And that was when all hell broke loose. The bed began to shake with a violence that seemed calculated to bring the whole room tumbling down about their ears.
“What the—” Mike exclaimed, his head jerking up sharply, the heat in his gaze replaced by alarm.
Sara gasped, feeling as though a blade of ice thrust between her and Mike, forcing her out of his arms. The bed pitched and rolled beneath them like a small ketch lost in a storm at sea. Swearing under his breath, Mike scrambled off the bed, dragging Sara with him.
They’d barely gained their balance on the floor when the bookshelf on the wall joined in, dancing out a mad rhythm, keeping time with the bed.
“Mike!” Sara cried out a warning as the books came flying off. But she was too late. One hefty tome slammed into the side of his head.
He grunted with pain, reeling away from her. Flinging up his arms, he deflected several more hardback missiles that seemed to be aimed at him with deadly accuracy.
Only when the last book lay tumbled on the carpet, did the shaking stop. Sara pressed her hands to her heart and drew in a tremulous breath. She’d seen displays of Mamie’s infamous temper before, but she never failed to be awed by it.
Cautiously lowering his arms, Mike straightened. Groaning, he rubbed his head and nudged aside a fallen book with the toe of his shoe. “Webster’s Dictionary. Complete and Unabridged. ” He winced. “Damn it! No wonder it felt like a ton of bricks.”
“Are you all right, Michael?” Sara asked. It was starting to become a familiar question.
“No, I’m not!” he snapped, glaring at the bookshelf and then the bed. “First I nearly break my leg on the stairs. And now I think I’ve got a damned concussion. What the hell is going on around this place?”
“It—it’s Mamie,” Sara said, faltering. The room settled to an ominous quiet, but she could still sense something in the air, the chilling breath of an icy disapproval.
“I wasn’t making any spook jokes. What’s her problem this time?”
“I’m not sure, but...but I don’t think she likes you...um—kissing me.”
Mike’s brows shot up in disbelief. “What business is it of hers?”
Still basking in the memory of Mike’s warmth and tenderness, Sara wanted to know the same thing. She called out, “Mamie! You hurt Mike again. Why did you do that?”
Someone had to stop Mr. Casanova there and bring you to your senses.
Sara shivered at the sound of Mamie’s voice, but it was obvious from Mike’s expression that he had heard nothing.
With a halting embarrassment, she explained, “Mamie seems to feel we were getting too carried away.”
“Damn right we were.” Mike dragged his fingers through his hair in a gesture of angry frustration, wincing when he came to the bump on his head. “I don’t know what the devil came over me. Sorry, angel. You seem to bring out the worst in me.”
“The worst?” Sara made a feeble effort to smile. “I rather hoped it was the best.”
Mike shook his head. “Give me a woman in a bedroom and apparently I can’t be trusted. Good thing that Mamie—” He stopped, flinging up his hands in disgust. “What am I talking about? There is no Mamie.”
Sara stared at him in dismay. After all of this, he couldn’t possibly still deny Mamie’s existence, could he? Any more than he could deny that what had just happened between him and Sara had been something strange and wonderful. Special.
But apparently he could, for he stalked away from Sara, muttering something about raging hormones. He went over to the shelf to examine it, looking for some logical explanation for the recent disturbance.
Sara’s warm glow faded to become an ache of bitter disappointment. She became suddenly aware of her disheveled state, and shoved her dress straps back up on her shoulders, feeling mortified and ashamed.
Maybe Mike was right. Maybe she’d just imagined that there had been anything at all magic about the way they had kissed. Maybe it was nothing but hormones.
Then why did she still feel so shaken, tingling all over just like yesterday when he had kissed her, only stronger?
Just like yesterday.... A peculiar sensation stole over Sara and she clapped her hand to her mouth.
“Oh, no. Not again,” she murmured. Perhaps it was her eyes she needed to cover. She tried to avoid looking at Mike, but her gaze was drawn to him like a magnet.
