Mind Tricks (30 page)

Something moved in the wide band of
shadows cast by the sunset-tipped trees. “I’m wondering how you’re going to
explain my presence, Bill,” a voice drawled. Detective Cooperman, as
grass-stained as Jake, pulled his gun free of its holster on his hip. “Why
don’t you put your gun down on the ground, raise your hands, and back away from
Ms. Draper.”

Emma felt Bill’s panic shudder
through him. Then he thought,
What’s
three bodies compared to two? The girl goes first.

Emma slammed her head backward.
Something crunched against her skull, and then an explosion next to her face
blistered her cheek.

Jake yelled something at her, but
she felt like she was listening to him underwater. Whatever he was saying, it
didn’t matter. She knew what to do.

Twisting in Bill’s loosened grip,
she knocked his gun hand aside, grabbed his shoulders, and slammed her knee
into his crotch.

He twisted at the last second, and her
blow landed on his thigh. Eyes wild, he swung his fist at her.

Then Jake was there, grabbing
Bill’s arm and wrestling him away. Cooperman piled on as well, and for several
moments all she could see were limbs flailing. She staggered a few feet away
and sank to the ground.

More cops came running around the
side of the house. Jake disengaged from the melee and fell to his knees in
front of her. His fingers combed through her hair, and he was still mouthing
words at her, but she didn’t have to hear him to understand his meaning—that
was coming through his fingertips loud and clear. “I’m not shot,” she told him.
Weird. She couldn’t even hear her own voice.

Maybe Jake couldn’t hear her
either, because he continued probing her head and running his hands over her
body, apparently looking for bullet holes. The handcuffs dangling from his
wrist banged against her lightly, but she didn’t object. Finally he wrapped her
in his arms.

His chest hummed against hers. He
was saying something again. She peeked into his thoughts, sighed as she relaxed
fully into his body, and smiled.

“That’s good, because I love you
too.”

• •

In the end, Jake did spend the
night in jail for punching (and shoving and kicking) Detective Cooperman, but
that morning the DA offered a quick deal, which Marilyn Howsing suggested Jake
take. Jake paid a decently sized fine but got away with no more jail time.

Jake blinked as Howsing tugged him
out of the interrogation room and into the brighter halls of the police
station. She’d begun berating him as soon as he’d been released, and she was
now on a roll. “What were you been thinking? We’re lucky—very lucky—that the DA
and Cooperman hadn’t pressed for anything more. Heck, Cooperman’s union is
probably going to be pissed off that he let you go so easily. If you aren’t
ticketed for speeding five times in the next year, I’ll be mightily surprised.
You’ve made enemies, Jake.”

Like all that really made a
difference when balanced against Emma’s life. Even when he’d been sure that
Bill was going to shoot him, he’d had no regrets.

Plus, after the last week, speeding
tickets and surly cops would seem easy as pie.

Howsing tossed up her hands. “Are
you even listening to me?”

“Sure. But let it go, okay? No
offense, Marilyn, but if I never have to call you again, I’ll be a happy man.”

She grunted. “And I’ll be a happy
woman. Speaking of happy women…”

Emma leaped to her feet as they
strode into the station’s waiting area, her eyes anxious. Mickey stood more
slowly, but the expression on his face was just as worried.

Two more people jumped up, and Jake
blinked. “Mom? Dad?”

His mother rushed forward. “Mickey
called us last night but suggested we wait for you to be released.” She
snorted. “As if we’d stay away when our son was in jail.”

Marilyn held out her hand. “I’ll
leave you here with your family, then, Jake. Good luck.”

He shook her hand, and she melted
away as his father and uncle came up to clap him on the shoulder. Soon he was
literally surrounded by family urging him in a pack to the door.

He peered past Mickey as they
hustled him forward toward freedom and sunlight. Emma had dropped back and
looked bewildered, as if she wasn’t sure whether she should tag along or fade
away as politely as Marilyn had.

“Emma.” He shouldered past his
father and broke out into the open. Smiling tentatively, she took a step toward
him.

Forget being tentative. He’d had
dream after dream last night that he hadn’t been able to get to her house in
time, and if never letting her go was the only way he’d get over his fear,
well, he was fully prepared to embrace that fate. And her. He slid his arms
around her and pulled her tight against him.

