Damn. She had a suspicious mind. He supposed he couldn’t blame her. “Look, I’m trying to find your parents, like you asked, and I need to know everything about you. If you really don’t want to know your origins, tell me now, so I can reboot this project. I have a lot of people relying on me to pay their mortgages, and I dislike letting them down.”
“Why would who I am have anything to do with your crazy text message?” she asked with what seemed like genuine curiosity. “And feel free to kill the project anytime. It was your idea, not mine.”
“The town is counting on you,” he pointed out. “Do you really want to let them down?”
She glared and finished off her juice. “They’d survive if you quietly slipped away and never returned.”
“Not happening. I’ve booked the show with the network. They’re thrilled about you. Your agent is hopping up and down with glee. I’ve got a cameraman whose kid has cancer, and he needs the work. You want to blow them all off because you don’t like me?”
“I don’t like Syrene,” she hissed, leaning over the table so no one else could hear. “I don’t want her resurrected. She’s dead and gone. I’m a writer of children’s books, nothing more.”
A little lightbulb lit, and Oz sat back in the booth so she couldn’t stab him with her bread knife. “Syrene wrote the seal song,” he declared.
“Yes, and that’s all you need to know.” She stood up and waved at Dot, who waved back. “I’ve got a bunch of little kids waiting on me. Have a lovely day.”
He had no idea in hell where this was leading, but so far, the Librarian was batting a thousand. And Miss James didn’t like it a bit.
***
Toweringly egotistical Hollywood baboon! Pippa screamed inside her head as she walked the path from the day care to her home after the morning reading session. The citrus scent of the Mexican orange bush growing in the sun at the back of the day care mixed with a whiff of jasmine from her courtyard. She’d spent years developing this low-key walk in the sunshine so she could relax to the sound of birds and the fragrance of herbs planted among the stones. But she wasn’t relaxed now as she replayed the breakfast she’d shared with Oz.
How could he possibly know about a song she’d written in her studio nine years ago and sent to cyberspace with no other person anywhere involved? Was he psychic?
More likely, he had some hacker in his employ who had broken into her computer. The thought infuriated her even more, until she applied cold logic. Unless he meant to steal her songs—and she didn’t think Oz was a thief so much as a manipulator—a hired hacker good enough to bust through her firewalls might find government records other investigators hadn’t, records that might reveal her parents.
She could add more buffers to her system and keep it turned off so the snoop couldn’t nose around anymore. But a hacker that good could be the reason Oz was so confident he could meet her challenge.
Which ought to terrify her. She had no intention of appearing on television as Syrene and driving herself over the brink of destruction again. She’d fought too hard to find the peace she enjoyed now.
But she really, really wanted to know who she was. Did her parents have weird eyes and weird Voices? Maybe they were from outer space. Why had they abandoned her at a fire station? Had she used her Voice even as a toddler and driven her real parents crazy? She was afraid that was the answer, but she wasn’t afraid to find out. She needed to know. It was like living with a missing piece in her soul, not knowing who she was or where she came from or why she’d been abandoned.
When she walked into her lovely, tranquil house and saw Oz through the patio door, sitting beside her pool, typing on a laptop, she almost submitted to the urge to let the Beast free to scream. Oz had invaded her privacy one too many times. He deserved the worst she could throw at him.
But to do so meant throwing away years of practice at maintaining a Zen calm. She didn’t want to deteriorate into the dangerous infant she’d once been. She would not let him destroy everything she’d worked so hard to gain.
She would not let him think he belonged here, either.
She emptied a tray of ice into the food processor, crushed the cubes, and calmly carried the pitcher outside. Absorbed in his work, he either didn’t hear or ignored her approach. His gold-streaked hair rubbed his shirt collar, and his wide shoulders crushed the meager cushions of her lounge. He crossed his long legs at the ankle while he worked, neatly balancing the laptop on khaki-clad thighs. He looked much too comfortable in her home.
