Heaven and Earth by Nora Roberts (1)

 

 

 

 

 

Heaven and Earth

by Nora Roberts

A Jove Book, 1991

Copyright © 2001 by Nora Roberts

ISBN: 0786534958

 

Three Sisters Island - Book 2

 

 

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;

Brief as the lightning in the collied night,

That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth,

And ere a man hath power to say, “Behold!”

The jaws of darkness do devour it up:

So quick bright things come to confusion.

—WILLIAMSHAKESPEARE—

 

 

Prologue

Three Sisters Island

September, 1699

She called the storm.

The gales of wind, the bolts of lightning, the rage of the sea that was both prison and protection. She called the forces, those that lived within her, those that dwelled without. The bright and the dark. Slender, with her cloak streaming back like bird-wings, she stood alone on the wind-whipped beach. Alone but for her rage and her grief. And her power. It was that power that filled her now, rushed inside her in wild, pounding strokes like a lover gone mad.

And so, perhaps, it was. She had left husband and children to come to this place, left them under a spell-sleep that would keep them safe and unaware. Once she had done what she had come to do, she could never go back to them. She would never again hold their much-loved faces in her hands. Her husband would grieve for her, and her children weep. But she could not go back to them. And she could not, would not, turn from the path she had chosen. Payment must be made. And justice, however rough, would be met at last. She stood, arms out flung in the tempest she had conjured. Her hair flew free and wild, dark ribbons that slashed at the night like whips.

“You must not do this thing.”

A woman appeared beside her, burning as bright in the storm as the fire after which she was named. Her face was pale, her eyes dark with what might have been fear.

“It is already begun.”

“Stop it now. Sister, stop before it is too late. You have no right.”

“Right?” She who was called Earth whirled, her eyes glowing fierce. “Who has better right? When they murdered the innocents in Salem Town , persecuted and hunted and hanged, we did nothing to stop it.”

“Stop one flood, cause another. You know this. We made this place.” Fire stretched out her arms, as if to encompass the island that rocked in the sea. “For our safety and our survival, for our Craft.”

“Safety? You can speak of safety, of survival, now? Our sister is dead. ”

“And I grieve for her, as you do.” Pleading, she crossed her hands between her breasts. “My heart weeps as yours weeps. Her children are in our keeping now. Will you abandon them as well as your own?”

There was a madness in her, tearing at her heart as the wind tore at her hair. Even recognizing it, she could not defeat it. “He will not go unpunished. He will not live while she does not.”

“If you cause harm, you’ll have broken your vows. You will have corrupted your power, and what you send out in the night will come back to you threefold.”

“Justice has a price.”

“Not this. Never this. Your husband will lose a wife, your children a mother. And I another beloved sister. More, even more than that, you break faith with what we are. She would not have wanted this. This would not have been her answer.”

“She died rather than protect herself. Died for what she is, for what we are. Our sister abjured power for what she called love. And it killed her.”

“Her choice.” One that stayed bitter in the throat long after it was swallowed. “And still she harmed none. Do this thing, use your gift in this dark way, and you doom yourself. You doom us all.”

“I cannot live, hidden here.” There were tears in her eyes now, and in the storm-light, they burned red as blood. “I cannot turn from this. My choice. My destiny. I take his life for hers, and damn him for all time.”

And calling for vengeance, shooting it like a bright and deadly arrow from a bow, she who was known as Earth sacrificed her soul.

 

 

Chapter One

Three Sisters Island

January, 2002

Sand, frosted with cold, crunched under her feet as she ran along the curving shore. Incoming waves left froth and bubbles lying on the crusted surface like tattered lace. Overhead, the gulls called, relentlessly. Her muscles had warmed, and moved fluid as oiled gears in the second mile of her morning run. Her pace was a fast and disciplined jog, and her breath rushed out in white plumes. And rushed in, sharp and cold as shards of ice. She felt fabulous.

The wintry beach held no footprints but her own, and hers were stamped, new over old, as she jogged back and forth across the gentle sweep of winter beach. If she’d chosen to do her three miles in one straight line, she could have crossed Three Sisters from side to side at its widest point. The idea of that always pleased her.

The little clump of land off the coast of Massachusetts was hers, every hill, every street, every cliff and inlet. Deputy Ripley Todd felt more than affection for Three Sisters, its village, its residents, its well-being. She felt responsibility.

She could see the rising sun glint against the windows of storefronts on High Street. In a couple of hours, the shops would open, people would walk along the streets going about the day’s business. There wasn’t much of a tourist trade in January, but some would come over from the mainland on the ferry, poke about in the shops, drive up to the cliffs, buy some fresh fish right off the docks. For the most part, though, the winter was for islanders. She loved the winter best.

At the end of the beach, where it bumped the edge of the seawall just below the village, she pivoted and headed back across the sand. Fishing boats plied an ocean that was the color of pale blue ice. It would change as the light strengthened, as the sky deepened. It never failed to fascinate her how many colors water could hold.

She saw Carl Macey’s boat, and a figure, tiny as a toy in the stern, raised a hand. She saluted back, kept running. With under three thousand islanders year-round, it wasn’t hard to know who was who. She slowed her pace a bit, not only to cool down but to prolong the solitude. She often took her morning runs with her brother’s dog, Lucy, but this morning she had slipped out alone. Alone was another thing she liked best.

And she’d wanted to clear her mind. There was a great deal to think about. Some of which she preferred not to, so she tucked those annoyances and problems away for now. What had to be dealt with wasn’t precisely a problem. You couldn’t call something that made you happy a problem. Her brother was just back from his honeymoon, and nothing could have pleased her more than to see how happy he and Nell were together. After all they’d been through, and what it had nearly cost, seeing them cozied up together in the house where she and Zack had grown up was pure satisfaction. And over the past months, since summer, when Nell had ended her flight from fear on the island, they’d become real friends. It was a pleasure to see the way Nell had bloomed, and toughened. But all that mushy stuff aside, Ripley thought, there was one little blight on the rose. And its name was Ripley Karen Todd.

Newlyweds didn’t need to share their love nest with the groom’s sister. She hadn’t given the matter a thought before the wedding, and even after, when she’d waved them both off for a week in Bermuda , she hadn’t seen the whole picture. But when they’d returned, all snuggling and flushed with a honeymoon haze, it couldn’t have been more clear.

Just-marrieds needed privacy. They could hardly have hot, spontaneous sex on the living room floor if she might stroll into the house any time of the day or night. Not that either of them had said anything about it. But they wouldn’t. The pair of them might as well wear we’re-nice-people merit badges plastered on their chests. And that, Ripley thought, was something she would never be pinning on her own shirt.

She stopped, used the outcropping of rocks at the far end of the beach for support as she stretched out calves, hamstrings, quadriceps. Her body was as lean and toned as a young tiger’s. She took pride in it, in her control over it. As she bent from the waist, the ski cap that she’d tugged on fell to the sand and her hair, the color of varnished oak, tumbled free. She wore it long because it didn’t require regular trims and styling that way. It was just another type of control.

Her eyes were a sharp bottle green. When she was in the mood she might fuss with mascara and eyeliner. After considerable debate, she’d decided her eyes were the best part of a face made up of mismatched features and angular lines. She had a slight overbite because she’d despised her retainer. And she had the wide forehead and nearly horizontal dark eyebrows of the Ripley side of the family. 

No one would have accused her of being pretty. It was too soft a word—and would have insulted her in any case. She preferred knowing it was a strong and sexy face. The kind that could attract men. When she was in the mood for one. Which she hadn’t been, she mused, for several months.

Part of that was wedding plans, holiday plans, the time she’d spent helping Zack and Nell unwind legal tangles so they could be married. And another part, she was forced to admit, was her own sense of annoyance and unease that lingered from Halloween, when she’d ripped open pockets in herself that she had purposely sewn shut years before. Couldn’t be helped, she thought now. She’d done what needed to be done. And had no intention of a repeat performance. No matter how many cool, smirky glances Mia Devlin shot her way. The thought of Mia brought Ripley back full circle.

Mia had an empty cottage. Nell had rented it, then moved out when she married Zack. As much as Ripley hated the idea of having any sort of dealings, even straight business, with Mia, the yellow cottage was the perfect solution. It was small, private, simple.

It just made sense, Ripley decided and started up the worn wooden steps that zagged from the beach toward the house. It was irritating, but it was practical. Still, maybe it wouldn’t hurt if she took a few days, let the word out that she was looking for a place to rent. Something—something that didn’t belong to Mia—might drop in her lap.

Cheered by the possibility, Ripley bounded up the steps, jogged to the back porch. Nell would already be baking, she knew, just as she knew the kitchen would smell like heaven. The biggest advantage was that she wouldn’t have to hunt up breakfast. It would just be there. Delicious, delightful, and on demand. As she reached for the doorknob, she saw, through the glass, Zack and Nell. They were wrapped around each other, she thought, like ivy on a flagpole. Wrapped around each other and wrapped up in each other.

“Oh, man.”

Hissing out a breath, she backtracked, then came back up on the porch stomping like a horse and whistling. It would give them time to peel themselves off each other. At least, she hoped it would. But it didn’t solve her other problem. She was going to have to deal with Mia, after all. She was going to keep it casual. To Ripley’s way of thinking, if Mia knew she really wanted the yellow cottage, she would refuse to rent it. The woman was so damn contrary.

Of course, the very best way to lock in the deal would be to ask Nell to run interference. Mia had a soft spot for Nell. But the idea of using anyone to clear the path was galling. She would just casually drop in at Mia’s bookstore, the way she had almost every day since Nell had taken over the cooking and baking for the café section. That way she could cop a righteous lunch and new digs all in one swipe. She walked briskly along High Street, more because she wanted the business over and done than because the wind was up and blowing. It tugged playfully at the long, straight tail of hair that she habitually yanked through the opening in the back of her cap. When she reached Café Book she paused, pursed her lips.

Mia had redone the display window. A little tasseled footstool, a soft throw of deep red, and a pair of tall candle stands with fat red candles were arranged with seemingly haphazard piles of books. Because she knew Mia never did anything in a haphazard fashion, Ripley had to admit the whole tone was one of homey warmth and welcome. And subtly—very subtly—sexy. It’s cold out, the window announced. Come on in and buy some books to take home and snuggle up with.

Whatever else Ripley could say about Mia—and she could say plenty—the woman knew her business. She stepped inside into warmth, automatically unwinding her neck scarf. The deep-blue shelves were lined with books, parlor-tidy. Glass displays held pretty trinkets and intriguing dust catchers. The fireplace was simmering with a low golden flame, and another throw, blue this time, was tossed artfully over one of the deep, sink-into-me chairs. Yeah, she thought, Mia knew her stuff.

There was more. Other shelves held candles of various shapes and sizes. Deep bowls were filled with tumbling stones and crystals. Colorful boxes of Tarot cards and runes were tucked here and there. All very subtle again, Ripley noted with a frown. Mia didn’t advertise that the place was owned by a witch, but she didn’t hide it either. Ripley imagined the curiosity factor—both tourist and local—accounted for a healthy chunk of the store’s annual profits. None of her business.

From behind the big carved counter, Mia’s head clerk, Lulu, finished ringing up a customer’s purchases, then tipped down her silver-framed glasses to peer at Ripley over the top of them.

“Looking for something for your mind as well as your belly today?”

“No. I’ve got plenty to occupy my mind.”

“Read more, know more.”

Ripley grinned. “I already know everything.”

“Always thought you did, anyway. Got a novelty book in this week’s shipment that’s right up your alley. 101Pick-Up Lines —unisex.”

“Lu.” Ripley gave her a cocky grin as she strolled to the stairs leading to the shop’s second level. “I wrote the book.”

Lulu cackled. “Haven’t seen you keeping company just recently,” she called out.

“I haven’t felt like company just recently.”

There were more books on the second floor, and more browsers poking through them. But here, the café was the big draw. Already Ripley could scent the soup of the day, something rich and spicy. The early crowd, which would have snagged Nell’s muffins and turnovers or whatever treat she’d dreamed up for the day had shifted to the lunch crowd. On a day like this, Ripley imagined they’d be looking for something hot and hearty, before they treated themselves to one of Nell’s sinful desserts. She scanned the display and sighed. Cream puffs. Nobody in their right mind walked away from cream puffs, even if the other choices were equally tempting éclairs, tarts, cookies, and what looked to be a cake made up of many layers of pure gooey sin.

The artist behind the temptations rang up an order. Her eyes were a deep and clear blue, her hair a short gold halo around a face that glowed with health and well-being. Dimples flashed in her cheeks as she smiled and waved her customer off to one of the café tables arranged by the window. Marriage, Ripley thought, agreed with some people. Nell Channing Todd was one of them.

“You look pretty bouncy today,” Ripley commented.

“Feel great. The day’s just flying by. Soup of the day’s minestrone, sandwich is—”

“I’m just doing soup,” Ripley interrupted. “Because I need one of the cream puffs to ensure my happiness. I’ll take coffee with it.”

“Coming up. I’m baking a ham for dinner tonight,” she added. “So no grabbing pizza before you come home.”

“Yeah, okay. Sure.” It reminded Ripley of the second stage of business. She shifted her feet, gave the room another sweeping glance. “I didn’t see Mia around anywhere.”

“Working in her office.” Nell ladled up soup, added a crusty roll baked fresh that morning. “I expect she’ll breeze through shortly. You were in and out of the house so fast this morning I didn’t get to talk to you. Something up?”

“No, not up.” Maybe it was rude to arrange for alternate living arrangements without saying something first. Ripley wondered if this fell into the area of social skills, a tricky business for her.

“Will I be in your way if I chow down in the kitchen?” she asked Nell. “That way I can talk to you while you work.”

“Sure. Come on back.”

Nell carried the food over to her worktable. “Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”

“Not a thing,” Ripley assured her. “Bitchy cold out. I bet you and Zack are sorry you didn’t stay south until spring.”

“The honeymoon was perfect.” Even thinking of it brought on a warm, satisfied glow. “But it’s better being home.” Nell opened the refrigerator for the container holding one of the day’s salads. “Everything I want is here. Zack, family, friends, a home of my own. A year ago I’d never have believed I’d be standing here like this, knowing that in an hour or so I’d be going home.”

“You earned it.”

