Sex and the Psychic Witch (6 page)

Chapter Ten

DETERMINED to get Hellcat Harmony to hang around for a few extra hours, King followed her back through the tunnel toward its termination in the cedar dressing room.

She’d had a nasty look on her face for him when he got to the parlor. Odd that. A few times today, she’d reminded him of a small wildcat—a lynx or a bobcat—graceful, beautiful, disarming, a feline who could close in with stealth and feed off you before you knew how deadly she was.

She hadn’t felt deadly when he was driving himself crazy kissing her in the toy room. He’d disarmed
her
, not the other way around. Not that she’d fought him.

Neither had she fought the sexual pull when she was bandaging his wound and frustrating the hell out of him with her teasing. Everything that happened between them this afternoon would make keeping her at a safe distance more difficult. But keeping his distance would be safer than the unwanted fantasy she inspired of the two of them together. Very together. Very bad.

What they’d shared, which had seemed fine for a day out of time, now endangered the scheme forming in his mind. Okay, the scheme his men had just planted, and not gently, in his mind—damn them and damn her. But that arrangement would only work if he could keep his distance. Not easy when she could seduce him with a look.

Before he took steps to put the scheme in motion, however, he needed to know the enigmatic interloper better, and the best way to do that would be to keep her around for a few more hours, after the crew left, no construction issues to distract them.

Back in the dressing room, he gave her some space.

“Something’s stuck in your craw,” she said. “You wanna tell me what?”

“Your acuity is alarming, but if you must know, I almost did have a mutiny, because of your ghost stories. My workers
all
want to quit, and that’s the first time they’ve ever agreed on
anything
, thank you very much.” King tested his five o’clock shadow and examined the wildcat’s flawless features. Full lips, pouty, kissable—eminently kissable, he now knew. Hair of spun gold, eyes as big as saucers, aquamarine, and
deceptively
innocent. “Call me crazy,” he said, “but I’m determined to complete castle restorations, despite Paxton generational failures to do so . . . and despite the fact that you think I’m being hampered by a ghost.”

“I
think
? Have you sat on your punctured butt in the last hour?”

“All right, so maybe I’m beginning to suspect you’re right. So what? I still have to finish the job I started.”

“Which is?”

“To get this hellish place off my hands and sell it to the highest bidder.”

The familiar wail came from so close beside them, he jumped almost as high as the sexpot, which hurt like the devil. Pissed by his startled surprise, and by the pain in his ass, he took Harmony’s hand to lead her from harm’s way.

In Gussie’s room, she pulled him up short. “Wha’d’ya know, there’s a gentleman hiding behind those invisible fatigues, but
I
hardly need protecting.”

“You’re slipping, oh mighty mediator. That wail just now sounded more like a war cry than a peace offering, and did you already forget the toy room? Peacemaker, my . . . ass.”

“Now you’re just being mean.” Her full lips at rest fell into a natural pout, but when she all-out tried, like now, he wanted to make a meal of her, starting with her mouth, and ending with her mouth, but stopping at some amazing places in between.

“Unkind, perhaps,” he said, pulling himself from his fantasies, “but honest and practical, too. I have no choice. Getting this place off my hands is serious business.”

“More serious than you know. You heard Gussie’s wail of protest. She wants you to keep the castle in the family, and I think she has some serious persuasion in mind.”

“What do you care?”

“I . . . it’s complicated,” Harmony said, sounding to him like she was hiding something, then she bit her lip for a pensive, and seductive, minute. “I thought I heard in Salem that the castle
can’t
leave your family,” she added.

“Legally, it can, and local gossip never gave my family anything but grief, so your sources are as suspect as your motive for being here.” King took down the empty picture frame with the cracked glass and waved it under the hellcat’s nose. “Off-loading this albatross, lock, stock, and bad luck, is good business. Excellent business.”

“For who?”

“Me. My heirs—the next generation of Paxtons, and the generations who come after them.”

“Since you told me you stopped thinking with your man brain—which, if you ask me, is a blatant misrepresentation of the facts—I didn’t expect you to produce any heirs.”

“You know nothing about me.”

“You did mention celibacy.”