“Good morning to you, too,” she
laughed.

Yep, he was never letting her go.
Seemed like the best solution to just about everything.

“Are you okay?” he asked. Cooperman
had told him that she was, but he needed to hear it from her.

“I’m fine. The only one who got
hurt is Brutus.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Holding on. The vet doesn’t want
to make any predictions until later today, but Brutus survived the night, which
is a good sign. He lost his leg, though.” She flicked a smile at him. “Still,
better his leg than his life, and it might slow him down a little—although I’m
not betting on it.”

“Did you reach his owners?”

“Turns out they aren’t his owners
anymore. I opened a letter this morning with six hundred dollars in it and a
request that I find a good home for Brutus. They’ve decided to spend a year in
Tibet, not just a few weeks.”

Behind him, his mother cleared her
throat.

Leaving an arm slung over Emma’s
shoulders, Jake swung back around to face his parents. “Did you meet my
girlfriend, Emma?”

“Uh…well, yes, I suppose.”

Which meant Emma had introduced
herself as something else, like maybe Mickey’s neighbor or Jake’s friend or
Bill’s almost-victim. Did
I love you
mean nothing these days?

He lowered his voice so only Emma
could hear him. “What does a guy have to do to convince you to date him?”

A smile blossomed. “Spend a night
in jail. So you passed—we’re officially dating.”

“Exclusively dating,” he added. Not
that he really thought she was interested in Ian or Grif or anyone else, but he
wanted to make sure everything was very clear between them.

She rolled her eyes. “Yes,
exclusively dating, too. Which isn’t that much of a stretch, considering
neither one of us was dating someone else before now.”

“I don’t care about before now. I’m
focused on you and on after.”

She grinned at him. “That’s sweet.”

He cleared his throat. “Good. Then
that’s settled.”

• •

Moonbeams coasted across the light
down comforter as Jake smoothed his hand down Emma’s spine. Outside in the
woods, crickets sang their little heads off, and if he got to his feet and
looked out the window, he knew he’d see fireflies looping in the dark.

But in bed with Emma was where he
preferred to stay, so he ran his palm down her back again and then gave her a
quick tickle at her waist. “You awake?”

“Barely.” She shifted over onto her
hip so that she was facing him. The light from the moon emphasized her
cheekbones and chin, and he couldn’t resist ducking in to drop a kiss on her
nose. She smiled. “I thought you’d be conked out by now, since I figured you
probably hadn’t gotten much sleep last night in the slammer.”

He hummed his acknowledgment but
left the issue behind. “Thanks for being so patient with my parents.” Emma had
spent the entire day with his family, aside from an hour she’d taken to visit
Brutus in the animal hospital. She’d insisted on being alone for that.

“Oh, you mean with all their pet
psychic questions? That’s fine; I’m used to it. It was a little weird, though,
knowing that they weren’t asking just to be polite but because they were
checking me out as your new girlfriend.”

He laughed. “I forgot how
nerve-racking that can be. Luckily, it’s not like we’re going to the prom
together. We’re both a bit more self-assured than we were at seventeen.”

“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow. “Does
that mean you’re looking forward to meeting my parents?”

“Absolutely. The sooner the
better.”

“Okay. Maybe September. I was
thinking about visiting my sister then. You could meet the whole family at
once—all eighteen of us.”

Maybe he hadn’t quite gotten over
prom jitters. All
eighteen
of them?
“I thought you said you had only a sister,” he said weakly.

She grinned. “I do—I’m just kidding
you. It’s only eight: me, my sister and her husband and their three kids, and
my parents. Easy.”

“You’ve already met five people in
my family, including me, so we’re almost even.” Jake didn’t know whether Emma
would ever meet Marcus. His parents had confirmed that they, too, hadn’t heard anything
from Marcus, and while they tried to downplay their concern, Jake could see
that his mom looked like she had aged five years instead of the one since
Daniel had been in the accident and Marcus had disappeared. After lunch, he,
his parents, Mickey, and Emma had gone to visit Daniel in the nursing home.
Jake’s brother had looked the same. Pale, unmoving, his chest barely rising and
falling with his breaths. Jake had managed to grab thirty seconds alone with
him at the end of the visit by pretending he’d left his sunglasses in Daniel’s
room and then racing back there. “And I think I’ve found her, Dan,” he’d
whispered, settling down on the edge of Daniel’s immaculate bed. God, his
brother looked so frail. “Her name’s Emma. I hope you get to meet her some
day.”