“I did.” Nell’s eyes darkened, and in them Ripley could see the core of strength—a core that everyone, including Nell, had underestimated. “But I didn’t do it alone.” The bright ding of the counter bell warned her she had a customer waiting. “Don’t let your soup get cold.”

She slipped out, her voice lifting in greeting.

Ripley spooned up soup and sighed with contentment at the first taste. She would just concentrate on her lunch and think about the rest later.

But she’d barely made a dent in the bowl when she heard Nell call Mia’s name.

“Ripley’s in the kitchen. I think she wanted to see you.”

Shit, shit, shit! Ripley scowled into her soup and got busy filling her mouth.

“Well, well, make yourself at home.”

Mia Devlin, her gypsy mane of red hair tumbling over the shoulders of a long dress of forest green, leaned gracefully against the doorjamb. Her face was a miracle formed of high, ice-edged cheekbones, a full, sculpted mouth painted as boldly red as her hair, skin smooth as cream, and eyes gray as witch-smoke.

Those eyes looked Ripley over lazily, one brow lifted in a perfect and derisive arch.

“I am.” Ripley continued to eat. “I figure it’s Nell’s kitchen this time of day. If I thought otherwise, I’d be searching my soup for wool of bat or dragon’s teeth.”

“And it’s so hard to come by dragon’s teeth this time of year. What can I do for you, Deputy?”

“Not a thing. But I did give some passing thought to doing something for you.”

“Now I’m all agog.” Tall and slim, she moved to the table and sat. She was wearing those needle-thin heels she was so fond of, Ripley noticed. She could never figure out why anyone would put her innocent feet in such torture chambers without a gun being held to her head.

She broke off another piece of her roll, munched. “You lost yourself a tenant when Nell and Zack tied the knot. I figured you hadn’t gotten around to doing anything about renting out the yellow cottage, and since I’m thinking about getting my own place, maybe I can help you out.”

“Do tell.” Intrigued, Mia broke off a bite of Ripley’s roll for herself.

“Hey, I’m paying for that.”

Ignoring her, Mia nibbled. “A little too crowded for you at the homestead?”

“It’s a big house.” Ripley gave a careless shrug, then moved the rest of her roll out of reach. “But you happen to have one going empty. It’s a pretty dinky place, but I don’t need much. I’d be willing to negotiate a lease on it.”

“A lease on what?” Nell swung back in, straight to the fridge to get out the makings for a sandwich order.

“The yellow cottage,” Mia told her. “Ripley’s looking for a place of her own.”

“Oh, but—” Nell turned. “You have a place of your own. With us.”

“Let’s not make this sticky.” It was too late to regret she hadn’t arranged to speak to Mia privately. “I was just thinking it’d be cool to have a little place to myself, and since Mia’s got one going begging—”

“On the contrary,” Mia said smoothly. “Neither I nor my possessions need to beg.”

“You don’t want me to do you a favor?” Ripley lifted a shoulder. “No skin off mine.”

“It’s so considerate of you to think of me.” Mia’s tone was candy-sweet. Always a bad sign. “But as it happens I just signed with a tenant for the cottage not ten minutes ago.”

“Bullshit. You were just up in your office, and Nell didn’t say you were with anyone.”

“On the phone,” Mia continued. “With a gentleman from New York . A doctor. We’ve signed a three-month lease for the cottage via fax. I hope that relieves your mind.”

Ripley wasn’t quite quick enough to mask her annoyance. “Like I said, no skin off mine. What the hell’s a doctor going to do for three months on Three Sisters? We’ve got a doctor on-island.”

“He’s not a medical doctor. He’s a Ph.D.—and as you’re so interested, he’s coming here to work. Dr. Booke is a paranormal researcher, and he’s eager to spend some time on an island conjured by witches.”

“Fucking A.”

“Always so succinct.” Amused, Mia got to her feet. “Well, my work here is done. I must go see if I can bring joy into someone else’s life now.” She strolled to the door, waited a beat before she turned. “Oh, he’ll be here tomorrow. I’m sure he’d love to meet you, Ripley.”

“Keep your weirdo spook hunters away from me. Damn it.” Ripley bit into her cream puff. “She’s eating this up.”

“Don’t go anywhere.” Nell lifted her order. “Peg comes on in five. I want to talk to you.”

“I’ve got patrol.”

“You just wait.”

“Damn near ruined my appetite,” Ripley complained, but managed to devour the cream puff. In fifteen minutes she was stalking outside again, Nell glued to her side.

“We need to talk about this.”

“Look, Nell, it’s no big deal. I was just thinking—”

“Yes, you were thinking.” Nell yanked her wool cap down over her ears. “And you didn’t say anything to me, or to Zack. I want to know why you feel you can’t stay in your own home.”

“Okay, okay.” Ripley put on her sunglasses, hunched her shoulders as they started down High toward the station house. “It just seems to me that when people get married, they need privacy.”

“It’s a big house. We’re not in each other’s way. If you were the domestic type, I could see you feeling displaced because I have to spend so much of my time in the kitchen.”

“That’s the least of my worries.”

“Exactly. You don’t cook. I hope you don’t think I resent cooking for you.”

“No, I don’t think that. And I appreciate it, Nell, I really do.”

“Is it because I get up so early?”

“No.”

“Because I took one of the spare bedrooms for an office for Sisters Catering?”

“No. Jeez, nobody was using it.” Ripley felt as though she was being systematically pounded with a velvet bat. “Look, look, it’s not about cooking or spare rooms or your baffling habit of getting out of bed before the sun rises. It’s about sex.”

“Excuse me?”

“You and Zack have sex.”

Nell stopped, cocked her head as she studied Ripley’s face. “Yes, we do. I don’t deny it. In fact, we have quite a lot of sex.”

“There you are.”

“Ripley, before I officially moved into the house, Zack and I often had sex there. It never seemed to be a problem for you.”

“That was different. That was regular sex. Now you’re having married sex.”

“I see. Well, I can assure you the process works in almost exactly the same way.”

“Har-har.” Nell had come a long way, Ripley mused. There’d been a time when even the hint of a confrontation would have had her backing down. Those days were over.

“It’s just weird, okay? You and Zack are into the mister and missus thing and you’ve got me hanging around. What if you wanted to do the horizontal tango on the living room rug, or just have dinner naked some night?”

“We’ve actually done the first, but now I’ll give some serious consideration to the second. Ripley.” Nell touched Ripley’s arm, rubbed lightly. “I don’t want you to move out.”

“Jesus, Nell, it’s a small island. It’s not like I’d be hard to reach wherever I landed.”

“I don’t want you to move,” she said again. “I’m speaking for myself, not for Zack. You can talk to him separately if you want and get his feelings about it. Ripley . . . I never had a sister before.”

“Oh, man.” She cringed, scanning the area from behind her dark glasses. “Don’t get mushy, not right out on the street like this.”

“I can’t help it. I like knowing you’re there, that I can talk to you whenever. I only had a few days with your parents when they came back for the wedding, but knowing them now and having you, I have a family again. Can’t we just leave things the way they are, for now, anyway?”

“Does Zack ever say no to you once you turn those big blue headlights on him?”

“Not when he knows it’s really important to me. And if you stay, I’ll promise that when Zack and I have sex, we’ll pretend we’re not married.”

“It might help. Anyway, since some jerk from New York snagged the cottage right under my nose, I’ll have to let things ride.” She let out a pained sigh. “Paranormal researcher, my butt. Ph.D.” She sneered and felt marginally cheered. “Mia probably rented the place to him just to piss me off.”

“I doubt it, but I’m sure she’s enjoying that side benefit. I wish the two of you wouldn’t jab at each other so much. I’d really hoped, after . . . after what happened on Halloween you would be friends again.”

Instantly, Ripley closed in. “Everybody did what had to be done. Now it’s over. Nothing’s changed for me.”

“Only one phase is over,” Nell corrected. “If the legend—”

“The legend is hooey.” Even thinking of it blighted Ripley’s mood.

“What we are isn’t. What’s inside us isn’t.”

“And what I do with what’s inside me is my business. Don’t go there, Nell.”

“All right.” But Nell squeezed Ripley’s hand and even through the gloves that both women wore, there was a spark of energy. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

Ripley balled her hand as Nell walked away. Her skin still hummed from the contact. Sneaky little witch, Ripley thought. She had to admire that. Dreams came late in the night, when her mind was open and her will at rest. She could deny by day, close herself off, stand by the choice she’d made more than a decade before. But sleep was a power of its own, and seduced the dreaming.

In dreams, she stood on the beach, where the waves rose like terror. They pounded, black and bitter, on the shore, a thousand mad heartbeats, under a blind sky. The only light was the snake-whips of lightning that slashed each time she raised her arms. And the light that came from her was a furious gold edged with murderous red.

The wind roared. The violence of it, the sheer, unharnessed power of it, thrilled her in some deep and secret place. She was beyond now, beyond right, beyond rules. Beyond hope. And part of her, still flickering, wept grievous tears for the loss. She had done what she had done, and now wrongs were avenged. Death to death to death. A circle formed by hate. One times three.

She cried out in triumph as the dark smoke of black magic streamed inside her, smearing and choking out what she had been, what she had vowed. What she had believed. This, she thought as her cupped hands trembled at the force and the greed, was better. What had come before was pale and weak, a soft belly, compared to the strength and muscle of what was now. She could do all and any. She could take and could rule. There was nothing and no one to stop her. In a mad dance she spun across the sand, above it, her arms spread like wings, her hair falling in coils like snakes. She could taste the death of her sister’s murderer, the bright copper flavor of blood she’d spilled, and knew she had never supped so well.

Her laughter shot out like bolts, cracked the black bowl of the sky. A torrent of dark rain fell and hissed on the sand like acid. He called her. Somewhere through the wild night and her own fury she heard his voice. The faint glow of what had been inside her struggled to burn brighter. She saw him, just a shadow fighting through the wind and rain to reach her. Love warred and wept in a heart gone cold.

“Go back!” she shouted at him, and her voice thundered, shook the world. But still he came on, his hands reaching toward her—to gather her in, to bring her back. And she saw, just for an instant, the gleam of his eyes against the night, that was love, and fear. Out of the sky came a lance of fire. Even as she screamed, as that light inside her leaped, it speared through him. She felt his death inside her. The pain and horror of what she’d sent out springing back, times three. And the light inside her winked out. Left her cold, cold, cold.

 

 

Chapter Two

He didn’t look so very different from the other passengers on the ferry. His long black coat flapped in the wind. His hair, an ordinary sort of dark blond, flew around his face and had no particular style. He’d remembered to shave and had only nicked himself twice, just under the strong line of his jaw. His face—and it was a good one—was hidden behind one of his cameras as he snapped pictures of the island using a long lens. His skin still held the tropical tan he’d picked up in Borneo . Against it his eyes were the luminous golden brown of honey just bottled. His nose was straight and narrow, his face a bit thin. The hollows in his cheeks tended to deepen when he lost himself in work for long periods and forgot regular meals. It gave him an intriguing starving-scholar look.

His mouth smiled easily, sensually. He was somewhat tall, somewhat lanky. And somewhat clumsy. He had to grip the rail to keep a shudder of the ferry from pitching him over it. He’d been leaning out too far, of course. He knew that, but anticipation often made him forget the reality of the moment. He steadied himself again, dipped into his coat pocket for a stick of gum. He came out with an ancient lemon drop, a couple of crumpled sheets of notepaper, a ticket stub—which baffled him, as he couldn’t quite remember when he’d last been to the movies—and a lens cap he’d thought he’d lost. He made do with the lemon drop and watched the island.

He’d consulted with a shaman in Arizona , visited a man who claimed to be a vampire in the mountains of Hungary , been cursed by a brujo after a regrettable incident in Mexico . He’d lived among ghosts in a cottage in Cornwall and had documented the rights and rituals of a necromancer in Romania . For nearly twelve years, MacAllister Booke had studied, recorded, witnessed the impossible. He’d interviewed witches, ghosts, lycanthropes, alien abductees, and psychics. Ninety-eight percent of them were delusional or con artists. But the remaining two percent . . . well, that kept him going. He didn’t just believe in the extraordinary. He’d made it his life’s work. The idea of spending the next few months on a chunk of land that legend claimed had been torn from the mainland of Massachusetts by a trio of witches and settled as a sanctuary was fascinating to him. He’d researched Three Sisters Island extensively and had dug up every scrap of information he could find on Mia Devlin, the current island witch. She hadn’t promised him interviews, or access to any of her work. But he hoped to persuade her.

A man who had talked himself into a ceremony held by neo-Druids should be able to convince a solitary witch to let him watch her work a few spells. Besides, he imagined they could make a trade. He had something he was sure would interest her, and anyone else who was tied into the three-hundred-year-old curse.

He lifted his camera again, adjusting the framing to capture the spear of the white lighthouse, the brooding ramble of the old stone house, both clinging to the high cliffs. He knew Mia lived there, high above the village, close to the thick slice of forest. Just as he knew she owned the village bookstore and ran it successfully. A practical witch who, by all appearances, knew how to live, and live well, in both worlds. He could hardly wait to meet her face-to-face. The blast of the horn warned him to prepare for docking. He walked back to his Land Rover, put his camera in its case on the passenger seat. The lens cap in his pocket was, once again, forgotten. While he had these last few minutes to himself, he updated some notes, then added to the day’s journal entry.

The ferry ride was pleasant. The day’s clear and cold. I was able to take a number of pictures from different vantage points, though I’ll need to rent a boat for views of the windward side of the island.

Geographically, topographically, there’s nothing unusual about Three Sisters Island . Its area is approximately nine square miles, and its year-round inhabitants—largely in the fishing or the retail and tourist trade—number less than three thousand. It has a small sand beach, numerous inlets, coves, and shale beaches. It is partially forested, and the indigenous fauna include whitetail deer, rabbit, raccoon. Typical seabirds for this area. As well as owls, hawks, and pileated woodpecker in the forested regions.

There is one village. The majority of the residents live in the village proper or within a half-mile radius, though there are some houses and rental units farther afield. There is nothing about the island’s appearance that would indicate it is a source of paranormal activity. But I’ve found that appearances are unreliable documentary tools. I’m eager to meet Mia Devlin and begin my study.

