Barefoot in Pearls (Barefoot Bay Brides Book 3) by Roxanne St Claire
“Or you were heading this way to…” Change my life. She felt herself inch closer to him. “To…” Take my heart. And closer. “To…” Be The One.
The door closed with a bang, making them both jump.
“Aren’t you two almost done here?”
Luke let out a soft grunt only Ari could hear. “We were just getting started,” he whispered.
She smiled and pulled back. “Nearly,” she said, turning to watch Michelle on the approach. “Do you need to lock up?”
“I want to go to lunch.” She put a hand on her hip. “Find everything in order?”
“We did,” Luke assured her, standing and reaching for Ari’s hand. “And I think we’re done, right, Arielle?”
She let Luke pull her up, then zipped the bag she held. “Were there any other samples taken from the property?” she asked.
As Michelle got closer, Ari could smell that acrid odor of cigarettes, but a cloying scent of something else nearly covered it. A flower, like honeysuckle, but not as pretty. Jasmine? Or maybe Ari was smelling dishonesty because it emanated from this ragged, unhappy woman.
“That’s all Ken gave me,” Michelle said. “That don’t mean that’s all there is, but I do my best, you know?”
No, she didn’t know. “Why wouldn’t he give you everything?”
Michelle looked from one to the other, lifting a narrow shoulder, then sliding her fingertips into the slit pockets of her jeans. “He’s Ken.”
“What does that mean?” Luke asked.
“Nothing.”
They both looked hard enough at her that she took a slight step backward, her shoulders hunched. “He likes shortcuts, is all. He might not be, how do I say it, afraid to shade the truth to save or make a buck.”
“Then why do you work for him?” Ari asked.
She shrugged again. “He goes out all afternoon and I can take three-hour lunches. So…” She flicked her fingers to dismiss them. “Let’s get you guys out of here so I can start one now, okay?”
Ari started to replace the bag in the bin, but Luke stepped closer to the woman. “You must be really efficient if you can take three-hour lunches and keep this room as organized as you do.”
Her eyes widened as she looked up at him, no doubt feeling the same impact anyone with a couple of X chromosomes would feel. “I am,” she said. “And you’re cutting into my work time.”
She tempered the smartass comment with a smile. “Hey, I don’t mean to be a bitch. It just comes so naturally.” She gave a self-deprecating laugh, which felt oddly honest coming from her. “And, listen, I don’t mean to run you two out of here, but let me help you out. Take a bag from that box. Go get it tested or whatever. All we got is Ken’s word that he tested these, but if you take them somewhere else, you can be sure that’s the truth.”
Luke gave her a long, hard look, then nodded. “All right. We’ll do that.”
She pushed past them and chose a bag from the box. “Here you go.”
Luke took it, handing her the paperwork they’d found on top of the bin. “You might want to file this in the proper place, in case someone needs to look at it again.”
“I’ll do that,” she said, taking it and stepping to the side to let them pass. “After my three-hour lunch.”
Luke put his hand on Ari’s shoulder and led her out, but when she passed the other woman, their arms brushed and something pinged in Ari’s head.
Might have been a warning, but it could have been the sickening smell of her perfume. The thing Ari didn’t tell Luke about her intuition was that sometimes…she was wrong.
* * *
“Whoa, Mr. Fancy McFancyPants.”
Luke speared the twelve-year-old doing homework at Gussie’s kitchen table with a look. “You’ve spent entirely too much time with my sister, Alex.”
The girl grinned and pointed her pencil eraser at him. “Any chance you understand algebra? Because my soon-to-be Aunt Gussie couldn’t solve for X if it bit her.”
“Hey.” In the kitchen, Gussie tapped a wooden spoon on the side of a pan. “I did that word problem for you.”
Alex rolled her eyes with true preteen precision. “You gave me a story about a guy who met a girl on a plane to St. Louis. The question was, how many hours did it take the plane to get there?”
“Long enough for him to get her phone number.” Laughing, she turned to look at Luke. “Whoa, Mr. Fancy McFan—”
“Shut up, Auggie. Am I overdressed to have dinner with Arielle?”
Gussie lifted a brow and put her hand to the side of her mouth, directing a stage whisper to her soon-to-be niece. “Should I tell him no one calls her Arielle?”
“Or you Auggie,” Alex said. “Auntie Auggie!”
Gussie pointed her spoon at the girl. “Don’t make me wash your mouth out with soap.” Then she turned back to Luke. “Where are you two going?”
