Linda Jones - Last of the Ravens

“You must have had an enlightened decorator,” she teased.

“No decorator. I did it all myself.”

She studied him critically; he could feel her gaze on him. “Most men are very utilitarian when it comes to decorating.”

Bren shrugged. “You’ll have to see my house and judge for yourself, I guess.”

She clammed up, perhaps no more comfortable with the idea of visiting his home than he was at the idea of inviting her there.

They hadn’t been gone more than fifteen minutes before Miranda knew agreeing to let Brennus Korbinian take her anywhere was a huge mistake. Their simple trip felt too much like a date, even though the antique store he took her to was definitely not a normal stop on any courtship route. The long warehouse was dusty and overstuffed, filled to the brim with a mixture of new and old pieces, some of them treasures, most of them junk.

She loved the crowded, dusty store, and strangely enough Bren seemed comfortable there. He knew the woman who owned and ran the place, an older lady he called Mabel, and the greetings they’d exchanged had been simple and cordial. With the owner of the antique store he was anything but grumpy, though he wasn’t exuberant in his interactions, either. Mabel was helping another couple look for something specific, leaving Miranda and Bren to wander through the lovely mess alone.

They hadn’t been browsing long when Bren asked almost casually, “So, how do you know Roger Talbot?”

It was an innocent enough question, she supposed. In the Atlanta area Miranda had gotten a lot of press, some of it praising, more of it denigrating, the occasional bit meant to be amusing, she supposed. Even though her work often took her out of state, away from home Roger always managed to keep her involvement under wraps. He had not been so lucky at home base. Locally, word of her talents had been out for a while now.

Obviously no one around here would be reading the Atlanta papers, so she was tempted to make up a believable story for Bren, something that had nothing to do with seeing ghosts or solving crimes. He would probably believe whatever she told him, unless he happened to do a Google search on her. Some days she hated the Internet! Nothing was secret anymore. Nothing was private.

Besides, she’d been here before, she’d played that game. She meets a man. She likes him and he likes her. Why spoil it right off the bat with the truth? All goes well and then he finds out what she can do and it all goes to hell.

Miranda picked up a small glass bowl and studied it carefully, afraid to look directly at Bren. She tried to convince herself that she didn’t like him all that much, anyway. If she scared him off here and now, what had she lost? Nothing. “I talk to the ghosts of murder victims at crime scenes and pass the information on to Roger, who uses what I find out from the departed to collect the evidence he needs to arrest and convict the guilty.”

All was silent. Miranda listened intently to the horrendously loud ticking of a nearby ancient clock as she studied the light from the front window breaking through the glass bowl in her hand. Bren didn’t laugh, he didn’t gasp, and unless he moved soundlessly he hadn’t stepped away from her in horror, either.

“Sounds like tough work,” he finally said in a lowered voice. “No wonder you needed a vacation.”

Miranda twisted her head slightly and looked into Bren’s face. No, he wasn’t kidding her. He wasn’t scared or repulsed, either. There was a touch of sympathy in his eyes, but not so much that she thought he felt sorry for her. She hated pity as much as she did disbelief. Maybe more.

He shook a finger at her, and she noted that he had a workingman’s hands, long-fingered and callused and rough and beautiful. “You weren’t talking to yourself this morning or after you fell off the road. You were talking to a ghost.”

“I was. You don’t seem at all surprised,” she observed.

“It takes a lot to surprise me.” He smiled. For a man who didn’t smile often, he did so very nicely. “To be honest, I’m relieved. For a while there I thought you might be a little bit off your rocker, talking to yourself and all.”

“I do sometimes talk to myself,” she said, experiencing the strongest rush of ease she’d felt in a long time.

“Yes, but you probably don’t tell yourself to go away.”

She drew back a little. “You heard that?” This morning when she’d tried to order Dee to go she’d whispered so softly and Bren had been standing so far away…

“Yeah.” He motioned to one ear with one of those long, fine fingers. “I have the Korbinian hearing. You can’t pull anything over on me.”

Heaven above, she liked him. Cheryl’s psycho, Roger’s irate neighbor who was determined to own the entire mountain, a man who’d literally run her off the road and then chastised her for being there. She liked him much more than she should. He was alternately funny and pensive, grumpy and hospitable, and he did look fine in those worn jeans. And then an alarming thought occurred to her, a thought that wiped away all her ease.

“You’re being nice to me so I’ll convince Roger to sell you the cabin!” She put the glass bowl down too hard. “I should’ve known,” she muttered to herself.

“I am not,” he said without anger.

“You are. That’s why you offered to give me a ride, that’s why you stopped and helped me after you ran me off the road.” She threw her hands up in the air. “If you didn’t want me to help you get the cabin, you probably would’ve left me there to fend for myself. You probably would’ve gotten a good laugh and just kept on driving.”

Finely shaped eyebrows arched. “You don’t think much of me, do you?” he asked, calm as could be.

“No, I don’t.” Miranda defensively crossed her arms and took a pose that clearly said Keep away. Clear as it should’ve been, Bren wasn’t listening.

“Do you want to know why I offered you a ride?” He took a step closer and she backed away. “Do you really want to know why I found myself outside the cabin on your first night on the mountain?”

Naked, as she recalled.

Again he moved forward and she moved back, until she found herself trapped in a kind of hole fashioned from an antique wardrobe and a noisy clock. Tick tock, tick tock. “Do you really want to know why I didn’t run from you when you made it very clear that was what you wanted?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

He leaned in, cupped her chin and lifted her face, and then he placed his mouth over hers. She was so surprised by the move that for a moment she didn’t react. She simply stood there and accepted; she experienced; she felt. Yes, it had been a long time since she’d been properly kissed, and this simple touch of mouth to mouth was more than proper. It was extraordinary. The kiss rocked her to her toes, it paralyzed her, it shook her to the center of her being and fired up a wave of desire that was strong and primitive and totally unexpected. She heard the ticking of the big clock and the beat of her own heart, she felt Bren’s lips and the wobbling of her knees and a tingle that shook her and took her to a place she had not been in a very long time.

Desire. She couldn’t say the sensation was entirely unknown to her, but it was something she’d denied herself for years, and she had never experienced it so fully, so deeply or so quickly. Bren’s lips moved gently and she shuddered. Her lips parted and so did his, and for a moment she was frozen, unable to breathe, unable to describe the connection and pleasure she experienced. When he removed his mouth from hers it took all the will she had not to grab the front of his shirt and pull him back.

“That’s why,” he said, and then he turned away and left her standing there, shaken and confused and very tempted to chase after him.