“You were believable,” he conceded.
“How could I not be? I’m playing the role of a midwife. And guess what? That’s what I do, all the time, every day. Easy-peasy.”
“For me? Not so much.” His undercover identity as a laid-back artist fit him like a glove on a foot. He knew enough about art to pull off the occupational part of that equation, but there was nothing easygoing about him.
“Francine believes I’m a pro,” Petra said. “She asked for my card.”
“Because she intends to check us out,” he said. “She’s probably on the phone right now, talking to that lawyer in Durango to make sure we’re who we say we are.”
“We’ve got nothing to worry about,” she countered. “Your FBI techies have our undercover identities in place. When Francine is satisfied that we’re cool, she’ll invite me to come back and deliver babies.”
“You can’t go back there alone.”
“Why not?”
Dozens of reasons exploded inside his head like buckshot pellets. Her lack of training. The unpredictability of the situation. The desperate nature of human trafficking. Mostly, he’d never forgive himself if he sent her off by herself and something happened to her.
“It’s too dangerous,” he said. “You saw Robert. The guy is bigger than a double-wide refrigerator.”
“And armed, too. But Francine has him on a tight leash.” She leaned forward in the passenger seat to look at him. “Was it just me or did she have a Mistress of the Dark vibe?”
He wouldn’t be surprised to find thigh-high leather boots and whips in her closet. “She sure as hell doesn’t look like the matron of a home for unwed mothers.”
“I wonder who delivers the babies. Somehow, I don’t see Francine ruining her manicure with a messy delivery.”
“What about Margaret?”
“Sweet, little Margaret.” Petra chuckled. “She’s got a crush on you.”
“Maybe,” he said.
“There’s nothing maybe about it. When she shook your hand, she was practically drooling.”
He braked, and the truck’s headlights shone on a stop sign that was pocked with bullet holes. They were back at the fork in the road where the left turn led to Lost Lamb and the right would take them to their cabin.
A lot had happened in the past forty-five minutes. He looked over at Petra. Even though she had her seat belt on, she was sitting with her legs tucked up in a yoga position. She radiated calm. No fussing. No fidgeting.
Her smile was a challenge. The spark in her eyes invited him to engage with him. “You know I’m right,” she said.
For a moment, he had the idea that her teasing was sexual, that she wanted him to come closer. “Right about what?”
“Margaret has the hots for you.”
He didn’t care about Margaret or any other woman. Petra filled his vision. He watched the rise and fall of the white muslin fabric that draped softly over her breasts. Her thick, auburn hair framed her face.
Leaning a few inches closer, he realized how much he wanted to kiss her, to brush his fingers through her tangled hair, to inhale the scent of wildflowers that seemed to surround her. All day long, his attraction had been growing. His inappropriate attraction.
He reined in his desire. What had they been talking about? Something about Margaret having a crush on him? He raised an eyebrow. “Jealous?”
“Of you and Margaret? Hah!”
Facing the windshield, he drove past the stop sign. “Think of yourself as Patty Gilliam, my wife. Do we have that kind of relationship? Are you the jealous type?”
“Because we’re basing our undercover selves on our real selves, I’d have to say that I’m really attached to the people I love. I couldn’t care less about things, though. Like Gandhi says, the earth provides enough for our need, not our greed.”
“How did we go from jealousy to Gandhi?”
“What about you?” she asked. “Are you possessive?”
“In the sense that I appreciate my possessions and take good care of them, I’d have to say yes.”
“Like your superlight bulletproof vest?”
“And my gun.”
“That’s not very undercover of you.”
“Can’t help it.”
If she didn’t quit teasing, he’d have to retaliate. He knew exactly how to get the upper hand with someone who liked to take risks. All he had to do was toss out a dare, and she’d respond.
“We still haven’t figured out if Margaret is acting as a midwife,” she said. “Maybe you should do a profiler analysis on her.”
Maybe he should. It would be a relief to slip into professional mode. He knew how to size up suspects and witnesses from a brief encounter. That was his training, and he was seventy-percent accurate in his initial assessments.
“She’s running on fear. Francine scares her, but Margaret still respects her and calls her Miss Francine, indicating a desperate need for approval.” He recalled from Margaret’s profile that she had a three-year-old son. “She’s such a waiflike creature that it’s hard to imagine her being a mother. But I’d guess that she loves her child with all her heart, partly because she knows her toddler son won’t abandon her.”
“And everybody else has,” Petra said. “I got that feeling from her, too. She’s so alone in the world that her loyalties are all messed up. She can work for these bad people and rationalize that it’s okay.”
“But she knows what’s going on. Her understanding of right and wrong is one reason why she’s scared,” he said. “Margaret might be a good source of information for us.”
“Do you think she delivers the babies?”
“She could assist, but the responsibility of a medical procedure would be too much for her to handle. I doubt she can do the kind of work you do.”
“That means there are other people at the Lost Lamb,” Petra said. “We need to get inside and really take a look around. I could go back tomorrow under the pretext of checking on Dee.”
“We’ll make a plan,” he said firmly.