“She said she’d take me to Junonia.”
“The restaurant at the resort?” Alex asked. “Wow. No wonder you’re dressed up.”
“She lost a bet with me this morning,” he told them.
Gussie came around the kitchen counter, openly assessing his button-down white shirt and sharp, khaki pants. “When she loses bets with me, I get Pixy Stix. You get filet mignon in melted butter as only Chef Ian can make. It explains a lot.”
“Like what?” he asked.
“Why she was so…fluttery when she got to work at almost two o’clock in the afternoon. Where did you two go, anyway?”
“On a wild-goose chase,” he said, remembering the morning. “Didn’t she tell you?”
“No,” Gussie said, tapping the spoon on her cheek while thinking. “As a matter of fact, she didn’t talk much at all today. Was on the computer for hours, made some quiet calls, seemed very…preoccupied. With you?”
“I doubt it.”
“Then she tore out of there early, saying she had to run over the causeway for something and get home in time to get ready to go out.” She eyed him again. “But she never mentioned your name or that you’d been together all morning. Curious.”
“What’s curious about it? Does she tell you every time she goes out with someone?”
“Yes.” She looked at Alex as though seeking confirmation. “Ari tells me everything.”
“Has she told you she has some kind of sixth sense that makes her think she knows things about people?”
Gussie laughed. “She doesn’t have to tell me, brother dear. She proves it every single day. She’s like a human barometer, and if I were you, I’d pay attention. What did she tell you?”
“Not much.” He shrugged and tugged at his cuffs, then rolled one up a few times. “Better?”
Gussie smiled. “You look good no matter how you dress, Luke. What has she told you? She’s quite…canny. Is that the right word? I mean, she told me I was hiding something with my wigs the second time we were together, and she had no idea about my scar.” She reached up and touched the back of her head. “It was weird how she knew.”
“That didn’t take a psychic, Gussie. She probably made the correct assumption that you wore a wig to hide what was underneath.”
“She’s not psychic,” Gussie replied. “She’s just…”
“Intuitive. She told me.” Irritation snaked up his back. “How do you know if she’s making something up or she’s a lucky guess? People can do that, you know.”
“Not like Ari does,” Gussie said. “I had her meet Tom. Remember, Alex?”
“Of course I do,” Alex said, clearly a long way from algebra now. “That was when I convinced you to come to France so you’d fall in love and marry him.” She grinned. “My evil plan worked.”
“That was not your plan,” Gussie said. “But I wasn’t sure about him, and when that happens, I turn to Ari because she knows.”
She knows what? “What did she say about him?”
Gussie’s smile grew. “I wanted to kill her that night. She was all over the France idea because she basically said, ‘He’s the one
for you,’ and I didn’t want to believe it.”
The one. Luke rolled up the other cuff, thinking of how she’d used that phrase while talking to him, too. “She says that sometimes…’the one.’ I’m not sure what she means.” When he looked up, Gussie was staring at him.
“Holy, holy shit.” She slammed her hand over her lips. “Whoops. You didn’t hear that, Alex.”
“Oh, yes, I did.”
“It’s you!” Gussie said, her eyes widening in shock and no small amount of happiness. “You’re The One. The One, with capital letters.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She said she’d met him, but…wow.” She slapped her cheek in wonder. “How did I not see this?”
Alex was up from the table now, joining them. “What? What is it, Gussie?”
“Good question, Alex,” Luke said. “What the hell”—he glanced at Alex—“heck are you talking about?”
“You, my brother, are Ari’s one true love, her destiny mate, her future…” Gussie’s voice faded as if she couldn’t say the word, and Luke was glad of it.
“Cool it, Gus,” he said, a slow burn of discomfort building in his chest.
“I will not cool anything.” Gussie insisted. “I remember, now. She said something to me the day of Willow’s wedding. But wait. She hadn’t met you yet. She hadn’t even seen you. We were in our office and…” She scowled at him. “Did you meet her before the wedding?”
“We met up at the property, hours before the wedding. Didn’t she tell you?”
“No. She came flying into the office that day all flustered and flushed and announced she’d met…” Gussie dropped into one of the kitchen chairs like this new revelation made it impossible to stand on two legs. “Well, that’s it, then. You’re going to marry her.”
“What?” The question came from Luke and Alex in perfect unison and harmony—Alex with a shriek of excitement, while Luke’s voice rumbled with raw, unfettered shock.
