Come Hell or High Desire (9 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Zack scrutinized Sloane as he held the church door open for her. She looked dazed
and exhausted. He surveyed the as-yet undeveloped fields to the southwest where the
sinking summer sun was in the throes of being swallowed by a blue-gray mountain of
clouds. After the climate-controlled interior of the church, the moist heat wrapped
around him like a soggy blanket. Combined with the boiling rage locked tight inside,
he wondered how steam didn’t shoot out his ears. He practically trembled with it.

Sloane opened her mouth to speak.

“Wait.” The strain of the charade made his throat feel like gravel. He unlocked his
truck and they climbed inside. Zack peered in his rearview mirror as he exited the
church parking lot and pulled onto Twenty-Fifth Street heading north. “Someone can
help you get your car later. I’m taking you home.”

“Are you crazy? This is crazy! No, I’m not going home. We’re going back to Ann’s.
When you bolted into the church like Rambo on a rampage, I thought you were going
to kill him. He’s a man of the cloth!” She put her hands on her head. “Senior pastor
of one of the largest churches in the state. How can this be? He left a second ago,
so he can’t be too far ahead of us. Let’s find him!”

His fingers gripped the steering wheel so hard the skin over his knuckles paled. “Calm
down.”
Calm down.
He made himself relax his grip.

“Calm down? This is a nightmare, Zack. How can I be calm? How can you? If the pastor’s
not with Ann, who took her? What are we going to do?”

Her hat was gonna be toast if she twisted it any harder. “
We
aren’t going to do anything.
I
am. What’s your address?”

“Frustrating,
frustrating
man. Why are you always charming with everyone but me?”

“Guess you bring out the best in me.” He smiled, but knew it didn’t reach his eyes
when she shivered and shut up.

For all of five seconds.

“Take me to Ann’s,” she said.

“No.”

“Yes.”

He shook his head, praying for patience. “Jesus, Sloane. Can’t you see I’m trying
to protect you? If something—
Woman.
Okay, home or store?”

“Ann’s.”

She was going to turn him into a spewing volcano. “Don’t you have a business to run?
Books to balance, shit to buy or something?”

“Don’t
you
?”

“I’m not open Sundays.”

She groaned. “Okay, okay.
Okay.
” Her fingernails suddenly raked at her skull. “Lord! I almost forgot. We
have
to go back to Ann’s. She has a diary!”

He swerved into an empty parking lot and swiveled to face her, blood pounding in his
ears. “What are you talking about?”

“Ann keeps a diary. We have to find it.”

“You’re just telling me this
now?
You should have goddamn said something right away!”

“Don’t you dare curse at me like that, you seismic jackass!”

He had to get
out
. He flung the truck door open and strode across the cracked asphalt. Her door slammed
shut moments later, and within seconds she was wagging a finger in his face. “And
don’t you walk away from me, either!”

“Then don’t be such a damn shrew.”

Color flooded over her cheekbones seconds before she punched him in the gut. Hard.
What the hell!
An ancient fire lit up his nerve circuits, and adrenaline had him widening his stance.
His heart gunned.

His groin tightened.

And she was still shrill. “I’m
not
a shrew! How am I supposed to act in a situation like this? You think I’m enjoying
this? I
hate
it! But unfortunately I have a conscience which would haunt me for the rest of my
life if I don’t follow this through until we have some answers. You came to me and
wanted to rule out the church first. Then with everything that happened, I forgot
about the diary until right now. That clear enough for you, you—”

Clear enough, honey
.

He vised her head between his palms and kissed her. He hadn’t meant to, but the moment
her mouth opened to his, he was lost. Not breaking contact with her mouth, he wrapped
one arm around her, his hand splaying across her ass, locking her hips against him.
Her hands were in his hair, her hips grinding, driving him crazy. They feasted on
each other’s mouth, tongues dueling, daring, seeking. He felt her fingers between
their bodies, slipping underneath the waistband of his jeans, pulling at the hem of
his shirt. Her fingernail scraped his abs and he groaned. She leaned away from his
mouth, her eyes dead sexy. Liquid brown. Fuck, yeah. He was gonna—

A car horn blew, jerking him back to life. Back to the parking lot. He looked over
to see a man in a black minivan at a stoplight giving them the thumbs up. He honked
twice more, waved, and drove on.

