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  She pushed the painful memory away.

  “Where are you moving?” her mother asked, glancing at the boxes.

  It said quite a lot about their relationship that she’d neglected to mention her upcoming move to her mother. She was sure she would have gotten to it, given enough time. She already had those change-of-address notices filled out.

  “New York City,” she said. “Manhattan.”

  Her mother raised an eyebrow. “Is this because of a man?”

  “No. Not entirely. I thought it was time for me to start new somewhere. I’m going into the advertising business.”

  “Really?” Her mother seemed surprised by this. “I thought you were perfectly happy working for that strange little company here. After all, it’s been how many years now? Four?”

  “Six, actually. I guess I needed a change.”

  “So you won’t be requiring your unique…skill set…at the new job?”

  Her mother had never referred to her psychic abilities except in the most vague and disapproving terms possible. “That’s right.”

  “Very interesting. And you said ‘not entirely’ because of a man, but there is someone involved?”

  “Yes. His name is David and I’m moving to be with him.”

  “Is he…” Her mother pursed her lips. “Different?”

  “If you’re asking if he’s psychic, no he isn’t. David is the most normal man I think I’ve ever met. I’m sure you’d love him.”

  This brought the first smile she’d seen on her mother’s face in as long as she could remember. “This is wonderful, Amanda. Finally, after all this time you’ve seen the light. You see that your current lifestyle would not bring you the future you so deserve. All I’ve ever wanted for you was the chance to be normal and happy.”

  Normal and happy. A mutually exclusive pairing?

  The doorbell rang again and Amanda’s stomach sank. She considered ignoring it, but that wasn’t a very good solution. Jacob struck her as a persistent man when it came to getting what he wanted.

  “Just a moment,” she told her mother and went to the door. The sight of Jacob swept her breath away for a moment. Today he wore a dark-green button-down shirt that made his green eyes more noticeable, and dark jeans. Despite everything, she felt herself weaken a bit as the desire she desperately tried to repress swirled inside of her.

  He actually gave her a half smile. “Good morning.”

  “This isn’t a good time.”

  The smile faded. “We had an appointment.”

  “I know. But, my…my mother is here. I didn’t expect her.”

  “Who is it, Amanda?” her mother called from the living room.

  Jacob raised a dark eyebrow. “Your mother? I would love to meet her.”

  She almost smiled at how inappropriate that idea was. “Not a good idea.”

  “I disagree.”

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  He leveled his gaze with hers. “You said we could talk. We need to talk. I don’t want to put this off any longer. Please, let me come in.”

  Being this close to him was dangerous, but she finally stepped aside to let him into her house. As he brushed past her, the briefest contact brought with it a dangerous storm warning for her growing inner hurricane.

  THE WOMAN looked so much like an older version of Amanda he would have known it was her mother without being told. After all, he’d memorized every nuance of her daughter’s face. He couldn’t erase it from his mind if he wanted to.

  She shared Amanda’s beautiful smile, as well. “You must be David,” she said. “Amanda, he is very handsome.”

  Amanda moved toward her mother’s side, carefully avoiding Jacob’s eyes. “No, this isn’t David, actually. This is…uh…Jacob Caine. He’s a coworker of mine. Jacob, this is my mother, Madeleine Harper.”

  The smile faded from Madeleine’s face and was replaced with an expression of disapproval. “I see. A coworker, you say?”

  Amanda nodded and studied the floor.

  “Great to meet you,” Jacob said. “And thanks for calling me handsome.”

  Amanda’s lips quirked at that as she repressed a smile.

  So this was the woman who didn’t approve of her daughter and had made her feel abnormal because of her abilities, huh? He could barely believe what Amanda had told him last night, that her father had abandoned their family because he couldn’t deal with having a psychically gifted daughter.

  The thought made his blood boil. Who would turn their back on their family for a stupid reason like that? No wonder Amanda had major hang-ups about what she could do. She’d never been properly nurtured. Nobody had told her while growing up that there was absolutely nothing wrong or abnormal about her.

  Instead she’d grown up feeling like a freak of nature for being psychic, and that was so deeply embedded in her that she couldn’t see any differently now that she was an adult.

  She couldn’t see how wonderful and amazing she was. Well, he could see it. He could see it only too clearly.

  Amanda’s forehead was furrowed in a frown and she raised her gaze to his.

  Shit, she heard me, he thought. Why do I have to think so much?

  Madeleine was studying them a bit too intently. “Where is David right now, dear?”

  Amanda’s shoulders stiffened. “On his way back to his office in New York.”

  “He works on Sundays?”

  “He’s very dedicated to his job. He owns the company. He’ll be back for my going-away party on Tuesday night and then he’ll stay to help me move out on Wednesday.”

  Madeleine looked satisfied with that answer. “He sounds like a wonderful man.”

  Yeah, Jacob thought. Wonderfully, boringly normal. You’d definitely approve of the wonderfully, boringly normal life he plans to give your daughter.

  That earned him a sharp glare from Amanda, but he ignored it. It amused him a little that he could still push her buttons without even saying a word out loud.