“I’ve known her less than forty-eight hours,” he managed to say, thinking about sitting down himself at the certainty in his sister’s voice. Marry her? “That’s freaking crazy, Gus.”
“She’s always told us about this ‘one true love’ that she believes in. I mean, she truly believes it. She’s sent a few good guys packing because her intuition said she’d know ‘The One’ the minute she met him, and that’s who she’d marry.” Gussie laughed softly, shaking her head. “Ari as my sister? That’s—”
“Ridiculous!” he shot back, a strange white heat burning in his chest. “I must have totally misunderstood what she said.”
Even though, he could still see her ripping drywall down and saying she thought he was “the one.” When he’d asked her to explain…she never really did.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” He grabbed his keys from the table and marching to the door.
He slammed it behind him and looked down at his hands. Hands that killed…they couldn’t love her. Because these hands had killed the one and only woman he’d ever loved.
He wasn’t about to take that chance again.
Chapter Twelve
It didn’t take any special empathetic sensitivity powers to figure out that Luke McBain wasn’t entirely comfortable at dinner. Oh, he did everything right. He’d held Ari’s chair, kept up a lively conversation, shared stories about his childhood, listened to Ari talk about her life and job, and wouldn’t let her pick up the tab even though they were both fairly sure she’d lost the bet.
But under the surface, everything about him was taut. A few glasses of wine seemed to have no effect on him, though Ari had relaxed as the evening unfolded.
After dinner, they took a crème brûlée out to one of the wooden benches tucked between palm trees in a secluded section of the Casa Blanca grounds. There, they shared the dessert and watched the moonlight on Barefoot Bay, talking. Once, he casually touched her arm, making a point about something, and everything buzzed as always at his touch. Would she ever get used to that?
“Then you agree,” he said.
She looked over the spoonful of creamy dessert and met his gaze. “I’m sorry, what did I just agree to?”
Looking slightly amused, he took the nearly empty dessert dish and set it on a low cocktail table next to the bench where a Casa Blanca staffer would scoop it up in a few minutes. “You agree that I should take the samples Michelle gave us and have them analyzed by the new firm I mentioned at dinner.”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
“And if they pass, we’ll do a partial grade.” He covered her hand with his, the touch warm and inviting. No, it was hot and searing. Would nothing put an end to this crazy feeling?
Yes. Sex.
At the thought, she pulled away, maybe a little too fast, because he blinked in response. “That doesn’t work for you?”
“No, I think it could work,” she recovered. It could work…nicely.
“You’re okay with a partial testing?” he pressed, obviously all cool business when she was anything but.
She forced herself to focus on what he was saying and not the softness of his lips as he was saying it. “If by partial you mean a foot of land that is examined by a professional, not an acre that is destroyed beyond recognition.”
He gave an easy laugh. “You’re relentless.”
“Add that to my list of qualities you don’t like,” she quipped.
“Who says I don’t like it?”
She glanced at him. “I don’t know.” She took a moment to try to decide which direction to take the conversation and knew, in her heart, that honest was the only way to go. “Something tells me you’re not one hundred percent comfortable tonight, Luke.”
“Ahh.” He nodded knowingly. “That’s right, I forgot. You’re the person who can sniff out hidden feelings.” He leaned close, way too close. “Except my guess is you’re not always right.”
She wanted to inch away, but his breath was warm on her cheek. “Why would you guess that?”
“Because you’re wrong right now. I’m comfortable,” he assured her. “You’re the one who jumps a foot every time our hands accidentally—or not so accidentally—brush.” He underscored that with a graze of his fingertips from her knuckle all the way up her forearm, leaving a trail of chills and sparks.
He laughed at the explosion of goose bumps, as if the uninvited response simply made his point for him.
“I’m not jumping,” she lied. “But I can tell that something has you…” She lifted her hand, determined to touch him and not feel all melty stupid inside. She returned the light graze of fingertips, only she traveled hers along his jaw, down to the muscle in his neck she’d seen tense a dozen times when he’d studied her closely. “Uptight.”
He didn’t answer, and she took it as assent, so she pushed a little harder, letting her intuition go to work. “There’s something on your mind,” she said. “Something about me. Something you don’t like.”
“Something I don’t understand,” he added.
Ahh. She probably could guess what it was. “Why don’t you ask me so I can explain it?”
“I don’t want to put you on the spot, Arielle.”
