She didn’t want to think about him. She had no reason to think about him. Which was why it was particularly annoying that for the last three days, thoughts of Buster Taylor had been filling her head—the sexy scar that marred his eyebrow, the sparkle in his eyes when he smiled. The cute way he’d tried to backpedal when he’d realized how furious she was.

And her heart had just about melted when her ears had tuned in to his gripe as he was leaving the building: “Damn. I really hate this job.”

In fact, she’d been so preoccupied with the irritating insurance investigator that she’d inadvertently shelved The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with the arts-and-crafts books, and had completely blanked when a fifth grader asked if the latest Harry Potter book had made it to the library yet.

Ridiculous. She needed to get over this. Whether he hated his job or not, he’d still pawed around in Emily’s things. She shouldn’t waste another thought on him.

Right. Absolutely. She should just get up and get back to work filing or reshelving.

Sure thing. That was what she should be doing. Not fantasizing about some mortal, no matter how gorgeous he was, or how intriguing he’d seemed at first.

The man was mortal, after all, and what could come of that?

Mortal and a jerk.

Right.

Then again, maybe she wasn’t being fair. After all, he’d only been doing his job, and he felt really bad about it, too. Maybe she’d been thrown so off balance by the fact that she was attracted to him that she’d overreacted.

Wheels turned in her head and she tried not to smile as the idea took root—if she’d overreacted, she should apologize.

It wasn’t as if she’d be tracking him down for a date. After all, she didn’t date. Actually, couldn’t date was more like it. Considering her unique circumstances, latching on to a guy—especially a fully human, flesh-and-blood kind of guy—just wasn’t in the cards.

Besides, hadn’t Hale warned her a million times about getting involved with mortals? Weren’t her mom and dad the perfect example? She wasn’t stupid. She knew her limitations.

No, she simply wanted to apologize. Perfectly innocent, nothing wrong with that.

And the fact that he’d been gorgeous and amusing—exactly the kind of man she’d so often found herself fantasizing about—had absolutely nothing to do with anything. Nothing at all.

Okay, Sure. Now all she had to do was call him . . .

She fumbled around on her desk looking for the business card, then remembered that he’d taken it back from her. Well, no problem. His name was Buster Taylor, and the card had said he worked for Atlas Insurance. She just needed to look him up.

She tried the phone, but the operator couldn’t find a listing, and the yellow pages weren’t any help either. Zoe scowled at the computer. She wasn’t supposed to use the council search engine, but surely it would be okay this one time. It was a silly rule, anyway. And she did know Hale’s password . . .

Before she could talk herself out of it, she flipped her computer on and pulled up her Internet browser. She’d just get on and off. Nobody would even know. She’d find out where Taylor was, and that would be the end of it. Easy-squeezy. No big deal.

The browser opened and she headed for and typed in Hale’s password, wondering just how much trouble she was bringing down on herself. Then she shook her head. On and off, remember? No big deal, remember?

Besides, if she wanted to find Buster, she needed to venture into the off-limits pages.

She picked up a pencil and gnawed on the eraser, thinking, as the banner headlines flashed:

 

Crack council team foils international kidnapping ring! Click here to view exciting video footage!

Undercover operative hired at NASA; expected to pave the way for mortals to implement manned Mars missions. Protectors debate—should the council force technology on mortals? Click here for point/counterpoint.

Legend of Aphrodite’s girdle surfaces! Rumors of Outcast uprising abound!

 

Zoe grinned at the headline. She’d seen statues and heard plenty of stories about her great-great-great-etcetera grandmother Aphrodite, and there was one thing Zoe knew for certain—that had been one woman who did not need a girdle. Her eyes skimmed over the next headline, and she groaned.

 

Tax Office alert—all Protectors working in the United States are reminded to timely file form C-290 (Disclosure of Mortal Income Earned) with the Mortal/Protector Liaison Office by their deadline. To calculate individual deadlines, please see Schedule C, part 2 (b) 5 (a) (ii) of the Council Handbook.

 

Apparently death and taxes were pretty much the same in the mortal and the Protector worlds.

She tapped the eraser against her teeth one more time and then, before she could talk herself out of it, she jumped from the main area to the council’s search engine.

There were no alarm bells, no Instant Message warnings. No council members swooping down to take her off to the Hall of Justice.

So far, so good.

She pulled up the southern California directory and searched for Buster Taylor. Nothing.

She searched for Atlas Insurance. Still nothing.

Odd. The council’s records were more complete than the IRS’s. Why couldn’t she find him?

She tried for a few more minutes, searching the more obscure directories, pulling up old case files, generally snooping around where she didn’t belong.

Zilch.

