"God," he said as they descended into cool, moist air. "I forgot how beautiful this is."
Compared to the scrubby pine woods or desert that covered most of the land around town, Fairy Canyon was an exotic oasis. The creek that ran through it was fed by the local aquifer. It narrowed during the summer but did not dry up. As a result, oak grew here and cypress and maples that would turn to flame in October. Moss padded the ground like fairy stepping stones. Zoe had to remind herself this wasn't a romantic date. They'd come to see what readings she could get off the falls, to see if she could shed light on the mystery surrounding Alex's client's son.
The falls announced their nearness with the steady rushing sound they made plunging down the rocks. Fairy Falls was no Niagara, but for Arizona it was tall and wide, booming slightly over the hollows that undercut the striated red sandstone. A poison-green pool met the waters' misty culmination, the color the result of a vigorous algae content and a lot of silt being stirred up. Only the bravest souls swam here, because the pool was known to be home to snakes and leeches, and the rocks were slippery enough to defeat experienced hikers. The caves behind the water also remained unexplored, being prone to rockfalls. Fairy Falls was strictly for admiring by eye—not that this was a great hardship.
"Wow," Alex exclaimed as they emerged through the veil of trees for their first clear look. "You can see how rumors started that this was the spot to scope out fairies."
Zoe could see it, though she'd never met a fairy here herself. Despite her own flock not seeming to like the place, the effect of the sun slanting through the leaves to strike rainbows off the misting water was magical. Birds and insects set up a steady chatter among the trees, their pleasant noise underscoring the peaceful stillness that lay beneath. A heron stalked farther down the stream, partially hidden by the bank's tall reeds.
Good hunting
, Zoe thought, wishing him a meal he liked—a nice plump lizard or a juicy frog.
Alex startled her by tugging at her hand. The warm length of his fingers inspired a shiver of déjà vu. She'd loved holding hands with him when they were dating. Walking down the halls at school. Feeling for a little while as if she fit in.
"Sit," he said. "I've got to enjoy this for a few minutes. I missed this nature stuff in Phoenix."
He'd spread the blanket on a grassy spot near the pool. Zoe set her purse beside it, which allowed Corky to bounce out like a jumping bean. Fortunately, she'd thought to buy him a teeny-tiny harness on her and Samuel's lunchtime shopping spree. Florabel had come to Petsmart as well, so perhaps there was a fairy romance in the offing. Zoe smiled as Corky chased a small white moth across the grass, losing his prize—and falling over—when he came to the end of his bright blue leash. Zoe was glad she'd already attached it to her purse handle, and gladder still that the purse was too heavy for the kitten to pull.
"Corky's fine," Alex said, tugging her hand again.
With a trepidation she couldn't avoid, Zoe accepted his help to sit, careful to smooth her skirt beneath her before she did. Alex's hand held on to hers a moment longer than it had to, seeming to pull away reluctantly. Heat slid through her, uninvited but unstoppable. Disconcerted, she pressed her lips together and looked at the falls.
She was here to work, and so was he. He had a boyfriend, and so did—well, she really didn't, but that was beside the point. Determined to do what she'd come here for, she blew out her breath and closed her eyes, trying to sense any remnants of supernatural events. She cast her memory back to how the falls had looked that night five years ago. Only the top of the canyon had been visible from her house. The colored spheres had danced in and out of the chasm, flirting with the stars. They must have been huge for her to see at that distance, maybe as big as cars.
Tell me
, she thought to whatever spirits were listening.
Tell me what this has to do with Oscar Pruitt
.
Her insides got very quiet, the silence opening in her head and spreading out. She felt a pulsing beneath her thighs, coming up through the blanket from under the ground. The cadence was slow and steady, thick as honey but clear as sunshine. It carried a scent like wet leaves and earth, and its warmth seeped into her flesh, making her aware of how big this planet was. Perhaps it was an illusion, but she had the sense of tree roots reaching deep for water, of flowers straining toward their bees. She understood then that every living thing wished to grow in some way—to be taller or stronger or more fruitful. The thrumming of that universal drive coiled unexpectedly in her sex, the sudden unexpected tightening making her so wet so fast she gasped.
