Hot Spell

“Wonderful,” she said.

“Good to hear.” He shifted into first gear and pulled away from the curb. “I don’t think you’ve ever been in my car before.”

“No, I haven’t.”

And that was about the end of his reserve of small talk. With a two-hour drive ahead of them, that might pose a bit of a problem.

“Patrick briefed me on the assignment earlier and wanted me to fill you in.” She reached into the bag she’d brought with her to pull out a notebook filled with page after page of her neat, precise handwriting. “A woman named Sheila Davis recently inherited the property from a distant uncle. While doing a walk-through she heard strange noises and had a sense of being pushed out of the house. That’s when she contacted us for an immediate assessment.”

“She’s scared to live there?”

“No. Actually, she thinks a haunted house will reduce the property value. She wants to sell and turn a quick profit and is planning an open house next week. So we go in, determine if there needs to be an exorcism performed, and then we leave. I figure it won’t take more than twenty minutes.”

She was wearing that perfume he liked.

Dammit to hell, he thought angrily.

He shifted position in his seat trying to ignore her very warm, feminine presence so close to him. Was it the fact that he knew he couldn’t have her that made him feel this way?

But, no. He didn’t want her. He could have any woman he wanted, and Amanda the Strange was not even on the list anymore.

Vanilla, he thought then. Her perfume smelled like vanilla. Edible. Delicious.

His grip on the steering wheel was so tight by now he thought he might be able to yank it right out of the dashboard if he tried. He realized that taking on this assignment tonight had been a huge, regrettable mistake. But Patrick had practically begged him, and he didn’t want to let his boss down.

“Are you listening to me?” she asked after a moment.

“Yeah, sure. Haunted house. We’re checking it out. Routine stuff. In and out in twenty minutes. No problem.”

She eyed him skeptically. “Is everything all right? You seem a bit distracted.”

He pushed a reasonable facsimile of a smile onto his face. “I appreciate your concern.” He concentrated on the road ahead. “So is it true?”

“What?”

“You’re quitting PARA? Heading to the Big Apple?”

She closed her notebook and slid it back into her bag. “It’s true.”

“When are you through?”

“This is my last field assignment.” She gazed out of the passenger-side window. “Patrick says they’re throwing me a going-away party Tuesday, so I get to say goodbye to everyone. I’m going to miss them all so much. But other than that and packing, I should be out of here the day after.”

Less than a week. The thought that she was leaving soon should have given him a sense of relief, but it didn’t. Not even close. In fact, it made his stomach twist unpleasantly at the thought that he’d probably never see her again.

It made no sense to him at all. Why did he give a damn either way? The woman could barely stand to be in the same car as him.

Holding on to that thought should have made things much simpler.

No such luck.

2

“GREAT WEATHER we’re having, isn’t it?” Jacob said tightly an hour and a half into the drive. It was the first thing he’d said for over forty-five minutes.

Amanda smiled and nodded. “June is my favorite month.”

She stared out of the window but there was nothing to see in the darkness except the side of the highway racing past. A quick check of her watch told her it was nearly ten-thirty. She’d attempted to make notes in her notebook, but it was too dark, and having Jacob so close to her made it hard for her to concentrate.

He wore black jeans and a gray T-shirt that bared his strong forearms and muscled biceps, the thin material molding to his body so she could practically count his six-pack abs underneath.

Not that she was looking, of course.

She bit her bottom lip and studied the boring view out the window and thought about her boyfriend David. A wonderfully normal, respectable man with whom she’d never had one single argument.

It was his suggestion that she leave her job at PARA to work for him in the New York City office. He’d given her a choice, one that she’d never had before. She could continue living the life of Amanda the Strange—her words, not his—or she could have a chance to be Amanda the Normal.

Starting over in a fresh city with David never knowing about her psychic abilities meant she’d be consciously turning her back on her old life.

Which also, unfortunately but necessarily, included her friends, like Vicky, who didn’t understand why Amanda was so adamant about making this major change in her life.

