by Hazel Hunter
“Everyone get out,” he said tiredly. “Just…please, get out.”
Sharon glanced at Mac and he shook his head a tiny ‘no.’ If a call came in, even though the odds were a million to one against, someone from the Bureau had to be here.
“Oh for crying out–” Ben started.
“You heard the man,” Mac announced. He motioned to the other FBI agents. “Let’s go.” He waved the police officers toward the door. “Let’s give them a little privacy. Everybody’s tired. Including me.”
Though he needn’t have, he motioned to Isabelle. She was already moving toward the door.
“Mac, I’m sorry,” Ben said, turning to him. “It’s just that–”
“Don’t apologize,” Mac said quickly, stopping him. “And don’t give up. Because I haven’t. Truly. You know me. I’m not going to offer you false hope. I wouldn’t do that.” He slowly shook his head. “But something’s wrong here. I feel it in my gut.”
“Okay,” Ben said, really sagging now and not really hearing him.
“Go eat,” Mac said, steering him toward the kitchen. “I don’t want Anita angry at me.”
As Ben headed that way, Mac gave Sharon a last look and they nodded at each other. He closed the front door softly behind him.
• • • • •
As Mac nudged his rental car past the encampment of cameras and lights that seemed to take up nearly the entire block, he couldn’t help but be reminded of a sideshow at a carnival. And the show wasn’t just in English. It seemed like every major language from the globe was represented among the various emblems on the vans topped with antennae and radar dishes.
But as he neared the end of the crowd, he realized it was moving. Cameramen and reporters were moving in parallel with him on the sidewalk and, he realized with a start, that Isabelle was in front of them.
“What?” he muttered.
Had she been a publicity hound after all?
But the closer he got, the more he could see that she was moving quickly. In fact, they were chasing her. As she neared the corner, he stepped on the gas, cranked the wheel, and put the car directly in the crowd’s path. Engine idling, he jumped out of the car. Isabelle, glancing backward, ran straight into his arms and screamed.
“It’s me,” he said quickly. “Isabelle, it’s Mac.”
Though recognition dawned on her face, there was no time for more than that. Quickly, before they were pinned by the onslaught, he wrapped his arms around her, swept her around the front of the car, and opened the passenger door in one smooth move.
“Watch your head,” he said, pushing her inside.
“So the FBI is using psychics?” called out a voice from behind the glare of lights. “Where’s Esme Olivos? Do you see her in a crystal ball?” yelled someone else.
Great.
Mac pushed through several people who grunted in response.
“Is she a psychic or isn’t she?” demanded the tall Hispanic man in front of him as he thrust a microphone into Mac’s face.
Mac shoved it right back at him, nearly hitting him in the mouth. As the reporter backed up, he collided with the people in back of him and the press of the entire growing throng lessened for a moment. Mac quickly leapt toward his door, threw it open, and slammed it shut. He toggled the locks. With a quick check into the rear view mirror, he made sure he wasn’t going to kill anybody, then he threw the car into reverse and gunned it. The squealing of the tires nearly had people diving for cover and in another few moments, the entire crowd was left behind. He squealed around the next corner too before finally slowing down. Then he stopped.
“Where’s your car?” he said, more loudly than he’d intended, adrenalin still coursing through him.
“Car?” Isabelle said, her voice too loud as well.
Her gloved hands were gripping the car door handle as though she were hanging on to a lifesaver. Her wild stare flitted from him to the rear window, back the way they’d come. Her breathing was erratic and her entire body seemed to be trembling. They’d been a like a pack of wolves and obviously not what she had expected.
“You shouldn’t have told them you were a psychic,” he said.
That got her attention.
“Me?” she yelled, her eyes focused hard on his. “Me?” The sudden change in her took him aback. “You think I caused that? I think you better question some of your…your…” she stammered, looking for the right word. “Your agents or officers or whatever! Whoever! That’s the last thing I’d–” She stopped abruptly and opened the car door. “You know what,” she said. “Never mind.”
Then the door slammed closed. The only sound was the idling of the engine. But rather than walk back toward her car, she headed away from him, away from the house.
Oh come on. You’re not going to walk all the way home. This is LA.
He found the button for the passenger window and lowered it as he pulled up alongside her.
“Where’s your car?” he said. She hugged herself around the middle and kept walking, fast, not looking at him. “Look,” he said. “You can’t walk back there to your car. They’ll be all over you.”
She ignored him.
He got ahead of her and pulled into someone’s driveway, across the sidewalk. She nearly toppled over the hood, hitting it with her hands. For the second time, he jumped out of his door and raced around the hood, grasping her by the upper arms as she stood.
“Isabelle,” he said. “Just stop for a second. Think. You can’t go back through that crowd.”
“I’m not,” she hissed, yanking herself free from him.
“So your car is parked out here somewhere,” he said, gesturing to the dark street around them. “Where?”
“I don’t have a car,” she said, not looking at him as she tried to back up and head toward the sidewalk.
“You what?” he said, easily sidestepping and blocking her path.
She stopped and pushed at his chest.
