms, then over her breasts. She shuddered. Her nipples peaked and the stimulation speared down between her legs.
The fingers tweaked her nipples and still she stood like a statue, unmoving, but quivering inside. Onward. Whatever this was mapped her body in an openly sexual way. It smoothed her buttocks through the dress, cupped her there, slid around to the front, cupped her mound and delved into the folds where the clitoris felt swollen and intensely aware—ready.
Her legs began to buckle.
“Willow, look at me.”
Her eyelids shot open and she looked up at Preston Moriarty. His frown, the narrowing of his eyes made her wonder what he had seen.
“You’re trembling all over,” he said. “Are you ill?”
Even while she longed to drop to her knees and curl up on the ground, she searched for an excuse. It would have to be
some
excuse.
He pulled her into his arms and stroked her back. “It’s okay. Tell me what you need me to do.”
She wanted to pull away but hadn’t the strength. “An old illness,” she muttered. Not so far away from the truth. “There’s a residue and sometimes it hits me. That hasn’t happened in so long I can’t remember the last time.” Nothing like it had ever happened, but she could choose to lump it together with the inconvenient reminders of the powers she continually tried to ignore, like insights
into the pasts of others with startling visions of terrible suffering they had endured.
“Malaria?” he said. “Something like that?”
“Similar,” she said and straightened away from him. “You’re so kind. I’m glad you were standing there. I think I could have passed out otherwise. Yuck, that was awful.”
He slipped an arm around her. “Would a drink help? Or coffee? Let me take you inside.”
Willow didn’t want this man holding her. Or any of the strangers who surrounded her.
“I might have known you’d find the prettiest girl out here,” Val Brandt said, stopping in front of them. “You have to watch out for Preston, my dear. He wouldn’t be good for your reputation.”
She gave a short laugh and looked at Preston. The compression of his mouth was anything but a sign of amusement.
“Willow here felt a bit faint,” he said. “She should probably sit down.”
“I’m fine now,” Willow said.
“Excuse us, Preston,” Val said. “Willow and I need some time alone.”
“Do you now?” With a half smile, Preston walked away, toward the pool, pulling his shirt over his head as he went. He dropped his pants and shorts and stood naked, his back to them, for several seconds.
He picked up his clothes and turned to drop them on a table, looking fully at Willow as he did so.
Preston Moriarty was quite a man.
“Come and take a dip,” he called to her. “It would make you feel better.”
Two running footsteps and he dived into the pool.
Val rested an arm where Preston’s had been. “Come and let’s find a quieter place,” he said.
Willow started to panic. Being in a strange place with a lot of people she did not know or trust wasn’t something she would ever seek out, and with perceptions heightened, and threatening premonitions bombarding her, she grew close to running blindly for the way out.
“You’re upset, aren’t you?” Val said. “This wasn’t the best night to have you come for the first time. Believe me when I say things rarely get like this.”
He sounded sincere, but she was not sure she believed him at all.
“I spoke to Chloe and she’ll be here in about half an hour. Let’s just sit here.” He pulled out a chair for her at an empty table. “Sangria?” He picked up a jug that stood there surrounded by glasses and poured.
She didn’t accept or refuse, but let him put a drink in front of her and pour one for himself.
“Name your price,” he said.
Willow looked at him slowly. “Excuse me?”
Val shrugged. “This is a new venture for me, hiring someone to run our lives around this house. I have no idea what the going rates are and I don’t care. We’ll pay whatever will make you happy.”
Willow gathered herself. “I don’t think this is the best time for us to have this discussion,” she said. “My company can accommodate most household and entertaining needs. Why don’t we make an appointment to talk when your wife can be here to explain exactly what she has in mind.”
He ran blunt fingers through the hair that fell repeatedly over his forehead. “I told you she’ll be back shortly.”
Willow let her eyes wander, not really seeing anything, while she tried to decide what to do. He hadn’t threatened her, not at all. In fact, he had been polite and done his best to show her approval. It wasn’t his fault she seemed to be having an emotional crisis.
Standing near the combo, holding one of the poles that supported a striped awning, a very familiar, tall, lithe, dark-haired man stared in her direction.
The instant she saw him, her body relaxed. And just as quickly she tensed again and got mad. Ben Fortune was following her around. Who had told him where to find her?
Ben said something to the bass player and strolled toward Willow.
“Are you mad?”
She heard him enter her mind but turned to Val and ignored Ben. “We are pretty busy at the moment,” she said. “But we could deal with upkeep of the house—and the grounds, if you need that. Shopping—”
“You don’t belong in a place like this. There’s danger here. Tell whoever he is you’re leaving.”
Ben’s arrogance infuriated her.
