A touch of love (3 page)

"I thought you were starving. Hadn't we better order?"

For the second time that day she had slammed the door of her impressive home right in his face, and Jesse reacted far more negatively than he had before."Sure, we're bound to run out of conversation in another couple of minutes anyway."

Aubrey peeked around the edge of her menu to check his expression and saw instandy by the depth of his scowl that she had hurt his feelings. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude. It's just that with The Mind's Eye being so popular, I've found I have to guard my privacy jealously or people will take advantage of me."

"Like my aunt and me?"

"Not exactly," Aubrey contradicted, but her tone lacked conviction.

Jesse swore under his breath. "So you do think we tried to take advantage of you?"

"Didn't you? Didn't you use the fact I'd once been a student of your aunt's to get me to her house? She didn't want to see me for old times' sake, but in hopes I could locate her missing son."

"Her son's body," Jesse corrected sharply. "Everyone is certain Pete and his family are dead."

4 'Let's not argue.'' Aubrey stuck her nose back in her menu and tried to find the seafood selections.

Jesse stared at her right hand since that was all he could see. While they were having tea he had noticed she had beautiful hands, with slender fingers and carefully manicured nails coated with a pale pink polish. They were her own nails, too, not the long acrylic daggers that women had all too often raked across his back. A silver ring in the shape of a calla lily was wrapped around her third finger in a graceful swirl. It looked as though it had been custom-made to fit her hand.

"You're a real strange person, you know that? You talk about following your heart and getting in touch with our higher selves. But all you're really doing is condoning selfishness if you don't give a damn about anyone else."

Aubrey set her menu aside with deliberate care. "It's not that I'm not concerned about other people. It's just that I've had some bad experiences with people who wished to use my methods to better themselves. I know your aunt was sincere in wanting my help, but there's nothing I can do to locate her missing loved ones. Now can we please just drop this subject and order dinner?"

Jesse slammed his menu shut, "Fine, I know what I want."

Had Aubrey driven her Volvo, she would have walked out on him. Unfortunately it had been a long day and she didn't feel like walking back to Edith Pursely's to get her car. She sat back, took a deep breath, and hoped the shrimp scampi would be better than the company.

branches. Impatient to finish her work, Aubrey batted the obstreperous boughs aside before chopping them short with clean, vicious strokes.

Amused to have caught her in such an unguarded moment, Jesse decided to wait at the wrought-iron gate until she turned his way. He stood six feet two inches tall without his boots and he guessed Aubrey was about five feet eight. Like most tall women, she had long legs. Hers weren't simply long though, they were also slender and shapely. In fact, they were downright gorgeous.

Jesse tipped his hat back slighdy. God, how he loved women with legs like hers. He closed his eyes to savor the delicious vision of those lightly tanned limbs wrapped around him. A superbly proportioned pair of legs was definitely worth concentrating on, but he knew Aubrey wouldn't be pleased if he confessed that was the only type of creative imagery he considered worthwhile.

"Mr. Barrett?"

Jesse's head came up with a jerk. "Good afternoon, ma'am." He thought he had recovered quite nicely from his momentary lapse of manners, but Aubrey continued to regard him with a quizzical stare and failed to invite him to come into her patio. From the far corner of the yard a small, blonde dog came running, barking furiously in a valiant attempt to make up for its failure to alert Aubrey to Jesse's presence.

Ignoring the ferocious imp that more closely resembled an animated mop than a hound, Jesse favored Aubrey with the wide grin he had found to be enormously effective at melting feminine resistance. "I tried your bell," he called out.

"Sorry, I can't hear it back here."

Jesse waited as she laid down her clippers and removed her gloves before approaching the gate. The soft fabric of her pale pink T-shirt hugged her breasts with an alluring

subtlety he found difficult to ignore. He bet she wore a size 34 bra, or maybe even a 36, but definitely a C cup. He knew inches weren't all that important. It was the heaviness of a full breast as he cradled it in his palm that mattered most.

Aubrey misread her visitor's lust-filled expression completely. "Are you feeling illP" * She swung open the gate and motioned for him to come inside. "I was about to take a break and have some iced tea. Would you like some?"