Even though there were no street lights on this curving rural road, the moonlight showed an open field behind a barbed wire fence. On the other side were occasional houses with lights from the windows. After a long day of driving, he couldn’t wait to get out of the truck and decompress. Soon, they’d be home.
“Tell me about the house,” Petra said. “How big is it?”
“Three bedrooms, one bath. It’s owned by the government and occasionally used as a safe house. The last residents were a couple in witness protection. From what I understand, it’s furnished.”
“And yet, you brought a truckload of stuff.”
“It’s my cover,” he said. “I’m going to turn one of the bedrooms into an art studio.”
“And the other bedrooms?”
“One for you and one for me.”
He was attracted to her. That was for damn sure. During their six-hour drive, he’d been captivated watching her gesture with hands as graceful as butterflies. Her hair enticed him. She was always stretching and changing position, amazingly limber. More than once, he’d imagined her long legs wrapped around him.
But he wouldn’t touch her. It was against the rules. Unprofessional. He wouldn’t make a mistake that could compromise their mission and derail his career.
Sleeping with Petra wasn’t part of the plan.
* * *
IT HAD BEEN YEARS SINCE Petra lived with a man, and now she was moving in with Brady—a guy she barely knew but had fantasized about. Living together was going to be difficult on many levels.
For one thing, she couldn’t do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. Not that she had a lot of rude habits. But she was a night owl who sometimes played music and exercised at two in the morning.
And she wasn’t the tidiest person in the world. Her clutter would drive Brady up the wall, which was just too bad for him. He was the one who proposed after all. For better or worse?
She grinned to herself.
They weren’t married. She definitely wasn’t going to start thinking of him that way. He wasn’t her spouse or even her boyfriend. At best, they were partners.
He pulled up in front of the two-story cedar house. “We’re home.”
A balcony with a railing separated the top and bottom of the house. A couple of hummingbird feeders dangled from hooks attached to the lower side of the balcony. The two windows on either side of the front door had the shades drawn as though the house was asleep. “I like this place.”
“It’s not bad.” Brady maneuvered the truck until the back bumper was closest to the door. “The sight lines are clear in three directions. The only way somebody can sneak up on us is through the forest at the rear.”
Of course, he’d be concerned about security. “Is there an alarm system?”
“We’re on our own.”
Those words triggered a response in her—a surge of excitement. This was something new for her, something different, an adventure.
They got out of the truck and crossed the flagstones leading to the entrance. Brady unlocked the front door, pushed it open, reached inside and turned on the porch light. Standing under the glow, he flashed a grin. “Should I carry you over the threshold, Mrs. Gilliam?”
She hesitated before answering. She wasn’t overly superstitious, but she appreciated the wisdom in old wives’ tales. Like most traditions, there was a basis for the groom lifting the bride into her new home. If she stumbled on her way inside, it brought bad luck upon the house. But Petra wasn’t really a bride, so it shouldn’t count. “Not necessary.”
Carefully stepping over the door, she followed him inside. The front room had a moss rock fireplace and a couple of earth-tone sofas. Two of the walls were paneled with knotty pine. A long counter, also knotty pine, separated the front room from a kitchen with a terra-cotta floor. The whole effect was unspectacular but pleasant. The warm glow of the wood felt welcoming. “Who did you say lived here before?”
“A husband and wife in the witness protection program. I don’t know anything more than that.”
To the left of the front door was a rugged wood staircase. As she climbed, she said, “It seems like witness protection would be a huge trauma. First, there’s a horrible crime. Then they’re torn away from their families and friends. These people might have left behind some bad juju.”
“Some what?”
“Negative energy.”
The upstairs consisted of a landing, three bedrooms and a bathroom. After she’d turned on all the lights, she claimed the bedroom that overlooked the front entrance. “This one is mine. I like the blue walls.”
He stood in the doorway watching her. With his stubble and disheveled hair, he looked as rugged and sexy as the man who invaded her dreams last night. “Blue is your color. It goes with your eyes.”
“That’s sort of an artistic observation, Mr. Gilliam.”
“I like art. It’s rational, all about proportion.”
She needed to keep that in mind because her response to him seemed to be growing out of proportion. The cute little house wrapped around them with a warm intimacy. The surrounding forest felt too silent. She was intensely aware of being alone with him.
“I should get unpacked,” she said.
It took less than an hour for her to unload her boxes, unpack her clothes and make the bed, using some of the bed linens Brady had brought with them. His sheets were ice blue, a million thread count and smooth as a caress. The man might be compulsive, but he had excellent taste.
On the dresser, she set out some of her personal belongings: a framed family photo, a beaded jewelry box, a purple crystal dolphin and a green earthenware bowl with a lotus design. She stepped back and took a look at the blank walls and hardwood floor with a blue-and-gray rag rug next to the bed.
This place didn’t feel like home. She wasn’t going to live here for long, so no need to put down roots. But she needed to be comfortable enough to think clearly.
From the suitcase she’d stashed in the closet, she took out a wooden box carved with an intricate design. Inside were three six-inch-long packets of dried sage, shaped like cigars and tied with sweet grass twine. When she opened the lid, a musky scent unfurled through her bedroom.
