Charmed (Second Sight) (7 page)

Isabelle quickly turned her head to look at him.

“I don’t want to know,” she said, suddenly serious.

Mac had been about to put his arms around her waist but he stopped and backed up, his face an open question.

“Okay,” he said slowly.

“I can’t just know and then not know,” Isabelle said. “Be a part of things and then not.”

A sizzling and popping noise came from the stove.
 

Isabelle whipped her head around to see the pasta boiling over.
 

“Oh no,” she muttered, immediately grabbing the handle of the saucepan. But as she moved it to another burner, the churning and frothing liquid sloshed onto the back of her hand. “
Ow
,” she said, setting it down hard.

Mac reached around her and turned off the burner as Isabelle clutched her hand and backed into his chest.

“Did you burn yourself?” Mac said. “Let me see.”

Without thinking, Isabelle held out the painful hand, the top of her knuckles turning pink. Mac immediately took her hand in his–and the reading began. The world blinked out in a screen of gray.
 

Mac’s worry for her compounded the pain. His boss was having an affair. Daniel had to be the commune’s administrator.

Isabelle tried to tug her hand away but Mac held on, pulling her forward.

“
No
,” she breathed.

“You need to–”

“My
hand
,” Isabelle gasped. “Mac,
let go
.”

Suddenly, he let it go. She felt his hands around her shoulders.

“Isabelle, I wasn’t
thinking
.”

“It’s okay,” she said, breathing hard. “I wasn’t either.”

“Here,” he said. She heard the faucet start and he guided her forward. “You need to run cold water over that while I get a first aid kit.”

•••••

Mac bounded back up the apartment stairs with the first aid kit from the SUV and charged through the still open front door. Isabelle was dabbing her hand with a dish towel and had obviously regained her sight. Quickly, he set the first aid pouch on the kitchen counter and donned the latex gloves he’d grabbed from the crime scene kit.

“Let’s see,” he said.

“It’s fine,” Isabelle said, turning away from him.

He caught her lightly by the arm.

“Isabelle,” he said quietly. “I’ve got gloves on. It’ll be all right. Let me just take a look.”

She hesitated, seemed to waver, but then turned back to him, holding out her hand.

Her knuckles were a pale pink but the burn didn’t seem to have penetrated the skin. Gently, he turned her hand over in his and then back again, looking for other areas the boiling water might have hit.

“The cold water helped,” he said, as they both looked down between them.
 

He ran his thumb over the untouched part of the back of her hand and realized that holding hands was something they never did, even though she wore gloves.
 

“So,” Isabelle said quietly. “Daniel is the commune’s system administrator.” Mac cocked his head at her as she looked up into his eyes. “I couldn’t help but see it.”

“I know but…”

He’d never thought in exactly those terms–only that Daniel was their computer guy and they had to have someone administering all those machines he’d seen at the commune.

“Sometimes I see things more clearly than people actually know them.” Mac frowned a little but thought back to other times she’d read him. Even from the beginning, it’d almost been like déjà vu to hear Isabelle say what he was thinking. “Most people have no idea what they’re own mind is doing.” She paused and looked down at their hands. “But you’re different.”

Different?
he thought.
Maybe so. Because of the profiling
. Part of being a profiler was knowing your own biases and preconceptions–knowing how your own mind worked. But what Isabelle could see had to be infinitely more. Given time, there might be no limit to–

Hold on. What about classified data?

He stared hard at their hands together, his thumb still lightly tracing the top of her hand but his shoulders and neck were suddenly tense.

All FBI agents had a top secret clearance. The TS was simply part of the qualification process. He hadn’t had to have access to classified data for some time but if he ever did again, how was
that
possibly going to work?

DANIEL FOLLOWED THE signs to the nursery of the maternity ward. Hospitals were like mazes but he decided it was a good thing. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be signs. They were even color-coded and matched painted strips on the tile floor.

Too easy.
 

