“I don’t believe in your special abilities, Miss Lockhart,” Santana said in that deep voice of his.

Annie shot up and crossed the short distance between her and the handsome, aggravating Santana. She reached down and placed her hand on his shoulder. There was tension in his shoulder, in his neck and the way he held his arm….

A vision immediately popped into her mind. The first thing that came to her made her twitch, and she almost drew her hand in and jumped back. She saw, with a clarity so sharp she held her breath, this gorgeous man hovering above her. Naked. The fan on her bedroom ceiling whirred slowly over his left shoulder. He had a small crescent-shaped scar on that finely sculpted shoulder. An old one. The expression on his face was…She shivered. Feral. Possessive. Hungry.

Dear Reader,

Writers are often told, “Write what you know.” Some days that’s easy. Other days…not so much. I’ve never been a private detective, like Lucky, and my husband has told me time and again that I can’t have a gun. I don’t know what he’s so worried about, but it seems important to him so there’s another subject on which I am not an expert. I’m certainly not psychic, like Annie, and while I have dabbled in crafty hobbies in the past, making pretty things that other people actually want is beyond me.

And still, I found myself identifying with both Lucky and Annie. Love, with all the joys and heartaches it brings, is universal. Two people who at first glance have absolutely nothing in common can, and do, discover that maybe deep down they’re not so different after all.

I hope you enjoy the book!

Linda

Lucky’s Woman
Linda Winstead Jones

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LINDA WINSTEAD JONES

has written more than fifty romance books in several subgenres. Historical, fairy-tale, paranormal and, of course, romantic suspense. She’s won the Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence twice, is a three-time RITA® Award finalist and (writing as Linda Fallon) winner of the 2004 RITA® Award for paranormal romance.

Linda lives in north Alabama with her husband of thirty-four years. She can be reached via www.eHarlequin.com or her own Web site, www.lindawinsteadjones.com.

To Marge and Dave,

for all the loving support through the years.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 1

Annie came up off the bed with a gasp, one hand flying to her sweaty forehead, the other gripping the sheet beneath her. Not again. Not that same damn dream again. Her heart was pumping so hard and fast she could feel it, and a sheen of perspiration that wasn’t normal on such a cool morning covered her face and made her lightweight pajamas stick to her skin.

She left the bed quickly—as if she could escape the dream that way—peeling off her pajamas as she walked to the master bath to turn on the shower. Standing beneath the spray with her eyes closed, she tried to imagine the dream washing away and swirling down the drain. It didn’t, of course. It stayed with her much too vividly.

In the dream, a handsome man and a pretty dark-haired woman sat on a blue couch, happy for the moment. Obliviously, innocently happy and very much in love. They were bathed in a pink glow, as if their love surrounded and protected them. Their world was small, and sweet, and they saw nothing before them but years and years of love and togetherness.

All of a sudden he was there without warning, with a knife in his hand and an anger that colored the edges of the dream red. With that anger boiling and raging, he killed them.

Annie shampooed her short, blond hair and began to scrub as if she were washing away the blood she’d seen in her nightmare. Tears stung her eyes, but she didn’t cry. She’d had the dream four nights in a row, and she didn’t know what to do.

This wasn’t the first time she’d had dreams that were more than dreams, but it had been a long while. She’d been so sure the aberration was over—gone—finished, once and for all. Apparently this curse or ability she’d never wanted had just been pushed deep. Something had caused it to rise to the surface, and she’d do whatever she had to in order to make the dreams stop.

Annie’s psychic gift had been inherited from her grandmother on her mother’s side. Grams had told her long ago that if she didn’t exercise the ability it would eventually go away. It was no different than being naturally good at baseball but choosing not to play the game. Since being psychic hadn’t done Grams any good at all, deciding not to play had been easy for Annie. For the most part, it worked. Since she didn’t exercise the ability, it didn’t often surface. But now and then, she had the dreams….

Last time something like this had happened, Annie had been twenty-two years old and unbelievably naive. Grams, the only person who might truly understand, had been gone three years by that time. Unable to turn to her recently divorced parents, and unsure about how her friends would react, Annie made the worst mistake of her life. She went to the police.

That wasn’t a mistake she cared to repeat.

Wrapped in a towel, her short hair towel-dried and the latest dream still too closely with her, Annie went to her computer. She needed help—serious help—and she wasn’t sure where to turn. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. It had been five years since the fiasco in Nashville, and she would not allow the heartbreak and embarrassment to be repeated. She liked it here in Mercerville, Tennessee, tucked into the mountains in what had to be one of the most naturally beautiful spots in the world. She had friends here, and her business was doing well. Tourists who came here for the serenity of the mountains found her one-of-a-kind hats and handbags intriguing. They told their friends, who called and placed orders by phone. One customer at a time, the business had grown. She had two small but prosperous shops in the area—one in Mercerville and another in Wears Valley—and was thinking of opening a third in Pigeon Forge. She had a life, a good life, and she wasn’t going to throw it away by confronting police officers who would just laugh at her.

But she had to do something. Someone had to stop this madman who’d killed two people simply because they were happy.

She keyed “private investigator” into the search engine, and scrolled down the first page, her fingers trembling. She’d be best off finding someone in the southeast, but not right in her backyard. When this was finished, she wouldn’t want the person who’d helped her to be too close.

Nothing jumped out at her right away so she continued, going to the next page and scanning the names. There were so many! Who could she trust with this? Who would take care of the matter without bringing her neat little world crashing down onto her head?

On the third page it happened. A name seemed to pop off the page, brighter than the rest. It drew her eye in an unnatural way, making her heart lurch. She read the first line, which told just a little bit about the company Web site. They were based in Alabama. Close, but not too close. In an instant Annie knew without doubt she’d found someone who could help her.

The Benning Agency.

Lucky kicked his feet up on the desk in his home office, holding his ear to the phone and listening to it ring on the other end. One, two, three rings. He was wondering where Sadie could be so early on a Monday morning, and trying to decide if he wanted to leave a message on the machine or not, when someone answered.

“Helloooo.”

Great. Just what he needed. “Hi. Is your mommy—”

“My name’s Grant,” the overly enthusiastic young voice proclaimed.

“Yes, I know. I—”

“I have a baby sister,” Grant said enthusiastically. “She’s new. Her name is Reagan.”

“Yes, I—”

“I like her, but sometimes she stinks.”

There should be a law against three-year-olds answering the telephone. “This is Uncle Lucky,” he said quickly and precisely.

“Hey! You gave me a toy gun for my birthday!”

“Yes, I did. Can I—”

“Daddy only lets me play with my toy gun sometimes, not always. When I’m the Incredible Spiderman I don’t need a gun because I have my spidey powers.”

Lucky sighed, and gave up on his hopes of talking to Sadie anytime soon. “No, Spiderman doesn’t—”

“The Incredible Spiderman!” the kid corrected with enthusiasm. And then he started making what were probably supposed to be spidey sounds.

“Can I speak to your mother?” Lucky spoke loudly to be heard above the din.

“You didn’t say please.”

“Please.”

“She’s changing a diaper right now. I have a baby sister! Her name is Reagan. Sometimes she stinks.”

Grant could be amusing, but he was getting repetitive and that was never a good thing. “If you’ll take the phone to your mother, I’ll bring you some candy next time I visit.”

Grant paused for a split second. “M&M’s?”

“Whatever you want.”

Suddenly Grant’s voice was distant, as the kid held the portable phone away from his mouth and called, “Mommy! It’s Unca Lucky!”

A few moments later, Sadie uttered a breathless “Hello?”

Without responding to the greeting, Lucky said, “You let a kid who’s barely three years old answer the phone?”

His old partner laughed. Man, there were days when he missed that laugh more than he dared to admit. “He taught himself. What can I say?”

“You can start by telling him not to give his name over the phone until he knows who he’s talking to.”

Sadie sighed. “Thanks for letting me know. I’ll take care of it. Nobody told me two kids would be ten times as much work as one. Twice as much I expected, that makes sense, but…I swear, Lucky, I have completely lost control.”

Sadie had lost control the minute she’d hooked up with Truman McCain, but that was an argument she didn’t want to hear. “I know the feeling. Heather left a couple of days ago.” Saturday afternoon, to be exact.

