Storm Warning

by Toni Anderson

  Instead she shot him a wry grin. “He dumped me for an eighteen-year-old bimbo with the world’s biggest tits.” She glanced down at her own much flatter chest. “Maybe it wasn’t the ghosts after all.”

  He laughed and kissed her. It only lasted seconds and she was afraid she wanted much, much more. Unnerved, she drew back. “I don’t even know where you’re from.” Or how long you’re staying.

  “Chicago.” His eyes were so dark she saw herself reflected there, small and insignificant.

  “Right.” She hesitated, one more question she needed to ask before things went any further. “You’re not married, are you?”

  “I wouldn’t be fucking you if I was married.” His voice was low, fierce and hungry, and reminded her this was about sex, not love.

  Sex was what she’d wanted. Not this squeezed-tight, waiting-for-the-ax-to-fall emotion. She rubbed her arms and turned away.

  “What did I do?” His question was sharp, maybe regretting saying fucking rather than loving because if he hadn’t, he’d be nailing her on the couch. And what sort of brainless tart did that make her?

  She scraped her hair back and turned to face him. His masks were coming down, the defensive layers shutting her out, and she didn’t want that. If she could turn off her inner cynic, she might actually enjoy herself for once. “I need to know…is this a game? This thing between you and me?” The words slipped out and she wanted to claw them back.

  “It isn’t a game.” And from the way his mouth thinned, he wasn’t happy about analyzing his emotions. “I don’t know what it is.”

  She didn’t know either. They’d only know each other a few days, so why was she insisting on dissecting everything to death? Because I’m falling in love and scared to death he isn’t.

  He put his hand on the stack of journals that sat on the coffee table. “Want me to stay while you read these?”

  God, yes, she wanted him to stay. Too much. “I’d like that, but it may take awhile.”

  “Where do you want to start?” Anticipation lit his eyes as he lowered himself to the floor. Elbows braced on his knees, he fingered the edge of a book.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t even know what I’m looking for.”

  It was scary to think what might lie within those pages. Delving into her father’s secret thoughts. She ran her hand over the cover, and warmth and love filled her, memories of a better time, of the bond they’d shared. She opened the book.

  The first page had his name and address on it, and the date printed neatly in the corner.

  Sadness and grief welled up as she recognized her father’s neat script in aged blue ink. She turned to the opening entry—she’d been four years old.

  Skinny Malinky lang legs had friends to supper. Archie the cat, Susie the rag doll and Annabel, a ghost I can’t see. I’ll ask Mum if she’s real or just in Sorcha’s head. Gives me the creeps thinking about the poor wee soul. They scoffed jam sandwiches and fairy buns before heading into the garden on a treasure hunt.

  “Oh. My. God.”

  “What is it?” Ben pressed against her shoulder to read the page.

  Maybe this was what her father wanted. To give her the answers she needed to make sense of her life. “It seems I saw ghosts as a child too.” She glanced at him uncertainly. “I guess I somehow blocked it out.”

  Ben shrugged. It was a crazy conversation and she didn’t blame him for not commenting.

  “My granny must have seen ghosts too.” Relief bloomed in her chest, followed by hurt and confusion. Why hadn’t someone told her? Her father’s death had cost her so much more than the loss of a beloved parent.

  “You didn’t know?”

  “No.” Sorcha wished she had something stronger than coffee to drink. “After I left Scotland I only saw Gran a couple of times and she never mentioned ghosts.” With her grandmother’s death, she’d lost all hope of understanding her heritage. Did Robbie know? Or Uncle Davy or Angus?

  “She gave me a stone last time I saw her, a piece of turquoise. Told me it was lucky and to carry it with me always, except I’m always scared of losing it.” It had been in her jewelry box, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen it.

  She placed a hand on Ben’s thigh, his muscle contracting beneath her fingers. “Maybe I’m not such a freak after all—or if I am, it runs in the family.”

  ***

  Pitiless steel gleamed in the shadows as he ran the blade across the whetstone one last time. He admired the killer edge and let himself smile.