She’d gathered and dried these herbs herself. Then she’d braided the sweet grass into twine and wrapped the sage. The end result was a smudge stick, used to cleanse negative energy from the environment.
The origin of the smudging ceremony was either Celtic or Wiccan or Native American. Petra didn’t know for sure. When she was fifteen, she and her sister developed their own procedure, lighting the sage and wafting the smoke in the doorways and corners of a room to absorb the bad juju. She liked the idea of using smoke—something she feared—to a good purpose.
She wasn’t sure if smudging had any effect. Probably not, but the process made her feel better. On those occasions when she’d smudged a labor room, the pregnant women usually said the smoke relaxed them. In any case, her smudging ceremony couldn’t hurt.
The problem would be to convince Brady.
Chapter Eight
Petra skipped down the staircase to the front room where several boxes were neatly stacked by the fireplace. Brady was behind the counter in the kitchen, unloading dinnerware. He moved as quickly and efficiently as a robot, but he was definitely all man. The sinews in his forearms flexed and extended with striking precision. A sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. He could have been doing reps in a gym instead of lifting plates and bowls.
He glanced toward her. “All settled?”
“Mostly.”
She was absolutely certain that he wouldn’t like her smudging ceremony. Super-rational Brady wasn’t the type of person who believed in magic, and she didn’t expect him to change. But she needed for him to withhold his disdain. If he started scoffing, the negative energy would multiply instead of vanish.
“Did you come to help?” he asked.
“Yes.” Smudging counted as being helpful.
“Good. We’ll run these dishes through the washer before putting them away on the shelves.”
From what she could see, he’d brought along enough tableware and cookware to open a restaurant. The top of the counter was littered with pots and pans, which she pushed aside to make room. She placed the smudge stick and her green lotus bowl on the countertop, then she jumped up and sat beside them with her legs dangling. “Why did you bring so much stuff?”
“Makes sense for our undercover identity,” he said. “If anybody comes snooping around, they’ll see a fully equipped kitchen. Plus, we need something to cook with. The nearest restaurant is miles away, and I doubt they deliver.”
“Didn’t we pass a little town on the way here?”
“Kirkland,” he said. “Population eighty-two including the jackrabbits.”
“Every small town has a diner where the locals gather. A good place to get information about Lost Lamb.”
“That’s smart.” He crossed the terra-cotta-tiled kitchen floor to stand in front of her. “We should make a point of hanging out at the diner.”
“Especially you.” She pointed at the center of his chest. “You need to make friends because you’re looking for work.”
He smiled just enough to activate his dimple. The rest of his features—forehead, jaw, cheekbones and brow—were chiseled and rugged. The dimple gave her hope that he might have a bit of sensitivity.
His nostrils twitched, and he looked down at the countertop. “What’s in that bowl? It smells weird.”
Hoping to introduce him gradually to her plan, she picked up the lotus bowl. “This was made by a friend of mine from San Francisco. Sometimes, I use it to burn incense. Mostly, I like the design. The bowl reminds me of her.”
“And the stinky stuff?”
“It’s a smudge stick, made of sage and sweet grass. I use it for a ritual.”
“Uh-huh.” His gaze turned guarded and skeptical.
“Don’t worry,” she said. �
�I don’t expect you to start chanting. Just be neutral. Don’t put out grumpy vibes.”
“What kind of ritual? Is this a witchy thing?” He rested the flat of his hand on the countertop and leaned closer, invading her personal space. “Are you going to get naked?”
“Why would you think that?”
“Isn’t that what witches do? Take off their clothes and dance around a bonfire in the moonlight?”
His attitude irritated her. “This is exactly what I expected from you. And exactly what I don’t need. Will you please just be quiet?”
“Hey, I can keep an open mind. Tell me what you want.”
“I need matches.”
From one of the drawers, he took out a box of wooden matches which he handed to her. He stepped back and watched as she lit the sage, allowed it to burn for a moment and blew it out. Fragrant smoke drifted toward the ceiling.
Holding the smudge stick in her right hand, she recited a blessing that she and her sister had made up for their ritual. “May this house be filled with light and affirmation. As the smoke rises, may it absorb negativity. In this home, we will be safe and happy.”
The first part of the process was to wipe away the bad thoughts she carried with her. Lowering the smudge stick to her bare feet, she slowly raised it from the floor to the chakra at the top of her head. The smoke drew the negative emotions—anger, fear and hate—to the surface.
She acknowledged those feelings. They were as much a part of her as generosity, nurturing and love. It would take more than a smudge stick to banish the dark side of her personality. For now, she’d concentrate on the light. She exhaled in a whoosh, blowing those feelings away.
“There,” she said, “I’m cleansed.”
“Do me.” He waited, arms hanging loosely at his side.
She regarded him with a healthy dose of suspicion. Did he really have an open mind or was he teasing again? “Close your eyes and breathe deeply.”
He did as she said, and she repeated the process with him. The sage burned more brightly as she outlined his body. “Your aura is strong.”
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