a Touch of the Past (An Everly Gray Adventure) (7 page)

"She sat here often. Reading, writing letters, just sitting…" I lost focus as I became absorbed with the images.
 

Pierce pushed away from the porch railing, the movement breaking my concentration. He took two deliberate steps toward me, the heat from his body warming the three inches of space he’d left between us.
 

My body hummed.
 

He slid his sunglasses off, hooked them on his shirt pocket, and framed my face with his hands. His lips brushed against mine. The breath backed up in my lungs, crowding my heart, and then he took the kiss into smoky darkness.

Emotion caught up with me, and I floated into the kiss as though it were my last link with sanity. Maybe it was. Too many surreal images of my only living relative were messing with my ability to separate the emotional overload from the reality of my purpose here—to keep her safe.
 

Pierce’s lips softened as they rubbed against mine, and the kiss lasted long enough to leave my knees wobbly.

When Pierce finally stepped back, I licked his spicy taste from my lips, and realized my fists were curled into the fabric of his shirt. Heat flooded my cheeks. I smoothed out the wrinkles, and tactfully ignored the image of the salesgirl flirting with him when he’d purchased the shirt.
 

The man had moved from friend to bodyguard. From someone I'd trusted to a potential enemy, and I’d still responded to his kiss like a hormonal teenager with no sense. Worse, it was probably exactly what he’d planned—to keep me unbalanced enough to spill secrets.
 

I’d been rationalizing the guilt associated with my physical reaction to Pierce for a while. Probably ever since I'd met him. Mitch was the first man I’d touched whose thoughts matched his words. He cared about me, and didn’t just make pretty comments to get me into bed. My ESP fingers had made intimate relationships almost impossible for most of my life, and Mitch had changed all that.
 

Enter Tynan Pierce. His words and thoughts matched, too. Two honest men. And I wanted, no, needed to explore exactly what that meant to me. Yeah, it was rationalization at its worst, but Pierce had never once tried to do more than kiss me. And I knew he would continue to respect that boundary. My fingers kept him honest, showed me the rules he'd imposed on himself when he touched me. The man had strong morals.
 

Exploring my femininity was one thing. Hurting Mitch—unacceptable. So, I squelched the lust humming through my veins and focused on the differences between this dangerous Irishman and my absent photographer. Pierce represented an opportunity for me to learn who I was, and about my strength and courage. My Mitch personified home, hearth, family, and love. Everything that really mattered to me.
 

Pierce must have sensed my change in mood because he slipped his shades on with a firm push. "Talk."

"Nothing here tells me where Grandma is now or what happened to her. The images were all of normal, quiet times. I didn’t pick up a threat—" I shrugged— "or anything other than peace and contentment."
 

Pierce ran his finger down my cheek. "You must have her skin. No freckles."
 

"That's a blessing." I’d always wondered how I came up with dark red hair and completely bypassed the freckles that usually went along with it. Now I knew, and the connection between Grandma and me spread warmly through my body.
 

"Doesn’t explain your eyes, though." Pierce's attention drifted to the rocking chair.

Where was he going with this? "I don’t know anything about my grandfather, but my mother had dark blue eyes like mine."
 

Pierce turned away from me, pulled his cell out of his back pocket, and started punching in numbers. It gave me the perfect opportunity to ease through the back door and into the kitchen. I snuck a peek out the window. He met my gaze, and gave me a nod, so I went back to work. Strange, since he hadn’t been more than arms distance away since we’d arrived.

A sigh of relief escaped from someplace deep in my psyche. The timing was perfect for me to do some sleuthing about the images I hadn’t shared with him. Like the fact that Grandma had been writing a letter to me while she sat in the rocking chair.
 

I needed to find that letter, preferably while Pierce was otherwise occupied. I inhaled the damp scent of decay. Not age. It was more like fresh mold than the dryness of antiquity. I ran my fingers along the inside of the door, and followed the image of my grandmother carrying the letter into the house.
 

Okay. I was on the right track, but didn’t have a clue where to go next. I brushed my fingers over the torn, stained wallpaper and an image of the kitchen flashed on my internal monitor. It was in pretty good shape, considering—small with worn wood floors and rain-stained walls. "Tell me where to look," I whispered to the essence of my grandmother. "Help would be good here."
 

I ran my fingers over the refrigerator door and picked up a faint undercurrent of furtive energy. Who knew what insects had set up housekeeping inside? Cockroaches grew big in the tropics, and I’d once seen them in a closed and locked dishwasher. Telltale mouse droppings were scattered around the floor, making me equally reluctant to open any cupboard doors. Not that bugs and critters would keep me from following my grandmother's lead, but if I didn't have to deal with them, why disturb their happy home life?
 

Instinct led me to a kitchen table, circa the nineteen-forties. It had a small drawer tucked under the laminate surface that caught my attention. When I touched it, energy pinged through my fingertips. The letter was in there. I glanced through the shards of broken window, and it looked like Pierce was about to slid his cell into his pocket.
 

No time to waste.
 

I crossed to the desk with two quick steps and pulled the drawer open.

No letter.

Damn.

It had to be in there. My spidey sense was sure of it. Besides, where else would a grandmother hide something so important but in her kitchen?
 

She wanted me to find it. Planned for me to find it. In the rocking chair image she'd looked right at me. Knew I’d be here.
How
she knew had about tweaked my curiosity to the breaking point, but I'd have to wait and explore that later.
 

I only had seconds to find that letter.
 

My fingers brushed something crunchy, and I jerked back. No time to worry about bugs. I stuck my hand in the back of the drawer and pulled out a book just as Pierce stepped through the back door. The
Hawaii Kai Cookbook
.