  Life had treated him badly. Life had poured shit over every piece of hope and happiness he’d ever glimpsed. After all these years of torment and pretence, it was finally over.

  Inside he was calm, his heartbeat slow and steady—the gentle pulse of waves. His mind for once free of visions and chaos.

  Everything happened for a reason.

  Those things that he’d thought of as disasters—Santayana’s death, the fall of the Colombian cartel, the cop turning up, the return of Sorcha Logan. Now he realized they were not disasters. They were opportunities. They were links in the chain that led to his freedom.

  His liberation.

  After a lifetime of hard graft and mendacity, he was done hiding his true talent. Nothing was going to suffocate his gift. He had everything he needed—money and power and knowledge. All he needed for the perfect happy-ever-after was revenge.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Tears had dried on Sorcha’s cheeks as she lay asleep on the couch, a journal open on her lap. The roaring fire had settled into glowing orange coals that radiated a low heat.

  It had been one hell of a night.

  Most of the entries were deeply personal, written in broad Scots and freaking hard to decipher. Details of the breakup of Iain Logan’s marriage to a woman he loved but couldn’t live with. The bitterness he’d felt when she’d abandoned him and their daughter.

  Painful images for any young woman, but for Sorcha, who had more baggage than most, these journals could seriously mess with her head. As if seeing ghosts wasn’t bad enough…

  Did he believe her? It sounded nuts, but in this town, with its clinging mists and whispers of witchcraft? Yeah, he did.

  He leafed through another notebook. Nothing in these intimate insights suggested Iain Logan was anything except a loving parent who wouldn’t willingly leave his child alone. But Ben kept finding numbers jotted below certain dates and times. 50-1, 100, number 7.

  And a location. Ludlow. What the hell did that mean? Some sort of map reference or code? A drug meet?

  Here was something:

  I’ve set up a bank account for Skinny Malinky lang legs, in Switzerland no less. The big man—that’s me. And I won’t tell a soul, not even my wee lassie until she’s full grown. Maybe that way I can keep my secrets.

  Iain Logan had set up the bank account for Sorcha. One mystery solved. So why had she lied about it? He flipped the page as he pondered. Was it possible she didn’t know? Had Iain Logan died before he’d put the details in a will?

  I see hard times ahead. I feel it with every net we haul, every pot we set. Hard times are coming. But Skinny Malinky will be right. The gee-gees will see to that.

  What the hell? Ben read it again. The gee-gees? He slapped himself on the forehead. Jeez. Gee-gees. Brit slang for horses. The numbers were odds and stakes placed on horse races. She’d told him her dad bet on one big race every year, but with nearly a million pounds in the bank, the man had gambled much more frequently than that.

  And he’d put it away for his daughter.

  Probably wasn’t ethical among psychics, yet ethics and gambling rarely went hand in hand.

  Skinny Malinky lang legs. Ben checked her out. Even as a grown woman the nickname fit.

  Was Iain Logan haunting Sorcha because he wanted her to have her Swiss bank account inheritance? It seemed so mundane, but what the hell did he know about ghostly motivation? Not much. It wasn’t something covered in the DEA handbook. Anoth
er possibility was that Sorcha’s father had been murdered and the man was looking for retribution. Seemed more in keeping with the reputations of restless specters.

  Sorcha let out a tiny snore and he grinned. She intrigued him. From her mismatched flowery and plaid nightwear to the freckles that dotted her skin. He should’ve had the strength to keep away from her, and it shamed him that he didn’t. But he didn’t regret a thing in the bedroom last night.

  Not a damned thing.

  They had more in common than he’d thought. As a kid he’d tried so hard to make up for whatever the hell was wrong with him. His grandfather had rarely looked at him let alone shown any interest in anything Ben had done at school or on the basketball court.

  Sorcha had grown up with the same sense of rejection and abandonment he had. And sure, he’d survived, but that constant battle to prove yourself, that constant nagging doubt about your own self-worth, was a heavy burden to carry.

  He was beginning to think they might have been mistaken about Sorcha Logan all along. Other people had access to her phone. Other people used her fishing boat. Nothing he’d seen when he was with her raised his suspicions.

