Hot Spell

She’d seen her first ghost—and had a pleasant conversation with him, in fact—when she was only eight years old. At the time, it had been natural and not scary at all. However, that encounter had led to many others in quick succession, and some of the ghosts weren’t as friendly as the first. Her frightened parents had tried to get her to stop, but it wasn’t as though she’d been trying to attract otherworldly attention—it just happened. Ghosts were drawn to her. One ghost, annoyed at being interrupted by her father, had pushed him down a flight of stairs. Luckily, other than a twisted ankle, he wasn’t injured, but the event did its damage in another way.

Not able to deal with his daughter being a “ghost-magnet freak,” which was how he’d put it at the time, Ed LaGrange had packed his bags and left Amanda and her mother that very night. She’d never spoken to him again.

The memory still brought a painful lump of emotion to her throat.

Her mother blamed Amanda and her clairvoyant ability for shattering their home. Amanda grew up feeling like more of an outcast every day of her childhood. Her being different had destroyed her family.

Being at school didn’t help, either. Normal kids gave her the nickname “Amanda the Strange,” which, while not a terribly original taunt, came to represent verbally everything she hated about herself. She was a freak—she was strange.

Therefore, she had tried as hard as possible to ignore her psychic abilities. It had worked for a while, at least until PARA came to her college looking for potential agents. Patrick McKay had seen Amanda’s file, met with her personally, and offered her enough money to justify dipping back into her despised abilities.

Other than the money, the bright side of working for PARA was that there were other agents who subsequently became her good friends—kind of like a bizarre extended family. She was invited to their weekly “tequila and séance” parties. She’d gone a couple of times since her best friend Vicky, another clairvoyant, rarely took no for an answer in pushing Amanda to get out and have more fun, but it wasn’t really her scene.

Even though she was surrounded by happy psychics who liked her and who she liked in return, she’d never gotten over her father’s rejection and her childhood traumas. It had made her the woman she was today, for better or for worse.

As far as her dating life—well, she tried not to tell her boyfriends about her psychic abilities at first—or at all, if possible. PARA agents were a close-knit group, but “normal men” outside that circle didn’t understand or were scared off by anything unusual—just like her father and schoolmates had been. When Amanda’s boyfriends found out her secret, they usually found the nearest exit as quickly as possible.

And then there was Jacob Caine. Decidedly not a normal man.

She’d met him at a staff party held at O’Grady’s, a local pub, two years ago, shortly after he’d moved to the area and joined the agency. Her friends, especially Vicky, had already told her how hot the new recruit was, how devastatingly charming, and how most of them—the single or even not so single—wanted to have extremely imaginative sex with him. Like, immediately.

And he was. Hot, that is. Darkly attractive with short, scruffy black hair and flashing green eyes framed with thick black lashes. He dressed casually—no tie for him. She could vividly recall his navy-blue shirt being unbuttoned at the neck that night to reveal a glimpse of his obviously chiseled torso. He was six feet tall with broad shoulders, lean hips…and an amazing ass.

At least, that had been her first impression.

Instant attraction.

Amanda’s mouth had literally watered at the sight of him despite the fact she wasn’t usually romantically drawn to fellow psychics. Then again, she’d been celibate for over a year after a bad break-up—another guy who’d freaked at the thought she could talk to ghosts—so she was certain that was to blame for her heightened sensitivity to such a fine specimen of male hotness.

From across the room, Jacob caught her staring and their eyes met. She was sure he’d be able to tell just from a glance that she wanted to climb onto his gorgeous body and do things to him she wouldn’t even trust to her diary.

He disengaged from the throng of cleavage-revealing women and came toward her with his hand extended.

“I’m Jacob,” he said without losing her gaze. “And you are?”

“Amanda.” She inhaled sharply as she felt the strength and warmth of his long fingers wrap around hers. An unbidden surge of desire curled inside her. His aftershave was a spicy musk with just a hint of cinnamon and a whole lot of man.

He frowned, but she had no idea why. Maybe it was because she was practically drooling on him.

Pull yourself together, she commanded herself.

“Something wrong?” she asked when his grip tightened.

“No…” But his frown deepened as he looked down at her hand. “It’s odd. It’s like you have a psychic wall up around yourself. I normally get a sense of someone when I touch them for the first time, but I’m getting nothing from you at all.”

“You can get something from me if you come over here!” Vicky called from their far left before laughing suggestively. Amanda repressed a smile and an eye-roll at her friend’s enthusiasm and returned her attention to the gorgeous man in front of her.

“No walls, I assure you,” she said. “Maybe I’m just special.”

His eyes snapped back up to hers. “Maybe you are.” The frown disappeared, replaced instead by a killer smile. “Amanda, you said?”

“That’s right.”

He nodded. “They already told me about you. You’re the one they call Amanda the Strange, right?”

She tensed. “It’s LaGrange. But yeah, that’s me. Strangeness incorporated.”

An ice-cold sensation immediately swept over her at the sound of the despised nickname that represented everything about her that she hated. Why would he say that to her? To get some sort of a reaction? And who’d told him that?

So much for letting down her guard and getting drunk on tequila with Vicky and the gang last week and sharing soul-crushing childhood stories. That wouldn’t happen again.

She finally yanked her hand back from Jacob’s. He looked at her oddly.

“Is there something wrong?” he asked.

“Wrong?” Her jaw felt tight. “No, of course not. I…uh, I have to go.”

Damn, she’d been having such a good night, too. How was it possible that three little words could ruin everything?

Jacob grabbed her wrist. “I thought we might be able to talk for a bit.”

So he could insult her more? Yeah. That sounded like a plan.

“I guess you thought wrong,” she said, the iciness in her voice matching the chill she felt inside. “There are lots of women here who will be happy to talk to you. Or more, if you like. Trust me, you won’t miss me.”

“Amanda, wait—”

She fixed a frozen smile on her face. She needed to get out of there. “Welcome to PARA, Jacob. I’m sure everyone will be as delighted to meet you as I’ve been.”

He raised a dark eyebrow. “Is that sarcasm I hear?”

“You’re very insightful. You must be psychic.”

He studied her closely. “I guess first impressions are misleading. I thought we might hit it off.”

Amanda had no idea why she wanted to cry. Why was she letting this guy affect her so strongly? It felt as though he could see right through to the vast and varied weaknesses she tried desperately to hide from everyone. Hell, maybe she did put up psychic walls around herself without even realizing it.

Just being near him suddenly made her very uncomfortable.

She gave him a practiced withering look that helped to hide when she was feeling more than a little vulnerable. “I guess you thought wrong.”

“Well, then, it was delightful meeting you, too, Amanda.” He turned away, but then glanced back over his shoulder, his green eyes narrowed. “By the way, that was also sarcasm.”

And then he returned to his waiting swarm of admirers and didn’t look back.

Vicky ran over to see how everything had gone during her conversation with the new hottie. Amanda had kept her answers vague and then excused herself from the party early. She’d had enough.

It was definitely true what they said—don’t judge a book by its cover. Jacob Caine had a mighty fine cover, but she wasn’t interested in reading any further.