by Ani Gonzalez
CHAPTER NINETEEN
PATRICIA FELT her heart sink. By now she knew the way the committee's collective mind worked. A food contest? What fresh hell was this?
"The winning bid for The Rosemoor," Elizabeth went on, "will be the business that provides the most creative, delicious catering for the event, as judged by the participants. We expect to see unusual dishes that reflect the character of Banshee Creek and will help lure tourists to our town."
"Lure?" she heard Zach ask behind her. "She makes the town sound like a Venus fly trap."
"And we're the tasty syrup that attracts the prey," she muttered, not even trying to hide her dismay.
A competition? No, it was worse, it was a fantastical foods competition where her food would be judged by people who crafted out-of-this world designs for a living.
She couldn't imagine anything worse.
"The food competition," Elizabeth said, "like the dancing competition, will be televised."
Okay, that was worse.
"So, it's going to be like a reality show?" Caine asked. "With the performers choosing the winner?"
"Yes," Elizabeth said. "It will be two contests in one."
"But what about the locals?" Caine said. "We don't get a say on who gets the town's most coveted property? We're the ones who live here, you know."
"Do we get to enter the costume contest?" Hank interjected.
Elizabeth hesitated. "The contest is by invitation only..."
"Really?" Hank's voice was low and dangerous. "I guess mine must have been lost in the mail."
"The town," Caine said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "should have some kind of representation."
Elizabeth glared at him, but a curvy woman agreed with Caine, and, soon, Elizabeth had a full-fledged revolt on her hands.
But Patricia didn't care. This was a disaster.
She slumped, and backed into Zach's hard chest. He was still staring at the podium, a shocked expression on his face.
"Oh, c'mon," she said. "Don't be dramatic. You have all that horror movie stuff to work with. You'll do great. I just have flour and sugar."
Zach shook his head. "The horror movie stuff is just marketing. The food itself is just basic Italian food. Even my Cthulhu Cacciatore is just linguini and octopus with a red sauce."
"And it's delicious," Patricia said loyally, even though she'd never tasted the dish. Octopus was simply not her thing, and her Tentacle Twinkles were proof of that.
"My main dish," Zach continued, "is pizza. There's nothing more mundane than pizza."
"Donuts," Patricia muttered. "Donuts are pretty mundane."
Zach snorted. "You can add that sugary floss thing to your stuff and there's glaze and sprinkles and whatnot. You'll do great." He paused dramatically. "I'm doomed."
She giggled at his woebegone expression. She couldn't help it, he looked comically distraught.
"I thought you said you wouldn't mind," she reminded him.
"That was before I found out it would be on television. I can take losing to a friend. I can't take being publicly humiliated on television. They always edit these things so you look bad."
"I hadn't thought of that." And she didn't like thinking about it now. She really wasn't the media type and her food was even less photogenic.
This was a disaster.
"Well, at least you won't be alone," she said. "We'll be humiliated together."
That was a comforting thought. Being on television was a terrifying prospect, but at least she'd be doing it with Zach. He was a born performer and he'd be great on television. Hopefully, everyone would focus on the good-looking pizza guy and ignore her. And even though they were competitors she was sure that Zach wouldn't throw her under the bus.
The way Trevor had.
She pushed the thought away. She didn't have time to think about her nefarious ex. She had a television show to worry about.
"You'll be fine," Zach said. "Everyone loves baked goods."
"They love pizza even more. You just have to be creative."
"Yeah." He smiled ruefully. "I can do a UFO pizza."
She giggled.
"To go with my Milky Way meringues. Imagine that."
Zach laughed. "I'm trying not to."
"I wonder if we can do special effects, like strobe lights and such."
"Oh no," Zach gasped theatrically. "Not the disco cannoli."
She dug her elbow into his ribs, giggling. "I think I saw edible mirrors in one of my bakery catalogues."
"That..." he paused, "doesn't sound appetizing."
She glared at him playfully. "Right, because UFO pizza makes one's mouth water."
"At least it's better than a Tentacle Twinkie."