He’d unpacked the car seat in the store’s parking lot. Rather than try to hide the fact that he was taking his baby, he’d decided to make it obvious. He carried the seat like a bucket next to him with a big blue bow tied to the handle.

He smiled at the nurse, sitting at her terminal in the central station, but something in her lingering gaze set off an internal alarm. He paused and pointed down the corridor.

“Nursery?” he mouthed.

She smiled back at him and nodded.

“Down to the end and make a right,” she said.

“Thanks!” he said quietly.

He was perfectly within his rights. No need to be nervous. He made himself walk at a normal pace down to the end of the corridor and then turned right.

There they were. Babies. Lots of them. With their beds turned toward the large window, lined up in rows and columns in clear plastic cradles, some with pink blankets, some with blue. He wasted no time, headed to the door at left, and entered. A slightly sweet smell permeated the room and one of the babies close to him was making a barely audible squeaking sound. He glanced out the window. The corridor was still empty. Quickly, he moved down the first row of beds.

At the head of each crib was a note card tucked into a plastic pouch. Last name and first name were printed in large blocky letters. It suddenly occurred to him that he didn’t know his baby’s name.
 

Well
, he thought, filing past the placards.
It has to be my last name or Kayla’s
. He didn’t bother looking at the ones with pink blankets. As he rounded the bend and headed into the second row, the nursery door opened. It was the nurse from the station–a young Asian woman.

“Can I help you?” she asked, a slight accent, clipping the l.

She’d surprised him and he didn’t bother hiding it.

“My son,” he blurted out.
 

She put a finger to her lips, scowling.
 

He ducked his head a little.

“Sorry,” he whispered, looking around. “My son. Kayla Massen is the mom.”

The nurses eyebrows went up.

“You’re the father?” she said.

“I am,” he said, his heart pounding.
 

Remember. You have a right to be here.

She glanced down at the carrier in his hand.

“A present,” he said, his mouth dry. “About being late. I was out of town. My work, it’s, well, you know. Well, how would you know? I hardly know and…” He shrugged and felt sweat trickle under his arm. At least he knew it was a boy, thanks to Isabelle. A thought occurred to him. “Isabelle got in touch with me,” he said. “Just this morning.”

A momentary flicker of recognition crossed the woman’s face.

Everyone remembered Isabelle.

“Which one is he?” Daniel asked. “I can hardly wait to hold him.”

At that, the nurse had to smile.

“Right over here,” she said. She pointed to a crib in the third row. The two of them converged on it and Daniel set down the car seat. “Daniel Gavin Massen,” he read out lout.
 

Who in the hell is Gavin?

“Have you ever held and infant before?” she asked as she took a small clear bottle from the large pocket of her smock. She squeezed some clear liquid into her hand and held the bottle out to him and indicated his hands. He held them out and she did the same for him. “Always wash your hands first,” she said, snapping the bottle closed and putting it away. She rubbed her hands together and Daniel imitated her.

This is ridiculous. Just skip the lesson, lady.

“When you pick him up, just remember that the head is the heaviest part of their body,” she said. She scooped her hand under the head and Daniel realized for the first time that the baby’s eyes were open. Did it look like him? “Spread your fingers, put your other hand under the bottom,” she said as she did that, “and lift toward your chest.” She demonstrated but then put the baby back down. “Go ahead,” she said, backing up. “Give it a try. Nothing to be afraid of.”

Afraid of?
He nearly laughed. The only thing he was afraid of was being here too long.

He picked up the baby, a loose and wobbly bundle, as the nurse had done.
 

“Hold him to your chest and support his head and neck,” she said.

Daniel nearly rolled his eyes but did as he was told.

Even so, he had to marvel at how small the boy actually was, especially given the price he’d bring.

Time was wasting.

When Daniel raised his gaze to the nurse, she was smiling like a madonna at the two of them.
 

“I’ll just hold him for a while if that’s okay?”

“Oh of course,” she said, waving at him. “Take your time. Mom is resting.”
 

As she headed to the door, he paced a little and looked down at the baby.

Where is the security device?

