Out of Body

risks.”

Marley’s brother looked at her and she caught her breath. She had forgotten the man she’d seen right before she traveled, completely forgotten him. And now she had only the faintest recollection of his brief appearance. She tried to recall the sound of his voice but couldn’t. But had he been like an older version of Sykes?

“Are you being careful, Marley?” Uncle Pascal asked.

She nodded vaguely. Who was the man and why had he been there?

A jarring ring intervened. Uncle Pascal had one of the first dial telephones, a 1919 version he liked to call “a useless invention.” He did laugh at himself over that.

“Who?” he said into the mouthpiece. “Do I know you?”

Marley accepted Winnie onto her lap again. Sykes swayed, a sure sign he was anxious to be off.

Uncle Pascal grunted into the phone and signaled to Marley. “For you,” he said.

This time she hauled her dog under one arm and went to take the instrument. “Hi.”

“You called?”

She knew Gray’s voice. And she had called him while she’d still been groggy and flaked out in her workroom, but she’d hung up before he could answer. When she punched in his number she had actually wanted to ask him to come at once so she could tell him what had just happened. She barely stopped herself from reaching out to him for help. Her reason unnerved her; she had a hunch he was an okay guy. Just thinking the word hunch gave her chills. The Millets didn’t have hunches, they had clear insights. Nothing was clear about Mr. Disappearing Scar Face.

“You called me,” Gray said, prompting her.

“That was a mistake.”

“Too late,” he said and didn’t sound as if he were joking. “Your sister said you were upstairs with some of your family members. She said I could wait for you down here in the shop.”

Chapter 13

Gray heard Marley coming before he saw her, or rather he heard her dog snuffling, and its nails clicking on old oak stair treads.

Marley’s slim feet and ankles, and her knees appeared, then the rest of her followed rapidly. She wore a paint-daubed blue denim smock buttoned to the neck. Other clothes bunched underneath. One look at her face and he was glad the sister who let him in had locked the door behind her again. He would rather not be interrupted at the moment.

“How did you get in here?” Marley asked. “We’re not open.”

“A gorgeous redhead let me in,” he said.

She bared her teeth and muttered, “Willow,” in a threatening tone. “She’s never careful enough.”

Gray wanted to move on. “Have you been to bed?” he said. “You don’t look good.”

She didn’t even smile at his gaffe. “Yeah, I know. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“True,” he said, jerking his head back as if she’d struck him. “You’re in a great mood, too.”

Marley gave him an uncomfortably direct look. She came closer, then closer. Without another word, she came within kissing range although he was damn certain that wasn’t on her mind.

Bucking the urge to ask what she was staring at, Gray held still. While she peered at him, he took advantage of getting up close with her.

When it came to women, he considered himself an animal-magnetism type. Plenty of all the good female stuff appealed to him—long legs, big eyes, soft mouths of the lips-to-lips touchable kind. This woman bedeviled him. The big, green eyes sucked him in and he’d really like the full mouth to suck him in. He’d seen her legs and, considering her lack of height, they were long and meant to be looked at. Marley had very nice breasts and yesterday he’d seen that she had curvy hips, but she was small.

What did you call it when a female made a man want to be careful with her, and have hot, sweaty sex with her at the same time? Unhinged was the word that came to mind.

His heart was pounding and he had an inconvenient stirring. Inconvenient and intoxicating. He was grateful her interest was in his face, not in his lower regions—although the rogue side of him wanted to see her reaction.

The examination had gone on too long for his health. “What?” he said and could not believe it when his voice cracked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Marley just about leaped back a step, and another. “I want you out of here,” she said, turning red. “Go on. Leave. I don’t know what you’re up to, but I don’t like it. Out.”

He barely managed to keep his hands from his face to check for lumps, bumps or missing bits. “You were really staring. Come on. Have pity on a man and let me in on the secret.”

“There isn’t one.” She drew herself up, but rather than make her look fierce, she seemed embarrassed. “I’ll see you out.”

Instead he sat on a chair with a square seat, arms that joined at one corner, and no back unless you sat sideways against one of the arms. Damned uncomfortable it was, too, but he was making a point.

“That’s a valuable chair,” she said. “You’re not supposed to touch things like that…not like that.”

“I can’t imagine wanting to get anywhere near it,” he said, getting up. “It looks like a mistake and it’s damned uncomfortable.”

She puffed and said, “It’s a sword chair for a gentleman wearing a sword. Not that you care. This isn’t the best time.”

“You bet it’s not,” he told her. “Our mutual friend Detective Archer hauled me out of bed before six this morning and you know I hadn’t been there long enough.”

Apparently the “don’t touch” rules didn’t apply to the dog. Wagging her tail, and her entire body with it, Winnie wiggled to jump onto one of those fainting couches. This one was covered with some faded gold brocade Gray wouldn’t want draped over a birdcage—not that he had a bird. He looked pointedly at the dog. Marley smiled indulgently at her pet.

“I thought you’d like to know what Nat Archer had to tell me?” Gray said.

As if only just waking up, Marley blinked rapidly, started to stretch but changed her mind when the smock rose higher on her thighs. She gave him a panicky look. “Not here,” she said, glancing up the stairs. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

“And hang up like you did the first time? We need each other. Get used to it.” He checked out the frilled pink material poking from the hem of her smock. “Did you come right down from bed? I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“You’ve got to leave,” Marley said.

“There’s nothing about me that’s going to upset anyone,” he said.

Her hair looked wild…and appealing. And her sleepy, half-lidded green eyes were pure, sexy come-on, not that she could mean to send him that kind of impression, not given the way she was talking to him.

“Seriously,” he continued. “I think you’re telling the truth. You know something useful about what’s going on in this town and I want to help you follow it up.”

“You want to pick my brains,” she said shortly. “I don’t know if I should trust you at all and you can’t blame me for thinking that.”

He thought for a moment. “No, I can’t. But what other choices do you have, unless you’re planning to forget these desperate women you supposedly saw? Missing women. Don’t you feel responsible?”

Whatever she thought about his question didn’t make her happy. She bit into her bottom lip, then said, “I can get someone down here to help me anytime I want to,” and the way she said it sounded believable. “Come with me. But remember what I’ve just told you. Someone will come if I need them.”

From that he was to take it that if he put a foot wrong with her, all hell would break loose? He started toward