of the powers she continually tried to ignore, like insights into the pasts of others with startling visions of terrible suffering they had endured.
“Malaria?” he said. “Something like that?”
“Similar,” she said and straightened away from him. “You’re so kind. I’m glad you were standing there. I think I could have passed out otherwise. Yuck, that was awful.”
He slipped an arm around her. “Would a drink help? Or coffee? Let me take you inside.”
Willow didn’t want this man holding her. Or any of the strangers who surrounded her.
“I might have known you’d find the prettiest girl out here,” Val Brandt said, stopping in front of them. “You have to watch out for Preston, my dear. He wouldn’t be good for your reputation.”
She gave a short laugh and looked at Preston. The compression of his mouth was anything but a sign of amusement.
“Willow here felt a bit faint,” he said. “She should probably sit down.”
“I’m fine now,” Willow said.
“Excuse us, Preston,” Val said. “Willow and I need some time alone.”
“Do you now?” With a half smile, Preston walked away, toward the pool, pulling his shirt over his head as he went. He dropped his pants and shorts and stood naked, his back to them, for several seconds.
He picked up his clothes and turned to drop them on a table, looking fully at Willow as he did so.
Preston Moriarty was quite a man.
“Come and take a dip,” he called to her. “It would make you feel better.”
Two running footsteps and he dived into the pool.
Val rested an arm where Preston’s had been. “Come and let’s find a quieter place,” he said.
Willow started to panic. Being in a strange place with a lot of people she did not know or trust wasn’t something she would ever seek out, and with perceptions heightened, and threatening premonitions bombarding her, she grew close to running blindly for the way out.
“You’re upset, aren’t you?” Val said. “This wasn’t the best night to have you come for the first time. Believe me when I say things rarely get like this.”
He sounded sincere, but she was not sure she believed him at all.
“I spoke to Chloe and she’ll be here in about half an hour. Let’s just sit here.” He pulled out a chair for her at an empty table. “Sangria?” He picked up a jug that stood there surrounded by glasses and poured.
She didn’t accept or refuse, but let him put a drink in front of her and pour one for himself.
“Name your price,” he said.
Willow looked at him slowly. “Excuse me?”
Val shrugged. “This is a new venture for me, hiring someone to run our lives around this house. I have no idea what the going rates are and I don’t care. We’ll pay whatever will make you happy.”
Willow gathered herself. “I don’t think this is the best time for us to have this discussion,” she said. “My company can accommodate most household and entertaining needs. Why don’t we make an appointment to talk when your wife can be here to explain exactly what she has in mind.”
He ran blunt fingers through the hair that fell repeatedly over his forehead. “I told you she’ll be back shortly.”
Willow let her eyes wander, not really seeing anything, while she tried to decide what to do. He hadn’t threatened her, not at all. In fact, he had been polite and done his best to show her approval. It wasn’t his fault she seemed to be having an emotional crisis.
Standing near the combo, holding one of the poles that supported a striped awning, a very familiar, tall, lithe, dark-haired man stared in her direction.
The instant she saw him, her body relaxed. And just as quickly she tensed again and got mad. Ben Fortune was following her around. Who had told him where to find her?
Ben said something to the bass player and strolled toward Willow.
She heard him enter her mind but turned to Val and ignored Ben. “We are pretty busy at the moment,” she said. “But we could deal with upkeep of the house—and the grounds, if you need that. Shopping—”
Ben’s arrogance infuriated her.
“I think Chloe hopes you’ll live in,” Val said, his tone concerned. “There’s a wonderful, private apartment she’s redecorated in the house. Chloe gets her mind set on things. You aren’t married, are you?”
“No,” she said.
It wasn’t, but she could be forgiven for responding automatically to Val’s question.
“There’s Chloe’s car now.” Val got up and pointed toward a separate garage beside the house where lights had gone on inside. “She’ll be right out.”
Willow tasted the sangria. “This is good,” she said, frowning and trying to concentrate. “A little orgeat syrup might make it even better.”
“I’ll make sure I pass that on,” Val said, grinning. “You’re going to love it here. You’ll have complete freedom to take charge of things.”
The glass flew from Willow’s hand and smashed on the stone terrace.
Val shouted, “Broken glass. Stand back everybody.”
“Good heavens,” Willow explained. “I’m so sorry.”
Of its own volition, the table upended, followed by the three chairs Willow was not sitting in.
She got up and the fourth chair tipped over.
A woman screamed, and another, and men yelled.
A wind whipped across the grounds, bending trees double, roiled across the surface of the pool and turned it into whirling funnels that splashed over the sides and over those who sat or stood nearby.
Someone yelled, “Tornado!”
Willow shut her mind tightly, blocked out anything else Ben might have to say and gritted her teeth. Glances into the areas beyond the front walls proved what she expected—all was calm out there.
The torches blew out, fairy lights failed and lights in the house went off. Yelling and shoving raged around Willow, and she closed her eyes.
It was no wind that swept her from her feet. All she could do was allow herself to be borne away in unyielding arms, her hair tossed across her face, her body racked by the force of speed.
Speech was out of the question.
When she tried to see, thick darkness blocked everything.
She couldn’t feel emotion, or react.
Silence came as suddenly as the madness had arrived. She sat on something soft and the air was pleasantly warm. Cautiously, Willow opened her eyes again.
Seated on the couch in her living room, she was alone—except for a small, red-brown dog at her feet.
Chapter 8
He was in deep shit.
Ben hung out in the courtyard overlooked by the Millets’ flats, and the shadowy forms of stone angels. There was nothing to stop him from going up to Sykes’s place and tucking himself into bed—other than intense curiosity and a sense of doom about Willow’s reaction to her little journey.
She was no fool, and she’d spent enough time around families like theirs to know she’d been snaffled, and who she had been snaffled by.
He smiled slightly. This might not be all bad. First he’d gotten her away from the sleazeballs Uptown, and then he’d created the kind of upheaval bound to get her attention.
