Several feet into the store, he felt a presence behind him and turned to find that Fiona had slipped into his wake.
“Are you hurt?” He paused to look down at her, noting her slim-fitting jeans and curve-hugging t-shirt with the sort of appreciation that made his mouth go dry and heat lick through him.
She looked less shell-shocked now, although her gaze continued to leap around without seeming to land anywhere. “I’m fine. I didn’t mean to—to run into you.”
“What happened?”
Now, her gaze settled over his shoulder, anchored toward the back of the shop. “There was a light on when I came in today,” she replied. “I had turned them all off when I left last evening. But there was one on today. And there isn’t a timer on it.”
Gideon frowned, looking about again. “Was someone here? Has anything been stolen?”
He admired the slim column of her neck—bare except for a few tendrils of hair that had escaped from the high pony-tail she wore—as she struggled to respond. “No. No, no one was here. Nothing’s been taken that I can see. But the lamp…”
“You’re certain you switched it off? Maybe the cat turned it on accidentally.” He turned to look toward the back of the store, where her gaze seemed to be glued. “Which lamp? Let me take a look at it.”
When he swiveled back toward her, wariness had replaced the uncertainty on her face. “That must have been it,” she replied, avoiding his eyes. “The cat.”
“Which lamp?” he persisted, sensing there was something she was not telling him. “Maybe I can take a look at it—”
“No. That’s all right, really. It’s…not on anymore.”
Fiona turned resolutely to the front of the store, trying to control her churning stomach. The lamp had somehow turnedoffsince she went barreling out of the shop, and there was no sense in telling Gideon what she had seen…what she had felt: that sudden, eerie, bone-drenching chill. He’d listen to two sentences from her, then be ready to admit her to the funny farm.
H. Gideon Nath the Third was not the kind of person who believed in the metaphysical. Fiona wasn’t sure she herself believed in ghostly lamps, but sheknewhe wouldn’t.
Passing a hand over her face, she bit her lip and forced herself to walk away from the eerie alcove and toward the front door.
Gideon must be following behind her…what would she tell him if he persisted in questioning her? After all, he was a lawyer. Wasn’t that what lawyers did? Interrogate?
She stifled a giggle at her internal babbling and tried to steady herself. He already thought she was a total flake, and the impish desire to needle him had vanished at about the same moment his lips had touched hers a week earlier.
Oh, yes. That kiss.
She still felt far too hot and bothered every time she thought about it—which was, unfortunately, far too often.
To be honest, she would rather just stay away from him…far away from the danger this rigid, pretentious, self-assured, intelligent, handsome, passionate man portended.
And what the hell was he doing here in Wicks Hollow anyway?
“What are you doing here anyway?” she asked, fixing him with narrowed eyes—her question being a wonderful distraction from The Lamp and its antics.
“Oh, I had to bring some paperwork down to Iva—to my grandfather’s friend. She lives here in Wicks Hollow.”
“I see. And what brought you back this way? Down here to little, unassuming Violets Way?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Well, I thought I’d see how things were going here.”
He was wearing dark mahogany slacks with a perfect crease down each leg, a linen shirt under a jacket, and fine leather shoes. Ever the well-dressed professional. Did the man even own a pair of jeans? Or a ratty t-shirt?
Her mouth quirked. At that moment, he directed his attention toward her, catching her bemused expression.
“Is something amusing?” he asked, walking toward where she stood by the messy desk in the center of the shop.
As he withdrew his hands from the pockets, she noticed again how fine they were—how solid and square and masculine, the long slimness of his fingers, and how smooth and rounded his nails were. They were beautiful hands, and, she remembered in a split second of recall, they had been all over her body only days ago. A shiver jetted up her spine, but she ignored it and chose to respond to his question.
“I was just wondering if that was your way of dressing down,” she smiled, looking pointedly up and down his clothing. “Do you even own a pair of jeans? What about shorts?”
He looked down at his garb in surprise. “This is casual,” he replied, then, as he looked back up at her, his gaze lingering over her plain white t-shirt and jeans, a sudden, devastating smile flashed over his face. “For me, anyway.”