Sloane burst into a fit of laughter that quickly dissolved into tears.

And that clinched it. He’d woken up this morning in some creepy-assed Twilight Zone.

He wiped away her tears and laid his forehead against hers for a few moments to get
his brain rewired. Then he guided her over to the passenger side of the truck, opened
the door, and nudged her inside. He walked around to the driver’s side, then eased
into the seat, adjusting this way and that to accommodate the monster in his jeans.

Sloane sniffed loudly. “
Now
can we go to Ann’s?”

He banged his head against the steering wheel before glancing at her profile. Her
fingers fidgeted in her lap.

Looks. Brains. Compassion. Sense of humor.

Add to that one heaping dose of courage and what do you get?

Zack totally FUBAR.

Definitely time to cut her loose.

She was sitting beside him because she felt obligated to help him find Ann. Their
chemistry was a result of the circumstances. Danger always had a way of heightening
attraction. God only knew how many brawls Kasey had instigated for him for her viewing
pleasure. And she’d only nursed his injuries if he’d been the victor. “What if we’re
dealing with some psycho here? Doesn’t that scare you?”

That dimmed the light in those hellcat eyes. “Well…yeah. But it’s too late for me
to back out now. Besides, who do you trust with my safety more…you, or the police
who don’t even know there might be foul play yet?”

Nailed.
The woman already knew how to manipulate him. He gave her the scowl he saved for
employees who were caught dicking around. “You’re really a piece of work.” He’d hoped
to tick her off, but she actually
smiled
at him. He rubbed his cheek to stop himself from smiling back. “Okay. But before
we go to Ann’s, you’re going to tell me why I feel like I’m hooked up to a navy submarine
generator every time I touch you.”

Her smile slipped. She shifted on the leather seat, brushing some imaginary lint off
her blouse.
Aha.
He
knew
there was something to it.

Seconds ticked by. He purposely turned down the A/C. Then, keeping his eyes between
her and the rearview mirror, he laid his right hand on the top of her seat back again,
only this time his thumb brushed the bare skin of her neck. Pulses of energy jumped
under his skin.

Her gaze flew to his.

Busted, little woman
.

“You play mean.”

“Not mean, Goldie.
Equal.
”

A few more seconds of silence ticked by while sweat gathered in a bead to run between
his pecs. He leaned his head against the headrest and narrowed his eyes to slits so
he could still use his peripheral vision to keep tabs on her and any activity outside
the truck. She brought a hand up to inspect her nails. Then rummaged through her purse
until she came out with a nail file, which she promptly tossed on the dash before
reaching over to flip the A/C on high.

“Fine! Along with the visions, I sometimes have the ability to be attuned to the energy
of others.”

Zack studied her, feeling a curious lightness in his chest. She fixed her hat on her
head like it was a piece of body armor.

“I don’t know why it’s so strong with you. Nor why your energy doesn’t suck the life
out of me like most other people’s does if it sneaks past my barriers.” She was inspecting
her nails again. He brushed the backs of his fingers along her jaw and felt her shiver.

She looked at him with such naked vulnerability it robbed his breath. “And the fact
that you also feel this connection is totally unbelievable. It’s— I don’t share that
part of myself with anyone. If I even tried to explain what happens to me… Lord, people
would think I was a freak.
Know
I’m a freak.”

That she should have to hide parts of herself from the world caused anger to surge
through him. His fingers trailed along the exposed column of her neck. “I’ve met a
lot of freaks over the years, and trust me, you don’t qualify.”

“Must hang with a rough crowd, then,” she muttered.

Zack laughed, which finally drew a smile from her. “Back in the day… You have no idea.
Last time I checked, though, I wasn’t made out of metal.”

“Yeah. About that? I’m not sure what’s going on. Our energy fields must be highly
sensitive to each other.”

No shit.
“Really,” he drawled.

She nodded.

He wanted another smile. “I’ve been called a lot of things over the years, but
seismic
jackass? That elevates me to a whole new level, I guess.”

She smiled.
Bingo.

“Sorry,” she said, but didn’t look it. He put his truck into gear, trying not to think
about how easily she’d managed to convince him to do what she wanted—go to Ann’s—when
every cell in his body wanted to call in every favor that every shady character in
town owed him to find O’Neill.

