Mind Tricks (4 page)

“What?” she demanded. Didn’t he
remember that she was doing him a favor? He should act nice and appreciative,
not laugh at her.

“This.” He gestured at the bare
walls. “You’re a worse decorator than I am. And I didn’t think that was
possible.”

“I’m not a bad decorator. It’s, um,
minimalist.” She never went into these rooms, and she almost never had guests.
So what was the point of decorating?

“Uh-huh. My mom finally insisted on
decorating the guest room I have. It now has kitten posters from Wal-Mart on
the walls.”

She couldn’t contain a snicker.
“Kittens? You’re kidding.”

“Nope.” He grinned. “She’s hoping
to shame me into decorating the room myself. But I’ve turned the tables on her
by leaving the posters up. Now she’s too embarrassed to even go into the room.”

“The kitten posters must go over
well with your dates.” Yikes, could she be more obvious?

Shrugging, he said, “Woodhaven
takes up lots of my time.”

So what did that mean? That he
didn’t have dates? If so, the local girls were being deprived.

Assuming, of course, that he wasn’t
a murderer. And more and more, she was assuming that he wasn’t.

Brutus poked his head around the
door and gave a short
woof
. “Sit,”
she told him. Amazingly, he did.

“So, do I lie down on my front or
my back?” Jake asked.

Ha, like she knew what she was
doing. “On your front.”

He sat down on the bed, took off
his shoes, and lay down on his stomach. “Is this right?” he asked, his voice
muffled.

 
“Sure.” She stared down at his long body
stretched out on her guest bed. “Relax, please.” The instructions were as much
for her as for him. Was her pulse jumping around like exploding popcorn because
she was afraid of being here with him? Or was it because almost two years
without touching a handsome, heterosexual man was a long, lonely time.

“I’ve been awake for thirty-six
hours. Believe me, right now I’m relaxed.”

At least someone here was.
“Great.
 
I’m going to touch you, okay?”

“Where?”

“Huh?”

“Where are you going to touch me?”

The nape of his neck was just too
tempting. His dark hair curled against smooth golden skin. And it was near his
brain, which would be better for reading his thoughts, right? She smothered a
nervous giggle. Sadly, she didn’t think she could convince him that grabbing
his fine butt was the way she usually read minds.

Wait—she wasn’t telling him that.
He thought that she was doing energy work on him.

“Your neck,” she said. “Just
lightly. It’s like the spigot from which all your energy flows.”

“Go for it,” he said, and closed
his eyes.

His memories of last night. That’s
all she wanted. Stretching her arm out, she clasped the back of his neck,
resting the heel of her hand just above the knob at the top of his spine.

Last night was a black cave, deep
and silent.

She pushed forward a bit, and the
darkness surged around her like warm tar, nearly cutting her off. With a gasp,
she mentally pulled back into the bright river of his current thoughts.
Curiosity and, yes, skepticism danced around her like schools of fish. But one
thought rang clear:
I’d consider dating
her—

A cloud of delight seemed to lift
her off her feet.

—if
she wasn’t a wacko.

Emma bared her teeth at the back of
his head as she slammed down to earth. Wacko?

She slid her hand up and threaded
her fingers through his dark hair, cupping his skull. She was going to get
those damn memories out of him if it was the last thing she did.

Beneath her hand, Jake went still.

Pulling her willpower together and
mentally lashing herself to her own mind, she stepped again into the black well
of last night’s memories. Shadows tugged her in deeper, grabbing her like a
midnight riptide that she could feel but couldn’t see. Swept farther into the
dizzying blackness, she sensed the cord between her thoughts and herself stretching
thinner and thinner, now nearly a cobweb.…

For a moment she dangled in utter
blackness, unable to find her way back. Then a thin silver thread crossed her
mind’s eye, and she mentally grabbed at it. With a gasp, she fled back into her
self.

She lifted her trembling hand off
his head and stepped away, as if physical distance could make her safer.

Lord. That had been terrifying, and
not exactly the easy assurance of Jake’s innocence that she’d expected.

Maybe she should smooth out his
energy, as she had told him she would, and then try to go back in.

