Lisa Childs
Haunted

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Tara Gavin, Jennifer Green and Jenny Bent—

working with such awesome, inspiring ladies

has been a wonderful gift!

To Paul, Ashley and Chloe—my family—

the greatest blessing in my life!

Contents

Prologue

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

Epilogue

Coming Next Month

Prologue

Europe, 1655

Strong hands closed over her shoulders, shaking her awake. Elena Durikken blinked her eyes open, but the darkness remained, thick, impenetrable.

“Child, awaken. Quickly.”

“Mama?” She blinked again, bringing a shadow into focus. A shadow with long, curly hair. “Mama.”

“Rise up. Hurry. You have to go.” Her mother’s strong hands dragged back the blankets, letting the cold air steal across Elena’s skin.

“Go? Where are we going?” She couldn’t remember being awake in such blackness before. Usually a fire glowed in the hearth, the dying embers casting a glow over their small home. Or her mother burned candles, chanting to herself as she fixed her potions from the dried herbs and flowers strung from the rafters.

“Only you, child. You must go alone.” Mama’s words, the final way she spoke, chilled Elena more than the cold night air.

“Mama…” Tears burned her eyes and ran down her face.

“There’s no time. They will come soon. For me. And if you are still here, they will take you, too.”

“Mama, you are scaring me.” It was not the first time. She had scared Elena many times before, with the things she saw, the things she knew were coming before they ever happened.

Like the fire.

“Is this…is this because of the fire, Mama?”

Mama didn’t answer, just pulled a cape over Elena’s head, lifting the hood over her hair. Then she slid Elena’s feet into her boots, lacing them up as if she were a small, dependent child, not a thirteen-year-old girl she was sending alone into the night. Mama pressed the neck of a satchel against Elena’s palm. “Ration the food and water. Keep to the woods, child. Run. Keep running….”

“How can they blame you for the fire?” she cried. “You warned them.”

Even before the sky had darkened or the wind had picked up, her mother had told them the storm was coming. That the lightning would strike in the night, while the women slept. And that they would die in a horrible fire. Mama had seen it all happen….

Elena didn’t know how her mother’s visions worked, but she knew that Mama was always right. More tears fell from her eyes. “You asked them to leave.”

But the woman of the house, along with her sister-in-law whose family was staying with her, had thought that with their men away for work, that Mama was tricking them. That she, a desperate woman raising a child alone, would rob their deserted house. She’d been trying to save their lives.

Mama shook her head, her hair swirling around her shoulders. “The villagers think I cast a spell. That I brought the lightning.”

Elena heard the frightened murmurs and saw the downward glances as her mother walked through the village. Everyone thought her a witch because of the potions she made. But when the townspeople were sick, they came to Mama for help even though they feared her. How could they think she would do them harm? “No, Mama…”

“No. The only spell cast is upon me, child. These visions I see, I have no control over them,” she said. “And I have no control over what will happen now. I need you to go. To run. And keep running, Elena. Never stop. Or they will catch you.”

Elena threw her arms around her mother’s neck, more scared than she had ever been. Even though she heard no one, saw no light in the blackness outside her window, she knew her mama was right. They were coming for her. The men who’d returned, who’d found their wives, sisters and daughters dead, burned.

“Come with me, Mama,” Elena beseeched her, holding tight.

“No, child. ’Tis too late for me to fight my fate, but you can. You can run.” She closed her arms around Elena, clutching her tight for just a moment before thrusting her away. “Now run!”

Tears blinded Elena as much as the darkness. She’d just turned toward the ladder leading down from the loft when Mama caught her hand, squeezing Elena’s fingers around the soft velvet satchel. “Do not lose the charms.”

Elena’s heart contracted. “You gave me the charms?”

“They will keep you safe.”

“How?” Elena asked in a breathless whisper.

“They hold great power, child.”

“You need them.” Elena did not know from where they had come, but Mama had never removed the three charms from the leather thong tied around her wrist. Until now.

Mama shook her head. “I cannot keep them. They are yours, to pass to your children. To remember who and what we are.”

Witches.

Mama did not say it, but Elena knew. She shivered.

“Go now, child,” Mama urged. “Go before it is too late for us both.” She expelled a ragged breath of air, then pleaded, “Do not forget….”

Elena threw her arms around her mother’s neck, pressing her face tight against her, breathing in the scent of lavender and sandalwood incense. The paradox that was her mama, the scent by which she would always remember her. “I will never forget. Never!”

“I know, child. You have it, too. The curse. The gift. Whatever it be.”

“No, Mama…” She didn’t want to be what her mother was; she didn’t want to be a witch.

“You have it, too,” Mama insisted. “I see the power you have, much stronger than any of mine. He would see it, as well, and want to destroy you.” Before Elena could ask of whom her mother spoke, the woman pushed her away, her voice quavering with urgency as she shouted, “You have to go!”

Elena fumbled with the satchel as she scrambled down the ladder, running as much from her mother’s words as her warning. She didn’t want the curse, whatever the mystical power was. She didn’t want to flee, either. But her mama’s fear stole into her heart, clutching at it, forcing her to run.

Keep to the woods.

She did, cringing as twigs and underbrush snapped beneath the worn soles of her old boots. She had run for so long her lungs burned and sweat dried on her skin, both heating and chilling her. She’d gone a long way before turning and looking back toward her house.

She knew she’d gone too far, too deep into the woods to see it clearly with her eyes. So, like Mama, she must have seen it with her mind. The fire.

Burning.

The woman in the middle of it, screaming, crying out for God to forgive them. Pain tore at Elena, burning, crippling. She dropped to her knees, clutching her arms around her middle, trying to hold in the agony. Trying to shut out the image in her head. She crouched there for a long while, her mama’s screams ringing in her ears.

Run, child. Her mother’s words sounded in her head. Keep running.

She forced herself up, staggering on her weakened legs, turning away from all that she’d known, all that she’d loved.

Behind her, brush rustled, the blackness shattered by the glow of a lantern. Oh, God, they’d found her already.

The glow fell across her face and that of the boy who held the lantern. Thomas McGregor. He wasn’t much older than she, but he’d gone to work with his father and uncles, leaving his mother, sister, aunt and cousins behind…to burn alive.

As they’d burned her mother. “No…”

“I was sent to find you. To bring you back,” he said, his voice choked as tears ran down his face. Tears for his family or for her?

Her mother had seen this, had tried to fight this fate for her daughter, the same fate that had just taken her life.

“You hate me?” she asked.

He shook his head, and something flickered in his eyes with the lantern light. Something she had seen before when she’d caught him staring at her. “No, Elena.”

“But you wish me harm? I had nothing to do with your loss.” Nor did her mother, but they had killed her. Smoke swept into the woods, too far from the fire to be real, and in the middle of the haze hovered a woman. Elena’s mother.

“I have to bring you back,” Thomas said, his hand trembling as he reached for her, his fingers closing over her arm.

The charms will keep you safe.

Had her mother’s ghost spoken or was it only Elena’s memory? Regardless, she reached in the pocket of her cape, clutching the satchel tight. Heat emanated through the thick velvet, warming her palm. As if she’d stepped into Thomas’s mind, she read his thoughts and saw the daydreams he had had of the two of them. “Thomas, you do not wish me harm.”

“But Papa…”

Other memories played through Elena’s mind, her mother’s memories. She shuddered, reeling under the impact of knowledge she was too young to understand. “Your papa is a bad man,” she whispered. “Come with me, Thomas. We will run together.”

He shook his head. “He would find us. He would kill us both.”

Because of what she’d seen, she knew he spoke the truth. Eli McGregor would kill anyone who got between him and what he wanted.

“Thomas, please…”

His fingers tightened on her arm as if he were about to drag her off. Elena clutched the satchel so closely, the jagged little metal pieces cut her palm through the velvet.

He shuddered as if a great battle waged inside of him. “I cannot give you to him. Go, Elena. You are lost to me.” But when she turned to leave, he caught her hand as her mother had, trembling as he pressed something against her bloody palm. “Take my mother’s locket.”