Patricia grimaced in mock horror. "How dare you compare my fabulous éclairs to those mass-market...monstrosities? Those are fighting words, Zach Franco."
He just laughed. It was a beautiful sound, deep and rich, like an exotic liqueur. She wanted to wrap that laugh around her shoulders like a seductively warm blanket.
A very loud blanket. Elizabeth was having a spirited exchange with her audience on whether the locals would get to attend the ball and vote on the Rosemoor contest, but she couldn't take the chance of someone finding them hiding in the library loft.
She'd never live it down.
She leaned forward and covered Zach's mouth with her hand and the contact between her flesh and his lips sent an electric current through her skin.
His eyes widened in surprise, an expression that was surely mirrored in her own features. She tried to pull her fingers away, but Zach grabbed her wrist in a tight vise.
He pulled her forward, looking straight into her eyes.
"Are you shushing me?" he whispered, his lips almost brushing hers.
Almost.
He smiled, a deliciously wicked smile that made evil thoughts race through her mind.
She knew Zach wouldn't do anything, not with her, not in the library loft, not with the entire town downstairs arguing. But she was under no such restraint. All she had to fear was...what? Reopening old wounds? Reliving the past? Fear itself?
But, here, in the library loft with Zach, she felt fearless. She felt strong.
And she felt tempted.
And, for the first time since she'd returned to Banshee Creek, she felt like giving in to the dangerous pull.
A thunderous noise roared in her ears as she stretched out to narrow the distance between them, and she suddenly realized it was her own heart beating. It was a sound she hadn't heard in a long time.
And she liked it.
His lips were soft and firm and thoroughly intoxicating. She savored him slowly, as if he were a delicious, exotic treat. The situation was strangely arousing. Here she was, Patricia O'Dare, kissing the resident bad boy, and in the town library, no less.
It was very much unlike her.
Or was it?
Tonight she felt different. She felt like the old Patricia, the one who packed her old cookbooks and her mom's handmade apron and left for Manhattan to chase her dream. The one who didn't know anything about pain or loss.
Or betrayal.
Zach broke the kiss, pushing her away. She stared at him, confused and aroused.
And not one bit sorry.
She didn't care if Zach regretted the kiss. That kiss, tainted by shadows and ghosts and pain...that kiss was worth it.
He held her at arms' length, but she noted with satisfaction his darkened eyes and the tight muscles of his jaw.
He could keep her at bay, but it cost him.
"Sorry," he said, between ragged breaths. "We shouldn't..."
He paused, staring at her, a pained expression on his face.
"Hell, Patricia." His hands tightened on her shoulders. "If you lick your lips one more time we're definitely going to."
That made her smile. It also gave her an idea, a wickedly delicious idea.
She looked into his eyes and, slowly, ever so slowly, dragged her tongue over her lower lip
.
He dragged her forward, and she felt a sudden surge of triumph. She could do this to him, she could break his will.
It felt good.
But not as good as his lips on her mouth. The kiss was hungry, no, ravenous, as if he'd been thirsting for a feast of her for a long time. She didn't get a chance to explore this time. All she could was hang on to his shoulders and enjoy the ride.
She moaned as he pushed her down onto the threadbare Persian rug so she was pressed between the hard wood floor and his hard muscled body. She was trapped between his arms and couldn't move an inch as he slowly sucked on her lower lip, the one she'd licked to entice him.
Oh, that worked. It worked too well.
His hip dug into hers, and she twisted, trying to increase the contact between their bodies. She pressed her breasts into his chest and felt his hand curve around her neck, fingers caressing the sensitive skin under her ear.
She moaned again. She felt unbelievably aroused, her senses heightened so she could feel the abrasive rug underneath her, Zach's belt pressing into her stomach, the sour tobacco scent of...
Tobacco?
She bucked against Zach, who stiffened, then, reluctantly, pushed himself off her.
"What?" he muttered, breathing hard. "Are you okay?"
"Get out," she hissed, pulling away. "Quickly."
