Haunted: Penance / After the Lightning / Seeing Red

But not her children’s.

Her heart pounded as she watched those leather-bound arms wrap tight around her daughter, holding her close. Because he loved her? A tear trickled down Myra’s cheek with her doubts. Ariel was beautiful. But she was cursed.

Giving them up hadn’t saved her children; it had only prolonged the inevitable. Myra swayed, nearly toppling the chair, as a vision crashed through her mind: Ariel lying on a dirty cement floor, her turquoise eyes wide open but blinded…by death.

With a crack of static, the television blackened to a spark in the middle of the screen, swallowing the image of Ariel in David’s arms. Ariel, curled in her favorite chair, lifted her head toward David, who held the remote in a tight fist. He’d just walked into her sunny yellow living room, dwarfing it with his size and presence. For better reception, he’d had to take his cell outside to phone the hospital. While he’d been gone, she’d received a call from the school board to suspend her.

“Is he all right?” she asked, her concern all for Ty. She’d deal with her pain later, by herself, as she always had.

He jerked his head in a short nod. “Yes. Twenty-two stitches later. But he lost a lot of blood. They’re keeping him overnight.”

“You should go. Be with him. I’m fine,” she assured him. It wasn’t the first time she’d lied to him. An old Gypsy proverb teased at her memory. There are such things as false truths and honest lies.

Her mother had used that proverb to justify how she’d made her living, traveling town to town conning people. Although only a child at the time she’d helped her mother, Ariel had known the staged séances and the phony crystal ball had been wrong. But her mother had insisted that sometimes it was better for people to hear lies than the truth; it hurt them less.

David tossed down the remote with such force that it bounced against the couch cushions, then he called her on the lie. “No, you’re not fine. What were you thinking?”

Thinking? It didn’t work that way. She didn’t think. She just saw. Then she had to find a way to deal with what she’d seen. Numbness worked, but it always wore off too soon.

David didn’t give her time to answer his question—even if she could—before he fired off another. “Do you know what could have happened to you?”

Shuddering, she crossed her arms over her chest, cupping her shoulders to still her trembling. She knew better than he did. Poor Haylee. The grief rushed in, squeezing her heart, but she refused to let the shock cripple her as it had at the crime scene. She squeezed her eyes shut, struggling against the mist.

Strong hands closed around her arms, pulling her out of the chair. David didn’t enfold her in an embrace, just held her close enough so that their bodies brushed. Tension radiated from his long, hard frame. Usually Ariel melted against him whenever he touched her; today she stiffened, knowing that if she weakened, even a little, she would dissolve into a puddle of hysterical tears.

“That could be you, in the hospital, like Ty,” he said, his voice vibrating with emotion. “Or worse, you could be in the morgue with that little girl.”

“Haylee,” she whispered her name.

“Oh, God…” He leaned over, touching his forehead to hers, with tenderness now, his anger spent. “I know and I’m so sorry, Ariel. You told me about her.”

Her fears for the child. He’d adamantly supported her decision to trust her instincts and call social services, and when she’d met resistance to investigate Haylee’s father over lack of resources and proof, David had intervened. He’d made sure someone had been sent out to the little girl’s house, but that hadn’t been enough.

“You tried to help her, Ariel.”

She should have done more. She should have protected her even if she’d had to kidnap her and run away. Her heart clenched, hurting, and she blinked back the threatening tears. “I failed her.” Maybe that was why the school board had suspended her.

“Her father did. Not you.” He sighed, his ragged breath stirring her hair. “If you’d gotten there before Ty had, he could have killed you, too.”

She shook her head. “I wasn’t there long, David, just a little while before you.”

“I wouldn’t have been there at all if I hadn’t seen you on the breaking news flash across my computer screen.” He always had on the computer instead of the television because that was what he did—designed computers and software. He was Barrett, Michigan’s answer to Bill Gates, as inventive, rich and powerful. But much more reclusive.

He hated media attention, but because of her, vans from local news stations currently blocked the street to his building. So he’d driven away from it and brought her home instead, to her little bungalow in a quiet, tree-lined burb of Barrett. Ariel would rather be here, inside the sunny yellow walls of her cheerful house. But its bright colors and tall, sun-filled windows couldn’t cheer her today. Nothing could.

“Why didn’t you call me?” he asked, his jaw taut.

