No. Way. Was that thing kidding?
Huffing with all the drama queen I could muster, I threw off the sheets and marched to the kitchen. Reyes’s kitchen. Reyes’s chef’s kitchen with industrial appliances and lots of shiny things that I had neither the knowledge nor the desire to work.
I kicked the clanking dishwasher, which looked straight out of the Stone Age. Did they have dishwashers in the Stone Age?
Then I turned to Reyes. He was leaning against a counter, watching me in only a pair of lounge pants. The kind with the drawstring waistband. They rode low on his hips, showing off his hard stomach and abs. His hands rested on either side of him, gripping the edge of the granite countertop at his back. He tightened his grip, and his muscles leaped to do his bidding. They contracted with the effort, the hills and valleys shifting under his wide shoulders.
I stepped closer, my fingertips craving the texture of his body. Just one taste. Just one pass over his rib cage or up across his chest.
“There’s something wrong with Princess Penelope,” I said as I eased closer. Power emanated out of him in hot, sensual waves. He was like a predator on the verge of attack, barely able to restrain himself. Strength and grace incarnate.
He studied me, his gaze shimmering underneath his impossibly long lashes. “Who’s that?” he asked, his voice like warm water rushing to all my naughty parts.
“You don’t know the name of your own dishwasher?” I teased. “Do you remember my name? Or is that asking too much?”
His gaze dropped to my mouth, and my lungs stopped working. “Is there a point to this?”
I recovered enough to nod and answer him. “Yes, something is wrong with Princess Penelope. I think it’s her carburetor.”
He reached out and pulled the drawstring at my own waist. “I was referring to the fact that your clothes are still on.”
I jerked awake and bolted upright, blinking into the darkness. It was a dream. It was only a dream.
Once I’d oriented myself, I searched the room. No idea why. Naturally, he wasn’t there. He’d reverted back to his old ways. Invading my sleep. Making me crave him.
I just couldn’t figure out his endgame. Why not just come to me? The dreams from before were pure, no-holds-barred eroticism. These were erotic, but not overtly sexual.
They were, however, the reason I’d slept so little over the past three days. Every time I closed my eyes, strange little vignettes, as perplexing as they were sexy, played in my head. And in every one, I’d get close enough to almost touch my husband, only to be startled awake before I could manage it.
Maybe that was his endgame. Maybe that was the point. To dull my wits. To keep me exhausted and disoriented, but why? So I couldn’t track him? Like I could, anyway.
After I woke up, which was about ten minutes after I’d lain down, it didn’t take me long to realize sleep was going to be just as elusive this morning as it had been yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that.
Was he doing this on purpose? Was this some sort of strategy on his part? But to what end? If his plan was to keep me disoriented, what would he gain?
I gave up, mostly because my brain hurt, and got out of bed. I needed coffee. And a shower. Or a coffee shower.
Hey …
Since I’d had enough coffee over the last twenty-four hours to see noise, I chose the shower first. The problem with showers was that I never got to enjoy them alone. Even with Reyes gone, I endured interruption after interruption. And this morning was no different.
“Hey, gorgeous girl,” I said to a departed Rottweiler named Artemis.
She joined me most mornings to chase streams of water as they splashed on the rock walls and tile floor. Sadly, every time she found a new source of entertainment, she’d almost knock me over to get to it. Walls, she could go through. Me, not so much. I’d hoped she would learn that someday, but it had been several months since she officially became my guardian, and the situation looked grim.
She licked the wall—or tried to—and did her darnedest to catch a thin stream of water in her mouth. She barked at it, stopped just long enough to let me scratch her ears, then went back to licking the tile floor. I could only hope George, the shower, would forgive us for violating him so.
But Artemis wasn’t my only visitor. I heard a soft, lilting voice come from my living room.
“Aunt Charley?”
“I’m in the bathroom, hon.” I turned George off—probably in more ways than one—and reached for a towel.