In a blinding flash, she seemed able to see straight through the man’s clothes again. Only it wasn’t just his shirt this time. Everything was gone except his socks and a skimpy pair of black silk briefs. She envisioned clearly the taut calves, the lean, muscular thighs, the broad chest with its golden dusting of hair, trailing over the flat plane of his stomach to disappear into those scandalous briefs. Briefs that outlined far too well an interesting bulge.
“Oh...oh, my.” Sara gulped, her face on fire. “You—you have—”
“Have what?” Mike asked, glancing back at her with a puzzled frown.
“You—you have another scar. On your left thigh.”
Mike’s hand clapped defensively over the exact spot, his frown becoming a full-blown scowl. “Damn it, Sara, don’t you start that again. I’ve been weirded out enough for one day.”
“I can’t help it,” Sara moaned. “I can see it so clear. You got this scar from—” She winced as an image of shattering glass, grinding metal filled her head.
“From an automobile accident. You were driving too fast.” Sara’s eyes widened at the realization. “Michael! You stole a car.”
He squirmed. “Yeah, so what? I used to be a very bad boy. Too bad to live and not bad enough to die and... Hell, Sara! What are you—some kind of a witch or something? How do you keep guessing all this stuff?”
She didn’t bother to answer him. It would have done no good. He wouldn’t believe her anyway.
“I—I sense a lot of pain,” she went on. “But it wasn’t as bad as the time you—you—” She drifted toward him, her hand outstretched. “The time you hurt your shoulder.”
“Sara, don’t,” Mike growled in warning, but her fingertips already came to rest on the area where she knew his scar to be. She shuddered as pain sluiced through her—savage, sharp, burning. Mike’s remembered pain. But instead of his shoulder, it felt as though the knife had been plunged, twisted in his heart.
Sara felt the color drain from her cheeks. “My—my God. You—you were only a boy when you were stabbed. Just twelve years old!”
“Stop it!” Mike shoved her hand roughly aside.
A jolt of fear rushed through her, not at Mike’s rising anger, but at the new image forming in her mind.
“I see the man lurking in the shadows. Terrible, frightening, but I can’t see his face unless he steps into the light. He—”
“I said, stop, dammit!” Mike seized her shoulder in a fierce grip. The terrifying image faded, leaving only Mike’s eyes, bright and hard with anger. And some other emotion. Could it possibly be...fear?
“Look, Sara, I don’t know how you can...or even if you—I mean...that is, I think—” He broke off, his jaw working. “I don’t know what I think anymore. But if by some remote, snowball’s chance in hell, you really are psychic, I want one thing clear. Stay out of my head, dammit!”
“I don’t want to be in your head,” Sara said miserably, struggling to ease Mike’s grasp, which had become painful. “It’s more your fault than mine.”
“My fault?” Mike glared, but mercifully he relaxed the pressure of his fingers.
“Yes, I never get visions this clear and sharp when I’m around anyone else. But each time you kiss me that passionately, I’m able to see more and more of you. This time I got all the way down to your black silk briefs.”
“For your information, Miss Psychic, I don’t wear silky drawers. I don’t even own any except for a few pair my ex-wife insisted on buying me, and those are shoved to the back of the drawer. I never bother with them except on days when I’m low in the laundry department, like—” Mi
ke paused, a look of horrified realization sifting over his features.
“Like this morning,” he concluded weakly, his gaze dropping to Sara. His hands fell from her shoulders and he ran his fingers over his brow like a man testing for fever. “This—this is insane.”
“No, it isn’t,” Sara insisted. “It’s the way you kiss me. It seems to have opened up some kind of channel between us.”
“So switch to another station.”
“Then stop kissing me.”
“Gladly!”
But even as Mike glowered into her eyes, Sara could still feel the currents rushing between them. The attraction that was there whether either of them wanted it or not.
She wondered if Mike felt it, too. She couldn’t tell. All she knew was that he avoided her gaze and backed away, saying, “I’m outta here.”
“You’re quitting the case?” Sara faltered.
“No, I just have to get out of here, that’s all. Away from—”
He didn’t finish, but he didn’t have to. Sara knew what he meant well enough. Away from her. Sara Holyfield. It seemed as though Mike would have preferred her a bit more normal after all.
