SHIVER: 13 Sexy Tales of Humor and Horror (39 page)

“I saw that too.”

He looked at her quizzically.

“Like I saw it in the paper, you dope. Not I ‘saw’ it in the future.”

“Sorry. I don’t know how all this works. I’m really not trying to be an ass. I just have a hard time believing in any of this mumbo-jumbo.”

She gave him a wry look. “No, really, calling my profession ‘mumbo-jumbo’ is not being an ass at all.”

He grinned. “You’re right. I apologize. My mind is just too analytical. I look at facts and evidence. And I’ve seen too much fraud and deceit. It’s hard for me to accept any of this.” He gestured around the room.

Reaching for his hand, she looked up at him. Touching him sent a little thrill all the way up her spine, but she ignored it in an effort to convey the sincerity of her thoughts. “Haven’t you ever lost someone? Someone close to you?”

She watched his eyes soften as he swallowed, and thought she might have a glimmer of a chance to make him understand. “If there was a way to connect with them, even in a small way, wouldn’t you want to try? I believe that there is. Not always, but sometimes. I believe that there’s a whole other spirit realm that exists, and in certain circumstances our realms can connect and we can glimpse the other side. But the first step is believing that it’s there and reaching out to connect to it.”

Still holding his hand, she felt the pulse in his wrist speed up. Was it because of how close she stood, or were her words really getting to him? He leaned slightly forward, and her breath caught as she wondered if he might kiss her. Afraid to move, even to breathe, she looked up at him from under dark eyelashes, willing him to lean closer still.

A glass bowl fell off the counter, smashing to the ground, causing her to jump and let out a little shriek of alarm. She turned to see the cat streaking off the counter, her tail most likely the culprit of the smashed bowl. She laughed, but the moment was lost.

“I appreciate what you’re saying, Zia, but too many times there’s a logical explanation for things that people claim are illogical.” He stooped to pick up the pieces of glass. “Like your cat’s tail knocking this off.”

“That’s why I’m staying here tonight. I feel like something more is going on and our culprit might return. I’m setting up the video camera and plan to wait here all night.”

“Like a stakeout? Now you’re talking my language.”

“Would you care to join me?”

“Okay. But have you ever done a stakeout? Usually you hang around for hours, bored out of your mind, and the only time anything happens is when you grab a thirty-second break to take a piss.”

She grinned. “Then it will be good to have a stakeout partner. We can keep each other from getting bored and can serve as lookout in case one of us needs to…er…piss, I guess.”

He chuckled, and the sound of his laughter gave her a little tingly feeling. Why did she suddenly feel like a schoolgirl who’d just agreed to sneak out to spend the night with her crush?

“Since you’re the expert, what would you suggest we bring to this stakeout party? I’ve got the video camera, and I was going to run home to grab some snacks and change into something more comfortable.”

“I can’t believe you would use ‘stakeout’ and ‘party’ in the same sentence. There is nothing festive about them. But yeah, I would wear something comfortable, and I guess you can bring some food if you want. My stakeout fare usually consists of a thermos of coffee and a bag of sunflower seeds.”

She checked her watch. “Okay, I’ll run home now. Let’s meet back here at eight. We can set up the surveillance equipment then.” She rubbed her hands together in delight. “Let’s catch ourselves a ghost.”

Finn knocked on
Zia’s office door. He carried a green thermos of coffee and had a lunch-size cooler and a backpack full of surveillance equipment slung across his shoulder. He wouldn’t trust anything she captured on some crazy gear she bought off the internet. In fact, he wasn’t going to believe that anything supernatural was going on until he saw it with his own two eyes.

Eyes that bugged out now as Zia opened the door. She’d changed clothes and wore a snug black t-shirt and skintight black jeans tucked into black knee-high boots.

Her outfit hugged every curve of her body, and he found himself speechless, his mouth dry as his mind raced with thoughts of holding that body against him. Against him, under him. Hell, over him would be good too.

