by Мишель Роуэн
She looked at the screen. "No service?"
"Call him after the truck's fixed."
She glared at him. "I already have a boss ordering me around, thanks."
"This isn't my fault, you know," he said, stifling a grin at her over-the-top annoyance. "Next time I steal a car I'll have the transmission checked out first."
"This isn't funny."
"No, it definitely isn't." He shielded his eyes from the relentless sun. "Do you think it's possible that it's brighter here than anywhere else on earth?"
She glanced up. "Whatever. I'll be over there."
He adjusted his sunglasses and jogged after Janie, trying to ignore the nagging feeling that somebody was watching them. She still had the map. He wasn't letting her out of his sight.
NO SERVICE
"Terrific," she said aloud. "Just terrific."
She hadn't had a moment alone since speaking with the Boss. She desperately needed to ask Lenny what she should do. Obviously, she wasn't thinking straight since Lenny wouldn't have any problem at all with the prospect of offing Quinn, but he was a good sounding board.
She wondered if Lenny and Barkley had reached Vegas yet. She felt at her neck. She never took off the turquoise necklace, and she felt naked without it on. It was her touchstone to the past, to Angela and to a much, much simpler time. Every time she was stressed out or nervous, she'd run her fingertips over it,
which helped to immediately calm her down.
She could really use it right about now.
Quinn marched up next to her and just stood there without saying anything.Dammit , being so near him was way too distracting—and not only because she found him painfully attractive, but because she now knew she had to end his life despite how she felt about him.
"Any luck?" he asked.
"Luck must be something I left behind at the motel along with my moisturizer."
"I'll take that as a no?" He glanced over his shoulder, then turned back to face her. A frown wrinkled his brow above his sunglasses.
"What?" she asked.
"Did the brochure happen to mention any reason why Semolina is blocked off to tourists?"
"You got the brochures, not me."
He nodded at her. "Read it."
She sighed, dug out one of the rolled-up brochures he'd given her earlier out of her handbag, and flipped forward through the pages. "It says that it was blocked off to outside access twenty years ago due to unusual disturbances in the area."
"Unusual disturbances?"
She nodded. "It says that in 1870 the town was abandoned when two men after the same treasure killed each other in a gunfight. Soon after that, everyone else living here just packed up and left." She shoved the brochure back into her bag. "What difference does it make?"
He shrugged. "Do you think a ghost town might actually have real ghosts in it?"
"It's called a ghost town because it's abandoned. Not because of any excessive paranormal activity."
"You ever done anyghostbusting in your career?" he asked evenly.
"Not my area of expertise."
He looked at her grimly. "That's too bad."
She frowned. "Why?"
He nodded back in the direction of the truck. "Because I think that would help right about now."
She looked over and blinked hard. Their truck was hovering five feet off the ground as if raised by an invisible hand. Abig invisible hand.
She started toward it.
"Stop," Quinn shouted, but when she didn't stop, he followed her.
She looked at the car and reached out to touch it. "That's so strange."
"Don't get too close," Quinn warned.
The car suddenly shot up high into the blue sky until it became no more than a black speck.
"Janie, get out of the way!" Quinn yelled.
He grabbed her by her shoulders and tackled her to the ground. He fell down on top of her and rolled the both of them off to the side of the dusty street and held her tight against him.
She heard a whistling sound, and the ground shook as the truck hit the earth, crushed on impact. She breathed through a cloud of dust that surrounded them. If she hadn't moved, she would be a dusty blond pancake. Quinn just saved her life.
What was wrong with her? She was normally way more alert to danger.
"Are you okay?" he asked, looking down at her, pulling her hair gently off her face.
She was about to answer, but somebody else spoke instead.
"What have we here?" the voice drawled. "I think I see trespassers. Inmy town."
Quinn scrambled to his feet, and Janie got up behind him, looking over his shoulder at the man who approached then. He had a scraggly gray moustache. Brown chaps, a dirty, once-white shirt, and a weathered black leather vest. He wore a cowboy hat and boots that had spurs that jingled as he approached. A shotgun rested over one shoulder.
His face was very white and his eyes sunken with black shadows under them despite the sunny skies above. He was chewing tobacco and spat out a long stream of brown, disgusting goo to one side.
He also had a big red bloodstain in the center of his chest.
"Who the hell are you?" Quinn sounded much calmer than his tense arm against Janie back told her he really was.
"Name'sJebediah Masters. And this here's my town."
"You're a ghost?"
Jebediahspat again. "You are trespassing."
"We're just passing through." Janie wracked her brain for what she knew about ghost hunting. No priests nearby to do an emergency exorcism. No Ouija boards. And they definitely didn't need a medium to help relay the message from beyond, since the ghost was speaking to them as clear as day in the middle of the street. Without true experts on call, the best thing to do with ghosts was to reason with them. But since most ghosts were completely unreasonable, that didn't exactly give her a sense of comfort. "Did you do that to our truck?"
He glanced over at the decimated vehicle. And spat again. "I sure did, little missy. But you wouldn't be going far without no horses to draw your strange wagon, now, would you?"
"It's not a wagon—" Quinn began.