"What?" said Alex. "What did you see?"
Zoe blinked her eyes open and hoped her voice wouldn't sound too husky. "Um, there's a lot of earth energy around here."
"What does that mean?"
"That the Sierra Club should be really proud of us."
Alex swore under his breath.
"I can try again in a few minutes. Narrow my focus more on Oscar. That was just kind of unsettling. Maybe this spot
is
a power vortex."
And maybe reaching out for answers had activated it.
"Earth energy, huh?" Alex peered at her. Knowing she was flushed and unlikely to grow less so with him looking at her, she struggled not to evade his perusal too obviously.
"So," she said, hoping to nudge his thoughts from where she feared they were veering. "You remember Johnny Thurman?"
Alex leaned back on his hands, his legs stretched out in starched khaki trousers, his head turned to consider her. He wore a beautiful, European-styled business shirt. Even with the sleeves rolled up and the collar open, it fit so well it must have been custom-made. Alex had never been a slob, but his new adult polish increased her sense that she was out of her depth with him. Clearly, he was no hand-to-mouth PI. An expensive looking Tag Heuer circled his left wrist with perfect casualness. The bone it rested on looked strong.
You're really losing it
, she told herself,
if some man's wrist is pushing your buttons
.
When she began to think he was just going to stare at her, Alex finally spoke. "You'd be referring to my best friend and running back, Johnny Thurman—until he decided I was the devil incarnate who needed to be frozen out of my team."
"That's the one," Zoe said, relieved that he remembered what she was talking about. "He owns a firing range outside of town."
"Oh, great." Alex snorted. "Now I have to watch my back for a new reason."
"Everybody isn't like Mrs. Fairfax. I think he feels bad for helping run you out of town. He asks about you now and then. What you're up to. If you're okay. I tell him I only know what your mom tells me, but that seems to satisfy him."
Alex sat up straighter. "Johnny Thurman asks
you
about me?"
"Crazy, I know. Unlike you, I wasn't his favorite person."
"He hated your guts. I almost lost him as a friend when I started dating you."
Embarrassed, Zoe rubbed the side of her face. "That was because of what I did to him my second week of school."
"What did you do?"
"I'm only telling you because these days I don't think he'd mind if you knew."
Alex laughed softly at her foot dragging. "What did you do?"
"Actually, it was more what his dad did."
A funny look crossed Alex's face, superseding his amusement. "Johnny's dad was dead by the time we got to high school."
"Five years when I met him, according to him, and every day of those five years he'd been looking for someone who could give a message to his son. I spent my first week of freshman year being yelled at by this colonel guy whose son I'd never met, who I was pretty sure didn't want to hear from lowly little me. But the more I tried to ignore him, the louder he got. It was no wonder my classmates thought I was spacey. I barely heard a word anybody said until I gave in."
"What did he want you to tell Johnny?"
Zoe smiled at that. "To stop being a bully. Which I could have lived with, except the colonel told me all this other stuff about his son that I knew Johnny wouldn't want me privy to. Most ghosts are more considerate, but I guess Johnny's dad wanted to be sure his son couldn't blow me off. He didn't, either. Once Johnny knew his dad was watching everything he did—and I do mean
everything
—I never heard of him beating up another person. I think he hated me because that felt better than thanking me for bullying him into doing what he knew was right."
"Huh." Alex scratched the fine gold stubble on his jaw. "I always wondered what made Johnny straighten up. I have to admit I thought I'd finally gotten through to him about leaving the nerds alone."
"His dad did like you," Zoe was happy to say. "He thought you were a good influence. In fact, the colonel told me he tried to talk to you for a while. He thought you might be sensitive enough to hear."
Alex gave a shiver that was only part exaggerated. "Now you're giving me the willies."
"It's not an insult. You were sensitive enough to see I wasn't just a freak, despite most of your friends thinking that you were nuts."
"I'm not convinced I deserve much credit for that. I fell for you too hard to care what they thought."
He grinned as he said it, his lazy, wolfish smile, but Zoe wasn't sidetracked. "You always were hard on yourself. You never wanted to give yourself credit for being a good person."