He pulled out of the abandoned parking lot, forcing himself not to look at the siren
beside him, but doing it anyway.

Next stop, Ann’s.

He had about six minutes to steel himself for a new round of…who the hell knew.

It was not his damn day.

Chapter Fourteen

Zack leaned against Ann’s bedroom door watching Sloane cautiously inspect a hairbrush.
She’d long since ditched her hat, so he could easily see the dark circles under her
eyes. He’d obviously put them there because he sure as hell hadn’t noticed them earlier.
His idea of searching the dresser drawers had been fruitless, so they were back to
that hocus pocus thing to find the diary. Which left him feeling worthless.

“What can I do?”

She gave him a shaky smile. “Grab a bucket, and be ready to hold my hair back?”

He straightened to move toward her. “I’m sorry you couldn’t find the rhino. I’ll pay
for a new one.”

She held up her hand, concentrating on a pair of diamond studs nesting in a bed of
pink velvet on the dresser. A tremor moved through him. Her touch or her gift? He
wasn’t sure, but he was suddenly hyperaware of the woman next to him. Of the rapid
pulse at her neck. The delicate arch of her brows over eyes that changed color with
her emotion.

Brown was the color of her passion. Eloquent, dark, complex. The color of disturbed
earth at the feet of sequoias.

Her sudden indrawn breath was like a blow because he knew by now what was coming.
He almost told her to stop. All those other times had been so hard on her. But she
touched the earrings, and her face lost animation. He wrapped his arms around her.
Her very essence seemed to quiet, to still in a sort of supernatural concentration.

Zack buried his face in her hair, willing her strength as she faced whatever secrets
those earrings might share. When she started, her speech was languorous. “The air
is hot, humid. She’s laughing at you and John. Catfishing. The three of you are catfishing
on the Red River.”

The back of Zack’s neck crawled. That was four, maybe five years ago now.

“She touches her ear. These earrings. She’s happy. Loves you because you’re both pretending
to enjoy the wilted sandwiches she made. You’re nagging about her perfume. It’s attracting
bugs, you say. She smiles. Dragonflies are everywhere, whizzing around your heads,
and she loves the hum of the pontoon’s motor. You tease one another and laugh over
whose fish has the longest whiskers…”

Zack’s vision blurred for the first time since he’d had to explain to the police how
he’d found his father’s body swinging from a rope. Sloane took him back, resurrecting
that day on the river with the family he’d been lucky enough to create later in life.

Good times. A sense of belonging.

All he’d ever wanted.

Sloane’s head lolled, then righted itself.

“No, Goldie.
Come back
.”

She blinked, but obviously didn’t see him standing in front of her, her voice a mere
whisper this time. “Somewhere else now. An office. She knows he’s attracted to her,
and she’s enjoying the attention. The man—I can’t see his face—leans against the edge
of the counter. His cologne smells expensive. She thinks he has nice teeth, nice hair.
Eyes, too, when he isn’t trying to intimidate someone…but… He’s her father’s age.
Even older. Oh, Lord, it’s Benjamin. Timothy Benj—”

“What? No!” Zack jerked back, his arms breaking the circle around her. Sloane swayed
again, and he grabbed her, sat them both on the bed and scored the small white trash
can just in time. Sloane clutched it as the she expelled her guts.

Zack held her hair back, murmuring to her until she staggered to the bathroom. His
eyeballs burned until he thought his optic nerve had short-circuited. Enough was enough.
The woman would need to be hooked up to an IV if she attempted any more readings.
And they hadn’t even located the diary yet.

He was pretty damn sure he believed in her ESP now.

He went to stand beside the tomcat guarding the bathroom door. He wanted to barge
in to make sure she wasn’t drowning in all that water he heard running. He listened
intently, only turning away when he heard her softly say, “Tori?”

She must’ve had her phone in her pocket. Why couldn’t he remember that she wasn’t
a loner like him? Their backgrounds probably couldn’t be more different. She had people
to turn to when things went south.

And what a
poor me
whiner he was becoming.

He walked down the hallway into the kitchen, carefully curbing his urge to knock his
fist into the drywall.
Focus on Ann.