“I think Chloe hopes you’ll live in,” Val said, his tone concerned. “There’s a wonderful, private apartment she’s redecorated in the house. Chloe gets her mind set on things. You aren’t married, are you?”
“No,” she said.
“It’s none of his business,” Ben told her furiously.
It wasn’t, but she could be forgiven for responding automatically to Val’s question.
“There’s Chloe’s car now.” Val got up and pointed toward a separate garage beside the house where lights had gone on inside. “She’ll be right out.”
“Are you going to excuse yourself? Now?”
Willow tasted the sangria. “This is good,” she said, frowning and trying to concentrate. “A little orgeat syrup might make it even better.”
“I’ll make sure I pass that on,” Val said, grinning. “You’re going to love it here. You’ll have complete freedom to take charge of things.”
The glass flew from Willow’s hand and smashed on the stone terrace.
Val shouted, “Broken glass. Stand back everybody.”
“Good heavens,” Willow explained. “I’m so sorry.”
Of its own volition, the table upended, followed by the three chairs Willow was not sitting in.
She got up and the fourth chair tipped over.
A woman screamed, and another, and men yelled.
A wind whipped across the grounds, bending trees double, roiled across the surface of the pool and turned it into whirling funnels that splashed over the sides and over those who sat or stood nearby.
Someone yelled, “Tornado!”
Willow shut her mind tightly, blocked out anything else Ben might have to say and gritted her teeth. Glances into the areas beyond the front walls proved what she expected—all was calm out there.
The torches blew out, fairy lights failed and lights in the house went off. Yelling and shoving raged around Willow, and she closed her eyes.
It was no wind that swept her from her feet. All she could do was allow herself to be borne away in unyielding arms, her hair tossed across her face, her body racked by the force of speed.
Speech was out of the question.
When she tried to see, thick darkness blocked everything.
She couldn’t feel emotion, or react.
Silence came as suddenly as the madness had arrived. She sat on something soft and the air was pleasantly warm. Cautiously, Willow opened her eyes again.
Seated on the couch in her living room, she was alone—except for a small, red-brown dog at her feet.
H
e was in deep shit.
Ben hung out in the courtyard overlooked by the Millets’ flats, and the shadowy forms of stone angels. There was nothing to stop him from going up to Sykes’s place and tucking himself into bed—other than intense curiosity and a sense of doom about Willow’s reaction to her little journey.
She was no fool, and she’d spent enough time around families like theirs to know she’d been snaffled, and who she had been snaffled by.
He smiled slightly. This might not be all bad. First he’d gotten her away from the sleazeballs Uptown, and then he’d created the kind of upheaval bound to get her attention.
Ben wanted Willow’s attention, on him. He also wanted to quit waiting for something crazy to start happening. Not that a couple of people dying for peculiar, indefinite reasons wasn’t crazy, but that didn’t have to be the end of it.
That was the other thing. Those deaths seemed to have something to do with Willow and her company—otherwise why would both events take place around the presence of Willow or one of her employees?
He had gone a bit far at that party.
Could be he should have found another way to protect Willow—and get her attention.
Soft laughter met his thoughts and he looked sharply around the courtyard. Water poured lightly from a fountain in the center, a young angel holding a shell. He couldn’t see it clearly, but he remembered it well enough.
As he’d experienced before, the faces of angels and the few gargoyles hiding above lintels had brightened in the darkness, and they all looked at him. He nodded in all directions, acknowledging their presence. And he accepted the strong likelihood that others—he did not know who—were using the figures to focus his concentration on them.
“Friend or foe?”
He projected the thought and it was met with titters. He had tried this before and already knew his thoughts reached listeners in the courtyard.
A gentle and fleeting caress passed over his face, and he lowered his eyes.
It could be a mark of friendship
, he thought,
a reassurance
. But there were those entities that would use any subterfuge to find what most unattached spirits wanted: a host.
Ben wasn’t available to be anyone’s host body.
He would go to bed, but first he owed it to Willow to stop by—probably to apologize, too.
He ran up the steps, making no attempt to be quiet. Pascal slept in apartments above the shop, on the Royal Street side, and with most of the other Millets in London or making themselves scarce, as Sykes was, only Willow would be here.
He gritted his teeth. He’d forgotten Gray and Marley. One look at their darkened flat suggested they were probably not at home—he hoped not.
With the lightest of taps on Willow’s front door he wondered if she’d hear him at all. He could see light through the drapes in her sitting room.
But only a few moments passed before she opened the door a crack and peered out. She saw him and scowled. “You’ve got a nerve.”
With an innocent look, he shrugged. “What’s the matter? I saw your light on.”
“And I saw you at the Brandt place, Ben.”
“Did you? Well, I admit I was there, but I didn’t think you saw me. You didn’t answer when I spoke to you.”
