Under the Magnolia (3 page)

"She tries not to," he
confirmed. "I keep on telling her she's going to get me fired,
but she insists that it's not a bribe because I'm family." He
didn't add that most of the elderly woman's comments to that effect
had to do with him being destined to marry her favorite
granddaughter.

"Poor Wes." She reached
the bottom of the steps and turned suddenly, blocking his path. "So.
Everyone in town whispers that there's something not quite right with
me, but I've never heard anyone accuse
you
of being a psychic."

He dropped her bag by her feet and
arched an eyebrow at her. "Maybe that's because I'm damn careful
about where and how I use my...talents. If I knew, for instance, that
there were a couple of kids in danger out at the beach, I'd probably
call the authorities, not try to save them myself."

A hint of color rose in her cheeks.
"If I called y'all every time I got a vision, there'd be more
than just rumors about me. People whispering that I'm a little nutty
is one thing, but you know as well as I do what tends to happen to
people like me when word gets out."

He knew. At best, she could be put
into protective custody, conscripted into working for government
intelligence. At worst, she could simply disappear, sold to the
highest bidder, and no one would ever know what happened to her. His
mouth went dry, and his heart started to pound. "You could have
called
me
,
Addie. Hell, you've known me for twenty damn years."

There was a flash of emotion across
her face, gone too fast for him to be sure what it was. She turned
and moved down the hallway, heading to the door marked ”Laundry”.
She pushed open the door before glancing over her shoulder at him. "I
guess I could have. I just…didn't know how you'd feel about
it."

Wes told himself that she hadn't
meant for the words to sting, but it was hard to keep the hurt out of
his voice. "At the very least, I hope you know I wouldn't sell
you out to some smuggler," he said flatly. "And I wouldn't
ask stupid questions if there were lives on the line." He
gestured into the laundry room. "You go look for something to
wear and maybe some towels and bedding. I'm going to check the
kitchen."

He didn't wait for a response, just
stalked off down the long concrete hallway. It was one thing to know
that Addie had no interest in him as a lover, but quite another to
learn that she apparently didn't have the slightest bit of confidence
in him as a friend.

Addie knew she'd made a mistake
before Wes turned his back on her. She opened her mouth to call him
back, but his long legs took him to the other end of the hallway
before she could figure out what to say.

Great. Fabulous
.
She groped along the side of the wall until she found the light
switch and flipped it on. The room had three commercial washer/dryer
sets and, blessedly, a long rack of metal shelving along the far wall
stacked with clean bedding, towels and robes. She pulled the door
shut and locked it for good measure then hurriedly stripped out of
her damp clothing and shoved it into one of the dryers.
Now
let's just hope the power lasts long enough to dry it.

She pondered the hurt expression on
Wes’ face as she moved to the shelf full of linens. She'd lied
to him, a stupid little lie meant to cover the schoolgirl crush that
she was far too old to have at all, much less hide so desperately.

She
had
considered calling him. She considered it every time she woke up
trembling and terrified from a vision of disaster. Some of them were
things she could do nothing about—distant plane crashes, a
murder on an unrecognizable city street. But some of them...some of
them, he could have helped with. Some of them he could have
done
something about, if only she'd had the courage to ask for help.

But fear had kept her silent. In the
beginning it had been fear of admitting the truth, fear of what could
happen if the wrong people found out about her abilities.

Then her feelings for Wes had
started to change, and concern about her own safety had turned to
speculation about his reaction. Wes had seemed fond enough of her
when she was gawky Addie Gardner the teacher and scientist. Fear that
he wouldn't feel the same way about a psychic had kept her silent.

Of course, he'd just demonstrated
how absurd that was. She smiled as she found a soft,
expensive-feeling robe, worthy of the sort of overpriced resort that
the old Carter plantation had become. She'd been stupid for all the
wrong reasons, but now she knew better.
And we have the whole night. Stuck here together with nothing to
do...

Oh, yes. She had all
sorts
of ideas about how to pass the time. And she didn't have to wonder if
he'd be interested; the blinding passion that had seized her along
with the vision of their bodies entwined was all the encouragement
she needed.

She found Wes in the kitchen,
stacking cans and boxes of food on a stainless steel countertop. He
eyed the fluffy white robe, his pale blue eyes flashing nervously,
and ran a hand over his short-cropped brown hair. "The, uh,
hotel uses gas ranges, so we should be able to eat hot meals even if
the power goes down. Cell reception is crappy out here on the best of
days, though, and the radio in the truck isn't working. Something
must have happened to the nearest tower."

"Yeah?" She leaned against
the counter and met his eyes. "Wes, I didn't mean that I don't
trust you. I know you'd never sell me off to smugglers or anything.
And if I
had
gotten into trouble, you would have been the first person I called."

A can hit the counter with a
metallic thump. "You
were
in trouble, Addie. I know you were just trying to help those kids,
but how do you think that makes me feel?" For a moment, his
expression was open, frightened, and then he turned away. "Who
did you think would have to go talk to your family—to
Granny
—when
you wound up missing or dead?"