She couldn’t believe it. Buster Taylor didn’t exist.

Which meant two things. First, he’d lied to her.

And second, she’d probably never see him again.

Well, darn.

Lane Kent had a problem. Not a huge problem, but as a general rule, she tried to avoid huge problems. She had enough trouble keeping track of all her little problems, and Lord knew she had plenty of those lately, all decked out in tiny George Washington outfits.

From her perch on the Mustang’s hood, she looked up at the green-gray sky, wondering if it was going to rain, and hoping it would. Rain in Los Angeles was like no place else. Like millions of little scrub brushes, the raindrops would attack the smog, polish the mountains, and leave the city crisp and clear and sparkly.

She could really use sparkly. These days her mood was anything but bright, and it was way the hell and gone from shiny.

Nope, these days she was worrying. Worrying about her car, her kid, her job—or, rather, her lack thereof. About the only thing she wasn’t worrying about was her rent. And that only because her foster brother, George Bailey, had managed to sweet-talk Mr. Timmons into letting her stay another month.

On one hand, that was good. On the other hand—the hand holding her checkbook—it was bad. Bad because George had worked out a deal with her landlord, and now she ought to pay him for a job well done.

So here she was, camped out on the hood of his classic red Mustang, waiting for him to come out of his apartment so that she could present him with the whopping sum of two hundred and fifty dollars, an amount that would pretty much clean out her checking account.

She saw him the second he rounded the building, then watched as his face changed from bland to pleased to annoyed.

“Would you stop, already? I’m not taking your money, Lane,” he said, shouting to be heard over the traffic behind them. He finished crossing the parking lot and stopped in front of her, looking pointedly at the hood. “And don’t sit on Francis Capra. You’ll scratch her.”

“Sorry,” she said, slipping off, feeling as if she were twelve again. “Thanks for working all that out about my apartment.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, but he still looked wary.

Lane almost giggled. It wasn’t every day she had to sneak around just to give someone a check.

“But I’m still,” he said, walking past her to the side of the car, “not,” he added, opening the door, “taking your money.” He slid in and started to close the door.

She grabbed it. “That’s not fair. I asked you to. I want to at least pay your hourly rate.”

“We grew up together, Lane. Family gets a discount.”

“Fine. So knock some off your normal price.” She held out her wallet. “But I should pay the rest.”

“It’s your lucky day. Fifty percent off.”

“Terrific. One hundred and twenty-five. No problem.”

“It’s double-coupon day. Guess you lucked out. No charge.” He slammed the door, which—since the car was a convertible, and the top was down—didn’t really go a long way toward cutting off her arguments.

“George,” she said, sure she was whining.

He cringed. “Taylor, okay?”

“I’ll call you Taylor if you let me pay you.”

“Lane . . .” His voice was firm, no-nonsense.

“George,” she answered, sure she sounded equally dug in.

He rolled his eyes skyward. “I said no. You’ve got a two-year-old.” He glanced down toward her legs, where her son usually clung. “Where is Davy, anyway?”

“A friend’s watching him.”

“Well, use the money to buy the kid a Happy Meal or something, ’cause I’m not taking it.”

“But you’re broke, too, and I know it.”

She thought he flinched, then decided it was a trick of the light.

“Business is picking up.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“I can take care of myself, Lane.”

“Tayl—”

“And so long as I can, I’m going to take care of you, too.” He put his hand on hers, his smile tender. “So keep your money. You and Davy need it more than me. Stick it in his college fund.” He glanced at her yellow Gremlin. “Or buy new tires and I’ll put them on for you. Something.”

She nodded, part annoyed and part relieved. The relieved part made her feel a little guilty. Her fingers drifted to her neck, closing around the odd-looking green stone she’d picked up at the Hollywood thrift store next door to the bookstore where she worked. “Maybe we can sell this.” She pulled it over her head and pressed it into his hand. “We could split the money.”

Taylor looked at it, his face a mixture of confusion and . . . well . . . more confusion. “Well, sure. If we each want to buy a piece of bubble gum.”

“You think it’s just junk, huh? Oh. That’s what I was afraid of.”

He glanced at her through narrowed eyes. “Why are you wearing it if you think it’s junk?”

She shrugged. “I bought it.”

“Ah,” he said, as if she’d explained everything. Then he said, “Why?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. I just did.” She bit her lip. “I thought it was worth something.”

He held out his hand, the stone sitting on his open palm. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“No, really. The guy in the store said it was some sort of artifact or something.” Actually, he’d said it was her destiny, but that seemed a little too bizarre to admit.

“Give me a break. How much did you pay for it?”

