Spirited 1 (30 page)

“Differences?”

“You know, they don’t have biases based on religion or gender or ethnicities,” she explained. “Anyway, about two months into the school year, one of my students, Michael, disappeared along with his older sister, Martha. They’d been in the grocery store with their nanny when it had happened. There had never been a kidnapping in the county before, so everyone was in a state of shock.

“Two weeks went by without a word. No suspects, no ransom note, nothing. The Amber Alert hadn’t helped. It was like they just vanished. Billy wasn’t sleeping and was at the station all the time. Parents kept their preschoolers home. The local elementary school was on lockdown during the day. It was horrible.”

Seth covered the back of her hand with his and squeezed it lightly, but didn’t interrupt.

“I saw an old woman in the grocery store parking lot. Her tire had gone flat and she seemed genuinely distraught. I changed her tire for her and even offered to follow her back to her house. She told me she lived on a farm at the edge of town, that I needn’t bother because her grandchildren were there to help her. She tried to give me a hundred dollars for changing the tire, but I didn’t take it.” She shook her head. “I should have realized sooner something was off. She was jittery, aloof, and kept looking around as if expecting trouble. But this lady looked like your average grandmother. I figured she was just senile or something. Had she been forty years younger, I might have been suspicious that she’d been up to no good. I’d never imagined that a grandmotherly type could be a monster.”

Seth frowned and stared at her intently for a moment before he guessed, “
She
was the kidnapper?”

Jules nodded.

Guilt lanced through her and she broke eye contact.

She remembered that unseasonably warm day. Remembered seeing the ghost of a little girl dressed in a poodle skirt, her wide blue eyes filled with an unspoken need. Remembered how she hovered around the old woman and begged Jules to stay with them. At the time, she’d assumed the girl had been the old woman’s dead child. How wrong she’d been.

“What happened next?” Seth asked quietly.

Jules fought back the tears stinging her eyes. “The following night, Billy came home stressed and worried. He told me about reports of an ex-con, an elderly woman, who’d been seen trolling the schoolyard before the kidnapping. She’d been sent to prison twenty years before for the murder of a little girl she’d kidnapped on Halloween night. Through a clerical error, she’d been released. And worse, someone had reported seeing her at the elementary school only an hour before I’d helped the old woman with the flat tire.

“As soon as he told me, I explained that I thought I’d met the kidnapper the day before. I described the parking lot event, but he told me I needed to stick to teaching and to stop reading so many mystery novels. He said I needed to leave the police work to the professionals.”

“Idiot!” A muscle worked in Seth’s jaw. “The best tips we get are from people who are not in law enforcement. He should have listened to you.”

Relief flitted through her. “Thanks. In the end, I called the station and delivered a tip.”

“What made you so sure she was the kidnapper?” Seth asked.

Jules almost told him about the ghost of the little girl, then thought better of it. “Just a feeling. You know, like your gut tells you things.”

“Yes.” He nodded. “But I usually have evidence to back up my gut reactions.”

“Yeah, well, Billy said something similar to me,” Jules said bitterly. “I
was
right, you know.”

Jules squared her shoulders, ready to drop the conversation, but Seth surprised her.

“There have been times when I didn’t get my evidence until after I listened to my gut,” he admitted. “Good for you for trusting yourself.”

“Thanks, but it didn’t end well.” Jules shuddered at the memory. “I thought I’d made the tip anonymously because I used the only pay phone in town. I was so stupid. Everyone knows everyone in a small town. Anyway, the police found the children alive. But the old woman was killed on the scene. She’d been trying to drown Michael when the police kicked in the door. I didn’t even know what happened. All I knew was that two hours after I’d made the call, my husband sent his deputy to arrest me for accessory to kidnapping.”

“What? Why?” Seth sucked in a breath. His melted-chocolate eyes snapped fury. “You called in the tip. A tip you tried to give to the sheriff himself. Why would he have had you arrested?”

Jules couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t face the distrust she was sure she’d see in his eyes. It was the same look of doubt and fear she’d seen in Billy’s. Pushing to her feet, she swallowed back the unexpected lump that had formed in her throat and carried their plates to the sink.

“Juliana.” Seth touched her shoulder gently. “Talk to me. I know you couldn’t have hurt those children. It’s not in you.”

“Billy said the only way I could have known about the old woman, or where to find her, was if I’d been there.” More tears stung her eyes and she blinked rapidly to keep them from escaping. “It didn’t help that as the old woman lay dying, she said my name to the police. I was condemned before her body was cold.

“I spent the night in jail, terrified I’d go to prison for trying to help. Worse, I’d been friends with all the guys at the station, but that night, they treated me like a rabid animal. One they needed to put down.” Her hands shook and she hated herself for the weakness. Hated the memories of that horrifying night. “Michael and Martha’s parents refused to believe I could have been involved. They hired an attorney for me and had me out by the next day.”

“Thank Christ, someone in that damned county had some sense.” Seth turned her in his arms then crooked a finger under her chin. He tilted her head back until she met his gaze. “You saved their babies and they saved you. Thank God, they did.”

Warmth and something else filled his eyes. Something tender and powerful. Love?

That look succeeded in breaking her where the memories hadn’t. Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes. He drew her close. She sank into his embrace, absorbing his strength and allowing him to rock her as she wept.

Her own husband hadn’t had faith in her, but Seth did. Billy hadn’t trusted what Jules had just shared with Seth. He’d demanded to know more, and when she’d told him about seeing the ghost, he’d thrown her away.

While she hadn’t told Seth everything, he still believed her. Believed in her. If only he believed in psychics, she’d completely fall in love with him.