As she turned away Jesse was treated to a spectacular view of the slow, undulating motion of her hips as she preceded him up the walk. He couldn't take his eyes from the trim curve of her butt. Her bikini bottom had the high-cut French legs and he wished she would remove her T-shirt so he could fully appreciate her slim figure. When they had parted after a dinner during which neither of them had spoken a single word, he hadn't cared if he ever saw her again. Now he knew he hadn't seen nearly enough. She might be over thirty, but he had seen plenty of eighteen-year-olds who didn't look nearly as good.

"I'm fine, but tea would be nice, thanks," he finally had the presence of mind to reply as they reached her side door. The dog was still barking, running around them in circles, and when Aubrey bent over to pat the furry pooch, Jesse had to wipe his mouth to keep from drooling. Knowing Aubrey Glenn was definitely not the type of woman who could be grabbed from behind when she bent over to shush her dog didn't keep him from wanting to do just that. He jammed his hands in his hip pockets when he couldn't think of a better way to fight the impulse.

Jesse didn't understand what had gotten into him that day but he hadn't been so damn horny since his sophomore year in high school. Maybe it was just the fact it had been more than a week since he had slept with a woman. For him, that was a major deprivation. That was it, he

decided. He was suffering from withdrawal symptoms, nothing more. Aubrey was very attractive, but certainly not irresistible. Or at least she wouldn't have been had he had another woman handy. Unfortunately, he didn't.

*'Guinevere is all bark and no bite," Aubrey assured him. "You needn't be afraid of her."

4 'Me? Afraid of that pitiful excuse for a dog? No way."

"Of course," Aubrey replied as she straightened up. "A man who rides bulls for sport would never be afraid of a mere dog."

Jesse doubted that she was teasing him, but responded with a smile as though she were. "You guessed it." Even without an invitation, he followed her through the screen door into a sunny breakfast room separated from the kitchen by a cooking island. While he knew the house was far from new, it appeared to have been recendy remodeled. Decorated in powder blue and white with delicate floral wallpaper, the two adjoining rooms were spotless.

"You like to cook?" he asked.

Aubrey had already taken two glasses from the cupboard and opened the freezer compartment to get the ice. "Not anymore."

Jesse waited for her to elaborate, but as usual she did not. "I know what you mean," he volunteered, although she hadn't given him a clue. "I like to cook for company, but not just for myself. I've found several microwave dinners that aren't half bad."

Aubrey took the pitcher of tea from the refrigerator and filled their glasses. She then added lemon slices and sprigs of fresh mint. "I try to avoid processed food myself. Let's go back outside. It's too pretty a day to sit indoors."

"Sure." Jesse took the glass she handed him and followed at a slow enough pace to allow him to take a peek into the large formal dining room. It was far too much house for one woman, and he wondered if she was lonely.

He opened his mouth to ask, and then thought better of it. When Aubrey sat down at the glass-topped table, he chose the place opposite her, thinking he would be smart not to get too close and spook her.

"I'm sure you must be surprised to see me again.''

"Very." Aubrey pulled an empty chair around in front of her so she could prop up her bare feet and get some sun on her legs. "I thought we had said everything we could possibly say last night."

Jesse ignored the sarcasm in her voice. "I tried an experiment after I got home. I'm hoping you can explain what happened."

"What sort of experiment?"

Jesse pulled a snapshot of Peter Ferrell and his family from his shirt pocket. "This same photo was in the paper, but it didn't look nearly as clear. It's the one Pete and Marlene sent out with their Christmas cards the last year they were around to celebrate the holidays. Pete wrote the date on the back, and maybe the fact he had handled it has something to do with what I felt. Anyway, last night I sat down with the file my aunt showed you, and when I came across this photo I got the strangest sensation. You know how you shiver sometimes and people will say someone's stepped on your grave? It was like that."

"Perhaps you were seated in a draft."

"Hey, you're the one who says intuition can be enhanced. Don't laugh at me."

That he appeared sincerely insulted astonished Aubrey. "I'm sorry. It's just that you made no secret of what you thought of my ideas yesterday. I find it difficult to believe you've changed your mind overnight."

