Chapter Twelve
HARMONY had enjoyed her evening at the castle, but she was on her way home, now, mission
not
accomplished. Done. Finis.
She’d seen enough signs from Gussie to know she
should
go back, but time had run out, so what excuse would she give when she showed up tomorrow?
Paxton started his jet-powered Eurocopter and winked. “I always watch out for flying brooms here,” he said. “Kidding. They’re not bad in the summer, but come October, you can’t get airspace around here.”
Harmony smiled at his joke and wondered what he’d think if he knew he’d made a witch joke to a witch. They’d had a good evening, her searching for vintage clothes, and him doing paperwork. And they were more attracted to each other than they’d been earlier. How weird was that? If she wasn’t reading his mind, she’d never believe it.
He looked powerful and commanding, controlling his helicopter, his pride and joy obvious; he became one with the beast as they rose straight up and off the island.
Darkness had set in by then, and the lights of Salem beckoned, though they’d fly over it to the Beverly Airport and take a car back.
“We’re cruising at about a hundred and twenty-five miles an hour,” Paxton said, but Harmony was so enthralled with watching him, she wasn’t inclined toward chitchat. He enjoyed flying so much that his defenses were down. He didn’t worry about putting up walls in the sky. He liked her sitting beside him, and he admitted as much to himself.
His mind was full of the two of them spending time at the castle, and not purely for keeping Gussie quiet. Over the course of the flight, he relived their every embrace, and by the time they landed at the Beverly Airport, she was as aroused and ready as him. He’d conjured up some pretty impure thoughts about getting her back in his arms.
She was pretty sure he was the first man whose
mind
intrigued and seduced her. But why was he thinking about her at the castle in the future?
She guessed she should try to draw him out. Give him a reason to get her back there.
A short while later, as he led her to a black stretch limo, Harmony sensed a need to take the lead, because his walls were going up again. He helped her into the backseat, got in beside her, and his driver shut the door.
“I did a lot of searching during those few extra hours tonight,” she said, “and I found some prime vintage gowns.”
“Good. Head for Salem, Ed,” Paxton told his driver. “Pickering Wharf.” He turned back to her. “I got a lot done, myself, probably because I wallowed in the rare quiet. I liked the castle tonight for the first time in years.”
“Your men could have accomplished a lot, if they’d stayed as late as we did.”
“Ever since I met you,” Paxton said, “I’ve had the strangest feeling that you can read my mind. You’re brilliant, you know. I could use somebody like you on my team.”
“I thought I pissed you off.”
“Oh, you do, but listen. You’re right. The men could have gotten a lot done tonight. They worked like gang-busters in the quiet peace today. No arguments, which never happened before. Not when my grandfather rebuilt the east wing or his father added the west, or when my father added the boathouse.”
“Who added the mismatched addition that makes one side of the castle look like a drunken sailor rambling toward the sea?”
“Nicodemus, Gussie’s husband. But he had a method to his madness. A landmass once connected Paxton Island to Marblehead, and an old steam train carried the family back and forth from the mainland.”
“That’s hard to imagine.”
“The engine and parlor car are in the east wing. The toy room leads to the train shed. I would have showed it to you, if I hadn’t gotten—” He looked at his driver. “Distracted.”
Paxton’s wink gave her a sense of intimacy. He asked Ed to lower the privacy window, and she shivered like a teen on her first date. When he took her hand, Harmony wondered if he’d try to read her by Braille again. “Let me get to the point,” he said. “I have a business proposition for you.”
That sounded sexy.
Not!
“If I could keep the men working harmoniously for as many hours as we worked today, I could finish the restoration and sell the place before summer’s end.”
“Providing Gussie lets you.”
“Precisely, which is why I’d like to offer you a live-in job at the castle.”
Live in? He’d hit her with dumb surprise. How could she have missed the live-in part?
But she hadn’t missed it; she’d wallowed in it, fantasizing along with him, not realizing that the best way to live the fantasy was to live together.
“With you in residence,” he explained, “my crew could work every day instead of arguing. The men are always up for overtime pay, and longer hours would make them happier than getting along.”
The thought made her heart skip a beat. “Live in?”
He wasn’t revealing all his motives. He wanted to know more about her ring, and, okay, about her, too. His men believed she appeased the ghost, and they’d threatened to quit if he
didn’t
hire her, which annoyed the hell out of him, but at least he didn’t take that out on her. She intrigued him and—her favorite incentive—she’d jump-started his recently dormant libido. Yay. “So you want me to be, like, your secretary or something?”