Too late. “Let’s get a few things straight,” she said. “I am not a circus act. I am not a fortune-teller. I am not an empath, or a shaman, or a soothsayer, or a freak.”
“I know.” He scooted a little closer on the wooden bench, putting his hand along the back, but not around her. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what this…this aptitude of yours does? How it works and how accurate you are. I really want to know.”
She took a slow breath, getting used to his body warmth. And wanting more. So much more. He seemed genuinely interested. In fact, he seemed downright determined to get her to talk. And she knew why—because her “intuition” could affect that land and his career.
“You think I’m making this whole thing up so you’ll stop what you’re doing on that hill?” she asked.
“No. I real
ly want to know what this sixth sense you have is all about. I want to know you, Arielle.” The way he said it made her die a little inside. She wanted to know him, too. She wanted to know if these feelings were real or imagined, if he really was The One. Sometimes she was so certain, and yet, at other times, she doubted.
Maybe the best way to find out was for both of them to open up, and she’d have to go first.
She swallowed and leaned back against the wooden beams and his arm, hyperaware of his fingertips less than a centimeter from her bare shoulder.
“What exactly do you want to know?” she asked.
“I guess, how has this ability affected your life?”
“That’s a good question. In fact, I like that you asked that and not, you know, ‘What’s the stock market going to do tomorrow?’ Like some people might.”
“I don’t care about the stock market.” The rest was implied and clear by the look in his eyes. He cared about her.
Emboldened by that, she settled a little closer to him, the hardness of his shoulder and thigh pressing enough against her to make her feel warm and tingly and safe. Safe enough to tell him some things.
“In some ways, it has made my life easier because I can judge people fairly accurately. In other ways, well…” She lifted her lips in a half smile. “It’s a burden to be this weird.”
“You’re not weird, Arielle. Your powers of perception are what make you you. I’m interested in how it, you know, manifests itself.”
She liked that he was interested in that. She wasn’t sure what brought it on, but just giving credence to her mystical side was a compliment from him. “First and foremost, I don’t ignore my gut, my inner voice. When a thought pops into my head, I don’t dismiss it like a lot of people do. I listen as if a wise person is sharing worthwhile insights.”
“Does that happen a lot?” he asked.
“Enough. Not constantly. I don’t hear voices,” she said with a laugh. “But, like, when we met Ken today, I felt this inner sense that he’s a good guy. Almost like a voice, but not quite. I trust that judgment.”
“And what did that inner sense tell you when you met me?”
The door closed with a bang, making them both jump.
“Aren’t you two almost done here?”
Luke let out a soft grunt only Ari could hear. “We were just getting started,” he whispered.
She smiled and pulled back. “Nearly,” she said, turning to watch Michelle on the approach. “Do you need to lock up?”
“I want to go to lunch.” She put a hand on her hip. “Find everything in order?”
“We did,” Luke assured her, standing and reaching for Ari’s hand. “And I think we’re done, right, Arielle?”
She let Luke pull her up, then zipped the bag she held. “Were there any other samples taken from the property?” she asked.
As Michelle got closer, Ari could smell that acrid odor of cigarettes, but a cloying scent of something else nearly covered it. A flower, like honeysuckle, but not as pretty. Jasmine? Or maybe Ari was smelling dishonesty because it emanated from this ragged, unhappy woman.
“That’s all Ken gave me,” Michelle said. “That don’t mean that’s all there is, but I do my best, you know?”
No, she didn’t know. “Why wouldn’t he give you everything?”
Michelle looked from one to the other, lifting a narrow shoulder, then sliding her fingertips into the slit pockets of her jeans. “He’s Ken.”
“What does that mean?” Luke asked.
“Nothing.”
They both looked hard enough at her that she took a slight step backward, her shoulders hunched. “He likes shortcuts, is all. He might not be, how do I say it, afraid to shade the truth to save or make a buck.”
“Then why do you work for him?” Ari asked.
She shrugged again. “He goes out all afternoon and I can take three-hour lunches. So…” She flicked her fingers to dismiss them. “Let’s get you guys out of here so I can start one now, okay?”
Ari started to replace the bag in the bin, but Luke stepped closer to the woman. “You must be really efficient if you can take three-hour lunches and keep this room as organized as you do.”
Her eyes widened as she looked up at him, no doubt feeling the same impact anyone with a couple of X chromosomes would feel. “I am,” she said. “And you’re cutting into my work time.”
