Читать книгу Touch and Go - Michelle Rowen - Страница 9

TWO YEARS SURE COULD change a lot of things—personally and professionally.

Carrie pulled her jacket tighter around her, ignoring the winter chill in the air and the snow falling around her. She stared up at the tall glass front doors of the Paranormal Assessment and Recovery Agency a moment before entering the building’s front lobby.

Well, here I am.

She’d kept Patrick McKay’s business card safely tucked away in her wallet all this time, taking it out every now and then to look at his name, title, phone number and email address. He’d somehow managed to frequently work his way into her hottest dreams after spending only one hour in her company. But dreams weren’t reality and she was more than aware of that.

Her normal life was just that—normal. She still wrote articles for the Mystic Medallion. The profile on Patrick had garnered rave reviews from readers who loved finding out more about all things supernatural. A year ago, she’d rented an apartment in New York to try her hand at big city living and bigger writing gigs.

It had gone well, or it was starting to when disaster struck and Patrick’s “read” on her proved only too true.

Six months ago, on Carrie’s twenty-ninth birthday, her telekinesis arrived in full force. Bam. Or, rather, splat. The cake her then-boyfriend had bought for her flew across the room and straight into his face when she learned from a friend that he’d cheated on her. Things had been crazy ever since. The control she’d valued since leaving home at eighteen and putting herself through college by working two jobs was gone.

Telekinesis was real. Forget about flickering lights in restaurants, she was now a full-out safety hazard. A jinx. A walking natural disaster.

That should be her byline—Carrie Stanfield: Natural Disaster.

She believed in psychics without question now. In fact, as she reflected back on her life, there’d been signs she was a telekinetic since she was a kid. Little things. Doors slamming shut when there wasn’t a breeze. A boy in Grade Six who’d picked on her losing his balance and falling headfirst into a swimming pool. The windshield of her father’s car cracking down the middle as he drove away, leaving her mom for another woman.

It was different now. Worse. Her emotions played a huge part with the crazy happenings. She knew she needed help mastering her new and unwanted abilities.

And she just happened to have the business card, tucked away safely in her wallet, of someone who’d promised to help. Someone who’d said she would make a great agent for PARA due to her journalism background and her natural curiosity.

Two weeks ago, she’d summoned enough courage to finally call Patrick to explain her situation. True to his word, he told her to immediately move back to Mystic Ridge and start work at PARA, where he’d personally help her master her telekinesis.

She was so grateful she’d nearly cried right then and there. She could investigate paranormal phenomena. Sure she could. And in return she’d get her life back under control. It sounded like a fair deal to her. An opportunity that sounded too good to be true.

Plus, she’d get to see Patrick again. The idea thrilled her more than she’d like to admit, even though she knew his fiancée of two years ago was probably his wife now.

I’ll lust after him at a safe distance, she thought.

Still, even solid in her knowledge that he was off the menu, she felt her heart thudding wildly as she waited for him in PARA’s lobby at promptly one o’clock this Monday afternoon. Today her new life would begin.

And then she saw him get out of the elevator at the far end of the lobby with a brunette woman. They begin walking toward her. He was just as she’d remembered—tall and lean, mid-thirties, with hair the color of dark golden sand and eyes the color of an emerald-green ocean. He wore a crisp white shirt that fit his top half perfectly and slate-gray pants that fit his bottom half perfectly.

Over the past two years she’d hoped that it was just her imagination that had made her remember this electric attraction to him. It wasn’t. She felt it now as keenly as she had the first time she’d seen him.

Two years, too many erotic dreams to count, and she knew she wanted Patrick McKay to make wild love to her.

The light above her head didn’t flicker this time. It shattered, raining tiny pieces of glass down just in front of where she stood on the ceramic tiled floor.

She winced. One look at Patrick was enough to spike her emotions enough for her telekinesis to create a minidisaster. Great second impression.

He stopped walking and looked up at the broken light, then down at her.

He raised an eyebrow. “That was definitely you this time, wasn’t it?”

She grimaced. “Guilty as charged.”

“Welcome to PARA, Carrie,” he said.

“Thanks. I’m—I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’ve agreed to work with me.”

“Mastering TK is a challenge, but I think you’ll be up to it if you’re willing to work hard.”

She glanced down at his left hand, surprised not to see a gold wedding ring there. Her eyes flicked back to his. “I’m a hard worker.”

“I’ve asked that you be temporarily assigned as my partner so I can work personally with you.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “That sounds good to me.”

Patrick then looked at the woman standing next to him. She was beautiful, with dark hair a shade lighter than Carrie’s and bright blue eyes. “This is Amanda LaGrange. She’ll be helping you get settled in and she’ll show you around. If you have any questions, Amanda’s the one to ask. I’m going to be away for the rest of the day, but we’ll touch base tomorrow. Our first assignment together will be an off-site assessment next week. I hope your passport’s up to date.”

An off-site assessment sounded interesting. “It is.”

Amanda stretched out her hand. “It’s great to meet you, Carrie.”

Carrie smiled and shook it. “You, too. And thanks again, Patrick. I’m going to sound like a babbling, enthusiastic newbie for a while, but the fact that you’d remember me after all this time really floors me. I appreciate it more than you know.”

She extended her hand toward him.

She waited.

And then waited some more.

His shoulders stiffened and he looked down at her hand. “Carrie, I…”

Amanda glanced at him for a moment. “Sorry, Carrie. Patrick doesn’t touch…uh…” She appeared to grapple for her words. “Patrick prefers not to have physical contact with anyone. Don’t take it personally.”

No physical contact? Carrie felt confused and embarrassed as she pulled her hand back and shoved it into the pocket of her winter jacket. This was the extreme opposite of the first time they’d met, when he’d taken her hand in his. Maybe he’d become a germaphobe in the last couple of years.