The thought pained her more than she cared to admit. Concealing her hurt behind a hard lump of pride, Sara watched Mike gather up Mamie’s jewel chest and tuck it under his arm.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“What you hired me to do. Go find John Patrick. Using real, solid detecting methods. The kind of thing I can understand. Hard evidence.” He frowned a moment at the bedraggled stuffed dog lying on the carpet and then to Sara’s surprise, he scooped that up, too. She couldn’t imagine what he would want with John Patrick’s most cherished toy. But Sara supposed bleakly that, to Mike Parker, it was just more of his “hard evidence.”
Brushing past her, Mike strode purposefully toward the bedroom door. “You coming?” he demanded.
Numbly, Sara shook her head. “I think I’ll stay here awhile and see if I can find out anything else.”
He angled an impatient glance back at her. “And just how are you planning to get back to town?”
“I guess I can always saddle up my broomstick,” Sara said with a trace of bitterness. “Or barring that, there’s a local bus line that runs not far from the inn.”
Mike looked about to argue with her, conflicting emotions warring in his dark eyes. But then he just shrugged and said, “Fine. Suit yourself. I’ll report back to you if I find out anything.”
Would he? Sara wondered as Mike vanished out the door. She had a sinking feeling that he’d as soon stick his head in a bear trap as come within miles of her again. She listened to the sound of his receding footsteps pounding down the stairs until eventually she heard the front door slam.
Six
A week passed before Mike Parker ventured back into Aurora Falls. Even then, when he cruised down Main Street, he carefully avoided Sara’s shop. But that huge blinking eyeball mounted above her store seemed to follow him like a reproachful stare.
Mike caught himself actually scrunching down farther in the seat of his Mustang as though fearful Sara would pick him up on her radar as he passed by. It had taken him a long time to sort out what had happened at the Pine Top Inn that afternoon and he still wasn’t sure he had it straight. He didn’t need another close encounter with Sara to confuse him further.
Pressing down on the accelerator, Mike sped down the block to his destination, the Aurora Falls City Hall. He almost missed it, the government offices jammed into a large brick building along with the library and police station. A handy arrangement, Mike thought, where the cops could swoop in right away on all those felons who tried to stiff the librarian out of overdue book fines.
He eased the convertible next to the curb, the sun baking through the open roof, making him irritable. Hot July had turned into inferno August. His shirt, a wild Hawaiian print in orange and yellow, and his khaki pants were already sticking to him like a second skin. Mike Parker in his Magnum P.l. mode, all set to blend in with the tourists. Or make the rounds of area hotels, trying to find that witness that had skipped out on the local prosecuting attorney. Except that, much to his disgust, Mike wasn’t doing those nice sane, sensible things.
Those sensible case folders lay neglected on the back seat of his car while he continued to pursue the one case that was obsessing him.
The missing John Patrick.
Shutting off the car motor, Mike stared balefully at the objects nestled on the seat opposite him, the only clues he had so far—a jewel box full of trinkets and old photos and a ratty, little stuffed dog.
He had to be out of his mind. Wasting all this time working for a gypsy lady who made his blood run both hot and cold for the rate of ten bucks a day. Money he never intended to collect anyway.
He’d had so little luck finding anything more about Mamie Patrick that he almost believed the woman really was nothing but a figment of Sara’s imagination and that all he was doing was chasing down more figments. But he’d been reassured by Xavier Storm’s reaction.
The casino king hadn’t been idle these past few days, either. Flexing his influential muscles, he’d done everything, from having Mike’s office building inspected by the Department of Health to sending the state commission round to check on Mike’s P.I. license.
A subtle threat, a Storm warning as it were, that if Mike didn’t back off the Patrick case, Storm would do his best to see Mike shut down. Rather than alarming Mike, it filled him with a certain grim satisfaction.