“Why?” Sadie managed to sound outraged, even though she had never liked Heather and hadn’t been shy about saying so.

“She said I’m commitment phobic.”

“Well,” Sadie said, less outrage in her voice, “you are. I mean, you and Heather were together for what, five months? That’s the longest I’ve ever known you to stay with one woman.”

“Siding with the enemy?”

“You didn’t love her, and I can tell you’re not all that upset that she’s gone. You’re just peeved because she left first. She wasn’t right for you, anyway. She was like all your other women—drop-dead gorgeous and shallow and temporary and not too smart. Maybe you should let me pick the next one.” There was more than a touch of humor in her voice as she made that ridiculous suggestion.

Lucky heard Grant’s insistent voice in the background.

“You will not bring this child candy next time you visit,” Sadie declared, the tone of her voice changing dramatically. “Do you have any idea what Grant’s like when he ingests too much sugar?”

“Oh, yeah. I was at the birthday party, remember?” Lucky hadn’t missed any of Grant’s birthday parties. Sadie’s husband, Truman, who was now sheriff of the small county where they lived their chaotic and ideal life, had once been suspicious of Lucky’s motives where Sadie was concerned. In nearly four years Truman had come to accept that his wife and the man who had once been her partner were just friends. The best of friends, but still…just friends.

It was only on the bad days that Lucky acknowledged that he had once been a little bit in love with Sadie. On the worst of days, he wondered if he still was.

“When are you going to come see the baby?” Sadie asked. “She’s beautiful.”

“I hear she stinks.” In spite of the bad mood he’d been in when he’d made this call, Lucky smiled widely.

“I have air freshener. Just don’t wear your best suit.”

“Warning noted.”

“So,” she continued, “when?”

“I don’t know.” He wasn’t very good company for anyone these days. “I’ve been spending a few days at home, and Cal has me training a handful of new guys this week. After that, who knows?”

The Benning Agency had grown since Sadie’s departure. Flynn Benning still owned the agency, but he was rarely around anymore. He had his hands full with a new family and a new career. Teaching, of all things. Cal ran the show, and there were now more than twenty agents—men and women—employed by the once small agency. They were thinking of branching out and opening an office in Nashville, or maybe Atlanta. It had even been mentioned that Lucky might head up a Nashville office, since he kept a house less than an hour away. Most of the others lived near the main office in rural Alabama, but Lucky liked to get away from it all when he wasn’t working a case.

He’d been asking himself lately—did he want to head up the Nashville office, if it came to that? It sounded an awful lot like a real job.

“You have to be here for Thanksgiving,” Sadie said. “The new house will be finished by then, and I have great holiday plans.”

“Like you don’t have your hands full enough as it is. What happened to ten times the work with two kids?”

“It’ll be a lot of work, it’ll be a huge hassle. I know that. But I want a big, traditional Thanksgiving in my new house,” Sadie insisted. “And you have to be here. It just wouldn’t be the same without you.”

Lucky hated to admit that he needed anything, but he needed Sadie in his life. He even needed Grant and Truman and the new baby. The situation was almost ideal. He could visit whenever he wanted, share their perfect little family life for a while and then leave the chaos and go back to his well-ordered life, where nothing ever stunk and he never had to say please to get what he wanted.

Crap. Maybe Heather was right.

“I gotta go,” Sadie said too quickly. “Spiderman is climbing on the kitchen table.”

In the background, Grant protested, “The Incredible Spiderman!”

“Thanksgiving!” Sadie ordered, and then she severed the connection.

Thanksgiving was less than two months away. He really should visit before then to see the new baby and take a present for smelly little Reagan, and maybe he would. But he suddenly hated the idea of showing up alone again, to be a fifth wheel in Sadie’s family life. Or worse, showing up with a woman who was exactly as Sadie had described. Gorgeous, shallow…and temporary.

When the phone rang he automatically checked the caller ID to see if Sadie—or maybe even Grant—had decided to call him back. But the number on the display was another familiar one.

Lucky answered with a crisp “Santana.”

Cal didn’t bother with niceties. “I’ve got a job for you.”

“I thought I was going to be training all week.” His suitcase was already in the trunk of his car, and he’d been planning to head south within the hour.

“You hate training,” Cal said, and it was a true enough statement. “Besides, this won’t even take a full day, I promise. You can be here torturing the new guys by tomorrow afternoon, no problem. Meet with the woman this afternoon or tomorrow morning, listen to what she has to say, tell her we’ll do what we can but it’s really not our specialty and get out. Easy, right?”

The jobs they thought would be easy always seemed to be the most difficult. “Why don’t you just tell her over the phone that we can’t help her?”

“I tried that. She’s very persistent.”

“What kind of case is this, exactly?”

Cal hesitated.

“Dammit, Calhoun…”

“Okay, she’s a kook. She had some sort of vision or something, and she claims she knows details about a murder but she doesn’t want to go to the police.”

Of course she didn’t. The police had probably had their fill of the local psychic. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“She’s a paying kook. She won’t rest easy until someone listens to her, and I figure she lives a couple of hours, maybe a little more, from your house. Call her, set up a meeting, get a statement and—hell—pacify her and get out as quick as you can.”

Maybe taking a statement from a kook would be more fun than sitting here staring out the window and fuming. Not because Heather was gone. Sadie had been too right when she’d said that he was pissed not because she’d left, but because he hadn’t been the one to do the leaving.

Everyone always disappointed him in the end. Family, friends, partners…lovers.

He grabbed a pad of paper and a silver pen. “Give me the kook’s address and phone number.”

Annie put the finishing touches on a special-order hat, placed it on her head and viewed the results in the mirror. She couldn’t help but smile. There was no accounting for tastes, but Teri Boyd was a good customer, and she was paying well for this hat and the matching bag. It wasn’t as if they’d actually be displayed in either of her shops. Annie’s Closet was trendy and her customers had fun browsing among the unexpected and unique. But this hat, feathers and all, was perhaps too unique. Looking at her reflection, Annie rearranged the silk sash. Maybe the hat was for a costume party, and Teri had neglected to tell her so.

The doorbell rang, and she jumped. Thanks to the dream, she’d been jumpy all day. Thank goodness she could work at home, when she wanted to. Each of her shops was capably run by a manager and a handful of part-timers, most of whom worked at Annie’s Closet simply so they could claim an employee discount.

Her hand was on the doorknob when she remembered to ask, “Who is it?” The door was solid wood. She really should have a peephole, but she’d never gotten around to having one put in.

For a moment no one answered, and then a deep male voice grumbled, “I thought you were psychic. Why do you have to ask who’s at the door?”

Had to be someone from the Benning Agency. No one else—and she did mean no one—knew about her too-real dreams. Annie opened the door slowly and looked up at what had to be the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen up close and personal. The man on her doorstep had dark hair—almost black but not quite—which had recently been neatly trimmed. Extremely prominent on his handsome face were amber eyes which were striking and powerful. He had a sharp jawline that looked as if it wouldn’t dare to sprout stubble, humorless, perfectly shaped lips and wide shoulders.

He wore an expensive black suit that looked as if it had been made for that fine body. Even the white dress shirt seemed perfectly fitted. If the tie wasn’t slightly loose and crooked, she’d think him too perfect to be real. She detected a hint of Hispanic heritage in his features, which was at odds with his honeyed Southern accent.

As he stared down at her, a smile tugged at his lips. “Nice hat,” he said.

Annie yanked the wide-brimmed and much-festooned hat from her head. “I thought you would call first.”

“Sorry. I figured you’d know I was coming.”

He didn’t believe her. Well, what had she expected?

“Come in.” She took a step back and invited him into her home, a very nice cabin with a fantastic view of the mountains from the back deck. The cabin was small, but just right for one person. The great room doubled as a work area, on most days. The kitchen was small, but functional. Her bedroom was on the main floor, as was a smaller spare bedroom, and there was an open loft for extra guests, if she ever had them. It was used for storing supplies, most of the time.

When her visitor was inside and she’d closed the door behind him, she offered her hand. “Annie Lockhart. Thank you for coming.”

He looked at her hand for a moment before taking it and shaking briefly and professionally. “Lucky Santana. Benning Agency. I dearly hate it when someone wastes my time.”

He obviously thought this trip was a waste of time. “Well, then, I’ll be as brief as possible,” she told him.

