Authors: Maralee Lowder
“What is it?”
“Who is it?”
Cassie and Shelly spoke at once.
Mac’s attention was immediately drawn to Cassie.
He heard the tension in her voice.
Although this was a bunch of
nonsense as far as he was concerned, her reaction to it troubled him.
Not taking her eyes from the ball, Mary Beth gave a small but negative shake to her head.
“It won’t let me see.
It wants us to know about it - it feeds off our fear -
b
ut it won’t reveal itself.
“It, it’s going to do something dreadful!”
Her eyes widened as she peered even deeper into the depths of the crystal.
“It’s going to be so terrible!
But I can’t see what it is!”
Mac was convinced that the anguish in Mary Beth’s voice was genuine.
He became seriously concerned when he saw the throbbing of her pulse at her throat.
Her fear was as real as anything he had ever seen.
And then her expression turned from fear to dismay.
“It’s gone!
All I see are clouds ... black, swirling clouds.”
Tears of frustration filled her e
yes as she strained to see more b
ut the images refused to reveal themselves.
Finally, realizing that she could not force the images to return, she covered the ball with the silken cloth.
Like everyone else in the room, Mac’s mind was filled with questions, but following the lead of the others, he kept his
silence.
He was the outsider here.
What was proper etiquette at mo
ments such as this, he wondered.
“I, I’ve got to get home,” Cassie broke the silence.
“It, it’s late, and
...”
The expression in her eyes revealed emotions she could not suppress ... fear, worry, confusion.
“No, don’t leave,” Naomi begged.
“I wish all of you would stay here tonight.
Please don’t go
!
”
“If you really feel that way, I’ll be more than happy to stay,” Edith replied, relief obvious in her voice.
“Well, I’ve got to get on home,” Shelly said.
“Joe’s probably already mad as hell at my being so late.
If he had to get Brian ready for school in the morning that would really rip it.”
She rose to leave.
“I’ll go with you,” Cassie said.
“I’ll feel better after I see you safely inside your house.”
“And who’s going to see you safely inside yours?” Mac asked.
Cassie turned her gorgeous golden eyes on him, her expression stating clearly how pleased she was at his obvious concern.
“Why,
I expect you will,” she replied
with just a
hint of her usual mischievousness
playing at the corners of her mouth.
“You’ve got that right.
I’m taking both of you ladies home, and that’s the end of it.
If you had good sense, you’d stay right here, like Edith.
Though I expe
ct you’re safe enough from the spirits
, I can’t say the same for your neighbors.
But if you insist on going to that remote cabin in the woods of yours, I’ll be damned if I’ll let you go alone.”
“Do you think someone should warn Myra about Mary Beth’s reading?” Shelly asked as she gathered up her handbag and sweater.
“After all, she is all alone.”
“If I know Alan, the man will be camped out in her living room while she sleeps off her headache.
No, I think we ought to let her get a good night’s rest,” Cassie replied.
It was nearly eleven o’clock when the trio left the bed and breakfast.
Except for a couple of bars, every business in the small town had closed hours before.
A nearly full moon glittered on the empty streets.
Under normal circumstances the effect would have been charming, but tonight, after Mary Beth’s sinister predictions, the moon shadows, coupled with the death-like silence, made the skin on the back of Mac’s neck crawl.
After dropping Shelly off, Mac turned his car up the lane that led to Cassie’s tiny home.
Huge trees stood sentinel on each side of the narrow, winding road, shutting out most of the light from the moon.
His headlights glittered off the windows as he pulled his car to a stop.
When he’d been there before he had been st
ruck by the warmth of the place, b
ut not tonight.
An icy shiver ran down his spine at the thought of Cassie sleeping alone in the isolated cabin.
“You’re not leaving tonight.”
The manner in which she spoke the words indicated neither
a
question
n
or
a
request, but rather a statement of known fact.
“I’m not?”
Cassie answered him by reaching out for his hand and leading him up the steps.
As she pushed the door open, she turned to him with a smile so sweetly seductive he feared he might melt on the spot.
“Not tonight.
Tonight I’m going to have you all to myself.
Tonight we’ll have a lifetime together.”
Her words, spoken with that sexy, girl-woman voice of hers, were his undoing.
All thoughts of refusing the kiss she
offered slipped away in a haze of hunger.
Even before the door had closed behind them, they were in each other’s arms, their mouths searching, tasting, devouring.
He reached down to slip his hand under her shirt but she stopped him.
“Not so fast”, she whispered provocatively.
“I want you to undo the buttons, one by one.”
Like a school boy with his first romance, Mac’s hands trembled as he followed her instructions.
This was her game and he would play it by her rules.
But damn, she was driving him crazy!
Finally, after what seemed forever, the last button was loose.
Slowly, almost reverently
,
he opened the shirt.
His heart stopped beating for a millisecond,
then
began a rapid pounding in his chest.
He’d never seen a more beautiful sight in his life.
“You’re not wearing a
bra.” H
e nearly choked on the words.
“I didn’t
want it to get in the way,” Cassie whispered as she arched her back.