“It shows that I’m already starting to get to the imperturbable Mr. Storm,” Mike murmured to his only companion, the stuffed dog. He picked it up and flicked one moth-eaten ear. “Which means that there has to be something to all this Patrick business. Which means that your former owner does exist.”
Mike glanced down at the ragged dog, scowling at some elusive memory the toy kept stirring in him. Could he possibly have had something like it himself when he was a kid? A name hovered just out of reach. Spunky? Spanky? Sparky, maybe.
Yeah, that was it. A stuffed dog named Sparky after some Dalmation firehouse dog he’d read about in a book somewhere.
“Well, I’ll be,” Mike said, a little astonished with himself. He could recall so little of the details of his early life. So what the hell had ever happened to good old Sparky, he wondered, turning the toy dog in his hands. Probably left behind at one of those endless hotels his old man had dragged him to.
Thoughts of his old man immediately soured the remembrance and Mike tossed the dog back on the seat. That was just one more weird thing about this case—how it kept dragging him back to his own past. Good thing he was getting such satisfaction out of bugging Storm or Mike would’ve cashed in his chips long ago.
This whole Patrick business was getting under his skin in ways he neither liked nor understood. Just like the woman who had hired him.
Sara.
Mike gripped the steering wheel hard, fighting to keep her image out of his mind. His head was beginning to feel like a damned battleground and most of the time, he lost.
She was always there, sunshine and sweet perfume in the dark back rivers of his mind. Alluring. Tantalizing. Tormenting. He’d lain awake nights, trying to convince himself that the things he’d thought had happened out at that inn hadn’t really happened.
He hadn’t almost gone out of control and made love to Sara Holyfield on an old bare mattress. No ghost had bounced books off his noggin and Sara hadn’t been really able to slip inside his head, the grim wasteland of his past exposed for her to see.
Well, he could still argue himself out of believing in ghosts, but Sara was another matter. He’d almost been able to feel her cracking his cynical armor.
All those details she’d picked up—his scars, the car he’d stolen as a punk kid, but most of all, his shadow man. Those details had been all too painfully precise to be dismissed as a lucky guess.
Mike expelled a deep heartfelt sigh. He’d spent most of his life
debunking carnival fortune tellers, phony mediums, crystal-ball readers. It was driving him nuts to have to admit, even to himself, that Sara just might be the genuine article.
“It’s damned unsettling,” he growled, his gaze drifting involuntarily to his stuffed companion. “Well, hell, Sparky. You know what it feels like. She got in your head, too.”
Of course, Sara had said it was all Mike’s fault, all because of the way he’d been kissing her, and maybe she was right. He had no business to be kissing her, or doing any of the other things he’d been about to do on that bed.
Never get personal with the clients. It was a good rule and he didn’t know why Sara kept tempting him to break it. But one touch from her and he was off like a skyrocket. Burning, blazing, exploding with desire. Wanting her with an ache so deep, it scared the hell out of him.
“Maybe she really is some kind of witch, Sparky,” he muttered to the dog. “Maybe she cast a spell on me.”
Whatever was going on between him and Sara, there was only one solution. Keep working on the case, but stay as far away from her as possible. And under no circumstances, ever, ever touch her again.
“I knew she was trouble from the minute she walked in my office.” Mike reached out to tap the stuffed dog on its nose. “Let this be a lesson to you. Sparky. Stay away from dames with faces like angels and bodies meant for sin.”
A discreet cough sounded, and for one startled moment Mike almost thought it came from the dog. Then he realized a shadow had fallen over the interior of his car.
He glanced up, chagrined to find a meter maid leaning up against the car door, all crisp and perky in her blue-and-white uniform.
“Excuse me, sir,” the girl said. “But the meter you’re parked next to is expired. Either you or Sparky is going to have to come up with a quarter or I’m afraid I’ll have to give you a ticket”
Mike felt his face firebrick red, but he managed to drawl, “It’ll have to be me. Sparky only carries large bills.”
The girl gave him a sassy grin and moved off down the street. Hanging his head in his hands, Mike got out of the car. Oh, man, he was in a bad way if he was starting to talk, not only to himself, but to a stuffed dog.