“In the present tense, and nearly so.”

“So the future’s up for grabs? Pardon the pun.”

“No, damn it.”

Her eyes got so big and deep, he could fall in and die happy. “You already have an heir!” She spoke with such certainty, the hair at his nape stood and saluted.

Chapter Eleven

“YOU’RE fishing,” King said, a weak defense at best. Who was she to say he had heirs?

“No, I’m using the sense I was born with, and it says there’s no reason for you to sell this place, because you have heirs who’d want it.”

“Your intuition is faulty. This is hardly a profit-making proposition.”

“You’re avoiding the subject of heirs, but that aside, homes are for living in not for making a profit.”

“There you go. My point exactly. Generations have tried and
failed
to live here. They worked to make this castle a home, part of Paxton family life and legacy, but misfortune dogged them the way it dogs me. Spending time here caused my ancestors physical and emotional harm. Husbands and wives—whole families—left, alienated from the castle and from each other. Many of them separated, never to reunite.”

Harmony nodded as if she knew the reason why.

“What?” King asked.

“Gussie likes to stir things up, and not in a good way. She can be downright malevolent, if you get on her bad side, which you obviously have. Keep that in mind when you think about signing on the dotted line.”

“If you say so.” King tried to guess at the hellcat’s game. He doubted she had a vintage clothing store. Her motives were something he needed to discover. “Feel free to stick around for a few more hours,” he said. “You lost time tending my . . . wound, and I appreciate it, but you haven’t had much of a chance to look for vintage clothes.”

He went back into the dressing room to check the clothes racks for pillaging and plundering. “Looks like you barely got started. This is a small piece of the castle’s vintage-clothing pie,” he said. “What’s a few more hours? I could get you to the Beverly Airport by nine, then to Salem by ten.”

“I . . . it’s a tempting offer, but—”

He knew she’d decline. She didn’t want him to see there was no vintage clothing store. You know what; he could prove that right now. He took a random gown off the rack, whipped the sheet off it, and held it up. “What do you call this?”

“A beaded flapper dress, circa 1920. Why?”

“Value?”

“Today? Or when it was new? I’d need to examine it for condition and maker to give you a fair price for the vintage market. Is this a test?”

“Yes.” King replaced the flapper number and showed her a navy gown. “On sight, tell me what you know about this one.”

The hellcat grinned, and the devil in him rose to attention.

“That’s a Worth,” she said. “Designed and produced in Paris. It cost big bucks around 1860, and it costs big bucks vintage, just because it’s sturdy enough to stay on that hanger. How’m I doing?”

King checked the label, saw she was right, and shoved the dress back on the rack.

“Hey, take it easy. I definitely want that one.”

“But you said it was big bucks.”

“I’ll give you a
supplier’s
fair price. I have a market for it. You don’t. A successful businessman like you knows we both have to make a profit.”

King cursed beneath his breath. “You passed.”

“With only two dresses? Are you kidding? My sister Vickie was harder on me when she was teaching me about vintage clothing and accessories. Test me some more. This is fun.”

“Okay.” He led her to the cabinet that closed off the tunnel to the east wing. “Name the geegaws in the cabinet.”

Her eyes actually twinkled. “That’s a sterling vinaigrette geegaw, a buttonhook geegaw, a fan geegaw.”

“Enough with the sass.”

As if to prove she didn’t have it in her to obey, she removed the stick she’d called a fan from the bottom shelf, and with a flick of her wrist, it became a fan after all. She covered her face with it to flirt with her eyes—very effective—then she gazed demurely down.

If he didn’t know better, he’d think she was checking out his package, the thought giving her something bigger to contemplate. Damn, she had an effect on him.

King coughed with a rare shot of embarrassment, denied the warning in his head, and turned back to the case. He pointed to several more mysterious women’s accessories from the last century.

“Tussy-mussy,” she said, “a tiny vase for flowers that women wore on their dresses. That’s a jewelry casket; it opens at that latch. See?” She grinned like every straight-A student he’d ever hated. “The shoe is a snuff box.”

“Please. The shoe’s a knickknack.”

“It’s a snuff box shaped like a shoe.” She took it from the case, opened the top, and shoved it under his nose. “Smell.”