She upturned the pitcher of crushed ice over his sleekly styled hair and tailored shirt.
He didn’t scream or curse or drop what he was doing. He merely set the laptop down on the tiles and, scowling, rose to his towering height to pull out the tail of his shirt and shake the ice out. She didn’t fear him. She glared back.
Without a word or gesture of warning, Oz caught her arm and flipped her over his shoulder, into the pool. She hit with a splash and sank to the bottom, the denim jumper growing soggy and dragging her down.
When she fought her way back to the surface, he stood at the edge, glowering down at her. “If you’ve got a mat, I’ll take you on. Let’s work this out now before we go any further.”
She didn’t want to take him on. He was too damned physically attractive, and she was too hormonal. Sex-deprived. Whatever. Besides, a man who could react that swiftly without giving away his intent was a formidable opponent. But two could play that game.
Despite her hampering garments, she expertly flipped out of the pool. Squeezing water from her dress, she stood up, and with barely a hitch in her movement to warn him, she shoved him in, fancy Rolex, earring, and all.
“This is my home,” she told him when he returned to the surface. Every cell in her body wanted to shriek with fury and frustration, but he’d already hit her with his worst, so she had no reason to lose her temper. Now it was just a matter of who was in charge here. “You are not to invade the privacy of my home. It’s bad enough you’re taking over my town and my friends and my life, but not my home.”
She couldn’t tear her gaze from the bulging biceps he used to pull himself out of the pool. This was no lazy studio exec who spent his gym time schmoozing. The thin wet shirt revealed Dylan Oswin’s serious pecs. And she would not look lower to the soaked khakis clinging to his narrow hips. The chilly water should have cooled him off.
She turned away and headed back to the house. “Pick up your stuff and get lost.”
“The inn doesn’t have wireless,” he shouted after her. “Or a pool. Or anywhere private to work. I’m brainstorming the project concept and thought you might like some input.” He grabbed a towel from the cabana to dry his hair.
No one had ever asked for her opinion on a project. Pippa pretended not to hear him as she aimed for her bedroom and dry clothes. It wasn’t warm enough this time of year to go around sopping wet.
When she returned to the kitchen wearing a lavender tie-dyed hoodie and purple capris, Oz was throwing her strawberries into a blender and ruining more fruit—while wearing no more than a towel.
She was going to have to kill him.
She could hear the dryer tumbling in the laundry closet off the kitchen. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes to erase the image of rippling abdominals, swung on her heel, and returned to her bedroom.
Next time she returned, she had a fluffy white robe in her hand. “Put this on. By Bungo, you’re disgusting. And presumptuous.”
“Yeah, people like that about me.” He hit the blend button and watched the fruit concoction spin while donning the robe. “By Bungo?”
“I write children’s books. I try not to swear, except in my head.” She reached for the raspberry-banana juice in the refrigerator, stopped the blender, and added it to the container. Then she poured water into a teakettle and proceeded to make tea
. “Bungo is one of my characters, if you’ll remember.”
“I’m trying to fix you something healthy to put meat on your bones, and you’re drinking tea?” he asked in disgust, watching her. “I don’t suppose you have coffee?”
He managed to look dangerously sexy even in a fluffy white robe that was too short for him all over. Maybe she should just shoot herself. “I don’t suppose I do. And this is raspberry tea. It’s warm. I’m not. There’s a hair dryer in the bathroom.”
If she could just keep this impersonal, pretend he was one of the kids, maybe she could survive without maiming either of them. Maybe.
It was pretty much impossible to pretend a six-four hunk of muscle was a little kid. The man was huge. Damned good thing she wasn’t into huge men. They intimidated her. She liked her guys on the geeky side.
Not that she’d had many guys since Robbie. Sex was problematic for her unbalanced state. One uncontrolled shriek in bed, and she might drive a man to rob banks or leap off high cliffs.
Hmmm, there’s a thought. She wondered which Oz would do.