Closing her eyes, she breathed
deeply, centering herself and polishing out the jagged emotions clanking around
inside her. When she worked on pets, she could sense their energy flow through
her fingers and palms, feeling where it was moving evenly and where it was
bunching up in tight coils, leading to stress and pain. Half opening her eyes,
she placed her spread palms over Jake’s spine, one at the top and one at the
bottom, and concentrated on feeling his energy flow.

Huh. Nothing.

She slowly swept her hands over his
head, neck, and back. Still nothing, as if he were a mannequin, not a live
creature.

This was almost scary.

Tucking her hands behind her back,
she said, “This isn’t working. I’m sorry.”

He rolled over. It felt strange,
standing over him while he was lying on her bed. Well, not
her
bed, but one of the beds she owned. It’d be more strange if he
was actually on her bed.

“What did you expect to happen?” he
asked.

“I expected to feel your energy.
But I didn’t feel anything.”

“Is that unusual?”

“Very unusual. Basically, you feel
dead.”

Jake grimaced. “Fantastic.”

“But maybe I’m out of practice.
Maybe—” She swallowed as an idea struck her. Was she being lassoed by her
hormones, or was she being truly brilliant? “We could try it with your clothes
off.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Excuse me?”

Earth to Emma: Bad idea. But she’d
already stoked this train of thought; might as well ride it to the end.
“Animals don’t have clothes, and I’m used to working with animals these days.
Maybe clothing interferes with energy flow.”

He pressed his lips together. Was
he angry? She hadn’t expected that reaction. Incredulous, yes. Annoyed, maybe.
Skeptical, absolutely.

Then the corners of his mouth
quivered, prompting a similar response in the pit of her stomach. Already she
was forgetting that he thought her to be crazy. “I’ll have to remember that if
I ever do bring a date to see my kitten posters. ‘Clothing interferes with
energy flow.’”

“Hey, if you don’t want to do this—”

“Do you have a towel or a robe?”

“Well, yes. But they’re pink.” She
wasn’t a fan of pink except in the bathroom, and there she had gone overboard,
perhaps compensating for the lack of the color in the rest of the house. Even
her sister had laughed when she’d seen it. “It’s the bathroom to Barbie’s dream
house,” she’d chortled.

“
All
of them?” And this time incredulity, annoyance, and skepticism
flickered through his dark eyes.

“I have sheets. Those aren’t pink.
Look, the bed is made,” she pointed out. “Why not take off everything—uh,
except your underwear—and get under the sheets? I can move the sheets down as I
need to.”

“All right.”

She waited to see if he’d say more,
but he just stared expectantly at her. Oh, right. She was supposed to leave the
room while he got naked. She backed out, shutting the door behind her and then
pacing to the end of the upstairs hall to give him even more privacy—or to give
her imagination a break from going into overdrive if it heard the sound of his
clothes hitting the floor.

Maybe it was just as well that she
couldn’t read his mind. Telepathy had brought her and her loved ones only
trouble. In Maryland, she’d set up shop as both a pet and person psychic. Two
years later, she’d left town in the middle of the night, convinced that if she
didn’t depart on her own two feet, the folks would decide six feet under was a
better solution for her.

But that danger had been peanuts
next to the first time she’d used her “gift.” When Trish had died.

She gave herself a shake. This time
she would be smarter and keep her telepathy a close-held secret.

She knocked on the bedroom door. A
muffled “Okay” drifted through the wood, and she entered.

Jake was on his stomach, arms
curled loosely above his dark head, the white sheet a stark line below his bare
shoulders.

He must take his shirt off in the
sun or something, for he didn’t have the fish-belly white skin most Maine
residents sported beneath their clothing.

And she must keep her mind on her
work, not on the quality of his tan.

“Comfortable?” she asked, her voice
squeaking embarrassingly at the end.

“Absolutely.”

Professional, Emma. Be
professional. “Just like before, I’m going to stand next to you and place my
hands on your skin. If this works, you might feel something like a tugging or a
growing warmth, but that’s natural. Just go with it and try to relax.”

“Sure.”

Closing her eyes, she inhaled until
her lungs were full and then exhaled slowly. She repeated the action twice
more, trying to settle her jumpiness and clear her brain.