  “You said you came here for a meeting?” Madeleine directed the question at Jacob.

  “I did.”

  “I’m curious about what kind of a meeting my daughter had planned for a Sunday morning just as her boyfriend has left town.”

  Jacob repressed a smile. “It is unusual timing, isn’t it?”

  Madeleine wasn’t amused. “I know I’m not a large part of my daughter’s life anymore, but I am fully invested in her happiness. And I’m also a quick study. From what I gather, she’s found that happiness with David. Enough so that she’s leaving this horrid little town to be with him.”

  “She hasn’t left yet,” Jacob said. “Not for three more days.”

  “Jacob and I have a case to discuss, that’s all,” Amanda interjected.

  “Haven’t you quit your job?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Honestly,” Madeleine waved her hand. “If it were me, I’d want to get as far away from this insanity the moment I was given the opportunity.”

  “Would you?” Jacob said dryly.

  She fixed him with a steady gaze. “I would.”

  He didn’t have to know Amanda’s mother very long to get a good sense of her. The woman had lived a hard life. She was a survivor. She had a very fixed idea of what was right and wrong and it would take a lot to make her deviate from that opinion. He didn’t think she was a bad woman, but there was a hardness to her, an edge, that he’d seen glimpses of in Amanda herself. This was Amanda in twenty-five years. This was Amanda if she repressed her abilities because she didn’t accept herself. No passion, no spark, just somebody who thought they knew best.

  “I think you should leave,” Amanda said aloud. She’d listened in on his thoughts and hadn’t liked what she’d heard.

  “Do you really want me to leave?” he asked, wanting to coax the truth out of her.

  “Yes,” she responded.

  Sometimes the truth hurt.

  “It was a pleasure meeting you,” he lied and held a hand out to M
adeleine, who shook it since it was the polite thing to do.

  “Likewise,” she said.

  He squeezed her hand and opened up his mind to hers—his psychic ability that helped him get a read on people. It was the reason he’d been recruited to work for PARA, after all. His empathic ability was similar to reading someone’s mind, but not exactly. After all, one could lie with their thoughts, but they couldn’t lie with their subconscious. And that’s what he tapped into.

  He allowed the images to move through his mind, hoping that Amanda could also see them as clearly as he could.

  Amanda’s mother had a very flimsy hold on her pleasant-faced control. The immediate hate she felt toward Jacob was evident in her subconscious. She saw him as part of the problem; part of what she loathed, which was anything she didn’t understand. She didn’t like psychics. Her strong religious beliefs didn’t mesh with accepting anything supernatural. To her, a psychic of any kind represented all that was unnatural and evil.

  “Will you please let go of my hand?” she asked evenly.

  “In a moment,” Jacob said. “I have a question for you first, if you don’t mind.”

  Her smile held, although there was no warmth in her cool blue eyes. “What is it?”

  “Did your husband really leave you because of Amanda? Because he feared her clairvoyancy? Did he think she made that ghost push him down the stairs? Or did he leave for an entirely different reason?”

  A flash of anger went through her gaze. “Our personal lives are none of your business.”

  “No, you’re right. But I’m curious. I’m getting the sense that you have held a lot back from Amanda. Do you know what it’s done to her? Do you have any idea how much your lack of approval has shaped the way she leads her life and sees the world around her?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  But she did. He could feel it under the surface. Repressed memories, ignored for years. Pain and heartbreak covered up with lies until the lies became larger and more damaging than the truth.

  But at the heart of it, he could see a mother doing what she could, in her own way, to protect her daughter. A daughter of whom she didn’t approve of. A daughter she wished was what she perceived as “normal.”

  And he knew then that Madeleine’s husband hadn’t left her because of Amanda’s psychic abilities. He’d left because he was an asshole. The Amanda excuse had seemed convenient at the time, that was all.

  “Jacob, stop this.” Amanda’s arms were crossed in front of her.

  He finally let go of her mother’s hand. She stared daggers at him, but underneath that angry expression, he could see a sliver of uncertainty.

  “She deserved better,” he hissed at the woman. “And you know it.”

  “Jacob—” Amanda said sharply. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the office and we’ll figure this out, okay? I want you to go now. Please.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, and then tore his gaze away. “Fine.”

  He left, slamming the door to Amanda’s house behind him. The house she was packing up to leave—along with her present life and him—behind.

  He just wished it didn’t feel so damned bad.

  9

  AMANDA was quiet for a very long time after Jacob left. Her first impulse was to run after him, to apologize for being so harsh, but she forced herself to remain standing in place.

  “He was very unpleasant,” her mother said. “I have no idea why you’d want to spend any time at all with someone like him.”

  She didn’t reply to that. She was too busy watching the black Mustang peel out of her driveway. He was too far away for her to hear his thoughts anymore. The last thing she’d heard was something about her leaving him. The thought seemed to be edged with pain.

  He’d shared other thoughts with her, as well. Thoughts about her mother that he’d gleaned from her subconscious. Thoughts that made her wonder what the truth really was.

  “I really must be going.” Her mother cleared her throat after another few moments passed in silence. “Charles will be expecting me back soon.”