As it was, his faith in her made her want to thank him, to kiss him, to drink him in.

“Thank you for believing me.” Pushing up on her toes, she pressed a featherlight kiss to his lips.

CHAPTER 15

T
HE ELECTRICITY
S
ETH
had experienced when they kissed last night was nothing compared to the lightning arcing between them now. Jules had only given him a gentle peck but his lips sizzled. The scent of strawberries hit his senses and he went hard for her.

Jules’s story hadn’t turned him on, but her strength had. She’d had good reason not to trust another cop again, but she trusted him.

Sanity briefly reared its head. He shouldn’t be kissing her. He needed to focus on his case. But he couldn’t make himself stop touching her.

Screw sanity.

Seth sensed she needed this. She needed him. And, God help him, he needed her too.

Seth leaned in and kissed her again, exploring her mouth with his lips and tongue. She met him stroke for stroke and it made him hungrier.

He wrapped his left arm around her shoulders, then slid it down until it wedged between her back and the counter. At the same time, he looped his right arm around her waist, bringing her body flush with his. She opened her eyes and stared up at him with a hazy look of lust in those emerald depths.

Every fantasy he’d had since he met her came flooding back. He wanted her on the counter, on the couch, on the floor, in a bed, and everywhere in between. Even finishing what they’d started the night before against the front door made his personal top-ten list.

Keeping her wrapped in his arms, he backed out of the kitchen and into the living room. While he wanted her everywhere, for their first time, he wanted a bed. A warm, large bed with plenty of space to give her body the thorough loving he intended.

“Seth, what are you doing?” she whispered, stumbling into him.

“Taking you someplace a little more comfortable.” He dotted her cheeks, nose, and forehead with light kisses. With his lips hovering just above hers, near enough to kiss, he said, “Ah, precious. Tonight, you’re mine.”

He swept his tongue into her mouth, claiming her. He planned to explore every inch of her body. But not out here where the stacked boxes littered most of the free space in the room.
Need to move to the bedroom.

She moaned into his mouth and drove her fingers into his hair, deepening the kiss. They half-walked, half-stumbled across the room, making it as far as the couch. He went down first and she landed on top of him.

Bed later.

He loved this side of her. At first glance, her slender body appeared fragile, but she wasn’t. Jules was strong and tough, and she was the sexiest woman he’d ever touched.

And her kisses were fearless, like she wanted to devour him. The feeling was definitely mutual. Breaking the kiss, he whispered in gravelly tones, “You taste so good, precious. I could spend hours licking you all over.”

She shivered in his arms.

He grinned in response. “You like that idea?”

Because it sure sounds good to me.

“Shhh . . .” She cupped his face in her hands and tugged him back to her, claiming his mouth in a kiss so hot, he thought his shoes would melt off.

He’d never been especially fond of kissing. It was a function to get his lover excited. But when Jules kissed him, it was scorching and eager. He simultaneously wanted to make their clothes disappear and keep kissing her.

Jules shifted and bumped her arm against the back of the couch. Hissing, she jerked away from his touch. The look of pinched pain on her face doused his libido.

“Let me see.” He reached for her arm and held it gently in one hand. He shoved up the sleeve of her gray sweatshirt and exposed the white bandage beneath. “Does it hurt much?”

“No, not much,” she said, trying to twist out of his grasp.

He tightened his hold just enough to convince her to stop moving. Pressing his lips to her wound, he trailed the kisses up to her shoulder, then to her neck, and finally to the tender flesh behind her right ear. “Maybe we should find a bed?”

“I only have a twin,” she said, but a look of doubt flashed in her eyes.

He leaned down and nuzzled her earlobe with his tongue and teeth until she moaned. “We can go to my apartment.”

“Oh, that feels good,” she breathed. “Or you can keep doing that and we can stay here a little longer.”

He pulled back enough to look at her beautiful face. “Precious, it’s taking every ounce of restraint I have not to take you right here on the couch like some horny teenager.”

“Really?” Delight lit her eyes and she dropped her gaze to his groin.

His cock jumped at her open perusal. Needing to convince her of his word and needing her hands on his body, he wrapped one hand around her wrist and brought it to his jeans.

“Oh. My.” She cupped him through the denim and rubbed him until he groaned. Pleasure, white hot and needy, burned through him. His balls sizzled with the need to come. And they hadn’t even undressed yet.

“Juliana, you’re killing me,” he panted.

“You like this?” Her tone sounded uncertain, yet she caressed him as if they’d been lovers for years, as if she knew exactly how to touch him.

His tenuous control threatened to break when she lifted her gaze to his. The contrast of the uncertainty in her voice and the surety of her hands, added to the fact her eyes had darkened to a smoky green, almost snapped his control.

She was a contradiction in terms.

And every bit as turned on by what she was doing to him as he was.

He let his gaze drop to her nipples, which were poking hard little points into her sweatshirt. His mouth watered for a taste of her, but his lips went dry. He licked them and was rewarded by her slamming her mouth against his in a kiss so explosive it made a mockery of every other kiss he’d ever tasted.

She broke the kiss but continued teasing his body to a spike of pleasure and pain. “Seth, touch me, please.”

Bending his face closer to her neck, he nuzzled the silken flesh at her collarbone and slid one hand up beneath the hem of her top. “Like this?”

“Yes. Yes, please.”

He continued upward until his fingers grazed one distended nipple. A small sound of pleasure escaped her. Tugging the sweatshirt up out of his way, he exposed her breast to his gaze.

“You’re not wearing a bra,” he said, leaning down then taking the dusky bud into his mouth.

“Ah!” She drove the fingers of both hands into his hair and held him against her.