  Was she being set up to take the fall? In which case who were the real traffickers? And how did he protect her?

  Ben knew one thing. If she did smuggle drugs, if she confessed tomorrow, he would bring her in. It would break him, but he owed that much to his dead partner.

  Thoughts of Jacob bothered him. Because if ghosts existed, was his partner watching him? And how did the promise Ben had made to a dying man measure up to his actions? He scrubbed his hands over his face. Shit.

  Iain Logan’s death connected the past and the present in some way. Ben knew it, he just couldn’t prove it. He scraped his fingers over his eyelids, picked up another journal and tried to read. He stared down at the handwritten notes of the dead man. Imagined a spiritual presence watching over his shoulder as he tried to decipher the words, but they tangled together into gibberish. He snapped the diary shut. It was no good. He had to get these journals to the Scottish DEA in Paisley ASAP, needed to get them copied and deciphered by someone who understood the Scots’ language.

  He pulled a throw off the back of the couch, spread it over their tangled legs. Sorcha didn’t stir. He should probably carry her up to bed, but he didn’t want to wake her because she looked so wrung out.

  Tomorrow he’d get the journals to SDEA’s headquarters and figure out who the real drug traffickers were in this town. In the meantime he just had to keep her alive.

  ***

  Even though it was Saturday, Sorcha had worked up until lunchtime and then stopped off to buy groceries on the way home. She swore under her breath as she fought with the stiff, uncooperative new lock on the cottage’s front door. Shopping bags fell off her shoulder and she wrestled them in her arms, along with the coat she’d removed because it had grown so hot. Suddenly the key turned and she stumbled into the room.

  Kevin stood there, blowing his nose, slipping his handkerchief into his trouser pocket.

  “Hi, Kevin.” Trying not to be irritated, she turned and closed the door.

  Kevin sat down and then leaped up again with a goofy grin on his face. “Hiya, Sorch.”

  Between work and Carolyn, she was spending a hell of a lot of time with Kevin Cassidy. Life was too short to be constantly miserable, and maybe she’d overreacted to him yesterday morning. She hadn’t exactly been feeling rational, and he wasn’t even close to being mature.

  Carolyn had stayed in town with him last night because she was too scared to return to the cottage even with the improved security. Sorcha couldn’t really blame her after what she’d been through. So if she wanted Carolyn to feel safe she’d have to put up with Kevin and make a convincing job of it.

  What she really wanted, more than anything, was to curl up alone with her father’s journals. They hadn’t told her how he died yet, but at least she knew for sure that he’d loved her.

  She glanced over to the bookcase where she’d stacked the diaries earlier and stumbled. They were missing. She dropped one of the grocery bags to the floor, tripping over it in her agitation.

  “Do you know where the books are that were on the sideboard?” They were so intensely personal, the thought of Kevin reading them made her gag.

  “Books?” The confusion on Kevin’s face convinced her he knew nothing about them. Carolyn was a neat freak. Maybe she’d put them upstairs in Sorcha’s bedroom.

  “Where’s Carolyn?”

  “In the shower.” He shrugged, a big lopsided grin crossing his ugly mug. “You know how it is.”

  Meaning they’d had sex. Just what she wanted to know.

  He came toward her, tried to take the bags, but dropped them, scattering cans and vegetables across the floor.

  “Oops.” His high-pitched giggle laced up her spine. She took in the slight sheen of sweat, the pale skin and dilated pupils. He was stoned.

  “Did you do drugs in my house?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He turned toward the window, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

  “You idiot! What do you think you’re doing?”

  God. She didn’t need this right now. Not with everything else going on in her life. She threw the rest of her groceries in a heap on the floor. Took a step toward him, but he whirled with an expression that wasn’t smiley anymore.

  “What are you going to do about it, you sanctimonious bitch?”

  Fear snapped along her nerves, making her back up a step. What the…? She pressed her mouth shut. Damn him. She was tired of being threatened in her own home. Damn. Him. She pointed to the front door. “I want you out of my house, Kevin. Right now.”

