He could hear Jenna perfectly, even though she was inside the building, rubbing off the smudges the repairman had left on her new glass. Shane pointed out a spot she’d missed. He was doing manual labor because Jenna had insisted she wouldn’t be free to work on the screenplay until everyone was gone.
“Depends on her screen test. Not all stage actors transfer to the screen. And vice versa.”
She rubbed furiously. “A screen test? Where? Are you bringing in a film crew? When?”
He shook his head. He could have gone into detail about just how complicated and how many insanely trivial and petty hoops you had to clear before you ever saw a green light to begin production, but he didn’t want to scare her. “She’ll have to go there. The studio has a big stake in casting and they take an active interest. I should be there, but my assistant can e-mail me the footage. Unfortunately, we can’t pick a cast until the actors have something to read.”
She gave the corners one last rub then stepped back to survey her work. “Nice. Double pane. Looks good. I wish I could afford to replace them all.”
“You can…if our show gets picked up.”
She set the cleaning products back in the bucket she’d been carrying around since he arrived and walked outside. He tucked the corner of his rag in his hip pocket and backed down the rungs of the ladder. “Hey, you do good work,” she said. “Writer. Producer. Window washer.”
He handed her the spray bottle. “Nice to have a trade to fall back on,” he said lightly.
“That’s what my father said about a college degree.”
Her voice held that hollow sound he sometimes heard when she mentioned her father. “I never went back, either,” he said. “I think I have about eight units left. Terrible, huh? My mother bugged me about it for a couple of years but finally gave up.”
“Couldn’t you have transferred to California?”
“Probably, but money was scarce and I was working full-time and then some. A man I respect told me the best way to learn a trade was from the bottom up. So, that’s where I started.”
“Is that when you met Coop?” she asked as they headed to her little office.
“A few years later. By then I had my SAG card. I got my start as a stunt double in a few low-budget films. Talk about crazy. At night, I’d ice down my bruises and try to write screenplays. The first one was so bad Coop and I burned it in our hibachi the first year we lived together.”
She stopped suddenly. “You torched your work?”
“Yeah. Because it stunk. Literally. Not only was the writing atrocious, my roommate at the time was an unemployed pothead and a chain-smoker. The place reeked.”
She unlocked a supply cabinet that was cleverly concealed in the siding. This was the second such hidden nook he’d stumbled across since his return to the Mystery Spot. He was beginning to get a feel for Jenna’s dad. The guy didn’t believe in wasting anything—not mismatched trim or space.
She stored the bucket and cleaning products on a shelf that had been made from an old billboard. The wood was slightly warped, and peeling paint was still visible.
After locking up again, she looked at him. “I’ve been thinking about your idea for the Oh-Zone. I like it. A lot. But just how kooky would we have to make the owner? I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was making fun of my dad.”
Shane stepped back to give her room to lead the way to their next task. “You have a thing about all those everyones and anyones, don’t you?” He tried to keep his tone light so she wouldn’t take his comment as a criticism, but she did anyway.
“Yes. I care what people think. I will be living here long after your film crew is gone. Long, long after this show has its run. I don’t want to walk down the street and have people whisper, ‘There’s the girl…woman…old lady who turned her father into a laughingstock.’”
God, he loved her fire and passion. He’d give anything to be able to feel that passion turned to lovemaking. Had she been with a man since the rape? The question was wrong on so many levels he had to turn and walk away to regain some focus. “Where are you going?”
“Back to the Dizzy House. Maybe if I had a tour of the place, I’d understand what your father was trying to do here.”
“Oh.” She followed a few steps behind. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
Because you weren’t desperately trying to avoid thinking about sex.
“Shall I give you the whole spiel?” Jenna asked, hurrying to catch up—in more ways than one. Something had happened a moment earlier. She’d felt an electricity between them. A snap and spark that was undoubtedly sexual, but he’d turned it off as if he’d just learned she was an ax murderer.
She wanted to ask why but decided to play it safe. If she didn’t ask, she wouldn’t have to deal with the fact he hated redheads or something.
“Sure,” he answered. He stopped at the wide concrete steps that led to the door. Above the transom was the sign her father had burned in wood when she was a kid: Watch Your Step. He’d meant that literally and always warned parents to hold their child’s hand securely.
She trotted past him and opened the door, then turned to face him. “Ladies and gentlemen, please heed this sign.” She pointed upward. “You are about to enter a building that to the naked eye looks very ordinary. The house was built in the 1950s after the original farmhouse that sat on this spot burned down.” She leaned forward and pointed to the moss-covered rocks in the wall. “Notice that this building rests atop the exact foundation of the first home. When my father bought this property and first experienced the anomalies you’re about to see and feel, he researched the history of the land. Inside you’ll see excerpts from a journal written by the matriarch of the family who settled here in the late 1800s.”
She cleared her throat and looked at him. “Can I give you the short version from now on?”
“As long as I get my money’s worth.”
She rolled her eyes. “Each tour accommodates ten to twelve people. A dozen adults in here is a pretty tight fit, but most families come with kids. Usually, the children push to the front of the pack, so I direct my talk to them.”
