Magic in the Desert: Three Paranormal Romance Series Starters Set in the American Southwest

by Christine Pope

  I laid my head on the pillow and shut my eyes, trying very hard not to think about what one of those television investigative report ultraviolet cameras would probably reveal if it were run over the bed. Actually, the sheets did feel and smell clean. It could have been worse.

  How, I wasn’t exactly sure. After all, here I was, on the run from some mysterious government agent, on the trail of what might or might not be an alien conspiracy, shacked up with a man I had just met…only not in a good way. No, we might as well have been Ricky and Lucy with our nicely separated double beds. No hanky-panky going on there, that was for sure.

  I heard Paul emerge from the bathroom and cracked an eyelid. Not that I’d really expected him to come waltzing out in his skivvies and nothing else, but you never know. He was wearing a plain white T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants that I hadn’t noticed in the pile of clothing he’d purchased from Kohl’s. Still, even though he was perfectly covered up, the clothes showed what the sport coat and khakis had hidden — a flat stomach, arms with a decent amount of muscle, although not the artificial, hyper-attenuated type you saw on guys who spent their entire waking lives at the gym. No, those arms had most likely come from driving fence posts and whatever else the family ranch had demanded of him.

  A certain warmth started in my stomach and began to spread lower, and I closed my eyes. Ridiculous. He hadn’t shown the slightest bit of interest in me, and here I was getting all worked up because of the way his arms looked. And his stomach. And his ass, to be perfectly honest.

  Oy.

  A creak of bedsprings, and then he said, “All right if I turn off the lights?”

  “Fine,” I mumbled.

  He seemed to hesitate, but then a few seconds later, the room went dark. From a few feet away, I heard the sound of sheets rustling as he apparently attempted to find a comfortable spot in the well-used bed. “Good night, Persephone.”

  “Good night, Paul,” I answered, and hoped I sounded reasonably normal.

  A silence fell, only occasionally broken by the sound of the traffic from Foothill Boulevard. I wondered if he was listening closely, trying to gauge whether I was asleep or not. If only. As tired as I was, sleep seemed very far away at that moment. After all, what if he snored?

  What if I snored?

  His voice came to me, calm and reassuring in the darkness. “We’re perfectly safe here. The best thing we can do is get a good night’s sleep. After all, we don’t know what we’re going to face tomorrow.”

  As comments went, it wasn’t the sort to exactly inspire restful sleep, but somehow I found I didn’t mind so much. I made a mumbled sound of affirmation and rolled over on my side. If the aliens or feds or whomever somehow did manage to find us, I had a feeling Paul could handle the situation.

  All I had to do was keep my libido in check and not blow it. So far, he seemed almost impressed by me. I wanted to keep it that way. The best thing to do now would be to follow his advice and fall asleep.

  So I did.

  Chapter Five

  To my surprise, I actually overslept. Paul was already up and showered by the time I staggered out of bed. I supposed the excitement of the previous day had taken more out of me than I’d thought. But we still had plenty of time to make our rendezvous, even with having to get breakfast before we set out for Griffith Park.

  The day promised to be cooler than it had been earlier in the week, with lowering clouds and spotty drizzle, so I was glad I’d picked up a lightweight blazer from one of the sales racks at Kohl’s. I pulled it a little more tightly around me as we locked the motel room and headed down to the car. We’d already agreed to grab a bite at the Carrow’s down the street from the motel, and there didn’t seem to be much for either of us to say as Paul drove the half-mile to the restaurant.

  He ordered coffee and I ordered tea, and an uneasy little silence fell. I pretended to be absorbed in reading my menu, but I noticed him glancing at his watch and frowning.

  “It’s all right,” I said then. “We’ll make it there in plenty of time. It’s actually better if we wait a bit so traffic has time to clear.”

  “That’s not it,” he replied, and glanced out the window before focusing back on me. “I was supposed to be giving a lecture right now.”