“I just have a couple of questions for you,” Amber said from behind the closed door. Amber was Cookie’s thirteen-and-three-quarters-year-old daughter. “Are you, um, busy?”
“Busy?” I asked, wrapping a towel around my head.
“Is Uncle Reyes in there with you?”
After almost choking on my own spit, I cleared my throat and said, “Not at the moment.”
“Oh, good. I didn’t want to interrupt anything.”
“That’s thoughtful of you.” I put on a robe, made sure I looked presentable-ish, and said, “Come on in, pumpkin.”
She walked in, chipper as ever, her long, dark hair pulled back in a messy bun, her huge blue eyes bright and crystal clear. She waved steam away, gave me a hug, then closed the toilet lid, a.k.a. Curly—the toilet, not the lid—and sat on it.
“What’s up?”
“Well, I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions about what you do.”
“Oh, cool. Are you writing a paper for school?”
“No. And I’m only admitting that because you can tell if I’m lying.”
I perched a hip against the sink, crossed my arms, and faced her. “I appreciate your candor.”
“Thanks. I think. So, if you had to solve a case where someone was stealing something, like, say, office supplies, what would you do first?”
“Okay, is this for a story you’re writing?”
“Nope.”
“What about just idle curiosity?”
“Not that, either.”
“Care to tell me what this is about?”
She drew in a long, melodramatic breath. “You’ll just tell me not to do it.”
“How do you know? I might be totally encouraging.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Amber Olivia Kowalski.”
“Okay, Quentin and I are opening our own detective agency, and we are starting with a case at the School for the Deaf. Someone is stealing office supplies, and we’re going to figure out who.”
Quentin was an adorable sixteen-year-old with shoulder-length blond hair and a smile that rivaled the beauty of a New Mexican sunset. He was very sensitive to the supernatural world. He could see the departed and demons, and he was one of the few people alive who could see my light.
His gift was one in a million. Literally. Many people were sensitive in that they could see a clear smoke or a blur when a departed was around, or they could feel a cold spot or hear a moan. But Quentin could actually see the departed, body and soul. He would’ve been able to communicate with them more if he hadn’t been born deaf.
He attended the New Mexico School for the Deaf in Santa Fe, and Amber was hoping to join him next year if Cookie agreed and the school approved her application. It was hard to get a hearing student into NMSD without a blood relative enrolled, but they loved Amber, and she was on campus at least two or three times a week. She was becoming Deaf—capital D, as in culturally—more and more every day. And her mo—
Wait. Did she say detective agency?
I stood in shock for a solid minute before remembering I’d said I’d be encouraging. “Your own detective agency?”
“Yep.”
“Wow. I’m not entirely certain, but I think I’m flattered.”
“Really?” she asked, turning her frown upside down.
“Wait, let me think about it.” I held up a finger as I pondered the situation. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I am. But the answer is no.”
Her shoulder deflated. “See? I told you.”
I giggled, walked over to her, and kissed her head. “Just kidding.”
She brightened again. Her moods were comparable to someone switching the sun on and off, she wore them so overtly.
“Aunt Charley.” She pretended to reprimand me, but teasing her was kind of an aunt’s job. “So, you’ll help us?”
The thought of Amber and Quentin opening their own detective agency was both the cutest thing I’d ever heard and one of the scariest. Adorable? Yes. Dangerous? Considering my world, also yes.
“I’ll help you help yourself.”
“Um, okay. Can’t you just go there, ask who did it, test the emotions of everyone you ask, and tell us who the thief is?”
“No.” I went back to towel-drying my hair.
“Is this going to be one of those life-lesson things? ’Cause they don’t really work when you’re around. Nobody compares to you, so it’s not fair.”
I tossed my wet hair back and gave her my best impression of a dead pan. “Is this going to be one of those guilt trip things? ’Cause they don’t really work when I’m around. I can sense insincerity, remember?”