Page 5 of Ace
He hadn’t had that reaction in, well, years. For reasons he didn’t want to analyze, Keller took an involuntary step backward. He wasn’t intimidated, but he was smart enough to recognize a mental push when he felt one. Okay, so this young thing was not only gorgeous but psychically gifted. He was used to folks like that.
Shaking off her gentle push of impending doom—because he’d never backed down from anyone or anything in his life—Keller spread his feet and steadied his stance, not willing to be pushed any farther. Determined to do what he could to help Isaiah sooner than later, he stuck out one hand and relied on standard, every day FBI protocol. “Good morning, ma’am. Sorry to disturb you, but I’m from Washington, and I’ve come a long way to speak with—”
“Don’t care where you’re from and don’t want what you’re selling, mister,” she bit out as she crossed her arms, drawing his attention to two small breasts now pleasantly plumped together and pointed directly at him. “This here’s private property. You’re trespassing. Beat it.”
Hot damn. It’d been years since Keller had been distracted by the mere sight of a woman’s body, but that tiny, pink tee was way too small for even the hand-sized packages beneath it. And those soft, warm packages would fit his palms. Nicely.
The sparks flying out of those wells of mystery were too much to ignore. Of all the things he’d neverexpected, his damned cock sprang to standing-room-only in his briefs. Clearing his throat, Keller tried again, his hand still extended even as he willed his body to,‘Stand the fuck down already!’
“FBI Special Agent Boniface, ma’am. If I could just talk to you, I’m sure—”
“I’m busy. I said go, and don’t come back.”
“That was not a request,” he told her just as adamantly, pulling his hand back since courtesy hadn’t gotten him anywhere. “I have business to discuss with Mariposa Church, not you. This is her place, right?”
“This is not a good day,” the young woman declared, a definite edge in her tone. “Mizz Church, she... she doesn’t have time for whatever you’re peddling.”
There was something soft and plaintive in her tone, but Keller was task-driven, and bottom line, Isaiah didn’t have time to waste. “Sorry ma’am, but this is the only day I’ll be in town. I have business to discuss with Miss Church, not you, now please. Either take me to her or get out of my way.”
The cold disdain shadowing this woman’s countenance called his bluff. Thrusting her chin forward, she enunciated, “I. Said. No. Leave this place and don’t come back.”
Why did those words feel familiar, as if he’dfeltthem before? And why did he get that same eerie,I’m-watching-yousensation, as if this little thing could pack a punch behind that angry command and make him leave if she wanted to? “You did hear me say I was FBI, didn’t you?”
Her eyes popped. “Are you threatening me?”
He raised the ante. “Do I need a warrant? Is that what it’ll take just to talk to Mariposa Church? Because I can do that if you won’t listen to reason.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” she hissed even as she wiped the corner of her eye and...
Aw, shit.She’s crying.Keller took a voluntary step back that time, pissed at himself for not catching onto what was going on. He was a psychic empath. He should’ve recognized her pain. He should’ve felt it. This woman wasn’t angry. She was defensive and sad and... so beautiful it nearly hurt to look at her.
“I can help if you let me,” he offered quietly. “Trust me. Whatever you’re up against, I can help. That’s my job.”
Her nostrils flared even as her full lush lips pinched into a thin line. “I don’t need your help, mister, now please. Just get off Gran Mm-m-m… I mean, m-my porch and...”
He couldn’t make his eyes move away from the pain he now clearly saw. This woman was tender yet fierce, gentle but determined and stubborn, not traits he usually cared for in the fairer sex. But they lit her from the inside out like candles glowing behind the loveliest stained-glass windows.
Awareness came to him on a stifling wave of Louisiana humidity. Keller’s hand went automatically to his chest where a black hole was now sucking the sunlight out of the day. He sensed bottomless grief hollowing her soul even as she stood there brave and ready to fight him—the last thing he wanted. He wasn’t there to fight, especially not her. He reached out hisother hand, needing to touch her. This young woman was barely holding it together, and empathy demanded he help her—if only to alleviate the same pain now hollowing him like a razor-sharp melon baller.
But she stepped back. Damn it.
Yes, that contact would’ve been devastating—to him—but touching her was the only way Keller could complete the connection between them. At the moment, he was an overloaded circuit with no release. All the negative power channeling from this woman was on a one-way, dead-end track that would fry his circuits.
He’d learned the hard way. He was the receiver and she was the transmitter. Only as usual, his mind wasn’t strong enough to contain all her negative energy. It was too much. He had to give something back—and soon—or risk an overload that would manifest one ungodly killer migraine. He’d end up incapacitated for days. Empathy was never a one-way street. Like karma, it was a giver and taker. It demanded balance. In one way or another, comfort had to be exchanged for grief and pain. Forgiveness for sin. Sooner than later. Before he lost his mind.
Keller faltered as the son-of-a-bitchin’ auras that preceded his migraines began their inevitable dance of agony at the edge of his peripheral. “Please. Let me help,” he said as evenly as he could. “Tell me what your great grandmother needs.”Before I go blind from this headache and embarrass myself.
The instant those words fell from his lips, the details of his intended subject’s life came back to him. Oh yeah. Mariposa Church. One hundred and three years old.Born in New Mexico to a wandering Cajun alcoholic. But Max Butterfield never married her mother, Grace Finley. They gave birth to three daughters before he killed Grace one particularly dark and drunken night, turned his bloody knife on Mariposa’s two older sisters, then killed himself as well.
Mariposa was the only survivor of the bloody crime. She’d spent years in a loving foster home before she’d married Antonio Church and moved with him to his hometown, New Orleans. After he died an early death, she took to the brackish waters of the deepest bayou. Known as a gifted, sighted psychic, she read palms and tarot cards for a meager living. When her two sons passed, she took in the last of her dismally sad line, her great granddaughter, one Savannah Charisma Church.
Who had to be the beautiful woman confronting Keller now. The one whose bottom lip quivered as a sheen of unshed tears extinguished the fiery sparks in her eyes. “No, you can’t help,” she murmured, her voice soft and broken. “It’s too late. No one can help her now.”
Which meant the old woman was dead, and Isaiah was screwed.Talk about bad timing. Keller had arrived on what had to be the worst day of the young Miss Church’s life.
He stepped forward when she wiped her face again. “May I?” he asked politely as he reached for her hand, desperate to release the thrumming energy dammed up in his head, but just as desperate to lessen her pain. Migraine be damned, he could help this woman if she’d just let him. That was his true gift, helping the broken hearted when no one else could.
But she said, “No.” Standing there like a teary stone wall, yet falling apart at the same time, needing someone to lean on, but not willing to let it be him, Miss Church resisted his help.