In the vision, Sloane had witnessed Benjamin flirting with her. No way could Ann be
involved with both the pastor
and
Tim Benjamin. Could she?

He’d obviously left her to the wolves. One who probably walked around his church like
a saint. The other who got off on using people for his own gain.

Zack exhaled deeply to tamp down the anger. He walked to Ann’s desk, pulled out his
cell phone, and dialed Archie.

“What’s up, man? You hear from Ann or the police?” Archie yelled at the dogs to stop
barking.

“Not Ann, but the police are looking into her phone and bank records to see if anything
turns up. So far, nothing.” Zack rolled his shoulders. “You still know how to get
in touch with Donovan?”

Archie whispered a string of obscenities. “No good reason to get in touch with a low
life like that. Not anymore.”

“But do you?”

“Of course not.”

Liar.
Zack tapped a pencil on the desk. “You ever hear of Divine Shepherd Lutheran?”

“Who hasn’t?”

“Ann’s having an affair with the head pastor.”

Archie sputtered on a drink. “No way.”

“I need Donovan’s number, man.”

More obscenities. Then he finally rattled off Donovan’s number like it was a daily
call. “You’d better keep it tight, or you’ll have to deal with me.”

Zack couldn’t reassure him, so he hung up. He slid the phone into his pocket, then
leaned against the smooth oak of Ann’s pantry door. Archie had kept his nose clean
for years now.

Or mostly clean.

Donovan was a mean, morally depraved SOB from Minneapolis who not only ran a wagon
show of narcotics and black market weapons, but also a harem of street tarts and computer
hackers. So how could Archie spit out his number like that?

Maybe now was a good time to start praying again.

Zack felt her seconds before she entered the kitchen. He shoved the paper with Donovan’s
number into his pocket. She pulled out a chair at the table and plopped down, stretching
those legs that dried the saliva in his mouth. Even her feet with the blue toenail
polish made him hot. He turned away and closed his eyes.

“Hey, thanks for holding my hair. I was only kidding, but…”

Zack opened his eyes to look at her when she paused. The thousand watt smile she beamed
at him made his pulse hopscotch. “But?”

Her smile broadened impossibly. “It was really sweet of you.”

He swallowed. Her normally golden complexion was still ashen. “Sure. It seems…”
Traumatic, overwhelming.
“Pretty rough on you.”

She looked down at her hands, engrossed in her nails. “I’m going to find that diary.”

“No, I’m taking you home now. You look like you need to sleep for a week.”

“Gee, thanks, that’s really flattering, but no. The longer Ann’s missing…”

Damn her, she didn’t need to say it. For a moment he allowed his eyes to trace the
contours of her face. The shadows made her cheekbones even more pronounced. “You don’t
really think she had—
has
—something going on with Benjamin, do you?” he asked.

“I don’t know what to think. From the vision, I’d have to say he was certainly interested
in her, but at that particular time, I didn’t get the sense that she would have been
receptive. But who knows what happened later—if there
was
a later. I couldn’t tell when that vision took place. Does he—” She clawed at her
neck. “Does Benjamin stop by the office a lot?” Her voice cracked on the last word,
her hand moving to press against her stomach.

He couldn’t stand to see her so affected. “You’re going home. Now.”

Her pupils dilated even more, and she stood and backed away from him even though she
was nodding like that was exactly what she wanted to do. “We need to go over it one
more time. Who are all the people who could have picked her up? I mean, she’s got
to have some other family or friends around. Right? Everyone does.”

She hadn’t been this agitated even after all those other horrifying episodes. Why
now? He edged closer to her—slowly—and pitched his statement as placid as possible.
“Ann never knew her mother. John was an only child, and being sixty-eight when he
died last year, he’d already lost both his parents.”

He reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear when he was sure she wasn’t
going to either club him or fly to the ceiling. “Before he died, he told me—asked
me—to look after Ann.” She seemed more composed now, but he wasn’t sure he wanted
to reopen this wound.

“How did you get so close to the family?”

