He didn’t move. “Trying to get rid of me, Lainie?”
“Why, Speed, whatever would give you that idea?” She reached out to toy with a leaflet that promised step-by-step directions to putting a hex on someone.
“Should I be nervous that you’re holding on to that?”
“No, the time to get nervous is when I go after the voodoo doll.”
He gave her a quick glance. “You wouldn’t, by any chance, have broken one of those out already?” He rubbed his shoulder. “It would explain a lot.”
“No, it’s an inspiration I’ve never had until now. Worth keeping in mind, though,” she added thoughtfully. “Why, are you having problems?” Not that she should care, of course.
J.J. shrugged, a little stiffly, now that she noticed it. “Ah, I screwed up my shoulder back in July.”
“Screwed it up?”
“Dislocated the son of a bitch.”
“What, did you trip over your ego?”
He grinned. “Mountain biking.”
“I am so not surprised.”
Suddenly his eyes seemed darker and he was much closer than he had been. Suddenly she was neatly boxed in between him and the corner shelves. “You know, Lainie, one of these days I will surprise you.”
For an instant she didn’t move; she couldn’t. Then she forced herself to swallow with a throat gone bone dry. “Yeah, well, I’ll be right here holding my breath for when that happens.” She pushed past him, out into the center of the shop.
But he’d gotten to her in that moment, and he knew it. She could tell from the enjoyment flickering in his eyes.
“Gee, it’s been fun, J.J. I’ve got to get to a meeting,” she said briskly.
“Over at the Seven Gables Inn?” At her startled glance, he shrugged. “I heard you talking with your friend.”
“My boss, but yes at the Seven Gables Inn. Anyway, I’m late, I’ve got to go.”
“Nice day for a walk,” he added.
J.J. stood in the museum courtyard, waiting for Lainie. He wasn’t entirely sure what ridiculous impulse had led him to stop in Salem, only that when he had an impulse, he usually found it worthwhile to ride with it. Traffic had cooperated on the drive down from New Hampshire. When he’d glanced at the dash clock and seen that he had a few hours to kill, he hadn’t thought but just gone with the first thing that came to mind.
And in the two days that had passed since the party, Lainie had come to mind a lot.
It wasn’t an entirely unfamiliar situation. She’d always had a way of flickering through his thoughts at the most unexpected of times—when he was thousands of miles away, flying down an icy mountain, standing at a party in a room filled with the music of a dozen languages.
And sometimes, unsettlingly, in his dreams. Best not to think of that, he reminded himself. Better to banish those pulse-pounding images to the dark corners of his mind where they belonged. The problem was, this time out of the gate he wasn’t being so successful at the banishing stuff, maybe because he was at loose ends, maybe because he wasn’t involved with anyone.
Or maybe because of that moment at Gabe’s party, that strange little snap of connection that had whipped through his system before he’d been prepared for it.
“You still here?”
It was Lainie, frowning at him, laptop slung over her shoulder. She wasn’t wearing the little skirt and crop top this time but a long summer dress made of some intriguingly fragile-looking fabric that shimmered over the slip beneath and flowed around her calves like water.
It should have looked demure, with its faintly old-fashioned looking pattern of pale blossoms, but all it did was make him itch to unfasten the row of buttons that ran down the front, beginning with the hem and rising to where the fabric dipped down around the slender column of her throat. She wore a necklace with a single bead like a flat pearl, pierced from side to side with a string-thin leather thong so that it sat atop the hollow where her collarbones came together.
“Earth to J.J.”
He’d been staring, he realized.
“I have to go. You shouldn’t have waited.”
And she clearly hadn’t wanted him to, though that didn’t bother him. Not when he saw the faint pulse begin to beat in her throat. “Salem could be a tough town. I owe it to your parents not to let you walk around alone. Although—” he eyed the black bulk of her laptop case “—that thing probably counts as a lethal weapon.”
“Try to remember that,” she advised him.
He reached out and curved his fingers around the black webbing of the strap. Her eyes widened. “Maybe you’d better just give it to me to carry,” he said.
She tugged it back from him. “I thought you had a bad shoulder.”
“It’s the other one, and it’s getting better all the time,” he told her. She finally gave up, and he slung the bag over his shoulder, trying not to look smug. “So, where to?”
She didn’t bother answering, just headed toward the iron gates that led to the street, and the trapezoidal town common beyond.
She could needle him, she could pretend all she liked that she didn’t want him around. He knew better.
He was used to women with quick hungers, women who knew what they wanted. And what they wanted was him. He’d had more memorable times than he could count and none of them were anything as hot as that moment in the gift shop when he’d stood just a little too close to Lainie and seen the flare of desire in her eyes.
He wasn’t sure what to think about it, what to do about it except that he knew there was no way he was just going to walk away.
Not until he figured it out.
She didn’t know what he thought he was up to, but the last thing she needed before an important meeting was a distraction. Especially a distraction like J. J. Cooper. Out of habit, Lainie walked between the stone pillars that led into the common itself. Even if it was only a few dozen yards, she liked wending her way along the graceful oaks and the grass-edged paths instead of the narrow concrete sidewalk that threaded along the street. On drowsy, Indian summer mornings like this one, it was quiet and tranquil.
Usually.
She blew out a breath.
“Careful,” J.J. said. “Hyperventilating isn’t good for you.”
Lainie glanced to the heavens for patience and headed toward the side of the common by the hotel.
The warm breeze slipped over her skin as they walked a few steps in silence. “Nice common,” J.J. said. “Do you spend a lot of time here?”
“Sometimes.”
“I can see why you would. It must be something in the fall. There are some beautiful places in the world, but there’s nothing quite like New England.”
Lainie stopped to stare at him. “I thought you had an appointment.”
“I’ve got time.” He just smiled and began ambling again with that loose, careless stride. He didn’t move with the controlled grace of an athlete, and yet something in the way he held himself suggested that he could do just about anything he wanted to with that body of his.
Like she needed to think of that.
Lainie made an impatient noise and caught up with him. “What’s the appointment?”
“Dry-land training. Rehab.”
She