When she moved to the city she would turn off the part of her brain that allowed her to communicate with ghosts and sense other supernatural presences. She wouldn’t use her abilities at all. She hoped that, over time, they’d fade away to nothing.

Her mother would be thrilled. Amanda had yet to share this news with Madeleine Harper—the last name taken from her new husband—who lived three hours south and rarely saw her daughter. She still blamed Amanda, even after all these years, for her first husband’s decision to abandon their family.

Which was understandable. Even after nearly twenty years, Amanda still blamed herself.

Moving is the right thing to do, she reminded herself for the millionth time. Even so, there was the smallest piece of herself, buried down very, very deep that wasn’t so sure this was the ultimate key to happiness. That piece was small enough to repress, so that’s what she did. In five little days she’d be leaving Mystic Ridge for good, and she wouldn’t look back.

“You can always change your mind,” Jacob said.

She blinked and turned to face him. “Pardon me?”

“If you change your mind about quitting, I’m sure Patrick would be okay with that.”

His comment had thrown her a bit. He couldn’t know what she was thinking, could he? No, of course not. Obviously he was just trying to make conversation and the subject of her resigning from PARA was the obvious choice.

“I won’t change my mind,” she said firmly.

“So when you make a decision you stick to it, no matter what?”

“That’s right.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sure there are dozens of people who’d love to have your job, so Patrick won’t have a problem finding a suitable replacement for you.”

The thought that she might be so easily substituted hurt a little. “I’m sure he won’t.”

Jacob focused on the road ahead, but his brow lowered into a frown. “I’m just saying that if you’re doing this so your new boyfriend will accept you, then that’s a pretty lousy reason to turn your life upside down.”

He’d been talking to somebody who had extremely loose lips. But who?

Of course, she thought with annoyance. Vicky.

Vicky had wanted to get Jacob alone and naked since he’d started at PARA and she’d managed to land an official date with him last month. She’d had a smile on her face for days and it was all Amanda could do to avoid hearing the sordid details of Jacob’s sexual prowess.

The stab she’d felt in her gut when her best friend had informed her about the date had not meant she was jealous. The thought of Vicky running her hands all over Jacob’s admittedly perfect body didn’t bother her at all. Because that would be ridiculous. They were both consenting, condom-carrying adults, after all, and it was a free country.

She did know Jacob hadn’t called Vicky back for a second date. And that news hadn’t been met with any relief or happiness on Amanda’s part. How petty would that be?

Frankly, she didn’t want to know the details of anyone’s sex life—especially Jacob Caine’s. The point was, Vicky had obviously gossiped to Jacob—before, after or during their tryst—about Amanda’s situation.

“I’m not turning my life upside down,” she said as firmly as she could. “This has nothing to do with David. It’s my decision.”

He gave her a sideways glance. “Sure it is.”

“You don’t think I can make my own decisions in life?”

“All I know is that a woman who is obviously gifted in ways that can help other people is giving up her God-given talents to go hock advertising at her boyfriend’s agency and leaving behind her friends and everything she’s ever known.”

Hock advertising? He made it sound so unpleasant.

Jacob was trying to unnerve her and she’d be damned if she let him know he could succeed so easily.

“I’m happy with my decision,” she said with resolve. “Thrilled, in fact. It’s what I want.”

“I don’t think it is.”

“You,” she forced herself to smile at him, “are entitled to your opinion.”

He eyed her. “Do you do that with everyone?”

The smile remained. “Do what?”

“Put on that false exterior? Do you even realize you’re doing it? Maybe you don’t. Maybe this is just how you always are. I wouldn’t know since you’ve avoided me from the moment we met, so we’ve never really gotten a chance to get to know each other.”

“I don’t avoid you,” she said.

He laughed. “Are you serious?”

“Our paths rarely cross at the office, sure, but it doesn’t mean that I’m avoiding you. That doesn’t make any sense. I barely even know you.”

“If that’s true, then I’m not exactly sure why you hate my guts.”

Why were they having this discussion? She felt trapped, which, since they were speeding along the highway at seventy miles an hour, was quite accurate. “I don’t hate you.”

“Sure you do.”