“Only a dollar.” She shrugged. “It’s so ugly, I didn’t really want it at all, but he kept insisting. And when he finally said I could have it that cheap, I took it just to shut him up.”

He pressed the necklace back into her hand. “If we sell it, we might hurt his feelings. Sounds like he’s got a thing for you.” Lane pictured the old proprietor’s weathered face, white hair, and brown teeth. “I don’t think so. He just seemed . . . befuddled. Kept going on and on about how things weren’t really what they seemed, and how those whomp-’em, stomp-’em television shows didn’t know the half of it.”

“ ‘Whomp-’em, stomp-’em’?”

“I’m guessing Buffy or Xena.”

Taylor’s eyes opened wide. “To think I thought those shows were the height of realism.”

“Guess not.” She grinned. “Can’t I do anything for you?” She racked her brain, trying to come up with some way to show her appreciation to a guy who wouldn’t take her money. “What about a party? My friend’s having a get-together next Saturday. You really need to find a girlfriend.” She looked down at him, and his expression told her everything she needed to know. “No, huh?”

“Nothing personal, kid. But I’m not exactly in a date-of-the-week mind-set these days. More of a scrape-to-keep-my-business-alive state of mind.” He looked annoyed as he continued. “Which translates into pissing off the only woman I’ve found even remotely attractive in a long time.”

Lane perked up, interested. “So there is someone?”

“There’s no one,” he said, in that the-topic’s-closed tone she knew so well. His fingers tightened on the steering wheel, and she knew he was lying.

“Fine,” she said, trying to bait him. “Then you can meet someone at the party.”

“Lane . . .” He sighed and shook his head. “Besides, I’ve seen your friends. You’ve set me up with your friends.”

Lane winced. “That was a misunderstanding.” In college, Allison had been perfectly normal. Dean’s list, dorm resident adviser, total straight arrow. How was Lane supposed to Allison had become so, ah, interesting.

“Right,” Taylor said, sounding more than a little dubious. “My point is that if and when I decide to jump back into the dating game, my female of choice is going to be someone a little less”—he twirled his hand in the air—“colorful.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a little color.” Heck, in Lane’s opinion, Taylor’s life needed some.

“My life has so much color I could open a crayon factory.”

She peered at him over her sunglasses. “Oh, sure.”

He started counting on his fingers: “I quit my job at the force. I’m barely surviving doing the private-eye gig. My biggest client to date is the scum of the universe. And I’ve got a sister who wants me to set up house with the first girl who comes along.”

“That’s not color. That’s ookey life stuff. And if you’re barely surviving, you should take my money. I’m a big girl. You don’t have to keep protecting me from the world.”

Taylor gave her one of those looks, then cranked Francis Capra’s engine. “I’m not taking your money,” he said. “I don’t need your money.”

She pasted on an innocent smile. “Great. Then you can afford to take a girl out on a date.”

“I’m not interested in dating for the sake of dating. I spent my childhood bouncing from house to house with no roots, nothing tying me down. I hated it, and I don’t want to spend my adult years bouncing from woman to woman.”

“But how will you ever meet the right woman if you won’t—”

“Listen to me, Lane.” He hit the clutch and shifted into first. “I’m not dating your friends. I’ve had it up to here with wacko women. The next girl I date is going to be the quintessential girl next door, complete with a dog, a pitcher of lemonade, and a white picket fence. Hell, she might even be a librarian.” He glanced pointedly at her hands resting on his door, and she stepped back as he inched the car out of the parking spot.

“Normal, Lane,” he said, raising his voice as he pulled farther away. “The next girl I date is going to be so normal she could pose for a Norman Rockwell painting.”

Zoe sat alone on the far side of the cafeteria, away from the overpowering odor of fried fish fillets, plastic-textured pizza, and lime Jell-O. She was also away from the other teachers, who’d never quite managed to find room at their table for Zoe. For almost twenty-five years it had been pretty much the same—everyone else sticking together, knowing without being told that Zoe was somehow different. By now she was used to the seating arrangements.

What she wasn’t used to was the torrent of Buster lust ricocheting through her brain when she should be thinking chaste lunch-monitor thoughts.

She’d gone her whole life without mooning over guys. They weren’t part of her agenda, her plan. So how had this one man so completely and totally infiltrated her thoughts? It wasn’t fair. She was going to be twenty-five in a few days. She needed to be worrying about her council affidavit, about what she was going to tell her mother . . . about what she was going to do with the rest of her life. But was she worrying, considering, planning, anything-ing? Nope. Not at all. Instead she was acting like a mortal teenager with a high-school crush.

She sighed. This newfound obsession with Buster Taylor was incredibly distracting, to say the least.