He felt the slight bump of the ferry’s docking, but didn’t look up. Docked, Three Sisters Island , January6 ,2002. Glanced at his watch. 12:03P.M. EST. The village streets were storybook tidy, the traffic light. Mac drove through, circled, logging various spots on his tape recorder. He could find an ancient Mayan ruin in the jungle with a map scribbled on a crushed napkin, but he had a habit of forgetting more pedestrian locations. Bank, post office, market. Ah, pizzeria, hot damn!

He found a parking place without trouble only a stop down from Café Book. He liked the look of the place immediately—the display window, the view of the sea. He fished around for his briefcase, tossed the mini-recorder inside, just in case, and climbed out. He liked the look of the store even more on the inside. The cheerful fire in a stone hearth, the big checkout counter carved with moons and stars. Seventeenth century, he decided, and suitable for a museum. Mia Devlin had taste as well as talent. He started to cross to it and the little gnome like woman sitting on a high stool behind it. A movement, a flash of color caught his attention. Mia stepped out of the stacks and smiled.

“Good afternoon. Can I help you?”

His first clear thought was, Wow.

“I’m, ah, hmm. I’m looking for Ms. Devlin. Mia Devlin.”

“And you’ve found her.” She walked toward him, held out a hand. “MacAllister Booke?”

“Yeah.” Her hand was long and narrow. Rings sparkled on it like jewels on white silk. He was afraid to squeeze too hard.

“Welcome to Three Sisters. Why don’t you come upstairs? I’ll buy you a cup of coffee, or perhaps some lunch. We’re very proud of our café.”

“Ah . . . I wouldn’t mind some lunch. I’ve heard good things about your café.”

“Perfect. I hope your trip in was uneventful.”

Up till now, he thought. “It was fine, thanks.” He followed her up the stairs. “I like your store.”

“So do I. I hope you’ll make use of it during your stay on the island. This is my friend, and the artist of our café, Nell Todd. Nell, Dr. Booke.”

“Nice to meet you.”

She showed her dimples and leaned over the counter to shake his hand.

“Dr. Booke has just arrived from the mainland, and I imagine he could use some lunch. On the house, Dr. Booke. Just tell Nell what you’d like.”

“I’ll take the sandwich special, and a large cappuccino, thanks. Do you do the baking, too?”

“That’s right. I recommend the apple brown Betty today.”

“I’ll try it.”

“Mia?” Nell asked.

“Just a cup of the soup and the jasmine tea.”

“Coming up. I’ll bring your orders out.”

“I can see I’m not going to have to worry about my next meal while I’m here,” Mac commented as they took a window table.

“Nell also owns and runs Sisters Catering. She delivers.”

“Good to know.” He blinked twice, but her face—the sheer glory of it—didn’t dim. “Okay, I just have to get this out, and I hope you’re not offended. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve seen in my life.”

“Thank you.” She sat back. “And I’m not the least bit offended.”

“Good. I don’t want things to start off on the wrong foot, since I’m hoping to work with you.”

“And as I explained over the phone, I don’t . . . work for audiences.”

“I’m hoping you’ll change your mind after you get to know me better.”

He had a potent smile, she decided. Charmingly crooked, deceptively harmless. “We’ll see about that. As for your interest in the island itself, and its history, you won’t lack for data. The majority of the permanent residents here are from families who’ve lived on Sisters for generations.”

“Todd, for instance,” he said, glancing back toward the counter.

“Nell married a Todd, just a little under two weeks ago, in fact. Zachariah Todd, our sheriff. While she’s . . . new to the island, the Todds have, indeed, lived here for generations.”

He knew who Nell was. The former wife of Evan Remington. A man who had once wielded considerable power and influence in the entertainment industry. A man who had been found to be a violent abuser. And who was now deemed legally insane and under lock and key. It had been Sheriff Todd who’d arrested him, right here on Sisters Island , after what were reputed to be strange events on Halloween night. The Sabbat of Samhain. It was something Mac intended to explore in more depth. Even as he started to bring it up, something in Mia’s expression warned him to bide his time there.

“Looks great. Thanks,” he said instead to Nell as she served their lunch.

“Enjoy. Mia, is tonight still good for you?”

“Absolutely.”

“I’ll come up about seven, then. Let me know if you need anything else, Dr. Booke.”

“Nell’s just back from her honeymoon,” Mia said in a quiet voice when she was alone with him again. “I don’t think questions about certain areas of her life are appropriate just now.”

“All right.”

“Are you always so cooperative, Dr. Booke?”

“Mac. Probably not. But I don’t want to make you mad right off the bat.” He bit into his sandwich.

“Good,” he managed. “Really good.”

She leaned forward, toyed with her soup. “Lulling the natives into complacency?”

“You’re really good, too. Do you have psychic abilities?”

“Don’t we all, on some level? Didn’t one of your papers explore the development of what you called the neglected sixth sense?”

“You’ve read my work.”

“I have. What I am, Mac, isn’t something I neglect. Neither is it something I exploit or allow to be exploited. I agreed to rent you the cottage, and to talk with you when the mood strikes me, because of one simple thing.”

“Okay. What?”

“You have a brilliant and, more important, a flexible mind. I admire that. As far as trusting that, time will tell.” She glanced over and gestured. “And here comes a bright enough, and very inflexible, mind. Deputy Ripley Todd.”

Mac looked over, saw the attractive brunette stride on long legs to the café counter, lean on it, chat with Nell. “Ripley’s another common surname on the island.”

“Yes, she’s Zack’s sister. Their mother was a Ripley. They have long ties, on both sides of their family, to the Sisters. Very long ties,” Mia repeated. “If you’re looking for a cynic to weigh in on your research, Ripley’s your girl.”

Unable to resist, Mia caught Ripley’s attention and motioned her over. Ordinarily Ripley would merely have sneered and walked in the opposite direction. But a strange face on the island usually bore checking out.

A good-looking guy, she thought as she strolled over. In a bookish kind of way. As soon as the thought hit, her brows drew together. Bookish. Mia’s doctor of freakology.

“Dr. MacAllister Booke, Deputy Ripley Todd.”

“Nice to meet you.” He got to his feet, surprising Ripley with his length as he unfolded himself from the chair. Most of his height, she judged, was leg.

“I didn’t know they gave out degrees for the study of crapola.”

“Isn’t she adorable?” Mia beamed. “I was just telling Mac that he should interview you for your narrow, closed mind. After all, it wouldn’t take much time.”

“Yawn.” Ripley hooked her thumbs in her pockets and studied Mac’s face. “I don’t think I’d have much to say that you’d want to hear. Mia’s the goddess of woo-woo stuff around here. You have any questions about the practicalities of day-to-day life on the island, you can usually find me or the sheriff around.”

“Appreciate it. Oh, I’ve only got a master’s in crapola. Haven’t finished my thesis on that one yet.”

Her lips twitched. “Cute. That your Rover out front?”

“Yes.” Had he left the keys in it again? he wondered, already patting pockets. “Is there a problem?”

“No. Nice ride. I’m going to grab some lunch.”

“She isn’t abrasive and annoying on purpose,” Mia said when Ripley walked away. “She was born that way.”

“It’s okay.” He sat again, picked up his meal where he’d left off. “I get a lot of that kind of thing.” He nodded at Mia. “I imagine you do, too.”

“Now and then. You’re awfully well adjusted and affable, aren’t you, Dr. MacAllister Booke?”

“Afraid so. It’s pretty boring.”

“I don’t think so.” Mia picked up her tea, studied him over the rim. “No, I don’t think so at all.”

Mac left his things in the Rover and did a solo walk-through of the yellow cottage. He’d assured Mia he didn’t need her to come along. The fact was, he wanted to get a feel of the place without her. She had a strong and distracting presence. It was small, charmingly quaint, and heads above the majority of accommodations he usually had on a research jaunt. He knew a lot of people thought he was a man more suited to a dark and dusty library. He often was, but he was just as much at home in a tent in the jungle, so long as he had enough battery power for his equipment.

The living room here was small and cozy, with a sofa that looked comfortably broken in and a little fireplace already set for lighting. He decided to take care of that first and patted his pockets absently before he saw the box of wooden matches on the narrow mantel. Grateful for small favors, he got the fire going and continued on his tour. Because he talked to himself habitually, his voice echoed a bit.

“Two bedrooms. That one’ll do for a sub-office. I think I’m going to set up primarily in the living room. Kitchen’ll do if I get desperate enough to cook. Nell Todd.”

He dug in his pockets again, came up with the business card for Sisters Catering that he’d taken from the café counter. He laid it in the middle of the stove where he would see it if he thought about cooking. He looked out the windows, appreciating the woods that tucked in close and the lack of other houses. He often worked odd hours. Here he didn’t have any neighbors close enough to complain. He tossed the single bag he’d brought in with him on the bed in the larger of the two bedrooms, dropped his butt on the bed to give it a test bounce.

The image of Mia drifted into his mind. “Down, boy,” he warned himself. “No carnal thoughts about a woman who might be able to pluck them out of your head, and who’s also your primary research target.”

Satisfied with his living arrangements, he headed outside to unload the Rover. On his second trip he stopped to watch the sheriff’s cruiser pull up, and Ripley climb out.

“Deputy Todd.”

“Dr. Booke.” She was feeling vaguely guilty about giving him a hard time on their first encounter. Which she wouldn’t have felt, she thought resentfully, if Nell hadn’t scolded her about it. “You’ve got a lot of stuff here.”

“Oh, this is only part of it. I’ve got more being sent in tomorrow.”

Nosy by nature, she looked in the back of the Rover. “More than this?”

“Yeah. Lots of neat stuff.”

She turned her head. “Neat?”

“Lots of it. Sensors, scanners, and gauges and cameras and computers. Cool toys.”

He looked so pleased with the idea that she didn’t have the heart to smirk. “I’ll give you a hand hauling what you’ve got inside.”

“That’s okay. Some of it’s pretty heavy.”

Now she did smirk, and hefted a large box out of the back. “I can handle it.”

No question about that, he decided and led the way inside. “Thanks. You work out? What do you bench-press?”

Her brows lifted. “I do twelve reps of ninety pounds in a set.” She couldn’t get a good gauge of his body type in the long coat and the thick sweater under it. “You?”

“Oh, about the same, considering body weight.” He walked out again, leaving her following and trying to get a sense of his shoulders. And his ass.

“What do you do with all this . . . neat stuff?”

“Study, observe, record, document. The occult, the paranormal, the arcane. You know, the different.”

“Freak shows.”

He only smiled. Not just his mouth, she noted, but his eyes as well. “Some people think so.”

They hauled the rest of the boxes and bags in together.

“It’s going to take you a week to unpack.”

He scratched his head, scanned the piles now crowding the living space. “I never mean to bring so much, but then, you never know what you might need. I was just in Borneo and could’ve kicked myself for not packing my backup energy detector—like a motion detector, but not,” he explained. “You just can’t find one of those on Borneo .”

“I bet.”

“I’ll show you.” He shrugged out of his coat, tossed it carelessly aside before hunkering down to paw through a box.

Surprise, surprise, Ripley thought. Dr. Weird had one excellent butt.

“See, this one’s handheld. Completely portable. I designed it myself.”

It put her in mind of a little Geiger counter, though she didn’t think she’d ever seen an actual Geiger counter.

“It detects and measures positive and negative force,” he explained. “Simply put, it reacts to charged particles in the air, or in a solid object, even water. Except this one isn’t submersible. I’m working on one that will be. I can hook this up, when I need to, to my computer and generate a graphic printout of the size and density of the force and other pertinent data.”

“Uh-huh.” She gave a quick glance at his face. He looked so earnest, she thought, so pleased with his little handheld gadget. “You’re really a total geek, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” He flipped his unit on to check the batteries. “I’ve always been into the paranormal and electronics. I found a way to indulge myself on both levels.”

“Whatever floats your boat.” But she scanned the piles of boxed equipment. It looked like Radio Shack had exploded. “All this high-tech junk. Lots of dough, I bet.”

“Mmm.” He wasn’t giving her his full attention. His activated sensor was giving off a low but definite reading.

“Do they give you grants for stuff like this?”

“Umm, maybe, but I never needed one. I’m a really rich geek.”

“No kidding? Don’t let Mia know or she’ll jack up the rent.” Curious, she wound her way through the boxes. She’d always liked the little cottage well enough, and was still a bit steamed that she wasn’t the one moving in. But things with MacAllister Booke weren’t adding up for her.

“Look, usually I’m big on minding my own business, and I’ve got less than no interest in the stuff you do, but I’ve just got to say, you just don’t seem to fit. Professor of strange, geeky rich guy, little yellow cottage. What are you after?”

He didn’t smile now. His face went quiet, almost eerily intent. “Answers.”

“What answers?”

“All of them I can get. You’ve got great eyes.”

“Huh?”

“I was just noticing. Nothing but green. No gray, no blue, just intense green. Pretty.”

She angled her head. “You coming on to me, Dr. Geek?”

“No.” He very nearly flushed. “I just noticed, that’s all. Half the time I don’t realize I’m saying something that’s in my head. Comes from spending a lot of time on my own, I guess, and thinking out loud.”

“Right. Well, I’ve got to get going.”

He stuck the sensor in his pocket, neglecting to turn it off. “I appreciate the help. No offense before, okay?”

“Okay.” She offered her hand to shake.

The instant their fingers clasped, the sensor in his pocket beeped madly. “Wow! Wait. Hold on.”

She tried again to tug her hand free, but his grip turned surprisingly strong. With his free hand, he dragged the sensor out of his pocket.

“Look at this.” Excitement rippled through his voice, deepened it. “I’ve never had it measure anything this strong. Almost off the scale.”

He began to mutter numbers as if memorizing them while he tugged her across the room.

“Hold on, pal. Just what do you think—”

“I need to record these numbers. What time is it? Two twenty-three and sixteen seconds.” Fascinated, he passed the gauge over their joined hands. “Jesus! Look at that jump. Is that cool or what?”

“Let go. Right now—or I’m taking you down.”

“Huh?” He looked back at her face, blinked once to orient himself. The eyes he’d admired were hard as stone now. “Sorry.”

He released her hand immediately, and the sensor’s beeping began to slow. “Sorry,” he repeated. “I get caught up, especially with a new phenomenon. If you could just give me a minute to record this, then interface the portable with my computer.”

“I don’t have time to waste while you play with your toys.” She shot the sensor a furious look. “I’d say you need an equipment check.”