He cleared his throat. “Nice outfit. I thought you were going for something more comfortable, like those yoga pant deals. You look like you’re getting ready to rob a bank.”
Smooth move, Ex-lax. Way to win her over. Women love it when you make fun of their outfit choices.

She grinned, apparently unfazed by his mocking. “Too much? It’s my first stakeout and I just wanted to be prepared. I always go overboard. Sorry.” She wrinkled her nose and gave a nervous little giggle.

“It’s okay. You look…fine…er…I mean great. You look great.” Could he be any more of a dork? He cleared his throat. Back to business. “Where do you want me to set up?”

“Oh, I thought if we put the camera by the register then we could wait behind the counter so we’d be hidden if someone came in through the front door.”

He arched an eyebrow at her. “Do ghosts usually come in through the front door?”

“No, but I’m trying to keep my mind open to all possibilities. Like I hope you’re doing. Whatever is happening, I want to be prepared for anything.”

As annoying as he found her kooky fortune-telling nonsense, he found that the more he was around her, the more he liked her. She always seemed to look at things in a positive light, and he hadn’t heard her complain yet. Even when her office had been trashed and her things had been destroyed, she seemed unfazed. Most of the women he’d dated spent half the night complaining about everything from their weight to the high price of cosmetics. Like he gave two hoots about the cost of mascara.

But Zia was different than anyone he’d ever met before, and he found himself drawn to her. Not just her curves, but her smile and her easygoing manner. She was fun to be around, but he didn’t think he could get past her weird ideas and crazy notions. She’d flat out told him she was a witch. What was he supposed to do with that?

He held up the thermos as he walked across the room and dropped the cooler and his backpack. “I grabbed some of my equipment and some food. And I brought coffee.”

“Oh, me too.” She pointed at the drink carrier on the counter holding two carryout cups from a fancy coffee joint. “I brought us some pumpkin spice lattes. And I had them put in extra shots of espresso.”

“Pumpkin spice what?”

She laughed and handed him a cup. “Pumpkin spice lattes. Don’t you ever get out? People line up for these when they come back every fall.”

“No people that I know.”

“Just try it.”

He gingerly took a sip. Just to prove he could be open-minded too. It was warm and cinnamony, with a little kick. He shrugged. “Not bad. Kinda good, even. It tastes like Thanksgiving in a cup.”

She grinned. “Exactly. See what you can discover when you try new things?”

Hmmm. Why was he imagining her as one of the new things he’d like to discover? Like one of the New World explorers, he could envision scaling her peaks and surveying her valleys. Just like Magellan, he could start an expedition across her unexplored territory.

She eyed him curiously and with a tiny gleam in her eye, as if she could actually read his mind. He was in big trouble if she could. He was afraid his man’s mind would be disappointing and fairly predictable, considering his thoughts usually tended to the topics of sex, food, and work, or some combination of the three, like “what should he eat for lunch at work and when did he think he would be having sex again?”

He set up his equipment, and she grabbed some throw pillows and blankets and made them a little nest on the floor behind the counter. He gingerly sat on a blue pillow and leaned his back against the wall. “This is the most comfortable stakeout I’ve ever been on. I’ve never brought a pillow before. Wouldn’t want to fall asleep.”

“I figured since there were two of us, we could take turns sleeping while the other kept a lookout.” She locked the door and turned out the lights. A soft glow filled the room from the display lights under the counter, and she plopped onto the floor next to his outstretched legs.

Yeah, right. Like he was going to fall asleep with her sitting this close to him, the smell of her perfume filling his every sense. “Do you really think we’re going to see something?”

She nodded vigorously. “Oh yes. I know we are. I can feel the upheaval and terror in this room. I know something evil happened here, and I just know whatever’s happening is not finished.”

What a load of crap. Did she seriously buy into all this nonsense she was spouting? “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“I just know we’re going to see something tonight.”