  Oh, damn. I’d almost forgotten that he was here in Southern California in an official capacity, that he’d essentially bailed out on what had to have been an important gig. “I’m sure if you explained — ”

  “I already did. I sent the symposium chairman a text while you were in the shower, apologizing but saying that some important personal business had come up. Still, I don’t like reneging on my obligations.”

  “Sorry,” I murmured. Probably he hadn’t meant to make me feel guilty, but I couldn’t help the wave of self-reproach that went over me just then. I should have left well enough alone, told Otto to go stuff himself. And just where the hell was Otto, anyway? Nice of him to get me into this mess and then take himself off to another plane of existence. I wished there were some Bureau of Spirit Guides where I could make a complaint and ask for a replacement case worker or something, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen.

  “Don’t beat yourself up.” Paul’s tone had gentled a little, as if he’d just realized he might have sounded a bit too harsh. “I wanted to know about this. It’s the timing that’s unfortunate.”

  “That’s for sure.” And then I sat up a little straighter, as I suddenly remembered I had my own obligations to deal with. Not as pressing as Paul’s, but I did have two clients coming to see me this afternoon. Thank God it was only two. Fridays were always the lightest days for me.

  The waitress showed up then with our drinks, and we placed our orders — steak and eggs for him, a vegetarian omelette for me. Not that I was a vegetarian, but I’d never been big on eating meat in the morning. Obviously Paul, raised on a ranch as he’d been, didn’t have the same scruples.

  After she’d left, I asked, “Can I borrow your phone?”

  “Why?”

  I explained about my clients. He listened and nodded, but said, “It’s probably better if you don’t use this phone to contact them. We have no idea whether they’re under surveillance.”

  “You don’t think all of my clients are under surveillance, do you? That’s a bit much.”

  For a second or two, he didn’t say anything, but only worked away at customizing his coffee — two little containers of half and half, no sugar. He swirled the resulting toffee-colored liquid with a spoon and replied, “Persephone, I’m afraid you don’t have a very good idea of what ‘they’re’ capable of.”

  I didn’t much like the sound of that…but I also didn’t like his insinuation that I was some innocent who didn’t know what was going on in the world. “Hey, I’ve seen Oliver Stone movies, you know.”

  He laughed then, and shook his head. “Not quite the same thing, but point taken. Anyway, I think it’s a better idea if you use a pay phone. They’ll still be able to trace the call back here if they really are tracking your clients, but we should be all right if we keep on the move.”

  Oh, that was really reassuring. And a great idea, except in Southern California pay phones were about as rare as the El Segundo Blue butterfly, what with everyone’s defection to cell phones pretty much complete. But then the waitress came by again, ostensibly to refresh Paul’s coffee, although I got the impression she just wanted to ogle him a bit more. He hadn’t seemed to notice her giving him some serious sidelong glances under her heavily mascaraed lashes, but I sure had. Some territorial instinct made me want to slap the coffee pot right out of her hands, which was just silly. I didn’t have any claim on Paul.

  But I managed to keep my voice level as I inquired whether there was a payphone, and it turned out there actually was one, down the hall by the bathrooms. So I excused myself — after the waitress was safely away — and made my calls.

  Normally, I would have been worried about getting an actual person on the line, but my Friday clients we
re skittish entertainment industry types who let everything go to voicemail. In the past, that behavior had irritated me to no end, although I was certainly glad of it now. At any rate, it was simple enough to leave a message saying I’d had a family emergency come up and that I’d let them know about rescheduling when I could. Not that I expected them to take me up on the offer. Michael Horowitz had his entire life set by clockwork, and if he couldn’t see me at 3:45 sharp on Friday afternoon, well, then, he’d just wait until the next week. And Lindsay MacIlvey probably was so embroiled in meetings that she’d barely notice not being able to come in and see me. Knowing her, she’d simply schedule a few more meetings to fill the gap.

  Hollywood types could be exhausting, but they did pay well.

