She had been just so blasted convinced that Mike would be the man to help her find Mamie’s lost son. She’d already tried everything she could think of, even going so far as to insert an ad in the newspaper, asking that anyone with information on Mamie or John Patrick contact her at once. When Sara had met with no response, the sympathetic Mrs. Jenkins had suggested she hire Mike Parker, the old lady showing her the glowing article written about the man.
Sara had come to Atlantic City with high hopes, expecting to find a man with the wisdom of Sherlock Holmes, the dapperness of Hercule Poirot and the sophistication of Nick Charles all rolled into one.
But instead of the storybook detective she’d envisioned, Mike Parker was more like an older version of one of the Dead End Kids, lean and sexy in his formfitting jeans and T-shirt, street tough and smart mouthed.
Yet despite his disconcerting appearance and the less-than-successful look of his office, she could not rid herself of the impression that Mike was damned good at his job when he wanted to be. A shrewd intelligence lurked behind those lazy brown eyes, and the set of the man’s jaw had a bulldog tenacity about it. Sara had a feeling that he could have easily found Mamie’s missing son if he had cared enough to do so.
But even after one brief meeting with the man, Sara could sense that that would always be the trick with the cynical Mr. Parker—to make him care.
It was certainly quite beyond her abilities, she thought ruefully. Maybe she could have persuaded Mike to have taken the case if she had just presented it to him differently, as a simple missing-persons matter, told him nothing about ghosts or auras or psychic impressions.
There was only one problem with that. She was tired of pretending. She’d done it for far too many years, stifling the extraordinary perceptions that made her feel strange and different from everyone else, that frequently got her labeled as crazy, even by her own family.
It was only during the past year that Sara had finally developed the courage to face herself in the mirror and say, “My psychic abilities are as real and natural as the color of my eyes and the shape of my nose. I am not crazy.”
She certainly didn’t need a cynic like Mike Parker to chip away at her newfound confidence. Sara touched one hand to her mouth, still tender from the force of Mike’s kiss. Or to cause other disturbances of a less spiritual nature.
“No,” Sara resolved, forcing herself up from the chair. Setting her chin to a stubborn angle, she cast one last wistful look at the closed office door. “I will manage just fine without the services of Mr. Michael Parker.”
Mike lowered his office blinds and peered between the slats, watching as Sara emerged from the building, her gypsycolored skirt and golden tumble of curls a splash of color on the gray concrete of the pavement below.
Furtively observing her movements, Mike frowned, still not certain what he was expecting to see—Sara being met by one of those idiots from down at Boom Boom’s, to have a laugh over the good one they’d just put over on poor old Mike. Or perhaps someone more sinister from his past, melting out of the shadows to congratulate Sara on a performance well-done, the first phase in some elaborate revenge plot to drive Mike Parker round the bend.
“It’d be a real short trip, doll,” Mike muttered, at the same time chiding himself for letting his usual suspicious nature and imagination run away with him. He couldn’t make either of those scenarios he’d conjured up fit with the wide-eyed and earnest young woman he’d tossed out of his office.
Sara was doing nothing more sinister than pacing distractedly along the sidewalk, totally unaware of her surroundings, the obscene come-on gestures from the construction workers across the street or the interest she was drawing from a gang of street punks hanging out on the corner.
Mike’s office wasn’t exactly located at one of the swankier addresses in the city. He caught himself tensing, watching until Sara managed to hail herself a cab and was spirited safely away.
Not, he assured himself gruffly, because he cared in the least what happened to Little Miss Blue Eyes. He just wanted to make sure she was really gone. Mike let the blind fall back into place and turned away from the window with a dismissive shake of his head.
Now that he’d had a chance to calm down, he was pretty convinced that Sara had been acting all on her own, that she was nothing more than she seemed, a harmless kook, an angel with her halo screwed on a little too tight.
But she really had you going for a minute there, didn’t she, Parker? a voice inside him taunted. In more ways than one.
“The hell she did,” Mike growled, seeking to deny both the surge of attraction he’d felt for Sara and the fact that she’d managed to shake him. Not even in that one moment when she’d seemed to look straight through him, her blue eyes so clear and honest and searching?
No, not even then. But Mike did admit to an uncomfortable twinge. He had no objection to a woman trying to see through his clothes, but he didn’t want anyone probing deeper than that. There were places in the dark, murky backwaters of his mind even he didn’t want to go, memories he didn’t want dredged out into the light of day.
But Sara Holyfield was no mind reader—not even close. She was about as psychic as...as the wilted plant his secretary had insisted upon leaving on his windowsill to die.
All right, then. So how’d she know about your old wound?
Mike shrugged. A certain knack for perception and a few good hunches. Maybe Sara had even felt the outline of his scar when they had been locked in that clinch. His T-shirt was thin enough. And how’d she known about the knife? A lucky guess, that was all.
And as for all that stuff she’d spouted about him being such a miserable and bitter man... The lady was completely off the mark there. Hell, he was doing better now than he had in the two years since he’d quit his job at the police force. Business was good, at least good enough that he could now afford to have a secretary—when Rosa bothered to show up. And his divorce had become final last fall. He was a free man again, free to go out cruising for gorgeous honeys, free to get lucky every night if he wanted to.
Which didn’t help to explain why he’d reacted to Sara like a man stranded for years on a desert island, pulling her into his arms and kissing her that way. Or why when Mike tried to dismiss the whole episode, he couldn’t seem to get Sara out of his mind.
Settling back into his chair, he reached for the report he’d been working on, but somehow he kept seeing Sara’s woebegone face when he shoved her into the outer office and slammed the door closed.
“I came to you because I honestly needed your help, Mr. Parker.”
Mike experienced a brief twinge of conscience. He supposed he hadn’t needed to get that rough with the poor kid, but she could always find some other investigator. There was bound to be someone who would be happy to play ghost hunt with her and sucker her out of her money.
Another unpleasant thought. Mike thrust it ruthlessly aside. No, he’d done right by getting rid of Sara and forgetting about her.
Because a woman who thought she could read minds and see ghosts, well she was bound to be nothing but trouble. Especially packaged the way Sara was. Her pretty face all vulnerable and innocent, filling a man’s head with stupid noble impulses to fight the baser urges her body was arousing in him.
And what a body. Mike stretched back in his chair, latching his hands behind his head. Good thing he’d resolved to stop thinking about Sara. Because if he closed his eyes, he could still remember how tempting her breasts had looked outlined by the sun, how good it had felt to have those soft curves pressed against him. A faint trace of her perfume still lingered in the air and it brought with it the memory of the kiss they shared. He could still feel the sweet surprise