Lucky's Woman

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As she had at the store, Annie buried herself in minute details that seemed to wipe away the thoughts she didn’t need or want. She designed a new bag, organized the supplies that were crowding her out of her own great room, and balanced the checkbook. It was a pleasant and ordinary day. She really, really liked ordinary.

She expected Lucky to arrive at the cabin by two, and at 1:50 she heard his car pull into the driveway. As the car door slammed with excessive force, she held her breath and listened to the crisp steps on her front porch grow closer and louder.

He wasn’t happy.

Annie waited for him to knock, and she wasn’t surprised by the force of his knuckles on her front door. He would want explanations, logical explanations, and she didn’t have any. She knew what she knew. There was no logic in it.

The confrontation was inevitable. She garnered her courage and opened the door to reveal an angry, tense, confused Lucky Santana.

He walked past her, shaking a notebook, which was now filled with loose sheets of paper that stuck out at all angles.

“How did you do it? How did you know this case stunk to high heaven?”

“Hello?” she said with a touch of sarcasm as she closed the door. “How are you? Lovely weather we’re having.”

He turned and glared at her, and looking into those vibrant eyes caused what felt like an electrical jolt to pass through her body.

“This isn’t a social call,” Lucky said with a decided lack of patience. “This is business. If you want chitchat, walk down the hill and visit with your perky friend Kristie.”

He said “perky” as if it were an insult.

“There’s no reason to make this unpleasant,” Annie argued, even though there was nothing pleasant about this situation. Her knees wobbled a little, and that made her glad she was wearing a long, loose skirt. Maybe Lucky couldn’t see her reaction. She crossed the room to take a chair before her knees gave out entirely. “Okay, everything about this is unpleasant. You know, I was half hoping that you’d come by and tell me I was wrong about everything. I’d be very happy to write this off as a nervous breakdown brought on by stress, but that’s not the case, is it?” She lifted her head to look him in the eye.

“I don’t have access to case files—not yet—but I did talk to an overly chatty deputy, and just checking the stories on the Internet and looking through newspapers at the library gave me a very clear picture of a piss-poor investigation and a lot of angry relatives who want answers they haven’t gotten.” A muscle in his taut jaw twitched. “There was no reason for Huff to murder his wife and then himself. None. From everything I’ve found, it looks like Jenna Huff was a dedicated, loving wife. Trey Huff was a simple enough guy who was well on his way to starting his own furniture refinishing business. He’d put a deposit down on a building, and had bought most of the supplies he needed to get started. The only explanation for a violent and unexpected murder/suicide is that Trey had a nervous breakdown, and that’s extremely unlikely.”

“I told you he didn’t do it,” she said. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

Again, that muscle in Lucky’s jaw twitched. The man needed to relax in the worst way. “All of this hinges on a dream. That’s not the way it works.” He was desperate for logical answers. “I work for you, so you can tell me anything and everything without fear of reprisal. Did you talk to someone who saw something they shouldn’t? Do you know who did this, and you’re afraid to tell me or anyone else how you know? Give me something I can work with, Annie. Tell me the truth.”

“I’ve never told you anything but the truth.”

Frustration shone through, even though he tried to appear calm and reasonable. “At the very least, let me take this to the sheriff.”

Ignoring the lurch of her heart, Annie gestured for Lucky to sit down, and after a moment of hesitation he did. He tossed his notebook to an end table and gripped the bridge of his nose between two fingers as he closed his eyes and reached for the calm and patience he wished to possess. Neither came naturally to him.

He wasn’t going to like what she had to say, but he needed to hear it.

“Five years ago, when I lived in Nashville, I had a dream about a murder. The dream was very much like the ones I’ve been having lately. Violent, vivid, all too real.” She told him the details, as quickly and painlessly as she could. She spared him the gory details of the dreams themselves. “A woman was killed, supposedly during a break-in at her apartment. It was her boyfriend. Thanks to the dreams I knew it was him, without a single doubt, so I went to the police. They didn’t believe me, of course, but when it turned out I was right about some of the details…” She shrugged her shoulders, trying to make it appear that the details didn’t matter, when in fact they mattered very much. “I don’t want to relive that time, not even to tell you how they treated me, how I was questioned, what it felt like to believe that I was going to end up in prison for a crime I didn’t commit because I tried to help. I can’t go to the sheriff with this, and neither can you. They won’t believe either of us.”