“I don’t think so.” He held out the palm that had clasped hers. “It’s vibrating. How about yours?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Ten minutes,” he said. “Give me ten to put the bare essentials together, and let’s try it again. I want to test our vital signs. Body temperature, ambient temperature.”

“I don’t let guys test my vital signs until they’ve bought me dinner.” She jerked her thumb. “You’re in my way.”

He stepped to the side. “I’ll buy you dinner.”

“No, thanks.” She headed straight for the door without looking back. “You are so not my type.”

Rather than waste time on annoyance when she slammed the door behind her, Mac searched for his recorder and began relaying the data.

“Ripley Todd,” he finished. “Deputy Ripley Todd, late twenties, I’d guess. Abrasive, suspicious, casually rude. Incident occurred on physical contact. A handshake. Personal physical reactions were a tingling and warmth along the skin, from point of contact, up the right arm to the shoulder. An increase of heart rate and a temporary feeling of euphoria. Deputy Todd’s physical reaction is unsubstantiated. Impressions are, however, that she experienced the same or similar reactions, which resulted in her anger and denial.”

He sat on the arm of the sofa, considering. “Early hypothesis reached upon previous research, current observations, and recorded data is that Todd is another direct descendant of one of the three original sisters.”

Pursing his lips, Mac switched off the recorder. “And I’d say the idea of that really ticks her off.”

It took Mac the rest of the afternoon and all of the evening to unpack and set up. By the time he surfaced, the living room looked like a high-tech science lab, with monitors and keyboards and cameras and sensors arranged precisely to his preferences. It left very little room to maneuver, but he didn’t expect to be entertaining. He moved what little furniture there was into one corner, and tested every piece of equipment. When he was finally finished, the fire had long since burned out and he was starving. Remembering the pizzeria, he grabbed his coat and started outside.

He was greeted by almost unrelieved darkness. There was a splinter of moonlight, a scatter of stars. The village, which according to his best memory was about a quarter mile south, was nothing more than vague silhouettes shadowed under the pretty march of streetlights. Baffled, he looked at his watch. Swore. It was after eleven at night, outside a small village on a knuckle of land.  There would be no pizza tonight. His stomach, wide awake now, protested crossly. He’d gone hungry before, often because of his own forgetfulness. But he didn’t have to like it.

Without much hope, he went back inside to search for crumbs in the kitchen. Maybe he had an old bag of trail mix or candy in his briefcase. But he hit the jackpot in the freezer. He found a container labeled “clam chowder,” with instructions for heating. Compliments of Sisters Catering.

“I love Nell Todd. I’m her slave.” Deliriously pleased, he set it in the microwave at the time and temperature directed. The first wisps of scent nearly had him crying. He ate the entire container, standing up. Sated, refreshed, and revived, he decided to take a walk down to the beach. Two minutes later, he came back and dug out a flashlight. He had always liked the sound of the sea, especially at night when it seemed to fill the world. The cold wind was bracing, the smooth velvet dark soothing.

As he walked he made mental notes of chores and tasks he would need to see to the following day. The knowledge that most if not all of his list would be forgotten didn’t stop him from making it. He would need to stock up on supplies. Transfer some money to the local bank for convenience. Arrange for phone service. A post office box. He wanted to do more in-depth research on the Todd ancestry, and the Ripley family history as well.

He wondered how much information he could pump out of Mia. Definite tension between her and the deputy. He’d be interested to know what caused it. He needed to spend more time with both of them, though neither one would be easily nudged. A prickling on the back of his neck made him stop, slowly turn. She was glowing. A faint aura of light outlined her body, her face, the long coils of her hair. Her eyes were green as a cat’s against the dark. And watched him, just as steadily, just as patiently.

“Ripley.” He wasn’t easily spooked, but she’d managed it. “I didn’t know there was anyone else out here.”

He started back toward her. A ripple of air shivered over him. The sand shifted under his feet. He saw a single tear, diamond bright, slide down her cheek. Before she vanished like smoke. Three Sisters Island was still and white and perfect, like, Ripley thought, one of the snow globes on the shelf at Island Treasures. The storm that had swept through during the night had covered the beach, the lawns, the streets. Ermine-draped trees stood still as a painting, and the air was church quiet. She hated to mar it.

Even now Zack was calling Dick Stubens and telling him to start up his plow. Soon the world would move again. But for now it was still and silent. Irresistible. A few feet of snow was one of the only things that kept her from her morning run on the beach. She tossed her gym bag over her shoulder, took one last whiff of whatever it was her sister-in-law was baking, and slipped out of the house. For now, for the length of her walk to the hotel and its health club, the island belonged only to her. Smoke pumped from chimneys. Lights gleamed behind kitchen windows. Oatmeal was being stirred, she imagined, bacon was sizzling. And inside those warm, snug houses, children were doing a dance of joy. No school. Today was for snow battles and snow forts, for sledding and mugs of hot chocolate at the kitchen table. Her life had been just that simple once.

She trudged toward the village, leaving a trough in the snow. The sky was a soft, waiting white, as if it was considering shaking out a few more inches just for good measure. Either way, she thought, she would take her hour at the gym, then head back home to help Zack shovel out the cruiser and Nell’s car. As she crossed into the village, she looked down and frowned. The snow wasn’t pristine here, as she’d expected, as she’d wanted it to be. Someone else had been out and about early, too, and had left a narrow path. It irritated her. It was a tradition, almost a ritual, that she be the first to break the field of snow on this part of the island. Now someone had spoiled her routine and pricked her contentment bubble. She kicked at the snow and kept walking.

The path led, as hers did, toward the Gothic stone hotel, the Magick Inn. Some mainlander, she decided, who’d come out of his hotel room early to see a genuine New England village in the snow. Hard to blame him, she admitted, but he might have waited another hour. She stomped up the short flight of steps, bumped the bulk of the snow off her boots, and went inside. She waved to the desk clerk, hitching up her gym bag, and jogged up the lobby steps to the second floor. She had a long-standing pay-as-you-go deal with the hotel for health club privileges. She preferred working out on her own, and during the summer she used the sea as her pool, so an official membership wasn’t worth her while.

Turning left, she headed straight into the women’s locker room. As far as she could remember, only a handful of guests were in residence this week. More than likely she would have the gym and the pool to herself. After dumping her outerwear in the locker that the hotel kept for her, she stripped down to her black sports bra and bike pants, tugged on her socks and cross-trainers. Her mood was up again at the prospect of a good sweaty bout with the resistance machines and free weights. Since she despised the treadmill she would save the aerobic portion of her workout for the hotel pool.

She circled around the locker room for the door leading to the gym. She heard the clang of metal on metal before she saw anyone. Her mood wavered again. The TV was on, tuned to one of the early-morning shows full of chatter and cheer. She preferred blasting music when she worked out. But her glance toward the bench press turned her scowl into interesting speculation. She couldn’t see much of him, but what she could see was superior.

Long legs, toned and muscled and already sheened with sweat. Long arms, sleek biceps rippling on the lift and set. She approved of his shoes, a good brand, basic style and far from new. He was bench-pressing120 in smooth, steady reps. Better and better. This wasn’t a weekend warrior but a regular. And if the rest of him lived up to his limbs, he was hot. If she was going to have to share the equipment with someone, he might as well be hot, buff, and sweaty. Just the way I like ’em, she thought with delight. She was missing men—at least missing sex. She would just check out Mr. Fitness here and see if he lived up to the advertising. She snagged a towel, hooked it around her shoulders, and wandered his way.

“Need a spotter?” she began, then nearly choked as she looked down into Mac’s face. He grunted, lowered the bar. “Hey, how’s it going? Some snow last night, huh?”

“Yeah, some snow.” In disgust she turned away to begin her warm-up stretches. Wouldn’t you just know it? Just as she starts to get stirred up, Mr. Fitness turns out to be Dr. Geek.

“Nice club,” he commented, grunting a little as he pressed the bar up. “I was surprised to find it empty.”

“Not much traffic in the hotel this time of year.” She spared him a look. He hadn’t shaved, and that shadow of stubble turned the attractive bookworm face into something edgy. Sexy. Damn it, he was hot.

“Did you get a membership?” she asked him.

“Yeah. Damn, lost count. Well.” He hooked the bar on the safety, scooted up. “You work out here regularly?”

“No. I’ve got a setup at home. Free weights, a Bowflex. But when I can’t run outside, I like to use their stuff, and the pool. Are you watching this junk?”

He adjusted the weight and pressure on another machine, glanced at the television. “Not especially.”

Taking this for a no, she switched it off while he settled into leg presses. She turned the music on, and up to blasting to discourage any conversation. Unfazed, Mac worked through his routine while she worked through hers. He watched her, mostly out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t ogle women in health clubs. It wasn’t, well, polite. But he was human. It was only the two of them, and she had one beautiful, tight body. Shame about the attitude.

He thought about what he’d seen on the beach two nights before, that instant when he’d thought it was Ripley standing there. Of course it hadn’t been. He’d realized that almost immediately. The eyes had been almost the same. That sharp, intense, and pure green. But the woman, or the vision, or whatever it had been on the beach, hadn’t had that taut, disciplined body. And her hair, while dark and long, had been curling coils where Ripley’s was straight as rain. And the face, though there’d been some resemblance, had been softer, sadder, rounder. Added to all that was the fact that he didn’t think Ripley Todd would stand on a dark beach, weeping, then vanish into the air. It had been one of the sisters, he was sure. And from the research he’d done, he was betting on the one called Earth. Still, Deputy Todd was a part of it all. He was sure of that, too.

He just wasn’t sure how to chip through that flinty attitude and work on—that is, work with her. Since he intended to do just that, it wasn’t a coincidence that they picked up free weights at the same time. She started with flies. He followed suit. Despite the music, they were close enough now for him to speak without shouting and feeling like a moron.

“How’s the food in the restaurant here?”

“Two restaurants. Fine. Fancy one’s pricey.”

“You up for breakfast after this? I’m buying.”

She slanted him a look. “Thanks, but I’ve got to get back.”

He saw her gaze at his weights. He was pumping twenties. She was using tens. But between the beat of the music and the mirrored motions, they were lifting in unison.

“I’ve got my equipment set up.” He set it casually as they both switched motions. “You’ll have to come by and take a look.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Curiosity. If you’re uneasy about what happened last time, I can promise not to touch you.”

“I’m not uneasy about anything.”

There was just enough bite in her voice to show him exactly how to chip away. Some women were vain about their looks, or their brains. Ripley was vain about her spine.

“I couldn’t blame you for being reluctant to come around, or even to talk to me after that.” His smile was back, easygoing, edging toward sheepish. “I tend to forget that laypeople aren’t used to paranormal events. It can be scary.”

“You think I’m afraid?” She gritted her teeth, continued her reps. “You don’t scare me, Booke, and neither do your stupid toys.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Voice cheerful, face pleasant, he finished off the mat routine and got up to do bicep curls. “I was a little worried, the way you took off.”

“I didn’t take off.” She snapped it out and began to work on her triceps. “I left.”

“Whatever.”

“I had work to do.”

“Okay.”

She sucked in a breath and imagined what would happen to that dopey grin of his if she smashed her barbell in his face. “You may be the idle rich, buddy, but I work for a living.”

“Absolutely. If you’re not worried about the energy spike the other day, I’d really like you to come back. Now that I’m up and running, it’ll help to re-create the event, or see if it can be re-created.”

“Not interested.”

“I’ll pay you for your time.”

“I don’t need your money.”

“That doesn’t make it less useful. Think about it.” He decided to cut his routine short and give her the time to do just that. “By the way,” he added as he replaced the weights. “Nice abs.”

She merely peeled back her lips to show her teeth as he strolled out. Imagine, she thought as she finished out her routine, a dork like that accusing her of being afraid. If it hadn’t been so laughable, it would’ve been insulting. Then thinking he could buy her time for his ridiculous experiments or study or whatever the hell he called what he did. It was a shame, a damn shame that he was the best-looking and certainly the best-built guy she’d run across in months. If he hadn’t been such an irritating moron, they could have enjoyed some workouts of an entirely different nature.

Instead, she was going to have to make the effort to avoid him whenever possible. It wouldn’t be easy, but she would make it her winter project. With her muscles comfortably fatigued, she went back in the locker room, showered off, pulled on her tank suit, and headed into the pool area. And realized, immediately, she should have known. He was already in the pool, doing laps with slow, almost lazy strokes. It surprised her to see that his tan covered every inch of him, or every inch she could see. The black Speedo he wore wasn’t hiding much. She wasn’t giving up her swim, even if it meant sharing the water with him. Tossing her fresh towel aside, she dived in.

When she surfaced he was an arm-span away, casually treading water. “I’ve got an idea.”

“I bet you’re just full of them.” She dipped her head and slicked the hair back from her face. “Look, I want to get in my laps and go. It’s a big pool. You stay on that side, I’ll stay on this one.”

“Let’s not call it an idea, let’s call it a proposition.”

“Booke, you’re going to piss me off.”

“I didn’t mean—”

He did flush now, a perfectly gorgeous combination with that manly stubble. The little twist of lust in her belly really put her off.

“I didn’t mean to imply—” He took two careful breaths, knowing he would stutter otherwise. “I meant a race.”

He knew he’d caught her competitive streak by the way her eyes glinted just before she turned in the water and swam to the side. “Not interested.”

“I’ll give you a quarter-length handicap.”

“Yeah, no question, you’re going to piss me off.”

“Four lengths,” he continued, clamping onto the idea like a hound onto a bone. “If you win, I don’t bother you again. If I win, I get one hour of your time. One hour, against three months. Those are pretty favorable odds for you.”

She started to brush him off. Wanted to brush him off. He couldn’t bother her if she didn’t let him bother her. There was only one slight hitch. She couldn’t resist a dare.

“Four lengths, head to head.” She pulled swim goggles over her head, adjusted them. “When I win, you keep your distance, you don’t mention your project or whatever you call it to me again, and you don’t try hitting on me on a personal level.”

“Now that last part stings, Deputy, but agreed. If I win, you come to the cottage, assist me in some tests. One hour’s work, with your full cooperation.”

“Deal.” When he held out a hand, she simply stared at it blandly. “Forget it.”

She waited for him to join her at the wall, prepared herself with long, slow breaths. “Freestyle?”

“Okay. On three?”

She nodded. “One, two . . .”