Tipping her head back, her lips parted in anticipation as Mac proceeded to do justice to the gift she offered.
A shaft of moonlight from the undraped window illuminated Mac’s face as he lowered Cassie to the couch.
She gazed in wonder at the features she had come to love.
The light, certainly her own special gift from the Goddess, stripped Mac’s features of their usual cynical expression.
In this moment of perfect clarity, she saw past the hardened persona he exhibited to the rest of the world and found herself gazing into eyes filled with tenderness.
Her lips parted as he came to her, capturing her waiting mouth in a searing kiss.
Oh, yes.
She had waited so long to feel their hardness soften against her lips.
She welcomed the plunge of his tongue, winding hers with his, tasting him,
savoring
his very essence.
With seeming magic she stripped away his shirt.
Eager hands slipped over his body, tracing sinewy muscles, tangling in the mat of hair that formed a near perfect triangle on his chest.
She gasped with delight as his hands found their way under her loose cotton skirt to the inside of her thighs.
She purred her pleasure as he performed his own brand of magic on the tender flesh.
Instinctively, she opened herself to him, inviting him to become one with her.
The last remnants of clothing were tossed aside with utter disregard.
Their need to see, to feel, to taste, had become their only reality.
Suckl
ing at first one delicious pink-
tipped nipple and then the other, Mac’s hands explored the wondrous gift of her body.
Starting at her rib cage, they slowly, deliberately
,
crept lower, past her waist, lingered delightfully at her abdomen, and finally found their goal.
She felt his heart race as his fingers explored the hot, moist treasure.
“Please, I can’t stand it if you make me wait another minute,” Cassie gasped.
“Me either,” Mac sighed as he lifted himself over her, plunging himself deep within her.
A shudder swept over him as, for the first time in his entire life, he felt he was where he truly belonged.
Chapter 5
“What the hell?”
Mac jumped from the bed, his heart pounding a wild staccato.
He stood there for a moment, trying to get his bearings.
He was in a bedroom he’d never seen before, naked as the day he was born.
Just as the recollection of the previous night began to register in his fogged brain, a loud pounding at the front door once again echoed through-out the small house.
“What’s wrong?”
Cassie sat up, clutching a rumpled sheet in front of her.
“I don’t know.
Stay where you are,” he ordered in a tone that suggested he expected to be obeyed.
He spied his jeans
laying
in a heap on the living room floor.
Before he could reach them the pounding began on the door again, accompanied by the sound of several male voices demanding entrance.
He quickly pulled on his jeans and was reaching for the fireplace poker when he heard two words that caused him to drop it back on its holder.
Those two w
ords were “Sheriff’s Department
”
.
He wasn’t sure which would have been worse news for Cassie, an
unruly vigilante mob from town
or Sheriff Whitaker’s boys.
Either one meant trouble.
He threw the bolt and opened the door just as two burly deputies with a battering ram were stepping back to gain the speed necessary to break the door down.
“Sheriff’s Department!” a couple of the men yelled as a dozen more forced their way into the room.
Before Mac knew what was happening, he found himself on the floor, with his wrists roughly handcuffed.
“Hey!
What’s going on?”
“If you’re smart, you’ll keep your mouth shut, buddy,” one of the uniformed deputies advised
him
none too gently.
“You already got yourself in more trouble than the law allows.”
Two of the officers grabbed him by the shoulders and lifted him, then shoved him down on the couch.
He watched helplessly as several of the men rushed into Cassie’s bedroom.
He fought off a surge of rage at the thought of what their eyes must now be feasting on.
He prayed that she had had enough time to have at least slipped on a robe.
“Looks like you two were having a little party,” one of the two men left to guard him said.
Mac bit back his anger at the suggestive tone in the man’s voice.
“I can’t say as I blame you, buddy.
With her looks, any man would be only too willing to try his luck
,
even if she is a witch.
But you picked yourself the wrong squeeze this time.
This one’s a black widow spider
and you’re lucky you’re still alive.”
“Maybe not so lucky.
He looks more like an accomplice than a victim to me,” his partner observed.
“My bet is the
Sarge
takes him in too.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a commotion at the bedroom door as eight deputies tried to exit at the same time, shoving a handcuffed Cassie before them.
Mac’s first thought was relief that she had been able to slip on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt before the men had invaded her privacy.
But that thought was quickly followed by the realization that a great deal more was at stake than Cassie’s modesty.
What the hell was happening?
“Cassandra Adams, I’ve got a warrant here for your arrest.
I also have a warrant to search your premises.
Do you understand?”
Her only response was an expression of total confusion.
Mac’s stomach clenched as he gazed into her eyes, the pupils wide with shock.
Not bothering to wait for her answer, the men set about their task of searching every square inch of Cassie’s home.
She and Mac sat side-by-
side on the living room sofa as her privacy was savagely destroyed.
“I’m afraid you’re a fallen man,” she said at last, a wry tone to her voice. “It wouldn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what happened here last night.”
She nodded at the clothes that still lay where they had been tossed.
“The town gossips will have a field day with this.”