“No, it’s a much easier job than that. I want you to hang around. Go through the clothes and geegaws, catalog and price them. Buy what you want and tell me what to charge for the rest.” He squeezed her hand. “All you have to do is show up and treasure-hunt every day. Piece of cake.” He shook his head. “Damned if I don’t feel as if I’m hiring a witch doctor.”
“A witch peacemaker, you mean.”
“Do I?”
“You betcha. A ghost tamer.”
“Okaay.”
“And my wages?”
“Hungry, are you?”
Reading his own libidinous take on the question, she raised a brow. “As hungry as you.”
He spontaneously defrosted, masking his ruddy flush with a brusque cough. She’d almost made him forget his men had forced him into this, which he would always resent, which meant her job might not be as easy as he tried to make out.
“Wages?” she repeated.
“I don’t know what to call your job to put a price on it.”
“I’ll be keeping your construction crew working. What do you pay your foreman?”
“Curt’s job is way more complicated, so how about I pay you fifteen dollars an hour, and you name your price for the clothes you want?”
“Fifteen an hour for twenty-four hours a day? Because I’ll be keeping Gussie quiet twenty-four/seven . . . if I take the job.”
“Rob me blind, why don’t you.”
“I’m just saying . . .”
“Let’s say I don’t pay you while you sleep eight hours a night.”
As serendipitous as the chance to buy his vintage clothes, the extra pay would help her and her sisters expand the store, plus she could work on her psychic mandate at the same time. “Done,” she said. “About the vintage clothes? Suppose I want them all? If I take the job.”
“You have no idea how many there are. It could take you months to find them all.”
Was he dangling a castle full of vintage clothes like a carrot before her? Because, frankly, dangling himself would be enough. Oh, the eye candy in that vision. Swoon.
“Here’s the deal,” she said, thrilled, but trying to be practical. “Fifteen dollars an hour for sixteen hours a day, it is, but if you ever snap your fingers at me the way you snap them at your men, my claws will come out.”
Amusement deepened his laugh lines, though she could hardly call his look a smile. “I like a woman with claws. Bring ’em on, Hellcat.”
A psychic mandate with all the trimmings
and
a hungry panther, too. “I have only one stipulation, providing I take the job. I’m not sleeping on one of those moldy old mattresses.”
“There’s a newly remodeled suite on the fourth floor with fresh bedding and all the conveniences.”
“Bathroom? Shower? TV? Tub? Doors that lock?”
“Everything except regular TV and cable, but it’s got a flat screen and a great collection of movies.”
“Now that I think about it, locks wouldn’t keep Gussie out, anyway. Hey, I’m not sleeping alone in the castle with a negative ghost witch.”
“I’ll stay as long as you do. I sleep there half the time, anyway.”
“Are you suggesting we share a suite?”
“It would up the odds,” he said. “Two against Gussie.”
“That’s true, but she hates you. For me, that would be like sharing a suite with ghost bait.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Harmony sat forward and knocked on the privacy window, so it rolled down. “Driver, take the next right. Wharf Street. My house is the big Victorian with the wraparound porch.”
The limo came to a stop, and Harmony still hadn’t accepted the job, because she didn’t want Paxton to see how eager she was.
He told his driver to wait, got out, and saw the shop. “The Immortal Classic Vintage Clothing and Curio Shop,” he said and looked back in the car. “My apologies.”
He came around and held her door open.
“As you see. I live and work here,” she said, glad to prove him wrong, though she did have other motives for going to the castle, but she had no reason to split hairs. “I live behind the shop,” she said pointing the way.
At the kitchen door, he took her key and unlocked it for her. She thanked him but stayed on the stoop. “I’ll think about your offer,” she said, “and you’ll know tomorrow, one way or the other.”
She read the consideration he gave to her lips, which didn’t surprise her, but she also saw his intent to keep things strictly business between them—a
big
disappointment. She liked him, even if she’d only known him for a day. She would always know where she stood and what challenges she would face with King Paxton.
“We start work early,” he said as he went down the steps, stopped, and turned back to her. “Harmony, about sleeping arrangements. If you take the job, you should know that the suite—”
“I don’t want to work for you,” she said.
Paxton came up a step. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I don’t want to be your employee. I’d rather be your equal. If I go to sort your vintage clothes and keep your ghost quiet, I go as an independent contractor.”