Santana’s eyes raked over the cabin quickly, taking in everything with an emotionless and seemingly bored precision. In the great room many of her supplies were scattered here and there—feathers and netting and sequins, felt and silk flowers—but there were two empty chairs sitting just a few feet apart, and they claimed them. Santana then turned his inquisitive amber eyes to her.

While he watched her with calculating eyes, Annie wished she’d chosen a different outfit this morning. The worn hip-hugger jeans were comfortable, and the beaded T-shirt was one of her favorites, but at the moment she’d give almost anything if her belly button was fully covered and her shirt didn’t cling to her breasts. Shoes would be better than the toe ring—which was all she wore on her feet. This man just studied her too damn hard.

“A man and woman from just south of Mercerville were murdered a couple of months ago,” she began. “Well, on the news the sheriff said it was a murder-suicide, but he’s wrong. There was no suicide. A man broke into their house and…” She shook her head as an image from the dream assaulted her. “He murdered them both.”

“Who is he?” Santana asked, still openly suspicious.

“I don’t know. In my dream it was like I was in his head. I couldn’t see what he looked like.”

“In your dream,” he repeated without emotion.

“Surely Mr. Calhoun explained to you why—”

“Yes,” Santana interrupted. “He explained that you’re a psychic of some sort, but he didn’t tell me what you expect us to do for you. What did the sheriff say when you told him about your dream?”

She tried not to look guilty. “I didn’t tell the sheriff, and I won’t. Surely Mr. Calhoun told you that I don’t want to go to the authorities. That’s the reason I called your company.”

“Yeah, he told me. I just wanted to hear the ‘why’ from you.”

“The ‘why’ is very simple. They won’t believe me.”

“Miss Lockhart,” Santana said in that deep and emotionless voice of his, “I don’t believe you.”

“I’m paying you to believe,” she snapped, and then she reined her temper in. “Look, I can tell you what I know about the killer and how he killed those poor people. Then you can look for concrete evidence, find the killer and turn him in. You can be the hero, he’ll be off the streets as he should be and no one needs to know that I had anything to do with it.”

“Miss Lockhart…”

“Annie, please.”

He lifted one eyebrow, just slightly. “I don’t want to waste your money or my time chasing after a dream. Maybe you should, uh, see a doctor about your nightmares. Medication is a good thing.”

For a long moment, Annie didn’t move. She’d been so certain the Benning Agency was the one. The name had popped off the page, hadn’t it? She’d felt such a great relief after she’d talked to Mr. Calhoun on the phone early this morning. And now this man was all but calling her crazy. How could she convince him that she needed his help?

Annie could keep her psychic gift dormant most of the time, but just like the time in Nashville, the dreams didn’t seem to care if she practiced or not. The vivid nightmares were bad enough, but when they came—as they had done this past week and as they had five years ago—they didn’t come alone. Waking and sleeping, she knew things she shouldn’t. If she kept herself busy, she could push the clairvoyance to the back of her mind. But when she concentrated, when she cleared her mind and reached for that which she shouldn’t know, her mind didn’t stay clear for long. Sometimes she didn’t have to reach; the knowledge was just there. She saw images…she heard voices. Until the man who’d killed the couple was caught, the problem wouldn’t go away.

She cleared her mind now, pushing away the everyday thoughts that had kept her sane in the days past so she could convince this man to help her. “He killed this couple because they were happy,” she said, gathering as much calm as she could. “He stalked them, he watched their every move for…months.” She whispered the last word, as it came to her. “He loved and hated and envied them, and then when he got tired of watching, he murdered them.”

“Miss Lockhart…”

“Even if I dared to go to the authorities, the sheriff won’t listen to me,” Annie said frantically. “He and anyone else I go to will write me off as a nutcase, and word will get around, and pretty soon everyone in town will be whispering behind my back. Some of them will wonder if maybe it’s true that I have unnatural abilities, but more of them will laugh. Worse, some of them will think that if I know anything I shouldn’t, then I had something to do with the murders. I like my life as it is, Mr. Santana, but I can’t just ignore what I saw and let it go. I had the dreams for a reason. I picked your agency for a reason.” She didn’t realize that her voice had been rising with each word until she almost shouted the last one.

“This isn’t the sort of case my agency normally takes. Perhaps you should call someone—”

Annie shot up and crossed the short distance between her and the handsome and aggravating Lucky Santana. She reached down and placed her hand on his shoulder. There was immediate tension in his shoulder, in his neck and the way he held his arm.

She didn’t really know how to call upon her gift when she needed it. During the few times in her life when this had happened she’d done her best to cut herself off from the unnatural ability, not call it up. Annie’s mother had been so embarrassed by her own mother’s abilities. She’d hated the fact that she was the daughter of a freak. The very idea that her daughter might be afflicted as well had been difficult for her. She’d insisted that Annie not pursue the life of a psychic, and her argument was a good one. Grams had practiced; she’d practiced a lot. And it hadn’t done her a damn bit of good.

From her limited past experience she understood that contact would be a good thing. She already knew Lucky Santana didn’t believe her.

A vision immediately popped into her mind. The first thing that came to her made her twitch, and she almost drew her hand in and jumped back. She saw, with a clarity so sharp she held her breath, this gorgeous man hovering above her. Naked. The fan on her bedroom ceiling whirred slowly over his left shoulder. He had a small crescent-shaped scar on that finely sculpted shoulder. An old one. The expression on his face was—she shivered—feral. Possessive. Hungry. Was she seeing what some hidden part of her wanted to see, or was this what was meant to be? What might be?

She forced herself to reach beyond the vision for something else. Something she could actually use. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I usually try to stop these visions, not bring them on. I don’t have any control over what comes to me.”

“I see,” Santana said, his voice dripping with sarcasm and disbelief.

Annie forced herself to relax. Given what she’d just seen, she should send this man away as quickly as possible. Maybe the Benning Agency wasn’t the one after all. Maybe she needed to start all over. Lucky Santana was a heartbreaker, and the last thing she needed was to get involved with a man who wouldn’t stay. “The redhead is right, you are commitment phobic,” she said.

Santana flinched slightly beneath her hand, but didn’t shove her away. He still wasn’t convinced.

“A new office?” The longer she worked at seeing inside this man, the easier it became. She relaxed, a little. What she needed to convince him that she wasn’t a nut would come—or it wouldn’t. She had to trust herself, just this once. “You don’t think you’ll like that sort of work, spending all that time in what’s basically an administrative role, but once you get settled you’ll find you like it more than you’d imagined you could.” She cocked her head to one side and looked into his amazing amber eyes.

He was dressed conservatively, and his haircut was traditional. But there was nothing conservative about those eyes. They were fire and ice. Passion and indifference.

Everything about him was cool, even his voice as he said, “If you’re trying to convince me you can read minds, you’re doing a poor job. You haven’t told me anything Cal couldn’t have mentioned over the phone.”

“The man you work for would share such personal information with a potential client?”

“If it means yanking my chain, yeah.” He stood, and her hand dropped away. “I enjoyed the drive over, so I’m going to tell Cal not to bill you for this call. Miss Lockhart, I do advise you to speak with a doctor or a therapist as soon as possible.”

Lucky Santana was almost to the door. He was, in fact, reaching for the doorknob. If he walked out, what would she do? Maybe the Benning Agency would send someone else, but Santana was the one to help her—she knew it. She felt it. What could she say to make him understand?

“You don’t really love her,” she called as Santana opened the door. He stopped, turned to look at her with blazing eyes and slammed the door shut.

“You don’t really love her,” Annie said again, more softly this time. And then she began to hum the tune that popped into her head.

Chapter 2

It wasn’t an easy song to hum, and Annie Lockhart couldn’t carry a tune. And still, Lucky immediately recognized the song. “Sexy Sadie.”

He’d been very careful to keep his occasional romantic musings about Sadie to himself. No one knew how he felt—how he sometimes thought he might feel. Not even Sadie. For a moment Lucky was blindingly angry. Somehow the men he worked with did know, and this was an elaborate setup intended to embarrass him. A practical joke. And then he looked into Annie Lockhart’s eyes and saw the unshed tears.

If this was a joke, she wasn’t in on it.