He’d probably make lemon-banana smoothies and leave the peels on. With a sigh, she tested the blender concoction, added a scoop of yogurt, gave it another swirl, and filled two glasses. It wouldn’t kill him to drink something healthy besides coffee.
By the time Oz returned with his flashy surfer-blond-streaked hair styled and wearing her hotel robe, Pippa had sipped her herbal tea and calmed herself as much as she was able. The dip in the pool had cooled any need to beat anyone up. She simply had to outsmart and outmaneuver a shark who probably brushed his teeth with minnows like her.
“You don’t get the right to use my house as your personal office, got that?” she said before he even sat down. “You need an office, you can rent one. You want to work with me, you call and make an appointment.”
“Renting an office comes out of your share of the profit. Until I’m sure you won’t do a flit, I don’t want to waste any more money than I already have. I warned you, I’m not a big budget spender. It makes more sense to expect me to be here when you get home so we can work on this together.” He sipped the smoothie with suspicion and, apparently deciding it was potable, took a larger drink.
Rather than sit across the table from a man she wanted to murder, Pippa rummaged in the refrigerator, producing smoked Gouda, spinach leaves, a small loaf of brown bread, and salsa she’d bought at the farmers’ market from one of the locals. “I have books to write,” she reminded him. “I can’t write with anyone around.”
“I’ve talked to your agent. I’m paying you more than all your books combined earned over a lifetime. Get over it. You don’t like me. I got that. I’ll be out of your hair as soon as the project starts up. But for right now, this is what I do. I put all the pieces of the puzzle together and make things happen.”
Had he been sitting there in his pricey shark suit, his white teeth gleaming in a practiced smile, she could easily have dumped the smoothie over his head for insulting the worth of her books. But he was sitting at her little mosaic-tiled kitchen table in a fluffy white robe sipping a strawberry-colored smoothie and scowling.
She trusted the scowl more than the smile. That he was able to still be his usual manipulative self while wearing a knee-length robe said he was so full of himself, so certain of his masculinity, that he didn’t give a damn how he looked. She liked that even better.
“How many hours of my day do you need?” she asked. “I can only parcel myself out so many ways, and I won’t give up the day care time.”
“Three,” he said instantly.
“Two,” she countered. “You can use my wireless and pool while I’m at the school. I’ll come here and give you two hours of my time. And then you’re gone. Sayonara. Auf wiedersehen. Out of my hair until the next day. And I get weekends off.”
“How about dinner? My treat. I hate eating alone.”
“You’re going to push until you knock me down, aren’t you?” She carried her smoothie outside and arranged herself on a lounge chair.
She had a feeling Dylan Oswin was the ultimate test of Zen.
Chapter 8
Oz couldn’t imagine why anyone called this woman Seraphina. There was nothing angelic or serene about the tense, vibrant female burning up the keyboard in the lounge chair beside him.
It had taken another hostile argument to persuade her to pull her chair next to his so he didn’t have to shout across the pool at her. If it ever rained in California, he had a feeling they’d get no work done at all because she wouldn’t share a space as small as a house with him. Working in the great outdoors was all she could manage.
While he was conjuring images of sharing a bed, even when she was wearing that concealing hoodie. Bad Oz. He knew better. He’d just never found someone so stubbornly resistant to his usual charm. Which forced him to study her more.
And the more he watched her, with her cropped red hair bent over the keyboard, her slender nape vulnerable, the deeper he dug his hole. He liked polished, sophisticated women who knew the score, women who used him just as he used them—mutual itch scratching, some newsworthy gossip action, a few good dinners where they could see and be seen, and then sayonara, as Pippa had so colorfully said.
So his attraction to the skinny elf with freckles on her unpainted face was confusing. And distracting. He kept checking out her slender pianist’s fingers flying across the laptop’s keyboard and wondering how they’d feel in his hair. Which led him to wondering if she had any curves at all beneath the ugly hoodie. Which led to more distraction than he could afford.