She tempered the smartass comment with a smile. “Hey, I don’t mean to be a bitch. It just comes so naturally.” She gave a self-deprecating laugh, which felt oddly honest coming from her. “And, listen, I don’t mean to run you two out of here, but let me help you out. Take a bag from that box. Go get it tested or whatever. All we got is Ken’s word that he tested these, but if you take them somewhere else, you can be sure that’s the truth.”
Luke gave her a long, hard look, then nodded. “All right. We’ll do that.”
She pushed past them and chose a bag from the box. “Here you go.”
Luke took it, handing her the paperwork they’d found on top of the bin. “You might want to file this in the proper place, in case someone needs to look at it again.”
“I’ll do that,” she said, taking it and stepping to the side to let them pass. “After my three-hour lunch.”
Luke put his hand on Ari’s shoulder and led her out, but when she passed the other woman, their arms brushed and something pinged in Ari’s head.
Might have been a warning, but it could have been the sickening smell of her perfume. The thing Ari didn’t tell Luke about her intuition was that sometimes…she was wrong.
* * *
“Whoa, Mr. Fancy McFancyPants.”
Luke speared the twelve-year-old doing homework at Gussie’s kitchen table with a look. “You’ve spent entirely too much time with my sister, Alex.”
The girl grinned and pointed her pencil eraser at him. “Any chance you understand algebra? Because my soon-to-be Aunt Gussie couldn’t solve for X if it bit her.”
“Hey.” In the kitchen, Gussie tapped a wooden spoon on the side of a pan. “I did that word problem for you.”
Alex rolled her eyes with true preteen precision. “You gave me a story about a guy who met a girl on a plane to St. Louis. The question was, how many hours did it take the plane to get there?”
“Long enough for him to get her phone number.” Laughing, she turned to look at Luke. “Whoa, Mr. Fancy McFan—”
“Shut up, Auggie. Am I overdressed to have dinner with Arielle?”
Gussie lifted a brow and put her hand to the side of her mouth, directing a stage whisper to her soon-to-be niece. “Should I tell him no one calls her Arielle?”
“Or you Auggie,” Alex said. “Auntie Auggie!”
Gussie pointed her spoon at the girl. “Don’t make me wash your mouth out with soap.” Then she turned back to Luke. “Where are you two going?”
“She said she’d take me to Junonia.”
“The restaurant at the resort?” Alex asked. “Wow. No wonder you’re dressed up.”
“She lost a bet with me this morning,” he told them.
Gussie came around the kitchen counter, openly assessing his button-down white shirt and sharp, khaki pants. “When she loses bets with me, I get Pixy Stix. You get filet mignon in melted butter as only Chef Ian can make. It explains a lot.”
“Like what?” he asked.
“Why she was so…fluttery when she got to work at almost two o’clock in the afternoon. Where did you two go, anyway?”
“On a wild-goose chase,” he said, remembering the morning. “Didn’t she tell you?”
“No,” Gussie said, tapping the spoon on her cheek while thinking. “As a matter of fact, she didn’t talk much at all today. Was on the computer for hours, made some quiet calls, seemed very…preoccupied. With you?”
“I doubt it.”
“Then she tore out of there early, saying she had to run over the causeway for something and get home in time to get ready to go out.” She eyed him again. “But she never mentioned your name or that you’d been together all morning. Curious.”
“What’s curious about it? Does she tell you every time she goes out with someone?”
“Yes.” She looked at Alex as though seeking confirmation. “Ari tells me everything.”
“Has she told you she has some kind of sixth sense that makes her think she knows things about people?”
Gussie laughed. “She doesn’t have to tell me, brother dear. She proves it every single day. She’s like a human barometer, and if I were you, I’d pay attention. What did she tell you?”
“Not much.” He shrugged and tugged at his cuffs, then rolled one up a few times. “Better?”
Gussie smiled. “You look good no matter how you dress, Luke. What has she told you? She’s quite…canny. Is that the right word? I mean, she told me I was hiding something with my wigs the second time we were together, and she had no idea about my scar.” She reached up and touched the back of her head. “It was weird how she knew.”
“That didn’t take a psychic, Gussie. She probably made the correct assumption that you wore a wig to hide what was underneath.”
“She’s not psychic,” Gussie replied. “She’s just…”
“Intuitive. She told me.” Irritation snaked up his back. “How do you know if she’s making something up or she’s a lucky guess? People can do that, you know.”