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Why can’t this drive be nice and relaxing without any conflict?”

“Good question. I guess now that I know you’re definitely leaving, I’m kind of curious about everything.” He took his attention off the road again long enough to look at her long and hard. “Even though you have those walls up and I can’t get an empathic read on you, I can still see the truth. You might be able to pull the wool over everyone else’s eyes, but you can’t lie to me.”

Her face felt warm. She hated how he seemed to know her so well. But he didn’t. He didn’t know her at all. “Is that so?”

“Yeah, that’s so.”

“Then I guess we’re even, because I can read you like a book. I know exactly what you’re thinking, Jacob, and your opinion means nothing to me.”

The words hung heavily in the air between them as they studied each other for a long moment.

Then he snorted. “You’re still lying. You can’t read my mind. If you could, I don’t think you’d like what I’m thinking.”

His gaze flicked to the road for a second and then moved down the front of her, lingering at her breasts, then moving to her legs and back up again. While making her extremely self-conscious, his rude and blatant appraisal also made her nipples harden and heat spread across her skin. She felt a strange ache inside her and suddenly realized it was difficult for her to breathe normally.

She focused on his hands holding tightly to the steering wheel and in her imagination they were holding on to her, skimming her bare skin, pulling away her lacy bra to squeeze her taut nipples while his mouth took hers.

She rolled down the window a crack to get some fresh air and then cleared her throat. “I’m not lying.”

“You are. It’s obvious. Do you lie to David, too?”

“I’m not having this conversation with you.”

His lips quirked. “Why? Does it make you uncomfortable?”

“Yes, actually it does.”

“I met David once in passing when he came by the office looking for you. Seemed like a real stand-up kind of guy.”

“If you mean that he’s honest and reliable, then yes, he is.”

“Sounds exciting.”

She bit her bottom lip. “I guess compared to having fifty one-night stands already this year, my life doesn’t sound that great, but I don’t really care what you think.”

“Fifty?” He raised an eyebrow. “Why, Miss LaGrange, I had no idea you were keeping track for me.”

Her face now blazed with heat. “I’m not.”

“I don’t think it’s fifty yet. Low-forties, maybe.” He grinned. “Then again, we’re only halfway through the year, aren’t we?”

Great, she was amusing him. That hadn’t exactly been her goal. What was her goal, again? She wanted to go to the allegedly haunted house, assess it for the presence of supernatural activity and get the hell out of there. None of which had anything to do with Jacob or his sexual conquests. She should have simply refused the assignment. Patrick would have found somebody else. The property owner could have waited a day or two with no harm done as long as she stayed out of the house.

“When you leave, who’s going to keep count of the bevy of beautiful women I apparently have at my beck and call?” Jacob continued. “I’ll have to buy one of those click-counter devices.” He was silent for a blissful moment. “Maybe you’re looking for a boring commitment from David, but that’s never been what I’ve been looking for.”

“I’m sure your ex-fiancée would be interested to hear that,” she said evenly.

His expression froze. “What did you say?”

“Your ex-fiancée,” Amanda repeated. “Before you met her you were not the ladies’ man you are now. During your three-year relationship you were completely monogamous. It’s only after she left that you’ve become this macho, no-need-for-commitment Lothario.”

She’d thrown out her knowledge of his past as a diversion to move away from her own issues and it looked as though it had worked, although not exactly in the way she’d intended. Even in the darkness of the car’s interior she could tell that his face had paled at the mention of his ex.

When a new member of PARA was being recruited, extensive research was done on individuals who exhibited psychic abilities. Jacob had been pegged as a potential candidate and his life thoroughly investigated to make sure he had no ties to crime or other dark and nefarious forces. Amanda had handled the paperwork. If she had a choice, working within the agency was her preferred gig, rather than field assignments that forced her to tap into her hated abilities. That’s how she knew that he’d had a broken engagement before moving to Mystic Ridge to take the job. She also knew the cause of the break-up was that his fiancée had been unfaithful to him.