Lucky took a deep breath. He wanted to get out of here so badly. She hated that. They gotten off to a rocky start, but she did like him, and there was that vision of what was to be. What might be.

For a moment she had a clear and uncluttered glimpse into Lucky’s complicated mind. He wasn’t thinking of a grocery list, or his love life, or shoplifting. Instead he was thinking about her and this case and how much he didn’t want to believe her. A part of him did believe, though, and that scared him a little. She didn’t want him to be scared of her.

She also didn’t want to spend her life seeing into other people’s hearts and minds. Sitting there, Annie did her best to shut Lucky out. She did everything she could to quiet the ability that had brought him here. After a moment, it began to work. She could shut down her abilities. She could put up a shield that would keep Lucky, and everyone else, out of her head. She erected that shield now, basically separating herself from him and everyone else. A moment of calm descended, and she breathed a sigh of relief, even though she had no idea how long the shield would last.

If she wanted this thing to go away altogether, she had to help Lucky find the man who had murdered Trey and Jenna Huff.

“I understand your reasoning, but I still think we should take what we have to the sheriff,” Lucky said after a long moment of silence. “Without the case files I can’t—”

“No!” Annie came up out of her chair. “Didn’t you hear a word I said about what happened in Nashville? Do I have to go into detail to make you understand? Fine. I lost the man I loved, my friends, my job, my life. I won’t go through that again. I hired you, Mr. Santana. You work for me, and I will not allow you to take what I’ve told you to the sheriff or anyone else. Is that clear?” When he didn’t respond she asked again, more loudly. “Is that clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lucky answered sarcastically. “I’ll just sit on the knowledge that a man has gotten away with murder.”

Drained and frustrated, Annie sat once again. “We have to stop him, I know that. I’m not suggesting that we do nothing. With what I’ve told you, you should be able to find out who the killer is and collect some hard evidence and then take that to the sheriff.”

“You want me to work the case backward.”

“Sure. Why not?”

Lucky leaned back in his chair and thrust out long legs. He appeared to relax, but in truth he was still wound tight. It took no unnatural gift to see that fact. Was he always so tense?

“It’s going to take time.”

Annie closed her eyes. She had some money saved, and if she held off on opening the third store she could afford to keep Lucky on the payroll for a week or two. Would that be enough? The Benning Agency didn’t come cheap, and while she had money, she was far from independently wealthy.

“Do it,” she finally said. What choice did she have?

She heard the rustle of papers, and opened her eyes to see Lucky spreading his notes across the table where they’d worked last night. Relief spread through her, warming her body from head to toe. This time she wasn’t alone. This time she had Lucky Santana to help her.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“You’re welcome,” he responded dryly, without pausing in his work. When he had the papers arranged in a manner that suited him, he turned to her. “I’m not saying that I don’t believe you, but I still think it’s possible that there’s a reasonable explanation for the way you figured this out. You read the articles in the newspaper, you saw the relatives on television, you…you put two and two together, and the pieces came together in your dreams.”

“If that’s what you have to believe in order to do what has to be done, then do it. I don’t care.”

“Just one thing,” he said too casually. “Who told you about Sadie? Not that there’s anything to tell, mind you, but she is my old partner, and there was a time when…well, someone might’ve thought that I…So, who told you about Sadie? Cal? Dante?”

“You told me,” Annie answered in a lowered voice.

Lucky glared at her. He was, at this moment, a little angry, very puzzled and more than a little determined. Determination on a man like Lucky Santana was very appealing. There weren’t very many men like this one in the world, and wasn’t that a pity.

“Fine,” he snapped. “If you’re really psychic, then get me something I can use. How about the killer’s address?”

The rain started to fall while Annie studied his notes and—on occasion—touched them. Lucky kept his eyes on her face. He saw her anxiety, her indecision and her dread at the job she had before her.

He’d asked her to try to see more, in order to give him something to work with. She didn’t want to, but she’d consented. They had come to a compromise. He wouldn’t mention her name to the sheriff; she would try to bring on the visions that she obviously didn’t want.

Her reluctance made him think maybe…just maybe…she had an ability he didn’t understand. Then again, she might just be a very good actress.

He didn’t think she was acting.

The most logical explanation for Annie’s suppositions about the Huffs’ deaths was the one he’d put to her earlier; she’d put two and two together in the back of her mind and came up with dreams that seemed real. She didn’t believe that explanation, but the brain was a complicated machine, and anything was possible. Well, almost anything.

