Something very peculiar was going on. Imagining the visitation of a monster aside, her absolute confidence in being here, being safe, being powerful was unusual even for cocky Leigh. Not that she was always cocky, just determined.
Hearing the things she thought she was hearing bordered on… what did they call it… the otherworldly?
And she hadn’t turned a hair at the vapors drifting off Saratoga Passage.
Those vapors, and the ones that crept into the cottage the night before, were paranormal. What else could they be? And their appearance coincided with the bionic hearing…
Setting her jaw, narrowing her eyes on the glaring white scene again, she drove on, this time avoiding the brakes.
A hum of voices unraveled her concentration. There was no one to be seen, anywhere. Onward she went and the hum became a mumbling and an occasional laugh—and an occasional cross exclamation.
She would be a liar if she pretended not to be really rattled by too many questionable events, and by being closed inside her car, with blanketing snow deadening any noise around her, yet hearing people she couldn’t see didn’t make sense.
The car clock showed 6:30. She had made really good time.
When she reached the turn to Gabriel’s Place, the muted hubbub grew louder. Leigh saw a little gaggle of swathed figures standing on the road, some jumping up and down and stamping their feet to stay warm. Then she saw Gabriel, who strode back and forth pounding his hands together.
The new sign was hard to miss. It was mounted on a pole, and the lights raced around the letters, flashed several times when they reached them all, then stayed on. In a few seconds the cycle started again.
Leigh put her forehead on the steering wheel while she composed herself. Laughter wouldn’t endear her to Gabriel, and if she got right out of the car she might leap around like a demented kangaroo and laugh with pure delight.
No one would miss that fabulous sign. Now she wanted one out by the main road. The thought of suggesting that to Gabriel made her cringe.
Only when she stood, cold striking through her boots—despite thick socks inside—did she gather the general mood of the little crowd. They were excited, blissful, bubbling with enthusiasm.
Gabriel saw her and marched in her direction. This was the moment to attack, not retreat. “I love it,” she said as he reached her. “That shop does great work. They really understand what’s needed. Congratulations, Gabriel.”
He did an imitation of a beached fish, his breath turning to icy clouds like a stream of smoke rings.
Leigh threaded a hand under his elbow. “And it’s really cute. Not offensive or anything, just funny. People will want to come in because they’ll expect a warm welcome and a smile.”
Gabriel pushed out his lips and narrowed his eyes. “If you look too quickly you see ‘tomorrow we die,’ not diet. And how was it put up without anyone hearing it going into the ground? That pole had better be in a deep hole or the whole thing will come down and kill someone.” He sniffed and said, “That’s if I don’t take it out myself,” under his breath.
With purposeful steps, Leigh marched to the sign and pushed on the very solid pole. “It’s not going anywhere. And it’s an absolute winner, Gabriel. You’ll see.”
He rocked to his heels. “You really think so?”
“I know so. Look at all of them—they love it.”
They were Cliff and Sally, the twins, and a small assortment of men and women who had evidently sought cover from the weather.
“Well, I don’t know so,” Gabriel said. “Makes the place look like an amusement arcade. I’ll have to think on it.”
He marched back to the building, gesticulating and muttering about “Poles that go up in the night.”
The others straggled after him, all but Sally, who came and put an arm around Leigh. “He’ll warm up to it,” she said. “But you’d better wait a week or two for results before you go after the one on the highway.”
Leigh nodded and they started to go inside.
How did Sally know she was planning a second sign? Had they talked about it? They must have.
Blue appeared at Leigh’s side and she jumped, looking around and expecting to see Niles. She didn’t. The dog had followed her all the way here. Now she’d have to let Niles know where Blue was. When had she developed these Pied Piper tendencies? Dogs and cats everywhere—well, two dogs and one cat.
She cleared her throat as the doors of Gabriel’s closed behind them. “Skillywidden showed up in my bed last night,” she told Sally. “I’m so sorry, I thought it was too late to call you. She must have stowed away on Niles’s bike at your shop.”
Sally looked totally unconcerned. “Cats have minds of their own. If she’s taken a shine to you, let her stay until she decides she wants to come back to me. I think you’ll find her useful.” She had already shed her huge, puffy coat. “Unless you don’t want her around.”
Jazzy chose that moment to leap gleefully into sight and launch himself at Leigh.
Leigh had only begun to consider Jazzy’s reaction to a cat in the house when Sally said, “At least Jazzy thinks Skillywidden’s the cat’s meow.” She laughed at her own little pun and began her stiff, rolling walk toward the kitchen. “Just let me know if you don’t want her there.”
Now wasn’t the time to mention that the cat might already have disappeared. “Of course I want her there.”
Blue and Jazzy made straight for the hearth in front of a roaring fire.
“Good,” Sally called. “Introduce yourself to Doc Saul VanDoren. I call him Doc Saul. Just call him whatever he tells you to.”
Leigh searched around the restaurant and bar and finally noticed a tall, slender figure seated in the darkest corner of the bar. She approached apprehensively. Getting to know all of the customers and making them welcome was part of her job—or so she had decided—but she knew a loner when she saw one.