Annie Lockhart was blond, blue-eyed and average height. Maybe a bit taller than average, thanks to those long legs encased in faded denim. The couple of inches of skin he could see between the waistband and the hem of her shirt, which was adorned with a little sparkly stuff, was shapely enough to draw any man’s eye. She was slender—but not thin. Nice build, but nothing eye-popping. Quirky, even without the hat. Her blond hair was soft and straight, but the cut was uneven and purposely ragged, giving her a tousled look. And she hadn’t looked squarely at him since she’d told him he “didn’t love her.”

“It’s…it’s trust,” Lockhart said in a lowered voice, when she finished humming. “You’ve confused trust and love, which is easy enough to do, I suppose.”

Lucky took a few steps into the room, moving closer so he could see her face. He didn’t believe in psychic abilities, but he did believe in instincts. He had pretty damn good instincts himself, honed over the years to a fine edge. Maybe in some part of her brain that she didn’t understand, Annie Lockhart had put the pieces of this murder puzzle together and come up with answers she couldn’t explain. Images from television, details from the newspaper, gossip…all pieces of a puzzle that had led her to believe she knew something she didn’t. A couple days of investigation, if that, should prove that all her suppositions were wrong.

And the bit about Sadie? He wasn’t ready to go there just yet.

“I’ll give you two days, Miss Lockhart.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, in obvious relief. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Lucky said sharply. “I think you’re full of crap, and I’ll be more than happy to prove it and then send you the bill.” The Benning Agency didn’t come cheap, but handling financial concerns was Cal’s job—not Lucky’s. “I’ll need to find a hotel room….”

“Oh, I’ve taken care of that,” the blonde said lightly. “It’s a bed-and-breakfast, actually. You’ll be much more comfortable there than you would be in a hotel, and it’s just down the road.”

Lucky thrust his hands in his pants pockets—so he wouldn’t strangle the client. “You made a reservation for me? Before I got here and agreed to take the job?”

“Instead of being irritable, you should thank me. This is a very busy time of year in the area, with the leaves changing colors and the weather turning cool. I didn’t know who Mr. Calhoun would send, of course, so just give Kristie my name when you check in.”

Since he had agreed to take her case, Annie Lockhart had relaxed considerably. She smiled a little, and the tears in her pretty blue eyes had dried, he noticed, as she gave him directions to the bed-and-breakfast down the hill. She was cute, but not his type. The women he dated were always beautiful. Not just cute, not merely pretty. He was drawn to women who turned heads in a major way. This woman was pretty enough, but she probably had never entered a room and immediately garnered every man’s attention—unless she sauntered in wearing a ridiculous hat like the one she’d been wearing when she’d opened the door.

His gaze skimmed her from head to toe—not for the first time—and lingered on the toes. The toenails were painted pink, and she wore one toe ring. A yellow flower. He’d bet his last dollar she had a tattoo. Somewhere. No, she was definitely not his type.

Annie Lockhart gave a brief and accurate description of the bed-and-breakfast where he’d apparently be staying. He remembered passing the large, old house on the way in. It was less than five minutes away.

Suddenly he couldn’t wait to get out of this cabin. “I’ll check into my room and call the office. In the morning we’ll get—”

“Tonight,” she interrupted. “We need to get started tonight.”

“Why?”

Suddenly she looked vulnerable again, too young and too naive to be involved in discussions of murder. “The dreams won’t stop unless I’m doing all I can to stop this killer. I can’t have those dreams again tonight. I just can’t. Come back after you check into your room and make your phone calls. I’ll cook supper for us, and we can get started.” She took a deep breath. “Please.”

“All right, Ms. Lockhart.”

“Call me Annie,” she said, not for the first time. “If we’re going to be working together…” She shrugged her shoulders, and for some reason she shifted her glance so that she was looking away from him and out a small window, even though there wasn’t much to see beyond those particular panes of glass. After a moment, she forced her gaze back in his direction.

He should invite her to call him Lucky, but he hesitated. He was already too close to liking Annie Lockhart for some reason, and the last thing he needed was to get involved with a kooky chick who wore extravagant hats and thought she was psychic. “I’ll check back with you in a couple of hours,” he said, turning away and heading—again—for the door. He really should get in his car, head for home and call Cal from there.

“Thank you, Lucky,” Annie called as he opened the door on a wonderfully cool afternoon. “I really don’t know what I’d do if you refused to help.”

And just like that, he was trapped. He’d never been able to turn his back on a woman in trouble. Maybe he had some sort of sick hero complex. Maybe he needed a doctor and some serious medication just as much as psychic Annie did. He could only hope that this time being a hero didn’t lead to complete, utter disaster.

Annie felt the urge to make fried chicken and mashed potatoes for supper, along with green peas and apple crisp. She didn’t cook often but she could cook, and having company—even if that company was a reluctant P.I. who thought she was crazy—brought out the homebody in her. Her mother had taught her the ways of the kitchen, hoping such skills would lead to a happy domestic life for her only child. That had been before divorce had soured Penny Lockhart’s views on love and marriage. The lessons had ended long ago, but Annie still remembered how to cook.

Divorce, after nearly twenty-five years of marriage, had definitely soured Penny Lockhart’s opinions on love, and it hadn’t done much for Annie’s perceptions, either. She’d always known all was not perfect with her parents, but she hadn’t expected they’d call it quits after such a long time. Her father had remarried quickly, and had more children. Two boys, to be precise. It was odd, having half brothers so much younger. Since she didn’t see her father and his new family often, it wasn’t exactly a problem. It was simply odd.

Her mother, on the other hand, visited often. Too often, to be honest. She had no qualms about jumping in her new electric-blue sports car and driving from Florida to Tennessee, almost always arriving unannounced.

These days Annie barely recognized the woman who had taught her to cook and clean and become a good wife. There would be no more marriage for Penny. She had completely embraced the life of a middle-aged single woman. She took dance lessons and was learning to play the guitar. She dated. She flirted with men half her age, and with men old enough to be her father. She dyed her hair. Red one day, blond the next. She’d lost thirty pounds, and often wore clothing intended for women thirty years younger.

Mid-fifties did not mean matronly for Penny Lockhart.

Annie could only hope that her mother didn’t make an appearance while Lucky Santana was here. How on earth would she explain him away? She certainly couldn’t tell her mother the truth. Heaven forbid.

She didn’t want her mother to know the psychic gift had reappeared. She’d freak, just as she had when as a child Annie had had nightmares about illness and accidents that too often came to pass within days. Why couldn’t she dream of winning the lottery?

By the time Lucky returned to the cabin, supper was ready. Annie had cleared a long worktable in the great room and set out notebooks and an assortment of pens. She was partial to the purple one, but she’d bet Lucky Santana wouldn’t dare take notes in anything other than blue or black.

He remained skeptical, suspicious of her every word. It didn’t matter. Eventually he would believe her. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t be happy about discovering that psychic ability was real. He liked his world neat and tidy, and to have his beliefs turned upside down would not be pleasant.

With any luck, his work would chase this unwanted return of her ability away, and she could return to her simple, uncomplicated, ordinary life, in which she didn’t dream of murderers or have very crisp visions of naked men in her bed.

Lucky ate as if he enjoyed the meal she’d prepared. The apple crisp went over especially well. He continued to hold much of himself back, but Annie didn’t take it personally. That was his nature. He wasn’t one to give his trust easily—or often. Something in his past had made him leery of getting too close to anyone—and to be honest, she needed no special gifts in order to be certain of that. She didn’t know what might’ve happened to make him so wary, and she didn’t try to see. That would be an invasion of privacy, and he was a very private person.

Besides, trying to tap deeply into her abnormal ability really wore her out. Sometimes she ended up with a headache, or double vision. Seeing what she shouldn’t sapped her energy. Another reason to be rid of the nuisance.

Her newly hired P.I. relaxed a little when they moved to the great room and the work area she’d set up. They pulled chairs to the worktable and Lucky grabbed a notebook. He reached past her purple pen to a black one—naturally.

“I’ll tell you about the dreams, and you write it all down.” She gestured with waving fingers.

“I’d prefer to start with the facts of the case,” he responded sharply. “You do have the facts, don’t you?”

“We’re starting with the dreams,” she insisted. The best way to rid herself of the memory of those dreams was to get them out, right? By telling him all about the nightmares, she’d be handing them over to someone else. Facts could come later.

