She tilted up her head and looked into Zach’s eyes. A whole bluer-than-blue sky couldn’t have been that full of laughter. She considered making another escape attempt, but didn’t have the chance before he placed a kiss on her mouth. The kind designed to remind her that it had been far too long since they had last made love. “Lord, you’re a tease,” he murmured.

She was the tease? He’d refined the practice since they’d been married. His tongue slipped between her parted lips and sought hers. Ever so gradually, a steady, unconscious tension that had gripped her for days relaxed; a languid weariness flowed through her body. His tongue continued to play a game of thrust and parry, very gentle, very provocative. No hurry, said the movements of Zach’s tongue, as if something inside him was quite aware she’d been leading the life of a racehorse all week.

When Zach took over, he took over. The race was over, and she found slow motion infinitely preferable to fast. Her fingertips slowly walked up his forearms, up the soft material covering his shoulders, up and into his hair. He seemed to like that quite well, because when he finally came up from the first kiss for air, on the inhale he was already dipping down for the second. That one lasted until he’d thoroughly mussed her hair and run his hands all the way down to her bottom and back up again. Bett was clinging to him, rubbing her hips in a most private rhythm against his hard thighs. Zach flicked open the collar of her dress to press a kiss against her collarbone. “Now, where is it you’re certainly not going?” he murmured idly.

“To a psychic,” Bett answered, and leaned her cheek into his shoulder. She felt Zach stiffen, and sighed. “I had a feeling you heard me,” she said dryly. “Mom read this card on the bulletin board in the grocery store two days ago and called the guy. He reads…auras. She’s decided to…um…have a little chat with Dad.”

Zach very definitely pulled back then. “Let’s hear that again?”

Bett’s hands fluttered in the air. Anxiety darkened her eyes, but at the same time a hint of humor softened the curve of her lips. “Mom…she seems to feel it’s about time she let go of grieving, which you know I’d do anything to help her with! But she’s so set on this idea. She figured that one last chance to contact Dad-”

“When exactly did your mother lose her mind?”

“Be nice,” Bett coaxed.

“I’m being very nice.”

“Zach, she is going. Now, there’s no talking her out of it; I tried. And obviously I couldn’t let her go alone. The Lord knows what she’d get herself into…” Bett caught her breath. “It’ll probably be fun. Ghosts and levitation and stuff…”

Zach pushed back his hair with a thoroughly perplexed frown. He held back the expletive on the tip of his tongue. Bett was so tired she could barely stand up straight, but her eyes stared determinedly up at him. Lord, she was a stubborn little minx! “So how much is the resident ghost hunter taking her for?” he asked flatly.

“I don’t know. Neither does she. Mom doesn’t care.” Bett clearly did.

“You want me to talk to her?”

“If I thought it would do any good, I’d say yes. Unfortunately, I really believe she’d just sneak off to him sometime when she thinks we don’t know about it, and then I would worry-”

“Yes.” He had the measure. Bett had been roped in. She didn’t need anyone giving her a hard time. His eyes held hers, half filled with humor. “If there are black candles and they ask for a show of hands for a virgin sacrifice, don’t volunteer.” His half-smile died when she didn’t return it. “How bad can it be, some guy who advertises in a grocery store?” he asked wryly.

“Mmm.” Bett chewed on her lower lip, and moved out of his arms to reach for the brush again. Zach had no appreciation for hairstyles. He was a toucher. “That isn’t exactly why I thought you wouldn’t approve of the idea.”

“What exactly is the part I’m supposed to object to?”

“Nothing, really.” It was just the place they were going. Kind of a rural slum on the edge of nowhere, the tag end of a poor farming community about twenty miles away. Anyone with a suicide wish could wander around there at night without any problem. “I’m sure its reputation is vastly overrated. So it’s a poor area. Zach, that doesn’t necessarily mean-”

“Oh, no. But I should have guessed where the local psychic would hang his shingle.”

Unsmiling, Zach pulled off his sweatshirt and reached into the closet for a short-sleeved blue shirt.

“Zach, you don’t have to go. Really.”

Buttoning his shirt, he was inclined to take both women over his knee. The older one for a spanking. The other one to cuddle up.