He knelt over, staring at her in confusion.
"I'm sorry," he said, in a pained voice. "I didn't mean to be so...aggressive."
The pipe smoke smell grew stronger.
She cursed under her breath. Idiot man.
"That's not it," she said, trying to crawl toward the staircase. "I like aggressive. But we have to get away from the bookcases right now."
"What?"
A battered paperback hit him on the shoulder. He turned, and a hardback copy The Flame and The Flower hit him on the forehead.
He winced. "What the hell?"
"Get out," she repeated. "Don't you know about the Romance section?"
"No," he said, as he dodged an indigo-colored paperback -- was that Outlander? -- and walked toward her. "Why would I know about the Romance section? I don't like romance books."
"Neither does Sergeant Atwell." A whole shelf of romance paperbacks fell down, crashing on the floor. "We have to leave."
She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward a staircase. She grabbed the cold metal handrail and stepped down a couple of steps...then stopped so suddenly, Zach bumped against her.
The attendees were crowded together in the middle of the library, but they weren't staring at Zach and Patricia. Their eyes were turned upward, toward the loft.
Zach grabbed Patricia's shoulders and they walked stealthily back to the refreshment table. The little girl with the pigtails was helping herself to another bag of donut holes. She frowned at Patricia and Zach as they sneaked behind the table.
Patricia gave her a beatific smile and straightened her hair.
"Is it an earthquake?" she heard Caine ask.
Holly opened up her mouth to reply, but her answer was drowned by sounds of crashing bookshelves. Paperbacks with lurid covers rained down onto the main floor and the distinctive smell of burnt tobacco filled the air.
"Oh man," Zach muttered behind her. "I'm never going to live this down."
CHAPTER TWENTY
"YES, I know it's a bit last minute," Elizabeth purred enticingly. "But this is a once in a lifetime manifestation. We've never seen anything like this."
Zach stared at her with undisguised admiration. His future sister-in-law was a born con artist.
And Caine seemed to agree with him. The biker regarded Elizabeth with a wariness he usually reserved for angry poltergeists or venomous snakes. Holly looked hopeful and Patricia looked...well, guilty.
The goody-two-shoes baker was going to blow their cover.
No one suspected they were to blame for the implosion of the romance section of the library and he meant to keep it that way. He didn't need another scandal. The Banshee Creek Fire & Rescue department had dispersed the meeting and everyone was gone. Well, almost everyone, Holly and Elizabeth had stayed to clean-up, and Patricia had guilt-tripped him into helping out.
But cleaning up was the last thing he wanted to do. He wanted to take Patricia home and find out exactly what she was hiding behind her clean-cut, good-girl persona. He wanted to explore every single inch of her and find out what made her tick. He wanted to figure out what had happened in Manhattan that made her return to Banshee Creek and bury the wild, passionate woman he now knew lived inside her.
He did not want to spend the next couple of hours re-shelving romance paperbacks.
"We're not a paranormal clean-up squad, Elizabeth," Caine said, sounding a bit offended. "We're scientists."
Elizabeth didn't even blink. She waved toward the bookshelves, which looked like they'd been hit by a category 4 hurricane.
"Exactly," Elizabeth exclaimed. "Think of it as an opportunity for scientific observation."
Caine was not impressed. "You're just trying to trick me into cleaning up the romance section, Hunt. It won't work. It crashes whenever an enterprising teenage couple decides to get a little nookie in between chapters."
Patricia winced. Zach tried to catch her eye, but she was looking everywhere but at him. The tell-tale avoidance was hugely gratifying, but also inconvenient. She looked like a kid who'd been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
Luckily, no one had noticed.
"The library staff should handle it," Caine concluded.
"It wasn't just romance this time," Holly piped in. "It was also fantasy, horror and science fiction. He really went on a rampage this time. Something must have made him really mad."
"Yeah," Caine replied. "I know what made him angry."
A strangled noise greeted his comment.
"You okay, Patricia?" Caine asked.
Patricia bit her lip guiltily, but she didn't confess.
