Guarded (20 page)

They looked like the perfect family. Happy.

“That’s Big Jim and April,” Jules said, moving to stand beside her. “I was big into my assimilation phase back then. You know, I wanted to look like them. I even wore colored contacts. Danged things got caught in my eye one night, and I had to go to the ER to get one of them removed.”

“Ouch.” Shelley glanced at her sister, whose hair was so like her own. “Decided to go back to your natural color?”

“Yeah. That phase didn’t last long.” Jules turned and cocked her head. “Did you go through that too?”

“What?”

“The assimilation phase? Where you wanted to look like your adoptive parents?”

Shelley didn’t miss the odd note in Jules’s voice. What was she digging for?

“Not really. Jill and Nate, my adoptive parents, already had red hair. People just assumed I was theirs. Plus, we moved to Baltimore not long after the adoption, so no one ever knew I wasn’t theirs unless we told them.”

Jules nodded her head slowly, then led the way into her kitchen. With a wrought-iron, glass-topped table pushed to one side of the room, there was space to move around, despite the small size. “Want a drink?”

The apartment smelled vaguely of strawberries, but no spices. Where was the dinner Dev had mentioned? “Sure. Got any apple juice? Jules, are we eating out?”

Jules pulled a bottle of juice from the fridge and poured it into two glasses before returning it to the refrigerator. Handing Shelley the wineglass full of apple juice, Jules said, “No, we’re eating across the hall. I’m not sure where they’re going to put the dog yet, and Theresa left her purse in Seth’s apartment.”

Shelley scratched her head in confusion. “You two don’t live together? The way Dev talked, I thought you did.”

“Oh, we do. But I’m still the legal tenant of this place for another year. I’d just signed the lease when I met Seth.”

“How long have you been together?” Shelley asked, sipping her drink.

“We met in October.”

Shelley nearly choked on her juice, coughing at the ridiculously short time before they decided to move in together, let alone get engaged. Jules pounded on Shelley’s back until she stopped coughing.

“Isn’t . . . isn’t that a little fast?” Shelley wheezed.

Jules laughed. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But if you’d been here, you’d understand. Some people are together their whole lives and never know each other. Others meet and boom . . . instant connection. Seth and I are the latter. Plus, he knows all about my crift and other weirdness and is okay with it.”

“I assume you mean the ghosts. You still see ghosts, right?”

“I do. It’s not like when we were kids, though. I’ve started to learn how to better deal with the crift. I’m even assisting lost spirits now. Not long after Seth and I met, I helped him with a case. So it’s good, a lot less of a curse than it used to be.” Jules smiled.

Maybe.

“What other weirdness?” Shelley had to know. “What could be stranger than seeing ghosts . . . besides talking to animals?”

“You’d be surprised.” Jules laughed, leading the way back to her living room. She settled on one side of an overstuffed beige couch and patted the seat next to her. “Let’s just say, Seth can’t hide his moods from me.”

Sitting down on the comfy sofa, Shelley frowned in confusion. “I don’t think I understand. You mean, you make him talk? Or did you develop telepathy over the years?”

“Gosh, no!” Jules shivered. “The last thing I want is to hear anyone else’s thoughts. Hearing the dead is bad enough to keep me awake some nights. No, what I mean is I can see his aura, so I know his mood.”

Shelley frowned. “Come again?”

Now it was Jules’s turn to frown. “Do you know what an aura is?”

“Charisma?” Shelley said, fairly certain that was the wrong answer.

“Think of auras like they’re lines of color. Each color represents a different emotion. For example, the color red respresents passion. Passion in the most positive sense is love. But the negative is hate. A green aura can mean someone is at peace or is incredibly jealous. Blue is intuitive or despairing. Yellow is hopeful or afraid. Instead of seeing colored lines, I see them around Seth. Although, I’ve never seen yellow around him. Mostly, he’s red or green. Loving and protective. Darn, I’m not sure I’m explaining this well.”