Emma sobered. “I’m sorry. I hadn’t
known he—” She stopped.

“Was in such bad shape? Yeah. I
don’t like to think about it”—his gut twisted—“but I don’t think he has too
much time left.”

She didn’t say anything, which he
decided meant she agreed.

Jake tried to sound casual. “Hey,
did you do your energy thing on Brutus when you saw him?” It might seem like a
switch in topics to Emma, but it wasn’t, exactly.

“Yes, that’s why I wanted to go
alone—fewer distractions. The vet said Brutus will be fine if he doesn’t get an
infection. I’ll stop by tomorrow morning and evening to work with him again.”

Jake took a deep breath. “I know
you don’t work with people normally and that releasing my memories was a
onetime thing, but would you do me a favor and try your energy work on Daniel?
Even if it doesn’t help, it can’t hurt.”

“Sure,” she said immediately. “As
long as you know that I’m not promising anything or, frankly, expecting
anything. I never worked with people—except you. You and me…I think we have a
connection.”

Uh-oh. Alarm overcame his relief at
her agreement to help Daniel. “Oh? Beyond a shared love of kitten posters?”
Trying to distract her, he nibbled on her collar bone. “Rowr.”

She propped herself up on an elbow,
dislodging him. “While we waited for you at the police station, Mickey
recounted for your parents and me how you’d run to my house just like you’d
known what was happening—his words, not mine.”

“Yeah, Marilyn gave me hell for
that.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “And?” she
prodded.

Damn. He’d hoped he could keep this
to himself, but Mickey, of course, had probably thought it was cool. “I just
had a feeling that I needed to be at your house. Nothing fancy or spooky.”

She poked him in the shoulder.
“Listen, bub, you’re going to have to get past the so-called spookiness of
mind-reading and telepathy and all that other good stuff if you and I are to
have a chance together. And that depends on you getting rid of your Neanderthal
attitudes.”

“You might be slandering
Neanderthals,” he murmured, but at her glare, he relented. “Okay, I had a
really strong feeling that I needed to be at your place. It was so strong that
I ran to your house when the police came to arrest me—which was the absolutely
wrong thing to do in that situation, but I did it anyway. There. Happy?”

She flopped onto her back and said
to the ceiling, “I’d be happier if you weren’t so freaked out about it.”

“Look, I didn’t even believe in any
of that paranormal stuff a week ago. Now I’m dating—exclusively—a woman who’s a
telepath, pet psychic, and energy healer. Give me a little time, huh? I bet in
a month I’ll have my own Ouija board and be talking to small forest animals.”

The corner of her mouth hitched up.
Good—he’d made her smile. “What’s with this ‘exclusively’ stuff?” she asked,
turning her head. The moonlight glowed on her face again. “You’re obsessed.”

He leaned over her. “I’m obsessed
with you. I want you to get used to the idea before I ask you to move in with
me.”

She laughed, but not as if she was
dismissing the idea entirely. Whew.

“You don’t have a condo anymore,
remember?” she said.

“Then maybe I’ll have to ask you to
ask me to move in with you.”

“Complicated.” But she was still
smiling. “At least you come with your own kitten poster, and my dog likes you.”

“See? I’m a prize.”

She lifted her head to kiss him.
“Absolutely. Even without the kitten poster.”

• •

Emma closed her eyes and held her
palms flat above Daniel’s unmoving body. But a lack of confidence made her
hands shake, so she resorted to deep breathing exercises to tighten her
concentration. Behind her, Jake shifted in his chair, fraying her focus.

She’d tried to downplay how much
Jake could realistically expect from her, but he’d become a convert to energy
work since Brutus had come home earlier in the week. Within a few hours, the
dog had dashed three-legged around their house as if he hadn’t just been
released from the animal hospital with one less limb than he’d arrived with.
Jake had taken Brutus’s vigor as an unassailable sign that Emma could do some
good for Daniel, and they’d made their first trip to the nursing home that
afternoon.