Terri Garey - In The Works

~ Coming October 27, 2009 from Avon HarperCollins ~

EXCERPT

     “I can assure you that Mary Mathews is quite human,” Joe said. “I’ve been running tests on her for the last two hours. Her granddaughter Kate seems to be your typical pre-teen girl; a little sheltered, maybe, but otherwise normal.”

    "It's the daughter, Selene, who has me worried. She said you were handsome.”

     He raised both eyebrows at me, and asked quite calmly, “She did, did she?”

     As if he didn’t know how any woman in her right mind would love to run a hand through his dark hair, trace that sensitive lower lip with a finger...

     I wanted to smack him.

     “And when did she say this?”

     “When she was floating over the bed.” Why is it I was feeling more like an idiot every time I said that?

      “Okay.” Joe’s voice was calm. “And yet she was standing next to you today, right there on the sidewalk, as human as you or I.”

      “She came in the store earlier today, too.” Might as well tell him everything. “She walked right up and introduced herself, said I looked familiar.” I was now even more convinced that had been Selene’s opening shot across the bow.

      “You talked to her before her mother collapsed?” Finally, he looked surprised.

      “Oh yes,” I said sourly. “She was very talkative. She told Evan and I both that she was looking for a new boyfriend.”

      Joe burst out laughing. “Is that what all this is about?”

      I didn’t find any humor in the situation, so I just gave him a look.

      “You think she’s going to set her sights on me.” He was still smiling as he said it, which made it hard to get mad at him—he obviously liked the idea I might be jealous, the big goof. “You think she’s so attractive that I—being the weak-minded male I am—will fall instantly under the influence of her big blue eyes, and dump you like yesterday’s news.”

      He’d noticed the color of her eyes.

      “No! Well—” What’s the use of denying it? “Yes, I am. She’s gorgeous, on the lookout for a new boyfriend, and she’s already set her sights on you.” I looked at the wall, beginning to lose my temper.

      He leaned back in his chair, chuckling. “Nicki…”

      “Don’t Nicki me,” I returned shortly. “I’m telling you, that woman is up to no good, and she’s not human. I don’t care what you say.”

      I couldn’t believe he was taking what I said so lightly—I’d told him some pretty wild truths in the past, and he’d believed me every time. Why didn’t he believe me this time?

      He was quiet for a moment, then he stood up, coming around the desk. When he offered a hand to pull me up from my chair, I took it reluctantly, fuming a little. I wasn’t sure how to make my point without sounding like a jealous shrew.

      Joe, however, had a solution, leaning in until his forehead was against mine. “How about this,” he murmured, cuddling me closer than a doctor probably should. “If you say you dreamed about them, I believe you dreamed about them. You probably have some of the same traits as your Grandma Bijou.” My grandmother was a sensitive who lived in Savannah, who often knew things before they happened.

      Almost against my will, a teeny bit of tension eased from my body. “You think so?” It was a hope I couldn’t help but cling to, dammit. It would all be so much easier if I’d just had a weird dream about some people I hadn’t met yet—with my family history, it even made a strange kind of sense.

      “I think it’s entirely possible,” he murmured. “Just because you dreamed about them doesn’t mean your dream will come true.”

      I didn’t answer.

      “It sounds like quite a nightmare.”

      “It was,” I admitted.

      “So you’re afraid of them because you saw them in the context of a nightmare,” he said, with a logic that was hard to deny, “but they haven’t actually done anything to you, have they?”

      I hesitated, feeling his heart beat steadily beneath my palm. “No.”

      “You’ve been living like this for over a year now, Nicki”—by ‘like this’ I took it he meant ‘seeing spirits’—“and we both know some sort of psychic gift runs in your family.”

      “The ‘knack’,” I admitted resentfully, nose against his chest. “That’s what Grandma Bijou calls it.” I still hadn’t quite come to terms that my biological mother had made her living as a psychic, or that my grandmother could often read a person’s mind, even when you didn’t want her to.

      “I think it’s entirely possible that it has something to do with that,” he said, slipping a hand under my chin and raising my face to his.

      I smoothed the shoulders of his white lab coat with my palms, feeling better already. Looping my arms around his neck, I looked full into his eyes. Green, warm, smiling. Dark hair in need of a comb.

      “So you promise that if Selene Adams makes a move on you, you’ll tell me about it?” I was comforted, but my instincts still told me the brunette was trouble.

      “I will, I promise,” he said, bending his head to brush my lips with his.