You didn’t have to be in the baby business long to know that hospitals these days used a bracelet or sometimes even something in the diaper to trigger an alarm when a perimeter was crossed.

“I’ll be at the nurse’s station if you need anything,” she said.

“Thanks,” he replied.

The security device was one of the reasons she was ready to leave him there so readily.
 

And her workload
, he thought as he watched her pass in front of the large window.

He’d be sure not to exit in that direction.

•••••

Mac’s big hands worked delicately with the gauze and tape. Though the burn hadn’t been bad, Mac had worried about her wearing a glove over it.

He’d been quiet ever since she’d talked about his thoughts. Most people had no idea what was in their heads. Even when she repeated it to them verbatim, they didn’t recognize it. But Mac did and it obviously bothered him.
 

“You could be a doctor,” she said–and waited. It was as though he hadn’t heard her. “Mac?”

Finally, he smiled.

“You’re just saying that because you’ve seen my bedside manner,” he said. The gentle curve of his full lips was mesmerizing. “That ought to do it,” he said, with a final press of the tape on the back of her hand. Though he laid the tape and scissors on the open first aid kit, he didn’t let go of her hand. When he turned back to her, she focused on his eyes, the strange blue-green that seemed to defy category. At the moment, they were almost completely green, like a dark jungle. “When you do a reading,” he said lowly, looking at her hand, “is it just your palm and the underside of your fingers that are sensitive and not the back of your hand?”

No one had ever asked her that. She smiled.

“Yes,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

He shrugged a little.

“No reason.”

He looked as though he were going to say something and, for some reason she couldn’t put her finger on, Isabelle held her breath.

Something is going on behind those eyes.

But then, without another word, Mac reached down and grasped her other hand as well. He was still wearing the latex gloves but the unexpected movement had surprised her. Though a moment recovering, as Mac slowly but steadily lifted her hand, Isabelle finally realized what he was doing. She could only stare as he softly pressed his lips to the back of it.

Her heart leapt into her throat.

“Your skin is so soft,” he whispered.

His warm, moist breath was like silk. Whether it was the burn on the other hand, or the way he’d caught her off guard, or the fact that this skin was almost never exposed she didn’t know, but it was incredibly sensitive. A tension that started in her toes raced up her core as Mac’s lips languidly grazed her. They skipped along the tops of her fingers, tingling, almost ticklish. She fought the urge to grip his hand as he took his time, his mouth exploring the dips between the knuckles, his lips caressing each peak in turn. A tremble fluttered in her stomach, her heart beat faster, and she drew in a long and shaky breath.

No one had ever touched her like this–as though her hands were always off-limits.
 

But this was Mac.

He slid his lips, with small gnawing movements, down the back of her hand. At her wrist, he reversed directions. Her heart was hammering now. The sensation on her skin somewhere between buzzing and burning. She had to shut her eyes, unable to watch. But just the feel of his lush lips pressing against her was almost as overwhelming. Again and again, his tender kisses tested her, the coil of tension in her abdomen tightening with each one. Sudden heat rushed up the skin of her arm and over her chest and still his lips would not stop.

But as they reached her wrist yet again, he slowly turned her hand over.

“Oh god,” she whispered, eyes squeezed tightly shut.

Mac’s lips touched the inside of her wrist. Isabelle fought the urge to pull her hand back, even as a throb erupted inside her and warmth began to spread between her thighs. His breath poured into her palm. His lips slipped a fraction closer. Blood was pounding in her ears and she felt herself start to sway. The anticipation was too much.

Suddenly, Mac’s phone rang.

And, then, so did hers.

MAC DROPPED THE cell phone into his front pocket and took out his keys.
 

We’ve got him.

He waited for Isabelle to get off the phone.

“We will,” Isabelle was saying as she stood up from the couch. “Kayla, I promise you, we will.” She glanced at Mac. “I’ve got to go now. Try to stay calm. Susan will be there soon. Okay. Right. Bye.” Isabelle hung up and focused her worried look on him. “She’s beside herself.”