To remember him? To remember what his family had done to hers? She would want no reminders. But her fingers closed over the metal, warm from the heat of his skin. She couldn’t refuse. Not when he had spared her life.

“Use it for barter, if need be, to get as far away from here as you can. My father has sworn vengeance on all your mother’s relatives and descendents. He says he will let no witch live.”

“I am not a witch.” She whispered the lie, closing her eyes to the glowing image of her mother’s ghost.

“He will kill you,” Thomas whispered back.

She knew he spoke the truth. Like her mother, she could now see her fate. But unlike her mother, she wouldn’t wait for Eli McGregor to come for her. She turned to leave again, then twirled back, moved closer to Thomas and pressed her lips against his cheek, cold and wet from his tears.

“Godspeed, Elena,” he said as she stepped out of the circle of light from his lantern, shifting into the darkness and the smoke, letting it swallow her as she ran.

This time she wouldn’t stop…she wouldn’t stop until she’d gotten as far away as she could. And even then, she wouldn’t ever stop running….

From who and what she was.

Armaya, Michigan, 1986

The candlelight flickered as the wind danced through the open windows of the camper, carrying with it the scent of lavender and sandalwood incense. Myra Cooper dragged in the first breath she’d taken since she’d begun telling her family’s legend; it caught in her lungs, burning, as she studied her daughters’ beautiful faces.

Irina snuggled between her bigger sisters, her big, dark eyes luminous in the candlelight. She heard everything but, at four, was too young to understand.

Elena, named for that long ago ancestor, tightened her arm protectively around her sister’s narrow shoulders. Her hair was pale and straight, a contrast to Myra and Irina’s dark curls. Her eyes were a vivid icy blue that saw everything. But, at twelve, she was too old to believe.

Ariel kept an arm around her sister, too, while her gaze was intent on Myra’s face as she waited for more of the story. The candlelight reflected in her auburn hair like flames, and her green eyes glowed. She listened. But Myra worried that she did not hear.

She worried that none of them understood that they were gifted with special abilities. The girls had never spoken of them to her or one another, but maybe that was better. Maybe they would be safer if they denied their heritage. Yet they couldn’t deny what they didn’t know; that was why she had shared the legend. She wanted them to know their fate so they could run from it before they were destroyed.

“We are Durikken women,” she told her daughters, “like that first Elena.”

“You named me after her,” her oldest spoke, not questioning. She already knew.

Myra nodded. “And I’m named for her mother.” And sometimes, when she believed in reincarnation, she was sure she was that woman, with her memories as well as her special abilities.

However, most of the time Myra believed in nothing; it hurt too much to accept her reality. But tonight she had to be responsible. She had one last chance to protect her children; she’d already failed them in so many ways. They didn’t have to live the hardscrabble life she’d lived. They didn’t have to be what she was—a woman whose fears had driven her to desperation.

“Our last name is Cooper,” Elena reminded her.

“Papa’s name,” she said, referring to her own father. None of their fathers had given his child his name, either because the man had refused or she hadn’t told him he was a father. “We are Durikken, and Durikken women are special. They know things are going to happen before they happen.”

Pain lanced through Myra, stealing her breath again as images rolled through her mind like a black-and-white movie. She couldn’t keep running and she couldn’t make them keep running, either.

She forced herself to continue. “They see things or people that no one else can see. This ability, like the charms on my bracelet—” she raised her arm, the silver jewelry absorbing the firelight as it dangled from her wrist “—has been passed from generation to generation.”

But Myra was more powerful than her sisters, had inherited more abilities as a woman and a witch. That was why she had been given the bracelet—because her mother had known she would be the only one of her three daughters to continue the Durikken legacy.

Myra’s fingers trembled as she unclasped the bracelet. She’d never taken it off, not once since her mother had put it on her wrist, until tonight. Her daughters had admired it many times, running their fingers over the crude pewter charms, and she knew which was each one’s favorite.

Elena had always admired the star, the sharp tips now dulled with age. Irina loved the crescent moon, easily transformed—like Irina’s moods—from a smile to a frown, depending on the angle from which it dangled. Ariel favored the sun, its rays circling a small, smooth disk. Despite its age, this charm seemed to shine brighter than the others. Like Ariel.

Even now, in the dingy little camper, an aura surrounded the child, glowing around her head as spirits hovered close. Did Ariel know what her gift was? Did either of her sisters? Her daughters needed Myra’s guidance so they could understand and use their abilities. They were too young to be without their mother, but she couldn’t put them at risk. All Myra could hope was that the charms would keep them safe, as they had that first Elena so long ago.

Myra knelt before her children where they huddled in their little makeshift bed in the back of the pickup camper, their home for their sporadic travels. This was all she’d been able to give them. Until now. Until she’d shared the legend.

Now she’d given them their heritage, and with the help of the charms, they would remember it always. No matter how much time passed. No matter how much they might want to forget it or ignore it. Like that Elena from so long ago, even though she’d feared her future and tried to outrun it, she’d never thrown away the charms. She’d known how important they were, and so would Myra’s children.

She reached for Elena’s hand first. It was nearly as big as hers, strong and capable, like the girl. She could handle anything…Myra hoped. She dropped the star into Elena’s palm and closed her fingers over the pewter charm. The girl’s blue gaze caught hers, held. No questions filled her eyes, only knowledge. At twelve, she’d already seen too much in visions like her mother’s. The girl had never admitted it, but Myra knew.

She then reached for the smallest—and weakest—hand, Irina’s. Myra worried most about this child. She’d had so little time with her. She closed Irina’s hand around the moon. Hang on tight, child. She didn’t say it aloud; for Irina, she didn’t need to—the child could hear unspoken thoughts.

Myra swallowed down a sob before reaching for Ariel. But the girl’s hand was outstretched already. She was open and trusting, and because of that might be hurt the worst.

“Don’t lose these,” she beseeched them. Without the protection of the little pewter charms, none of them would be strong enough to survive.

“We won’t, Mama,” Elena answered for herself and her younger sisters as she attached her charm to her bracelet and helped Irina with hers.

Despite her trembling fingers, Myra secured the sun charm on Ariel’s bracelet, but when she pulled back, the girl caught her hand. “Mama?”

“Yes, child?”

“You called it a curse…this special ability,” Ariel reminded her, her voice tremulous. She had been listening.

Myra nodded. “Yes, it is a curse, my sweetheart. People don’t understand. They thought our ancestors were witches who cast evil spells.”

And they had been witches, but ones who’d tried to help and heal. Her family had never been about evil; that was what had pursued them and persecuted them throughout the ages.

“But that was long ago,” Elena said, ever practical. “People don’t believe in witches anymore.”

Myra knew it was better to warn them, to make them aware of the dangers. She’d shown them the locket earlier, the one nestled between her breasts, the metal cold against her skin. It was the one Thomas had pressed upon Elena all those years ago. Inside were faded pictures, drawn by Thomas’s young hand, of his sisters, who had died in the fire. Their deaths could have been prevented if only they’d listened and fought their fate. “Some still believe.”

“Mama, I’m cursed?” Ariel asked, her turquoise eyes wide with fear. Her hand trembled as she clutched the sun.

No one more than I. Myra had lost so much in her life. Her one great love—Elena’s father. And now…

“Mama, there are lights coming across the field!” Ariel whispered, as if thinking that if she spoke softly they wouldn’t find her. Maybe she didn’t hear as much as her sisters, but she understood.

Myra didn’t glance out the window. She’d already seen the lights coming, in a vision, and so she’d hidden the camper in the middle of a cornfield. But still they’d found her; they’d found them. She stared at her children, memorizing their faces, praying for their futures. Each would know a great love as she had and all she could hope was that theirs lasted. That they fought against their fate, against the evil stalking them, as she would have fought had she been stronger.

She just stood there next to the camper, in the middle of the cornfield, as they took her children away. The girls screamed and reached for her, tears cascading down their beautiful faces like rain against windows.

This wasn’t Myra’s final fate; her death would come much later. But as her heart bled and her soul withered, this was the night she really died. The night her children were taken away.

Chapter 1

Barrett, Michigan, 2006

The wailing sirens and shouting voices receded to a faint hum as the light flashed before Ariel’s eyes. Glowing through a thin veil of mist, bright but not blinding, it granted her such clarity that she could see what others could not.

