She met his eyes and smiled. Well, Mia had told her to find out more about him. “All right.”
He grinned then, so obviously happy at her decision it made her laugh. “Where’s my T-shirt?” he asked, turning and scanning the floor.
“In the hall.” She watched him retrieve it, cheeks warming at the thought of how she’d ripped it off him, how abandoned she’d felt. He made her forget her inhibitions and her self-consciousness. She never thought she’d meet a guy she’d feel so comfortable with.
He came back in with her glasses and handed them to her before pulling on his T-shirt. She slid the glasses on and followed him out into the kitchen. He patted the worktop, and she lifted herself up onto it as he opened the fridge and frowned, studying the contents.
Grace watched him take out tomatoes, mushrooms, onions and zucchini, noticing the way his T-shirt stretched across his muscular arms and chest as he reached up to grab some pasta from the cupboard. He was so gorgeous. She still couldn’t believe he was interested in her.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked as he began to chop an onion.
“That you could star in one of those Hollywood movies about Roman gladiators or Viking warriors. You have impressive muscles.”
He gave her an amused look. “Thank you.”
“Do you work out?”
“I try to keep fit. Healthy body, healthy mind, you know?”
“Hmm.” She watched him put half a dozen tomatoes in a bowl, then pour boiling water from the kettle over the top. “What meat are you going to use?”
He started to slice mushrooms. “I wasn’t going to use any. You told me you were a vegetarian.”
She smiled. “You remembered? Impressive.”
“Actually, I’d have guessed that even if you hadn’t told me.”
“My father let it slip?”
He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the edges. “No. It fits you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You look like the sort of woman who’d be a vegetarian.”
“I do shave under my arms, you know.”
He laughed. “There are other signs if you look closely enough, and I like to think I’m perceptive.”
“Like Sherlock Holmes?”
“I guess. Most of the information about people is right there, written all over them. You just have to know what to look for.”
“So what told you I like to use a cup and saucer?”
He glanced at her. “You’re quiet and shy, in spite of your tendency to speak your mind. You dress conservatively, on the outside at least.” He tried to hide a smile, unsuccessfully. “Life is structured for you—I’m guessing you like trains to run on time and you detest being late. I figured you’d drink tea from a cup and beer from a glass—if you drink beer at all. I’m guessing you’re a Sauvignon type of girl.”
She glared at him. “Don’t think you know everything about me.”
“But am I right?”
She said nothing, glowering, and he laughed.
“Tell me about yourself,” he said.
“I thought you already knew everything. Couldn’t you just ask my dad?” Her snipey tone was born out of fear. It scared her that he seemed to know her so well and yet she’d only met him a few times.
“Don’t be like that,” he chided. “I’m interested in you. Tell me about your family. Do you have brothers and sisters?”
She hesitated. She didn’t want him to know her, to understand her, not yet. It was too soon.
He glanced at her again. “I’m not asking for the code to arm nuclear missiles, Grace. I’m not dangerous. I promise.” Taking her by surprise, he leaned across and kissed her, his lips warm and soft. His eyes were gentle, kind. He smiled and then returned to preparing the vegetables.
She looked down and sighed. It was a decent enough question. They had had sex, after all—it wasn’t as if he’d walked up to her at the bus stop and started firing questions at her.
So while he peeled and chopped the tomatoes, fried the onion and added a pinch of this and a dash of that, she told him about Zach and Ethan, and how Zach was in the army in Afghanistan, and how Ethan had just moved to Australia. She told him a little about how she felt about that, about her resentment toward them for leaving her to look after her mother. She hinted at her difficult relationship with her mum, but didn’t go into detail. A wide-angle picture, painted with broad brushstrokes, a flavour of her life.
He added boiling water to the pasta, stirred it and put the saucepan lid on. “So most of the men you’ve loved in your life have up and left you?” He glanced over at her.
Grace fell silent. Somehow, he’d managed to read between the lines, as if she’d written in lemon juice, and he’d held the page up to a candle. “How do you do that?” she whispered.
He smiled. “It wasn’t a difficult conclusion to jump to.” He checked the sauce one last time, coming over to her.
He gave her a hug, kissing the top of her head. Grace put her arms around him, comforted by the slow, steady beat of his heart.
“How old were you when your dad died?” he asked, still holding her.
“Fourteen.”
“And your mother gave you long talks about how your dad was in a better place and how it was all God’s plan that he’d died?”
“Something like that.”
“And you lost your faith, because you couldn’t possibly see why God would have taken your father from you when you needed him so much. You waited for signs that he was still with you, that he still existed in some other form, but you didn’t receive anything, and you stopped believing.”
Grace buried her face in his T-shirt. “Stop. Please.” He was uncovering all her secrets, leaving her heart and soul completely naked and vulnerable, and she didn’t like it. Her heart was squishy, and she was pretty sure her soul wasn’t made of concrete either. She wasn’t ready to hand it to anyone yet.