She’d always assumed that, based on his lifestyle, it hadn’t bothered him, but from his current expression she had to reassess that opinion. The breakup had been a bad one for him and it obviously still hurt. The pain in his eyes made her immediately regret saying anything at all.

Her stomach twisted in automatic sympathy for his pain. “I’m sorry. I…I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories for you.”

“My personal life is none of your damn business.” The words were spoken softly but there was a sharp edge of anger behind them.

“Nor is mine yours,” she said simply, fighting the feeling of guilt she now had.

“Understood.”

Their eyes met and held.

The sound of a horn a few seconds later, loud and ear-shattering, made her jump, and a quick glance out of the windshield revealed a large set of oncoming headlights. She screamed and Jacob clamped down on the steering wheel to lurch the car away from the middle of the road. The transport truck that had nearly crashed into them continued to honk its horn as if to remind them how very close they’d come to a head-on collision. Jacob pulled off the road onto the side, his chest moving in and out. Amanda’s heart slammed against her rib cage.

Then she realized that Jacob had put his hand on her thigh in a protective motion. His firm touch seared through her jeans and into her skin. If he slid his hand up only a few more inches…

She swallowed hard and her heart began to beat even faster than before.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She nodded shakily. “Are you?”

The scent of his aftershave filled her senses; the rush of almost crashing, almost dying, the feel of his hand on her thigh made things low in her body ache with a dark and dangerous need she wasn’t used to. His hand tightened on her leg, moving a fraction toward her inner thigh. He looked down at where he was touching her as if surprised she wasn’t slapping his hand away from such intimate contact.

There was no way he couldn’t see her nipples now pressing against the thin fabric of her cashmere sweater. As if he again read her thoughts, his gaze moved to her chest and he began to stroke her thigh with his thumb. It was all she could do to stop herself from arching against his touch and begging him to kiss her.

Then, suddenly, he released her. “Sorry,” he said gruffly. “I need to keep my eyes on the road. That’s never happened before. I must be tired.”

“It’s fine,” she managed.

He pulled the car back onto the road. “We’re almost there, anyhow. Like you said, twenty minutes to check it out, and then we can leave.”

“Good.”

She pressed back into the seat and studied the road ahead, her body still tingling where Jacob had touched her.

3

IT WAS obvious to him now, after nearly slamming head-on into a transport truck. His continuing attraction to Amanda was going to kill him.

Literally.

It was a good thing they’d never been partnered before. He’d probably already be dead. The raging hard-on he was currently dealing with alone might kill him.

Jacob shook his head, silently chastising himself. Amanda had her own life. She was moving three hundred miles away and good riddance to her. He much preferred to be fully in charge of his emotions, and, for that matter, his cock.

He did find it more than a little interesting that she seemed to have taken an interest in his sex life. Fifty one-night stands? That was one hell of an overestimation. When he needed to let some steam off he rarely had any problems finding somebody willing to help him out, but fifty?

Hell, most nights he stayed home with a six-pack of Bud and the Playboy channel. Sad but true, lately it gave him almost as much satisfaction as the real thing. He’d definitely hit a slump. Two years since his big break-up and move to Mystic Ridge and he hadn’t found a single woman that interested him enough to see more than once.

Obviously the fault was with him. He knew it. He just wasn’t quite ready to deal with that yet.

“We’re here,” he said after what seemed like an eternity of silence between them. It had really only been a half hour since the brush with death…and the distracting contact with Amanda’s jeans-clad thigh.

He pulled into the driveway of the house set on a large lot. The house itself looked to be at least a hundred years old and the drive was flanked by thick oak trees that would have made the area dark even at noon.

Another car—a silver Volkswagen Jetta—idled in front of them and as soon as they pulled up a small woman with curly red hair, lit by Jacob’s headlights, stepped out of it. She beckoned them to join her.

“Guess we’re on the clock already,” Jacob said.

“Then let’s get it over with,” Amanda replied curtly. She quickly gathered her paperwork together, opened the passenger-side door, and got out.

Let’s get it over with. For some reason the phrase amused him. Was that how she might view a hot night of sex with her true love, David K. Smith?

“Let’s get it over with, honey.”