The little girl. Her big, dark eyes wide in her pale face, her black hair hanging in limp curls around her cheeks and over her shoulders. In that pale yellow dress she’d favored, she was dressed for school. But she wasn’t there, safe in Ariel’s second-grade classroom. Not now. She hovered before the ramshackle house, back from the curb where police cars and an ambulance blocked the street.

Ariel had left her Jeep farther down the road and walked to the house, which sat on the edge of commercial property, only businesses and warehouses surrounding it and a handful of other rundown rental houses. No trees. No grass. No yard in which a child could play. Ariel had ducked under the crime scene tape roping off the property. She didn’t need to rush around like all the other people, the ones trying to figure out what had happened or how to help. Before she’d even arrived, she’d known what had happened and that it was too late for help.

As she blinked back tears, the mist thickened and the light faded, dimly shining on just the little girl, who, too, was fading and dissolving into the mist. Ariel reached out a hand, trying to hold on to her, trying to keep her from leaving. Her voice thick with emotion, she whispered the child’s name, “Haylee…”

The little girl whispered back, her mouth moving with words Ariel couldn’t hear. What did she want to tell her? Goodbye?

The tears fell now, sliding down Ariel’s cheeks, blurring Haylee from her vision. “I’m not ready to let you go….”

She was too young to be alone. Only eight. And she’d get no older now.

Ariel’s heart ached so much she trembled with the pain. As she shook, the charm dangling from the bracelet on her wrist swayed back and forth. Her hand was still extended, reaching for Haylee as the child faded away. Ariel’s fingers clutched at the mist, slipping through the gossamer wisps until she touched something solid. Something strong and warm.

Arms closed around her. A hand pressed her face against a hard shoulder. On a gasping breath, she drew in the rich scent of leather and man. Her man.

Even with her eyes closed, she saw David as vividly as if she were staring up at him. Although she wasn’t petite at five ten, David towered above her and everyone else. With his golden hair and dark eyes, he was a throwback to the conquering Vikings of centuries ago, not so much in appearance as attitude. Or perhaps a black knight, for he was dressed all in black today—black leather jacket, black silk shirt and black pants.

His deep voice rumbled as he told her, “You shouldn’t be here. I’m going to take you home.”

“H-how did you know?” she asked. How did he always know where she was and when she needed him? She hadn’t called him. She should have. She realized that as she glanced up at his face, his square jaw taut and hard, his dark eyes guarded. But she’d called Ty McIntyre instead—for his badge, not his support.

“Did Ty call you?” Of course the police officer would have called David. They’d been best friends since they were little kids—or so they’d told her. She hadn’t known either man that long, just long enough to fall for David.

“Ty’s here?” David asked. “Oh, my God, is he the injured officer?”

Ariel blinked the last of the mist away. As it vanished, the faint hum she heard morphed into a cacophony of sirens and shouts. For the first time since arriving on the scene, she became aware of the reporters shouting out questions from the curb as officers held them back. “Mr. Koster, why are you here? What’s your involvement?”

Her. If Ty hadn’t called David, the live coverage of the scene must have been how he’d known where she was. She didn’t ask him, though, because he’d started toward the house. Unlike the media, the officers never attempted to stop him. Everyone knew the richest man in Barrett, Michigan.

They didn’t know her. Until David’s appearance, neither the police nor the reporters had really noticed her.

“Who is that with you?” a reporter called out now as Ariel followed David, his shadow falling across her.

“Who’s the redhead?” another one shouted.

David ignored them, intent on the house, its door gaping open on broken hinges.

“Ty’s hurt?” she asked him, her voice cracking. She never would have called him had she known it would put him in danger.

“I don’t know. I have to find him,” David said, then glanced down at her. “But I don’t want you to come inside the house.”

His dark eyes soft with concern, he obviously feared what she might see. If he only knew…But that was perhaps the only thing he didn’t know about her—what she saw. She couldn’t tell him because she couldn’t explain what she didn’t understand herself.

“I’ll be all right,” she promised him. It was an empty promise because she had no way of knowing if she spoke the truth. No way of knowing what might happen next. That gift had been her mother’s, not hers.

He must have assumed she meant she’d be okay by herself outside, for he withdrew his arm and started toward the gaping door. But before he could step inside, two men filed out wearing medical examiner’s jackets and carrying a small black body bag on a gurney between them.

Haylee’s body, battered and broken, lay inside that bag. But not her spirit. Her spirit hovered yet on the mist, which thickened even as the light brightened. Everything receded again, the shouts of the reporters, the flashes of their cameras. She saw nothing but Haylee again.

“Ariel.” David called her name as his arm came around her shoulders, lending his strength and support with his closeness.

“Where’s Ty?” she asked, but a glance up answered her question. The officer stood near David, his dark hair rumpled, his face swollen and blood seeping through his dark T-shirt.

“What the hell happened?” David asked his friend.

Ty blew out a ragged breath. “Son of a bitch killed his daughter, then resisted arrest.”

“Wh-where is he?” Ariel stammered.

He nodded toward the house. “Still inside.”

“He’s dead?” David asked.

Another nod.

Ariel hadn’t seen Haylee’s father. But then, since he’d abused his own child, he’d probably lost his soul long ago. She gestured toward Ty’s T-shirt, where the blood seeped. “You’re hurt. You need help.”

With just a look toward the curb, David summoned paramedics, who rushed up to help his friend. “Take him to Mercy,” he directed them. “Dr. Meadows will be waiting.” His cell phone was out, pressed to his ear, before Ty could be helped toward the ambulance.

He refused the gurney, walking by himself instead. As he moved forward, unbeknownst to him, he stepped into the mist and passed through the fading image of Haylee. Ariel gasped as he turned back, his blue gaze meeting hers for just a moment before he swayed on his feet.

“He’ll be all right,” David said, his voice even deeper with conviction. “He’s strong.”

Despite his claim, David led her back toward the ambulance into which Ty was being helped. All color had drained from the officer’s face, leaving it as stark and pale as Haylee’s. He whispered to Ariel, too, but his words she heard. “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head, the regret all hers. She hadn’t sent him here to help Haylee. She’d known it was already too late for that when the mist had swirled into the classroom where she taught second grade and the student she’d thought absent had appeared. Like so many others Ariel had seen over the years—as a ghost.

The woman reached trembling fingers toward the television, brushing them over the image on the screen. Although the glass was cold beneath her skin, warmth spread through her. “Ariel…”

Not much of the child she’d been was left in the beautiful woman Ariel had become. Her hair was long now and a richer, more vibrant red that stood out like blood against the dead lawn of the property surrounded by crime-scene tape. Her face had thinned, her eyes, large and haunted, overpowering the delicate features of her nose and mouth.

Haunted. That was what this child was. The camera caught her reaching out toward empty space, but Myra knew what her daughter saw. The spirits had always been drawn to Ariel, even when she’d been a child. Myra wasn’t sure if Ariel had seen them then, but she obviously saw them now.

Then Myra glimpsed the charm dangling from Ariel’s thin wrist. She slid her fingertips across its image on the screen. Even though she touched glass, not the charm, she felt the heat of the little pewter sun, power radiating from it. If Ariel only knew…

Myra should have told her children everything that night so long ago when they’d been taken from her. She should have prepared them better to deal with their gifts and the curse. But they’d been so young.

Tears burned her eyes, blinding her to Ariel’s face. Giving them up had been the hardest thing she’d ever done, but they’d deserved better than her. They had deserved to live as normal lives as they could with the gifts they’d inherited. They’d deserved to be safe.

Pain pounded at her temples as pictures rolled through Myra’s mind, visions of her children. They weren’t safe. Not anymore. Maybe she’d given them up for nothing. She hadn’t hidden them from danger; she’d made them more vulnerable to it.

Weak in the knees, Myra settled back onto the hard wooden chair next to the round table covered with a brightly patterned cloth like the ones covering the walls that transformed her little trailer from drab to exotic. In the middle of the table a crystal ball glittered, reflecting the images from the television.