“I don’t have a car,” she said, finally looking up at him. “So if you’ll get out of my way, I’ve got a long way to go.”
Dumbfounded, he almost let her pass when she tried again. But then he sidestepped again.
“So you’re just going to walk home. Wherever that is.”
Exasperated, she hugged herself around the middle again.
“I’m going to take the bus,” she said. “The Metro Two. Downtown. And they don’t run all night.”
“The bus?” he said, incredulous. “You’re taking the bus? Who would–”
She tried to get around him again. This time he held her by the shoulders and stared down into her face. She was mad, tired, and, he finally realized, completely serious. She was walking to a bus stop.
“Okay,” he said quietly. “Okay.” He looked up and down the sidewalk. “Look. I’m not from LA but even I know it’s not a great time to be taking public transportation. Let me give you a ride.”
She shook her head and had been about to say something.
“Isabelle,” he said, holding her firmly and noticing for the first time how close they were standing. “I’m not taking no for an answer. We’re both tired and I don’t even have a hotel yet. It’s been a long day, for both of us. Just let me take you home.”
To his surprise, she took a deep breath, held it for a few beats, then finally exhaled and nodded. They were both tired. He opened the door and held it for her and, once she was inside, he got behind the wheel. This time, they both put on their seat belts.
“All right,” he said, checking the mirrors and backing into the street. “Which way?”
CHAPTER FIVE
It was only eight o’clock but it seemed like midnight to Isabelle. As they pulled in front of her building, it felt like she hadn’t been there in a week. She could almost feel the gloves coming off as she walked through the front door.
“This is your neighborhood?” Mac asked, looking up at the building through the windshield.
Except for directions, the ride back had bee
n blissfully quiet. She’d tried to still her mind and put away the images from her readings. But the tone in Mac’s voice bothered her.
“We don’t all get to live in Bel Air,” she said. “Thanks for the ride.”
She opened her door and Mac immediately did the same and turned off the engine.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said, pausing. “I can see myself up.”
“Of course you can,” he said getting out. “But that’s not going to happen.”
His long strides had him at her door in moments and, as he held it for her, and she got out, she glanced up at the building and actually looked at it for a change, the way that Mac had done.
At least it was dark. The building, the street, the whole neighborhood looked worse in daylight.
None of her clients knew where she lived. Though she’d told herself that it was to preserve her privacy it was really so they didn’t see this. As her savings had slowly dwindled, she’d moved to worse and worse sections of town. In fact, she had a car. It was parked in the narrow little garage under her unit. She just couldn’t afford to fix it. Her clients came to her through word of mouth and she had a good solid base of regulars, but it was still LA, where even a one-bedroom without air conditioning was an arm and a leg. The neighborhood was yet another reason she was ready to leave.
“Really,” she said, as Mac closed the car door. “I’d prefer if you didn’t.”
He shook his head, his face serious in the pale green glow of the streetlamp across the narrow street.
“Look,” he said. “I don’t want to have to worry. Just let me hear the deadbolt fall and we can call it a night.”
He sounded so sincere. She flashed back on that moment in the dorm room when their hands had accidentally touched. He’d been genuinely concerned for her–and he liked her legs.
“Fine,” she said at last. “I’m on the third floor.”
She took the lead, up the cracked cement path that led to the dingy building. The exterior lights had stopped working some time ago but the street lights were enough, plus the constant background light from the skyscrapers of downtown, only a few miles away.
“Watch your step,” she said, beginning the climb. He didn’t say a word, just fell in behind her. They climbed like that and, as they did, she thought of the day. It must have been months since she’d spent so much time with people. And she’d actually worked alongside them–Mac, the sergeant, even Brendan. It felt good to think she’d actually made a difference. And it was so good not to be all alone. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how wearing that had been.
As they reached her landing, she took out her keys.
“I’m glad Anita made Ben eat something,” Mac said. “He was looking gray.”
Isabelle tensed as she turned to him and the keys fell from her hand. A shadow fell across his face, the street light behind and below him, and she couldn’t see his eyes.
“Our hands touched,” he said quietly.
Her breath caught. So, he’d remembered. When she’d read Brendan she’d wondered if Mac had put two and two together. Blood pounded in her ears. People never knew their own thoughts this well. But Mac was obviously not like other people.
“I didn’t mean for that to happen,” she said quickly. “You grabbed my–”
“Hand,” he finished. “I know.”
Even in the cool evening breeze, she felt her cheeks flush hot, as though she’d been caught in the act of some…some…crime. So the FBI agent had caught her in the act. He stooped in front of her and picked up the keys.
“I’d never read anybody without their permission. Never.”
“I didn’t say it was a bad thing,” he said holding out her keys. But just before she could take them, he quickly raised them up and out of reach. “Are you saying it was bad?”
No reading was good. Too often she learned things that were better left unknown. Reading Mac, though, even as quickly as it had ended, had been a revelation. On the outside, he was the man in charge, a solid pillar for Ben and Anita to lean on, a smooth professional to everyone he met. But inside, intense emotions ran fast and deep. Suddenly, though she remembered that she’d also read the word psychobabble.
