Touch and Go

  Telekinesis was real. Forget about flickering lights in restaurants, she was now a full-out safety hazard. A jinx. A walking natural disaster.

  That should be her byline—Carrie Stanfield: Natural Disaster.

  She believed in psychics without question now. In fact, as she reflected back on her life, there’d been signs she was a telekinetic since she was a kid. Little things. Doors slamming shut when there wasn’t a breeze. A boy in Grade Six who’d picked on her losing his balance and falling headfirst into a swimming pool. The windshield of her father’s car cracking down the middle as he drove away, leaving her mom for another woman.

  It was different now. Worse. Her emotions played a huge part with the crazy happenings. She knew she needed help mastering her new and unwanted abilities.

  And she just happened to have the business card, tucked away safely in her wallet, of someone who’d promised to help. Someone who’d said she would make a great agent for PARA due to her journalism background and her natural curiosity.

  Two weeks ago, she’d summoned enough courage to finally call Patrick to explain her situation. True to his word, he told her to immediately move back to Mystic Ridge and start work at PARA, where he’d personally help her master her telekinesis.

  She was so grateful she’d nearly cried right then and there. She could investigate paranormal phenomena. Sure she could. And in return she’d get her life back under control. It sounded like a fair deal to her. An opportunity that sounded too good to be true.

  Plus, she’d get to see Patrick again. The idea thrilled her more than she’d like to admit, even though she knew his fiancée of two years ago was probably his wife now.

  I’ll lust after him at a safe distance, she thought.

  Still, even solid in her knowledge that he was off the menu, she felt her heart thudding wildly as she waited for him in PARA’s lobby at promptly one o’clock this Monday afternoon. Today her new life would begin.

  And then she saw him get out of the elevator at the far end of the lobby with a brunette woman. They begin walking toward her. He was just as she’d remembered—tall and lean, mid-thirties, with hair the color of dark golden sand and eyes the color of an emerald-green ocean. He wore a crisp white shirt that fit his top half perfectly and slate-gray pants that fit his bottom half perfectly.

  Over the past two years she’d hoped that it was just her imagination that had made her remember this electric attraction to him. It wasn’t. She felt it now as keenly as she had the first time she’d seen him.

  Two years, too many erotic dreams to count, and she knew she wanted Patrick McKay to make wild love to her.

  The light above her head didn’t flicker this time. It shattered, raining tiny pieces of glass down just in front of where she stood on the ceramic tiled floor.

  She winced. One look at Patrick was enough to spike her emotions enough for her telekinesis to create a minidisaster. Great second impression.

  He stopped walking and looked up at the broken light, then down at her.

  He raised an eyebrow. “That was definitely you this time, wasn’t it?”

  She grimaced. “Guilty as charged.”

  “Welcome to PARA, Carrie,” he said.

  “Thanks. I’m—I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’ve agreed to work with me.”

  “Mastering TK is a challenge, but I think you’ll be up to it if you’re willing to work hard.”

  She glanced down at his left hand, surprised not to see a gold wedding ring there. Her eyes flicked back to his. “I’m a hard worker.”

  “I’ve asked that you be temporarily assigned as my partner so I can work personally with you.”

  She couldn’t help but smile. “That sounds good to me.”

  Patrick then looked at the woman standing next to him. She was beautiful, with dark hair a shade lighter than Carrie’s and bright blue eyes. “This is Amanda LaGrange. She’ll be helping you get settled in and she’ll show you around. If you have any questions, Amanda’s the one to ask. I’m going to be away for the rest of the day, but we’ll touch base tomorrow. Our first assignment together will be an off-site assessment next week. I hope your passport’s up to date.”

  An off-site assessment sounded interesting. “It is.”

  Amanda stretched out her hand. “It’s great to meet you, Carrie.”

  Carrie smiled and shook it. “You, too. And thanks again, Patrick. I’m going to sound like a babbling, enthusiastic newbie for a while, but the fact that you’d remember me after all this time really floors me. I appreciate it more than you know.”

  She extended her hand toward him.

  She waited.

  And then waited some more.

  His shoulders stiffened and he looked down at her hand. “Carrie, I…”

  Amanda glanced at him for a moment. “Sorry, Carrie. Patrick doesn’t touch…uh…” She appeared to grapple for her words. “Patrick prefers not to have physical contact with anyone. Don’t take it personally.”

  No physical contact? Carrie felt confused and embarrassed as she pulled her hand back and shoved it into the pocket of her winter jacket. This was the extreme opposite of the first time they’d met, when he’d taken her hand in his. Maybe he’d become a germaphobe in the last couple of years.

  “It’s okay. I understand.” She didn’t, but she didn’t want him to feel awkward about it.

  Patrick cleared his throat. “I can make an exception for my new partner, of course. Let’s try that again, shall we?”

  He held his hand out to her, his expression tense.

  Carrie glanced at Amanda, who watched them with a slight frown, before she took Patrick’s hand. He squeezed, but didn’t shake it. His skin was slightly rough and as warm as she remembered. It sent a shiver of awareness through her that made her breath catch. Nothing had changed. She still felt this strange sensual pull toward him that was much too strong to ignore. She wondered if he felt the same.

