“A reader? What the hell….” Jase had been leaning on the bike, staring at the taped off steaming remains of what was once a brightly colored café. “She’s some kind of magic? No, hell no. We’d know.” He said firmly, confidently. “We’d know.”
“We didn’t and I just watched everything on the table float in the air when she lost her temper,” Nick said quietly. “She didn’t see it. She was pacing and crying and….trust me….something’s locked inside her. She has a collection of typed notes, too.
Warning her to leave Newburg. She said they began just after her parents were killed.”
“So someone wants her gone because of her gift? That she isn’t even aware of?” Jase shoved his free hand through the thick blonde strands. “I’m at the café now.
Someone made certain there wasn’t a thing left. I talked to one of the investigating officers. Shared the military thing…..he said they can’t identify the accelerant used.”
“Ahh…..magic. Why not leave her inside then? Instead of carting her to the beach?”
“Make it look like suicide,” he shook his head. “But the lump on her head would have made them suspicious.”
26
“There is no lump on her head,” Nick said quietly. “It’s gone already. She says she heals fast.”
“We need a reader. I’ll see if someone we know can come out over the weekend.
Otherwise…..how is she?”
“Gorgeous. Smart. Angry as hell,” he frowned and leaned over to peer into the kitchen. “And baking. Which might be the best thing for her right now. Something that feels normal.”
“I’ll be back in an hour or two. What size you think she is? I’ll pick up some clothes and stuff,” he looked at the charcoal beams and belongings. “There’s nothing to salvage.”
“Her parents were killed in what the police are calling a home invasion, and the house supposedly goes up in a gas explosion,” Nick didn’t try and hide the fury in his tone.
“Okay. Someone came into town, took out her parents and wanted her gone.
Why?”
“She’s a threat to them somehow?”
“With an unknown power that she’s unaware of and probably can’t control worth shit at the moment. But someone is scared of her enough to want her gone,” Jase let all that drift around inside his head. “Later. I’m going to ask questions and spend money.”
“Be careful. If someone is watching….”
“I won’t lead them home. Keep the alarms on, Nick.” Nick went to the panel before going to the safe in his bedroom. He didn’t need 27
the gun. He could have handled most anything with claws and fangs. But somehow he just didn’t think Brea was ready for that little tidbit of information yet. He slid the weapon into the drawer at his side and went back to work on the stack of applicants.
He was never really sure of all the things in the pantry or cabinets. He knew there were things he liked and he knew where to find them. He knew occasionally baked goods appeared on the counters with notes not to eat them all at one sitting.
Mrs. Aimes had a habit of treating them like they were seven and so in retaliation, they usually devoured whatever it was with huge glasses of cold milk and heard about it the next time she showed up to clean and cook for them.
It was a fair trade.
When the smells began filling the house, Nick felt his stomach growl and pushed away from the computer at the same time he heard the beeps alerting them of someone coming through the main gate. He looked out and watched the large bike cruise along the drive to the garage and reset the alarms on the gates.
Jase came through the laundry room, several large bags in his hands and his feet bare, his boots left in the garage. Silver-grey eyes went to his friend, one brow raised curiously.
“I don’t know. She hasn’t come out of the kitchen since I called you,” Nick looked at the packages and laughed. “Got a little nuts, did you?”
“She’s got nothing,” he shrugged, snagging her pack and heading down the hall to the guest room. He left everything in the center of the bed before returning to the living room. “I’m starving.”
28
They went into the large kitchen quietly, both of them coming to a halt at the form bent over and leaning on the counter, fingers turning pages in a cookbook that must have belonged to Mrs. Aimes. They’d never opened it before.
Two sets of male eyes stared at the upturned behind. She’d taken her shoes off, toes flexing that were painted an alarming shade of purple.
Brea felt warm. Really warm.
Like lasers were aimed at her ass.
She straightened up slowly, jumping a little when she turned to find them staring. Like she was dinner and it was long past feeding time. She gestured to the table, hoping to distract that look in their eyes.
They hadn’t even noticed the table she’d laid out. Two scowls going from the food she was laying out to the woman silently presenting them with dinner.
“I cook when I’m upset,” she said simply. “I don’t know what either of you likes….but the things were in the freezer and fridge, so I figured…..” She laughed when two full grown men over six foot three scrambled for seats and waited politely.
“Okay….I guess it’s okay then. Neither one of you cooks?”
“Define cooks,” Nick suggested, reaching for a platter with a browned roast of boneless pork surrounded by small carrots and potatoes.
“Mrs. Aimes buys things we like and stocks the pantry and fridge. She cooks when she’s here and leaves containers in the freezer,” Jase accepted the platter, the low growl emanating from his stomach one of keen anticipation.
“I noticed. But there are all sorts of cuts of meat and vegetables in the fridge,” 29
she met the two sets of blank eyes with a laugh.
“You have a beautiful smile,” Nick said easily, offering her the platter and reaching for the gravy and biscuits.