They pushed off together on three, cut through the water. She didn’t intend to lose, didn’t even consider it a possibility. She swam nearly every day of her life, and she was the home team. She noted his form as they paced each other on the first lap. It wasn’t bad, but hers was better. They slapped the far wall, pushed off for the second lap.

She was beautiful to watch, and he hoped he had the opportunity to do more of it. Under less intense circumstances. It wasn’t just strength, he noted. She had the fluid, disciplined grace of the true athlete. He’d never deluded himself that he qualified in that area. But if there was one thing he could do, it was swim. He had to admit he hadn’t expected them to be so evenly matched. He had a longer reach and a good seven inches on her in body length, but the woman had a powerful kick. He picked up the pace, testingly, on the third length. She matched it. He found himself both challenged and amused. She was toying with him. He put on more speed and admitted it was a damn good thing she’d tossed his handicap back in his face.

The son-of-a-bitch was like an eel, Ripley thought. When they shoved off for the final lap in tandem, she realized she’d seriously misjudged his abilities. Gathering herself, she poured it on, nipped past him by a quarter of a body length, felt her adrenaline kick in for that final push. And was struck with shock and dazed admiration when he streamed by her and slapped the wall two strokes ahead. Chest heaving, she surfaced, shoved back her goggles. No one, not even Zack, could beat her at four lengths. It was demoralizing.

“So.” He panted, shoved his hair back. “Any time today good for you?”

The bastard hadn’t even had the courtesy to rub it in. It only made the taste of defeat more sour. He’d been so, so damn pleasant about the whole thing. She began to wonder if he was on drugs. Surely no one could stay so even-tempered without chemical assistance.

She worked off part of her mad shoveling snow, soothed her bruised ego with some of Nell’s famous cinnamon buns. But it picked at her, a restless fingernail at a scab, throughout the day. There were a number of calls to keep her busy: cars sliding off the road, a smashed window due to a poorly aimed snowball, and the usual variety of mischief that liberated kids could create on a snow day. Still, it worried her mind and spoiled her mood.

In the station house, Zack listened to her muttered curses, watched her pour yet another cup of coffee. He was a patient man, and he knew his sister. He’d crossed paths with her several times that day on patrol and had recognized the signs of her temper brewing. But since it hadn’t passed, he was going to have to poke it out of her. Now seemed like a good time. He was enjoying a coffee break of his own, with his feet propped up on the desk.

“Are you going to keep chewing on whatever’s got your goat, or spit it out?”

“Nothing’s got my goat.” She slurped at coffee, burned her tongue, cursed.

“You’ve been in a stew since you got back from the gym this morning.”

“I don’t stew. You stew.”

“I brood,” he corrected. “Which is a solitary and thoughtful process involving finding the solution to a conflict or situation. Stewing is stirring a bubbling pot until it boils over and spills on someone. As I’m the only one currently in harm’s way, I have a vested interest about the contents of this particular pot.”

She turned back to him with a dangerous sneer. “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.”

“See.” He wagged his finger at her. “You’re trying to figure out how to take it out on me. Tell me who pissed you off, and we’ll go whip their asses together.”

He had a way about him, Ripley admitted, that could make her laugh in the worst of times. She walked over to the desk, sat on the edge. “Have you met this Booke character?”

“The big brain from New York ? Yeah, I met him yesterday when he was out walking the village, getting his bearings. Seems nice enough.”

“Nice.” She snorted. “Do you know what he’s here for?”

Zack grunted an assent. She only had to mention MacAllister Booke for Zack to clue in to the source of her mad. “Rip, we deal with variations of this theme off and on all the time. We can’t live on Sisters and avoid it.”

“This is different.”

“Maybe it is.” He was frowning himself when he got up to replenish his coffee. “What happened with Nell last fall raises eyebrows. And not just because she came back, figuratively, from the dead, or that that bastard Remington was exposed as someone who got his rocks off knocking her around during their marriage. Not even because he threatened to kill her once he tracked her here.”

“And stabbed you.” She said it quietly because she could still see the blood on his shirt, the way it had gleamed dark in the shadows of the forest.

“All of that made good press copy,” Zack continued. “A big, juicy scandal. But you add how it all went down—”

“We kept a lid on that.”

“As best we could,” he agreed.

He stopped beside her, touched her face. He knew she’d broken a promise to herself that night. Linking hands with Mia, using what she had inside her to save Nell, to save him.

“Enough got out,” he said quietly. “Rumor and speculation, and the babblings of a madman. Enough to build more, to spark interest. You had to expect something along these lines.”

“I expected the weirdos,” she admitted. “Maybe an increase in the gawking tourists, that sort of thing. This Booke is different. He’s the serious article, a kind of, I don’t know, crusader. And he’s got credentials. A lot of people may think he’s just another nutcase, but a lot won’t. Added to all that, Mia might get it into her head to talk to him. To cooperate with him.”

“Yeah, she might.” He didn’t want to add that he was all but sure Nell would as well. They’d already had a discussion about it. “It’s her choice, Rip. It doesn’t have to weigh on yours.”

She gave her coffee a disgusted look. “He won an hour from me.”

“What?”

“Sneaky son-of-a-bitch conned me into a bet this morning. I lost, so I have to give him an hour with his voodoo crap.”

“Ouch. How’d you lose?”

“Don’t wanna talk about it,” she muttered.

But he was already trying to work it out. “You didn’t go anywhere but the gym this morning, did you? I heard he picked up a membership there. Is that where you ran into him?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She pushed off the desk, paced. “Who’d have thought he could move like that? At a sprint, okay, I could see it because of his height advantage. But not at a hundred sixty foot freestyle.”

“A swim race?” Zack voiced his surprise. “He took you in a swim race?”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it. I was off my rhythm, that’s all.” She whirled back with a slanted look. “Was that a laugh I heard?”

“You bet. No wonder you’re stewing.”

“Just shut up. I don’t know what he thinks he can prove in an hour anyway. With his energy detectors and spirit sensors. It’s a waste of time.”

“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about. How much he take you by?”

“Shut up, Zack.”

She decided to get it over with, the way you would a root canal. And she’d decided to walk, leaving Zack with the cruiser, because that postponed the getting-it-over-with stage just a little longer. It was full dark when she made the turn to the yellow cottage, and the moon was new and black. Another three inches of snow had fallen since morning, but the clouds had passed by evening. The clear wash of sky and stars sucked out any hope of warmth in the air. The cold was clean and sharp as a razor, slicing keenly against any exposed skin.

She walked fast, using her flashlight to guide the way. She shook her head when she ran the beam over Mac’s Rover. He hadn’t bothered to dig it out. Typical Nutty Professor behavior, she decided. Ignoring the practical. She stomped up to the door, pounded with a wool-covered fist.

He answered wearing a gray sweatshirt that had seen better days and jeans that looked equally well used. She caught the unmistakable scent of Nell’s beef-and-barley soup and quickly decided it was that, and that alone, that made her mouth water.

“Hi. Jesus, it’s freezing out there. Must be down around zero.” Even as he stepped back to let her in, he looked outside. “No car? You walked in this? Are you crazy?”

She studied the equipment jammed cheek by jowl into the tiny living room. “You live like this, and you ask if I’m crazy?”

“It’s too cold to be out for an evening stroll.” Instinctively, he took her gloved hands, rubbing them between his own.

“You get grabby, we’re on the clock.”

“Check the attitude.” His voice wasn’t mild and easygoing now, but hot as a bullet. It had her eyeing him speculatively. “Have you ever seen frostbite?”

“As a matter of fact—hey!” She yanked back when he pulled off her gloves to examine her fingers.

“I was with a group in Nepal a few years ago. One of the students got careless.” Ignoring her resistance, he wiggled her fingers. “He lost two of these.”

“I’m not careless.”

“Okay. Let me take your coat.”

She shrugged out of it, the neck scarf, the wool cap, the insulated vest, piling each layer she peeled off into his arms. “I guess you’re not careless.” Then he glanced around, looking for a place to dump everything.

She couldn’t help it—she grinned. “The floor’s good enough.”

“No, we’ll just . . . the bed,” he remembered, and carted them out down the narrow path he’d made to the bedroom.

“Are you afraid of the dark?” she called out.

“Huh?”

“You’ve got every light on in this place.”

“I do?” He came out again. “I’m always forgetting to turn things off. I bought a quart of Nell’s soup today, I just nuked it. Do you want some?” He waited a beat, reading her perfectly. “Eating’s off the clock.”

“I’m not hungry,” she quickly responded, and felt a good sulk coming on.

“Okay, I’ll have it later so we can get started. Where did I put . . .” He patted his pockets, circled. “Oh, yeah.” And found his mini-recorder beside a monitor. “I want to get some basic personal data first, so we’ll just—”

He broke off again, brow furrowed. He’d piled old files, clippings, research books, photographs, and other tools on the sofa. Even the floor didn’t offer enough room for two people to sit.

“Tell you what, we’ll do this part in the kitchen.”

She shrugged her shoulders, stuffed her hands in her pockets, and followed him back. “I’m going to go ahead and eat, since it’s here.” He took down a bowl, then decided to take pity on her. “Why don’t you change your mind so I don’t feel rude eating in front of you?”

“Fine. Got a beer?”

“No, sorry. Got a pretty decent Merlot, though.”

“That’ll work.” She stood while he dumped soup in bowls, poured wine.

“Have a seat.”

He settled down across from her, got up immediately. “Damn it, one more minute. Go ahead and eat.”

Ripley picked up her spoon as he hurried back out. She heard muttering, papers rattling, and a small crash as something hit the floor.

He came back with a spiral notebook, two pencils, and a pair of metal-framed glasses. The minute he slipped them on, her stomach clutched.

Oh, man, she thought, an incredibly sexy geek.

“I’m going to take notes,” he explained. “Back up the tape. How’s the soup?”

“It’s Nell’s,” she said simply.

“Yeah.” He began to eat. “She saved my life the other night when I lost track of time. I found a container of chowder in the freezer and nearly broke down and cried. Your brother’s a lucky man. I met him yesterday.”

“So he said.” She began to relax, thinking that as long as he made small talk, the clock was ticking.

“They’re great together.”

“I got that impression. How old are you?”

“What?”

“Your age—for the record.”

“I don’t know what the hell that has to do with anything. I turned thirty last month.”

“What day?”

“Fourteenth.”

“Sagittarius. You know the time of birth?”

“I wasn’t paying a lot of attention at the time.” She picked up her wine. “I think my mother said it was about eight at night, after sixteen hours of sweating in the Valley of the Shadow and so on. Why do you need that?”

“I’ll input the data and run an astrological chart. Give you a copy if you want.”

“That stuff’s totally bogus.”

“You’d be surprised. You were born on the island?”

“Yeah, at home—doctor and midwife in attendance.”

“Have you ever experienced any paranormal activity?”

She didn’t mind lying, but she hated the fact that it always made her throat feel tight. “Why would I?”

“Do you remember your dreams?”

“Sure. I had a doozy the other night about Harrison Ford, a peacock feather, and a bottle of canola oil. What do you think that means?”

“Since a cigar is sometimes just a cigar, sexual fantasies are sometimes just about sex. Do you dream in color?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Always?”

She moved her shoulders. “Black and white’s for Bogart movies and art photography.”

“Are your dreams ever prophetic?”

She nearly answered in the affirmative before she caught herself. “So far Harry and I haven’t gotten it on. But I have hope.”

He switched tactics. “Got any hobbies?”

“Hobbies? You mean like . . . quilting or bird watching? No.”

“What do you do with your free time?”

“I don’t know.” She nearly squirmed before she caught herself. “Stuff. TV, movies. I do some sailing.”

“Bogart movies? Top pick?”

“Maltese Falcon. ”

“What do you sail?”

“Zack’s little day cruiser.” She tapped her fingers on the table, let her mind drift. “I think I’m going to get my own, though.”

“Nothing like a day on the water. When did you realize you had power?”

“It was never a . . .” She straightened, carefully wiped all expression off her face. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do, but we can let that slide for the moment if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“I’m not uncomfortable. I just don’t understand the question.”

He set his pencil down, nudged the bowl of soup aside, and looked directly at her. “Let’s put it this way, then. When did you realize you were a witch?”

 

 

Chapter Four

She heard the blood rush and roar in her head, pulsing in time with the gallop of her heart. He sat calmly, studying her as if she were some mildly interesting lab experiment. Her temper began to tick like a bomb.

“What kind of a stupid question is that?”

“With some, it’s an instinct—hereditary knowledge. Others are taught the way a child is taught to walk and talk. There are some who come into it at the onset of puberty. Countless others, I believe, who go through life without ever realizing their potential.”

Now he made her feel as though she was a slightly dim-witted student. “I don’t know where you get this stuff—or where you’ve come up with the half-baked idea that I’m . . .” She wasn’t going to say it, wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of saying it. “This hocus-pocus area is your deal, not mine, Dr. Weird.”

Intrigued, he cocked his head. “Why are you angry?”

“I’m not angry.” She leaned forward. “Want to see me angry?”

“Not particularly. But I’m willing to bet that if I put a sensor on you right now, I’d get some very interesting readings.”

“I’m finished betting with you. In fact, I’m finished with you period.”

He let her get to her feet, continued to make notes. “You still have forty-five minutes on your time. If you’re going to renege . . .” He swept his gaze up, met her furious stare. “I can only assume you’re afraid. It wasn’t my intention to frighten or upset you. I apologize.”

“Stuff your apology.” She strained against pride, always her most fretful war. She’d made the damn bet, she’d accepted the terms. With a bad-tempered jerk, she scraped her chair back out and sat again. He didn’t rub it in, only continued to make notes, as if, Ripley thought, grinding her teeth, he’d known all along he would win.

“I’m going to take a wild leap here. You don’t practice.”

“I have nothing to practice.”

“You’re not a stupid woman. And my impression is you’re very self-aware.” He watched her face. She was trying to remain steady. But there was something beneath the calm veneer, some strong, even passionate emotion.

He wanted desperately to dig in. Discover it. Discover her. But he would never get the chance, he realized, if he alienated her so quickly. “I’m assuming this is a sensitive area for you. I’m sorry.”

“I’ve already told you what you can do with your apology. You can do the same with your assumptions.”

“Ripley . . .” He lifted a hand, spread his fingers in a gesture of peace. “I’m not a reporter looking for a story. I’m not a groupie looking for a show or a neophite searching for a mentor. This is my work. I can promise to respect your privacy, keep your name out of my documentation. I won’t do anything to hurt you.”