“You were on the other side of the pool. How was I supposed to hear you?”
“You know what I mean.” He tilted his head to the side. “You heard me contact you exclusively earlier today—in the shop. You answered.”
“A fluke,” she said, and he heard snuffling.
“Is Winnie with you? I was afraid I might wake Gray and Marley, but I guess they are out.”
“I don’t know,” she said, opening the door a little wider. “Come in. It’s time we got some things straight.”
She turned away, but not before he saw a small dog with what looked like wiry orange fur. The animal was tucked under Willow’s arm where it appeared completely comfortable.
“That’s not Winnie,” he said.
“You noticed.”
“Don’t be smart. You’ve got a new dog.”
“Yes,” she said. “Marigold. She’s a stray I’ve taken in.”
“When?” Ben said.
“When, what?”
“When did you adopt the mutt? I didn’t see her when I was here before.”
Willow gave him a smirk. “Goes to show how unobservant people can be.”
He followed her into the living room, and she sat in a well-worn but comfy-looking blue chair, the dog on her lap.
“D’you like small dogs?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Not much of a conversation starter there. “Just a puppy, I guess,” he added and dropped to sit on the edge of the couch. “It’ll grow.”
“I don’t care one way or the other. She’s mine and I like her however she is.”
“You got her from a shelter?” he asked, becoming suspicious about the origins of Marigold.
Willow didn’t answer. She lifted the dog and looked into its eyes. “You’re beautiful, aren’t you? Wait till you meet Winnie. You’ll have to put her in her place.”
“Did you find it in the street and decide to bring it home? That sounds like something you’d do. Someone could be out there looking for that dog.” He looked a little closer. “Probably not, though.”
“My dog is very good-looking,” Willow said. “And her ego is too good to let her be crushed by your meanness.”
“You can’t call it Marigold, though,” Ben said.
If he could just sit there and look at Willow he’d be a happy man—at least for a little while.
“I can and I’m going to,” she said.
“Would you consider Mario?” he asked.
Willow frowned and took a better look at her new pet.
“Oh. I’m only used to girl dogs so I thought… Ben, I don’t want you interfering in my life.”
“I’m not responsible for your girl dog being a boy dog,” he said, deliberately obtuse.
“Don’t play games with me.”
“I’m not,” he said with his best boyish smile. “I’d settle for you accepting me and not treating me as if I’ve got a disease.”
“You know it doesn’t work for us to be around each other.”
“It used to work perfectly until you had your personality change. Will you call him Mario?”
“My personality has nothing to do with it, never did.”
“What, then?”
She swallowed audibly. “Common sense. I got plenty of hints that I wasn’t right for you, and I finally figured out I wasn’t.”
This was the closest she’d come to an explanation for the cold front that had preceded his dismissal. Or her retreat would be nearer the truth. Willow had gradually withdrawn from him until he forced her to say what she wanted from him. Big mistake. “I want you to go and find someone else,” she had said. “Please just leave me alone.”
He had been too shocked to refuse at the time, and later, when anger set in, he couldn’t make himself risk hearing her say it again.
“You can’t go on pretending you don’t have paranormal powers,” he said, hoping for some shock value from the sudden attack. “It’s ridiculous. It’s not true. And if you ever needed to be able to call on your special talents, it’s now when something is out to get you.”
The dog squirmed free of her arms and landed on the arm of the chair, where it sat like an intelligent red squirrel with a push face and stubby tail.
Ben tried not to meet its shiny black eyes, which were staring right into his own.
“Why aren’t you staying at Fortunes?” Willow said. “Poppy must be furious you’re not there. And Ethan and Liam can’t be pleased you’re in town and hiding out.”
“They don’t know I’m here—yet.”
She blinked slowly, visibly turning over the idea he’d just presented. “You’re in New Orleans and your family doesn’t know it? You run the businesses, Ben. That’s weird. Wait till they find out. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes if Poppy figures you didn’t go to see her first.”
“Poppy will understand. Anyway, I came to help Sykes.” He had come to make sure Willow was all right, but figured she didn’t want to hear that. “Did you put the gun in a safe place?”
“It will be within my reach all the time,” she said.
“You shouldn’t mess with it until you’ve learned how to use it.”
She raised one eyebrow.
Ben puffed up his cheeks. “O-kay, moving right along. Marley and Gray talked to me about you having second sight.”
She laced her fingers tightly in her lap.
“You can tell when someone has suffered violence. You know what was done to them and how they’ve been affected. And you are telepathic. Can you project yourself at all, mentally or physically?”
Her lips pursed.