"Yeah, but I didn't
know
I was in trouble. Which is sort of ironic, now that I think about
it."

She'd tried for a light-hearted
joke, but he looked even crabbier. "It isn't funny, Addie."

"I know," she soothed at
once, though there was something irresistible about him when he was
being grumpy and protective. "It was stupid, Wes. I know better
than anyone how stupid it was. But I thought the Jeep could handle
it. I've driven through worse."

"Okay." He held his hands
up and shook his head. "Let's just...talk about something else,
all right?" He hesitated then gave her a grudging grin. "You
did good. Those kids are all right now, thanks to you."

That brought an honest smile as she
pushed a few strands of her damp hair back from her face. "I
like being able to help," she admitted, moving around to help
him sort through the cans. "I'm just not sure I can deal with
what would happen if the truth came out. People would feel
differently about me. I might not be able to keep my job. And that's
not even considering the likelihood that someone would try to kidnap
and sell me."

"That's all true. But you can't
keep risking your life, Addie," he warned, nudging her with his
elbow. "My nerves can't take it. And I wasn't kidding about the
gray hair. See?"

If there
was
any gray mixed in his perfect brown hair, she couldn't see it. His
short beard was equally free of gray and suited him all too well. She
felt her heart rate increase as she looked away again, fiddling with
the label on the can of soup she had in her hands. "You know, I
had a vision while we were driving over here. That was why I got
all...weird."

"Oh yeah?" His eyes
darkened, and she could practically
see
him go into cop mode. "Something bad?"

Time to go for broke. "Guess it
depends. How do you feel about the imminence of what is apparently
going to be the hottest sex I've ever had?"

It was quite obviously the last
thing he had expected to hear, because he just stared at her, his
expression unchanging. Then he managed to stammer, "Wh-What did
you say?"

For one brief moment, Addie was
forced to consider the possibility that she hadn't had a vision at
all but rather a moment of insane fantasy brought on by adrenaline
and the proximity of a very, very attractive man.
And
if he's
not
interested, I just made a fool of myself....

She cleared her throat and wondered
just how pink her cheeks had gotten. "Something about really hot
sex. I'm...not sure how we're going to get there, though, since
you're sort of staring at me like I'm insane—"

The rest of her words were cut off
by his mouth covering hers.

Wes knew it was a bad idea, but he
didn't care. All he knew was that Addie had been gazing up at him,
looking vulnerable and talking about hot sex, and he had to kiss her.
Hell, he'd been wanting to for more than fifteen years.

He
had
to kiss her.

It was shaping up to be the best bad
idea he'd ever had, too, because she felt like heaven. Her mouth was
warm and pliant under his, and he grasped her hips, his fingers
digging into the plush terrycloth as he pressed her back against the
counter. Then she parted her lips and tilted her head a little, and
her tongue teased at his lower lip, soft and almost a little shy.

Shy
wasn't a word he usually associated with Addie. She was smart and
brazen and the tiniest bit odd, but she'd never been bashful. He
broke the kiss and stared down at her, panting. "Is something
wrong?"

She shook her head, looking just as
breathless as he felt. "No. God, no. I just…I've sort of
been thinking about this for a while. I didn't realize it'd go this
well."

He frowned at her. "What, the
kissing? Did you think I'd suck at it?"

That made her laugh. "Hardly.
If you did, all the women in town wouldn't be banging down your door.
Which is sort of why I thought it might not go so well. There's a lot
of competition, you know."

He snorted. "Says the only
woman who ever turned me down cold. Or have you forgotten that, you
little heartbreaker?"

Her expression went from amused to
perplexed in the space of a heartbeat. "I did what?"

"Oh, come
on
,"
he teased, brushing her hair back from her face. "You
have
forgotten!" He stepped back and eyed her with mock dismay.
"Senior year, back when all this was just uninhabited island and
an old, abandoned plantation? Jeff Meyers was throwing a party here,
and I asked you to go with me. Ring any bells?"

"Well, yeah..." She tilted
her head to one side and got that
look
,
the one she always got when she was trying to work her way through a
problem, with a tiny furrow between her eyebrows. "But I didn't
think you were asking me out. I thought you felt bad because Chuck
had just blown me off and I was depressed."

"I asked you to meet me here,"
he reminded her. "Under the big magnolia out front, away from
where they always built the bonfire."

"I thought you felt bad for
me," she repeated, one hand coming up to fiddle with the collar
of his shirt. "I figured you didn't need your dorky friend
moping around and cramping your style at a party."

It had been the last thing on his
mind, he remembered that much. "You
did
cramp my style. You stood me up." He'd waited out under that
tree, a beer in each hand, for more than an hour. Finally, he'd
untied his boat and motored home, depressed and disappointed.

"Oh." Her brown eyes held
a warmth he'd never seen before as she looked up at him. "I
wouldn't stand you up now."

The temptation to kiss her again
nearly overwhelmed him, and Wes found himself leaning toward her, his
fingers threading into her damp hair. His mouth was nearly on hers
when the room went dark and silent. He closed his eyes and backed
away, sighing. "Guess the lines are down."