He looked up from his apparent reverie well before she arrived at his secluded table and she stopped.
Someone should have prepared her.
Doc Saul VanDoren was not a man you would ever pass on the street without a second look—or a third. She couldn’t tell the color of his eyes. Black, or as close to black as eyes could be, she supposed. Arching brows and narrow-bridged straight nose, a mouth with completely unexpectedly full, sensual lips. Cheekbones high and prominent.
Most surprising was the thick, black hair that fell past his shoulders.
“Good morning,” he said, but the expression remained serious, even though he looked her over carefully enough to make her skin tingle.
“Good morning. I’m Leigh Kelly. I work for Gabriel now.”
“Yes.” Now she was getting the eye-lock. “Gabriel mentioned you. I’m Saul.”
“Sally tells me you’re the local doctor.” She tried a smile without much hope of cracking any ice.
She was wrong.
The man spread a lazy smile Leigh could only stare at and held out a long-fingered hand. When she took it she noticed a heavy gold ring on his small finger and the unexpected drape of a full, white sleeve.
Sexy elegance. And in the local medico?
“Sally said you’ve been away.”
He stared back at her. “At sea. I like to take a break as a ship’s doctor a couple of times a year. Change is good and I have enough time on my hands to carry on my research.”
She might wait a long time if she hoped to be invited to sit. “May I ask about your research?”
“Perhaps another day,” he told her, rising to tower over her. He was as tall as Niles. “We’ll have another chat soon, Miss Kelly.”
“It’s Mrs. Kelly, but please call me Leigh.”
“Leigh,” he said courteously and with a slight bow. “Good day to you.”
A renaissance man, as in from the Renaissance. That’s exactly what Dr. Saul looked like.
He walked fluidly in the direction of the kitchen. Beyond that there was another outside door and she heard it
slam.
Before Leigh could hustle off to recover in her office, a woman raced through the front doors. It was still far too early for regular customers—the little band of those who had gotten off the road to seek warmth was an anomaly—but this person, who was young and beautiful, with green eyes and freckles, started talking to the room at large as if her arrival was the most normal thing at this time of day.
She pushed back the furlined hood of her heavy, plaid wool coat and curly red hair began to slide out of a topknot. “I’ve heard from Rose,” she announced. She radiated happiness. “Everybody, I got back last night and there’s a letter from Rose.”
Gabriel came from behind the counter and Sally emerged from the kitchen with Cliff, covered in flour, trailing behind her. The customers looked mildly interested, but probably more in the newcomer than in her announcement.
“Have you told the police, Phoebe?” Gabriel asked.
The woman slapped a hand over her mouth. “I didn’t even think about it. I’ll call them.” She took folded paper from her pocket and shook it out. A single sheet. “See. She’s gone back to Alaska to help her dad. He can’t do what he used to do without help, so Rose will help. And she thinks she’ll stay there for good this time.”
“Leaving all her stuff behind,” Gabriel said. “Impulsive, if you ask me.”
“That’s one of the beauties of living in a converted school bus. With the wheels off and the whole thing up on blocks, it wouldn’t be easy to steal. Everything’s gone from inside. She didn’t have much so it would have fit in her truck.”
“Her truck is still there.”
Phoebe screwed up her face. “No it’s not. I went by there as soon as I got this last night. You know I always have problems storing all the books I, er, acquire. Rose says I can store some of them in the bus. It’ll be really useful but I know it won’t be easy finding a replacement for her at the shop.”
Sally had reappeared, wiping her hands on her apron. “Did you introduce yourself?” she asked Phoebe, inclining her head to Leigh.
“Oh, my. Sorry. I’m Phoebe Harris. I own the used book store in Gulliver Lane. Read It Again. Next to Wear It Again, the consignment clothing store. I’m only here on weekends. In the week I work at a boat storage lot in Everett. Rose looked after the place here. She knew everyone and their interests so she often found a home for a book that came in before we even shelved it.”
“Leigh Kelly,” Leigh said. She hadn’t known there was a used book store in the area, or a consignment shop—or a Gulliver Lane. “I work for Gabriel.”
“I think I know someone who would be good with books,” Sally said. “Give me a few hours to get in touch with him.”
Leigh left them to it, decided to let Jazzy enjoy the fire, and went to her office.
Niles sat tipped back in her chair, his feet on her desk. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said.
He wasn’t smiling a welcome.
chapter TWENTY-ONE
WHY?” SHE SAID. “And why hole up in here until you could jump out at me?”
“That’s not what I meant to do,” Niles said. “But I want you to take this seriously. I didn’t want an audience when I gave you this.” He put the Sig Sauer P238 on the desk in front of him.
He had more to talk about this morning than guns, but he might as well start with the easy stuff.
“Have you ever used a gun?”
Leigh leaned against the door and crossed her arms. She stared at the weapon but didn’t seem to recoil from it, not that he’d thought she would. “I’ve fired a gun. Chris wanted me to learn.”