Alex's smile faded. He drew a circle on the dull blue blanket between their hips. "I wasn't very good to you."
"Yes, you were. The bad part was only the end. The good parts were some of the best times I ever had. My own parents never made me feel as loved as you."
"Zoe, I—" He stopped, turning toward her like she'd turned to him, their knees bumping lightly through her gauzy skirt. Color suffused his down-turned face, rising up his strong, tanned throat. Zoe's felt as if some power outside herself were tugging at her gaze. When it hit his groin, she couldn't miss how turned on he was. His erection looked like it was ready to tear right through the placket of his nice trousers.
She made an involuntary noise—hunger or apology. Alex looked up, his eyes a dark, swimming blue. For a second Zoe felt like she was falling.
"I can't talk to you like this," he said hoarsely. "I can't just…"
"Just?"
He shook himself, the motion turning into a shudder that ran across his broad shoulders. "I can't act like this is just you being nice and trying to help me let myself off the hook for being a shit to you. I don't feel nice with you next to me. I don't feel nice with all your sweetness shining in your eyes."
The pulse started up beneath her again, the earth's own heart reverberating in her pussy. "What do you feel?"
His pupils swelled at her hoarse whisper. "Like I want to push up that skirt and fuck you so hard we dig a trench in the grass. Like I want to do every fucking thing we didn't get a chance to when you were fifteen. And then I want to repeat them all about a thousand times. I want you, Zoe. There hasn't been a day—"
He broke off, his hands clenched on his thighs with white-knuckled force. "Look at me, Zoe.
This
is what I feel."
His fists framed his erection, and as she did what he asked, as she looked at him, she saw the straining arch swell thicker.
Instinct took over, not right or wrong, just pure primal reasoning. This was fair. He'd waited long enough, and this was fair. She bent to him, and he didn't stop her, just hissed in a surprised breath as she pressed her lips to that raging pole—gently, softly, treating his hard-on like a boo-boo her kiss could soothe.
"Zoe," he said, her name strangled. He hadn't moved—not to touch her, not to get away—as if the fate of the world hung on his muscles staying locked where they were. She braced her hands on his knees and kissed the bulge again, adding a dragging brush to her lips' soft press.
"Zoe, don't do that unless you mean for me to—"
He couldn't finish. When she sat back on her heels, a muscle ticked in his jaw.
"I mean for you to," she said.
He gasped for air like he'd been drowning, then grabbed her shoulders and pushed her onto her back so fast she got dizzy. Her legs sprawled as she toppled, and his knees found a home between them almost before she spread them wide enough.
He kissed her, his jaw pressing hers open for his tongue's smooth plunge. His weight came down hard into the notch of her thighs. Him being there felt so good, so right, that she didn't argue when he lifted off her far enough to tear off his belt. He yanked out his shirttail a second later, making short work of the buttons so he could strip it off all the way. His chest was gorgeous, hairier than she remembered, with a six-pack that could have graced the cover of
Men's Fitness
.
"Back pocket," he said, returning to grind that other steely hardness against her crotch. "Condoms in my wallet."
She had a second to change her mind, but she let it pass. He groaned as she pushed her hands into both back pockets, scratching her nails up his butt to pull the wallet out.
"Hurry," he said. "I'm working on fifteen years worth of dying here."
He had four condoms in his wallet, lubricated and extra thin, all of which spilled out of her hold when his hips found the perfect spot to roll against between her legs.
"Wow," she panted, fumbling to gather them back up while her pussy sang a thanks for the treatment it was getting. "That's… quite a stash you've got."
He groaned again and pivoted harder. "It's not enough for you. I swear I'm going to use them all."
She couldn't tease him for his ego. His face was too serious, his flush so dark his eyes appeared to glow. Still watching her, he reached between them to ease down his zipper, wincing at the task of working the teeth over that much pressure. Zoe's insides tightened in reaction.
Yes, you are going to use them all
, she thought.
And I'm going to let you
.
He knew she was going to let him, not just because she didn't contradict him, but because a small, feminine smile was curving up the corners of her kiss-flushed lips. That smile sent such a whip of heat through his groin that he ripped down the last inch of his zipper and nicked himself.