  The waitress was loitering at the table when I returned. I practically had to push past her so I could slide into the booth, so I sent her a sideways glare. She pretended not to notice and went on, “Oh, New Mexico? Like, where they have the Grand Canyon and everything?”

  I saw Paul wince and guessed I didn’t have to worry about too much competition from the waitress. Not that I could claim to know him all that well, but what little I did know told me he probably didn’t have much patience for ignorance.

  “Actually, that’s Arizona,” he said. He looked over at me and asked, “Were you able to make your calls?”

  “Yes, thanks.” Some devilish impulse prompted me to add, “You really need to be more careful with your cell phone, dear. We’re not always lucky enough to be someplace where there’s a payphone.”

  Both Paul and the waitress caught the “dear,” but whereas she scowled and then mumbled, “I’ll check on your order,” before stalking away, he only grinned and shook his head.

  A little glint I hadn’t seen before flickered in his hazel eyes before he said, “Yes, dear,” and picked up his coffee.

  I fought back a grin of my own as I reached for a packet of sugar. For some inexplicable reason, I suddenly didn’t feel quite so nervous about the day ahead.

  Griffith Park, the site where the Observatory was located, already had cars and people swarming the place when we got there, even though we were a little early and the place wouldn’t officially open for ten more minutes. Still, we managed to snag one of the last parking spaces in the lot at the top of the hill, which made me breathe a secret sigh of relief. You could park farther away on one of the roads leading up to the Observatory, but from any of them it was quite a hike, and my feet were still tired from all the chasing around in heels I’d done the night before.

  “So what does this guy look like?” I asked after we’d locked the car and joined the throngs massing outside the front entrance in anticipation of the doors opening. I’d forgotten how busy the place could be, even on a weekday; schools regularly brought up busloads of students, and today was no exception. I winced a little at the noise emanating from one particularly boisterous group of fifth-graders and tried to remind myself that I’d been that young once.

  “I have no idea,” Paul replied.

  “What?”

  His gaze swept the area briefly before returning to me. “We’ve only communicated through texts and a couple of forums online. I’ve never met him in person.”

  “So how do you know he’s who he says he is?” I crossed my arms and made my own quick scan of the crowds around us. No one looked suspicious, or even like a government agent in disguise, but that didn’t mean much…although I guessed the man who had chased us through the parking structure at the Sheraton Universal probably hadn’t disguised himself as a harried elementary-school teacher.

  “I suppose I don’t,” Paul said, but he didn’t appear all that worried. “If this has all been an elaborate ruse to gain my confidence, however, I’ll be surprised.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Up until now, my movements have been very easy to track.” That glint was back in his eyes. “I don’t do much to conceal my activities. I speak at symposiums and conferences. I do book signings. Anyone who wanted to find me or communicate with me really wouldn’t have to go to the elaborate lengths my contact has gone.”

  “You wrote a book?” I inquired, a little impressed despite myself.

  “You’ve never heard of Investigating the Unknowable?”

  I shook my head.

  “Intersections of Belief?”

  I lifted my shoulders.

  “Oh, well,” he said, in deprecating tones. “They’re quite popular in some circles. At any rate, within the UFO community, I’m fairly well-known. No need for cloak and dagger. A federal agent could have come along and picked me up at any time, which leads me to believe my unseen friend is most definitely not working for the government.”

  I had to admit that argument made some sense. “So if you’ve never met, how is he going to know who we are?”

  “I assume from my book jacket photograph, or the photograph on my website, or — ”

  Raising my hands in mock surrender, I said, “Okay, okay, get it. You’re a big celebrity.”

  He shrugged. “Well, I don’t know about that.”

  “Big enough. So where are we supposed to meet, exactly?”

  Paul smiled then. A few of the women in our vicinity shot him admiring glances, but he appeared not to notice. If he had been one of the other men of my acquaintance, I probably would have said that he affected not to notice, but he truly didn’t seem to realize the effect he had on the female half of the population. Too busy looking for aliens, probably.

  He replied to my question by asking another one. “Where else but at the Café at the End of the Universe?”