Zack’s chest squeezed further, but who was he kidding? The wound had never really
healed. Probably never would. “John found me under a bridge eleven years ago and offered
me a job. I repaid him by vandalizing one of his job sites. Two years later, he found
me under the same bridge. He brought blankets, thermoses of soup and coffee. He told
me I had choices—that I could reclaim my self-respect. He said, when I was ready,
to find him. He left his business card on the stack of blankets. I still have that
card. It’s the same story for a lot of the long-timers at the company. Even Ross,
my CFO, came to work for John with a felony on his record. All these years later,
I finally realize John was building men along with his steel buildings.” Zack turned
away from her, his face hot and itchy. “Holy Christ, that’s melodramatic.”

She moved in front of him, holding his upper arms. “I wish I could’ve met him. He
sounds like one of those people you never forget. I’m glad he saw the goodness in
you.”

He shrugged out of her grip and walked to the sink, where he leaned his backside against
the counter. Tomorrow she probably wouldn’t even remember his words. No sense worrying
about it. “Ann doesn’t have any close friends, other than someone who moved to Scotland
a while ago. She’s real private.”

“You must’ve rubbed off on her.” She remained silent for a long moment before she
approached him again, the soft sway of her hips so feminine. So arousing. His fingers
curled around the lip of the counter when she stopped mere inches away, her scent
reaching out to bind his gut in tangles. Her breath on his neck made his abs contract.
He ached to touch her.

Everywhere.

Her pupils dilated slightly when his eyes finally burned into hers. “That was mean…I’m…sorry.”
Her fingertips trailed from her neck down to the tops of her breasts. And
oh,
he watched those fingers as her words came out a breathless whisper. “What should
we do now?”

Lay you down in a soft place so I can spend hours learning how your body tastes
.

He pushed away from the counter, careful not to touch her. He stopped in front of
Ann’s desk, staring at her precise arrangement of pencils, feeling Sloane’s heated
introspection on his back. Her desire and uncertainty were like radio static in his
bloodstream.
I’m as confused as you, Goldie.
Even so, he nearly swung back to wrap his arms around her, to lose himself in her
warmth.

But then her energy—that pulsing beat of life he’d come to recognize as her essence—disappeared.
Like someone had yanked a cord out of a wall socket. He looked back to see her enter
the garage, the tomcat on her heels.

Give her some space.
As much as he wanted to follow, he needed to get himself under control. They—
he
—had bigger problems right now than his overactive sex drive.

He approached the answering machine. Unable to stop himself, he pressed play. The
sound of his own irritation swamped the kitchen. He remembered calling shortly before
the storm. Couldn’t he have sounded more approachable? He wished he’d come here earlier
to find out what was bothering her. Instead, she was gone, and along the way he meets
a psychic woman with whom he has an uncontrollable connection. He thought Sloane had
layers? A man would have to be a geologist to figure her out.

After his message, the recording played back a second dial tone that supposedly came
through at 8:14 p.m. No message. Had Ann already left by the time this second call
came in, or was she screening calls?

All he knew was that she had been home around seven-thirty when she’d returned his
original call. He looked down at his watch.
10:56 p.m.
Almost twenty-eight hours since they’d talked. Not that much time for an adult to
be incommunicado, but then… All the other indicators sucked.

Suddenly, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He pivoted toward the door
that led to the garage. Sloane came into view, backlit by the garage lights. He took
one step toward her, then stopped, his heart a sledgehammer against his bones.

Sloane held up a cotton candy pink journal. “We found it.”

A phone began to ring. “We?” He reached for the journal, but she hugged it to her
chest.

“The cat. Remember the garbage? That’s what he was trying to tell us all along. The
journal was in the trash,” she said.

“The cat? That’s crazy.”

“Is it?” She pointed to his waist. “You’d better see who’s calling so late.”

What? He felt trapped in a time warp.
Oh, yeah, the phone
. He checked caller ID. Ross.
Great.
His CFO was a
no news is good news
kind of guy. He looked at Sloane when he answered. “What’s up, Ross?”

“An officer Janklow from the Fargo Police called here asking for you. Said he’d been
at your place too. He needs to talk to you. What’s going on?”

Zack frowned. “Where’s
here
? You at the office this late again?”

“It’s become a habit, I’m afraid. The cops saw lights on in the building, and since
the front doors were locked, they called. I’d seen multiple squad cars in the streets,
so when the phones rang, I felt like I should answer. Why do they need to see you?”