Oh, Jules explained it well enough.

“I think I got the idea. This aura, does it pulse like a heartbeat around his body?”

Jules’s eyes widened, and she set her juice glass down on the table. “Can you see his aura too? Seth’s the only living person I can do that with. Can you do it with other people?”

“Yes . . . well, no. Not exactly.” Shelley rubbed her forehead. “It just started yesterday. Or maybe it’s nothing. I might just be imagining things.”

Jules blew a raspberry at her. “You don’t believe that.
I
don’t believe that. You asked a specific question because I think you can see auras.” She frowned and said more to herself than to Shelley, “Dang, I thought that was special.”

“You thought what was special?”

“Seeing Seth’s aura. But if you can do it too.” She shook her head. “I guess it doesn’t mean what I thought it did.”

“I can’t.” When Jules didn’t look relieved, Shelley added, “I can’t see
Seth’s
aura. I see Dev’s.”

Jules’s eyes sparkled and her lips twitched. “You see Dev’s? And this just started? You never saw it when you were in college?”

“How did you know we went to school together?” Shelley asked, then answered her own question. “Dev told you.” She exhaled slowly and ran a hand through her hair, only to snag it in her ponytail. She searched her memory. “I don’t remember seeing any weird lights around him back then. Except . . .”

“Except what?” Jules urged when Shelley didn’t immediately continue.

Shelley took another swallow of juice, stalling for time and trying to sort out her memories. “I thought I saw something the first time I met Dev.”

“Really?”

“Don’t look at me like that. It’s not what you think. I was Dev’s tutor. He was late for his first session with me. I waited for him for close to half an hour. It was cold and the sun had gone down. I got this creepy feeling I was being watched. I tried to call Dev from my cell, but the school was notorious for dead cell zones.

“Next thing I know, I’m knocked to the ground. Some guy is ripping my backpack off my shoulder. I tried to scream, but the guy slammed my face into the cement. I saw stars and thought I was dead. Suddenly he was off me and running away. With my backpack. When I looked up, I saw—”

“Dev?” Jules asked, a wide grin on her face.

“No. Cam, my ex-fiancé. Although he was a stranger at the time.”

Jules’s smile dissolved. “What does this have to do with Dev?”

“Dev’s roommate, Cam, saw the attack and scared away the mugger. Turns out, Dev called him to tell me he was running late. They had a big football game coming up, so Dev had stayed late for extra practice. Anyway, Cam was escorting me back to my dorm room, when Dev caught up with us. At first, I didn’t see anything, but then Dev caught sight of the bruise over my right eye, and I don’t know. He seemed to . . . this is going to sound nuts but . . .
radiate a green glow
. It pulsed like it was coming from the center of his chest. Until you mentioned seeing Seth’s, whatchamacallit, aura, I thought it was just stress. My eyes playing tricks on me.”

“No, it’s definitely real. You described what I’ve seen with Seth.” Jules patted her arm. “Just another Scott family crift.”

Shelley smiled at the use of the surname they’d been born with . . . Scott.

Muffled voices floated in from the hallway. Seth popped his head in. He glanced around until his gaze landed on Jules. A slow, contented smile slid across his face.

“Hi, Precious. T’s taken the dog home. She said not to wait dinner on her. Would you two like a little more time, or do you want to eat now?” He gestured across the hall with a nod.

Jules glanced back at Shelley, question in her eyes. She didn’t need telepathy to know her sister was asking if she wanted to eat. Shelley nodded.

“We’re starved,” Jules said, then hopped up from the couch.

Shelley followed them into the hall and found Dev waiting for her. No green glow. No glow at all, but still as sexy as ever. He draped an arm around her waist and whispered into her ear, “Want to fluster Seth? Ask him how he met Jules. It makes for great dinner conversation.”