His response was a very subtle lifting of his dark eyebrows. Would he walk out now? He wanted to. Well, he obviously didn’t want to be here, and that was basically the same thing.

She’d never met anyone quite like him, and she’d known it the moment he walked into her house. There was a toughness to him, a distance, an edge she could not entirely explain. He was very big on enforcing the rules, unless, of course, he was the one breaking them. No one told him what to do, least of all a small, frightened woman.

But in the end he put pen to paper and said, “Fine. We’ll do this your way. Tell me about your dreams.”

Annie’s thoughts were jumbled, so disconnected that for a while the notes Lucky took didn’t mean much of anything. As he had imagined earlier, they looked like pieces to a large, complicated puzzle, and from what he could tell, none of the pieces fit together.

After more than half an hour, though, he began to get a clearer picture.

According to Annie’s dreams, the killer had spied on his chosen couple for a long time, moving closer and closer each time. He’d stalked them; he’d taken pictures and broken into their home in order to steal a few personal items they’d never missed. Near the end he’d introduced himself to them, and they hadn’t seen the threat in him—not until he’d pulled a knife and stabbed his female victim. The male—the husband—had been shot, and his wound had been made to look self-inflicted. A first-rate investigative team probably would’ve found holes in the carefully staged scene, but in a rural area where there hadn’t been a murder in many years, it was easy for the investigators to simply accept what they saw.

Of course, this was assuming that what Annie was telling him was true, and not the product of an overactive imagination. It wouldn’t be tough to confirm or disprove what she was telling him.

As Lucky took notes, he wondered: If this scenario Annie presented was correct, how had the killer overpowered two people and still managed to stage the scene as he wanted without signs of a struggle? Drugs were the most likely answer, and he wondered if anyone had run a tox screen on the victims. Depending on the circumstances and the availability of state resources, maybe. Maybe not.

After almost an hour, Annie sighed with a deep, complete tiredness. Lucky had been so intent on taking his own notes he hadn’t noticed that his client had gone very pale, and her hands shook slightly. Closer examination revealed that her eyes were unfocused and tired. No, beyond tired.

“Are you all right?” Lucky set his pen aside and closed his notebook.

“Not really,” Annie said, and then she attempted a laugh that was weak and tremulous. “The dreams haven’t been pleasant, as you can imagine, and telling them in all detail just makes them seem real again. It’s almost as if I’m living it again, as I relate what I remember.” She swayed in her chair and then gripped the edge of the table to steady herself. After a moment, she placed her forehead on the table and took a long, deep breath. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” she said weakly.

Lucky muttered a curse and rounded the table. Annie looked as if she might fall out of her chair at any moment, and that wouldn’t do. If she was putting on an act, it was a damn good one. If she wasn’t…

He preferred not to think about that possibility too intently. “Come on.” He helped Annie to her feet, steadying her. She felt fragile beneath his hands, soft and tiny and breakable. He liked his women the way he liked his guns—solid and dependable. Annie Lockhart was neither.

But she was a client, and she looked as if she was on the verge of falling apart.

“Enough for tonight,” he said. “Get a good night’s sleep, and we’ll go over the notes tomorrow afternoon.” After he’d had a chance to check the facts of her so-called visions and see if she’d told him anything that wasn’t common knowledge. He didn’t think she was lying to him. Not exactly. Maybe she’d read about these unfortunate deaths, and her overactive imagination had supplied the rest. That didn’t explain the bit about Sadie, but there had to be a logical explanation for that, too.

He’d find that explanation, sooner or later. Cal wouldn’t stoop so low even if he did know something he shouldn’t, but Sean Murphy…This sort of prank was right up Murphy’s alley. Lucky tried to recall if he’d ever said too much, after one too many drinks at the end of a tough job. Nothing came to him, but maybe later.

Dante? No, even if Dante knew he wouldn’t tell. Had to be Murphy. Nerds were not to be trusted.

Lucky led Annie into the bathroom off the hallway. She sat on the lid of the commode, while he grabbed a handy washcloth and ran some cool water. With the damp washcloth in hand, he knelt before her and gently wiped her face. No makeup, he noted as he ran the washcloth over her cheek. The flawless complexion was real.

She closed her eyes and allowed him to tend to her, for a moment. He saw and felt her breathing change, as she began to regain her energy. He lowered the washcloth to her neck, and she tilted her head back while he wiped the length of her throat. Maybe Annie wasn’t gorgeous, but she had a fine, slender throat. Everything about her was feminine, in a very different way from the women he was usually attracted to.

As he cooled her throat with the washcloth, she smiled. “It’s good that you’re here,” she said softly.

“I’m not so sure about that,” he responded honestly.

Annie’s smile widened. “You’ll see.”

He didn’t like the way she said that, as if she knew something he didn’t.

Since she no longer looked as if she might fall apart, he dropped the washcloth into the sink and stood, then moved away from her. Fortunately, this was a good-sized bathroom, and he wasn’t forced to remain too close to her.

Her eyes—bluer than ever, it seemed—looked at him with an odd mix of fearlessness and innocence. “I’m not lying.”

Lucky sighed. “I know.”

“I’m not crazy, either,” she added crisply.

As far as Lucky was concerned, the jury on that one was still out. “I’ll come by tomorrow after lunch.”

Annie stood, steady and much stronger than she’d been just a few minutes ago, and passed by too closely as she made her way to the door. Lucky found himself holding his breath as she walked past him and her arm brushed against his.

“Maybe you’ll believe me tomorrow,” she said with confidence. “I’m sorry to be the one to shake your reality, but…well, maybe you’ll believe me tomorrow. I think it’s up to us to find him, and we can. I know we can.” She sounded less than confident as she made this statement.

In the hallway, she turned away from the den and the front door and headed for what he assumed was her bedroom. A few minutes ago she’d looked to be on the verge of breakdown, but now her stride was steady and even. There was a hint of a womanly sway in her walk. Just enough to make everything in him tighten.

“Let yourself out,” she called lightly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Lucky was immediately incensed. “You hardly know me. We met a few hours ago, and now you’re instructing me to let myself out? Have you lost your mind? Sorry, wrong question to ask.”

She turned, and even in the dimly lit hallway he could see her smile. “You’re gruff, and skeptical, and occasionally rude. You have little respect for women, even though you claim to like them well enough. I don’t think you like me very much. At the very least, I confuse you. You’re slow to give your friendship or your trust, and…with good reason, I suppose.” She sighed deeply.

“But you don’t have a dishonest bone in your body. I have nothing to fear by asking you to let yourself out. I don’t even have to remind you to lock the front door, because I know you will.”

“You don’t know me,” Lucky insisted.

Annie turned away and continued her slow, tired, annoyingly sexy walk to her bedroom. “Lucky Santana, I know you better than you know you.”

Annie stripped off her clothes, pulled on an oversize T-shirt that had Drama Queen emblazoned across the front and fell into bed, exhausted. A moment later she heard the front door open and close, and she knew Lucky was gone for the night.

Calling up all those memories of two violent deaths had drained her. She had known the task would be unpleasant and difficult, but until her head had begun to swim and she’d looked across the table to see two Luckys as her vision doubled, she hadn’t known how difficult.

Twice in her adult life, this inherited ability had surfaced in spite of her refusal to accept and hone it. In Nashville, as now, a murder that might’ve gone unsolved had been the crux of the problem. The dreams were bad enough, but they didn’t come alone. They came with draining, uncontrollable, unwanted glimpses into the minds and hearts of others. It was as if the dreams unlocked a gate bursting through the defenses she’d so carefully constructed.

Maybe once she completed this mission—if that’s what it was—the visions would cease again, for a while. Being tortured with vivid and all-too-true nightmares, and suffering from unwanted flashes of precognition once every four or five years, was doable, she supposed.

Annie sank into her soft mattress, relaxing completely. She’d done all she could to find the truth, so maybe tonight she wouldn’t dream about the murdered couple. That would be nice. Maybe instead of death she’d dream about life. Maybe she’d dream about Lucky.