  Caution replaced her fury. She wasn’t a complete idiot. She moved to the front door, rested a hand on the knob. How did Carolyn bear to be near this creep?

  “You think you’re so perfect? Little Miss Do-good?” He followed her, his gaze raking her up and down. She flinched. He lowered his voice to a whisper as the shower turned off overhead. “Too tight to screw and too uptight to know a good time if it bit you on the ass.”

  Heat baked her cheeks and hurt drove prudence away. She knew how to have fun, but she wasn’t a party animal like he was. That didn’t make her a bad person.

  He was so close, his breath raked across her skin. Then she realized she was hunched and cowering away from him, as if he had a right to tell her how to live her life in her own home.

  “I’m supposed to shag you and take drugs to be worthy of your attention?” The words came out in a vicious rush. “I don’t think so.” In her heels, they were the same height. She leaned forward. “Get out of my house and take your scummy drugs with you.”

  Her heart raced as he planted a hand on her shoulder, its weight leaden. His thumb caressed the pulse of her neck, then pressed harder, as if testing her. Paralyzed by his nearness, she began to shake, grappling for the doorknob behind her.

  “Get out.” Her voice broke and she hated him for that.

  “Make me.” His thumb bore down on her carotid, and her vision started to gray.

  She kneed him between the legs with all her might and shoved him so he collapsed on the floor in a rigid heap. “I have had enough of your bullshit. Get your crap and get out of my house. You are not welcome here!”

  She grabbed the handle and jerked the door wide, startled to find Ben standing there with his hand raised to knock.

  His eyes went from her face to the man on the floor.

  “He was taking drugs. I told him to get out, but he wouldn’t leave.”

  Kevin got to his feet, cupping his balls, his eyes bloodshot and angry. “The stupid tart objects to one freaking line!”

  “Did he touch you?” Ben hauled Kevin around by the collar and Sorcha recognized rage in the set of his jaw. Kevin’s gaze cut anxiously back to her.

  “Just get him out of my house, please,” she pleaded.

  Ben picked Kevin’s coat off the ba
ck of the sofa and shoved the guy outside, closing the door in his face. Ben pulled her into an embrace, squeezing so tight she could barely breathe.

  “Asshole.” He rested his chin on the top of her head. “Did he hurt you?”

  “No.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned in for a kiss. It was just a peck on the lips and she grinned up at him, glad to see him. “Where’ve you been?”

  His eyes were intent as they met hers. Lines formed either side of his mouth. “We have to talk,” Ben said.

  And whatever he had to say, she knew she wasn’t going to like it.

  “Where’s Kevin?” Carolyn’s little girl’s voice piped up as she hugged the doorframe at the bottom of the stairs.

  Inwardly Sorcha groaned. How did she break it to Carolyn the man she loved was a drug user who liked to threaten women? There was no subtle approach. “I caught him taking drugs when I came in.”

  Carolyn’s eyes skittered away but came back hard. “I don’t believe you. And even if it’s true, what’s the big deal? Everyone does drugs at some point in their lives.”

  Appalled, Sorcha wondered if she knew Carolyn at all. “Not in my house.”

  Ben stood rigid at her side, saying nothing.

  “So where is he?” Carolyn came further into the room.

  “I threw him out.”

  “What?” Carolyn’s lips drew back.

  Sorcha cringed at the vivid line of stitches along Carolyn’s hairline. “I asked him to leave. Carolyn, there’s no way I’m going to sit by—”

  “You always hated him! You never gave him a chance.” Tears filled her eyes and her lips quivered.

  Sorcha tried to reason with her. “That’s not true.”

  “It is true. He told me.” Carolyn whirled on her. “He told me you came on to him and he wasn’t interested.” She shook her finger.

  Sorcha felt each strike like a physical blow. “I didn’t come on to him!”

  Her throat felt raw from holding back anger. But she couldn’t fight with Carolyn. The girl had been attacked just days earlier and it was Sorcha’s fault. She didn’t believe in coincidence. Not after Peter Hughes had attacked her on the island and Duncan had grabbed her in the graveyard.