“A
HOOKER?”
S
HELLEY
didn’t mean to laugh, she really didn’t. But she couldn’t help herself. The idea of her prim and proper big sister in a leather skirt and bustier sneaking into a cop’s bedroom in the middle of the night was hilarious. Catching her breath, Shelley said, “Come on! You climbed into his bedroom dressed as a prostitute?”

Across the little round table, Dev snickered then shoved a forkful of lasagna into his mouth while Seth glared at him and muttered, “Thanks, Jones. I guess I should be grateful you didn’t tell everyone at the station too.”

Seth’s eyes rounded and his mouth gaped. “Ah, crap. You didn’t. Right?”

“Holy Toledo, Seth, it was a costume,” Jules said, her face pink, and her green eyes sparkling with humor.

“Yes, but if Gareth had seen you that night, you probably wouldn’t be sitting here today.” Seth touched Jules’s cheek as if to reassure himself.

Tension replaced the humor in the room.

“Who’s Gareth?” Shelley asked at the silence that had redefined deafening.

“He was a police officer—” Jules began.

“No, he was a bastard dirty cop who murdered a woman dressed exactly like you, then went after you too,” Seth corrected.

Jules laid a hand on his and said quietly, “But he didn’t. I’m fine.”

Seth exhaled a hard breath, then cast Jules a weary grin. He kissed her on the temple. “I know, Precious. I know.”

Dev leaned close to Shelley and said in a low, rushed voice, “Gareth had been a police officer until October. We didn’t know he was behind a string of jewelry thefts until he started killing people. One of his victims was a woman. Before she died, she’d accidentally switched purses with your sister. Stolen diamonds were sewn into the lining. Gareth realized it and went after Jules.”

Shelley glanced at Jules who nibbled on what was left of her dinner. Her sister had been in the sights of a murderer? A shiver went down Shelley’s back so fast, she shuddered.

“If it hadn’t been for the ghosts, he might have killed me,” Jules said. “But they kept sending warnings . . . messages. Finally, the dead woman, Aimee-Lynn, told me where to find the diamonds and what to do with them. Dev here played a big part in helping to catch that psycho.”

“Dev did?” Shelley expected Jules to name Seth, not Dev.

“Yeah.” Seth nodded grimly. “If he hadn’t convinced me to stop wearing my ass for a hat, and believe in Jules’s abilities, I might have lost her forever.”

Seth’s watch beeped. Jules hopped up and shuffled into the bedroom. She returned moments later with Callie the kitten and handed her to Seth.

“Your turn to feed her,” Jules said with a grin.

The kitten meowed loudly. “Ooh, that’s a good sign,” Shelley said. “Despite the way we found her, she’s strong. Her lungs are definitely working.”

“I noticed that when I got home from work.” Seth rubbed the kitten on her patchwork head. She closed her eyes and purred.

“Is T coming back?” Dev asked, glancing around.

“No. She decided to stay at her place when Jiovanni called,” Jules said, returning to the table with the filled bottle. She handed it to Seth. “Theresa’s still trying to convince Seth that she’s ready to get married.”

Propping the kitten on the table and cupping his hand over her little body to keep her from falling, Seth gently inserted the nipple into the kitten’s mouth. Once the kitten started to drink, Seth said, “She’s only nineteen, Juliana. I don’t care if she’s mad at me. She’s too young to get married.”

Jules held her hands up. “I’m not arguing with you. I just think you two need to talk about it. Calmly.”

Dev caught Shelley’s eye and winked. That one little gesture did crazy things to her heart. And when he reached out and took her hand in his, the organ previously known to pump blood through her body did somersaults in her chest.

Oh, she shouldn’t let herself get close to these people, especially Dev. She didn’t belong here. Not really. And yet . . .

“Don’t you agree, Shelley?”

Shelley tore her gaze from Dev’s handsome smile and stared blankly at her sister.
Her
sister. The idea that they were really together again was still hard to process.

Jules frowned at her. “Shel? You all right?”

She was about to say yes, when the temperature dropped. She shivered and glanced around. Dev rubbed his arms through the sleeves of his navy crew neck. Seth stared at Jules, who’d gone pale.