It had been a long time since she’d found herself face-to-face with a man she was attracted to. True, she wasn’t his type—and he wasn’t hers. Gorgeous or not, he was stodgy and conservative, and he liked his life neat and orderly and without surprise. She was too peculiar for him, even without the psychic ability. She was creative; he was logical—and she suspected he was quite the control freak. They probably didn’t like any of the same movies or books.

But there was something between them—something besides a creepy killer. Chemistry. Hormones. One lonely person sensing another and reaching out in a primal, unmistakable way.

Lucky would never think of himself as lonely, but in his own way he was every bit as lonely as she was.

Too tired to think clearly any longer, Annie drifted toward sleep. As she fell into a slumber she remembered what it had felt like when Lucky had taken her arm, when he’d gently wiped her face and neck. And she recalled the vision of him hovering above her, naked and possessive. Her fingers moved along the sheet, tracing the scar she had not yet touched.

And when she dreamed, the images were not of death, but of life at its finest.

Lucky dialed Murphy’s cell number as he stepped out of his car. The bed-and-breakfast that would be home for the next day or two was well-lit and eerily old-fashioned. He half expected a Southern belle in a hoop skirt to saunter onto the porch to greet him, maybe with a mint julep in hand.

Murphy answered on the second ring. “What’s up?” he asked.

“Nothing much.” Lucky sat in a rocking chair on the porch, since the cell signal here was clear and strong. “Did Cal tell you much about this case?”

Murphy laughed lightly. “The kook? Apparently she was very persistent on the telephone. Cal said you could handle her, though. Will you be here tomorrow? The new guys are even greener than the last batch, though there are one or two who have promise.”

“No, I won’t be there tomorrow. I’m sticking around here for a couple of days, with the kook.”

There was a long moment of silence, followed by a disbelieving “You are?” And then a moment later, “Why?”

Lucky was glad Murphy couldn’t see his smile. “I think maybe she’s for real.”

Again, there was that small, meaningful pause. Murphy probably wore his own huge grin, thinking he’d pulled one over on Lucky. But instead of egging Lucky on in his newfound belief, he exploded with a crisp “You’re kidding me, right? No, this is all wrong. You’re a rock, man. You can’t go flaky on me. I’m going to tell Cal to order you home ASAP, you hear me? If you start seeing auras and…and meditating…”

“Hold on,” Lucky ordered. “I’m just pulling your leg.”

“Oh.” There was a lot of relief in that one syllable. “So why are you staying? I get it,” Murphy continued before Lucky had a chance to respond. “She’s, like, gorgeous, right?”

“Pretty enough,” Lucky conceded.

“Oh.” Again there was a world of meaning in that one word. Lucky Santana didn’t go for women who were simply pretty enough. “Don’t stay there too long,” Murphy continued. “I have some new, kickin’ toys.”

Murphy was Benning’s computer and gadget expert. His toys were always interesting. “A couple of days, maybe.”

“Cool. Be careful.”

Lucky flipped his phone closed and headed for the door. Not Murphy, then. So who had told pretty enough Annie Lockhart that he’d once had the major hots for Sadie?

That was the true mystery, one he was determined to solve before he headed south to kick someone’s sorry ass for playing this practical joke on him.

Chapter 3

After a restless night filled with disjointed dreams that made no sense, Lucky was awakened by a knock on his door and a cheerful “Good morning! Breakfast is ready!” He glanced at the bedside clock and growled low in his throat.

He recognized the overly bright voice as belonging to the woman who owned and operated this bed-and-breakfast. Somehow he always associated elderly women with the job of landlady, especially in an older home like this one, but Kristie Bentley and her husband, Stu, were a young couple—probably not even thirty years old. They were newlyweds, married less than a year, and they were both attractive and friendly. And much too freakin’ cheerful.

Lucky crawled out of bed, quickly pulled on a pair of pants and opened the door with a jerk. He caught Kristie midknock.

Oblivious to his displeasure, she grinned at him. She had to look up to meet his glare, since she wasn’t much more than five feet tall. “Good morning, Mr. Santana. Breakfast is ready. We have pancakes, eggs, muffins, fresh fruit, bacon and country ham.”

“It’s seven forty-five,” Lucky grumbled.

Kristie cocked her head to one side, and her smile faded. “I’m so sorry.”

Lucky began to nod. At least she had the good grace to apologize.

“Annie said you’d want to be up by seven-thirty, since you have a busy morning ahead of you, but I had my hands full in the kitchen and Stu was helping the Hendersons to their car. They had so much luggage, and as I’m sure you noticed, Mr. Henderson has a sprained wrist.”

He hadn’t noticed. Then again, he’d only passed the older couple in the downstairs hallway once, last night after his conversation with Murphy. His mind had been elsewhere at the time.

In truth, he was ready to start looking into the supposed murders that had Annie all wound up. And besides, he was hungry. “I’ll be down in five minutes.”

Kristie nodded, her smile widened to its usual brightness once again and she backed away. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and it flipped gently as she turned around. The woman looked like she’d just stepped out of a shampoo commercial, freshly scrubbed and squeaky clean.

He’d bet this woman and Annie were friends. Maybe that’s why he was staying here instead of at a real hotel where they didn’t wake you up at the crack of dawn unless you personally asked for a wake-up call.

The old house had been renovated so that each bedroom had its own bath, thank goodness. Lucky slammed his door and headed in the direction of the small bath that might’ve once been a closet—judging by the size. Shower, breakfast, Internet. And after he proved that Annie Lockhart was full of crap, he could brush her off with a clean conscience.

Training a bunch of green recruits and testing Murphy’s newest toys was beginning to look damn good.

Annie spent Tuesday morning at the Mercerville location of Annie’s Closet, delivering two hats, taking inventory and talking to the store manager about adding on new personnel for the busy holiday season. She didn’t let on that her life had been turned upside down in the past few days. With any luck, no one would ever have to know.

She hadn’t had disturbing dreams last night, but whatever was happening to her hadn’t abated. As she looked around, she was all but assaulted with words and pictures that did not come from her own mind. If she concentrated, it all began to make sense. June, the manager, was preoccupied with her love life. A customer, someone Annie didn’t know, was thinking of lifting a small purse and walking out with it, but she was being too closely watched so she didn’t. She’d lift a different purse from a department store in Sevierville later this afternoon. Michelle, the newest employee, had dreams of owning a shop of her own one day, though she was really more interested in designing jewelry than hats and handbags. A woman picking up an order was thinking of her grocery list as she paid for her purchase. She was going to forget the milk.

Annie did her best to dismiss the intrusive thoughts of others and concentrate on small, ordinary things, like paying the bills and deciding what should go in the new window display. Eventually the nagging little voices faded, and then they stopped. Still, she was afraid they’d start again, so she took care of her business and very gratefully left the store—and all those jarring thoughts—behind. Home had never felt so good as it did when she closed the door behind her and experienced a moment of pure, total silence.

In the safety and silence of her own home, she had to ask herself the questions she most dreaded. What if this time the voices didn’t stop? It was possible that Grams had been wrong, and, practice or not, the ability was here to stay. She was so certain that catching the killer would end this, but what if Lucky couldn’t find the killer, or even worse, what if as soon as this murderer was caught, another round of violent dreams began?

What if the dreams stopped, but the newly rejuvenated psychic ability remained? Would she have to hide away for the rest of her life, keeping a distance between herself and others because she never knew when she might be assaulted by images and thoughts and secrets that were not her own?

As she had at the store, Annie buried herself in minute details that seemed to wipe away the thoughts she didn’t need or want. She designed a new bag, organized the supplies that were crowding her out of her own great room, and balanced the checkbook. It was a pleasant and ordinary day. She really, really liked ordinary.

She expected Lucky to arrive at the cabin by two, and at 1:50 she heard his car pull into the driveway. As the car door slammed with excessive force, she held her breath and listened to the crisp steps on her front porch grow closer and louder.

He wasn’t happy.

Annie waited for him to knock, and she wasn’t surprised by the force of his knuckles on her front door. He would want explanations, logical explanations, and she didn’t have any. She knew what she knew. There was no logic in it.

The confrontation was inevitable. She garnered her courage and opened the door to reveal an angry, tense, confused Lucky Santana.

He walked past her, shaking a notebook, which was now filled with loose sheets of paper that stuck out at all angles.

“How did you do it? How did you know this case stunk to high heaven?”