“It was too late,” she said, sighing. Even with all his money, he couldn’t have done anything for Haylee.

Life was so damned unfair. What was the point of seeing ghosts when she couldn’t do anything for them? She hadn’t asked for this ability; she’d tried to ignore it. Anger rushed in, chasing away the last of her shock. She was ready to fight, to kick and hit something or someone, to lash out against the helplessness. Her hands clenched into fists.

“I could have been there with you, supporting you, protecting you. You shouldn’t have gone by yourself,” David said, his grip on her shoulders tightening.

She shivered, tempted to lean against him, to let his strong arms close around her and lift her burdens. But relying on someone was dangerous for Ariel; any time she had, she’d been hurt. In the six months they’d been dating, although David had always been attentive and caring, she couldn’t trust that he’d always be there for her. No one else had. She could rely only on herself.

“I called Ty,” she told him, but when he flinched, she realized he didn’t need a reminder. She shruggedhis hands off her shoulders and stepped around him, bristling. Anger was a defense mechanism. Hadn’t one shrink or another told her that over the years? But like her ability to see ghosts, she couldn’t suppress the feeling from bubbling up, so she lashed out, “That’s what’s really wrong! You’re jealous!”

David’s dark eyes narrowed as he studied her, assessing her as he might a computer glitch. “Ariel…”

“Is that the problem?” she asked, slinging the question like a slap. “That I called Ty instead of you?”

“The problem is,” David said, his deep voice steady with reason, “that you went alone to a house where you know an abusive man lived. You put your life in danger.”

“The police were there before I was.” So had been the ambulance.

For Ty? Or for Haylee’s father? She should have expected that the violent man would resist arrest. She never should have called Ty and put him in danger. He was David’s best friend; that was probably why he’d flinched, over his friend getting hurt because of her. She should have called 911 instead. Ty hadn’t even been on duty.

“So you called the police before you went over,” David said, his jaw relaxing a bit as his tension eased. Then his dark eyes narrowed. “How did you know Haylee was in danger?”

She couldn’t tell him about seeing the little girl’s ghost and risk having David look at her as so many others had. Already he studied her, raising her defenses even more. He couldn’t find out the truth or he’d reject her as everyone else had.

“You know I suspected abuse,” she explained, hoping that would satisfy his sudden curiosity.

“Why didn’t you call social services again?” he asked, his dark eyes intent on her face. “Why the police this time?”

“You know what social services did last time,” she reminded him as bitterness joined her anger, churning in her stomach. “Nothing.”

This time. Social services had taken her and her sisters away from her mom, and they’d never been in danger despite the unconventional lifestyle they’d lived. But for Haylee, with her sad eyes and fading bruises, they’d done nothing. Of course the child had been too frightened to tell them the truth about her home situation, about how since her mother had died, her father drank too much and beat her. She hadn’t even told Ariel despite how close they’d grown, but Ariel had been able to figure it out. Why hadn’t social services?

“How did you know something had happened to her?” David persisted.

She couldn’t tell him how; he would never understand. None of the foster families with whom she’d lived growing up had understood that she was cursed. They’d thought her crazy instead. Some had told her so, others had just looked at her with pitying expressions, like the ones passersby cast at homeless people who ramble incoherently. She’d rather David be mad at her than look at her that way.

“Stop the inquisition already,” she said, whirling away from him to stalk over to the windows. Through the gauzy white curtains she noticed a van with a satellite dish atop it parked across the street. Obviously they’d been followed. “You’re worse than the reporters.”

“Son of a bitch,” he said, blowing out a ragged breath as he joined her at the window. “Damn vultures.”

“Why do you hate the press so much?” Other businessmen might have enjoyed the free publicity. Not David.

His square jaw tautened as he peered through the curtain. “They’re relentless, with no qualms over invading people’s privacy.”

And he was all about privacy. But then, so was Ariel. That need was one of the few things they had in common. The other was the attraction that hummed between them even now. Heat emanated from his body as he stood close behind her at the window. Even though inches separated them, it was as if he touched her. She could feel him against her skin, inside her heart.

“I’ll call my security team, have someone run them off from the Towers.” The high-rise in downtown Barrett that housed both his business and penthouse. He leaned closer, his breath warm against her neck. “I’ll take you there.”

“No.” She didn’t want to leave her cozy home for the cold, sterile building of glass, metal and marble where David lived.

“Ariel, you’ll be safer there.”