Her eyes were open and staring blankly at Shelley, or maybe through her.

Shelley had the distinct impression that Jules didn’t really see her.

“Juliana?” How could Seth load so much love and concern into a single word? He turned to Dev, handing him the bottle. “Jones, take Callie.”

Seth slid out of his seat and squatted next to Jules. Dev shifted and took the vacated spot, so as not to disturb the kitten.

Shelley, unable to sit idly by, knelt next to her sister. There was something familiar about touching Jules’s hand during a vision. She didn’t have time to think about it long before Jules snapped out of it. Or rather, slumped against Seth’s shoulder.

A ripple of fear went through Shelley. “Is she unconscious?”

Seth and Dev wore matching frowns.

“Yes, don’t worry,” Seth said. “She does this sometimes after a vision. Haven’t you seen her do this before?”

That was what was familiar. Shelley
had
seen Jules go into a trance before. Not long before Shelley was adopted. “Once.”

“Oh, this is typical. She’ll be all right in a few minutes. She’ll probably be tired,” Seth said, picking Jules up from the chair and carrying her into the bedroom.

Uncertain what to do, Shelley cleared the dishes from the table and washed them in the sink while Dev continued to feed Callie.

The urge to run back to Elkridge hit her squarely in the midsection. In Elkridge, the animals needed her, and she had a purpose. There in that little town, she was safe. She was needed, but
she
didn’t need anyone. One afternoon with Jules and Shelley’s need for her older sister sprang to life again. It was too easy to fit in, here in Tidewater. Too easy to fall prey to the false sense of actually belonging to a family.

Shelley scrubbed the plates with more force than necessary and reminded herself to keep her expression neutral. God, she was being irrational. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that the joy she felt—and frack it all, she
did
feel it so much her eyes misted—could all end without warning. Then what would she be but an empty husk of who she’d been before? She couldn’t do that. She couldn’t wait for fate or Jules or even God to decide she should be alone again. Shelley, and only Shelley, had to be the one to make that decision.

Seth appeared in the open bedroom door without Jules. His face showed concern but not fear.

“How’s she doing?” Dev asked.

“She’s out.” Seth quietly closed the door behind him then reached for the kitten. Well-fed and sleepy, Callie snuggled against his chest. “It’s been a crazy week. One of our neighbors fell and broke her wrist. Jules has been running meals over there every morning and every night. The shop’s had extended hours because of the holiday rush. Everyone in Tidewater wants one of Jules’s handmade wreaths. She hasn’t had much sleep. Until tonight, she hadn’t had a vision in a while. I guess with everything, it just wore her out.”

Seth absently ran a finger down Callie’s spine, then glanced around his kitchen. “Shelley, you didn’t have to clean up.”

“I didn’t mind.” Shelley stepped closer to Seth and rubbed Callie between the ears. “Did she say what the vision was about?”

“No.” Seth sighed. “This one hit her hard. Sometimes they make her physically ill. Others knock her out. This was the latter. My guess is she’ll sleep until morning.” He gave Shelley a wan smile. “I’m sorry. I know she was really excited to spend time with you. But how about we try this again tomorrow night?”

Shelley smiled, unsure how to answer. She didn’t want to still be in Tidewater tomorrow. “Maybe we can reschedule? I really need to get back to Elkridge. The animals are counting on me.”

“You’re not staying for the weekend?” Seth cast a curious glance to Dev, then back at her.

“No, I don’t think I can. Like I said, the animals need me.” Shelley glanced at her watch. Frack! It was after eleven. She couldn’t ask Dev to drive the hour and a half back to Elkridge tonight. And he
had
asked her to stay. “On second thought, why don’t you bring Jules by in the morning? We can do breakfast. Right, Dev?”

“Absolutely.” There was no missing the relief on his face or in his stormy eyes.

Oh yeah, she could definitely delay her trip home by a night, especially if Dev kept looking at her like that. Maybe they could try out his Jacuzzi . . . naked?