Sounded about right.

Pushing any thoughts of Amanda and sex out of his head, Jacob got out of the car to join his partner-of-the-moment in front of the irate-looking woman.

“I’ve been waiting for an hour already,” she snapped.

Jacob tensed at the shrill, impatient tone. He was about to open his mouth to say something, probably along the lines of “Chill out, lady, we’re here now,” when Amanda beat him to the punch.

“We apologize for any inconvenience, Mrs. Davis—”

“It’s Ms. Davis.”

What a huge surprise, Jacob thought dryly.

“Ms. Davis,” Amanda repeated, and then smiled warmly at the unpleasant woman. “But we did get here as soon as we could. This location is a fair drive for us.”

“That’s no excuse.”

Jacob was surprised that Amanda’s smile held. Hell, if he’d given her this much of a problem she’d be giving him the death glare by now.

Her death glare was kind of cute.

Amanda’s smile, though, did weaken a bit at the edges as she juggled her papers. She loved paperwork. He knew that. However, he hadn’t been aware that some of the paperwork she’d handled had to do with him and his past. It had made him more than a little uncomfortable when she’d brought up the subject of his ex-fiancée.

Served him right. She’d only been giving him a very big sign to stay away from her personal issues. It was only fair.

Best to keep things just business between them. No personal issues need apply.

Still, it bothered him. He would have rather kept up the facade of an unrepentant ladies’ man than some fool still nursing a broken heart.

Besides, he wasn’t nursing that broken heart anymore. He’d thrown it away. That’s what you did with broken things. You got rid of them so they didn’t cause unnecessary clutter.

A few pages from Amanda’s stack came loose and fluttered to the ground. She grabbed at them as Ms. Davis raised an eyebrow.

“Let’s move this along, dear. I don’t have all night.”

Amanda’s face flushed. Jacob leaned over and picked up some of the fallen pages and handed them back to her. She looked frustrated.

It was okay. He’d handle this.

“Ms. Davis,” he said out loud, turning toward the short redhead and giving her one of his very best smiles. He extended his hand to her. “I’m Jacob Caine.”

She hesitated for a brief moment, and then shook his hand.

That was all he needed. The skin-to-skin contact helped him get an empathic read on her. She obviously had no psychic abilities. Since joining PARA, he’d found that some psychics, such as Amanda, were a blank page to him. This woman on the other hand was wide open. He got the immediate impression she was equal parts lonely and needy.

He could totally work with that.

He squeezed her hand before letting it go. “What I want to know is why a beautiful woman like yourself would want to live in such a dreary house like this. I see you in a high-rise condo in a big city. Very cosmopolitan.”

Her thin eyebrows raised. “You’re a very good psychic. I actually have an offer in on a new complex in Chicago as we speak.”

“The perfect city,” he said. “I’m actually from Chicago originally myself. I moved away from there two years ago.”

“Really?”

He nodded. Well, to be quite honest, he was from Seattle, but that wouldn’t help at all at the moment. White lies for the right reasons were totally acceptable.

“This is Amanda LaGrange.” He nodded toward the beautiful brunette next to him who regarded him with a bemused expression as he worked his own personal kind of magic. A magic he liked to call natural charm. “She already has the details of your case, but I think it would be best if we hear it from you in your own words.”

His attention returned to Ms. Davis, whose expression had changed to a very pleased one. She liked him. A smile, a few complimentary words, and he was in.

Between the two women in his current company, Ms. Davis wouldn’t be his first choice, but he did like that glow he’d set into her cheeks. He’d rather see that glow on Amanda’s face when she looked at him, but knew that was going to happen exactly…never.

Ms. Davis turned to the old, stone-faced house with ivy crawling up the front. To Jacob it looked creepy, but he supposed some might find a certain charm in it.

“My house is infested with evil spirits,” she stated. “And I want them gone.”

“Evil spirits?” Jacob repeated.

Amanda shuffled through her papers. “It says here that last night you heard noises and had the sensation of being pushed out of certain rooms. I’m not sure that counts as a supernatural infestation.”