With massive effort, she lassoed her thoughts and shoved them to the far corner of her brain. She had decisions to make, and so long as the cafeteria remained distraction-free, this was the perfect time to make them.

First, her council application. For over a month, the massive packet had gathered dust on her kitchen table. She’d finally sucked it up and sent in the main forms, but so far she hadn’t worked up the nerve to submit the Affidavit of Mortal Disclosure. Considering how Tessa had reacted to her husband’s revelations about his superpowers years ago, Zoe wasn’t real keen on telling her mother the same thing.

But she had to tell her soon. The one thing Zoe had wanted for as long as she could remember was to be on the council, to work with her father and Hale. She reached into her tote bag and pulled out her wallet, sliding out her insurance card to peek at the photo she’d hidden underneath—her and Daddy after the first mission she’d been allowed to go on. Hale had gone, too. But since he’d turned invisible, he hadn’t made it into the picture.

The mission hadn’t been any big deal—just some reconnaissance work so the mortal police would find some missing children—but after, on the steps of Olympus, she’d felt proud, special. Like she belonged.

But that had been years ago. Since she was a halfling, if she wanted that feeling ever again, she had to formally apply for council admission. And that meant telling Tessa that—

“Kyle Martin eats worms!”

Zoe blinked, doubting the truth of the statement, but curious about the speaker. He was easy enough to find. Joey Tannin, the sixth-grade bully, was standing on a table, hurling Jell-O at poor Kyle, who probably didn’t eat worms, but looked like he’d gladly swallow one or two if it would get him away from the bigger kid.

“Leave me alone!” Kyle howled, throwing his arms over his head to ward off bits of gelatin and marshmallows.

“Joey!” Zoe stood up and headed toward the fray, armed with her best don’t-mess-with-the-lunch-monitor scowl. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Joey turned, his foot landing in a clump of Jell-O before shooting out from under him. Jell-O went flying, along with a half-eaten slice of pizza, a pint of milk, and something that looked like a cookie but smelled like chicken.

Joey yelped. Zoe lunged.

His arms windmilled. Zoe focused, ready to perform some kid-saving levitation.

But nothing happened. Nothing good, anyway.

As Joey started to fall, tumbling off the table in a flurry of arms, legs, and Jell-O, Zoe started to panic. Her newfound telekinetic powers apparently weren’t putting in overtime.

But she wouldn’t give up that easily. In the last few milliseconds before Joey and the Jell-O went splat, Zoe lurched forward, aiming every smidgen of concentration right at the boy. She only needed a little bit—just a tiny levitation. Just enough to break his fall, but not enough to be noticed.

Focus . . .

She leaned forward.

Focus . . .

Just a little more. And then . . .

Ker-thunk!

Both she and Joey hit the ground. Zoe because she tripped; Joey because her levitation skills sucked.

Sally Simmons, who taught kindergarten, rushed to help Joey, who was glaring daggers at Kyle. Across the cafeteria, Mrs. Wilson, the gym teacher, crossed her arms over her chest, stared down her nose at Zoe, and shook her head.

Zoe blinked back tears. Hopping Hera. Why did she have to be such a klutz? All she’d had to do was levitate Joey—just for a second—and she couldn’t even manage to stand on her own two feet long enough to do that.

And now she was sprawled out on the cafeteria floor, bits of lunch stuck to her, while all the other teachers stared at her as if she were a loon.

It was absurd to think the council would want her. Even if she did work up the courage to tell Tessa, she wasn’t exactly a prime candidate. For one thing, she was an incompetent klutz. Hadn’t her little stunt just now proved that? Her senses were wacky, her aim was sporadic, and she couldn’t levitate worth a damn.

Besides, as a halfling, she already had one huge black mark against her. And considering the 487-page application, it was pretty clear the council wasn’t into affirmative halfling action. They’d never approve her membership, not in a million years.

She sat up and hugged her knees to her chest, letting her gaze drift over the other teachers, who very pointedly had not rushed to help her. She might as well face the truth: her dream of joining the council—of belonging—was just that, a dream.

If she knew what was good for her, she’d forget all about it. She’d rush home, rip the affidavit to shreds, formally withdraw her application, and put herself up for mortalization.

That was what she should do. Tessa would never be the wiser and, considering they’d erase her memory, neither would Zoe.

Sighing, she stood up. In front of her, teachers rushed to clean up Joey and Kyle and calm the other students. Zoe just stood stock-still, watching the hullabaloo.

Darn it, she wanted to belong. Wanted to be part of the council. Wanted to be like her dad and Hale.

And she certainly didn’t want to forget her family—divided and offbeat though it was.

No, the affidavit wasn’t going anywhere. Not without her signature, and certainly not in pieces.