***

Pushing the gearshift into neutral, Zach leaned forward and peered through the windshield. The pitch-black gravel road had never seen a streetlamp. A single swaying lantern creaked back and forth over a peeling sign that read:

Reverend Moody, Spiritualist

Psychic Readings

Séances Healings

Appointment Only

He and Bett exchanged a dry glance. There wasn’t much they could tell from the exterior of the ranch house; it was too overgrown by shrubbery and low-hanging trees to get a good look at it. Bett had relaxed from the time she knew Zach was coming along, but the mood was still rather eerie. A chill had touched the back of her neck and was more than ready to travel up and down her spine at a moment’s notice. Zach couldn’t have been less affected, as he matter-of-factly leaned over the back seat with a carefully serious expression on his face.

“Listen, Liz. No need for all of us to go in, now is there? You two stay in the car; I’ll just pop in there and…um…talk to Chet, and then-”

“Oh, no, Zach. I’ve talked to the Reverend Moody three times in the last two days, and I definitely have to be there. I thought you knew all about psychic spirits? When you said you were coming, you told me how interested you’d always been-”

“Mmm,” Zach grumbled as he cut the engine and jerked out of the car. Opening the door for his mother-in-law, he watched Elizabeth dart out and start up the dark, winding path, as excited as a little kid, her hands firmly clasped in front of her. Exasperation warred with humor inside of him.

Bett slipped an arm around Zach’s waist, glancing up at him as they strolled up the walk. “You’re really irritated, aren’t you?”

He squeezed her shoulder. “Not at you.” A hiss and a snarl from the front porch made Bett stiffen in alarm. “A black cat,” he murmured under his breath. “Why am I not surprised?”

Bett relaxed again. “Behave yourself,” she mouthed, her lips twitching with laughter.

“Are you kidding? I am,” he mouthed back.

Reverend Moody was already greeting Elizabeth at the door. He was a gray-haired man with a long face, soulful eyes and a black suit that was just a touch shiny in the seat. He chattered to Elizabeth as if he’d just found a long-lost friend, eyed Bett at length from head to toe and wasted a fleeting disappointed look as he registered Zach’s presence.

By the time the “so glad you’re here” stuff was over with, the three of them were inside. “Perhaps a slight libation to relax all of us before we begin,” the reverend suggested soothingly as he led them through a carpetless hall, lit only faintly by a dangling lightbulb.

“Thanks, but we’re not much into libations, Reverend,” Zach said pleasantly. “Before we go any further, though, I wonder if I could have a private word with you.”

“Certainly, certainly.”

First, Zach took a cursory look at the room into which Reverend Moody was ushering the two women. It was square and dark, lit only by candles, and held a circular table in the center of it, covered, not surprisingly, with a black tablecloth. Harmless. Bett shot him a startled look, but he closed the door on her and faced the reverend without any more smiles.

“How much?” he demanded flatly.

“I sense,” the tall man said soothingly, “a slight skepticism, which I assure you I have encountered before. Once you’ve seen-”

“I’m sure,” Zach agreed. “How much?”

The reverend shook his head sadly. “A really very nominal contribution.” He cleared his throat. “Twenty-five dollars.”

Zach dug into his pocket, handed the man his fee and leveled him an iceberg stare. “Rev? Just so we both know what I’m paying for. You lay any hocus-pocus on those two, and I guarantee you’ll have a real vision of the spirit world-direct. Got it?”

“Sir-”

“And you’ll also see that Mrs. Cordell gets enough out of this experience that she will have absolutely no need ever to return here. Ever. Now, are we clear on that, too?”

“You may just be surprised with what the spirit world can come up with, Mr. Monroe,” the Reverend Moody said acidly. Under Zach’s steely stare, he turned away. “I think we’re all very clear on what to expect this evening.”

Bett felt a zigzag of apprehension tickle her spine as the door opened and Zach finally returned with Reverend Moody. The whole room, the whole house and grounds, gave her the creeps. Rationally, she knew very well that the “Reverend,” though no man of the cloth, was only a harmless character and that there was nothing to be afraid of. In college, she’d even fooled around with ESP, a fascinating experience. But this was different. Her brain seemed to be functioning at only half the speed of the pulse beating in her throat. Cobwebs was what this place suggested to her-she felt as though they were going to cover her head any minute and smother her. She couldn’t really shake the idiotic feeling until Zach sat down rather heavily beside her and laid a possessive hand on her thigh.

The reverend sat down, took Elizabeth’s hands in his own and stared deeply into the lady’s eyes for several silent minutes. “I sense,” he said slowly, “the most wonderful, loving aura around you, Mrs. Cordell…”