“Jax, my man, you’re as dumb as a kumquat,” Roark said in disgust. “I brought these women across the whole cotton-pickin’ country to help you, and you want to send them to Harry Potter World? Did you eat your brains?”
Oh, swell, that did it. She was supposed tohelpa man whose bones ought to be shredded by vultures by now? She came out here to reassure Ariel, not help Jax, who didn’t have the brains of a kumquat, granted. Since Roark hadn’t unlocked the car doors, she marched down the road. There had been some shacks a few miles back. She’d hiked farther.
“Evie!”
Footsteps pounded up behind her. Jax was a jogger. Her short legs couldn’t possibly stay ahead of his long, muscled ones, so she didn’t even try. Her mother made a big deal out of tarot and crystal ball predictions, but people were so damned predictable...
Jax grabbed her waist and dragged her up against him.That, she hadn’t predicted. Goddesses above, but the man was solid steel and smelled of masculine sweat, musk, and dust. No showers in the desert, she guessed. She almost swooned, although admittedly, that was more lust than his stench. She grabbed his thick shoulders to balance herself and regretted it instantly.
“Evie, this is my problem. I don’t want to drag you into it.” Now that he had stopped her, he slowly released her.
Perversely, she wrapped her arms around his neck and stayed right where she was. Maybe this was how one got through kumquat lawyer heads. “I thought we werefriends.” She dragged that straight out of her gut, so it came out an almost guttural growl.
He wrapped his arms around her, hard, and rested his head against hers. “How can I have friends if I come from a long line of murderers or spies or who knows what?”
“Damn, you do have kumquats for brains. And a walnut for a heart, just like Loretta said. Your friendsknowyou. You’re a literal-minded, ruthless control freak, and yeah, you’ve probably killed in war zones, but your walnut heart has potential, and there isn’t anyone more honest.” She grabbed a fistful of his short hair and yanked his head upright. “Why, by all the heavens, do you think we’re out here?”
“To bury my vulture-pecked, control-freak bones?” he asked with a hint of humor.
“Yeah, that.” She dropped her arms and pushed away. “Why Glass Mountain?”
Just like that, he surrendered. “Because that’s where Aaron Ives is said to be buried. This was his land. And if fingerprints are to be believed, he also died that night with my mother and is the man who might be my real father.”
“So there’s a good chance that if anyone is buried in that mountain, it’s Franklin Jackson, the man youthoughtwas your father?” Evie knew she was quick at deductions. That’s why she’d started her Psychic Solutions Agency, even if with the addition of Jax’s team, she now had to call it Sensible Solutions, which was probably a lie because there was nothing sensible about what she did.
“Damn, you’re good.” Jax took a deep breath, ran a hand through his tousled hair, and nodded. “Do you think you might find his ghost?”
Evie grinned so wide she thought her cheeks might break. Damon Ives Jackson was admitting that she might talk to ghosts?
“Only if I can get back in time to file for election as Afterthought’s mayor.” Establishing her priorities, she headed back for the campfire. “I’m not giving the mayor’s cronies another chance to steal the town.”
Three
“We can’t goghost hunting tonight. There’s an Airbnb down the road, and what passes for a diner, if you haven’t eaten.” Deeply unsettled, Jax returned to officer mode and directed his troops. He kicked out the fire and gathered his supplies to fling into the Subaru.
Holding Evie that close—had felt way too necessary. He needed distance to continue his mission.
As soon as he unlocked the car doors, Evie inserted herself into his passenger seat. One thing he could say about the capricious genie—she wasn’t shy or lacking in confidence. Or maybe she just didn’t give a damn.
Nah, Evie gave everything to others. That was probably what was making him nervous. He didn’t want to be one of her projects.Mayor? She seriously wanted to be mayor?
He’d just asked her to look for a ghost.That was equally as improbable, bordering on insane. He’d baked his head in the desert long enough. “You don’t mean to leave Loretta with a loose screw like Roark? He’s likely to take the Hummer off-road to see how fast he can go.”
Evie raised a pointed eyebrow and nodded at the Hummer. Loretta was bouncing up and down and excitedly buckling herself into the front passenger seat. “You want to tell her she can’t sit there? I’ve read his aura, remember? Roark is a total gentleman, if you give him a chance. He’s the favorite uncle she doesn’t have.”
Loretta had just tragically lost both parents—twice. The kid hadn’t believed them dead until they’d found the bodies nearly a year after they’d disappeared. Now she was having to adjust to an entirely new life with a distant arm of her father’s family, weird strangers she hadn’t even known existed. Evie had to keep reminding Jax of that fact because he was a poor excuse for a human being.
He was a damned lawyer, not a child psychologist.
Sighing, he strapped himself into the driver’s seat and drove away from what might have been his home had his father lived. Or not.
“The chance of finding any ghost is small.” Evie spoke as teacher to student, maintaining that comfortable distance he needed. She was probably reading hisaura. “Millions of people die a year. Most move on to the next plane. Those remaining don’t necessarily make their presence known. Or can’t.”
“You’re already making excuses for failing,” he countered. “And I have other sources. I just thought as long as you were here...”
“You’d what? Pacify me? Lovely.” She crossed her arms and glared at the dusty ruts in his headlights.
“Look, dammit, Evie, I’m not a believer, okay? I wasn’t raised to give a crap about souls rising to heaven or any of that religious crap. Dead people are worm fodder. Whoever those people were who claimed to be my parents and died that night in their car, they’ve been cremated, ashes to ashes. I have no means of proving their genetic connection to me, no more than I can prove anything about a body buried in a mountain. I’m clutching desperately at straws, hoping to put together a straw horse, at least. You’re one straw among many.”