Mostly she used the ball as a prop, something to open the wallets of superstitious souls looking for a brighter future. So she didn’t always tell them what she saw inside her head but what she knew they wanted to hear. For a little while, they’d be happy and she’d be richer. But just for a little while.

That was as long as her happiness had ever lasted, when she’d fallen for Elena’s dad, when she’d had her children. She’d never been able to keep anyone she’d loved. She’d like to blame the curse, but she suspected it was her own fault, her cowardice.

But could anyone be happy forever? She would never know.

She leaned over the table, peering into the crystal. Myra could see no future in that ball, not for her. Not for her children.

All that reflected in the crystal was the television screen, the flash of red of Ariel’s long hair, startling against the cream-colored sweater she wore. Myra lifted her gaze to the TV, to the face of her beautiful daughter. The camera zoomed in, catching the anguish brightening her turquoise eyes with unshed tears.

“Oh, baby, it might already be too late for you,” she said on a ragged sigh. “Like it’s too late for me.”

She didn’t have time to warn them; if she tried, she might lead the threat to their doors. She didn’t have time to run. She’d seen the danger and it was closing in on her. Fast. It might already be stalking her children.

“Keep your eyes open, baby,” she advised her daughter, wishing Ariel could hear her. But telepathy wasn’t this child’s gift.

“He might already be there, with you,” she warned as a man’s arms closed around the woman on television, pulling her close. To protect her? Or harm her?

Hopefully her daughter had better taste in men than she had. Myra had chosen the wrong man to love, one who would never be able to love her back. But then, no man had been able to do that…once they’d learned the truth about her. That was why she’d started using them: for money, for security. But even that hadn’t lasted. They’d paid her to go away, not wanting anything to do with her or the children they’d fathered. Their money hadn’t lasted, either; she’d used it to try to drown the visions and outrun the curse, both exercises in futility. She was ready to accept her fate.

But not her children’s.

Her heart pounded as she watched those leather-bound arms wrap tight around her daughter, holding her close. Because he loved her? A tear trickled down Myra’s cheek with her doubts. Ariel was beautiful. But she was cursed.

Giving them up hadn’t saved her children; it had only prolonged the inevitable. Myra swayed, nearly toppling the chair, as a vision crashed through her mind: Ariel lying on a dirty cement floor, her turquoise eyes wide open but blinded…by death.

With a crack of static, the television blackened to a spark in the middle of the screen, swallowing the image of Ariel in David’s arms. Ariel, curled in her favorite chair, lifted her head toward David, who held the remote in a tight fist. He’d just walked into her sunny yellow living room, dwarfing it with his size and presence. For better reception, he’d had to take his cell outside to phone the hospital. While he’d been gone, she’d received a call from the school board to suspend her.

“Is he all right?” she asked, her concern all for Ty. She’d deal with her pain later, by herself, as she always had.

He jerked his head in a short nod. “Yes. Twenty-two stitches later. But he lost a lot of blood. They’re keeping him overnight.”

“You should go. Be with him. I’m fine,” she assured him. It wasn’t the first time she’d lied to him. An old Gypsy proverb teased at her memory. There are such things as false truths and honest lies.

Her mother had used that proverb to justify how she’d made her living, traveling town to town conning people. Although only a child at the time she’d helped her mother, Ariel had known the staged séances and the phony crystal ball had been wrong. But her mother had insisted that sometimes it was better for people to hear lies than the truth; it hurt them less.

David tossed down the remote with such force that it bounced against the couch cushions, then he called her on the lie. “No, you’re not fine. What were you thinking?”

Thinking? It didn’t work that way. She didn’t think. She just saw. Then she had to find a way to deal with what she’d seen. Numbness worked, but it always wore off too soon.

David didn’t give her time to answer his question—even if she could—before he fired off another. “Do you know what could have happened to you?”

Shuddering, she crossed her arms over her chest, cupping her shoulders to still her trembling. She knew better than he did. Poor Haylee. The grief rushed in, squeezing her heart, but she refused to let the shock cripple her as it had at the crime scene. She squeezed her eyes shut, struggling against the mist.

Strong hands closed around her arms, pulling her out of the chair. David didn’t enfold her in an embrace, just held her close enough so that their bodies brushed. Tension radiated from his long, hard frame. Usually Ariel melted against him whenever he touched her; today she stiffened, knowing that if she weakened, even a little, she would dissolve into a puddle of hysterical tears.

“That could be you, in the hospital, like Ty,” he said, his voice vibrating with emotion. “Or worse, you could be in the morgue with that little girl.”

“Haylee,” she whispered her name.

“Oh, God…” He leaned over, touching his forehead to hers, with tenderness now, his anger spent. “I know and I’m so sorry, Ariel. You told me about her.”

Her fears for the child. He’d adamantly supported her decision to trust her instincts and call social services, and when she’d met resistance to investigate Haylee’s father over lack of resources and proof, David had intervened. He’d made sure someone had been sent out to the little girl’s house, but that hadn’t been enough.

“You tried to help her, Ariel.”

She should have done more. She should have protected her even if she’d had to kidnap her and run away. Her heart clenched, hurting, and she blinked back the threatening tears. “I failed her.” Maybe that was why the school board had suspended her.

“Her father did. Not you.” He sighed, his ragged breath stirring her hair. “If you’d gotten there before Ty had, he could have killed you, too.”

She shook her head. “I wasn’t there long, David, just a little while before you.”

“I wouldn’t have been there at all if I hadn’t seen you on the breaking news flash across my computer screen.” He always had on the computer instead of the television because that was what he did—designed computers and software. He was Barrett, Michigan’s answer to Bill Gates, as inventive, rich and powerful. But much more reclusive.

He hated media attention, but because of her, vans from local news stations currently blocked the street to his building. So he’d driven away from it and brought her home instead, to her little bungalow in a quiet, tree-lined burb of Barrett. Ariel would rather be here, inside the sunny yellow walls of her cheerful house. But its bright colors and tall, sun-filled windows couldn’t cheer her today. Nothing could.

“Why didn’t you call me?” he asked, his jaw taut.

“It was too late,” she said, sighing. Even with all his money, he couldn’t have done anything for Haylee.

Life was so damned unfair. What was the point of seeing ghosts when she couldn’t do anything for them? She hadn’t asked for this ability; she’d tried to ignore it. Anger rushed in, chasing away the last of her shock. She was ready to fight, to kick and hit something or someone, to lash out against the helplessness. Her hands clenched into fists.

“I could have been there with you, supporting you, protecting you. You shouldn’t have gone by yourself,” David said, his grip on her shoulders tightening.

She shivered, tempted to lean against him, to let his strong arms close around her and lift her burdens. But relying on someone was dangerous for Ariel; any time she had, she’d been hurt. In the six months they’d been dating, although David had always been attentive and caring, she couldn’t trust that he’d always be there for her. No one else had. She could rely only on herself.

“I called Ty,” she told him, but when he flinched, she realized he didn’t need a reminder. She shruggedhis hands off her shoulders and stepped around him, bristling. Anger was a defense mechanism. Hadn’t one shrink or another told her that over the years? But like her ability to see ghosts, she couldn’t suppress the feeling from bubbling up, so she lashed out, “That’s what’s really wrong! You’re jealous!”

David’s dark eyes narrowed as he studied her, assessing her as he might a computer glitch. “Ariel…”

“Is that the problem?” she asked, slinging the question like a slap. “That I called Ty instead of you?”

“The problem is,” David said, his deep voice steady with reason, “that you went alone to a house where you know an abusive man lived. You put your life in danger.”

“The police were there before I was.” So had been the ambulance.

For Ty? Or for Haylee’s father? She should have expected that the violent man would resist arrest. She never should have called Ty and put him in danger. He was David’s best friend; that was probably why he’d flinched, over his friend getting hurt because of her. She should have called 911 instead. Ty hadn’t even been on duty.

“So you called the police before you went over,” David said, his jaw relaxing a bit as his tension eased. Then his dark eyes narrowed. “How did you know Haylee was in danger?”

She couldn’t tell him about seeing the little girl’s ghost and risk having David look at her as so many others had. Already he studied her, raising her defenses even more. He couldn’t find out the truth or he’d reject her as everyone else had.