  Her husband, Charles. The perfect rich guy who bought her nice things and made her life very comfortable after a lifetime of struggle.

  “Is it true?” Amanda asked quietly.

  Her mother frowned. “Is what true, dear?”

  “Dad,” she began. “When he left—”

  “Please, let’s not talk about that.”

  “We never have talked about that. You always change the subject.”

  “It was an unpleasant time of our lives that I have no intention of reliving.”

  “Did he leave us because he didn’t want to be around a daughter who had the ability to attract ghosts?”

  Madeleine pursed her lips. “That was part of it, of course.”

  “Part of it?” Amanda repeated, and she swallowed past the thick lump in her throat. “I thought…I’ve always thought that was the main reason he left us.”

  “This is precisely why I don’t like to discuss the past. It’s upsetting. Both to you and to me.”

  “Jacob said—”

  “Jacob?” her mother cut her off. “I don’t know who this Jacob person really is, but don’t let yourself be influenced by him. He’s trying to manipulate you. Trying to get you to stay in this town. It’s obvious to me that he’s in love with you, and he won’t accept that you’ve found happiness with someone else.”

  This stunned her. “Jacob isn’t in love with me.”

  “All I know, honey, is that love is not the answer. Love will only lead you into misery. I loved your father and he left me with nothing.”

  “You had me.”

  Her mother blinked hard at that and pressed her lips together. She reached forward and squeezed Amanda’s shoulder. “I think you will see this situation much more clearly when you leave here, get away from Jacob, and all of this craziness. I think you’ve chosen correctly. I don’t know David, but I get the sense that he is the right man for you and will make you very happy. I want you to be happy, honey, I really do.”

  “I know.” She hugged her mother briefly before saying a last goodbye and promising to be in touch. Then Madeleine Harper got in her Mercedes and drove away.

  SHE DIDN’T HEAR from Jacob again that day and she busied herself with packing up everything that wasn’t nailed down. She’d miss her little house and her neighbors. It was a nice area, and in the fall the oak tree out front turned a beautiful color.

  She picked up the phone at nearly eleven o’clock that night and was about to dial Jacob’s number that she had found in the company directory, but she stopped herself. Whatever she had to say to him, and she wasn’t exactly sure what that might be, could be said at the office tomorrow.

  The fact that her mother thought that he was in love with her made her want to laugh. What a ridiculous notion.

  She let out a shuddery breath and decided to go to bed. By eleven-thirty her head was on her pillow and she willed the storm of thoughts competing for mental space to go away. Finally she drifted off.

  But, of course, she dreamed about him.

  She was lying on a lounge next to a swimming pool at an upscale tropical resort and soaking up the warm sunshine. She lowered her sunglasses as Jacob walked past and spotted her. He wore baggy blue swim trunks and no shirt. His muscled chest was bronzed and absolutely perfect.

  “Amanda LaGrange,” he said. “Fancy seeing you here.”

  There were only the two of them in the pool area. Even the swim-up bar was unoccupied.

  “I can’t escape you, can I?” she said, feeling amused by the dream and how incredibly irresistible and sexy her subconscious made Jacob look.

  It actually wasn’t much different from how he looked in her waking life, although he wore fewer clothes in the dream.

  His gaze swept over her barely there black bikini. “You look so good.”

  “Thank you.”

  He grinned and glanced around their surroundings.
“I can have you all to myself here. Nobody to interrupt us.”

  “Do you want me all to yourself?” she asked.

  “You know I do. But this isn’t real.”

  She swung her legs over the side of the lounge chair and then got up to close the distance between them. She ran her hand down his arm. “Feels pretty real to me.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” His Adam’s apple shifted as he swallowed. “You are so beautiful. I want you so much, Amanda, I can barely keep my hands to myself right now.”

  The statement thrilled her. She desperately hoped nothing would wake her up for a while as she explored all the delicious possibilities this situation presented.

  She reached around to the back of her bikini top and undid it, then shrugged it off. It fell to the ground. Jacob’s appreciative gaze slid down the front of her.

  She turned around to press her backside against him, feeling his erection against it, and brought his hands up to her breasts. “Then don’t keep your hands to yourself. I want you to touch me.”

  He didn’t resist. He rubbed his thumbs over her tight nipples which shot a hot line of desire straight to her groin.

  “This is very good,” he said as one hand drifted down her belly to slide into her bikini bottoms. He stroked his fingers against her sex. Her breath came quickly now but she didn’t want him to get the upper hand, so to speak, quite so quickly.

  She turned around and undid the loose tie at the front of his trunks and slid the elastic down over his hips to free his erection. She took him in her hand. Licking a hot wet line down the center of his chest and over his washboard abs, she settled down onto her knees in front of him and took him in her mouth.

  Jacob swore loudly as she worked his length with her hand and mouth, skimming her tongue along his hard, thick shaft.

  She felt so free. This was what she wanted, to have him like putty in her hands. To have him moan her name over and over. When they’d made love when she was awake it had been a blur, a wonderful orgasmic blur, but she hadn’t felt in control of herself. Here, she was. It was her dream and she could do anything she wanted.