“Look, I don’t claim to have any spiritual Spidey sense like you do, but I do believe in intuition and trusting my gut. And my gut is telling me that stuff happened because an actual person, that’s still alive, broke in and tossed our offices.”

“I guess we’ll find out.” She settled in next to him against the wall. “And speaking of guts, I’m getting hungry. You ready for a snack?”

“Sure.” He reached for the cooler and pulled out a container of sliced veggies and an expensive bottle of water.

She eyed the bottle. “I thought you said you only ate sunflower seeds and drank coffee.”

“I do. But I thought you might like this stuff.”

“Oh.”

Her mouth formed a perfect O, and his thoughts went to dark ideas of taking those lips as his.

She grinned and broke the spell. “You bought this stuff for me? That is soooo sweet.” She picked up the fancy bottle of water and read the label. “This water is from a natural spring somewhere in Europe. Judging from the price tag, you could’ve skipped the water and just brought us a bottle of wine.”

“I’ll remember that for next time.” Next time? Who said anything about a next time? Next time their offices were ransacked and they had to do a midnight stakeout? He frowned and pointed at her bag. “What did you bring?”

She dumped her bag on the blanket in front of them. He gaped at the collection of cheese puffs, potato chips, candy bars, and chocolate cupcakes. “I’m afraid my snack choices are a little less healthy than yours.”

She did that thing again where she wrinkled her nose and grinned, and he couldn’t help but smile back.

His office had been next to hers for months and he’d never taken the time to even have a conversation with her. He’d made up his mind and thought he knew everything about her before he’d had a chance to get to know her. And his snap judgments were turning out to be dead wrong. She’d brought cheese puffs, for crap’s sake. “You really eat all this stuff?”

She laughed and reached for a candy bar, totally at ease with eating the junk food. “Oh yeah, I love all this stuff. I’ll punish myself on the treadmill later or take a hike, but it’s worth it.” She took a bite of chocolate then closed her eyes and groaned in ecstasy. “So worth it.”

Geez. What was going on with him? Maybe instead of a shot of espresso, she’d put horny potion in that pumpkin spice thing, because her eating that candy bar was totally turning him on. Watching her eyes close and that groan. Holy mother.

The way she tipped back her head gave him a clear view of her pale skin, and he ached to bury his face against her neck. His own pulse picked up a beat as he imagined the feel of hers pulsing under his lips as he ravaged her throat with passionate kisses.

He felt like a teenage boy. His hands were even beginning to sweat. He did not react this way to women. To anyone. She had to have spiked his drink with some hocus-pocus. Or maybe those weren’t ordinary incense sticks she was burning earlier. His mind reached for any explanation rather than the obvious one. That he was falling for her.

And that was
not
going to happen. He cleared his throat and reached for his thermos of coffee. “I think I’ll just stick to coffee for now.”

She shrugged. “Suit yourself. I brought pop too.” She hauled out a six-pack of highly caffeinated soda. Not even diet. Who was this woman? “It’s not expensive mountain spring water, but it’s got caffeine and carbonation.”

She laughed, but he knew it was
with
him and not
at
him, and something about the sound of her laughter touched him. She seemed so genuine. He wanted to believe in her. But he’d been burned before, and with fatal consequences. It was hard for him to believe she could be this nice. Hard to believe anyone could be this positive.

In his line of work, he’d seen the worst in humanity. He’d seen terrible things that people had done to each other out of greed or jealousy or even in the name of love. His life might seem boring to her, but he liked it that way. And it helped in his work. Standing on the outside gave him the chance to see things objectively, rationally, without all the emotions getting involved.

He knew people could lie and cheat and steal and pretend to be something they weren’t. He’d dated plenty of women, but most were superficial and only out for themselves. Maybe those were the ones he picked on purpose, because he knew he could keep them at arm’s length and not get emotionally attached. Life was easier that way. Don’t get attached. Don’t get involved. Don’t get hurt.