King reared back, sneezed, and pulled out his handkerchief.

She laughed, a sound he liked too much.

“You win,” he said.

“What do I win?” asked the enchantress, giddy with success.

“You win a few more hours to go through the castle, and my belief in your knowledge of vintage clothes, if not my belief in your shop.”

She shrugged. “Like it matters. A few more hours to search would help, but staying here alone with you doesn’t seem prudent. Nothing personal.”

“I kiss you senseless and bare my ass to you, and you’re afraid to stay alone with me?”

“I rest my case.”

“You make me sound like a pervert.”

“If the bare ass doesn’t fit, try the Braille boob-reading.”

“Hey, there were extenuating circumstances, which you damned well know.”

She patted his chest. “I’m screwing with your mind again. But staying alone at night with a man I don’t know, in a castle I don’t know, with attacking toys . . . Nah.”

“Wise girl.” He’d be wise to let her go home with the crew for the same reasons, not to mention his out-of-character, out-of-control attraction. “We wouldn’t be alone,” he said, despite his good intentions. “I have a live-in cook. Her husband’s the head gardener. The guards you charmed with your . . . cleavage, was it? They live here as well.”

He’d found the peacemaker’s Achilles’ heel, judging by her look of interest. His libido did a happy dance while his common sense shook its sad head. “Tell you what,” King said, “after the construction crew leaves, you can meet the residents and tell them we’re working late tonight. That way, you can pillage and plunder while I finish my work. Deal?”

She extended her hand. “Deal.”

King shook it, and ducked.

Harmony looked down at him with a furrowed brow. “What was that about?”

“Hell if I know. When I kissed you, I got shot in the ass. For shaking your hand, I expected nothing less than a goose egg the size of Rhode Island.”

“It’s true,” she said. “Gussie would rather we weren’t in accord, because discord is her MO, but she expended a lot of energy in the toy room, so I don’t expect we’ll hear from her for a while.”

“You really believe that?”

“A ghost needs time to regain her energy, like a man after sex.”

“You’re a laugh a minute, you know that?”

“I got a million of ’em.”

“Spare me.”

“How can you doubt my sincerity after today? There’s proof of Gussie all over the castle.”

“What proof?”

“For one thing, nobody has ever finished refurbishing this monstrosity. What makes you think you can succeed where your ancestors failed?”

“I can handle the accidents, the arguing, and wailing—unless you’re here so I don’t have to. I’m stronger and more determined than my ancestors. I have the killer instincts to get the job done.”

“Do you expect to find buyers with killer instincts to live here?”

King reared back. “Now you’re just being mean.”

“Me? I’m being a realist. Look at your butt. Oh, sorry, that’s anatomically impossible. Sit on it then and tell me you don’t believe Gussie can stop you. She
won’t
let you finish restoration, never mind letting you sell the place to strangers. She doesn’t even like
you
here.”

“So why doesn’t she mind you?” King asked. “Crap, listen to me, talking as if she actually exists. Besides, she
doesn’t
like you. Look how she scared you today.”

“She toyed with me. She
wounded
you.”

“Nevertheless,” he said, “she—
it
—whatever—was quiet today for the first time in a century.”

“You know the reason for that, right?”

“None that I’ll admit to . . . in the event of a sanity hearing.”

“Fine, don’t admit it, but if I stay, you’ll at least know you’re safe for the evening. Whether you know it or not, you need protecting.”

“The hell I do!” He touched his throbbing butt. “Well. Good job so far.” Half of him wanted to pretend he needed the annoying brat so she’d minister to him again—he guessed that was his man-brain half. But the real-brain half—the military-trained businessman with no heart—knew he’d best stay rank-on stubborn and keep a safe distance where the sexpot peacemaker and his overactive libido were concerned.

Unfortunately, for the sake of getting the place finished, he needed to chance keeping the seductress around. “So you’re staying after the men go tonight,” he confirmed. “You want to; you know you do. So you will, right?”

“To keep you from getting brained, yeah.”

“Something tells me,” King admitted, “that I’m more than likely to get brained by you.”

“There is that.”