For the moment, he was stuck here. Not because Cal had sent him here, not because Annie had hired him. He felt responsible for Annie Lockhart. She needed him, and he couldn’t turn his back on her. That was his downfall. Always.

She even looked like a kook. Today she didn’t wear low-rise jeans and a snug T-shirt, but instead had dressed in a long, full bluish-greenish skirt, a white blouse with a touch of ruffles and sandals. The toenails were still pink, but the yellow toe ring had been replaced with plain silver. Her short blond hair looked purposely mussed—he supposed it was meant to be trendy—and long silver earrings dangled almost to her shoulders. Everything about her screamed damsel in distress. His weakness.

Even when she attempted to be tough, as she had when she’d put him in his place a couple of hours ago, there was a vulnerability in Annie Lockhart that appealed to his hero-complex. Save the girl, allow her to get as close as was wise and then walk away before she got too close. Wasn’t that the way it always worked? For the past few years, anyway. At least he had learned to walk away before everything went to hell.

“He watched them,” Annie said softly, her fingertips tailing across a sheet of paper. “For a long time, he watched. He was drawn to their happiness because he has none of his own.”

“That’s fine,” Lucky said in a reassuring voice. “Good. What else do you see? Can you look beyond his mind to what was going on around him? What does he look like? Did the Huffs know him? Did they trust him?” How else could the killer have gotten so close?

“He watched from a distance at first, and then he moved closer.” She shivered, almost uncontrollably. “They knew him. They weren’t afraid until it was too late.” She closed her eyes and swayed slightly, and Lucky immediately placed his arm around her and drew her away from the table.

“That’s enough for now,” he said. “I don’t want you passing out on me.” He lowered her into her chair, and there she leaned her head back and took a deep, cleansing breath. He watched her closely, as the color returned to her face.

“We’ll do this in stages,” he said. “I don’t want you trying to do too much at once.” Whether her ability was real or imagined, she did exhaust herself when she reached for visions.

A timid smile transformed her face. “You’re very protective.”

“It’s my job.”

“But this isn’t a normal job, is it?” she asked.

“Not even close. In Nashville, you knew who the killer was. This time, things seem to be less clear. Why?”

Annie shuddered. “Back then I saw it all, as if I were a fly on the wall. Now I seem to be watching through the killer’s eyes. I can’t see him.” She closed her eyes. “It’s very frustrating.”

Lucky tried to ignore Annie’s responses while he made work of straightening his notes. He still hadn’t decided how he was going to tell Cal it was possible the kook was legit. At the very least, she’d pointed him toward a case that didn’t make any sense, and he couldn’t walk away.

As for how…He was still putting his money on some hard-to-explain function of the brain. Some people were good at math. Annie was just good with disjointed puzzles. Whatever the reason, with luck she’d soon lead him right to the killer. If not, he’d find evidence on his own. He’d gather evidence, work the case backward, invent some legitimate reasoning for the investigation and put the bad guy behind bars. No one would ever have to know that Annie had led him to the killer.

But he’d know. How would he ever approach any other investigation without wondering what she was thinking? What she might know that he couldn’t see? The fact that one person might actually be able to glimpse into the mind of another was intriguing. Impossible, improbable, but intriguing. If nothing else, her brain was great at working puzzles. Maybe he could use Annie in the future, when a mystery presented itself. It wasn’t necessary that anyone else know, but how could something so powerful and useful be ignored?

There was only one other possible explanation for her knowledge. She was somehow involved in the murders. He immediately dismissed that idea. Annie Lockhart annoyed him to no end. She was fascinating and maddening. And she was no killer.

Again he told himself that she was not his type, but now and then when he looked at her she was beyond pretty. Not gorgeous, not eye-popping, but beautiful all the same. Of course, she also looked like she might walk out the door at any time and hug a tree, or pick wildflowers and start to dance and skip with the animals.

It was in his basic makeup to wonder what she’d look like naked, and he pondered the possibilities as he fiddled needlessly with his notes. Leggy, curvy, soft, delicate. She was all those things, he could see that well enough even when she was dressed.

But what would she taste like? Did she kiss with the trepidation he so often saw from her, or with the ferocity she displayed when she lost her temper? He was guessing a bit of both. Annie was a complicated woman, and every man alive knew that complicated women were nothing but trouble. Brainless bimbos were easier to handle. A man never had to wonder what she was thinking, because she usually wasn’t.