“Hello?” she said with a touch of sarcasm as she closed the door. “How are you? Lovely weather we’re having.”

He turned and glared at her, and looking into those vibrant eyes caused what felt like an electrical jolt to pass through her body.

“This isn’t a social call,” Lucky said with a decided lack of patience. “This is business. If you want chitchat, walk down the hill and visit with your perky friend Kristie.”

He said “perky” as if it were an insult.

“There’s no reason to make this unpleasant,” Annie argued, even though there was nothing pleasant about this situation. Her knees wobbled a little, and that made her glad she was wearing a long, loose skirt. Maybe Lucky couldn’t see her reaction. She crossed the room to take a chair before her knees gave out entirely. “Okay, everything about this is unpleasant. You know, I was half hoping that you’d come by and tell me I was wrong about everything. I’d be very happy to write this off as a nervous breakdown brought on by stress, but that’s not the case, is it?” She lifted her head to look him in the eye.

“I don’t have access to case files—not yet—but I did talk to an overly chatty deputy, and just checking the stories on the Internet and looking through newspapers at the library gave me a very clear picture of a piss-poor investigation and a lot of angry relatives who want answers they haven’t gotten.” A muscle in his taut jaw twitched. “There was no reason for Huff to murder his wife and then himself. None. From everything I’ve found, it looks like Jenna Huff was a dedicated, loving wife. Trey Huff was a simple enough guy who was well on his way to starting his own furniture refinishing business. He’d put a deposit down on a building, and had bought most of the supplies he needed to get started. The only explanation for a violent and unexpected murder/suicide is that Trey had a nervous breakdown, and that’s extremely unlikely.”

“I told you he didn’t do it,” she said. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

Again, that muscle in Lucky’s jaw twitched. The man needed to relax in the worst way. “All of this hinges on a dream. That’s not the way it works.” He was desperate for logical answers. “I work for you, so you can tell me anything and everything without fear of reprisal. Did you talk to someone who saw something they shouldn’t? Do you know who did this, and you’re afraid to tell me or anyone else how you know? Give me something I can work with, Annie. Tell me the truth.”

“I’ve never told you anything but the truth.”

Frustration shone through, even though he tried to appear calm and reasonable. “At the very least, let me take this to the sheriff.”

Ignoring the lurch of her heart, Annie gestured for Lucky to sit down, and after a moment of hesitation he did. He tossed his notebook to an end table and gripped the bridge of his nose between two fingers as he closed his eyes and reached for the calm and patience he wished to possess. Neither came naturally to him.

He wasn’t going to like what she had to say, but he needed to hear it.

“Five years ago, when I lived in Nashville, I had a dream about a murder. The dream was very much like the ones I’ve been having lately. Violent, vivid, all too real.” She told him the details, as quickly and painlessly as she could. She spared him the gory details of the dreams themselves. “A woman was killed, supposedly during a break-in at her apartment. It was her boyfriend. Thanks to the dreams I knew it was him, without a single doubt, so I went to the police. They didn’t believe me, of course, but when it turned out I was right about some of the details…” She shrugged her shoulders, trying to make it appear that the details didn’t matter, when in fact they mattered very much. “I don’t want to relive that time, not even to tell you how they treated me, how I was questioned, what it felt like to believe that I was going to end up in prison for a crime I didn’t commit because I tried to help. I can’t go to the sheriff with this, and neither can you. They won’t believe either of us.”

Lucky took a deep breath. He wanted to get out of here so badly. She hated that. They gotten off to a rocky start, but she did like him, and there was that vision of what was to be. What might be.

For a moment she had a clear and uncluttered glimpse into Lucky’s complicated mind. He wasn’t thinking of a grocery list, or his love life, or shoplifting. Instead he was thinking about her and this case and how much he didn’t want to believe her. A part of him did believe, though, and that scared him a little. She didn’t want him to be scared of her.

She also didn’t want to spend her life seeing into other people’s hearts and minds. Sitting there, Annie did her best to shut Lucky out. She did everything she could to quiet the ability that had brought him here. After a moment, it began to work. She could shut down her abilities. She could put up a shield that would keep Lucky, and everyone else, out of her head. She erected that shield now, basically separating herself from him and everyone else. A moment of calm descended, and she breathed a sigh of relief, even though she had no idea how long the shield would last.

If she wanted this thing to go away altogether, she had to help Lucky find the man who had murdered Trey and Jenna Huff.

“I understand your reasoning, but I still think we should take what we have to the sheriff,” Lucky said after a long moment of silence. “Without the case files I can’t—”

“No!” Annie came up out of her chair. “Didn’t you hear a word I said about what happened in Nashville? Do I have to go into detail to make you understand? Fine. I lost the man I loved, my friends, my job, my life. I won’t go through that again. I hired you, Mr. Santana. You work for me, and I will not allow you to take what I’ve told you to the sheriff or anyone else. Is that clear?” When he didn’t respond she asked again, more loudly. “Is that clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lucky answered sarcastically. “I’ll just sit on the knowledge that a man has gotten away with murder.”

Drained and frustrated, Annie sat once again. “We have to stop him, I know that. I’m not suggesting that we do nothing. With what I’ve told you, you should be able to find out who the killer is and collect some hard evidence and then take that to the sheriff.”

“You want me to work the case backward.”

“Sure. Why not?”

Lucky leaned back in his chair and thrust out long legs. He appeared to relax, but in truth he was still wound tight. It took no unnatural gift to see that fact. Was he always so tense?

“It’s going to take time.”

Annie closed her eyes. She had some money saved, and if she held off on opening the third store she could afford to keep Lucky on the payroll for a week or two. Would that be enough? The Benning Agency didn’t come cheap, and while she had money, she was far from independently wealthy.

“Do it,” she finally said. What choice did she have?

She heard the rustle of papers, and opened her eyes to see Lucky spreading his notes across the table where they’d worked last night. Relief spread through her, warming her body from head to toe. This time she wasn’t alone. This time she had Lucky Santana to help her.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“You’re welcome,” he responded dryly, without pausing in his work. When he had the papers arranged in a manner that suited him, he turned to her. “I’m not saying that I don’t believe you, but I still think it’s possible that there’s a reasonable explanation for the way you figured this out. You read the articles in the newspaper, you saw the relatives on television, you…you put two and two together, and the pieces came together in your dreams.”

“If that’s what you have to believe in order to do what has to be done, then do it. I don’t care.”

“Just one thing,” he said too casually. “Who told you about Sadie? Not that there’s anything to tell, mind you, but she is my old partner, and there was a time when…well, someone might’ve thought that I…So, who told you about Sadie? Cal? Dante?”

“You told me,” Annie answered in a lowered voice.

Lucky glared at her. He was, at this moment, a little angry, very puzzled and more than a little determined. Determination on a man like Lucky Santana was very appealing. There weren’t very many men like this one in the world, and wasn’t that a pity.

“Fine,” he snapped. “If you’re really psychic, then get me something I can use. How about the killer’s address?”

The rain started to fall while Annie studied his notes and—on occasion—touched them. Lucky kept his eyes on her face. He saw her anxiety, her indecision and her dread at the job she had before her.

He’d asked her to try to see more, in order to give him something to work with. She didn’t want to, but she’d consented. They had come to a compromise. He wouldn’t mention her name to the sheriff; she would try to bring on the visions that she obviously didn’t want.

Her reluctance made him think maybe…just maybe…she had an ability he didn’t understand. Then again, she might just be a very good actress.

He didn’t think she was acting.

The most logical explanation for Annie’s suppositions about the Huffs’ deaths was the one he’d put to her earlier; she’d put two and two together in the back of her mind and came up with dreams that seemed real. She didn’t believe that explanation, but the brain was a complicated machine, and anything was possible. Well, almost anything.

For the moment, he was stuck here. Not because Cal had sent him here, not because Annie had hired him. He felt responsible for Annie Lockhart. She needed him, and he couldn’t turn his back on her. That was his downfall. Always.

She even looked like a kook. Today she didn’t wear low-rise jeans and a snug T-shirt, but instead had dressed in a long, full bluish-greenish skirt, a white blouse with a touch of ruffles and sandals. The toenails were still pink, but the yellow toe ring had been replaced with plain silver. Her short blond hair looked purposely mussed—he supposed it was meant to be trendy—and long silver earrings dangled almost to her shoulders. Everything about her screamed damsel in distress. His weakness.