“You don’t worry me, Booke. You’re going to have to look for your guinea pig elsewhere. I’m not interested in your . . . work.”

“Is Nell the third?”

“You leave Nell alone.” Before she could think, she reached across, gripped his wrist. “You mess with her, I’ll take you apart.”

He didn’t move, didn’t even breathe. Her pupils had gone so dark they were nearly black. Where her fingers gripped were points of heat so intense he wouldn’t have been surprised to see his skin smoke.

“Bring harm to none,” he managed in a voice that somehow remained steady. “That’s not just Craft philosophy. I believe it. I won’t do anything to hurt your sister-in-law. Or you, Ripley.”

Very slowly, watching her as he might a guard dog who had snapped its chain, he brought his hand up to cover hers. “You can’t control it, can you?” His voice was soft. “Not completely.” He gave her hand a squeeze that was almost friendly. “You’re burning my wrist.”

With that statement she lifted her fingers, spread them. But her hand wasn’t steady as she looked down, saw the red welts where her fingers had been.

“I won’t do this.” She struggled to bring her breathing back to normal, to close off that violent spike of energy. To be herself again.

“Here.” She hadn’t heard him get up, or go to the sink. In an instant he was standing beside her, offering her a glass of water.

After she’d taken it, gulped it down, she was no longer sure whether she was angry or embarrassed. But she was sure it was his fault. “You’ve no right to come here, prying into people’s lives.”

“Knowledge, and truth, save us from chaos.” His tone was quiet, reasonable. And made her want to bite him. “Tempering them with compassion and tolerance makes us human. Without those things, fanatics feed on fear and ignorance. The way they did in Salem , three hundred years ago.”

“Not hanging witches anymore doesn’t make the world tolerant. I don’t want to be part of your study. That’s the bottom line.”

“Okay.” She looked so tired all at once, he noted. Bone-weary. It stirred him, a mixture of guilt and sympathy. “All right. But something happened the other night that might make that difficult for both of us.”

He waited a moment, while she shifted in her chair then gave him her reluctant attention. “I saw a woman on the beach. At first I thought it was you. Same eyes, same coloring. She was very alone, and brutally sad. She looked at me, for one long moment. Then vanished.”

Ripley pressed her lips together, then picked up her wine. “Maybe you’ve been drinking too much Merlot.”

“She wants redemption. I want to help her find it.”

“You want data,” she tossed back. “You want to legitimate your crusade, maybe cop a book deal.”

“I want to understand.” No, he admitted, that wasn’t all of it. That wasn’t the core of it. “I want to know.”

“Then talk to Mia. She loves attention.”

“You grew up together?”

“Yeah. So?”

It was easier, he decided, even more pleasant, to deal with her when she had her attitude back in place.

“I caught some . . . tension between the two of you.”

“I must repeat myself. So?”

“Curiosity is the scientist’s first tool.”

“It also killed the cat,” Ripley said with a glimmer of her former sneer. “And I don’t call bopping around the globe playing witch-hunter science.”

“You know, that’s just what my father says.” He spoke cheerfully as he rose to take their soup bowls to the sink.

“Your father sounds like a sensible man.”

“Oh, he is that. I’m a constant disappointment to him. No, that’s unfair,” Mac decided as he came back, topped off their wine. “I’m more a puzzle, and he’s sure some of the pieces have gone missing. So. Tell me about your parents.”

“They’re retired. My father was sheriff before Zack, my mother was a CPA. They took their life on the road a while back, in a big Winnebago.”

“Hitting the national parks.”

“That, and whatever. They’re having the time of their lives. Like a couple of kids on an endless spring break.”

It wasn’t what she said so much as how she said it that told him the Todd family was tight and happy. Her problem with her power didn’t stem from family conflict. He was sure of that.

“You and your brother work together.”

“Obviously.”

There was no doubt about it, she was back. “I met him the other day. You’re not much like him.” He glanced up from his notes. “Except for the eyes.”

“Zack got all the nice-guy genes in the family. There weren’t any left over for me.”

“You were there when he was injured while arresting Evan Remington.”

Her face went very still again. “Do you want to read the police report?”

“Actually, I have. It must’ve been a rough night.” And let’s just circle around that for now, he decided.

“Do you like being a cop?”

“I don’t do things I don’t like.”

“Lucky you. Why The Maltese Falcon?”

“Huh?”

“I was wondering why you picked that instead of, say, Casablanca ?”

Ripley shook her head, adjusted her thoughts. “I don’t know. Because I figure Bergman should’ve told Bogart, ‘Paris, my butt’ instead of getting on the plane. In Falcon he did the job. He turned Astor over. That was justice.”

“I always figured Ilsa and Rick got together after the war, and Sam Spade . . . Well, he just kept being Sam Spade. What kind of music do you like?”

“What?”

“Music. You said you like working out to music.”

“What does that have to do with your project?”

“You said you didn’t want to be involved in my work. We might as well pass the rest of the time getting to know each other.”

She blew out a breath, sipped her wine. “You’re a really strange individual.”

“All right, then, enough about you. Let’s talk about me.” He sat back and, when her face blurred out of focus, remembered to remove his reading glasses. “I’m thirty-three, embarrassingly rich. The second son of the New York Bookes. Real estate. The MacAllister branch—we have that surname as first name in common—they’re corporate law. I got interested in preternatural subjects when I was a kid. The history, variations, the effect on cultures and societies. My interest caused my family to seek the advice of a psychologist, who assured them this was just a form of rebellion.”

“They took you to a shrink because you liked spooky?”

“When you’re a fourteen-year-old college freshman, someone’s always calling the shrink.”

“Fourteen?” She pursed her lips. “That had to be strange.”

“Well, it was pretty hard to get a date, let me tell you.” The slight twitching of her lips pleased him. “I channeled the energy from what would have been those first sexual rumbles into study and my personal interest.”

“So you got off on books and research.”

“In a manner of speaking. By the time I was eighteen, my parents had given up on trying to box me into one of the family firms. Then I hit twenty-one and came into the first lap of my trust fund and could do what I wanted.”

She angled her head. She was interested now, couldn’t help herself. “Did you ever get a date?”

“A couple. I know what it is to be pushed in a direction you don’t want to go, or one you’re not ready for. People say they know what’s best for you. Maybe sometimes it’s true. But it doesn’t matter if they keep pushing until they take your choices away.”

“Is that why you’re letting me off the hook tonight?”

“That’s one reason. Another is because you’re going to change your mind. Don’t get steamed,” he said quickly when her mouth thinned. “When I first came here, I thought it would be Mia I needed to work with. But it’s you—at least primarily it’s you.”

“Why?”

“That’s something I’d like to find out. Meanwhile, you’ve paid off your bet. I’ll drive you home.”

“I’m not going to change my mind.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’ve got plenty of time to waste. I’ll get your coat.”

“And I don’t need you to drive me home.”

“We can arm-wrestle over that,” he called back. “But I’m not letting you walk home in the dark, in subzero temperatures.”

“You can’t drive me home. You didn’t dig out your car.”

“So I’ll dig it out, then drive you home. Five minutes.”

She’d have argued with that, but the front door slammed and she was left stewing in the house alone. Curious, she eased open the back door, stood shivering while she watched him attack the snow around the Rover with a shovel. She had to admit those muscles she’d seen that morning in the gym weren’t just for show. It appeared that Dr. Booke knew how to put his back into the job at hand. Still, he wasn’t particularly thorough. She nearly called out to say so when it occurred to her that any comment she made would prove she’d been interested enough to watch him. Instead she shut the door and rubbed the warmth back into her hands and arms.

When the front door slammed again, and she heard him stomping his feet, she was leaning against the kitchen counter, looking bored.

“Bitching cold out there,” he called back. “Where did I put your stuff?”

“In the bedroom.” And since she had a minute, she scurried around the table to flip through his notes. Hissed when she saw they were in shorthand, or what she assumed was shorthand. In any case, the notes were odd symbols, lines and loops that meant nothing to her. But the sketch in the center of a page had her gaping.

It was her face. And a damn good likeness, too. A quick pencil sketch, full face. She looked . . . annoyed, she decided. And watchful. Well, he was right about that, too. There was no doubt in her mind that MacAllister Booke bore watching. She was standing a foot away from the table, her hands innocently in her pockets, when he came back.

“Took me a few minutes longer because I couldn’t find my keys. I still can’t figure out what they were doing in the bathroom sink.”

“Poltergeist?” she said sweetly and made him laugh.

“I wish. I just never seem to put anything in the same place twice.” He’d tracked snow through the house. Rather than point it out, Ripley slipped on her vest and scarf. He held her coat, made her shake her head when she realized he intended to help her on with it.

“I can never figure that out. How do you guys figure we get our coats on when you’re not around?”

“We have no idea.” Amused, he set her cap on her head, then pulled her hair through the back as he’d seen her wear it. “Gloves?”

She pulled them out of her pocket. “Are you going to put them on for me, too, Daddy?”

“Sure, honey.” But when he reached out, she slapped his hand away. And was grinning until she saw the welts on his wrist. Guilt churned in her. She didn’t mind hurting someone, when they deserved it. But not that way. Never that way.

Still, what was done could be undone, even if it did mean swallowing pride. He saw a change in her expression as she stared at his wrist. “It’s no big deal,” he began and started to pull his cuffs down.

“It is to me.” She didn’t bother to sigh, but took his wrist again. Her gaze shot up, held his. “This is off my time, off the record. Off everything. Understood?”

“All right.”

“What in anger I have harmed, I regret and spin this charm. Heal this hurt caused by me by the power of one times three. As I will, so mote it be.”

He felt the mild pain, the heat lift away from his skin. The flesh where her fingers lay was now cool, as if they’d drawn the burns out. There was a jump in his belly, not so much from the physical change as from the change in her eyes. He had looked into power before, and knew he looked into it now. It was something he never forgot to respect.

“Thanks,” he told her.

“Don’t mention it.” She turned away. “I mean that.”

When she reached for the doorknob on the kitchen door, his hand, its wrist unmarked, closed over it first. “We don’t know how you open doors either,” he said. “They’re so heavy and complicated.”

“Funny guy.” When they stepped out, his hand slid under to cup her elbow. The long, baleful look she sent him only brought on a shrug.

“It’s a little icy. I can’t help it. It’s very difficult to resist early childhood training.”

She let it go, and didn’t have the heart to jab at him when he walked her around the Rover and opened the passenger door for her. It wasn’t much of a drive, but as she directed him she realized she was, indeed, grateful for the lift. Even in the hour she’d been inside, the temperature had dropped. The heater wouldn’t have time to kick in, but at least they were out of the open air—air that seemed cold enough to break.

“If you’re looking for more firewood, Jack Stubens sells it by the cord,” she told him.

“Stubens. Can you write that down?” Steering one-handed, he dug in his pocket. “Got any paper?”

“No.”

“Try the glove compartment.”

She opened it, and felt her jaw drop in shock. There were dozens of notes, countless pens, rubber bands, a half-empty bag of pretzels, three flashlights, a hunting knife, and several unidentified objects. She pulled one out that looked to be made up of red twine, various beads, and human hair.

“What’s this?”

He glanced over. “Gris-gris. It was a gift. No paper?”

She stared at him another moment, then put the charm back and pulled out one of the many scribbled notes. “Stubens,” she repeated, scrawling it on the scrap of paper. “Jack, over on Owl Haunt Lane.”

“Thanks.” He took the paper, stuffed it in his pocket.

“Turn here. It’s the two-story, wraparound porch.”

As the police cruiser was in the drive, he could’ve figured it out for himself. Lights were glowing cheerfully in the windows, and smoke puffed out of the chimney.

“Nice house.” He got out, and though she’d already hopped down before he could come around and open her door, he took her arm again.

“Look, Mac, it’s kind of cute and all that, but you don’t need to walk me to the door. This wasn’t a date.”

“It’s a compulsion. Besides, we had a meal, and conversation. And wine. So that’s several date elements.”

She stopped on the porch, turned. He’d pulled a ski cap on, and his dark blond hair escaped here and there. He couldn’t help but look at her intensely. “So, what, you want a kiss good night now?”

“Okay.”

The response was so cheerful, so harmlessly cheerful, she grinned. But only for an instant. He had. . . moves. Smooth, unexpected, incredible moves.

It wasn’t fast, but it was so slick, so silky, she had no time to readjust. To think. His arms came around her, slid her against him, body to body so that without any real pressure she was molded to him. He dipped her back, just the slightest bit, and somehow conjured the illusion that they were horizontal instead of vertical.

The intimacy of it jolted through her, sent her head on a dizzy spin even before his mouth took hers. Soft. Warm. Deep. His lips didn’t brush or nibble, but simply absorbed. Now the dizziness was joined by a shimmering wave of heat that seemed to start in her toes and rise until it melted every bone. A little sound—stunned pleasure—hummed in her throat. Her lips parted in welcome. Oh, more! It took two tries to lift her boneless arms and circle his neck.

Her knees buckled. It wouldn’t have surprised her to feel her body simply dissolve and slide in little liquid drops into a pool at his feet. When he eased back, gently set her away, her vision was blurred, her mind blank.

“We’ll have to do this again sometime,” he said.

“Uh.” She couldn’t quite remember how to form words.

He gave her hair a friendly tug. “Better get inside before you freeze.”

“Ah.” She gave up, turned blindly and walked into the door.

“Let me get that for you.” He spoke quietly, quite soberly, and turned the knob, nudged the door open.

“Good night, Ripley.”

“Mmm.”

She stepped inside, then had no choice but to lean back against the door he closed until she got her bearings and her breath back.

Harmless? Had she actually thought he was harmless?

She managed to stagger a few steps, then lowered herself to the bottom tread of the staircase. She would just wait until her legs were back under her, she decided, before she tried to make it upstairs to her room.

* * *

January 8 ,2002

9–10 P .M . EST

I’ll transcribe my notes and the tape from my initial interview with Ripley Todd shortly. I didn’t make as much progress with her as I’d hoped. However, there were two specific incidents that will be set down in more detail in my official log. My personal reaction, however, belongs here.