“You know I suspected abuse,” she explained, hoping that would satisfy his sudden curiosity.

“Why didn’t you call social services again?” he asked, his dark eyes intent on her face. “Why the police this time?”

“You know what social services did last time,” she reminded him as bitterness joined her anger, churning in her stomach. “Nothing.”

This time. Social services had taken her and her sisters away from her mom, and they’d never been in danger despite the unconventional lifestyle they’d lived. But for Haylee, with her sad eyes and fading bruises, they’d done nothing. Of course the child had been too frightened to tell them the truth about her home situation, about how since her mother had died, her father drank too much and beat her. She hadn’t even told Ariel despite how close they’d grown, but Ariel had been able to figure it out. Why hadn’t social services?

“How did you know something had happened to her?” David persisted.

She couldn’t tell him how; he would never understand. None of the foster families with whom she’d lived growing up had understood that she was cursed. They’d thought her crazy instead. Some had told her so, others had just looked at her with pitying expressions, like the ones passersby cast at homeless people who ramble incoherently. She’d rather David be mad at her than look at her that way.

“Stop the inquisition already,” she said, whirling away from him to stalk over to the windows. Through the gauzy white curtains she noticed a van with a satellite dish atop it parked across the street. Obviously they’d been followed. “You’re worse than the reporters.”

“Son of a bitch,” he said, blowing out a ragged breath as he joined her at the window. “Damn vultures.”

“Why do you hate the press so much?” Other businessmen might have enjoyed the free publicity. Not David.

His square jaw tautened as he peered through the curtain. “They’re relentless, with no qualms over invading people’s privacy.”

And he was all about privacy. But then, so was Ariel. That need was one of the few things they had in common. The other was the attraction that hummed between them even now. Heat emanated from his body as he stood close behind her at the window. Even though inches separated them, it was as if he touched her. She could feel him against her skin, inside her heart.

“I’ll call my security team, have someone run them off from the Towers.” The high-rise in downtown Barrett that housed both his business and penthouse. He leaned closer, his breath warm against her neck. “I’ll take you there.”

“No.” She didn’t want to leave her cozy home for the cold, sterile building of glass, metal and marble where David lived.

“Ariel, you’ll be safer there.”

“Safe from whom?” The reporters wouldn’t hurt her, at least not anymore, if it had been media coverage that had precipitated her suspension. The man who’d hurt Haylee was dead. The only one who could hurt her now was David. She shivered, uncertain of the origin of her errant thought. Sure, he was intense, but he would never harm her. Physically. If he knew the truth, he might hurt her emotionally. And he was getting too close, asking too many questions about how she’d known Haylee was in trouble.

The past several years she’d been careful to avoid getting deeply involved with anyone. She’d had her heart handed back to her so many times before that she’d promised she’d never give it away again. But David hadn’t asked for it, he’d just taken it. That was the kind of man he was, stronger and more powerful than any she’d known before.

“Ariel,” he began, his deep voice soft with patience as he tried again to reason with her. “I have to get you away from the reporters. I don’t want them harassing you.”

“They’re not the ones harassing me,” she pointed out, turning away from the window.

He lifted his chin as if she’d physically slapped him this time. “And I am?”

“You’re not helping. I lost a student, a precious little girl I cared about, and all you’re doing is yelling at me and firing questions at me!” Or was she the one picking the fight? Her anger built, fueled by the nagging fear that he might learn the truth. “Do you care about me at all? Or are you just upset about the press coverage? Are you worried about me or your reputation?”

David’s face paled as his eyes widened. “Ariel?”

He wasn’t the only one shocked. She’d never talked to him like that, not once since she’d met him when Haylee had brought them together with a letter. Ariel had had all her students write one to David’s company, requesting a computer donation for their struggling public elementary school. But it had been Haylee’s letter praising her teacher that had compelled David to visit their classroom. That was all it had taken for Ariel to fall for him.

The blond Adonis with the brilliant mind and generous heart. She’d never met a man like him. He hadn’t wanted any acknowledgment of the donation he’d made—enough computers not just for their small school but for the entire district. He’d only wanted her phone number. She’d given him so much more. Her heart. Now he would probably return it.

“Is that what you think of me?” he asked, his deep voice vibrating with hurt.

She pressed her palms to his hard chest as if to push him away, but as always, electricity arced between them, tingling in her veins as her blood rushed. All it ever took was one touch, sometimes just a look, for her to want him. What would she do if she lost him? If he walked away or, worse yet, left her as Haylee had? Fear gripped her, dredging up all the pain from her past. She couldn’t go through that again. Not even for David. “David, I’m sorry—”

His hands skimmed down her back, pressing her tight against him. Then he tipped up her chin so she couldn’t escape his dark gaze. “How can you think that I don’t care about you? Haven’t I shown you?”

He had. In so many ways. Not with his wallet—as would be easy for a man of his means—but with his time and attention, something few people had ever given Ariel. He called her, wishing her good mornings and good-nights. He sent her e-mails throughout the day telling her how beautiful she was inside and out, how much he respected her patience to teach little kids, how he couldn’t wait to see her again. Even though he tried showing her how much she meant to him, she still doubted that any man could care about her if he really knew her and knew what she was.

He deserved the truth. But she couldn’t risk giving him that. Besides rejecting her, besides thinking her crazy, he might think her a danger to herself. He was the kind of man who tried to protect others. What if he had her locked away, as some of her former foster parents had? Her heart lurched with fear and dread, and she blinked back tears. “David—”

His mouth came down on hers, silencing her. With sipping kisses, he coaxed her lips to open for him. But he only tasted her, his tongue just touching hers, before he pulled back and skimmed his lips across her jaw to the arch of her neck. Ariel bit her lip to hold back a moan as he nibbled, his teeth scraping lightly across her skin. Then he buried his face in her hair, his breath blowing hot and hard against her throat. Ariel shivered even as her blood rushed through her veins.

His chest rose and fell beneath her palms, tempting Ariel to peel away his black silk shirt to reveal the satin skin covering taut muscles. To slide her lips from his throat to his collarbone and lower. He always shuddered when she did that.

“How can you doubt me?” he whispered into her ear, his deep voice vibrating.

Because she doubted herself and her strength to survive another rejection. Her fingers knotted in his shirt, wrinkling the expensive fabric. She wanted to hold on to him, but unless he knew the truth, that wasn’t fair…to either of them.

“I’m not good for you, David.” Not in the way he deserved. He needed someone sweet and uncomplicated. Someone uncursed.

“Are you talking about my reputation again?” he asked, pulling away from her.

Deprived of the heat of his embrace, she shivered again, this time as a foreboding chill raced across her skin. If he was worried about bad press now, what would happen if the media ever got wind of the past of the woman he was dating? He would have no privacy, no peace…until he distanced himself from her. Forever.

“I’m talking about your pride,” she said, grasping at any excuse.

His forehead creased with confusion. “What?”

“Isn’t that why you’re upset I called Ty instead of you? It’s why you hate publicity. You put your own pride before me,” she accused, lifting her defenses again with anger as she tried to provoke his. She wanted him to walk away now…before she weakened so much she forgot her pride and begged him to stay.

He shook his head, his brow furrowed. “Why are you pushing me away?”

He was the one who’d pulled back physically. But emotionally she was doing as he accused, to protect herself as well as him. He was too good a man to live with her curse.

“If I’m pushing, why are you still here?” she asked, her heart aching as she struggled with her fears. “Just leave.”

“Ariel?” Bewildered and hurt, his voice cracked on her name.

“Just leave me alone!” she shouted, all her anger and desperation raw and exposed in her shaking voice.

He drew in a ragged breath, and his chin lifted with the pride she’d accused him of putting before her. “If that’s what you want, fine.”

She closed her eyes, not opening them until the slam of the front door shook the thin walls of her house. She couldn’t watch him walk away from her, not the way she’d watched Haylee fade into the mist. Once his temper calmed, he’d be back.

By then, she would be gone.