She opened her eyes. Okay. She was
ready.

Gently lowering her palms onto his
spine again, she hunted for his energy lines.

There was still nothing there.

This was ridiculous. Where the hell
were they? Focusing, she closed her eyes and searched.

Ah. There. Faint, muddled, but
actually there. Good—she hadn’t lost it completely. But why were they so hard
to see?

She started to ask him if he could
focus on his breath and his heartbeat, but a tiny snore reached her ears. Jake
was out like a light.

She wrinkled her nose. Apparently
his excitement at being mostly naked in her presence was far less than hers.
Heck, she’d gotten excited just by him coming upstairs. That was pathetic.

She spent a good twenty minutes
attempting to trace his energy lines, looking for knots or blockages, but the
diffuseness of the flow made the task nearly impossible. Even when she did find
areas that seemed heavy or clogged, she couldn’t get a grab on the energy in
order to smooth it out.

Jake slept on, oblivious.

Finally thrusting her hands onto
her hips, Emma stared down at the near-naked man in her guest bed. Something
was interfering. A subconscious desire to keep his memories hidden away from
everyone, including himself? She couldn’t figure out how that would affect his
energy, though.

She glanced at Jake’s face. Even in
sleep, a little line burrowed between his brows.

He’d been awake for thirty-six
hours, and much of that time he’d been a murder suspect. If there was anyone
who needed sleep, it was him.

She silently urged Brutus to follow
her out of the bedroom, closed the door behind her, and padded down the stairs
to the phone in the kitchen. She dialed Mickey’s number.

“Mickey?” she said when he
answered. “Hi, it’s Emma. I have Jake here—”

“So that’s where he went. I’d
wondered why his car was still in my driveway.”

“Yeah. The thing is, he’s fallen
asleep, and I don’t know whether I should wake him or let him continue
sleeping. He looks like he needs some shut-eye: he conked out as soon as he hit
the bed.”

A pause at the other end. “Emma
darling, just what are you doing with my nephew over there?”

Ugh. She was blushing. How
annoying. “Nothing, uh, salacious. I was attempting to do some Reiki-like work
on him to loosen up his energy flows and perhaps shake free some memories.”

“I’m impressed that he let you try.
I love him like he’s my son, but he’s not exactly open-minded about things like
that.”

“No kidding.”

“Let him sleep,” Mickey said. “He
needs it, and there’s nothing he has to do that can’t wait. Wake him by seven
tonight, though.”

“All right. Oh, I almost forgot. I
have a spot open on Friday morning. Do you want to bring Lindy in? She seemed
pretty skittish the last time I saw her. It’d be a freebie.”

“Friday? Let me check…No. I’m
afraid I’m busy all morning. But thanks for thinking of me.”

“Sure. Talk to you later.” She
returned the phone to its cradle and then stared up at the ceiling.

Jake’s bronzed muscled back came to
mind. She should have pulled the sheet over him before leaving so he wouldn’t
grow chilled. But if she went back into the room now, she might wake him. Or
snuggle up with him. She might not always like what came out of his mouth, but
the rest of him was delicious.

Still staring at the ceiling, she
heard the back door click open, and Ian came in, a massive box of dog bones
under one arm. Hooray for Costco.

On his heels was his girlfriend,
Cynthia. As usual, her lips were pinched into a pout, and she mumbled, “Hey,”
to Emma without looking her in the eye.

“Hey,” Emma replied in a chipper
voice. Lord knew she needed a few lessons herself on how to interact with other
people, so she had no business being annoyed by Cynthia’s lack of social
skills. “How’s your dad?”

Cynthia stopped and stared
distrustfully. Emma didn’t need to read her mind to see the thoughts ticking
over in the younger woman’s brain:
Does
Emma like my dad? Ick!

Ick
was a little strong, since Bill Monroe, a widower, had a lot going for him. He
was unfailingly friendly whenever he encountered her around town, and he, unlike
Ian’s parents, considered Ian’s job at Emma’s kennels to be a real job. Monroe
owned a small boatbuilding company that worked in friendly rivalry with Jake’s
company. But being in his mid-forties, Bill was about ten years older than the
men Emma usually fantasized about.