She couldn’t resist it now.
Rising, she walked to the trunk and knelt before it.
Inside she’d tucked away things that spoke to her with equal resonance. As always admiring the intricate pattern painted on the lid, she raised it to gaze at her memories. The well-worn pink shoes Cousin Minny had bought her when she was eight sat right on top. A feathered Mardi Gras mask that Grandmama Madelaine had bought for her lay right next to the shoes. But it was the third item on top—the one out of sync with the others—that always held the most power over her.
She picked up the bra of pink lace and padding—a tactile reminder of why she’d shut down her supposed gift.
“Terrence didn’t actually lead me on. I did that to myself.” Grace couldn’t look at Declan. “I believed the visions in my head, believed in the magic.”
“How old were you?”
“Fifteen.”
“You were young. That made it easy to make a mistake.”
She’d been too naive, had misinterpreted what she’d seen because she had wanted to. She’d gone oh-so-willingly with the boy she’d been crazy about.
“Terrence drew me into the garden away from the party celebrating the end of the school year,” Grace told him. “I let him kiss me…touch me…I’d seen it all earlier in a vision, so I knew it was to be. I let him seduce me. I would have lost my virginity to him, but this girl Dusty came along and Terrence backed off and apologized all over the place to her.” To his real girlfriend. “He told Dusty that he was innocent, that I’d led him astray…”
“I’m sure that was a horrible experience for a fifteen-year-old.”
“You have no idea.” Humiliated, she’d suffered Dusty’s scornful expression. In the dark shadows of the garden, she’d fruitlessly tried to refasten her bra. In the end, she’d let it be. “I ran through the party, heard the laughter of the other kids all the way home. It was a mercy that Mama wasn’t waiting up for me.”
Had Mama known, she no doubt would have issued one of her edicts about what was and what wasn’t acceptable behavior. Grace had always known she was unacceptable in her own family.
“So that’s when you stopped using your gift.”
“That was it. I totally misinterpreted what I saw—my vision didn’t include Dusty interrupting Terrence trying to have sex with me or his telling everyone I seduced him. My humiliation was complete.”
In the wee hours of the morning, with her face all swollen from crying, she’d known what she had to do. In a heartbeat, she’d buried her psychic ability in her subconscious until the night she’d met Declan.
Declan…why did he have the power to awaken it?
Maybe because he was a man who accepted her as she was, she thought, replacing the bra and closing the lid on the trunk. Maybe that’s why she chose to let go of the locked-up place inside her. The place where she’d hidden her psychic ability along with her softer emotions.
The place where she’d hidden the ability to really care about a man.
Chapter Thirteen
“Minny thinks you’re the key,” Grace told Declan. “That you can unlock me.”
“Unlock you?” Declan echoed, thinking Grace’s mind wasn’t some Pandora’s box like the trunk she’d just opened. He was fuming inside, wanting in the worst way to tear off that bastard Terrence’s head for what he’d done to Grace. “How is unlocking you supposed to work?”
How could he undo something that had so obviously devastated an innocent young girl that she’d hidden part of herself for years?
“Through touch—”
“You already told me you can see things when you touch me.”
“Erotic things…like I saw what was going to happen between us the other night before it happened.”
And from her reactions at times, he was pretty sure the visions hadn’t ended. As much as he’d tried, he couldn’t stop thinking about that night together, either. Even so, he wasn’t going to let it happen again.
“What else have you seen?” he asked.
Grace licked her lips. “I’ve been controlling the visions. For the most part. But Minnie thinks I can use my connection with you to focus on something other than the sexual. And if I can do that with you, maybe I can figure out how to do it with others. With anyone.”
“So let’s try,” Declan said.
“Okay,” Grace said softly.
“What do you need me to do?”
“Just sit there, I guess.” She sounded breathless when she added, “And let me touch you as much as I need to for a breakthrough.”
The thought of Grace touching him at will made Declan’s skin burn. The thought of not being able to touch her in return was even more disturbing. But he sat there as she required and tried to keep his expression as normal as possible when she rose from her spot on the floor, joined him on the couch and slipped her hand in his.
One touch and he was ready to lose control.
His gaze glued to her face, Declan realized Grace was trying to cover what she was feeling. Unable to hide her response to him, she was by turns tentative…courageous…anxious…aroused…
He was certainly the last.
He doubted Grace understood how vividly he could sense her every emotion as she ran the flat of her hand along his arm. If she did, he doubted she would take him there. As it was, for the first time he read her completely. While she struggled with her task, tried for the right touch, tried to gain back the ability she had neatly put away, he was privy to everything going on inside her.
How he’d underestimated her.
Grace was soft and shy and funny and generous. Something like Lila. But beyond that, Grace was loyal and protective and—no matter that she thought herself a coward—fierce and maybe a little foolhardy.
Exactly the type of woman who could win his heart.
That’s why, no matter how much he wanted Grace, he couldn’t take her in his arms and make love to her lest he incur the prophecy.