“It’s okay. I understand.” She didn’t, but she didn’t want him to feel awkward about it.

Patrick cleared his throat. “I can make an exception for my new partner, of course. Let’s try that again, shall we?”

He held his hand out to her, his expression tense.

Carrie glanced at Amanda, who watched them with a slight frown, before she took Patrick’s hand. He squeezed, but didn’t shake it. His skin was slightly rough and as warm as she remembered. It sent a shiver of awareness through her that made her breath catch. Nothing had changed. She still felt this strange sensual pull toward him that was much too strong to ignore. She wondered if he felt the same.

She shifted her attention from his hand to his handsome face and was startled to see his already tight expression had grown pained.

She tried to smile. “Hope you’re not reading something horrible about me this time.”

“No…nothing like that.” His voice sounded strained and he let go of her and took a shaky step backward. “That’s more than enough.” He said it under his breath, more to himself than to her, then gingerly touched his temples as if he had a headache.

She watched him cautiously. “Is something wrong?”

“No, it’s—it’s nothing. Sorry, Carrie, we’ll have to catch up later. I need to go. Right now.” He turned and quickly walked out of the building, pushing through the glass doors without another word.

Carrie watched him leave, deep uncertainty filling her. She glanced at Amanda. “I have that effect on men lately. They run away from me as fast as they can.”

Amanda laughed. “I have trouble believing that.”

“So did I scare him away? That just seemed a little…odd.”

Amanda was quiet for a moment. “Come over here. Before I show you the rest of the office and introduce you to everyone, there’s something we have to talk about.”

Carrie followed her toward a black leather couch in the waiting area across from the reception desk. “That sounds ominous.”

“Don’t worry, it’s got very little to do with you. It’s all about Patrick. And since you’re going to be working one-on-one with him, you have a right to know.”

“Know what?”

Amanda sat down and crossed her legs, gazing out the glass doors in the general direction Patrick had departed. “He’s changed. He never used to be this way.”

“What way?”

She pressed her lips together for a moment. “Before, he was funny and great to be around. He was a good sounding board, gave terrific advice and was fair to every employee at PARA. If you had to think of the perfect boss, Patrick McKay would be it.”

“Sounds too good to be true,” Carrie said.

Amanda smiled. “He wasn’t perfect, but he was close.” Her pleasant expression faded, replaced with concern. “But then he changed. Some time ago, he covered for an agent on a case and ended up getting shoved down a flight of stairs by a poltergeist.”

Carrie gasped out loud. She’d been reading up on the paranormal world in preparation for her work at PARA and knew a poltergeist was a nasty supernatural force that enjoyed making trouble and throwing furniture around. “Was he…is he okay? I mean, he seems fine now, but…”

“No, he wasn’t okay. The accident put him into a wheelchair for ages. He was supposed to go to physiotherapy three times a week to get back on his feet, but he wasn’t very patient with it and started slacking off, then wondered why he wasn’t seeing any solid results. Then one day about four months ago, he started walking again like nothing happened.”

Carrie leaned back into the sofa. “Just like that?”

Amanda nodded. “It was a miracle. But being healed stripped away his previously great personality. He even took a demotion from agency manager to field agent, which is the main reason he’s able to partner with you. While they’re looking for a replacement manager he’s doing a bit of both jobs, although reluctantly. But now he’s guarded and private to a fault, and he doesn’t like being around other people. And he never touches anyone. The handshake with you is the first time I can remember seeing him touch anyone in recent memory.”

Carrie considered all of this. It didn’t make much sense to her. But maybe Patrick had some issues about being in a wheelchair that made intimacy difficult now. Or perhaps it was posttraumatic stress from the injury itself. “What about his wife?”

“Wife?”

“Last time I saw him he said he was engaged.”

Amanda pulled her cell phone out of the pocket of her dark blue suit jacket and glanced at the screen when it buzzed, then she tucked it away again. “He was. But they broke up shortly after he was injured. He hasn’t been seeing anyone since then. I figured he didn’t want to date while he was dealing with his injury, but now that he’s healed, I really don’t understand what’s going on with him, and he refuses to talk to anyone about it.”

Patrick looked exactly the same as the first time Carrie met him, but she had sensed something was different about him. Guarded was a good way to put it.

“Why are you telling me all of this?” she asked after a moment.

Amanda hesitated. “Because Patrick’s decided he wants to help you. That means you’re going to get a chance to spend a lot of time with him when he would normally keep to himself. It’s an opportunity I didn’t want to let pass.”

“An opportunity for what?”

“You’re a journalist, and from what I’ve heard, a damn good one. You investigate stories and get to the bottom of them.”

“This is true,” she said, not without a smidgen of pride. She had the shiny awards to prove it still boxed up from her move to her new apartment three miles from the PARA office building.

“I want you to find out what happened to Patrick and why he changed.”

Carrie studied Amanda’s serious expression. “You really care about him, don’t you?”

“He’s a good friend to me and my husband—or at least he used to be. He has a problem and he won’t confide in anyone. Sometimes an intervention is necessary.” She exhaled a little shakily. “So, will you help me?”

Two years ago Carrie had felt such a strong physical attraction to Patrick that she hadn’t been able to forget him. Now she had a chance to get to know him better, to work with him personally as he helped her learn how to control her telekinesis. She didn’t know much about him, really, except what Amanda had just told her.

But he’d offered his assistance without hesitation the first time they’d met. If she could help him in return, she would.

“Okay,” she said with a smile. “I’ll let you know what I find. Promise.”

If there was one thing Carrie loved, it was a mystery.