Entranced (15 page)

“I believe I pointed out before that I don’t need the money.”

“I’m aware of that.” Mel leaned on the fence, running her fingers down Eros’s neck. Nothing magical there, she assured herself. Just a magnificent beast in his prime. Much like his master. “I did some checking. You have your fingers in a lot of pies, Donovan.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“I guess it’s easier to make money when you’ve got a bundle behind you to start with.”

He examined the last hoof. “I suppose. And it would follow it would be easier to lose money under the same conditions.”

“You got me there.” She tilted her head as he straightened again. “That business in Chicago. It was rough.”

She saw the change in his face and was sorry for it. This wasn’t something he took lightly or brushed off in a matter of days. “It was difficult, yes. Failure is.”

“But you helped them find him. Stop him.”

“Five lives lost isn’t what I term a success.” He gave Eros a slap on the rump to send him trotting off. “Why don’t you come inside while I clean up?”

“Sebastian.”

He knew it was the first time she’d used his given name. It surprised him enough to have him pausing, one hand on the fence, his body poised to vault.

“Five lives lost,” she said quietly. Her eyes were dark with understanding. “Do you know how many saved?”

“No.” He came over the fence, landing lightly in front of her. “No, I don’t. But it helps that you’d ask.” He took her arm, his fingers sliding from shoulder to elbow to wrist. “Come inside.”

She liked it out here, where there was plenty of room to maneuver. Should maneuvering be necessary. But it seemed foolish and undeniably weak not to go in the house with him.

“There is something I want to talk with you about.”

“I assumed there was. Have you had dinner?”

“No.”

“Good. We’ll talk while we eat.”

They went in through the side of the house, climbing onto a redwood deck flanked with pots spilling over with impatiens and going through a wide glass door directly into the kitchen. It was all royal-blue and white, and as sleek and glossy as a page out of a high-fashion magazine. Sebastian went directly to a small glass-fronted refrigerator and chose a chilled bottle of wine from a rack inside.

“Have a seat.” He gestured to a stool at the tiled work island. After uncorking the wine, he poured her a glass. “I need to clean up,” he said, setting the wine on the counter in front of her. “Be at home.”

“Sure.”

The moment he was out of the room, she was off the stool. Mel didn’t consider it rude. It was innate curiosity. There was no better way to find out what made people tick than by poking around their personal space.
And she desperately wanted to know what made Sebastian Donovan tick.

The kitchen was meticulously neat, spotless counters and appliances, the dishes in their glass-fronted cupboards arranged according to size. The room didn’t smell of detergent or disinfectant, but of … air, she decided, fresh, faintly herb-scented.

There were several clusters of herbs hanging upside down in front of the window over the sink. Mel sniffed at them, finding their aroma pleasant and vaguely mysterious.

She opened a drawer at random and found baking utensils. She tried another and found more kitchen gadgets neatly stacked.

Where was the clutter? she wondered as she frowned around the room. And the secrets one always found jumbled with it?

Not so much discouraged as intrigued, she slipped back onto the stool and picked up her wine a moment before he came into the room again.

He wore black now—snug coal-colored jeans and a black shirt rolled up to his elbows. His feet were bare. When he picked up the wine to pour his own glass, Mel realized he looked like what he claimed to be.

A wizard.

Smiling, he tapped his glass to hers, leaning close to stare into her eyes. “Will you trust me?”

“Huh?”

His smile widened. “To choose the menu.”

She blinked, took a hasty sip of wine. “Sure. I’ll eat most anything.”

As he began gathering ingredients and pots and pans, she let out a slow, relieved breath. “You’re going to cook?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I figured you’d just call out for something.” Her brows drew together as he poured oil in a skillet. “It’s an awful lot of trouble.”

“I enjoy it.” Sebastian snipped some herbs into a bowl. “It relaxes me.”

Mel scratched her knee and gave the mixture he was making a doubtful look. “You want me to help you?”

“You don’t cook.”

She lifted a brow. “How do you know?”

“I got a glimpse of your kitchen. Garlic?”

“Sure.”

Sebastian crushed the clove with the flat of his knife. “What did you want to talk to me about, Mel?”

“A couple of things.” She shifted in her chair, then rested her chin on her hand. Odd, she hadn’t realized she would enjoy watching him cook. “Things turned out the way they were supposed to for Rose and Stan and David. What’s that you’re putting in there?”