Jesse nodded. "I can understand that. I was rather obnoxious yesterday and I apologize for it." He wasn't about to beg for forgiveness though, and abruptly changed the subject. "Have you ever been to Andersonville?"

4 'No, why?"

"It was a Confederate prison and a notoriously barbaric one. About thirteen thousand Union prisoners died and were buried there. It looks like a park now, but when you walk through it," Jesse paused, then shrugged slighdy. "It's difficult to explain, but it's as though all those men are screaming still, even though all you really hear is silence."

Aubrey took a long swallow of tea, then set her glass down on the table to make room for a large black cat who appeared out of nowhere and jumped into her lap. "This is Lucifer," she said as she gave the big tomcat an affectionate cuddle.

"That your familiar?"

"I don't practice witchcraft, Jesse."

That she had at last used his first name pleased him. "You've got to admit that's a black cat that would make any witch proud."

"True, but I'm no witch." As she stroked her pet, Aubrey mulled over what he had said about Andersonville. Surely the poor souls buried there would be uneasy. That their screams would still echo more than a hundred years after they had died wasn't impossible.

"Perhaps you did feel something unusual at Andersonville. Are you saying that you experienced a similar eerie sensation from the photograph of your cousin's family?"

"Yeah, I sure did. I tried to put it back in the file, to get rid of it, to get it out of my mind, but I couldn't. The feeling was too intense. I figure if I can sense something strange when I don't believe in intuition, let alone psychic phenomenon, then you ought to be able to detect a hell of a lot more. Here, will you try?"

Reluctantly, Aubrey held out her hand. "I don't claim to be psychic, Jesse. How many times must I remind you of that?"

The instant she raised the snapshot to get a closer look,

Lucifer let out a howl and leapt from her lap. "So much for his opinion,'' she quipped. She closed her eyes for a moment, took several deep breaths, and exhaled slowly. When she opened her eyes, what greeted her was not the smiling faces of Peter Ferrell and his family, but a hideous scene of torture and death. She stared at it, fascinated despite the horror. The images sharpened with terror and then blurred into a bright blood red which dissolved into glowing flames.

Chilled clear to the marrow despite the warmth of the sun, Aubrey swallowed hard before she spoke in an anguished whisper. "They were murdered,'' she assured her rapt companion. "The parents were shot in the head, and the boys beaten to death. Then all the bodies were tossed in a shallow grave and set on fire. The killers panicked though. They filled in the hole too soon. There's enough left of the bodies to identify them all."

Jesse waited for her to say more, not really believing Aubrey could actually extract so much grisly detail from the photograph. At the same time, her obvious fright assured him that she could. She hadn't gone into a trance, nor done anything odd. She had simply viewed the snapshot with intense concentration. When she set it on the table and looked away, he picked it up, half expecting to see the images she had reported, but he didn't.

"They disappeared one evening about suppertime. Mar-lene had made a salad and put water in a kettle to boil for spaghetti. At first the police tried to convince us that the family had just skipped town to avoid paying debts, but they didn't have any unusual debts and nobody goes to the trouble of starting dinner on the night they plan to run away.

"Pete was a successful accountant. Marlene did a lot of volunteer work and was on the PTA board at the boys' school. They were all involved in AYSO soccer and Little

League. They weren't the types to just pick up and leave without packing any of their belongings or telling anyone good-bye. But wait a minute, you said killers. We told you the only suspect was Harlan Caine, but the police failed to tie him to the Ferrells' disappearance. Are you sure there were two men involved?''

Aubrey nodded as she rubbed her upper arms briskly, but she couldn't shake the awful chill. "I couldn't see their faces clearly. They were just menacing blobs, but there were two of them." She gagged as a wave of nausea began to assail her. "I'm sorry, I'm going to be sick."

Startled, Jesse turned as Aubrey leapt to her feet and sped by him into the house. She had looked a little pale, but her comments had seemed so matter-of-fact he hadn't realized she had been sickened by what she had seen. He waited five minutes, then five more before leaving his Stetson on the table and following her inside. He knew she wouldn't want him snooping around, but he could always say he thought she might have passed out and wanted to be sure she was all right.