  She shifted her attention from his hand to his handsome face and was startled to see his already tight expression had grown pained.

  She tried to smile. “Hope you’re not reading something horrible about me this time.”

  “No…nothing like that.” His voice sounded strained and he let go of her and took a shaky step backward. “That’s more than enough.” He said it under his breath, more to himself than to her, then gingerly touched his temples as if he had a headache.

  She watched him cautiously. “Is something wrong?”

  “No, it’s—it’s nothing. Sorry, Carrie, we’ll have to catch up later. I need to go. Right now.” He turned and quickly walked out of the building, pushing through the glass doors without another word.

  Carrie watched him leave, deep uncertainty filling her. She glanced at Amanda. “I have that effect on men lately. They run away from me as fast as they can.”

  Amanda laughed. “I have trouble believing that.”

  “So did I scare him away? That just seemed a little…odd.”

  Amanda was quiet for a moment. “Come over here. Before I show you the rest of the office and introduce you to everyone, there’s something we have to talk about.”

  Carrie followed her toward a black leather couch in the waiting area across from the reception desk. “That sounds ominous.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s got very little to do with you. It’s all about Patrick. And since you’re going to be working one-on-one with him, you have a right to know.”

  “Know what?”

  Amanda sat down and crossed her legs, gazing out the glass doors in the general direction Patrick had departed. “He’s changed. He never used to be this way.”

  “What way?”

  She pressed her lips together for a moment. “Before, he was funny and great to be around. He was a good sounding board, gave terrific advice and was fair to every employee at PARA. If you had to think of the perfect boss, Patrick McKay would be it.”

  “Sounds too good to be true,” Carrie said.

  Amand
a smiled. “He wasn’t perfect, but he was close.” Her pleasant expression faded, replaced with concern. “But then he changed. Some time ago, he covered for an agent on a case and ended up getting shoved down a flight of stairs by a poltergeist.”

  Carrie gasped out loud. She’d been reading up on the paranormal world in preparation for her work at PARA and knew a poltergeist was a nasty supernatural force that enjoyed making trouble and throwing furniture around. “Was he…is he okay? I mean, he seems fine now, but…”

  “No, he wasn’t okay. The accident put him into a wheelchair for ages. He was supposed to go to physiotherapy three times a week to get back on his feet, but he wasn’t very patient with it and started slacking off, then wondered why he wasn’t seeing any solid results. Then one day about four months ago, he started walking again like nothing happened.”

  Carrie leaned back into the sofa. “Just like that?”

  Amanda nodded. “It was a miracle. But being healed stripped away his previously great personality. He even took a demotion from agency manager to field agent, which is the main reason he’s able to partner with you. While they’re looking for a replacement manager he’s doing a bit of both jobs, although reluctantly. But now he’s guarded and private to a fault, and he doesn’t like being around other people. And he never touches anyone. The handshake with you is the first time I can remember seeing him touch anyone in recent memory.”

  Carrie considered all of this. It didn’t make much sense to her. But maybe Patrick had some issues about being in a wheelchair that made intimacy difficult now. Or perhaps it was posttraumatic stress from the injury itself. “What about his wife?”

  “Wife?”

  “Last time I saw him he said he was engaged.”

  Amanda pulled her cell phone out of the pocket of her dark blue suit jacket and glanced at the screen when it buzzed, then she tucked it away again. “He was. But they broke up shortly after he was injured. He hasn’t been seeing anyone since then. I figured he didn’t want to date while he was dealing with his injury, but now that he’s healed, I really don’t understand what’s going on with him, and he refuses to talk to anyone about it.”

  Patrick looked exactly the same as the first time Carrie met him, but she had sensed something was different about him. Guarded was a good way to put it.

  “Why are you telling me all of this?” she asked after a moment.

  Amanda hesitated. “Because Patrick’s decided he wants to help you. That means you’re going to get a chance to spend a lot of time with him when he would normally keep to himself. It’s an opportunity I didn’t want to let pass.”

  “An opportunity for what?”

  “You’re a journalist, and from what I’ve heard, a damn good one. You investigate stories and get to the bottom of them.”

  “This is true,” she said, not without a smidgen of pride. She had the shiny awards to prove it still boxed up from her move to her new apartment three miles from the PARA office building.

  “I want you to find out what happened to Patrick and why he changed.”

  Carrie studied Amanda’s serious expression. “You really care about him, don’t you?”

  “He’s a good friend to me and my husband—or at least he used to be. He has a problem and he won’t confide in anyone. Sometimes an intervention is necessary.” She exhaled a little shakily. “So, will you help me?”

  Two years ago Carrie had felt such a strong physical attraction to Patrick that she hadn’t been able to forget him. Now she had a chance to get to know him better, to work with him personally as he helped her learn how to control her telekinesis. She didn’t know much about him, really, except what Amanda had just told her.

  But he’d offered his assistance without hesitation the first time they’d met. If she could help him in return, she would.

  “Okay,” she said with a smile. “I’ll let you know what I find. Promise.”

  If there was one thing Carrie loved, it was a mystery.

  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.