“Rosemary.”

“It smells good.” So did he, she thought. Gone was the sexy leather-and-sweat scent he’d carried with him after the ride. It had been replaced by that equally sexy forest fragrance that was both wild and utterly male. She sipped her wine again, relaxing enough to toe off her boots. “For Mr. and Mrs. Frost back in Georgia, things are pretty awful right now.”

Sebastian scooped tomato and garlic and herbs into a skillet. “When someone wins, someone usually loses.”

“I know how it works. We did what we had to do, but we didn’t finish.”

He coated boneless chicken breasts before laying them in a pan. He liked the way she sat there, swinging one leg lazily and watching his culinary preparations with a careful eye. “Go on.”

“We didn’t get the one who matters, Donovan. The one who arranged the whole thing. We got David back, and that was the most important thing, but we didn’t finish. He’s not the only baby who’s been stolen.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s logical. An operation that slick, that pat. It wasn’t just a one-shot deal.”

“No.” He topped off their glasses, then poured some of the wine onto the chicken. “It’s not.”

“So, here’s the way I see it.” She pushed off the stool. Mel felt she thought better on her feet. “The Frosts
had a contact. Now, they might have been able to turn the feds onto him, or he could be long gone. I’d go with long gone.” She stopped pacing to tilt her head.

Sebastian nodded. “Continue.”

“Okay. It’s a national thing. A real company. Got to have a lawyer, someone to handle the adoption papers. Maybe a doctor, too. Or at least someone with connections in the fertility business. The Frosts had all kinds of fertility tests. I checked.”

Sebastian stirred and sniffed and checked, but he was listening. “I imagine the FBI checked, as well.”

“Sure they did. Our pal Devereaux’s right on top of things. But I like to finish what I start. You’ve got all these couples trying to start a family. They’ll try anything. Regulate their sex lives, their diets, dance naked under the full moon. And pay. Pay all kinds of money for tests, for operations, for drugs. And if none of it works, they’ll pay for a baby.”

She came back to the island to sniff at one of the pots herself. “Good,” she murmured. “I know it’s usually on the up-and-up. A reputable adoption agency, a reputable lawyer. And, in most cases, it’s the right thing. The baby gets a loving home, the biological mother gets a second chance, and the adoptive parents get their miracle. But then you have the slime factor. The sleazeball who always finds a way to make a buck off someone else’s tragedy.”

“Why don’t you put a couple of plates on the table by the window? I’m listening.”

“Okay.” She puttered around the kitchen, following his instructions for china, for flatware, for napkins, as she continued to theorize. “But this isn’t just any penny-ante sleaze. This is a smart one, slick enough to pull together an organization that can snatch a kid from one coast, pass him along like a football crosscountry and bounce him into a nice, affluent home thousands of miles away.”

“I haven’t found anything to argue about yet.”

“Well, he’s the one we have to get to. They haven’t picked up Parkland yet, but I figure they will. He’s not a pro. He’s just some jerk who tried to find a quick way to pay off a debt and keep his kneecaps intact. He won’t be much of a lead when they find him, but he’ll be something. I have to figure the feds will keep him under
wraps.”

“So far your figuring seems flawless. Take the bottle and sit.”

She did, curling her legs under her on the corner bench by the window. “It’s not likely the feds would cut a PI much of a break.”

“No.” Sebastian set platters down on the table, pasta curls tanged with tomatoes and herbs, the wine-braised chicken, thick slabs of crusty bread.

“They’d cut you one. They owe you.”

Sebastian served Mel himself. “Perhaps.”

“They’d give you a copy of Parkland’s statement when they nab him. Maybe even let you talk to him. If you said you were still interested in the case, they’d feed you information.”

“Yes, they might.” Sebastian sampled the meal and found it excellent. “But am I still interested?”

She clamped a hand over his wrist before he could slice off another bite of tender chicken. “Don’t you like to finish what you start?”

He lifted his eyes to hers and looked deep, so deep that her fingers trembled once before they slid away. “Yes, I do.”

Uneasy, she broke a piece of bread. “Well, then?”

“I’ll help you. I’ll use whatever connections I may have.”