"A bunch of werewolves and aliens canoodling and doing gods know what," Caine continued. "That's what your presentation was about. That's what made him angry."
"Um, he didn't throw down all the books," Patricia stammered, pointing at a bunch of paperbacks on top of a bookshelf.
Holly looked up. "Oh, those are the Edgar Rice Burroughs books. He never touches them. He's a big John Carter fan."
"Figures," Caine muttered. "You should make her," he pointed an accusing finger at Elizabeth, "reshelve everything. It's all her fault."
Patricia bit her lip. Was she going to crack?
Holly rolled her eyes. "Elizabeth doesn't know the Dewey decimal system. She always gets it wrong."
Elizabeth nodded. "I'm Dewey-lexic."
Patricia glanced at Zach. He smiled at her reassuringly. It didn't work. She looked guilty as hell.
Yep, she was definitely going to crack.
"It's not..." she started, and everyone turned toward her. The attention made her blanch and Zach braced himself for the inevitable discovery.
What did it matter? Just one more tall tale to add to the Zach Franco legend. True, he was trying to run away from that legend and establish his responsible business owner persona, but that, apparently, wasn't in the cards.
Thanks to a dead Confederate soldier with a prudish streak.
"It's not Elizabeth's fault," Patricia blurted, with a sidelong glance at Zach. "No one knows what sets the sergeant off. And the history section was just moved, wasn't it?"
Zach struggled to hide his surprise...and awe. That was a fib, a real, honest to goodness fib. Oh, yes, this was a new Patricia.
Thank heavens.
Holly nodded. "A pipe burst during the Christmas snowstorm and we had a leak. You're right, he doesn't like it when his Civil War books are moved."
"Whatever the cause," Caine countered. "It's not our problem."
Holly tapped her chin thoughtfully. "I guess we can ask one of the other guys to do it." She pursed her lips. "The West Virginia guys have been begging us for
a lockdown for years."
"The Weird Westies?" Caine asked, with deep disdain. "Those weirdos?"
"Now, Caine," Patricia said primly. "You shouldn't give offensive nicknames to your colleagues."
"I'm not," he replied. "That's their real name. An accurate name would be Shady Westies. Their theories are irrational, to say the least. Their methodology is unsound, and they overdramatize everything."
"It's hard to overdramatize this," Holly noted, with a mournful glance at her bookshelves.
Caine snorted. "It will be a book avalanche by the time they're done with it. A literary tsunami."
"Well, beggars can't be choosers." Elizabeth took out her phone. "It has to be cleaned up by the weekend and we can't spare the staff to do it because everyone is working on the Valentine's Day Ball. I guess we'll ask the Weird Westies to do some cleanup in exchange for a lockdown with Sergeant Atwell."
Caine's eyes widened. "Whoa, Hunt. First the Hagen House and now the library, let's think about this. Do we really want to bring outsiders into our premier paranormal sites?"
Holly bristled. "Our house is a desperate situation and so is the library loft. Do you have any alternatives?"
They all stared at Caine. He sighed and gave up.
"Fine," he grumbled. "I'll bring my guys in. But I get a full lockdown, right? Plus an onsite interview and access to the archives. Full access, Holly, I know about the basement files."
Holly bit her lip, hesitating.
"I'll bring in Arturo," Caine continued. "He helped us with our Nazca lines research."
Holly's eyes brightened. "The guy from the UNESCO archives? The one who did the virtual catalogue for the Library of Alexandria? That guy?"
Caine shrugged. "He's in DC for a United Nations shindig. I'm sure he'd be thrilled to come shelve books with us."
There wasn't a hint of sarcasm in his voice. Apparently, Mr. UNESCO was a book freak. Enough of one that Holly was impressed. She looked like a teen groupie being offered a chance to meet her favorite boy band.
"That would be fabulous," she squealed. "And, yes, full access. Absolutely." She smiled happily. "I have to tell the head librarian."
She ran off, still smiling.
Elizabeth regarded Caine through narrowed eyes.