  It was far too soon after that omelette to even think of eating anything else, but I did get some iced tea, and Paul bought bottled water so as to justify our taking a table up against one of the bank of windows that gave the café a breathtaking panorama of Hollywood, downtown Los Angeles, and beyond. The overcast had lifted a little, but the breeze coming off the ocean was still brisk.

  So soon after opening, the café was almost deserted. Later, after people had worked up a thirst from tromping up and down the Observatory’s innumerable stairs, the place would collect quite a crowd. Right then, however, except for a young woman with a laptop and an enormous cup of coffee, and another woman with improbable heels who was nursing a soda and rubbing the ball of her foot, we had the place to ourselves.

  A minute ticked by, and then another. I glanced at my watch. The contact was almost ten minutes late.

  “What if he doesn’t come?” I asked.

  “Then I suppose I can take you to a planetarium show,” Paul replied imperturbably.

  “Seriously.”

  “I am being serious. I’ve heard they’re very good.”

  If it had been anyone else, I probably would have given him a good dose of annoyed side-eye. But, despite having slept in the same room together, I didn’t feel as if I knew Paul well enough to do such a thing. I settled for scowling and sipping at my iced tea as I stared out at the L.A. skyline. Far off in the distance, I thought I saw the faintest glimmer of gold as the clouds near the coast parted and allowed a few rays of sunlight to catch in the waves off Santa Monica.

  “Who’s she?” came an unfamiliar voice, and I turned away from the window to see a scruffy-looking individual with a few days’ growth of beard and wearing an oversized military surplus jacket staring down at us.

  “This is Ms. O’Brien, whom I mentioned in my message,” Paul said.

  The young man — who was probably in his middle twenties at most, even with the beard — summoned up a scowl that put mine to shame. “I didn’t know you were going to bring her.”

  “Hi, nice to meet you,” I said, and stuck out a hand.

  He recoiled as if I had hit him with a stun gun, and instead pulled out the table’s free chair so he could sit down. Pointedly ignoring me, he said to Paul, “How do you know she can be trusted?”

  Of all the — “I’m right here, you know,” I remarked, withdrawing my ha
nd so I could cross my arms.

  “We wouldn’t know about any of this if it weren’t for her,” Paul pointed out. Although his voice still sounded level, a little twitch at the edge of his jaw line seemed to indicate he was just a bit irritated.

  The stranger shrugged. “Okay, fine.” He swung the battered leather messenger bag he wore over one shoulder onto the table. I barely had time to get my iced tea out of the way. A second later, and it would have been splattered all over my front.

  A few choice words rose to my lips, but I decided it was probably better for me to keep quiet and not provoke him. No wonder the guy hid out on message boards and forums and didn’t get out much — I’d seen better manners from a two-year-old.

  He pulled a laptop out of the messenger bag, opened up the computer, and began typing in some rapid-fire commands. What exactly he was doing, I couldn’t tell, because the strings of characters that moved across the screen didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen before. Not that that necessarily meant much, since my level of computer skills allowed me to set up spreadsheets for my business and hack some basic CSS for the WordPress install on my website, and that was about it.

  “There’s been a lot of chatter,” he said. “You two stirred something up. Sounds like they’ve got people all over L.A. looking for you.”

  Wonderful. So much for doing a little Nancy Drew work and then heading home at the end of the day. I knew that Ginger’s and my schedules didn’t always overlap, so most likely she probably hadn’t yet even realized that I hadn’t come home last night, but if I were absent too much longer, she’d notice I was missing. And since Ginger wasn’t the type to sit around and do nothing, she very likely would call the police.

  Or, even worse, my mother.

  I shuddered a little and made myself focus on the scruffy stranger — who, I just realized, had never even told us his name.

  “Any concrete leads?” Paul asked.

  “Not that I can tell. They searched her apartment and her office, but I don’t think they’ve found anything. They’re more than a little pissed at the way you disappeared into thin air.”