"Silence, trespassers!Ain't nobody come here trying to take my gold. That's why you're here,in't ?"
Quinn eyed him. "Come on, Janie. He's just a ghost. He can't do anything to us. Let's get out of here."
He took her arm, and they turned their backs on the ornery prospector.
The sound of a bullet hitting the wall right next to them, blowing off a chunk of stone, froze them in their tracks.
"Who said you could leave? There's only one way I'm letting you leave, and that's after you're dead."
They turned around slowly. Quinn moved so that he was completely blocking Janie's view. "Stay behind me."
"I don't need you to protect me, you know."
"Shh. A gunshot won't kill me unless it's silver, but it'll kill you."
"But he's a ghost," she whispered. "He's incorporeal, right?"
"That bullet wasn't incorporeal. Now be quiet."
He was protecting her? From the big bad gun-wielding ghost? If she didn't think his dominating alpha hero actions were so offensive to her as an independent woman, she might think it was rather sweet.
Stupid. But sweet.
Would he still try to protect her if he knew she'd been instructed to kill him herself?
"Wait a minute." Janie said toJebediah as she moved out from behind Quinn to instead put herself between him and the gun. "Why don't we talk about this for a second?"
He lowered the gun and looked her up and down. And spat.
"We don't get pretty little things like you much here in Semolina."
"Oh?" She glanced at Quinn.
"No. We had Miss Greta and her whorehouse for a while, but she found the men here not to her liking.
But you are much prettier than any of them whores."Jebediah approached, his attention focused on
Janie's body. "Yes. Real pretty thing. Must be my lucky day. Tell me, pretty, do yo
u like gold?"
She held her ground. "I prefer cash."
He was uglier the closer he got. He reached out and was about to touch Janie's face with his dirty hand,
when Quinn's hand shot out and caught his wrist. Actually caught him, as if he was solid and not just a ghost.
"Don't you dare touch her," he growled.
The gun moved to press against Quinn's temple. "Nobody tells me what I can and cannot do."
Janie bit her bottom lip and was afraid to move in case the ghost pulled the trigger. Bullets didn't kill vampires, that was very true. There had been an assignment she was on last year, hunting down an insane vampire, and all she'd had was aGlock filled with lead bullets. She'd shot him ten times. Ruined his frilly shirt, but didn't even slow the vamp down.
However, she hadn't been aiming for the head.
Decapitation was another way to kill a vamp. Not pretty and very messy, but it did the trick. A shotgun wound at this range would probably do just that.
She could let the ghost kill Quinn—it would save her having to do it later.
"Don't hurt him," she finally said.
He turned and smiled, showing brown, broken teeth. "And what can I expect from you if I spare his life?"
"Anything," she said quickly.
"Janie—" Quinn breathed. "What are you doing?"
Jebediahhooked his middle finger into the top of her tank top and pulled the material down, exposing more cleavage and the edge of her lacy black bra.
"Yeah," he breathed. "Miss Greta wasnothin ' compared to you."
"JebediahMasters!" another voice called out from the other side of the street. A feminine voice that sounded very pissed off. "You good-for-nothing bastard, take your hands off that dirty whore!"
His hand shot back from her shirt and he cringed. Quinn's hand tightened around Janie's waist and he pulled her against him and back a step.
"Mary-Ann, I told you not to bother me no more."
A woman emerged onto the street from a wall of the dusty building marked "Saloon." She was wearing an outfit very similar toJebediah's , only she had a long brown skirt on instead of pants. She did hold a matching shotgun and sported a matching red stain on the front of her white blouse. She scowled at him.
"I curse the day I ever married you, you whoring, thieving, sheep-loving, back-stabbing—"
"Be quiet, woman! What do I need to do to shut your mouth once and for all?"
"Take your filthy eyes off her bosoms."
With a frustrated growl,Jebediah turned away from Janie's bosoms and stormed off the street and walked right through the solid wall of a building.
Mary-Ann approached. "I'm sorry for my husband's behavior. He was obviously brought up in a barn."
Janie looked at the woman warily.
Mary-Ann laughed at her expression. "Don't you be worrying. I mean you no harm. Just got to keep my man in line." She glanced over at what was left of the pile of twisted metal. "Sorry he did that to your truck."
Janie and Quinn shared a look.
Mary-Ann laughed harder. "Oh, he's not entirely sure what's going on, but I'm well aware that I'm stuck haunting this town 'til the end of time with that worthless man." She shrugged. "That's what greed gets you.Better'n hell, I suppose."
"Is the other prospector still around?" Quinn looked around the main street. "The one who was in the gunfight withJebediah ?"
She waved at her red-stained blouse. "That would be me. Both of us were good shots, don't you think?"
"You shot each other? Over gold?"
"We both wanted it. We fought hard to get it. And when it came down to him or me having the gold,
then we fought. Didn't even occur to us to share, even with our wedding vows."
"And now you're stuck together," Janie said.
Mary-Ann gazed off in the direction of her husband. "Forever and ever, amen. And now that he keeps scaring off the tourists, it's just the two of us."