“Why?”
She smiled. “You’ll see. First I give people a few minutes to read what’s in the glass cases on the wall. All six are the same excerpt, by the way.”
“Are they real?”
She cocked her head and watched him read. “What do you think?”
He didn’t answer right away. In fact, he stepped closer and traced the loopy scribbles on the glass—just as she’d seen hundreds of tourists do. “Looks real.”
“The purpose of the journal is to plant in your mind a seed of doubt. Could this be more than just a trick? Could something phenomenal be taking place right under your feet? A hundred-year-old scientific anomaly, perhaps?”
He turned to face her. “You tell me.”
The seriousness in his tone made her step back. “Um, well…decide for yourself. After my initial introduction and a few minutes to read the journal, I draw their attention to the room on the right. The kitchen.” She stepped through the opening but gestured for him to remain where he was. “I need a volunteer.”
With a smirk that she was beginning to find rather endearing, he raised his hand. “Me. Me. Pick me.”
A crazy jolt of something she really didn’t want to think about made it hard for her to answer with similar humor, but she tried. “Um…you, sir. In black.” Motioning him forward, she added, “Normally, I choose a woman for this demonstration, but I don’t want to be accused of being sexist.”
His low chuckle as he followed her to the antique stove was too intimate, too interesting. When she looked at him, their gazes met and neither looked away for more seconds than seemed right. The words she’d recited several thousand times left her.
“Am I supposed to be dizzy?” he asked.
She moved back slightly. “Not yet. This is the egg trick. Well, it started out as the egg trick, but people accused Dad of using loaded egg
s. Plus, they got expensive, so he switched to cue balls.”
She opened a drawer and withdrew one and a half cue balls. “Before and after?” he asked, handing them back to her after he’d thoroughly examined both.
She smiled. “Just trying to prove that our cue ball is the real deal.”
Clearing her throat, she resumed her spiel. “Can you imagine how annoying it must have been to the woman of this house to set a farm-fresh egg on the counter only to watch it roll off? Every time.”
She demonstrated. The counter not only looked completely level, her father had rigged a large builder’s level to prove that the fluid bubble was right where it was supposed to be. But when she set the ball on a purple spot it rolled to the right. A net had been tacked to the side of the counter to catch it.
“Your turn,” she said, giving the ball back to Shane.
His right eyebrow shot up, but he did as asked. “There must be a magnet somewhere,” he said. “Under the counter.”
She opened the cupboard doors. Empty.
She was a little surprised when he got on his knees to look up under the counter, but maybe the fact he had some training in carpentry made him more curious than she’d expected.
He investigated thoroughly, repeated the trick several more times then looked at her and said, “I give up.”
She put the two balls back in the drawer. “Then our work here is done. Come along. Next room.”
He grabbed her hand as she started to leave. “Aren’t you going to tell me how it’s done?”
His hand was large and warm. Normally, she didn’t like to be touched. Especially by men with large, warm hands. But her usual repulsion didn’t happen. Instead she was tempted to squeeze his hand and hold on tight.
Bizarre, she thought, pulling her fingers free. “Gravity.”
His chuckle followed her as she hurried to the doorway of the adjacent room. He walked to the waist-high cased opening that allowed people to observe anyone who entered the large, mostly empty room. Her father had hired an artist to paint murals on each of the outer walls showing what the room might have looked like when a family had lived here. There’d been many a day when Jenna had wished she could go back in time and live in this safe, pretty room.
“As you can see, this was the bedroom. We’ve removed the furniture to avoid injury, but imagine what a nightmare it must have been to sleep in a room that seems to be constantly shifting from side to side. We call this the dizzy room for a reason, so don’t be surprised if a stranger is suddenly holding on to you for balance.”
She took a deep breath and walked straight to the middle of room. Almost instantly, her equilibrium went haywire. She stepped on what looked like a level surface and felt her foot drop a quarter of an inch. Just enough to throw her balance off. She staggered, which prompted Shane to dash into the room.
“Watch out,” she warned.
He weaved to the left like a drunk after a long night at a bar. “Holy crap,” he muttered. “What the he—?”
She grabbed his arm and pulled him closer to the wall. He looked slightly dazed. “Wow. What is it?”
“You’d have to ask my dad. Unfortunately, I think the secret went to the grave with him. All I know is it’s very effective. I’ve seen people bob and weave all the way back to their car. I’ve done this tour so often I barely feel it unless I’m in the middle of the room.”
He put a hand to his forehead. “I’ve got the spinners. Like those nights in college when you drank too much then lay down in bed and the ceiling was going around in circles.”
College.
He looked at her so intensely she realized she must have said the word aloud.
“Sorry. Wrong thing to say.”
She shook her head. “It was a long time ago. Shall we finish the tour? There’s an exit through the back, but since I have to lock up, I think we should go out the way we came in.”
His usual serious look was back on his face. He nodded and pushed off from the wall to lead the way. He only made it a few steps before listing sideways, like the Titanic after meeting the iceberg. She tried to keep him upright, but his momentum was too great. They both staggered a few steps then crashed into the wall. The wall with the drawing of a four-poster with a patchwork quilt on it, and they landed smack dab in the middle of the one-dimensional mattress.
