Chapter Seventeen

Five days later—New York City

Winter came early that year to New York. Snow fell in a soundless cloud from the sky, blanketing the city that never slept. It muted the noise and forced the pace to slow by a few steps. Emma abandoned her desk to stare out the window of the loft that housed Eric’s offices. The once familiar gray and white landscape was now curiously alien to her.

The city was her place, a home she’d made, but it felt different on her return. Or maybe she was different. It seemed a lifetime ago when she was surrounded by towering pines and leafless trees rooted in dark mountains and reaching into cold, clean air. She sat along the wide ledge and traced spirals in the window condensation. Part of her heart stayed in those forbidding mountains, and here, without that part of her, she wasn’t connected. She floated without anchor, wondering when the drift would stop and where she’d land.

Her main phone line buzzed. Emma ignored it, letting it roll to voice mail. It was hard to plug back into the old routine. Her anonymity was blown when the national papers spread news of the happenings in sleepy Meyerville. It wasn’t Jen’s solved murder that made fantastic headlines, but the fact that the cold case abduction and murder of the missing Taggert Pharmaceuticals heir had finally been resolved—and not by normal, earthly means.

The media hounded her daily, trying to discover if she had more cold cases lined up, and two of the big six New York publishing houses had sent emissaries offering her book deals. When she didn’t grant interviews, tabloids and bloggers invented their own content. Everyone was eager to get a piece of the action now. A piece of her. She’d earned the respect she’d craved, and with it, a reputation that followed her everywhere.

Emma’s book, her initial reason for taking the case and once her sole ambition, couldn’t seem to hold her attention. Her position with Eric had been compromised by her notoriety. He’d made no move to push her out, but she no longer worked at ferreting out the deceitful amongst his potential clients. Right now she was playing catch up with his backlog of appearance requests and assigning private meetings to other psychics on staff who’d now do what was once her main job.

She couldn’t see a future in this role, but wasn’t sure what future she could see. Or wanted to see. Her life had changed forever. She had fame, fortune to come, and had found a quick ticket to into the limelight. For any other person this would be the start of a wild ride on a fast moving gravy train.

For her, it was all wrong. Emma hadn’t realized how much she valued her privacy. Working under the radar had numerous advantages she hadn’t appreciated until they were gone. On the flip side, she hadn’t realized the relative insignificance of her shady past as far as the general public was concerned. Her entire upbringing was reduced to no more than a biographical quip about a childhood spent with an infamous con man currently living in exile in a country not too keen on extradition. The scandal of the missing heiress cold case far outshone Emma's sordid history.

The phone buzzed again and she let this call go untouched as well, opting instead to take a morning break. She was restless. Unsettled. Her job and her life and her skin no longer fit the woman who came down from those cold mountains five days ago. And part of that was Sam Tyler’s fault.

Try as she might, she couldn’t forget him, couldn’t get over him and move on the way she thought. In fact, she was beginning to wonder what it would take to move on. Even in the whirlwind of change, her affection and raw desire for him, day in and day, out was a nagging and unwelcome constant. Their brief affair haunted her in a way that left her no escape and no peace.

Despite her years of hard living on the grift, despite all the lessons learned, her little girl self had bought into the fantasy of Sam and her big girl self had bought into the reality of him, and that seemed to be all that mattered. She knew she couldn’t go on wishing he was a different man. If he was, she might not feel this way about him. But since he wasn’t a different man, she couldn’t trust him. Still she'd wondered, more than once in the dark and lonely hours of the long nights, if maybe she didn’t need to trust him all that much.

The office door opened, and Emma sighed. There was no escaping work or life today. She realized she’s gone from drawing spirals to hearts. She wiped away the evidence with an angry swipe of her hand before her visitor could see.

Eric lounged against the door frame. “Hate to bother you, Emma. Someone’s here to see you.”

“I don’t have any appointments booked today,” she said.

Eric had a good poker face, and was as much performer as he was psychic, but there was something about him, something in the air, that made her suspicious. “Who is it?”

“If I tell you, odds are good, you won’t agree to the meeting.”

Sam.

The restlessness in her vanished, replaced by a giddy excitement and hard case of the nerves. Both of which she found annoying. Yet keeping a smile from forming wasn’t easy work. “Why wouldn’t I agree to see him? He probably has the final contract conveying sole rights for the story to me. That’s my ticket to the big time.”

“You’ve ignored his calls all week.” Eric arched a dark brow. Dressed all in chic New York black, with his gypsy good looks, he was the devil incarnate, bringing her dangerous temptation and reading all her hidden desire. It sucked to have a master psychic as a boss some days. “Last night at dinner you refused to talk about what happened between you and all but cursed his name. I’m going out on the ledge and saying that isn’t a good sign.”

“I’m a professional.”

“He’s pretty banged up. Don’t hurt him anymore.”

“I wasn’t the one who shot him.” I wasn’t the one he trusted, either, she thought. Then again, she didn’t stick around to sort things out. She’d packed up and skipped town rather than risk any further emotional entanglements. Except those entanglements followed her south to New York City and had plagued her ever since. Maybe meeting in person would cut those ties, or give her the tools she needed to do the job down the road. Maybe she wanted to see him one last time. “Where’d you put him?”

“Across the hall in the gold conference room.”