Complicated or not, he did wonder—again—what Annie Lockhart would taste like. It was in his nature to wonder about such things, and a man who fought his own nature was fighting a losing battle.

He didn’t hear her move, but suddenly there was a soft, warm hand on his back and a gentle voice said, “There’s only one way to find out.”

They skipped past all the steps most men and women covered before getting to the kissing part. No flirty smiles, no awkward date, no touch of one hand to another, no not-so-accidental brushes of one body against another. No, she and Lucky went straight to the mouth-to-mouth stage.

He turned to face her, she went up on her toes and their mouths came together.

His thoughts had drawn her to him, in an undeniable way. Unlike the jarring and unwanted images she’d been suffering of late, Lucky’s reflections on how she might taste had seemed almost like her own thoughts. They were mingled with her own, not intrusive and strange. In the shop, the thoughts of others had come to her in a jarring and unpleasant way, almost as if they were shouting into her brain, and reaching for a killer had been draining and unpleasant. Lucky’s contemplations were mellow and easy. They were pleasant, and she needed that right now.

It had been a long time since she’d kissed a man. Years, in fact. And still, kissing Lucky seemed very natural. It was a kiss she felt throughout her body. Warm, arousing, comforting, dangerous—it was everything a kiss could and should be.

She liked it.

Rain pattered on the roof and the windows, isolating them. Outside this cabin the world was wet and windy, but inside there was safety and warmth.

For a few precious seconds Annie forgot all the unpleasantness that had brought them together, and just enjoyed the kiss. She leaned into Lucky; one of his arms encircled her, but not too tightly. He tasted of warmth and masculinity and security, and she loved the feel of his solid body against hers. It had been too long….

How did she taste to him? Even though they were touching, kissing, joined in a very primal way, she didn’t know. That was very nice. Something in her life should be normal, even if it was just a kiss.

And then without warning something of Lucky did speak to her, and it was so real she had no doubts about her interpretation. Save the girl, take what you can get, walk away before she gets too close. It wasn’t a plan, exactly. He wasn’t even aware the thought had passed through his mind—he was totally engrossed in the kiss, and he wasn’t thinking of anything else.

But what she saw, what she felt…it was the way he lived his life. At least she’d know what to expect, if this went any further than a kiss. She couldn’t let herself love Lucky Santana, not ever, because he didn’t know how to love her or any other woman.

She barely knew the man, so the word love shouldn’t even come into play. But there it was, dancing just out of reach. Lucky didn’t know what love was. To him the word was related to trust, or sex, or commitment. He’d never combined the first two, and he’d never truly experienced the third.

Did she know what love was? In the past she’d thought so, but it had ended badly…. She wasn’t so sure now.

She ended the kiss, and placed one palm against Lucky’s solid, warm chest. He would like to appear unaffected, but his heart beat too fast, just as hers did. “I needed that,” she said softly.

Lucky would never admit to as much, but he’d needed the kiss, too. And he’d liked it. As she returned to her chair he said, “You are the oddest woman I’ve ever met.”

Normally she wouldn’t take that comment as a compliment, but there was some flattery intended, she knew. “Thank you,” she said as she sank back into the chair and closed her eyes, not to relive the pain of reaching for a killer, but to commit to memory the beauty and wonder of a first kiss.

Chapter 4

Lucky’s usual professional attire—a good suit and a crisp white dress shirt—made him stand out like a sore thumb in Mercerville. It was a casual little town, filled with laid-back tourists and homey citizens. Fortunately, he’d packed more casual clothes, and when he headed into town on Wednesday morning he was wearing khaki pants and a dark green golf shirt. Maybe today people wouldn’t stare, as they had yesterday when he’d visited the small but well-stocked library.

Downtown Mercerville gave him the creeps. With those homey citizens who all seemed to know one another well—perhaps too well—and the too-quaint-to-be-real appearance of the downtown area, he pretty much expected blank-eyed children or toothless men bearing pitchforks to bear down on him at any moment. He was very much a city boy. He enjoyed the quiet solitude of the house he’d bought three years ago, but downtown Nashville wasn’t all that far away, and he spent more than his share of time there.

This…this was practically archaic.

Annie’s Closet was located in a prime downtown Mercerville spot, on a corner that looked to be the intersection. The other three corners were occupied by a pharmacy, a quaint café, and what looked to be an upscale restaurant. The rest of the area was populated with other small shops that would attract tourists. Antiques, souvenirs, T-shirts, fudge. An entire business devoted to making and selling fudge.