Janie took the story in and tried not to see any parallels between her and Quinn. They were both after the same thing. She had been instructed to kill him to get it. Did he feel the same way? Would he fight her for the Eye? Would he try to kill her when it came right down to it?
Just then, Quinn slid his hand down to grab hers. She looked at him with surprise, but he was focused on Mary-Ann.
"So you're not going to shoot us?" he asked.
She raised an eyebrow. "Not unless you give me reason. And as long as your woman keeps her filthy paws off my husband—"
Janie made a face. "I wasn't even touching him!"
"—then we don't have a problem. You can be off now. I won't try to stop you."
As if Janie would touch a creepy old ghost with a ten-foot pole. "Great. Well, since the truck is now beyond repair, I guess we're on foot." She glanced at Quinn. "Just got to find theAsesinodelMonstro ."
Mary-Ann gasped. "You're looking for theAsesinodelMonstro ?"
Janie nodded and grabbed the map out of her purse. "Yeah, you know it? I figure it's a few miles north of here, right?"
Mary-Ann held up a hand to block the map from her view. "Leave now. Go. And don't come back."
"Can you tell me—"
Mary-Ann faded away until she was completely gone.
Janie turned to Quinn with a frown. "That was rude."
"At least she didn't try to shoot us."
He was looking at her funny.
Her frown deepened. "What?"
"Why did you tellJebediah that you'd do anything if he didn't hurt me?"
Good question, she thought.
She looked away. "Because if he shot your head off you wouldn't be much good to me, would you?"
"It's not like you need me. You could find the Eye all by yourself."
"Are you trying to give me ideas here?"
"No. Just stating facts."
"Yeah, well, don't do that. And thanks for pushing me out of the way of the falling truck. I was obviously doing my impression of 'deer in headlights.'"
"You hurt your head." He reached up to push the hair off her forehead. "You're bleeding."
She felt at her forehead, pulling her fingers away to see that he was right. Her head stung a bit, but it felt like a minor injury. "Well, don't go getting any ideas for an early lunch. I'll be okay."
His hand twisted into her hair and he gazed into her eyes. "Good."
She put a hand on his chest and could feel his heart beating—slowly.Vampires's hearts beat much slower than humans, but they still beat.
She wanted him to move away from her immediately. Being this close to him made her mind fog up. She couldn't forget what she had to do. Find the Eye and—now that she hadn't let Jeb do her dirty work—kill Quinn, whether or not she wanted to.
But he didn't move away from her. Instead he lowered his face and kissed her forehead. Her body clenched at the feel of his lips against her skin. Then he backed up a step.
"Because if you're not okay, I'm not carrying you," he continued, giving her a wicked grin before he turned to walk out of the ghost town.
She trudged after him, her body tingling from where he'd touched her, cursing her lot in life to have fallen for a man whose life she'd have to end to save her sister's.
Chapter 13
Hehad to get rid of Janie as soon as possible. She managed to do things to him, without even touching him, that other women had to work very hard at. Just one look in her beautiful blue eyes and all he wanted to do was protect her.
But Janie Parker didn't need his protection.
Well, maybe from the falling truck, but that was about it.
The way she'd stood up to the ghost? She'd protectedhim . He wasn't used to that. Nobody usually protected him from anything.
He damn well liked her way too much. Forget infatuation. Forget lusting after her body. Those things were too simple for what he was feeling.
Heliked her. As a person. And that "like" was growing stronger every moment he spent near her,
growing int
o something larger and deeper and much scarier than anything he'd faced before.
The last woman he'd thought himself in love with told him that he was fooling himself. That his feelings for her were simply those of gratitude for friendship and kindness during a rough time in his life. He'd convinced himself he was in love with her, and he had been. A little.
Butthis . He knew this was much different, and it felt way more complicated.
Shit.
She walked ahead of him on the road. Conversation had slowed to nothing at all, and they trekked along the dusty trail. They'd been walking for nearly an hour since leaving the ghost town and seen nothing at all except mountains and cacti and dirt. Not even one car had come along.
He watched her move along at a clip. She never complained about her feet, or that she needed to take a break. She now carried her jacket, and he focused exclusively on her perfect ass in her tight dark blue jeans as she moved along ahead of him.
The ass of the enemy, he thought absently. Which suddenly stopped in its tracks.
She got the map out and looked at it.
He'd been so focused on watching her walk that he hadn't even noticed the big black tree they'd come up to.
It was well over twenty feet tall, with a thick trunk leading to hundreds of sharp branches. The whole thing was the color of coal, and it bore no leaves, as if it had been on fire once and died but still refused to give up. It was surrounded by a low fence, and a plaque was attached to the trunk.
ASESINO DEL MONSTRO
Legend has it that this tree was enchanted by a Navajo tribal chief as protection against forces of evil thatcould threaten theland that surrounds it. While the treedoes not show any outward signs of life, it continues to grow at a rateof one inch per annum, which makes it a true Arizonian mystery.
"Pretty," Quinn said.
Janie was looking at the map again. "According to this, we need to go west toward the bird thing. If it's to scale based on what we just walked to get here, I figure it's about fifteen miles away. And then past the desert ridge we should get to the big rectangle with the X on it. Simple."
