Out of Mind

silent communication between Willow and Ben.

“You didn’t say what you’ve been told about me,” she said to Ben. Her gaze shifted sideways for an instant as she analyzed whether she’d made another reference to their personal communication.

Ben didn’t want to trick her into anything. “Sykes said he’s been worried about you. When I got here, Pascal told me the same thing, and I’m thinking the rest of the family will have similar stories.”

She spread her hands. “Worried? Why?”

“Because you’re worried.” He needn’t kid himself that she’d be easy to break down. “To quote someone near and dear to you, you’re even more fractured than usual. You’ve been very quiet and you never go anywhere other than work.”

She frowned, but her eyes were brighter than ever. “And that’s different from what I usually do? I work hard and when I get home, I’m tired.”

“And you sent for a crash helmet with two rearview mirrors,” Pascal put in. The man had done a good job of fading into the background behind the counter where he sat on a high stool.

Willow shook her head. “I’m safety minded. I’m going to have all my staff wear similar gear—just as soon as I’ve made sure it works well.”

“Most people who ride motorcycles or scooters, or whatever, rely on handlebar mirrors. Cyclists have a mirror on one side on a helmet and it’s about a quarter the size of those.”

“Most cyclists don’t need to see anything but oncoming traffic and what’s around when they want to make a turn,” she snapped back, and turned red.

Ben saw her moisten her lips and his belly contracted. He would have to contain himself. “Whereas you think you have to see all around, traffic, pedestrians and anything else that might be a hazard?”

“Yes,” she said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Excuse her so she could run away and hide, the way she’d been hiding from him all this time? “No,” he told her. “I’m not excusing you. Not unless you take me with you. Now I’ve come all this way, the least you can do is talk to me. I should have made you talk to me before I left. I see that now.”

She blinked rapidly. Her lungs felt compressed. Did he really intend to trap her like this? To force her to go through all the misery again? For an instant she closed her eyes. His arms around her would feel so good. Of course she knew the other sensations that would go with the comfort—unless things had completely changed between them.

Willow looked at him.

“There’s only one way to find out if we’re still pledged, Willow.”

“You don’t know anything, Ben. You don’t know why it could never work between us.”

“Tell me why, then. Or let me hold you. What could be more natural than two old friends embracing?”

“You’re rushing me again,” she told him. “You rushed me all the time. Even when others said I was wrong for you.”

She put a hand over her mouth.

“Others?” He had always suspected interference. “What others? We were the only ones who mattered. We still are.”

“No. That’s history.” She collected herself visibly. “It’s good to see you, Ben, even if I am a bit prickly. Some things never change.” Willow forced a chuckle. “I do have to see to some business right now, but I’ll get in touch with you and we’ll have dinner or something. For old times’ sake.”

And that little speech was for Pascal’s sake and to get Ben off her back. “Fine,” Ben said. “Great. Do you know where to find me?”

She shuffled her feet in white tennis shoes with lime-green flashes down the sides. “Um, at Fortunes?”

“No. Poppy runs the place now—with Liam’s and Ethan’s support when she needs it. I’m still the financial man, but I don’t want to tread on their toes.” Liam, a history professor, and Ethan, a lawyer, were his brothers and Poppy, his only sister. “Sykes says he’s completely tied up in his studio working on a mammoth piece of sculpture so he’s letting me use his flat here.”

Her face tightened and she breathed rapidly through her mouth. “Here?” She croaked out the word.

Ben didn’t miss the wicked smile on Pascal’s face. Pascal had encouraged a match between Ben and Willow. Part of what Ben intended to do in New Orleans was find out who had interfered in and ruined something that had promised to be fantastic. He should not have waited so long, but he had kept hoping she would ask him to come back.

“Willow, the people who won’t settle for anything less than your safety think you’re being threatened. They’re not sure by what, only that it’s happening—or you think it is.”

“I’m not imagining things,” she said heatedly. “Oh, leave me alone, please.”

A mad scuffle accompanied Winnie, Willow’s sister Marley’s Boston terrier, downstairs from the regions where Marley worked on restorations. The dog clamped a vast, yellowing plastic bone between her teeth. She positioned her shiny black-and-white body in front of the shop door and wiggled in apparent anticipation.

Ben glanced up the stairs, expecting to see Marley, but there was no sign of her.

The doorbell jangled wildly and a tall, commanding man came into the shop. He took off a gray silk fedora. Tie askew at the open neck of a very white shirt, every inch of him screamed confidence, and the glittering smile— or grimace—turned his dark face into a demonically exotic vision no one would ignore. Ben had not had much to do with Nat Archer, but the detective was not someone easily forgotten.

Winnie gave a sigh of ecstasy, abandoned her bone and rolled onto her back in front of Nat. Ben decided the dog had known the man was coming.

“Hi, Pascal,” Nat said, “Willow. I’m pressed for time but I wanted to come myself.” He looked sideways at Ben. “Ben Fortune. It’s been a long time. I heard you were in Hawaii.” He rubbed Winnie’s round, pink and splotchy tummy.

“Yeah,” Ben said. “I’m visiting—sort of.”

“Is Gray here?”

Ben remembered that Marley’s husband, Gray Fisher, had been a New Orleans Police Department homicide detective before turning to full-time journalism. Gray was Nat’s former partner.

“He’s on a story, Nat,” Pascal said.

Marley trotted downstairs in a large, paint-stained apron. “What’s up?” she asked the policeman.

“Could be what we were worried about has started again. I don’t have a lot of evidence, but something’s happened and there are similarities to what we went through a while back.”

“Well, we knew it wasn’t likely to be all over,” Marley said. “Those creatures, or whatever they are, intend to take over this town. Or that’s the way I read it. So does Gray.”

“Me, too,” Nat said. “But don’t think we’re getting any support from NOPD—they’re too afraid to admit they could have a rogue paranormal force bent on invading New Orleans. They’re afraid for themselves and terrified about how they’d cope with mass panic in the populace if rumor got out. Or some of them are.”

Ben ground his teeth together to stop himself from begging for an explanation of all this “code.” Rogue paranormal force? Invading New Orleans? Mass Panic? Sykes hadn’t finished explaining the whole story.

Willow swallowed and stared at Marley. One of her three sisters, Marley’s eyes were forest-green, darker than Willow’s, and her hair slightly less neon although just as curly.

“Marley,” Willow said, “you’d better give Gray a call.” Marley had gotten herself involved with a dangerous life-form they knew only as Bolivar, an Embran, and she’d come close to being killed. That had been about four months ago and Willow was suddenly convinced they were about to suffer another confrontation with these things they understood so little about, other than that they had an inexplicable vendetta against the Millets.

“I’m not going to jump to conclusions,” Marley said. “Or should I?” She looked at Nat.

“This isn’t the place to talk about this. What if customers come in?” Uncle Pascal said.

Nat locked the door and reversed the open sign. He turned to Ben again. “How much do you know about everything?”

“If we’re talking about the same thing,” Ben said, “only what Sykes has told me in the last few days. Not a whole lot, and nothing about renegade paranormal forces from—wherever.” His voice got low. “Sounds like all the