Paxton’s shoulders relaxed. “That can be arranged. Same figure, on a per diem basis?”
Harmony gave a half nod. “I’ll sign a contract.”
“I’ll have one ready, in case you decide to take the job. But . . .” His gaze veered once more to her Proud to Be Awesome T-shirt. “You should know that I dislike clothes that make a literal statement.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” She opened the door.
Chapter Thirteen
“I want every literal-statement shirt you can find,” Harmony told her sisters as they helped her drag her suitcases up from the basement the next morning. “As long as they’re tight and V-neck.”
“That about sums up all our shirts,” Destiny said. “You want the suggestive ones?”
“Especially the suggestive ones.”
“This sucks,” Storm said. “Des, tell her that going back to that place is chancy.”
Destiny looked thoughtful. “There are chances . . . and there are chances.”
“That’s a lot of blooming cryptic help,” Storm snapped.
Harmony handed the rebel a suitcase to fill. “That’s Destiny.”
“How witchy is the ghost?” Storm piled in the shirts. “Is she as scary as me?”
“Scarier. She hovers over the castle running roughshod over anyone who steps inside. Hang around long enough, and you become as negative as she is . . . unless I’m there.”
“And the guy who offered you the job?”
“Thinks he’s the center of the universe. A brass-ass technocrat who barely looked up when I went inside. Then he stalks my way like a loose-limbed panther, despite the finest steel rod money can buy shoved up his ass.”
Storm chuckled. “Hey, you’re starting to sound bitchin’, like me.”
“Thanks. He wears clothes as black as his hair and more expensive than our van.” Harmony pulled out her sock drawer. “His eyes are clear and whiskey bright, and his voice . . .” touched her everywhere, made her shiver and—“He’s closed to emotion, but I can read him, because he’s attached to the castle. He’ll be a challenge.” One she couldn’t wait to tackle. “He’s not happy about having me around. He thinks I’m trouble.” She raised the shirt she’d set aside: Here Comes Trouble. “I’m wearing this to work today.”
Storm touched her heart. “I’m so proud.”
Trouble ahead, Harmony’s sensible side shouted. Free-spirit psychic witches didn’t mesh well with tight-assed technocrats. But she didn’t care. If she was gonna get burned, let the smoldering begin.
“You know how, when we meet a new guy, we nail his potential after two minutes, no first date required? Well this guy’s got true potential, if I can loosen him up. Anybody mind if I take the toys from that obsession party we gave? I’ve got a hard nut to crack.”
“As long as you don’t really crack his nuts.”
“Guess that depends on his performance. Besides, someone has to teach him to be spontaneous. He’s way too controlled. I plan to enjoy removing that steel rod from his spine.”
“And that’s the only rod you have designs on, right?” Des laughed. “As if we didn’t know.”
“She’s gonna melt his brass ass,” Storm said. “When can we meet him?”
Harmony wasn’t ready to tell Paxton that blondes like her came in a three-pack. “You’ll know when it’s time. Rent a boat, but don’t leave it by the cement steps. There’s a landing on the west side, with a small Gothic door not far away. I’ll unlock it when I know you’re coming. Let’s play three musketeers when you get there; use the ‘power of three as one’ before Gussie suspects I’m not alone. Wear matching outfits, and bring one for me. Storm, don’t forget your blonde wig.”
Des sat on one of Harmony’s suitcases to zip it. “So do you know why you were sent there?”
“At least part of it is to persuade Paxton to keep the castle in the family. I think another part is to set the castle free of Gussie—or to set Gussie free of the castle. I sense there’s more, but I’m still working on instinct. Your job, while I’m playing ghost tamer, is to think about ways for us to help Gussie move on.”
“Be careful,” Des said. “It’s a plus that you can quiet her, but it’s frightening as well. You’re polar opposites. I don’t want you getting hurt. She might be stronger than you.”
“I think she is. But you’ll know if I need you. I’m not worried, so you shouldn’t be.” Gussie was not only stronger than her, she was quite possibly stronger than the three of them together—which she wouldn’t tell her sisters—especially if she read the dolphin symbolism correctly, and the sea provided her with an unlimited energy source.
It was all quite scary, but Harmony felt useful for the first time in her life, and she’d deal with whatever unimagined ghostly manifestation jumped out at her . . . when it jumped.
She grinned. Besides, Paxton Castle contained some mighty powerful perks, and one of them was King-sized . . . she hoped.