“All hungry people say that,” she shrugged it off, putting food on her plate and eating. “Thank you for not…..for getting involved. I suppose I have to go talk to the police again. They think I’m paranoid.”
“Did you show them the letters?” Nick returned after swallowing and sighing hungrily.
“No. Yes….at first. No…I tried telling them it wasn’t a home invasion. I know my parents. They’re careful and smart,” she said firmly. “No one listened. Then I start getting those notes….I gave the first two to the police….they passed it off as a prank,” she pushed things around on her plate. Spearing a carrot now and then and eating, she didn’t pay attention to the food vanishing. Or a few things floating above the table top.
“This is delicious, Brea,” Jase reached for a few floating things and Nick the others, settling them back by the time she looked up at them.
“Mom always told me it was easy to cook for starving guys.”
“We’re pitiful. Helpless,” Nick commented, a carefully applied puppy-dog look in eyes that teased.
“He’s right,” Jase chimed in. “Pitiful males in need of a woman to care for us.” Brea laughed aloud, her head shaking. “Thank you both,” she was up and behind each one, hugging them tightly. She didn’t see each of them cross their eyes when her chest was pressed into their backs. “You make me laugh and I think I need that to keep 30
from crying again. And I know guys don’t handle that well.” She stood up and was going to start finding containers for the left overs, only to realize there wasn’t going to be anything leftover. Brea looked from one to the other.
“We were hungry,” Jase offered the unvoiced question.
“Brea, I put your pack in the guest room. We’d like you to stay. The place has good alarms and you’ll be safe here,” Nick wasn’t sure what to expect.
Jase picked up the invitation when she opened her mouth to protest.
“He’s right, Brea. I spoke with the police when I went into town. Let them know where you were if they needed to talk to you,” Jase
finished off the vegetables and reached for another biscuit. “I can hook up your computer and you can file claims and whatever from here on the shop and your belongings.”
“You’re both very kind,” she began cleaning off the table, loading the dishwasher and picking at the food on her own plate as she worked. “The police will think I’m crazy if I tell them I was…that I was cut…..they won’t believe me.”
“I didn’t tell them that part and I think it might be a good idea not to mention it right now,” Jase slid the empty plates toward her. “We don’t have any evidence to show them you were brought here against your will. We believe you because we saw the people and we’ll make a statement if you want to tell the police. I just think it might be best to let whoever did this to think they succeeded for now.”
“It’ll give you a chance to rest and grieve. I don’t think you took the time for that before, Brea,” Nick had watched how little she ate. Both at lunch and now. She picked at her food, nibbling and unable to stay in one place for long.
31
“I know you mean well, but someone is after me,” she didn’t look at them and kept talking. “And I really don’t think I could handle anymore grief if something happened to you…..both of you…..either of you…it would just be best if I called a cab and went into town. I can get a room and no one would even notice me. I’m like that, you know? People don’t notice me at all. I kind of just blend in with things most of the time. It was always like that….especially in school. There’s an advantage to being plain.”
“I hear words,” Jase began, humor in his tone.
“Hmm…I heard some too, but they didn’t make much sense,” Nick drained the iced tea he’d been drinking and carried the glass to the dishwasher.
“Sounds like a bunch of little bees buzzing around my ears,” Jase murmured, his palm up ad swiping at the side of his head.
Brea fought the giggle and lost.
“The simple answer is no, Brea. So lose that crazy idea and make yourself at home.”
“Oh and feel free to cook anything your delightful little heart desires,” Jase added with a warm chuckle.
Brea gripped the edge of the sink with both hands. “You’re not being reasonable.
You don’t know me. I could be….I could be a serial killer. I could be dangerous.”
“You could be on the verge of exhaustion because you’ve been afraid to sleep in your own bed,” Jase said softly, moving to stand at one side of her while Nick took the other side. “You could be just a little on the undernourished side for the same reason.
32
And the gentleman in me won’t even mention the dark circles beneath your otherwise gorgeous eyes.”
“You need some rest,” Nick said from the other side, his hand up and brushing the tendrils of hair that had broken free from the thick braid hanging down her back.
“We work here,” Jase said, his fingers tracing a line around her ear. He felt her breathing, soft little pants of confusion. “We live here. The alarms are set and we’re trained and armed. You’re safe here,” he repeated firmly.
“There’s a nice big sunken tub off your bedroom,” Nick turned her and walked her toward the hall, Jase trailing behind them. “We’ll finish cleaning up. That….we know how to do. Go take a bath or shower and relax. There’s a TV in there and a CD player. I saw your collection of CD’s in your pack.”
“I bought some clothes for you, Brea,” Jase saw her swallow and face them, her hand on the doorknob to the guest room. “It’s alright. Try and rest, okay?” She was tired. And she knew she had circles because every little noise woke her in her apartment. She’d been working herself harder than usual, trying to tire herself out enough to sleep without dreaming; without seeing her parents in her sleep. But it never worked.
Her palm was up and swiping at the tear that eased free as she nodded and slipped inside the bedroom, her shoulders against the door as she allowed the darkness to settle around her.