Hold on.
She looked up at her keys and Mac’s shadowed face. He had yet to say that he actually believed she did readings. Not once during the day had he acknowledged it. In fact, he’d gone out of his way to supply other explanations for what she’d seen.
“May I have my keys?” she said evenly.
“Not until you tell me,” he said.
He sounded serious.
But is he?
People were almost never ready to hear about their own thoughts. In fact, most of the time, people were blindsided by them. Did he really want to hear about the reading? Fine. If that’s what he wanted, that’s what he’d get.
Who was the brunette? Isabelle thought. It was the one question worth asking and yet the one that she dared not. Who is the woman who makes you sad?
She wanted to know. More than that, she wanted Mac to know that her ability was real. But more than anything, in this moment, she didn’t want to push him away. She was tired of pushing people away.
“So, nothing to tell me?” he asked. “Nothing–”
“Did you get an eyeful of my shapely legs on the way up here?”
Mac froze.
Suddenly, Isabelle became aware of the sound of traffic from the nearby freeway and a television across the street blaring the sounds of a car chase. There was a siren in the opposite direction, maybe a real one. But not a sound came from Mac and Isabelle thought her chest might burst.
Finally, Mac lowered the keys. But as she reached for them, he caught her gloved hand in midair.
“I did get an eyeful,” he said lowly, drawing her toward him. She felt his other hand slip around her waist. “And you know I did,” he said, stepping close to her, nearly touching. “That’s why you went first. So I’ll do a little reading of my own,” he said, closing the distance between them and lowering his face to hers, “I’ll say you liked that I got an eyeful,” he said, just before their lips met.
• • • • •
Though Mac had watched Isabelle’s lips all day, he’d never permitted himself to think about this moment. Kissing her went against training. It flew in the face of professionalism. It probably wasn’t ethical. And Mac knew from bitter experience that romance and work had to be kept separate.
But that was the problem–that bitter experience and the emptiness that never went away. Besides, he told himself, Isabelle wasn’t exactly work. She was…he didn’t know what she was. But right now, as he held her in his arms, he didn’t care. Isabelle was warm, incredibly vital, and exceptionally beautiful.
As though drawn by a powerful magnet, his lips immediately melded with hers. His mouth probed her as he marveled at the lush give of her tender flesh. He gently suckled it, tasting the sweetness of her, feeling the silky glide of her lower lip along his.
Her moist breath came more rapidly and, as he let go of her hand, the keys fell to the landing again but neither of them paid attention. Instead, he felt her hands behind his neck as his went to her tiny waist, his fingers nearly circling her. Through the thin fabric of the dress, he felt her slender waistline move, supple in his hands.
Though at first she’d reminded him of someone else, Isabelle wasn’t like her at all. Though disappointment tugged at him, so did relief. Maybe it was finally time to move on. He wanted to, needed to, maybe more than he’d been willing to admit.
Isabelle’s lips moved slowly, provocatively, responding to the mounting press of his. He lightly nibbled her upper lip, starting in the middle but moving steadily toward the corner that he had watched crook upward. He dwelled there for a moment but then retraced his path, his lips kneading into hers with growing urgency. Her mouth drifted with his, seeking him out, as though she didn’t want to lose contact. The motion was completely seductive and he found himself teasing
her, relishing the moist glide of her lips on his, their constant movement. But as his arousal stiffened and his fingers gripped her waist, he realized it wasn’t just her who’d been tantalized.
Quickly, he captured her lower lip in his mouth. His tongue stroked it, licking her, savoring the delicious feel and taste of her. He felt her mouth close on his upper lip and then the tentative touch of her tongue. He sucked her lower lip completely into his mouth, wet and warm, making her gasp and drag in a ragged breath. Her diaphragm pulsed against his thumbs and, before she even had a chance to finish inhaling, he released her mouth and pulled her to him.
“Isabelle,” he breathed, as his arms wound around her and he pressed her body to his.
• • • • •
As Mac’s chest pushed against hers, Isabelle realized that his suit and shirt hid a rock-hard body. She knew he looked fit, his shoulders wide and his waist narrow, but the hardness of the muscles of his chest came as a shock–almost as surprising as the sudden intensity in his lips as they captured hers.
This morning, if someone had asked her, Isabelle wasn’t sure if she’d even remember what a kiss felt like. Most guys were turned off by the word psychic right from the start. But for the few who stuck around, her ability to read them, especially when they made love, was a deal breaker. While lots of people said they wanted truth in their relationships, few were actually ready for the reality of it.
But she had already read Mac, if only accidentally, and the passion in his kiss began to match the profound emotion that she’d discovered.
His rounded shoulders bunched under her forearms as his embrace tightened. Like bands of steel, his arms closed around her. And as his mouth engulfed hers, the intensity there became all-consuming. His lips urged hers on, as though they were no longer hers to control. He suckled her lower lip again and then the upper, moving faster and pressing harder. His nose pressed into her cheek before he quickly tilted his head the other way. Her lips followed his, clinging to them, desperate not to be parted from them for a single instant.