If he did…he feared her life would be forfeit, and he would rather live without her than have her for a while and then have to live knowing he’d brought her to her death.
WHAT WAS WRONG WITH HER? Grace wondered. Why couldn’t she do this?
She would just start to make the leap from a sexual vision to something more ordinary…and then she would fall back as helpless as a turtle turned on its back. Uttering a sound of frustration, she gave her head a sharp shake as if that would clear it.
“How’s it going?” Declan asked.
“Could be better.” She stopped, her hand on his shoulder, and noticed that the color in his face had deepened. “Um…are you okay with this?”
“Better than okay. Do whatever you have to do. I’m yours.”
His words made her start. Yours? Was that figurative or literal? She feared the answer.
“Concentrate!” she ordered herself.
Having worked her way from his hand to his arm to his shoulder, she now slid her palm down over his collarbone. His flesh quaked beneath hers.
He rolls and brings her with him so she lands on top.
She rocks over him and her breasts brush his face.
There was purpose to this, Grace reminded herself as part of her wanted to jerk free from the vision. Indeed, the moment she became aware, she lost her place, so to speak. Reminding herself that Declan was the key to opening her mind, she slid her hand lower, her palm connecting to his chest.
Closing her eyes, she let go, concentrating only on his heartbeat.
Wearing jeans open at the waist, he stands at her stove making breakfast. Bacon in one pan, potatoes in another and a third awaiting the eggs he’s whipping.
She places two plates on the counter and leans in to him, watching him.
Grace started—it was working!
He slides inside with a grunt of satisfaction, then wraps his arms around her middle and nuzzles the back of her neck.
What happened? Her brain had once again flashed straight to an erotic vision. Fra
ntic, she zeroed in on the reality of his heartbeat and shifted again.
She drags him down Royal Street to her favorite antiques shop and points to a side table with gold animals’ legs. He rolls his eyes and she hits him. He kisses her and pushes her through the door of the shop.
Could what she was seeing be real? Grace wondered. Did she and Declan have a future together?
Her legs lift to circle his thighs. Declan is panting, and she can tell he’s fighting to hold back.
One more time, she thought, fighting frustration. This time she slid her hand up from his chest to explore his face. Somehow she removed her mind from the room and focused beyond the instinctive and on the five accepted senses—vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell—she forced the vision back to a nonsexual direction.
He grins down at her…a loopy grin unlike anything she’s seen before…he touches her stomach and then covers her face with kisses. Her heart is so full….
“I think I have it,” she said at last. “At least with you.”
“What did you see?”
She slid away from him. “Normal stuff. But what if it only works with you?”
“We won’t know until you try it on other people.”
“I know just the place to go.”
NO MATTER HOW SPARSE the crowds in other parts of New Orleans, Bourbon Street was never deserted at night. Grace hadn’t been to this part of town in a very long time. When they got out of the taxi, she took it all in. The noise, the people, the souvenir shops.
The street was almost foreign to her, and yet it was so alive with sound and movement and color that Grace felt as if she’d come home.
“So what do you think?” Declan asked.
“Contact time.”
They walked side-by-side, careful not to touch. Grace now knew she could read Declan. It was the other people who worried her. Would she be able to recognize a blackmailer when she touched him?
Whomp.
Someone in a hurry knocked into Grace with a quick “Oh, excuse me” and she got a mental image of a steaming bowl of lobster bisque being lifted toward an open mouth.
“Wow, that woman sure is hungry.”
A whole crowd of tourists streamed down the street, chattering voices assaulting her with images of drinks, food and sex. On the other hand, one girl was thinking about being in bed and reading a good book.
The problem was all the visions were mixed up together. Sights and sounds she couldn’t keep straight. They came in flashes. Or worse, waves. Nothing substantial like the ones she had with Declan.
At least something was coming to her, she thought. Working on keeping them straight came next.
One of the street hawkers held a small group of tourists enthralled. He was an actor pretending to be a street cop and bossing the good-humored tourists around.
Grace stopped at the edge of the crowd, but as the actor did his spiel, others stopped, too, brushing shoulders with her, their minds seeming to meld with hers. Dizzy, she tore from the crowd and leaned against a nearby iron railing on the side street.
Keeping up with her, Declan said, “I assume you’re seeing things.”
“Are you kidding? I’m on overload,” she admitted. “My mind is whirling.”
“It’ll get easier.”
“Without so many people, at least I’ll be able to tell who’s thinking about what.”
“We could try someplace less crowded,” he suggested.
“I think I’ve had enough for tonight.”
She would start again in the morning and figure out how to focus on one suspect at a time.
THEY WALKED BACK along Royal Street, the sounds of tourists carousing on Bourbon Street in the distance. Walking close to Grace without touching her, Declan felt the shift inside her. She was different. As if at peace with herself.
“I love that you’ve taken back the part of yourself that you lost for so long,” Declan told her.
“I hear a but in there.”
“But I hope you won’t put yourself at risk.”
“The whole point of my regaining my ability was to use it to nail the blackmailer!”