Even when she attempted to be tough, as she had when she’d put him in his place a couple of hours ago, there was a vulnerability in Annie Lockhart that appealed to his hero-complex. Save the girl, allow her to get as close as was wise and then walk away before she got too close. Wasn’t that the way it always worked? For the past few years, anyway. At least he had learned to walk away before everything went to hell.

“He watched them,” Annie said softly, her fingertips tailing across a sheet of paper. “For a long time, he watched. He was drawn to their happiness because he has none of his own.”

“That’s fine,” Lucky said in a reassuring voice. “Good. What else do you see? Can you look beyond his mind to what was going on around him? What does he look like? Did the Huffs know him? Did they trust him?” How else could the killer have gotten so close?

“He watched from a distance at first, and then he moved closer.” She shivered, almost uncontrollably. “They knew him. They weren’t afraid until it was too late.” She closed her eyes and swayed slightly, and Lucky immediately placed his arm around her and drew her away from the table.

“That’s enough for now,” he said. “I don’t want you passing out on me.” He lowered her into her chair, and there she leaned her head back and took a deep, cleansing breath. He watched her closely, as the color returned to her face.

“We’ll do this in stages,” he said. “I don’t want you trying to do too much at once.” Whether her ability was real or imagined, she did exhaust herself when she reached for visions.

A timid smile transformed her face. “You’re very protective.”

“It’s my job.”

“But this isn’t a normal job, is it?” she asked.

“Not even close. In Nashville, you knew who the killer was. This time, things seem to be less clear. Why?”

Annie shuddered. “Back then I saw it all, as if I were a fly on the wall. Now I seem to be watching through the killer’s eyes. I can’t see him.” She closed her eyes. “It’s very frustrating.”

Lucky tried to ignore Annie’s responses while he made work of straightening his notes. He still hadn’t decided how he was going to tell Cal it was possible the kook was legit. At the very least, she’d pointed him toward a case that didn’t make any sense, and he couldn’t walk away.

As for how…He was still putting his money on some hard-to-explain function of the brain. Some people were good at math. Annie was just good with disjointed puzzles. Whatever the reason, with luck she’d soon lead him right to the killer. If not, he’d find evidence on his own. He’d gather evidence, work the case backward, invent some legitimate reasoning for the investigation and put the bad guy behind bars. No one would ever have to know that Annie had led him to the killer.

But he’d know. How would he ever approach any other investigation without wondering what she was thinking? What she might know that he couldn’t see? The fact that one person might actually be able to glimpse into the mind of another was intriguing. Impossible, improbable, but intriguing. If nothing else, her brain was great at working puzzles. Maybe he could use Annie in the future, when a mystery presented itself. It wasn’t necessary that anyone else know, but how could something so powerful and useful be ignored?

There was only one other possible explanation for her knowledge. She was somehow involved in the murders. He immediately dismissed that idea. Annie Lockhart annoyed him to no end. She was fascinating and maddening. And she was no killer.

Again he told himself that she was not his type, but now and then when he looked at her she was beyond pretty. Not gorgeous, not eye-popping, but beautiful all the same. Of course, she also looked like she might walk out the door at any time and hug a tree, or pick wildflowers and start to dance and skip with the animals.

It was in his basic makeup to wonder what she’d look like naked, and he pondered the possibilities as he fiddled needlessly with his notes. Leggy, curvy, soft, delicate. She was all those things, he could see that well enough even when she was dressed.

But what would she taste like? Did she kiss with the trepidation he so often saw from her, or with the ferocity she displayed when she lost her temper? He was guessing a bit of both. Annie was a complicated woman, and every man alive knew that complicated women were nothing but trouble. Brainless bimbos were easier to handle. A man never had to wonder what she was thinking, because she usually wasn’t.

Complicated or not, he did wonder—again—what Annie Lockhart would taste like. It was in his nature to wonder about such things, and a man who fought his own nature was fighting a losing battle.

He didn’t hear her move, but suddenly there was a soft, warm hand on his back and a gentle voice said, “There’s only one way to find out.”

They skipped past all the steps most men and women covered before getting to the kissing part. No flirty smiles, no awkward date, no touch of one hand to another, no not-so-accidental brushes of one body against another. No, she and Lucky went straight to the mouth-to-mouth stage.

He turned to face her, she went up on her toes and their mouths came together.

His thoughts had drawn her to him, in an undeniable way. Unlike the jarring and unwanted images she’d been suffering of late, Lucky’s reflections on how she might taste had seemed almost like her own thoughts. They were mingled with her own, not intrusive and strange. In the shop, the thoughts of others had come to her in a jarring and unpleasant way, almost as if they were shouting into her brain, and reaching for a killer had been draining and unpleasant. Lucky’s contemplations were mellow and easy. They were pleasant, and she needed that right now.

It had been a long time since she’d kissed a man. Years, in fact. And still, kissing Lucky seemed very natural. It was a kiss she felt throughout her body. Warm, arousing, comforting, dangerous—it was everything a kiss could and should be.

She liked it.

Rain pattered on the roof and the windows, isolating them. Outside this cabin the world was wet and windy, but inside there was safety and warmth.

For a few precious seconds Annie forgot all the unpleasantness that had brought them together, and just enjoyed the kiss. She leaned into Lucky; one of his arms encircled her, but not too tightly. He tasted of warmth and masculinity and security, and she loved the feel of his solid body against hers. It had been too long….

How did she taste to him? Even though they were touching, kissing, joined in a very primal way, she didn’t know. That was very nice. Something in her life should be normal, even if it was just a kiss.

And then without warning something of Lucky did speak to her, and it was so real she had no doubts about her interpretation. Save the girl, take what you can get, walk away before she gets too close. It wasn’t a plan, exactly. He wasn’t even aware the thought had passed through his mind—he was totally engrossed in the kiss, and he wasn’t thinking of anything else.

But what she saw, what she felt…it was the way he lived his life. At least she’d know what to expect, if this went any further than a kiss. She couldn’t let herself love Lucky Santana, not ever, because he didn’t know how to love her or any other woman.

She barely knew the man, so the word love shouldn’t even come into play. But there it was, dancing just out of reach. Lucky didn’t know what love was. To him the word was related to trust, or sex, or commitment. He’d never combined the first two, and he’d never truly experienced the third.

Did she know what love was? In the past she’d thought so, but it had ended badly…. She wasn’t so sure now.

She ended the kiss, and placed one palm against Lucky’s solid, warm chest. He would like to appear unaffected, but his heart beat too fast, just as hers did. “I needed that,” she said softly.

Lucky would never admit to as much, but he’d needed the kiss, too. And he’d liked it. As she returned to her chair he said, “You are the oddest woman I’ve ever met.”

Normally she wouldn’t take that comment as a compliment, but there was some flattery intended, she knew. “Thank you,” she said as she sank back into the chair and closed her eyes, not to relive the pain of reaching for a killer, but to commit to memory the beauty and wonder of a first kiss.

Chapter 4

Lucky’s usual professional attire—a good suit and a crisp white dress shirt—made him stand out like a sore thumb in Mercerville. It was a casual little town, filled with laid-back tourists and homey citizens. Fortunately, he’d packed more casual clothes, and when he headed into town on Wednesday morning he was wearing khaki pants and a dark green golf shirt. Maybe today people wouldn’t stare, as they had yesterday when he’d visited the small but well-stocked library.

Downtown Mercerville gave him the creeps. With those homey citizens who all seemed to know one another well—perhaps too well—and the too-quaint-to-be-real appearance of the downtown area, he pretty much expected blank-eyed children or toothless men bearing pitchforks to bear down on him at any moment. He was very much a city boy. He enjoyed the quiet solitude of the house he’d bought three years ago, but downtown Nashville wasn’t all that far away, and he spent more than his share of time there.

This…this was practically archaic.

Annie’s Closet was located in a prime downtown Mercerville spot, on a corner that looked to be the intersection. The other three corners were occupied by a pharmacy, a quaint café, and what looked to be an upscale restaurant. The rest of the area was populated with other small shops that would attract tourists. Antiques, souvenirs, T-shirts, fudge. An entire business devoted to making and selling fudge.

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