They circled him, these women cloaked in darkness with hooded robes covering their hair and shadowing their faces. Even as flames licked up from the blazing fire, they remained in shadow. The glow lit up the night sky while the smoke hung low, gathering thickly just above the ground, choking him. His lungs fought desperately for breath, and as he gasped and coughed, they laughed, their voices clear and melodious.

And malicious.

The laughter echoed in his ears, in his head, like thunder, splitting his skull. Pain throbbed at his temples, at his neck, radiating throughout his body until he shuddered under the force of it.

They were killing him. His chest ached as the last of his breath escaped him. The fire blurred, then burned on his lids as he closed his eyes on the life he’d known. But even then the pain wouldn’t go away. There was no welcome release from it. No peace.

He jerked awake, throwing back the blankets tangled around him like the ropes with which they’d bound him. As he staggered from the bed, he bumped against the nightstand, knocking the journal to the cold, hard floor. The bang as the book struck the wood ricocheted like a gunshot through his skull.

Careful to move slowly as he bent over, he reached for the journal. His family’s history. His legacy, locked away for years, discounted as the incomprehensible ramblings of a crazy man. No one had understood his ancestor. Until now. Until just the few short weeks ago he’d come into possession of the journal and read it. If only he’d known sooner…about the curse, about the power of the charms and the witches. Now he understood his dreams, the black-and-white visions of his future. It was his curse. His demise.

If they got to him first.

But now that he knew about the witches and knew about their powers, he would be able to find them. To reclaim the charms and stop them.

To kill them before they killed him.

Chapter 2

The door opened at just the barest brush of her knuckles against the wood. A man stood in the shadow of the old oak door. Despite the two weeks that had passed, his face still bore traces of bruises in the yellow stains around his eyes and jaw. The same yellow Haylee had often worn, to match similar bruises.

“Ariel!” Ty said, his voice raspy either from disuse or from the bruises on his throat, visible even in the shadow of his shirt collar. “Where’ve you been?”

“Away.” She’d run away, and she hated herself for the cowardice. She could have blamed her running on grief over Haylee, or despair over the school board suspending her. But she knew what it really was; like blood from a split lip, she could taste the fear.

“David’s been going crazy looking for you. He’s beyond worried.”

No doubt he was furious, with every right. She’d taken off shortly after their fight, fleeing the shelter of her cozy little home for anonymous hotels. For an anonymous life. But she’d not been running from the media or from grief. She’d been running from herself, from who and what she was.

But like the times she’d run before—from the ghosts, from the disgust of foster parents—she’d realized there was no escape. She had to deal with what she was—and so would David once she gave him the chance. Fear over the risk she was taking squeezed her heart.

She hadn’t told anyone about the curse since an old boyfriend back in college who’d dropped her and transferred to a different school after she’d shared her secret with him. After that heartbreak, she’d only casually dated. Until David.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have disappeared like that.” Pushing David away before he could reject her had cheated them both.

Ty waved off her apology with a hand, the knuckles of which were scabbed over, the fingers swollen. Then he stepped back and gestured her inside his apartment, one of three in a converted Tudor on Barrett’s east side. Despite the cracks in the plaster and scratches on the old hardwood floors, the apartment was charming with its dark red paint, high ceilings, thick oak trim and leaded-glass windows. His living room expanded into the turret, bathing it in light, but somehow he remained in shadow.

“I’m not the one you need to apologize to,” he said as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his faded jeans. “I’m not going crazy.”

But his blue eyes were a bit wild, his manner more edgy than she’d ever seen him. She’d met Ty before she’d met David when the police officer had spoken at safety assemblies at the school. He’d definitely gotten through to the children about danger, intimidating more than befriending them. Like David, he was more intense than easygoing, his navy-blue eyes ever watchful. He always stared at her, making her wonder if she passed his scrutiny. Did he approve?

But this visit wasn’t about her or David. “I’m apologizing to you,” she insisted. “I never should have called you that day.”

He shrugged. “What—you were going to dial 911 and explain that you wanted them to go out because a little kid missed school? Her dad called in the absence, saying she was sick. They wouldn’t have sent anyone out.”

“But you went.” And for the first time she wondered why.

He jerked his chin down in a rough nod. “And if I hadn’t, that bastard would have finished packing and skipped town. You did the right thing, Ariel, no matter what David said to you.”

“You know?”

“That he was upset you called me?” He nodded again. “I’ve known David a long time.” He chuckled, the sound rustier than his voice. “He’s not too proud to admit to me when he’s been an ass.” His crooked grin faded. “He’s really going crazy worrying about you.”

“So he told you about the fight?” About what a bitch she’d been? If Ty had any sense, he would have told David to forget about her.

“Yeah, I agreed that he’d been an ass,” he said with another rough laugh.

The muscles in Ariel’s face twitched as she smiled for the first time in two weeks. “You’re a good friend.”

Ty’s breath audibly caught. “Yeah, and that’s too damned bad….”

Before she could ask what he meant, his door rattled, shaking under the pounding of a fist. “Ty, you all right? I heard about the suspension…” David’s last word trailed off as his friend opened the door. “Ariel!”

His dark eyes were shadowed, lines of fatigue rimming them. He’d apparently suffered as many sleepless nights as she had. He turned his gaze on Ty, his tone accusatory as he said, “You found her.”

“Nobody found me,” Ariel maintained. She was still lost, in so many ways.

David’s gaze, full of heat and passion, swung back to her. The air between them crackled. “Ariel…”

“I was heading to the Towers,” she insisted, resisting the urge to throw herself in his arms. She had run away when she’d needed him most and spent the past two weeks convincing herself she had to get used to being without him, that if he knew the truth he’d reject her. Assuming the worst hadn’t been fair to either of them. “But I wanted to check on Ty first.”

“You’ve checked. I’m fine,” he said, his raspy voice dismissive. “You two can leave me alone.”

Is that what he really wanted? She’d told David the same thing, but she hadn’t been alone. She’d had Haylee, who’d stayed close to her, perhaps feeling Ariel’s pain and knowing her teacher needed her. Mist funneled into the room; light warmed it, and Haylee appeared, hovering at Ty’s side. Did she think he needed her now, even more than Ariel did?

Ariel had David, if he still wanted her. From the way he stared at her, his eyes full of hunger and yearning, she suspected he did. But then, he didn’t know yet what she had to tell him.

Ty cleared his throat, drawing David’s attention to him. “Are you fine?” David asked him. “You’ve been suspended.”

“Why?” Ariel gasped the question.

Ty’s mouth twisted into a bitter grimace as he explained, “Man dies at the hands of an off-duty police officer. Internal Affairs has to investigate.”

“You’ll be cleared,” David insisted, “and reinstated to active duty soon.”

Ty shrugged as if he didn’t care. Ariel didn’t know him well, but she knew enough about Ty to realize that his job was his life. Losing it would kill him.

She could identify. Her heart ached for her second graders. Not only had they lost a classmate—someone they’d all loved—but their teacher had been taken away from them, too. Tears threatened; she missed them so much.

At least she could still see Haylee, faintly, as her image began to fade into the mist. Both men, intuitive, insightful men, were blind to what she saw, the light and the child.

“I’m sorry,” she said to Ty again.

“Same thing happened to you.” Ty revealed his knowledge of her.

“I talked to the principal,” David admitted. “I’ll talk to the board next.”

“Don’t,” Ariel said, knowing that he wanted to fix things for her. But there were things that even his money and influence couldn’t fix.

“You’re not ready to go back to work,” he surmised as his dark eyes asked another question. Was she ready to go back to him?

“Would you two like me to take off?” Ty asked, either with generosity or bitter irony. His raspy voice distorted his tone and his blue eyes guarded his emotions.

“No,” Ariel was quick to reply.

“We’ll leave?” David worded his response as a question, asked of Ariel, not Ty.

She stepped closer to him and nodded. “I’ll meet you at your penthouse.” Then she added in a whisper, “Give me a minute alone with Ty?”

Some dark emotion passed through his eyes, making her shiver as if a cold wind had blown into the apartment. But he nodded, then glanced at Ty over her head. “We’ll talk later.” His deep voice vibrated with a warning. About Ty’s suspension or about her?