“This was your plan along, right?” Shane asked, wrapping his arms around her to keep steady. “To get me in bed?”
She laughed to keep her panic at bay, but to her surprise she didn’t feel the usual fear that came when someone got too close, too fast. In fact, she liked the feeling of being in his arms. Warm. Secure. Protected.
“I’ve seen the same thing happen to other people. Perfect strangers. Dad used to say it was all about a person’s polarity—positive and negative.”
His eyes were such a deep, yummy brown. Like chocolate syrup. “Does that mean one of us is a magnet and the other iron filings?”
She knew which she’d be. “Maybe we’re both iron filings being drawn to the giant magnet in the wall.”
He arched his neck to look over his shoulder, his skepticism clearly back in place. Laughing, she put her hands flat against his chest and pushed away. She waited for her balance to return, the way it usually did, but if anything, she was even loopier. Her hands wouldn’t leave his shirt. Her breath was shallow and shaky. Because she knew he was going to kiss her.
Kiss. His mouth touching her mouth. No. She didn’t kiss. Or touch. Or…But no words of protest made it out before his lips touched hers.
Shane kept his hands where they were, even though his first inclination was to touch her face, bury his fingers in her hair and deepen the kiss. But he went for soft. Gentle. Unthreatening. Up till this minute, she’d seemed so skittish, so anxious to avoid contact.
He inhaled deeply, trying to memorize her smell. Fresh air, hint of pine, some light perfume that might have had a touch of the exotic. Jasmine?
Her skin was as smooth and silky as he’d guessed. Up close, he could see flecks of amber in her pretty eyes. But the moment she registered that he was looking at her while she was looking at him, the spell was broken. She jumped back and in three wobbly steps was out the door.
Being Jenna, she didn’t just abandon him, though. No, her sense of responsibility was too great. She braced herself in the doorway as if poised to come to his rescue should he need help.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
No. He definitely was not okay and he had to stop kidding himself that he was. His feelings for her had changed—morphed into a grown-up version of the crush he’d felt in college. Bigger. Stronger. Undeniable. Bordering, God help him, on love.
The idea made his hands shake, and there was a good chance his legs were going to give out.
“Keep one hand on the wall and step this way,” she coaxed, her tone worried.
He did as she suggested. Not because he was dizzy. That sensation had passed. But because his knees felt as though the cartilage was made of foam. “I missed lunch. Nobody said anything about hazard pay.”
“Let’s go back to the office. Mom bought a big selection of candy bars for the snack bar.”
Once they were safely outside, she locked the building and started off, but Shane glanced at the other exhibits. He pointed to the one that looked like a WWII Quonset hut. “Wait. What’s in that one?”
“Alice’s House? Basically, it’s just a cement T that’s about five feet by seven feet. Dad built the structure around it to protect visitors when it rains. And it gets pretty windy through here, too.”
“Let me guess. It has something to do with Alice in Wonderland?”
“Very good. The tour guide stands the shortest person in the crowd at one end of the T and the tallest person at the other. To the observers in the viewing area, the two appear to be the same height—even if they switch places.”
“It’s an optical illusion.”
“Maybe.”
He shook his head. �
�And over there?” He pointed to the third structure, which had a ramp leading to a door on one end and another ramp on the opposite.
“Well, I know it doesn’t look like it from this angle, but between the two buildings is a maze.”
“That fence thing?”
She nodded. “It’s made of reinforced concrete and the way it’s painted makes it almost invisible—unless you’re up close.”
“Does the U.S. Army know about this?”
She grinned. “Dad’s best friend used to be a retired brigadier general with the National Guard. I can’t say for sure, but maybe Dad and Stan exchanged state secrets. I kinda doubt it, though.”
“Amazing.”
She snapped her fingers to get his attention. “For a couple of years, Dad had a terrible problem with graffiti. Then a rumor got around that the maze had mysterious powers and anyone who defaced the walls would suffer impotence and/or infertility.” She looked down pointedly. “That’s not a can of spray paint in your pocket, is it?”
Shane rarely blushed, but at the moment he was darn glad Coop wasn’t there. “That sounds like something one of our characters would say. But which one?”
“My mom’s?”
They looked at each other and nodded—some of their earlier camaraderie back. “Her way of getting through the scientist’s thick skull that she has the hots for him.”
“Yeah. In a way, my dad was like that, too. When he was focused on some problem, he blanked out everything else. Everybody else.”
He thought he detected a note of hurt in her tone, but she was out of range before he could ask. Avoidance, he decided, was a mode of self-protection. He could appreciate that. After all, he hadn’t been back to Minnesota since his mother died. Not even to attend his father’s funeral. When Shane told Adam on the phone he wasn’t coming, Adam had hung up on him and they hadn’t spoken since.
Avoidance. He was a master of it.
CHAPTER NINE
JENNA CHECKED HER WATCH. She’d given herself plenty of time to get to the wedding, which was at two. But since today was also the grand reopening of the Mystery Spot, she’d felt compelled to put in an appearance to make sure her team had everything under control.
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