Seth cleared his throat.

Heat whooshed up her cheeks. Dev winked.

“Shelley, you talk to animals, right?” Seth asked.

“Well, not as much as they communicate with me,” she replied, trying to pretend she hadn’t just been imagining Seth’s partner naked.

“So what happened with T’s dog earlier? Couldn’t you talk to it?”

“Well, dogs are special. They um . . . don’t always want to communicate with me.” She smiled, but Seth didn’t return the grin.

“So you talk to all animals
except
dogs?”

“Sounds crazy, right?”

“No crazier than my fiancée talking to ghosts. Sounds like your crift comes with limitations, like Juliana’s.” Seth shrugged. “So maybe your crift
isn’t as much of a curse?”

“No, talking to animals has been the one thing that’s kept me from being lonely all these years.”

Frack! Why did I say that?
Looking for an excuse to end the conversation, Shelley spotted a dirty glass she’d missed earlier, swept it up from the counter, and headed to the sink to wash it.

Dev, as if sensing her discomfort, said, “Seth, you were going to lend me the files to review tonight. Can I get them?”

“Sure, hang on.” Seth disappeared back into his bedroom with Callie. He returned moments later without the kitten, but with two thick manila folders in his arms. He handed them to Dev. “I’ll pick them up when Jules and I swing by for breakfast.”

“Sounds good.” Dev tossed an arm around Shelley’s waist and guided her toward the door.

Seth cast her a big grin. “Great. Well, get some rest, you two. And for God’s sake stay away from big dogs.”

*   *   *

S
HELLEY
DIDN
’
T
SAY
a word all the way back to Dev’s place. And damn, it was starting to make him nervous. He’d escorted her to her room, where she’d promptly said good-night and closed the door. An hour had gone by, and she still had her light on.

Not that he was stalking her room or anything. He’d just noticed the light shining underneath the door when he’d gone downstairs to check the security system. And when he’d gone to make sure the coffeepot was set for the morning. And when he’d slipped down to get a glass of wine because he couldn’t sleep.

So now he stood in his bedroom, a half bottle of wine and a full glass, both untouched. Thinking. About Shells.

Her little speech about being needed back in Elkridge didn’t sit well with him. Okay, yes, she’d asked him to come to the little town to help her with some mystery of disappearing animals. But the sheriff’s office was investigating now. She didn’t
need
to be there.

He would’ve thought it was all out of her hands, except for the files she said she’d had only yesterday. Proof that tracked at least six months’ worth of strange happenings at the zoo. Proof that had suddenly vanished. Crap, she probably was needed back in the Elk-less Ridge. Which meant Dev was being a prick by not helping her solve her mystery. Well, he’d fix that right now.

He yanked open his door, only to find Shelley there, fist in the air as if about to knock. She wore a pair of plaid sleep pants and a faded black T-shirt with the words Vets Do It Doggie-Style. She held a yellow legal pad in her hands.

“Hi,” he said, then could have kicked himself for not just kissing her, because she backed up two paces and lowered her hand to her side.

“Sorry to bother you, Dev, but I noticed your light was still on.” She licked her lips then pressed them together. “I need you to promise that you’ll take me back to Elkridge tomorrow. I can’t sleep, because I know something’s really wrong at the zoo. I think it goes beyond the missing cubs. Plus, I still can’t reach Tomás. I want to check on Beau too.”

“You’re right,” he said when she paused.

“I know my proof vanished . . .” She continued as if she hadn’t heard him at first, then frowned. “What did you say?”

“I said you’re right. The animals need you. And I promised to help. I was just coming over to talk to you about it.” He opened the door wider and gestured for her to come in. “But since you’re here, why don’t we talk in my room?”

The smile on her face was dazzling, and it warmed him. More than warmed him. Made him damn hot. But she wasn’t sidling into his bedroom so she could fulfill his fantasies. Or even part of his fantasies.