“Muppets are expensive,” he warned when she went off on a creative tangent. “Besides, they’ve been done. And so have costume characters. Why should kids relate to talking ducks?”
Her wicked blue-green eyes glanced up from the keyboard to spear him with a frosty glare. “Kids need security, the comfort of the familiar. Half the adult population of this country dislikes change, so don’t expect kids living in a world they don’t understand to accept surprises. People even hate clowns. You don’t want a children’s show to be too original. Just original in a familiar way.”
Her phone rang, leaving Oz to ponder original but not, while she leaned over to punch the speaker button.
The torrent of Spanish spilling forth ripped Oz straight out of his musing. He spoke fluent Spanish, but this flood of idioms and hysteria blurred to one clear topic—a child was missing. Why was someone calling her about a missing child?
His gut churned. The pen that Pippa had given him for note-taking, while she’d appropriated his computer, snapped between his fingers. He tensed, following her every gesture and word.
Fear for a lost child caused incoherent suspicion to buzz through his brain. It made no sense to connect Pippa with kidnapping. She had nothing to gain from Donal’s disappearance but the notoriety she so blatantly avoided. But she was irretrievably linked with his son in his mind, and now she had some link to another missing child.
Instinct made him doubly wary because he wanted to trust her, but he’d learned he couldn’t trust anyone. Not his late wife. Not Heidi, his son’s nanny. No one. Which was why he hadn’t even told his brothers why he was here.
“Slow down, Juanita. I’ll ask,” Pippa said reassuringly into the receiver. “I’ll do everything I can. I’m sure Tommy is asleep under a tree somewhere. Let the sheriff do his job. Don’t tie up your phone line. I’ll talk to Oz right now.”
She calmed the caller with soothing tones that left the woman weeping, grateful, and less hysterical by the time she hung up.
Oz was already picking up their equipment and notes and carrying them to the house by the time Pippa swung her long—gorgeous—legs from the lounge chair. She might be skinny, but she had great legs, now that she’d let him see them. Or part of them.
“What does she want us to do?�
�� was all he asked as he dumped laptop and notes on the table.
“She thinks Hollywood producers can call in CSI. She’s not thinking straight. It’s her grandson, Tommy. He’s autistic. She brings him to Bertha’s for story hour because he seems to listen when I read. We can’t tell if he’s absorbing the story, but it gives Juanita a chance to relax and take some time for herself. Her daughter works in the city, trying to make enough money to pay counselors for his treatments.”
She was throwing things into an oversize tote as she talked. Water bottle, sunglasses, a miniature copy of some of her books… Oz lost track. He pulled a floppy hat off a rack by the door and pulled it over her cropped hair. She didn’t fight him on it.
He’d dressed again after his clothes dried. His dry-clean only shirt was wrinkled, but his khakis had held up. He was presentable enough for the public. “So, how do you look for an autistic kid?”
“Same as any other. It’s pretty much desert out there, except with more vegetation to hide in. The town has trackers. Unless you know magic, you might as well go back to the inn.”
Oz grabbed a bottle of water from her refrigerator and opened his BlackBerry as he followed her out. “No magic. Just contacts.”
She nodded, apparently aware of the value of knowing the right people. She didn’t look like a woman who would steal a child. She looked like a worried baby-sitter.
A worried baby-sitter had stolen Donal. Maybe Pippa was a sicko who got her jollies out of watching parents panic because she didn’t have any kids of her own. A whole lot of psycho stuff could be traced to abandonment issues.
She definitely had abandonment issues.
When they reached the day care parking lot, she walked on past his Ram. Oz grabbed her elbow, felt her stiffen, and prepared to duck. But she reluctantly climbed in when he opened the truck door.
“Where to?”
“They’re forming a search party at Dot’s, but Juanita’s hacienda is just outside of town. Don’t drive and talk.” She took the phone out of his hand.
Lure of Song and Magic Page 6
