Impossible Dreams (48 page)

She took the card and dropped it into her shirt pocket.
“She doesn’t like neighbors.” Turning around, she shut and
locked the peeling white door, and did something that reeled the skeleton
upward like a collapsing party favor.

“Your car’s blocking my drive,” she said
curtly as he moved aside to let her pass. “And you’re trespassing,
in case you didn’t notice.”

Not a smile, not a dimple, not a look of interest crossed
her stoic features. Jared shrugged and ambled back toward his Jag. Women
usually liked him, and he couldn’t see that he’d done anything to
tick this one off. No Trespassing signs applied to salesmen, not legitimate
visitors, as far as he could see. Surely she hadn’t really thought to
scare him off?

“Do you have some idea when Miss Alyssum might
return?” He played along with her gag and cast her a sideways look to see
if anything registered in her expression. She had a short, finely honed
aquiline nose with a sprinkle of freckles across it, and a mouth drawn too
tight to reveal any trace of humor. He wouldn’t call it a friendly face
by any means. He could cut timbers with the sharp edge of her voice.

“She won’t be interested. As I said,
you’re trespassing. I’d advise you to turn around before the police
arrive.” She headed for a beat-up black Chevy pickup, opened the door,
then waited for him to move his car.

She didn’t even show an interest in his antique Jag.
Damn. That car drew more comments than honeysuckle drew bees. Was she blind?

There had to be some way around her. He’d never
accepted
no
as an answer in his life. Not that many people told him no
in the first place. He wasn’t an unreasonable man. She had a rundown
beach shack going to waste. He wanted to put it to good use. He couldn’t
see the problem.

“I can afford whatever price Miss Alyssum thinks the
property is worth. I’ll buy it if she’d rather not lease it. Just
pass the message along, will you?” He leaned against his car door and
watched her climb into her truck without replying. Well, damn.

Maybe she
was
a witch, but she had all his
incorrigible pheromones humming. He sighed as she cranked the truck to life
without looking back. He’d better move the Jag or she’d drive over
it.

Spinning his tires in the soft sand, he edged out of her way
and let her fly off down the lane. He wondered if signs would pop out of the
road and witches fly from the trees as she left, or if they were rigged only to
greet incoming visitors.

He sure did like the way her mind worked. Wonder if she
could rig up some of those spooks for him once he figured out how to obtain the
beach house?

Bumping the Jag over a timber barrier, he drove down toward
the beach to inspect the house he’d only seen from a distance. The
real-estate agents had said there was nothing available out here in the middle
of nowhere, but a friend of a friend in L.A. had told him about this island.
The film business was a small world.

This place should be ideal. He could feel it in his bones.
None of his friends or family would go out of their way to reach this remote
spot. Surely, once he cleared his head, he would be able to think again.
Surrounded by all this peace and quiet, he’d cruise right past the roadblock
in his mind that had prevented his coming up with any fresh ideas lately.

A witchy landlady would be a distraction, but one
distraction against the many his places in New York and Miami offered seemed a
fair trade. His fingers itched for the computer keys already, just thinking
about the sand and the waves and the peace.

Driving with one hand, he idly swatted at something tickling
his ankle. He’d have to remember insect repellant. Beaches were notorious
for bugs.

The house ought to be just beyond that curve in the road
ahead, if he’d calculated correctly. He didn’t know the name of the
scrub brush blocking his view, but it grew in heavy thickets neither man nor
beast would dare enter. He’d have plenty of privacy.

Especially with the witch’s mechanical guardians
blocking the way.

Before he could grin at the thought, an eerie high-pitched
shriek shattered his eardrums, and an object the size of his mother’s
frozen Thanksgiving turkeys smashed into his windshield, scattering brilliant
blue-green plumage across the glass, obstructing his view with an iridescent
psychedelic hallucination.

Frantically swiping at the irritating tickle crawling up his
leg, cursing the Technicolor windshield, he slammed the brakes. The car’s
rear end resisted stopping and the tires swerved wildly in the soft sand.

Crawling. Up his leg.

Clinging desperately to the wheel for control, Jared glanced
downward.

A shiny black snake’s tail whipped his leather
moccasins. The head had disappeared up the leg of his khakis.

Clutching the spinning steering wheel while cursing
frantically, Jared lost control as the car veered sideways on the soft
shoulder.

The low-slung chassis hit the ditch at the side of the road,
sailed upward, and landed, roof down, in the wax myrtle thicket.

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