Vigilant as always, Declan kept his head turning, his gaze scanning their surroundings as they walked. If anyone was following Grace tonight, Declan would be sure to spot the bastard.
“I understand why you needed to do this, Grace.”
And he didn’t think it was just to catch a villain. For too long, she’d been without an important part of herself. No wonder she’d gone from school to school, job to job, trying to find some place where she fit in, when all along, part of her had been missing because she hadn’t trusted herself to accept who she really was.
“Then what’s the problem?” she asked.
“I just want you to stay safe. We need to do this together.” That way, he could protect her.
“You mean use your ability in tandem with mine?”
“That could work, don’t you think?”
Though it hadn’t been what he’d meant, apparently it was what she needed to hear.
“You have a point,” he said as they crossed Esplanade and headed straight for her building.
A few minutes later, they were back in her apartment.
“I’m going to check my e-mail,” Declan said. “I still haven’t heard from Ian about the fingerprints.”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
The laptop was still on the table by the sofa. He booted it up and quickly went into his e-mail program only to be disappointed.
“Nothing from Ian. Damn! He was certain we would hear by the end of the day.”
He was about to close the computer when Grace stopped him. “I might as well check my e-mail.”
Parked next to her on the couch, Declan had to keep himself in tight check. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her, wanted to lose himself in her sweet scent…
She’d gone through several messages when a new one popped up. Her instant anger and fear rocked him.
“What?”
She gasped, “The blackmailer!” and opened the message.
WILL YOU BE READY TO TRADE TOMORROW NIGHT? IF YOU DON’T THINK I’M SERIOUS, CLICK ON THIS LINK AND THEN TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK.
Hands shaking, Grace clicked on the link. Declan could only stare. There she was in the black bustier for all the World Wide Web to see. And that was the least revealing photo of her. There were nude shots, as well—her dressing and undressing. Declan’s mouth went dry—this would destroy Grace.
Her fingers rapidly attacked the keyboard.
How could you do this? I thought all you wanted was money!
“He’s got to be out there!” Declan quickly went to the windows and peered out at the street. “Otherwise how would he know you were here? That e-mail arriving just then was awfully convenient.”
Though he saw nothing amiss and was too far from the street to sense another presence, Declan was torn between running out and trying to find the creep and staying with Grace to make sure she was all right, both physically and emotionally.
Moving back to her side, he waited, mouth dry, for the reply.
I HAVEN’T LAUNCHED THE SITE YET. THE PAGE IS BURIED. I’M STILL WORKING ON IT. CHECK BACK WITH ME AT MIDNIGHT FOR ANOTHER INSTALLMENT.
A panicky Grace typed:
Wait!
No reply.
“He’s gone,” Declan said, giving Grace a worried look.
“I’m not even sure money would stop him.”
Grace looked as if she were about to cry. “What if he does it?” she asked, her voice shaky. “Puts those damn photos of me on the Internet? Even if we figure out who it is, how can we make that go away before everyone sees it? What the hell am I going to do?”
Declan wished he could tell her.
Unable to help himself, he slid an arm around her back and just held her. She trembled against him and fought for control. Every emotion that flashed through Grace wrapped around his heart and pulled them closer. Her anger and despair slowl
y morphed to something else. Something more positive. Something that had to do with him. With them.
Pulse ticking, he looked down into her face. Her eyes were wide. Her lips parted. He didn’t think—he just kissed her.
The touch of her soft mouth was sweet and tentative, as if they’d never gotten this close before. He gently ran his tongue along her lower lip and then explored deeper. That first night had come from a different place, one that was more about reassurance than deep feelings. Hard to believe things could change so fast. Kissing Grace drew from him things that tore Declan up inside.
For a moment, he bore it. He lost himself in the promise he could never make, never take. For a moment, he forgot himself and lost himself in her.
Grace’s suddenly churning emotions set off warning bells. He had to stop before things got out of hand. Ending the kiss, he steeled himself and pulled away from Grace. Her surprised expression morphed to neutral in the blink of an eye.
Quickly rising from the sofa, she said, “We probably should try to get some sleep.”
He saw through her pretense. Sensed it, knew she wanted him to convince her otherwise. Something he couldn’t do, not if he wanted to keep her safe.
“Good thinking,” he said.
Knowing he couldn’t let anything else—physical or emotional—happen between them.
Chapter Fourteen
The answer came to Grace sometime in the middle of the night. Though she longed for Declan to share her bed, he slept on the sofa again. That kiss kept her awake for hours, listening for any sound from the next room.
Listening for him.
How could this have happened to her? How could she have fallen in love with the man she’d hired to get her out of trouble?
Perhaps it was because she’d chosen at last to offer her complete trust.
Lying alone and awake, she had too much time to think. And mostly what she thought about other than Declan was her family. They trusted her and to this point she’d betrayed that trust and had kept them in the dark. She couldn’t keep the blackmail threats from them any longer. Telling them all wasn’t something she wanted to do. She’d hoped to keep this from Mama and Corbett to protect them. And yes, to protect herself from their disapproval.
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