She knew they were right. She knew she’d spent the last six weeks always looking over her shoulder. Because she was positive if she were her normal self, she 33
would have grabbed up her pack and stormed out of the house. Not sure where she’d go, but by god, she’d go.
Brea had never consciously looked for a partner. She knew she was plain. She’d been told it often enough, made fun of often enough. She didn’t think about it much.
Not much, anyway. Grade school things should be made to vanish from your memories, she wished fervently. How did she manage to find two really good looking men in one fell swoop?
Her eyes adjusted, her feet moving over the thick carpeting to the bedside table where she tapped a button, the light coming on in a soft glow that lit up the room. A huge armoire rested along one wall, a low chest of drawers and an old chest of some kind was settled at the bottom of the bed with a couple extra quilts on it.
But it was what filled the surface of the bed that had her sinking to sit on the chest at the bottom of the bed, her mouth open and eyes wide. Bags of all colors and shapes filled the surface. Plastic and paper, some with tissue paper, some just large with handles.
It took her an hour. She had pushed the bags to the top of the bed and settled cross legged at the bottom. Opening bags, folding them and laying the items out in small piles.
She had a new pair of jeans; a pair of Capri pants in a pretty shade of blue; several girl tee shirts and tank tops. She found socks and at least a dozen pairs of panties that looked like soft pieces of almost nothing when she touched them. Instead of bras, he’d bought several stretch lace under shirts in bright vibrant colors. She ran a 34
palm over the satin tap sets, three of them, one in peach, one the color of a ripe apple and another the shade of a starless night.
All bought for her by a stranger, she thought as she lay across the bottom of the bed, staring at the neatly folded piles. She’d stacked the folded bags to the side of the bed on the floor and reached behind her, pulling a quilt over her and just staring.
A man had never bought her things like this before.
Be honest, she chided, a man, other than her father, had never bought her anything before.
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Chapter 4
His pen moved over the application he was reading, jotting notes for Jase to read when it was his turn to review them.
“You think she’s alright?” Nick glanced down the hall.
“I don’t know. I didn’t hear the water running. No alarms went off, so she hasn’t made a run by jumping out the window,” he met the stunned look on Nick’s face with a shrug.
“Something’s off. Like it or not, I asked Mariana to come out in a couple days.”
“Not too crazy about Mariana having her nose in our business, but I agree,” Jase said quietly. “I can’t sense any kind of magic at all. Nothing. If someone put a snare around her, they were damn good at it,” he commented, referring to a spell cast to keep something from the general world.
“It had to have been her parents, Jase. One of them, anyway. If it was both, it would account for the power behind it.”
“So they did it to keep her hidden. From someone.”
“Or something,” Nick amended carefully.
“A parental snare would be almost unbreakable,” Jase looked toward the hall.
“But Brea is breaking through probably because they’re gone.”
“Which means they were hiding her power, not necessarily her,” Nick said logically. “Two quiet school teachers in a small coastal town.”
“Have you got anything on the background check?” 36
“I have that the last name isn’t Cooper,” he looked up from the screen scrolling before him. “I have that they originated in a small town in North Carolina before Brea was born. The entire town was wiped out a month before she was born. Her parents were supposedly killed in the attack, some kind of gang affair that the town had been battling.”
“So the world thought they wer
e dead,” Jase leaned back in his desk chair. “Then someone stumbled on them thirty years later.”
“Good mystery plot,” Nick jotted down names. “Problem is….without someone still alive who knew them, we won’t know what they were and why they were hunted.”
“Mariana might be able to remove the snare but if it’s been there since she was born, she won’t know anything. If her parents put it on her, they did it for a protective reason, which means they probably didn’t talk about anything other than school and normal human stuff,” Jase pushed up from the chair, striding down the hall to the guest room. He stood listening but there was only the sound of steady breathing.
“A problem?” Nick came along the corridor more quietly, more slowly, listening as his friend had been.
“I think she’s sleeping,” he turned the knob and eased the door open. Their night vision was sharper and more vivid, the sight spread before them making them both smile. “I’ll get the clothes. You get the bags out of here,” he said quietly, his head shaking. He carried the small stacks to the bureau and left them there, carefully easing the blankets down on the bed and laying them over her when Nick lifted her from the bottom and placed her the right way on the bed.
37
“At least she’s sleeping. I got the feeling she hasn’t been doing much of that since her parents died,” Nick walked out of the room, leaving the door wide and heading to finish reading through the applicants before turning in for the night.
Jase did a walk through, checking doors, windows and the alarms before going to his bedroom, like Nick, leaving the door wide. Just in case. The pain in the base of his neck was telling him if magic was involved, all the alarms in the world wouldn’t help keep something out.
It had been midnight before they went to their rooms and fell asleep.
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Chapter 5
It was just past seven when the scents began to haunt their dreams. Both males groaned and lifted a head to peer out their separate bedroom windows. Neither of them bothered with more than the sleep pants they wore, riding low on their hips and feet bare as they stumbled into the kitchen.
Breanna Page 3