Ripley’s temperament and her protective attitude toward her sister-in-law, Nell Todd (data on Nell Todd cross-referenced under her name), can and will overpower her reluctance to discuss her gift. Or, as I learned tonight, to demonstrate that gift. It’s my impression that her warning to me when I mentioned Nell was instinctive, and the result was unplanned. Harming me was a by-product rather than a goal. The burns on my wrist, from visual examination, matched the grip and shape of her fingers. It wasn’t a flash burn, but more a steady increase in heat. As you might experience when turning up a flame.

Her physical changes during this phenomenon were a dilation of pupils, a flush under the skin. Her anger turned inward immediately. I believe this lack of control, and a fear of what she is capable of, are what cause her reluctance to discuss, and explore, the nature of her talents.

She’s an interesting woman, one obviously close to her family. In all areas but this, I sense and observe a complete confidence, an ease of self. She’s beautiful when she smiles.

He stopped, nearly crossed out his last observation. It wasn’t even accurate. She wasn’t beautiful—attractive, intriguing, but not beautiful.

Still, he reminded himself, the journal was for impressions. The thought that she was beautiful must have been in his mind for him to note it down. So it stayed.

The second incident occurred just before we left, and was, I have no doubt, more difficult for her. The fact that she would remove the burns, deliberately demonstrate her ability, indicates a strong sense of right and wrong. That, as with her instinct to protect who and what she loves, overcomes her need to block off her gift.

I hope, as time goes on, to discover what event or events influenced her to deny or abjure her powers. I need to see her again, to verify my suppositions.

“Oh, hell,” he muttered. If he couldn’t be honest here, where?

I want to see her again, on a completely personal level. I’ve enjoyed being with her, even when she’s rude and insulting. It worries me, a bit, that I might enjoy being with her because she’s rude and insulting. Beyond that, there’s a strong sexual attraction. Unlike the sheer admiration for beauty I felt on first meeting Mia Devlin—and the completely natural and human fantasy that resulted—this is more basic, and therefore, more compelling. I want, on one level, to carefully take this complex woman apart, piece by piece, and understand what she is. On the other, I just want to . . .

Nope, Mac decided, even a personal journal needed some censoring. He couldn’t write down just what he wanted to do with Ripley Todd.

I find myself wondering what it would be like to be her lover.

There, he thought, that was acceptable. No point in going into graphic detail.

I drove her home tonight, as the temperatures are hovering at zero Fahrenheit. The fact that she had walked here, and would have walked home under such conditions, demonstrates her stubbornness as well as her independence. She was, very obviously, amused at simple courtesies such as helping her with her coat, holding the door. Not insulted, but amused, which I found disarming.

I wouldn’t have kissed her if she hadn’t brought it up. I certainly had no intention of doing so at this early stage of our relationship. Her response was unexpected and. . . arousing. She’s a strong woman, body and mind, and to feel her going almost limp . . .

He had to stop, take a breath, guzzle some of the water he’d poured.

To feel the reaction of her body to mine, and the heat . . . Knowing the chemical and biological causes for the increase of body heat during such an event doesn’t diminish the wonder of the experience. I can still taste her—strong again, a strong and sharp flavor. And hear the kind of purr she made down in her throat. My legs went weak, and when her arms came around my neck, it was like being surrounded by her. Another minute—another instant, and I would have forgotten that we were standing on an open porch on a bitterly cold night. But since I had—despite her teasing—initiated the embrace, it was my responsibility. At least I had the satisfaction of seeing her face, and the dazed, dreamy expression in her eyes. And of watching her walk straight into the door.

That was a good one. Of course, I nearly ran off the road twice coming back to the cottage—and got lost, but that part isn’t atypical without the stimuli. Yes, I want to see her again, on a number of levels. And I don’t expect to sleep particularly well tonight.

 

 

Chapter Five

Nell iced the last batch of cinnamon buns and bided her time. She had an hour before she needed to load up her car with the café stock. Today’s soup was porcini mushroom, and it was already sealed in the kettle. The three salad selections were prepared, the muffins baked. She’d finished the napoleons. She’d been up and at it since five-thirty. Diego, her sleek gray cat, was curled on one of the kitchen chairs, watching her. Lucy, the big black Lab, sprawled in a corner, watching Diego. They had come to terms—Diego’s terms—and lived together in an acceptable state of distrust and suspicion.

While her cookies baked, Nell kept the radio on low and waited. When Ripley entered, bleary-eyed, wearing the sweatpants and football jersey she’d slept in, Nell simply held out a mug of coffee. Ripley grunted, as close to a thank-you as she could manage before caffeine, and plopped into a chair.

“Too much snow for your morning run.”

Ripley grunted again. She never felt completely herself without her three miles. But the coffee was helping. She sipped, idly patted Lucy’s head when the Lab came over to greet her. She’d have to use the damn treadmill. Hated that. But she couldn’t go two days without a run. Zack was taking the first shift—where the hell was Zack?—so she could wait until midmorning before popping into the gym. She didn’t want to run into Mac.

Not that he worried her or anything. She’d already reasoned out a number of very plausible excuses for her reaction to that good-night kiss. She just didn’t want to deal with him, that was all there was to it. Nell set a bowl in front of her. Ripley blinked at it. “What?”

“Oatmeal.”

Suspicious and far from enthusiastic, Ripley leaned over and sniffed. “What’s in it?”

“Nutrition.” Nell took a batch of cookies from the oven, slid in another tray. “Try it before you make icky faces.”

“Okay, okay.” She had been making icky faces behind Nell’s back. It was sort of lowering to be caught at it. She sampled, pursed her lips, took another spoonful. There didn’t seem to be anything Nell put together that didn’t go down well. “It’s good. My mother used to cook oatmeal in the winter, but it looked like gray glue. Tasted worse.”

“Your mother has other talents.” Nell poured herself a cup of coffee. She’d all but shoved Zack out of the house early so she could grab this time with Ripley. She didn’t intend to waste it. She sat. “So, how did it go?”

“What?”

“Your evening with Mac Booke.”

“It wasn’t an evening. It was an hour.”

Defensive, Nell thought. Cranky. Well, well. “How did your hour go?”

“It came and it went, which wraps up my obligation.”

“I was glad he drove you home.” At Ripley’s lifted brows, Nell blinked her baby blues innocently. “I heard the car.”

And had looked out the window. Had seen Mac walk Ripley to the door. There’d been quite the little time lag before he’d walked back to the car.

“Yeah, he was all ‘It’s too cold out. You’ll get frostbite and die before you get home.’ ” She shoved oatmeal into her mouth, then wagged her spoon. “Like I don’t know how to take care of myself. Guys like that burn me. He can’t even find his keys half the time, but I’m going to wander off and turn into a Popsicle. Please.”

“I’m glad he drove you home,” Nell repeated.

“Yeah, well.” Ripley sighed, toyed with her oatmeal by putting little crescent-shaped dents on it with the tip of her spoon. She decided it looked sort of like a moonscape.

If he hadn’t driven her home, she’d have been fine, but she’d have missed one whale of a kiss. Not that she was obsessing about it or anything.

“You wouldn’t recognize the cottage,” she went on. “It looks like the den of some mad scientist. All this electronic and computer junk shoved in there. No place to sit down except the kitchen. The guy’s totally wrapped up in his spook show. He’s even got some voodoo charm in his glove compartment. He knows about me,” she finished in a rush, and lifted her gaze to Nell’s.

“Oh.” Nell drew in a quiet breath. “Did you tell him?”

Ripley shook her head. Her insides jittered, infuriating her. “He just knew. Like I had a sign on my forehead, saying ‘Local Witch.’ It’s all real academic with him. ‘Well, this is interesting, Deputy Todd, perhaps you could conjure something for me for the recorder.’ ”

“Did he ask you to do magic?”

“No.” Ripley rubbed her hands over her face. “No,” she said again. “But I . . . Damn it, he pissed me off, and I . . . I burned him.”

“Oh, my God.” Coffee sloshed at the rim as Nell set her cup down.

“I didn’t set him on fire or anything. I burned his wrist with my fingers.” She stared down at them now. Harmless, ordinary, maybe a little on the long side, with short, unpainted nails. Nothing special. Lethal.

“I didn’t think about it, not consciously. All the mad went to heat and the heat went to my fingers. I haven’t needed to think about it, to worry about it, in so long. The last few months . . .”

“Since you opened back up to help me,” Nell finished quietly. She rose at the buzz of the oven timer.

“I don’t regret that, Nell, not for an instant. It was my choice, and I’d do it again. It’s just that it’s been harder to lock everything down again. I don’t know why—”

Wouldn’t admit why, she thought, and ground that thought to dust. “It just is. I caused physical harm. I had to fix it, but that doesn’t make up for causing it.”

“How did he deal with it?”

“Like it was no big deal. Got me a glass of water, practically patted me on the head and went back to conversation like I’d done nothing more than spill some wine on the tablecloth. The man’s got cajones, I’ll give him that.”

Nell walked back, stroked Ripley’s hair as she might have stroked a child. “You’re too hard on yourself. I can’t even count the mistakes I’ve made in the past few months, even with Mia guiding me step by step.”

“It’s not a good time to bring her name up.” Ripley leaned over again, began to eat as if the food would ease the clenching in her stomach. “If she hadn’t brought him here—”

“She didn’t bring him, Ripley.” The faint but unmistakable edge of impatience in Nell’s voice had Ripley hunching her shoulders. “And if she hadn’t rented him the cottage, he’d have found another, or stayed at the hotel. Did it ever occur to you that by renting him her cottage, by agreeing to talk to him, she controls the situation to an extent that she couldn’t otherwise?”

Ripley opened her mouth, shut it again. “No, it didn’t. It should have. She never misses a trick.”

“I’m going to talk to him, too.”

The spoon clattered into the bowl. “That’s just a bad idea. All-round bad idea.”

“I’ve thought about it. He’s promised Mia that he won’t use real names without permission. I’m interested in his work,” she continued, scooping cookies off the tray and onto the cooling rack. “I’d like to know more about it myself. I don’t have the same feelings for what I am as you do.”

“I can’t tell you what to do.” But Ripley would make certain Mac didn’t push too hard, or in the wrong direction. “How does Zack feel about it?”

“He’s left it up to me. He trusts me, respects me. That’s every bit as wonderful as knowing he loves me. I’m not worried about Dr. Booke.”

“He’s sneakier than he looks,” Ripley muttered. “He sort of lulls you into thinking he’s like this harmless puppy dog. But he’s not.”

“What is he?”

“Smart, slick. Oh, he’s got those puppy-dog qualities in there, and the combination throws you off. One minute he’s looking around with that lost look, wondering where he put his head last time he took it off. And the next . . .”

Nell sat again. “And the next?”

“He kissed me.”

Nell’s fingertips tapped together before she laced them. “Really?”

“It was supposed to be like a joke. Guy has to walk you to the door like you’re coming back from prom night. Then he just sort of . . .” She trailed off as she tried to mime the way his arms had slid around her.

“And you know, reeled me in. Taking his time about it, and everything got blurry and hot. Then it was like being gulped down, slow.”

“Oh, my.”

“I didn’t have any bones left, so I was just, like, fused against him while he’s doing all these incredible things to my mouth.” She blew out a breath, sucked another in. “I’ve kissed a lot of men, and I’m damn good at it. But I couldn’t keep up.”

“Wow. Well.” Nell scooted her chair an inch closer. “What happened next?”

“I walked into the door.” Ripley cringed. “It was mortifying. I walked right into the door. Blap. And Dr. Romeo just politely opens it for me. It’s the first time a kiss ever made me feel like an idiot, and it’s going to be the last.”

“If you’re attracted to him—”

“He’s cute, he’s built, he’s sexy, of course I’m attracted to him.” Ripley gave a quick shake of her head.

“But that’s not the issue. He shouldn’t have been able to dissolve my brain with one kiss. The problem is I haven’t been going out in a while. It’s been more than four months since I had, you know. . . .”

“Ripley.” Nell gave a quick laugh.

“I figure this was just like, I don’t know, spontaneous combustion or something. He’s got good moves, boom. Now that I know what’s up, I can handle it.”

Feeling better, she polished off the oatmeal. “I can handle him.”

Mac browsed the bookstore, flipping pages, scanning covers. He’d already acquired and read material on Three Sisters, but there were a couple of books here he’d yet to come across. He tucked them under his arm and continued to wander.

The store had a nice eclectic selection. He found a pretty volume of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese; the latest in a vampire hunter series he liked; two books on local sites, flora and fauna; and a handbook for solitary witches. And two other books on the paranormal to replace those he’d misplaced. . . somewhere.

Then there was a really cool Arthurian Tarot deck.

Not that he collected them or anything.

Never one to miss an opportunity to indulge in books, he took them all. They would, he thought, entertain him in his free time and give him the opening he wanted to talk to Lulu. He carried the books to the checkout counter, offered his most innocent smile. “Terrific bookstore. You don’t expect to see this kind of selection in a small town.”

“Lots of things around here people don’t expect.” Lulu glared at him over the top of her glasses to let him know she’d yet to make up her mind about him. “Cash or charge?”

“Uh, charge.” He dug out his wallet, tilted his head to see the title of the book she’d been reading. Serial Killers: Their Hearts, Their Minds. Oh, boy. “How’s the book?”

“Too much psychobabble, not enough blood. Intellectual types don’t cut much mustard.”

“A lot of intellectual types don’t get out in the world enough. Too much classroom, not enough fieldwork.” He leaned companionably on the counter, as if she were handing him roses instead of thorns.

“Did you know one theory is Jack the Ripper had preternatural powers, and while his period in London was the first documented case of serial killing, he’d lived before, and killed before, in Rome, Gaul, Brittany.”

She continued to watch him over the top of her glasses as she rang up the books. “I don’t hold with that.”

“Me, either. But it makes a good story. The Ripper—Murder Through Time. The way I read it, he was the first to use the hornless goat—human sacrifice,” he explained when Lulu’s eyes narrowed—“in ritual magic. Black magic. Very black.”

“Is that what you’re looking for around here? Blood sacrifices?”

“No, ma’am. Wicca uses no blood sacrifice. The white witch harms none.”

“Lulu. Don’t call me ma’am.” She sniffed at him. “Pretty clever, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. Sometimes it irritates people.”

“You’re barking up the wrong tree with me, pretty boy. I’m not a witch.”

“No, you just raised one. It must’ve been interesting watching Mia grow up. And Ripley.” He began to shuffle his purchases idly. “They’re about the same age, aren’t they?”

Yes, she thought. Very clever boy. “What of it?”