He kissed her hair. Then he kissed her temple. He brushed his lips down to her ear and murmured something about how lovely she was, and how he was so pleased she’d decided to stay, and then he ran his tongue around her ear, making her shiver. She raised her head, and he kissed her properly, a slow, lingering kiss that soon had her pulse racing. She put her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, and he sighed, sliding his hands up her thighs, brushing the tops of her stockings.
It was only the lid rattling on the saucepan of pasta that brought them to their senses. They both started laughing. Giving her a final kiss, Ash left her to test the pasta and stir the sauce, getting some plates out of the cupboard. “For God’s sake, let’s sit at the table and eat. At opposite ends, preferably. Can you get the placemats out of the drawer there? And cutlery’s in there.”
She found the placemats and cutlery and asked him if he wanted to eat in the dining room. “No, let’s stay here,” he said, gesturing at the kitchen table. “It’s cosier—if that’s okay.”
“Sure.” She laid the places and took one seat, watching as he found a colander and emptied the pasta into it, then mixed it with the sauce before serving it onto two plates. He grated some fresh parmesan over it, and then placed the plates on the table. “Thank you,” she said sincerely. “It smells wonderful.”
“You’re welcome.” He bent down and kissed her, lingering very slightly before standing to retrieve two glasses. “Red or white?”
“White,” she sighed, knowing from his grin that he was remembering his prediction. He took a bottle from the fridge and poured her a glass, then brought his red back to the table. Lastly, he went over to an iPod sitting in a cradle on the windowsill and chose an album before pressing Play.
She watched him sit opposite and pick up his fork as the low, melodic sounds of a cello filled the room. “That’s nice. What is it?”
“Yo-Yo Ma playing the prelude to Bach’s Cello Suite.” She must have looked blank, because he added, “It’s in Master and Commander.”
“Oh, I thought I’d heard it before.”
“Sorry, yes.”
“Oh God, don’t apologise. I don’t know much about classical music. I just know what I like.”
She ate some of the pasta—which was really very good—and listened for a while, strangely stirred by the deep singing of the strings. Or maybe what she could hear was the vibration of her heartstrings, played by the guy sitting opposite, who ate while he studied her, his blue eyes dark as a stormy sky.
She gestured at the iPod with her fork. “You’re playing this music on purpose, aren’t you? You think it will turn me on.”
He laughed at that, sitting back and sipping his wine. “I thought it was relaxing rather than sexy.”
“It’s very sexy.” She shivered. “Those deep notes go right through me.” He smiled, his eyes gentle, but she could see the desire simmering in their depths. “Don’t look at me like that.”
He gave a short laugh and started eating again. “I’ll look at the plate.”
“Don’t make fun of me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
She chewed her pasta for a bit, taking the opportunity to study him while he paid attention to his food. He really was exceptionally gorgeous.
He looked up then, caught her watching him and gave her an exasperated look. “If I can’t stare, neither can you.”
“I’m not the one trying to turn dinner into a seduction,” she said, glaring back at him. She pushed her glasses up her nose and pointed at the centre of the table. “Anyway, no candles? I thought that would have been the first thing on your seduction list.”
He rolled his eyes and sipped his wine. Then he pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair. “I always light candles when I work. They don’t have a romantic connotation for me.”
“Oh.” She paused with the fork halfway to her mouth. “I’d forgotten about the talking-to-the-dead thing.”
A wry smile curved his lips.
She finished off the pasta, thinking as she ate, aware he was watching her as he drank his wine and refilled his glass. When she’d finished her meal, she sat back in her chair, playing with the stem of her wineglass as she considered him. She couldn’t ignore what he did forever. She’d made a promise to Mia, and she had to start asking him some questions. Taking a deep breath, she said, “When did you start thinking you could see dead people?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. He seemed to be thinking about what to say.
“You don’t want to talk about it?” she prompted.
“I’m happy to tell you. I don’t want to ruin what’s been a nice evening so far.”
“You mean you don’t want to ruin your chances of getting your leg over again.” She looked at him over the top of her glasses.
He said nothing, his lips curving, and drank his wine.
“Don’t worry, I promise I won’t freak out,” she said.
“You said that last time.”
“Oh. Well, I mean it now.”
He sighed. “The first time I realised I was…”
“Abnormal?” she suggested.
“…different,” he corrected, “I was four years old. My parents had taken our dog to the vet’s. When they came home, I was sitting at the top of the steps, and as they opened the car door, the dog ran up to me. I spoke to it, and Mum asked what I was doing. I told her, and she freaked out and told me they’d had the dog put down.”
Grace studied him as he related the story calmly, with no sign of emotion. Was it a well-rehearsed tale, something he’d made up to satisfy people’s curiosity? Was he lying to her? He didn’t look shifty, or guilty. He just looked slightly sad.
“Did they believe you?”
“Not at first. But as the years went by, stranger things happened, and in the end I guess they didn’t have a choice.”
“Can any of your relatives see dead people?”
“My grandmother, Nessa. I didn’t find that out until I was in my twenties. It was her who helped me realise I should do it full time.”
“Can Jodi?”