"Find something?"
 

I shook my head, and held it up for him to see. "Just an old cookbook. I didn’t open the cupboards or the refrigerator." I pointed at the mouse droppings. "Surprise encounters aren’t my thing. And there was rustling in that one." I nodded toward the cupboard door on my right.
 

While he went through the cupboards, I thumbed through the cookbook, trying to look casual. If I seemed too interested, Pierce would notice. The man
knew
things, and he had a chronic case of prickly neck intuition.
 

I turned a few pages, my fingertips itchy with excitement.

There it was. Snugly folded between Maui Pineapple Chicken and Coconut Crusted Cornish Hens. Now all I had to do was keep Pierce from taking any interest in an old cookbook.
 

Casual was the key. Like it didn’t matter.
 

I closed the book and slipped it under my arm as I wandered into the front part of the house. Judging from the holes and abundant droppings, mice had set up housekeeping in the sofa. I steered away from any and all upholstered furniture and made my way into the bedroom. It was as unappealing as the rest of the house, except for the chest of drawers. It called to me. I ran my fingers over the surface leaving streaks in the dust. There were a few partial images of Grandma, but they weren’t clear enough to help me find her. The key to her whereabouts remained safely tucked in the cookbook. I hoped.

Pierce came up behind me. "Find anything?"
 

"Not a thing." I faced him. "Images, but nothing I haven’t already told you."
 

He grunted and slid the cookbook from under my arm. I pretended interest in the view from the bedroom window, and hoped the panic racing through me wouldn’t be obvious.

He flipped the cover open. "Nineteen-seventy," he read, slowly turning the pages.
 

Seven

My breath hitched
,
and I
grabbed Pierce’s arm. "Could you?" I pointed at the chest of drawers.

He slapped the cookbook closed and handed it to me with a glare. "What did you see when you touched me?"
 

I casually slipped the book under my arm, my fingers shaking. Saved. Maybe. Not knowing any other Hawaiian goddesses, I sent silent thanks to Pele. "Nothing. The contact was blurred with other stuff. Sorry. Didn’t mean to let my fingers trespass. I’m curious about what’s in the drawers, and don’t want to bump into any bugs."
 

His brows arched.

"Okay, so maybe I touched you because I wanted to see what your phone call was about. But don’t worry, because nothing hit my radar. You know I wouldn’t get words anyway." I shrugged. "Maybe some emotion if you were agitated."
 

"Huh," he grunted and slid open the top drawer of the dresser.
 

Whew. I’d pulled it off. Who knew I had so many lies stored in my mental repertoire? I hadn’t completely distracted Pierce, but at least I’d rescued the cookbook before he found my letter.
 

By the time we’d looked through all five drawers, I had a major case of the twitchies. "Pierce?"
 

"Yeah—" he scrubbed the back of his neck— "something’s about to go down."
 

I scanned the room for whatever was giving me the creepy-crawlies. "It’s not in here." Fear knotted between my shoulder blades. My grandmother’s presence had faded, slipped away from me, from this house.

He cupped my elbow and led me toward the back door. It didn’t do much to stop the premonition that filled my belly with quivering fear. Something was very wrong.
 

"Do you feel the emptiness?" I asked, stepping off the back porch. Panic chased me toward a clearing about thirty feet from the house. Pierce followed. I sensed him moving in a well-rehearsed surveillance pattern—searching for bad guys, maybe. But this wasn’t about that kind of danger, at least I didn't think it was. My feet dragged with the sure knowledge that I didn’t want to know what lay ahead.
 

My grandmother had been choreographing this whole scenario. And if that wasn’t mind-boggling enough, it brought back uncomfortable memories of a séance I'd monitored for Mitch's sister, Jayne, a few months back. Chatting with the dead wasn't my thing, but it hadn't been nearly as disconcerting as being led around this homestead by my grandmother's will. I scrubbed at my arms. A powerful woman, my grandmother.
 

Clouds rolled in and the air pressed against me, heavy with the scent of rain. I stumbled over a rock, landed on my hands and knees, the cookbook tumbling from under my arm. The dry grass scraped my palms. Pierce scooped up the book with one hand, and pulled me to my feet with the other. "You okay?"

"No. I…" I reached for the cookbook, hugging it tightly, then took a step—faltered—my legs shaking. Wind spun around us, wild with the coming rain, and blew the tall grass aside.
 

It was there, just on the other side of a small pile of dirt.
 

A stone slab that marked the final resting place of…someone.
 

"Grandma," I whispered, pain clogging my throat. The first drops of rain caught in my hair and trickled down my face.

Pierce hugged me close against his side. "Easy, El. We don’t know who’s buried there."

My heart pounded, a solemn lament against my ribs.
 

I knew.
 

My feet moved, hesitant, until I reached the grave. Kneeled. My fingers shook, and the sky opened to shower me in a warm, fragrant bath. The letters carved into the stone blurred beneath my fingers as I traced her name. Makani Leialoha.

Pierce touched my shoulder. "Makani means wind and Leialoha means beloved child. She was named to be a beloved free spirit." His words were soft, disappearing into the sound of rain beating against the earth.

The pieces of my dream splintered, and then the stone under my fingers warmed, and love poured through my body. "Grandma."

"I’m sorry." Pierce’s brogue was heavy.

I frantically scanned my internal monitor, pulling up the images of my grandmother. They flashed vibrant for a few seconds before disappearing into nothingness—like life fades into death.

"I didn’t get to meet her, but she’s safe now. Safe from you, and from whoever else wanted information from her." I threw the words at Pierce, angry at losing Grandma before I found her.