The door shut hard, just short of a slam, behind him as David left them alone. Ty blew out a heavy breath. “Sometimes he forgets that I’m not one of his employees.”

David didn’t treat Ty like an employee, though. He treated him more like a brother. Underneath the bossiness there was affection. After she’d been separated from her family, Ariel had known little affection in her life.

“Why are you friends?” she wondered aloud, then felt heat rush to her face. “I don’t mean that in a derogatory way. It’s just that you have nothing in common.”

Except their intensity.

Half of Ty’s bruised mouth lifted into a crooked grin. “Oh, you’d be surprised.”

“Seriously.” She wanted to know. In the six months she’d been with David, their friendship had fascinated her. She’d never experienced anything like the bond between them. Not even her family had been that close, not as close as she’d like to remember. If they had, someone would have found her by now. Despite the times she’d run away, she’d always come back to Barrett. She hadn’t changed her name; she’d waited for them to come find her. But no one had looked. No one had cared.

“Seriously?” Ty repeated, lifting an eyebrow creased with a thin scar. He sighed before sharing his succinct answer, “History.”

“History?” She smiled at his odd response. “You mean because you were friends for such a long time?”

Ty sighed. “It’s more complicated than that. David’s never told you?”

Her lips turned back down; she didn’t feel like smiling anymore. “Told me what?”

Ty’s blue gaze was ever watchful, his tone curious as he asked, “How much do you know about him?”

Not nearly enough, apparently, but she’d always thought she knew more than he did about her. “Of course you’re going to know more than I do about David. It’s not like we’ve been dating for years,” she defended her ignorance.

And it wasn’t as if they spent all their time talking when they were together. So much of their communication required no words. Only kisses, caresses…moans of pleasure. If there was something about him she needed to know, she was certain David would have told her. She was the one keeping secrets.

“No, it’s not,” Ty agreed, rubbing a hand along his jaw darkened with stubble as well as the shadow of the bruises from Haylee’s father’s fists.

Ty had said that Haylee’s father had died resisting arrest. Based on media accounts, during the ensuing fight, Mr. Reynolds had sustained a blow to the head that had killed him. She knew what had happened, but there was something else she had to know.

“Why did you go that day?” she asked.

He shrugged his broad shoulders as if it were no big deal. “You asked me to.”

“But I didn’t give you a reason.” Because she couldn’t. She couldn’t tell him how she’d known that something horrible had happened to Haylee. She’d have to tell David first. “Did you trust my…instincts?”

His blue eyes unblinking, he stared intently at her. “I trusted you.”

She drew in a quick little breath. “I need to go.”

He nodded. “To David.” This time she caught the bitterness in his voice and eyes as he held open the door for her to leave. What was the history between these two supposedly best friends? And why was she suddenly afraid to learn it?

She walked over the threshold, then stopped and turned back as she said again, “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too,” he said before closing the door in her face and shutting her out.

Had David shut her out of some part of his life, of his past? If so, she needed to learn it from him, not his friend. But now she wondered…why had he, a powerful man used to getting what he wanted, let her push him away two weeks ago? Maybe he didn’t want her. Or maybe she wasn’t the only one keeping secrets.

Ariel shivered under the cold stare of the security guard standing inside the opulent marble and brass lobby of the Towers. The glass-and-chrome high-rise was actually named Koster Towers, after the man who’d built it. The man she wanted to see, if security would let her. Like David, the guard was a big man, but he had graying hair and pale eyes. Although he studied her as if he’d never seen her before, he knew who she was. Why make the play of requesting her driver’s license, then phoning the penthouse to see if she were allowed up?

David took a long time to respond to the guard, but after the way he’d acted at Ty’s, she doubted he’d changed his mind about wanting to see her. At least she hoped he hadn’t.

Ariel’s heart thumped slow and hard as it lay heavy in her chest. In the two weeks she’d been gone, she’d come to some important realizations. The first, of course, had been that she couldn’t run from who she was anymore. The second had been that she needed David in her life. She couldn’t say that without him it wouldn’t be worth living; she’d never had any problem going on alone.

But she didn’t want to anymore. She wanted David at her side and she wanted to be at his…if she were ever allowed to see him. Her palm itched, tempting her to slam it against the marble counter over which the guard loomed. But then the man jerked his chin toward the private elevator. His voice gruff, he conceded, “You can go up now.”

She followed the Oriental runner to the elevator, stepping inside the small car of mirror and brass. Before she could press any buttons, the doors swished closed and the car jerked, beginning its ascent. She stared at the image reflected at her. Red hair, long and tangled, falling around a face devoid of makeup. A loose-knit brown sweater hung on her, like the long denim skirt, the tattered hem dangling threads against her brown leather boots.

No wonder the guard had questioned her admittance to the penthouse. She undoubtedly didn’t appear suitable for a man of David’s wealth and power. But David never cared how she dressed; he always called her beautiful. The guard probably watched her from cameras hidden somewhere inside the elevator. She considered sticking out her tongue but resisted the urge. Obviously she’d been spending too much time around second graders. Or she once had. After she settled things with David, she’d see about getting her job back or getting another. She missed teaching almost as much as she’d missed him.

The car shuddered to a halt, and her stomach lifted, not from the height but with nerves. Would he forgive her running away? She hadn’t even taken her cell phone when she’d left, so he’d had no way to contact her.

The doors slid open to the two-story foyer of the penthouse. A wide mahogany staircase wound up one corner of it while plaster columns separated the sitting area from the hall leading to the rest of the apartment.

“David?” she called out as she stepped out of the elevator. “David?”

Her heels clinked against the marble floor like wineglasses in a toast as she walked across the foyer. Light glowed from the living room, so she followed it through the rows of plaster columns, down a couple marble steps until she neared what David called the conversation pit, where black leather couches angled around an octagonal table in front of a massive marble fireplace. Despite the warmth of the spring day, a fire burned in the hearth, mirroring the flames of the profusion of candles arranged on the glass-top table.

“David?” she said as she neared the couches. Along with the candles, a bouquet of red roses adorned the table, the flames reflecting in its crystal vase making it look as if the stems were on fire.

“You’re here,” he said as he joined her in the living room. He carried a silver tray laden with flutes of sparkling champagne and plates of canapés.

“As if you didn’t know,” she said. “I couldn’t get past the lobby until you authorized it. Did you take me off the list?”

“List?” His mouth kicked into a secretive grin. “You think I have a list.”

She nodded, refusing to be distracted by his handsome face. She loved that wicked grin, loved the creases it left in his cheeks, the way it warmed his dark eyes. “And I’m not on it anymore.”

He gestured at the table, the candles, then the fire burning in the hearth. “I might have asked the guard to stall you.”

“So you could set this scene?”

For what? Seduction? It never took him much for that. Just that grin. The touch of his hand. The brush of his lips. Her stomach quivered as heat spread throughout her body. Since she stood before the hearth, she would blame the warmth of the fire, but she knew better. David got her hot. Her body craved his almost to the point of obsession.

“Is it working?” he asked her as he set the tray on the table next to the candles. Then he pushed aside her hair to brush his lips against the nape of her neck. Her pulse quickened. He didn’t miss her reaction, as he chuckled and asked, “Should I stoke the fire?”

With another kiss, another touch?

“You must be cold,” he said.

She had been cold and alone, even with Haylee’s sweetness haunting her. “I missed you,” she admitted.

“Good,” he said, his voice hard.

She glanced up in surprise at his harsh tone and turned toward him. “David?”

“I was going out of my mind worrying about you, wondering where you were—” his hands settled onto her shoulders, tangling in her hair “—wanting you at my side.”

Instead of feeling guilt, satisfaction lifted her spirits. He cared as much as she did. She smiled. “So I heard.”

“From Ty?” His brown eyes darkened with emotion. Bitterness or resentment? Or something else?

“Is it a problem that I stopped there first?” She probably wouldn’t have if she hadn’t been stalling on carrying out the decision she’d made to tell David everything.

He shook his head, tousling his golden hair. “Not at all. I’m worried about Ty, too.”

“Why?” she asked. “The suspension?”

David sighed. “It’s more than that.”