“Not like Ari does,” Gussie said. “I had her meet Tom. Remember, Alex?”
“Of course I do,” Alex said, clearly a long way from algebra now. “That was when I convinced you to come to France so you’d fall in love and marry him.” She grinned. “My evil plan worked.”
“That was not your plan,” Gussie said. “But I wasn’t sure about him, and when that happens, I turn to Ari because she knows.”
She knows what? “What did she say about him?”
Gussie’s smile grew. “I wanted to kill her that night. She was all over the France idea because she basically said, ‘He’s the one
The one. Luke rolled up the other cuff, thinking of how she’d used that phrase while talking to him, too. “She says that sometimes…’the one.’ I’m not sure what she means.” When he looked up, Gussie was staring at him.
“Holy, holy shit.” She slammed her hand over her lips. “Whoops. You didn’t hear that, Alex.”
“Oh, yes, I did.”
“It’s you!” Gussie said, her eyes widening in shock and no small amount of happiness. “You’re The One. The One, with capital letters.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She said she’d met him, but…wow.” She slapped her cheek in wonder. “How did I not see this?”
Alex was up from the table now, joining them. “What? What is it, Gussie?”
“Good question, Alex,” Luke said. “What the hell”—he glanced at Alex—“heck are you talking about?”
“You, my brother, are Ari’s one true love, her destiny mate, her future…” Gussie’s voice faded as if she couldn’t say the word, and Luke was glad of it.
“Cool it, Gus,” he said, a slow burn of discomfort building in his chest.
“I will not cool anything.” Gussie insisted. “I remember, now. She said something to me the day of Willow’s wedding. But wait. She hadn’t met you yet. She hadn’t even seen you. We were in our office and…” She scowled at him. “Did you meet her before the wedding?”
“We met up at the property, hours before the wedding. Didn’t she tell you?”
“No. She came flying into the office that day all flustered and flushed and announced she’d met…” Gussie dropped into one of the kitchen chairs like this new revelation made it impossible to stand on two legs. “Well, that’s it, then. You’re going to marry her.”
“What?” The question came from Luke and Alex in perfect unison and harmony—Alex with a shriek of excitement, while Luke’s voice rumbled with raw, unfettered shock.
“I’ve known her less than forty-eight hours,” he managed to say, thinking about sitting down himself at the certainty in his sister’s voice. Marry her? “That’s freaking crazy, Gus.”
“She’s always told us about this ‘one true love’ that she believes in. I mean, she truly believes it. She’s sent a few good guys packing because her intuition said she’d know ‘The One’ the minute she met him, and that’s who she’d marry.” Gussie laughed softly, shaking her head. “Ari as my sister? That’s—”
“Ridiculous!” he shot back, a strange white heat burning in his chest. “I must have totally misunderstood what she said.”
Even though, he could still see her ripping drywall down and saying she thought he was “the one.” When he’d asked her to explain…she never really did.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” He grabbed his keys from the table and marching to the door.
He slammed it behind him and looked down at his hands. Hands that killed…they couldn’t love her. Because these hands had killed the one and only woman he’d ever loved.
He wasn’t about to take that chance again.
Chapter Twelve
It didn’t take any special empathetic sensitivity powers to figure out that Luke McBain wasn’t entirely comfortable at dinner. Oh, he did everything right. He’d held Ari’s chair, kept up a lively conversation, shared stories about his childhood, listened to Ari talk about her life and job, and wouldn’t let her pick up the tab even though they were both fairly sure she’d lost the bet.
But under the surface, everything about him was taut. A few glasses of wine seemed to have no effect on him, though Ari had relaxed as the evening unfolded.
After dinner, they took a crème brûlée out to one of the wooden benches tucked between palm trees in a secluded section of the Casa Blanca grounds. There, they shared the dessert and watched the moonlight on Barefoot Bay, talking. Once, he casually touched her arm, making a point about something, and everything buzzed as always at his touch. Would she ever get used to that?
“Then you agree,” he said.
She looked over the spoonful of creamy dessert and met his gaze. “I’m sorry, what did I just agree to?”
Looking slightly amused, he took the nearly empty dessert dish and set it on a low cocktail table next to the bench where a Casa Blanca staffer would scoop it up in a few minutes. “You agree that I should take the samples Michelle gave us and have them analyzed by the new firm I mentioned at dinner.”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
“And if they pass, we’ll do a partial grade.” He covered her hand with his, the touch warm and inviting. No, it was hot and searing. Would nothing put an end to this crazy feeling?