Emma found Sam staring out the window at the unrelenting gray Manhattan landscape, as she’d done. He turned as she entered and the familiar tension sprang up between them. The longing, the draw, still there, fresh and potent. Playing hell with her resolve, and giving her something new to chew on: guilt. She shouldn’t have run out on him. She should have stayed until he woke. Said good-by. Instead, she’d indulged her bruised feelings and had a tantrum, acting like a spoiled kid who didn’t get a favorite toy.

Sam spoke first. “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice.”

His arm was in a sling, and he looked horrible. Shadows lined his eyes. His cheeks hollowed into deep crags and his body was rigid with pain and anxiety.

“You look like hell. Why are you here Sam?” You should be home. Resting. Safe. Healing. All the things she wanted to say she kept to herself.

“I screwed up. The one time I needed to trust you, I trusted what I thought was evidence. I should have been more balanced, given it time, rather than jumping to the conclusions you knew I’d jump to. You were right to leave me the way you did.”

Hearing the words she wanted to hear didn’t have the effect she’d anticipated. Instead of feeling vindicated, she felt small and mean. If she’d stayed at the station instead of running back to the lodge, Sam wouldn’t have been shot. The stupid hang up she’d carried around had nearly cost him his life. Seeing him now, it all became clear. A part of her softened.

“You’ve built two careers in your lifetime on hard data. It’s part of who you are. Besides, hard evidence is what you need to convict a killer. I should have waited for you at the police station. If I had, we’d have come to a compromise that worked, and you probably wouldn’t be wearing the sling right now.”

Her words surprised him into an awkward silence. Instead of speaking, he moved closer, closing the gap between them. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. Uncertain. A little vulnerable. “Maybe we both made some mistakes.”

“Things were...” she searched for the right word.

“Intense?” Sam smiled wryly. “Crazy? Hot?”

Tension lightened between them and Emma finally drew a breath. “All that. And more. I don’t know what you make of you Sam.”

“Feeling’s mutual.”

“Are you—okay? Should you even be here? You were shot. I’m no doctor, but that can’t be an easy recovery.”

“I’ll heal. You weren’t taking my calls. I had to do something. I couldn’t let you go.” He touched her now. Laid his hand on her arm. A feathering of his palm, a caress even, and yet everything neither would say was held in that single action. Like rain, the walls between them came down. “I couldn’t let us go.”

“Is there an 'us'?”

“I want to find out. I’m in, but I think still need to sell you on the idea. It’s only fair to warn you, I’m playing for keeps.”

Was it that easy? Forgive, forget, give a second chance, take a shot at happy ever after? She’d have to break free from go of a lifetime of teaching, training, learning to guard and watch and protect, if she accepted his offer. If she did there’d be no turning back, and no escaping a broken heart if she played the game and ended up rolling craps. She and Sam felt right, felt like a winner. Was she seeing what she wanted to see, or were they the real deal? The only way to find out was to join him. To believe they had a chance meant setting aside the differences, and that was no small task. “You’re taking a big risk on me. We come from two different worlds.”

“I’m suggesting we forget those worlds and give making our own world a shot.” Doubt crept into his eyes. “Give me time.”

“How long?” Three months? Six months? A year?

“However long it takes.”

Time. She could do that, right? “I’m taking a bigger risk on you, Sam.”

“I’ll make it worth your while.” He flashed his patented sexy grin. He’d missed his calling. He should have abandoned computers and police work for the grift, he’d have been king of the mountain with all his charms. Except there was truth behind the charm. Emma saw this, and knew: it was time. Time to let go. Time to move on. Time to love.

Sam took her hesitation for unspoken denial.

“I know I’m rushing things, but when I’m sure, I’m the kind of guy that doesn’t waste time. Forever’s really made up of minutes and moments and days. I don’t want to have any more of those without you by my side.”

So much shifted in those minutes Emma thought she might slide off the edge of the world if Sam wasn’t there to hold her steady. “You don’t live in Manhattan anymore.”

“I still have the condo. I’ve decided to locate Lost and Found on a different property in Meyerville. The Lodge has too much blood and bad memory. Permits and things all need to be filed again, it will give me the down time I’ve needed.” He released her and smoothed a strand of hair back behind her ear. The familiar warmth she’d missed flooded through her helping sell his case.

“Anyway, I have another proposition.”

“Risking your heart isn’t enough?”

“Jake told me what you said, and you’re right. What I broke is trust, and words won’t fix that. Action will. I want to have a branch of the department that looks at cases from fresh angles. Psychic, artistic, anything but conventional. I want you to develop and lead that department.”

Emma’s head began to spin. That solid ex-cop skeptic Sam, who prized normal evidence above all else, would want a psychic investigation branch tied to his pride and joy company, blew her mind. “This is real, isn’t it? You’re real.”

“I’m no expert in the love department. Or people for that matter. I work way better with computers, they’re easier to understand. But yeah, it’s real. I don’t want to lose it. Do you?”

“No.” The short time together, the risks, the uncertainties, they all faded away for her. They might not always agree, but Sam accepted her, as is, and she realized, she was ready to accept him too, the whole package—hot computer nerd, cop skeptic—whatever. She was ready.

“You should consider sales, Sam Tyler, because I’m buying, right now. Tell me where I sign.”

“Right here,” he said, leaning in for the kiss of a life time.

THE END