“He’s healing all right?”

“Physically, yes,” he replied. “I’ve checked with his doctors.” To whom patient-doctor confidentiality obviously meant nothing. But when David Koster asked a question, people answered him. Except her. She’d done a good job avoiding telling him anything about her past. She hadn’t realized he’d done the same to her.

“So what are you worried about?” she asked. “His emotional well-being?”

“All Ty has to do for reinstatement is talk to a psychiatrist. Then he’d be cleared to return to duty.”

“But he won’t do it.” She couldn’t blame him. After she’d been taken away from her mother, she’d been forced to talk to a barrage of psychologists. The minute any foster family had learned about her ability, she’d been sent to one. A couple of times she’d even been locked away in a psychiatric ward, with other kids screaming and yelling or laughing maniacally.

David’s hands slid from her shoulders, and he walked a few paces away. “No, he won’t.”

“Maybe he’s not ready to talk about that day.” Sometimes it was better if a person didn’t share everything. Maybe she shouldn’t tell David. Just talking about psychologists reminded her how anyone who’d learned the truth had looked at her as if she were crazy.

“It’s not just that day he’s avoided talking about,” David remarked with another ragged sigh as he stared moodily into the fire.

“History,” she said, admitting to the knowledge of their bond.

He turned to her and blinked as if clearing something from his mind. “What?”

“History,” she repeated, wondering why he’d been distracted. “You and Ty share quite a past.”

His eyes darkened and his jaw clenched. “What did he tell you?”

“Nothing.” And she had an eerie suspicion that neither would David. “I just know that you two have been friends a long time.”

“Yes,” David admitted. “We grew up together.” The hard edge to his tone suggested that he wasn’t talking about just chronological years but something else, something that had caused them to grow up faster. “He even lived with us…after his dad died.”

Fathers meant little to her. She’d never known hers. Undoubtedly Daddy Dearest had been rich; her mother had liked the security of rich men. Even at nine Ariel had realized that. Now, looking back from a woman’s perspective, she also realized her father had probably been married. He’d certainly never been any part of their lives. Neither had Elena’s father or Irina’s. Since their mother had lied for money, she’d undoubtedly cheated, too. But that was long ago and should matter nothing to Ariel anymore.

All that mattered now was David.

But she found herself asking about Ty. “His mom was already gone?” Dead or just lost to him, as Ariel’s was lost to her? Perhaps that was why Ty had come when she’d called; they had the unspoken bond of abandoned children. Maybe she should have told Ty about her past first; his acceptance might have come more easily than David’s.

David nodded. “She died when he was about five.”

At least his mother had an excuse for being gone. “Then he lost his dad, too?”

A muscle twitched in David’s jaw, he clenched it so hard. “That was more a blessing than a curse.”

She winced at first the word, then the sentiment. “David!”

“His dad was a monster,” he explained. “Used to beat the hell out of Ty.”

“Like Haylee’s father did her.” That was why Ty had gone when she’d called him.

“God, Ariel, I’m sorry about bringing that up,” David said. “I shouldn’t have….”

She shook her head. “No, I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have called Ty.” He was the last person she should have called. “All those memories must have come rushing back—”

“Not for the first time,” David pointed out. “Ty’s been in that situation before since becoming a police officer, and you had no way of knowing about his past.”

“Because you hadn’t told me,” she reminded him. “We don’t know much about each other’s pasts.” She drew in a shaky breath. Was she ready to tell him?

“We have time to learn,” he said, closing his big hands over her shoulders again.

“Do we?” she wondered aloud.

“Give me another chance, Ariel. I was an ass.” He moved his hands from her shoulders to her neck, holding her face, with his thumbs stroking along her jaw.

She shivered at his light touch. “David—”

“Forgive me.” He didn’t ask for her forgiveness, he demanded it.

She could not deny him. She reached up and linked her arms around his neck. “I already have. If you forgive me…”

“Forgive you what?” he asked as he pulled her closer. He slid his hands over her back, the heat from his palms branding her even through the thickness of her chenille sweater.

“Yelling at you,” she reminded him. “Taking off without telling you where I was going.”

“Did you know where you were going?”

She shook her head, tangling her hair around his fingers. “I just needed to get away.” If not for her feelings for him, she might not have returned.

“You were devastated,” he said, his voice heavy with regret and sympathy. “I should have been more sensitive.”

She gestured toward the fire, the candles and the champagne. “You are.”

“Now. I wasn’t then when you needed sensitivity most,” he said, his voice heavy with self-condemnation. “I was just so scared that you could have been hurt. The thought of losing you…” His breath shuddered out, and his arms tightened even more. “I can’t lose you, Ariel.”

Pressed tight against his hard body, Ariel could feel each beat of his heart and every breath he took. She trembled with the desire to be part of him. Always. “Why, David?”

“I need you in my life. I know we haven’t been together long, but that day—and the past two weeks—made me realize something.”

Nerves fluttered in her stomach. She had to swallow twice before asking, “What did you realize, David?”

He drew back and cupped her face again, his hands gentle as he cradled her jaw. “I love you, Ariel.”

Her heart lifted, but out of self-preservation she squashed the hopefulness. In the past people had claimed to love her, but all of them had eventually abandoned her. She didn’t need the words from him, she needed action, proof of his love. And the only way she’d have that was if she tested him…with the truth.

But she didn’t know where to begin. “David…”

He winced, as if her hesitation physically hurt him. “I know after the way I acted that you must have your doubts about us. But I’ll make it up to you,” he vowed, “if you give me the chance, Ariel. Say yes.”

“Yes?”

He released her and stepped back, then dropped to one knee in front of her and the fire. “Marry me.”

Again, not a request but a demand. From a man who was used to getting what he wanted. But would he want her once he learned the truth? She had to tell him, but she couldn’t look at him, couldn’t face the expression that might cross his face. The way his eyes might widen first with disbelief, then darken with disappointment and regret, then, worst of all, pity. She stared into the fire as she began, “David, I need to…”

“To think about it?” he finished for her. “I’ll give you as much time as you need, Ariel. But while you think about it, I want you to wear this.” He slid something cold and hard onto her finger, drawing Ariel’s attention to her hand. A diamond, square and bright, twinkled up at her, aglow with the reflection of flames.

She drew in a quick breath. “It’s beautiful.” And, knowing David, very expensive. She couldn’t fathom how many carats, nor did she care. The ring meant nothing to her; it was the man she didn’t want to lose.

No windows were open, but it was as if a wind blew through the room. The candles burned higher and brighter. The flames in the hearth kicked up to tall spires of vivid orange. Ariel grabbed David’s shoulders, pulling him back as if he might get burned.

“Ariel, what’s wrong?” His voice was faint, the fire roaring louder, deafening.

Smoke filled the room, thicker and more impenetrable than any mist she’d ever seen. Unlike the mist, the smoke carried a scent, not of burning wood but of sandalwood incense and lavender. The flames rose even higher, taking shape. The shape of a woman. A woman Ariel hadn’t seen in twenty years. The woman’s dark eyes burned with fire, her long, curly black hair turning to lava and her mouth open in a scream that Ariel couldn’t hear…she could only see.

Ariel smothered the scream rising to her lips and tried to still her sudden trembling. Mama? She was older now, twenty years older than when Ariel had last seen her, the night she and her sisters had been taken away and placed into separate foster homes. Her mother had never once sought them out in all those years. Had never once tried to reunite them or even see Ariel. She was only the first of many who had rejected Ariel over the past twenty years. But her rejection had hurt the most.

Resentment rose in a familiar bitter wave of nausea in Ariel’s stomach. But she swallowed it down with the scream, knowing she had no outlet for those feelings. She would never be able to express them now. It was too late.

The flames grew brighter, the image shifting but never vanishing as her mother danced with the fire. Dread settled heavily over Ariel’s heart, and she accepted what she saw.

Her mother appeared to her as so many others had throughout Ariel’s life. Her secret was that she could see the ghosts of those who had recently passed away. Being called crazy was the least of her concerns now, as tears burned her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. Her mother was dead. The last words Ariel had said to her played through her mind with stunning clarity. Mama, I’m cursed….

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