“You know how it is with intellectual types. We’re full of questions. I’d like to interview you, if Mia doesn’t mind.”

Caution warred with delight. “What for?”

“Call it human interest. Most people don’t understand the ordinary, the everyday pattern of an extraordinary woman. Even if they open their minds to the extraordinary they tend to think there’s no usual, no simple. No math homework, or getting grounded for coming in after curfew, or having someone’s shoulder to lean on.”

Lulu swiped the credit card he handed her. “Have you got personal designs on Mia?”

“No. But I sure like looking at her.”

“I don’t have time to talk to some college boy for his term paper.”

Mac signed the credit slip without, Lulu noted, looking at the total. “I’ll pay you.”

She heard the faint sound— ca-ching—in the back of her mind. “How much?”

“Fifty an hour.”

“What, are you stupid?”

“No. Loaded.”

Shaking her head, Lulu handed him his sack of books. “I’ll think about it.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

When he walked out, she shook her head again. Pay her to talk. Could you beat that?

She was still wondering over it when Mia glided down the stairs. “Too quiet in here today, Lu. I think I’m going to run a cookbook sale upstairs, get people in. Nell could make some samples from some of the books.”

“Whatever. College Boy was just in.”

“Who? Oh.” Mia handed Lulu the cup of tea she’d brought her from the café. “The interesting and yummy MacAllister Booke.”

“Shelled out over a hundred fifty for books without batting an eye.”

Mia’s businesswoman’s heart went pitty-pat. “Bless him.”

“Looks like he can afford it. He offered me fifty an hour to talk to him.”

“Really?” Sipping her own tea, Mia lifted an eyebrow. She knew Lulu had an ongoing love affair with profit, an affection she’d learned at Lulu’s knobby knee. “I should’ve charged him more rent. What does he want to talk to you about?”

“You. Said it was like human interest. How many times I had to swat your butt when you were growing up, that sort of thing.”

“I don’t think we need refer back to the unfortunate incidents of butt-swatting,” Mia said dryly. “But this is interesting and unexpected. I’d thought he’d be pestering and pressuring me to discuss and demonstrate. Instead he’s letting all that sit to one side and offering you a consultant fee to discuss my formative years.”

She tapped a fingertip on her bottom lip. Both were painted bold red. “Very clever of him.”

“He admitted he was, and that it irritated some people.”

“I’m not irritated. I’m intrigued, which is just what he’d hoped for, I imagine.”

“Claims he doesn’t have any designs on you of a personal nature.”

“Now, I’m insulted.” With a laugh, Mia kissed Lulu’s cheek. “Still watching out for me?”

“You could do worse than take a look in his direction. He’s polite, rich, and has brains—and he’s not tough to look at.”

“He’s not for me.” With a little sigh, she rested her cheek on Lulu’s hair. “I’d know if he was.”

Lulu started to speak, then kept her tongue still, hooked an arm around Mia’s waist.

“I’m not thinking of Samuel Logan,” Mia said, though she had been. The only man who’d ever held her heart. The only man who’d ever crushed it. “I’m just not romantically attracted to the interesting, clever, and yummy Dr. Booke. Are you going to talk to him?”

“Depends.”

“If you’re worried that I have an objection, I don’t. I can protect myself if I need protecting. And I won’t, not from him.”

There was something else, something not quite clear, that slithered around the edges of home. But it didn’t come from MacAllister Booke.

She drew away, picked up her tea again. “In fact, I may agree to talk to him myself. Fifty dollars an hour.” She let out a low, delighted laugh. “Fascinating.”

Loaded down with portable equipment, Mac plowed through the snow piled on the floor of the narrow forest beside his cottage. The police report and the newspaper stories he’d read cited this as the place Nell had run to when Evan Remington attacked her and Zack Todd. He’d already completed scans of the kitchen area, the site of the attack. He’d found no negative energy there, no remnants of violence. Which had surprised him until he’d reasoned out that either Nell or Mia would have cleansed the house. He hoped to find something in the woods.

The air was still and cold. Ice gleamed on the dark trunks and branches of trees. Snow lay on them like fur. He saw, and was charmed by, what he recognized as deer tracks, and automatically checked his camera to be certain he’d loaded film. He passed a little brook where trickles of water forced their way over rocks and ice. Though his gauges didn’t register any anomaly, he felt something. It took him a moment to realize it was simply peace. Simply pleasure.

A bird called, flashed by like a bullet. Mac just stood, happy and content. It felt good here, he thought. A place where the mind could be quiet. A place for picnics or contemplation. With some reluctance, he continued to walk, but promised himself he would come back and just enjoy. He wandered, and though he hated to spoil the mood, he tried to imagine what it had been like to run, fleeing in the dark from a man bent on violence. A man armed with a knife already bloody. Bastard, he thought. The bastard had hunted her down. A rabid wolf after a doe. Because he could. Because he would rather have seen her dead than free of him. Prepared to swipe the knife over her throat rather than lose what he considered his possession.

Fury raged in him, hot, roiling fury. He could almost smell the blood, the hate. The fear. Steeped in it, he needed several moments to realize that his sensors were going wild.

“Jesus!” He jolted back, shook himself, and was abruptly the cool-headed scientist again.

“Here. Right here.”

He swept with scanners, dragging out his tape recorder, muttering data into it. He paced off the area, using another gauge to measure distance, radius, diameter. Down on his knees in the snow, he recorded, calculated, documented. Considered, while the numbers and needles on his tools swung wildly.

“Highest charge, almost pure positive energy encompasses an area of twelve feet, in a perfect circle. Most rites of paranormal origin involve protective circles. This is the most powerful I’ve found.”

Pocketing his tools, he used his hands to dig, to clear. A light sweat covered his back before he uncovered a reasonable portion of the energy circle.

“There are no markings under the snow. No symbols. I’ll need to come back with a shovel to clear the entire circle. If this was made on the night Evan Remington was arrested, it was cast more than two months ago and would have been ritualistically closed on that same night. Yet there is a positive echo registering a steady six-point-two on my scale.”

Six-point-two! His mind leaped at the data. Hot dog!

“My previous experience, with an active circle during an initiation rite, registered no more than five-eight. Check those data.”

He got to his feet again, snow clinging everywhere as he took photographs. He dropped his tape recorder, cursed, and spent some time scooping it out of a pile of snow, then worrying that he’d damaged it. But nothing could diminish the thrill. He stood in the silent wood and wondered if he had stumbled across the heart of the Sisters.

An hour later, without bothering to go back to the cottage, Mac was trudging along the snowy beach. The tide had moved in, moved out and swallowed some of the snow with it. But the damp and the cold had packed what remained like bricks in a wall. The air was far from still here, shivering in from the sea in icy streams. Despite the layers he wore, his fingers and toes were beginning to feel it. He thought idly about a steaming-hot shower, steaming-hot coffee, as he examined the area where he remembered seeing the woman on his first night on the island.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He looked up and saw Ripley standing at the seawall. And was mildly embarrassed that looking at her turned his thoughts, immediately, to steaming-hot sex.

“Working. How about you?”

She set her hands on her hips. He couldn’t see her eyes, as she wore dark glasses. It made him wish he’d remembered his own, for the sun bouncing off the snow was blinding.

“Working at what? Becoming the Abominable Snowman?”

“The yeti isn’t indigenous to this part of the world.”

“Take a look at yourself, Booke.”

He did, glancing down. He was, indeed, covered with snow. It was, he knew, going to be a damn mess when he peeled everything off for that shower. “I guess I’m really into my work.” He shrugged. Since it didn’t appear that she would come to him, he started toward her. It wasn’t an easy process, and he managed to find a couple of snowdrifts that hit above his knees. But he trudged to the seawall, hitched himself up on it, and caught his breath.

“Ever hear of frostbite?” she said dryly.

“I can still feel my toes, but thanks for thinking of me. How about some coffee?”

“I don’t happen to have any on me.”

“Buy you a cup.”

“I’m working.”

“Maybe I do have frostbite.” He turned his head and sent her a soulful look. “Wouldn’t it be your duty as a civil servant to assist me to a warm and sheltered location?”

“No, but I’ll call the health clinic.”

“Okay, strike one.” He swung over the wall, remembering in the nick of time to protect his dangling camera, and stood beside her. “Where are you headed?”

“Why?”

“I thought wherever it was, there’d be coffee.”

She sighed. He looked frozen and ridiculously adorable. “All right, come on. I’m heading in, anyway.”

“Didn’t see you at the gym this morning.”

“I got a late start.”

“Didn’t see you around the village either.”

“You’re seeing me now.”

She had a long stride, he noted. He barely had to check his to keep pace with her. She stopped in front of the station house, took a good look at him. “Stomp that snow off your boots.”

He obeyed, sent a little flurry of snow from his coat and pants.

“Oh, for God’s sake. Turn around.” She slapped and brushed at the snow that clung to him, scowling as she worked her way around to the front. Then her eyes flicked up, caught his grin.

“What are you smiling at?”

“Maybe I just like being handled. Want me to do you?”

“You’ll watch your step if you want that coffee.” She shoved the door open and was bitterly disappointed that Zack wasn’t in.

She peeled off her gloves, her coat, unwinding her neck scarf as he did the same. “What the hell were you doing crawling around in the snow?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“I guess I don’t.” She walked to the coffeepot, poured the last of the thick brew into two cups.

“I’ll tell you anyway. I was in the woods earlier, and found the area where you . . . dealt with Remington that night.”

Her stomach did a quick jerk and clench, a sensation he seemed to cause regularly. “How do you know you found it?”

He took the coffee she held out. “It’s my job to know. You closed the circle, didn’t you?”

“Talk to Mia about that.”

“Just yes or no, it’s not a hard choice.”

“Yes.” Curiosity needled her. “Why?”

“Because there’s an energy echo. Unprecedented in my experience. Strong magic.”

“Like I said, that’s Mia’s area.”

Patiently, he blew on the hot coffee. “Is there a specific reason the two of you don’t get along, or is it more general?”

“It’s specific and general, and none of your business.”

“Okay.” He sipped. It tasted like hot mud, but he’d had worse. “Want to have dinner tonight?”

“Yes, I do, and I plan to.”

His lips twitched. “I meant with me.”

“Then no.”

“It’s going to be hard to work my way around to kissing you good night again if we don’t have dinner first.”

She leaned on the little table that held the coffeepot. “That was a one-time deal.”

“You might change your mind after we split a pizza.”

She was already changing her mind. Just looking at him whetted her appetite. “Are you as good with the rest of the routine as you are with kissing?”

“Now how am I supposed to answer that without sounding like an idiot?”

“Good point. Let’s say I’ll think about splitting a pizza at some later date. If and when that event occurs, your work, as it involves me, is off the table.”

“I can agree to that.” He held out a hand.

She considered ignoring it, but it seemed cowardly. She clasped his hand, shook, and felt great relief that there was nothing there but the casual meeting of palms.

But he didn’t let go.

“This is really terrible coffee,” he said.

“I know.” What was happening now was completely natural, she told herself. That stirring of the blood, woman for man. The anticipatory thrill, the memory of just what that mouth of his was capable of.

“Oh, hell.” She moved into him. “Do it.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” He set his coffee down. This time he took her face, a light framing with his hands, a slight skim of fingers that made her skin hum.

His mouth touched hers, sank in, and sent her brain tumbling.

“Oh, man. Man! You are really good at this.”

“Thanks.” He slid one hand to the base of her neck. “Now be quiet, okay? I’m trying to concentrate.”

She linked her arms around his waist, plastered herself against him, and enjoyed. Through her lashes, she saw that his eyes were open, focused on her. It made her feel like the only woman in the world. Another first. She’d never needed that from a man, but being given it was a silky stroke. The fingers at the base of her neck began to knead, lightly, softly, finding odd little points she hadn’t known existed. He changed the angle of the kiss, as if experimenting, and toppled her from pleasure to need. She nearly crawled over him, crawled into him. Her heart rate bounded, her blood flashed. He held her there a moment, had to hold her there, trembling, until he found his own balance again and drew her away with hands that were no longer steady.

“Okay.” She sucked in a breath. “Wow. I’ve got to give it to you. What, did you study exotic sexual techniques or something?”

“Actually . . .” He cleared his throat. He really, really needed to sit down. “In a manner of speaking, and merely as an offshoot of research.”

She stared at him. “I don’t think you’re kidding.”

“Sexual rites and customs are often an important part of. . . . Why don’t I just show you?”

“Uh-uh.” She held up a hand to ward him off. “I’m on duty, and you’ve already managed to get me stirred up enough. I’ll let you know if and when I’m ready for that pizza.”

“Give me five minutes, and you’ll be ready.” He stepped forward until her palm met his chest.

“No deal. Put your coat back on and go away.”

For a moment she didn’t think he was going to do as she asked. Then, like magic, he stepped back.

“When the time comes, I like my pizza large and loaded.”

“Funny, so do I.”

“That keeps it simple.” He dragged on his coat, picked up his camera. “It was nice running into you, Deputy Todd. Thanks for the coffee.”

“We’re here to serve, Dr. Booke.”

Outside, he pulled on his ski cap. He would go back to the beach, he decided, throw himself bodily into the icy water. If he didn’t drown, he would cool off.

 

 

Chapter Six

It took a lot of fast talk, a lot of grease for a lot of palms, and the tenacity of a bulldog. But Jonathan Q. Harding was willing to invest all of those elements when it came to a hot story. His instincts, which he considered the best in the business, told him that Evan Remington was going to be his funnel to the story of the decade. Not just the sizzle of scandal that was still shooting out a few sparks. All the angles on Remington himself—how he had hidden that violent face from the world, from his fancy Hollywood clients, from the upper crust of society—had been done to death as far as Harding was concerned. Even most of the details on how his pretty young wife had escaped him, risked her life to get free of his abuse and his threats, were common fodder now.

Harding didn’t bother with the common. He’d dug around a bit, and he had enough confirmed information on where she’d run, how she’d run, where she’d worked, lived, during the first eight months after she’d ditched her Mercedes over a cliff. It was decent stuff—the former society wife, the pampered princess living in cheap, furnished rooms, working as a short-order cook or a waitress, moving from town to town. Dyeing her hair, changing her name. He could get some ink out of it. But it was the period of time from after she’d landed on that bump of land out in the Atlantic to when Remington had been dragged into a cell that had his nose twitching.