“No. She seems quite intuitive—she can often guess what I’m thinking, for example.”
“Hey, I can guess what you’re thinking, and I’m not psychic.”
He tipped his head at her, giving her another wry glance. “Actually, Pisces people normally have some psychic talents. You’re probably more intuitive than you think. If the phone rings and you know who it is, that’s your intuition coming out.”
“No, that’s called a guess.”
“It’s insight. Your sixth sense.”
“Pure coincidence.”
He laughed and sipped his wine.
“But you decided to become a doctor, not a medium, at first.”
He shrugged. “To be honest, I’d rather not be clairvoyant. I’d rather be something heroic like a fireman or a spy for the CIA. A job that everyone respects. I became a doctor because it was a proper job, something normal, that people would…I don’t know, admire, I guess.”
“So what made you change?”
He sighed. “My powers seemed to be growing stronger. Sometimes a spirit from the other side would give me hints about my patients’ illnesses, and it was really difficult trying to ignore the information, because I knew I could get struck off if it came out I was diagnosing through dead people.”
“I can see that.”
He turned the glass in his fingers. “But eventually, I couldn’t ignore it any longer. My patients somehow got to know about my abilities, and they started asking me questions. I’d do private readings on the side, because I couldn’t ignore the spirits who were trying to get through. I became aware people are hungry for reassurance there’s another world after this one—that the people they loved and cared for before they died are waiting for them in the afterlife. And I feel I can provide them with some comfort. I like that. It makes me feel good.”
She studied him for a while, half listening to the cello music that continued to play in the background. It wasn’t yet dark, but the sun was very low on the horizon, and the room was filled with shadows.
Chapter Ten
“Are you freaking out?” said Ash.
Grace considered the question. “I think what you’ve told me is so incredibly out there that it’s beyond bizarre. It’s as if you’ve told me you’ve seen the Yeti or the Loch Ness Monster.”
“They do exist, you know.”
She laughed. Then they sat quietly for a while and sipped their wine. He seemed to realise she needed time to think about what he’d said.
“So how does it work?” she asked eventually.
“What do you mean?”
“Are there dead people all around us, trying to talk to you? Can you hear them now?”
He smiled. “No. When I was a teenager, I met another medium in Auckland who I studied under for a while, and he taught me how to ‘turn it off’, if you like. I can shut out the voices, most of the time.”
“Sounds convenient.”
He gave her a look. “It’s useful. It’s tiring and obtrusive to have people talking in your head all the time. Sometimes they still come through, though, if they’re insistent and I’m not concentrating. Like your dad did.” His eyes went wary and she realised he hadn’t meant to say that.
She turned the glass in her fingers, lowering her gaze. “So if you wanted to, you could talk to him now?”
“I could, but I wouldn’t,” he said gently. “I decided when I started doing it seriously that I’d only ever read for someone in my office, or in a proper atmosphere. I’m not religious—I mean I’m not Christian or Buddhist or anything, I don’t follow a particular religion, but the process of communicating with the other side is a religious process for me, and it deserves respect. It’s not a party trick—it’s not pulling a rabbit out of a hat, or producing flags of many nations. It’s serious. It’s talking to the dead, for Christ’s sake, to the friends and family that people ha
ve loved terribly, and lost, and sometimes it’s nearly destroyed them. I can’t treat that lightly.”
Grace studied him, touched by his vehemence, but confused. How was he able to make it sound so perfectly normal, as if there were nothing strange in being able to talk to people whose bodies were now ashes to ashes, dust to dust?
She cleared her throat. “Can I see where you work?”
He met her gaze and his lips curved as he considered her question. “I suppose.”
“You don’t want to show me?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. His blue eyes were guarded, wary.
Grace frowned. Suddenly, everything fell into place. “Oh…your ex-wife didn’t believe in you.”
He stared at her for a moment, then, finally, dropped his gaze to his glass, still turning in his fingers.
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “It seems to be my curse.” He smiled as he said it, though, softening his words.
Grace thought about the implications of what she’d worked out. “That’s why she didn’t want you to give up being a doctor.”
“Yeah. I guess it was like saying I wanted to look for alien spacecraft or something.”
This time Grace didn’t smile and instead sipped her wine. She wanted to tread carefully here. Although she wasn’t a believer in the paranormal, neither did she want to be lumped in with the ex-wife who’d split up the family because she disagreed with the choices he’d made. “Didn’t you ever do a reading for her?”
“No. She never wanted one.”
“Or give her any messages?”
He shrugged again. “Sometimes. She just ignored me.”
Grace bit her lip. “Jodi told me what happened after you divorced. How she died, I mean. I’m sorry, Ash. It must be terribly hard for you.”
He met her gaze and gave a small smile. “Yeah. It’s not been easy. Things had been going downhill for a while, but her lack of support when I decided to change occupations was it for me. She didn’t want to separate, though. It made it very…difficult.”
“Do you regret getting divorced?” she asked quietly.
An Uncommon Sense: Sensual Healing, Book 1 Page 9