“It’s useful if you can, Willow. You must know that. If you’re in a tight spot, you may be able to extricate yourself.” Or not, depending on the circumstances and how strong her power was. “I should have pressed you on this years ago. I never understood why you pretended you were…untalented. I guess I always thought I could take care of you so it didn’t matter what spin you put on things.”
“Arrogant,” she muttered.
“Can we continue with this topic?”
Not a word.
“Auras. Anything there? Do you see them, read them?”
She turned her face from him. God, she only made him want her more.
“Travel at all—out of body perhaps, like Marley?”
“Or whatever it was you did to me earlier?” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Snatch people up and transport them against their will?”
He ignored that. “How about created reality? Pretty sophisticated stuff, but useful for creating a diversion under dire circumstances.”
Her face became blank again. The dog licked her.
“I enjoyed kissing you earlier.”
Willow turned red and looked at her hands.
“You enjoyed it, too. I could feel it.”
At least that got her looking at him. “That was a mistake,” she said. “A reaction to not seeing each other for a long time.”
“So you didn’t like it.”
Willow wasn’t into lies. She chose to be silent again.
“It wasn’t anything to do with our separation. That
kiss was automatic. We both wanted it, and there’s plenty more where that came from.”
With every word spoken, the wiry-haired dog with his sprouting mustache, pointy little ears and fur jutting out over his eyes, watched first Ben’s then Willow’s face.
“He looks as if he’s got an opinion,” Ben said, trying a smile on Willow. “If you did pick him up somewhere, you’ll have to look for the owners.”
The troubled light in her eyes didn’t make him feel happy. Damn it, if this dog already had a home, he’d find another mutt for Willow.
“You look stressed,” he said.
“I don’t need a shrink, thank you.”
“How about a brandy?”
“I don’t have brandy.”
“Coffee? Come on, loosen up. You can’t hide your head in the sand, sweetheart.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You can hope no one figures out you made the mess with that ministorm of yours in the grounds of the Brandts’ house.”
He threw up his hands. “How could I have made any mess anywhere? We’re all normal, remember?”
“You can put a mug of coffee in the microwave. It’s in a pot, but it’s cold.”
He automatically curled his lips, but turned the expression into a smile. “Sounds great.” He hopped out into the hallway and the kitchen before she could change her mind and returned in minutes with two steaming mugs. Willow’s was half milk, which he remembered she preferred. He’d also found cookies and brought the whole package with him. Willow didn’t cook much unless she got in the mood.
He’d smelled the gumbo while he was in the kitchen and it made his mouth water.
Willow got up and took the tray from him. She put it on a marquetry table and stripped paper and cardboard from the box of cookies. “You didn’t bring a plate,” she said.
Ben grinned. He liked it that she could forget herself and behave as if they were still just Ben and Willow in the comfortable relationship they’d once had—if regular physical pain and intense sexual frustration could be called comfortable.
It would make his argument easier if he could talk about his visit to the morgue, but that would be revealing his whole hand and he wasn’t ready for that.
She gave him his coffee and curled up with hers. The dog sniffed her mug and she offered it to him. To Ben’s disgust, the creature lapped with obvious pleasure before Willow drank herself.
“Doesn’t that bother you?” he said.
Willow looked confused.
“A dog drinking your coffee, from your cup.”
“No, it doesn’t,” she said and kissed the creature’s nose.
Ben could have sworn the dog’s eyes crossed.
He decided on a slight fabrication over the body in the morgue. “Gray called me.” She didn’t have to know how he had called him. “Apparently, he and his old partner, Nat, are still pretty close. They discuss cases.”
“I know,” Willow said. “I look after Gus’s cottage in the Marigny, you know. He’s Gray’s dad. I wish he was my dad.”
That didn’t say much for Antoine, her own father, who, with her mother, Leandra, had managed to be
absent from their family most of the time since Willow was ten. The older Millets had gone in search of something none of them would discuss, but Ben figured it related to the Millet legend and the fact that Sykes’s dark hair and blue eyes were considered a danger to the future of his clan. Too bad none of his own attempts to ferret out more details about this mystery had worked.
He made much of drinking his coffee and eating chocolate cream-filled cookies. He’d never been close with his own parents, but for different reasons. They ran a retreat house, a very select retreat house for advanced paranormals in California. Fortunately for them, money was something Ben understood and made with ease so he ran the family businesses and kept the parents supplied with everything they needed.
“Can I talk about my conversation with Gray?” he asked, deliberately offhand.
“Of course.”
“He told me that the autopsy’s been done on your baker. He’s keeping the coroner scratching his head.”
Willow’s expression closed, and Ben didn’t imagine that tears filled her eyes.
“Hey,” he said softly. “It’s a shock. I’m sorry you’re going through this.”
“Billy’s dead—he’s the one we should be sorry for. What are they saying about what killed him?”