He got up and went around to stand on the same side of the desk with her. “This model is called ‘Lady.’ ” He reached behind him and brought the gun to hold in front of her. “A Sig Sauer. Except I knew where to get one that didn’t have a red frame, like they usually do, and it doesn’t have the cute little gold flowers on it. It’s light enough for you to handle—especially since you already know how—but it’s not a water pistol.”
“I’ll pay you for it.”
“No, you won’t. It’s a gift, because I care about what happens to you. I care a lot. Do you understand?”
“I… I think you do, but you’re angry. I can feel it.”
Niles took a breath and softened his voice. “I’m not angry. I’m serious. Weapons are serious.” Since he left her, early that morning, he had been busy lining up just the right weapon. He hadn’t wanted to do it—guns killed more innocent people than guilty ones—but he understood her need to have some control over what happened to her.
He had also dealt with setting up twenty-four-hour surveillance of Leigh—and made himself face his own feelings. This was personal and doing nothing about it wasn’t an option. The desperation he felt wasn’t for the future of the team anymore, it was for himself and being with her for good. Anything more that came of it, unless she rejected him completely, would be a bonus.
Leigh didn’t take her eyes from his face.
He offered her the gun. Leigh hesitated an instant too long before she held out her hand, palm up, as if he was giving her an apple. When the gun lay there, that’s where it stayed.
She was trying to look tough and in many ways he thought she was, but she didn’t like feeling a gun in her hand.
He wished she would say something.
“Leigh… Oh, hell.” Niles jammed his hands deep in his pockets and looked at the floor. “I’m an idiot. This is the wrong way to do this.”
“Do what? Test me to see if you can scare me? Try to make me show I’m unsure of myself? You’re wrong; you’ve done that really well.”
He couldn’t stop looking at her stiff palm with the gun balanced on top. “You’re frightened of me? You’re not sure I’m on your side. Wonderful. Hours of thinking this through and I still make a mess of it.”
“Is there something wrong, Niles? Should I be worried about you, or just about me?”
“I admitted this to you last night. You just… I’m not good at this because I haven’t had much practice lately.”
He heard her long sigh. “Are you going to explain what you aren’t good at?”
“Talking to women. The only woman I really want to talk to. Leigh, this hasn’t happened to me before, not like this.” Now he sounded wet behind the ears. “I mean I haven’t wanted to ask anyone what I want to ask you.”
The room was too small. He felt as if the walls almost touched his shoulders.
“I’ve already told you I trust you,” Leigh said. “That hasn’t changed. Tell me what you came to say.”
“Let me take that from you,” he said, indicating the gun. “We’ll get back to it.”
She made no move to stop him from taking the gun and setting it on the desk.
“You told me you liked me. Did you mean that?”
“Yes.”
He crossed his arms and vaguely noticed Leigh did the same. “Do you think you could love me—really love me?”
Her freckles got more pronounced as her face grew paler.
“Leigh?” He moved closer to her but not too close.
Her hands went to her face. She pressed her cheeks. “What does love mean to you?” she asked, her eyes very wide open and very dark. She breathed rapidly through her mouth.
“It’s a feeling.” He put a fist against his chest. “A longing to have one person belong to you. Not like a thing, a car or something. Attached at the head and heart, I guess. Not wanting anyone else the same way. There’s something that happens in your throat—tightness that hurts in a good way. It’s needing to take care of someone, just one person, to protect them. I have to know you’re safe, Leigh. I think about you all the time. I don’t know what else to say.”
She kept staring at him.
“I’ll try again. It’s all the stuff I’ve already said, but there’s a feeling when I see you, or think about you even. I tighten up with needing to touch you. I turn into a verbal idiot and nothing I say sounds right.”
“We haven’t known each other long,” she whispered.
“Who says you have to? Will you think about this? Will you think about being with me all the time? My partner—be my partner, Leigh.”
“Your partner?”
This wasn’t the place to explain everything she would need to know. “You have to think about it. Maybe I’m crazy to come out with this and think you’ll even consider me.” But she hadn’t dismissed him out of hand, or run shrieking from the room. “Take some time. I’ll be watching out for you no matter what your answer is. I’ll always do that. But if you think you can, or you want to, would you come to my place this evening so we can try to get at what this means?”
She shook her head and his heart dropped.
“I don’t know,” she told him. “I can’t give you an answer till I’ve thought about it.”
Hope was a dangerous thing, but he hoped. “Look. Just come if you want to. Spur of the moment is fine. I’ll be there.”
“I don’t like to think of you waiting for me if I decide not to come.”
“Forget it. I won’t expect you to come but… I’m a big boy. If you don’t want to, I’ll suck it up and forget it.”
They looked at each other.
“I know last night I said I wanted it, but would you hold on to the gun for me?” she said. “For a little while?”
He waited a couple of minutes after she left the room and made his way out of the building through the back door—with the gun in his pocket.
chapter TWENTY-TWO
SO MUCH FOR FLASHY SIGNS,” Gabriel said, glaring around at the mostly empty bar.
Leigh wrinkled her nose at him. “So we’re having a slow day.” She threw out her arms. “Look at the weather—folks are staying off the roads if they can. But when we get the other sign out by the highway even heavy snow won’t keep business away.”
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