“I appreciate it.” Though she was careful not to touch him again, her lips curved, her eyes warmed. “Really. I’ll owe you for this.”

“No, I don’t think so. Nor will you when you hear my conditions. We’ll work together.”

She dropped the bread. “Look, Donovan, I appreciate the offer, but I work alone. Anyway, your style—the visions and stuff—it makes me nervous.”

“Fair enough. Your style—guns and stuff—makes me nervous. So, we compromise. Work together, deal with each other’s … eccentricities. After all, it’s the goal that’s important, isn’t it?”

She mulled it over, poking at the food on her plate. “Maybe I did have an idea that would work better as a
couple—a childless couple.” Still wary, she glanced up at him. “But if we did agree to compromise, for this one time, we’d have to have rules.”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“Don’t smirk when you say that.” With her mind clicking away, she dug into the meal. “This is good.” She scooped up another bite. “Really good. It didn’t look like all that much trouble.”

“You flatter me.”

“No, I mean …” She laughed and shrugged and ate some more. “I guess I thought fancy food meant fancy work. My mother worked as a waitress a lot, and she’d bring home all this food from the kitchen. But it was mostly in diners and fast-food joints. Nothing like this.”

“Your mother’s well?”

“Oh, sure. I got a postcard last week from Nebraska. She travels around a lot. Itchy feet.”

“Your father?”

The faintest of hesitations, the briefest shadow of sadness. “I don’t remember him.”

“How does your mother feel about your profession?”

“She thinks it’s exciting—but then, she watches a lot of TV. What about yours?” Mel lifted her glass and gestured. “How do your parents feel about you being the wizard of Monterey?”

“I don’t think I’d term it quite that way,” Sebastian said after a moment. “But, if they think of it, I imagine they’re pleased that I’m carrying on the family tradition.”

Mel huffed into her wine. “What are you, like a coven?”

“No,” he said gently, unoffended. “We’re like a family.”

“You know, I wouldn’t have believed any of it if I hadn’t … Well, I was there. But that doesn’t mean I swallow the whole deal.” Her eyes flashed up to his, careful and calculating. “I did some reading up, about tests and research and that kind of thing. A lot of reputable scientists believe there’s something to psychic phenomena.”

“That’s comforting.”

“Don’t be snide,” she said, shifting in her seat. “What I mean is, they know they don’t completely understand the human mind. That’s logical. They look at EEG patterns and EMGs and stuff. You know, they study people who can guess what’s on the face of a card without lifting it up, things like that. But that doesn’t mean they go in for witchcraft or prophesies or fairy dust.”

“A little fairy dust wouldn’t hurt you,” Sebastian murmured. “I’ll have to speak to Morgana about it.”

“Seriously,” Mel began.

“Seriously.” He took her hand. “I was born with elvin blood. I am a hereditary witch who can trace his roots back to Finn of the Celts. My gift is of sight. It was not asked for or demanded, but given. This has nothing to do with logic or science or dancing naked in the moonlight. It is my legacy. It is my destiny.”

“Well,” Mel said after a long moment. And again: “Well.” She moistened her lips and cleared her throat. “In these studies they tested things like telekinesis, telepathy.”

“You want proof, Mel?”

“No— Yes. I mean, if we are going to work together on this thing, I’d like to know the extent of your … talent.”

“Fair. Think of a number from one to ten. Six,” he said before she could open her mouth.

“I wasn’t ready.”

“But that was the first number that popped into your mind.”

It was, but she shook her head. “I wasn’t ready.” She closed her eyes. “Now.”

She was good, he thought. Very good. Right now she was using all her will to block him out. To distract her, he nibbled on the knuckle of the hand he still held. “Three.”

She opened her eyes. “All right. How?”

“From your mind to mine.” He rubbed his lips over her fingers. “Sometimes in words, sometimes in pictures, sometimes only in feelings that are impossible to describe. Now you’re wondering if you had too much wine, because your heart’s beating too fast, your skin is warm. Your head’s light.”

“My head’s fine.” She jerked her hand from his. “Or it would be if you’d stay out of it. I can feel …”

“Yes.” Content, he sat back and lifted his glass. “I know you can. It’s very rare, without a blood connection, for anyone to feel me, particularly on such a light scan. You have potential, Sutherland. If you care to explore it, I’d be happy to assist you.”