Yes. Sex.
At the thought, she pulled away, maybe a little too fast, because he blinked in response. “That doesn’t work for you?”
“No, I think it could work,” she recovered. It could work…nicely.
“You’re okay with a partial testing?” he pressed, obviously all cool business when she was anything but.
She forced herself to focus on what he was saying and not the softness of his lips as he was saying it. “If by partial you mean a foot of land that is examined by a professional, not an acre that is destroyed beyond recognition.”
He gave an easy laugh. “You’re relentless.”
“Add that to my list of qualities you don’t like,” she quipped.
“Who says I don’t like it?”
She glanced at him. “I don’t know.” She took a moment to try to decide which direction to take the conversation and knew, in her heart, that honest was the only way to go. “Something tells me you’re not one hundred percent comfortable tonight, Luke.”
“Ahh.” He nodded knowingly. “That’s right, I forgot. You’re the person who can sniff out hidden feelings.” He leaned close, way too close. “Except my guess is you’re not always right.”
She wanted to inch away, but his breath was warm on her cheek. “Why would you guess that?”
“Because you’re wrong right now. I’m comfortable,” he assured her. “You’re the one who jumps a foot every time our hands accidentally—or not so accidentally—brush.” He underscored that with a graze of his fingertips from her knuckle all the way up her forearm, leaving a trail of chills and sparks.
He laughed at the explosion of goose bumps, as if the uninvited response simply made his point for him.
“I’m not jumping,” she lied. “But I can tell that something has you…” She lifted her hand, determined to touch him and not feel all melty stupid inside. She returned the light graze of fingertips, only she traveled hers along his jaw, down to the muscle in his neck she’d seen tense a dozen times when he’d studied her closely. “Uptight.”
He didn’t answer, and she took it as assent, so she pushed a little harder, letting her intuition go to work. “There’s something on your mind,” she said. “Something about me. Something you don’t like.”
“Something I don’t understand,” he added.
Ahh. She probably could guess what it was. “Why don’t you ask me so I can explain it?”
“I don’t want to put you on the spot, Arielle.”
Too late. “Let’s get a few things straight,” she said. “I am not a circus act. I am not a fortune-teller. I am not an empath, or a shaman, or a soothsayer, or a freak.”
“I know.” He scooted a little closer on the wooden bench, putting his hand along the back, but not around her. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what this…this aptitude of yours does? How it works and how accurate you are. I really want to know.”
She took a slow breath, getting used to his body warmth. And wanting more. So much more. He seemed genuinely interested. In fact, he seemed downright determined to get her to talk. And she knew why—because her “intuition” could affect that land and his career.
“You think I’m making this whole thing up so you’ll stop what you’re doing on that hill?” she asked.
“No. I real
Maybe the best way to find out was for both of them to open up, and she’d have to go first.
She swallowed and leaned back against the wooden beams and his arm, hyperaware of his fingertips less than a centimeter from her bare shoulder.
“What exactly do you want to know?” she asked.
“I guess, how has this ability affected your life?”
“That’s a good question. In fact, I like that you asked that and not, you know, ‘What’s the stock market going to do tomorrow?’ Like some people might.”
“I don’t care about the stock market.” The rest was implied and clear by the look in his eyes. He cared about her.
Emboldened by that, she settled a little closer to him, the hardness of his shoulder and thigh pressing enough against her to make her feel warm and tingly and safe. Safe enough to tell him some things.
“In some ways, it has made my life easier because I can judge people fairly accurately. In other ways, well…” She lifted her lips in a half smile. “It’s a burden to be this weird.”
“You’re not weird, Arielle. Your powers of perception are what make you you. I’m interested in how it, you know, manifests itself.”
She liked that he was interested in that. She wasn’t sure what brought it on, but just giving credence to her mystical side was a compliment from him. “First and foremost, I don’t ignore my gut, my inner voice. When a thought pops into my head, I don’t dismiss it like a lot of people do. I listen as if a wise person is sharing worthwhile insights.”
“Does that happen a lot?” he asked.
“Enough. Not constantly. I don’t hear voices,” she said with a laugh. “But, like, when we met Ken today, I felt this inner sense that he’s a good guy. Almost like a voice, but not quite. I trust that judgment.”
“And what did that inner sense tell you when you met me?”