I know it was five minutes because I counted.

At thirty, a bird squawked so loudly I nearly screamed.

At fifty-five, a squirrel dashed in front of me, chattering, nearly putting me into heart failure.

I got to three hundred twenty before Kellan showed back up. “What took so long?” I demanded, for once unimpressed by his half-naked state.

He held out his empty hands, perplexed and irritated, a rare look for him. “The inn’s locked, too, which is weird, because I was just there.”

“Locked?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought Marilee gave you coffee.”

“Axel did. He told me Marilee’s coffee would burn a hole through my esophagus, and that his was far better, but I wasn’t to tell her.”

“What about the guns? Did you ask about the guns?”

“Gert never let anyone in her place, right?”

“Right.”

“So telling them about the guns she kept there seemed unwise.” He glanced back at Hideaway. “But why is the place locked up tighter than a drum, with no signs of life?”

Feeling very naked, I wrapped my arms around myself. “So I guess it’s true then.”

“What?”

“I’m really in the Twilight Zone. Without underwear. It’s like every bad nightmare I’ve ever had.”

Chapter 9

Locked out. I put my forehead to the front window, caressed at every movement by Kellan’s shirt. “Kel? Remember that time in college when we played Truth or Dare?”

He moved behind me, rattling the front-door handle. “No.”

“Yes, you do. Dot and I dared you to strip naked and run around the perimeter of the house, and you did, and then we locked you out. Remember now?”

He sighed. “Trying hard not to.”

“You banged on the door, bare-ass naked, and then we flipped on the porch light, and all the neighbors came out. Someone took pics, and they ended up on the bulletin board in the coffee shop.”

“I remember,” he said tightly, rattling the window. “Is there a caboose to this story?”

“I was just going to say that suddenly I know how you felt.”

“Are you butt-ass naked? With laughter ringing in your ears and light bulbs flicking on?” He peered in the window. “No, you are not.”

I grinned.

“Yeah, you did that then, too,” he said, and shook his head.

“Not at you. I didn’t laugh at you.”

“Oh yeah, you did.”

“Okay, I did.” I laughed now, too. I couldn’t help it. He was pretty adorable over there, pouting.

“Damn,” he said softly, his gaze holding mine.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

But it had been something, and I had a feeling, given that he was watching my mouth, that it had to do with my smile. But before I could say anything, he turned away, again rattling the door handle.

Still locked.

“I’m going to break it.”

“You can’t break a door handle,” I said. “You’d have to be Superman.” I had my eyes closed again, my forehead to the window. I was pretending I was on a cruise to…somewhere warm, maybe the Bahamas. Yeah, that worked. With a hot sun and cute waiters carrying trays of goodies like-like Girl Scout Cookies.

At the sudden sound of wood cracking, I lifted my head.

And then gasped.

Kellan stood there holding the doorknob in his hand, staring at the hole he’d left in the door, looking a little unnerved.

“My God,” I whispered. “How did you-”

“Don’t know.”

“Are you-” His hand was bleeding. “Kellan, are you all right?”

“Fine,” he said tersely, and pushing open the door, he gestured me in.

“Your hand-”

“Just a scratch.”

“The door-”

“Rach, just get inside.”

I crossed the threshold and went directly to the six-pack of water on the coffee table before remembering that I hadn’t been able to open one the night before.

Kellan reached past me, tore the first water out and opened it without any effort at all. He handed it to me, looking a little bit sweaty and a whole lot tough.

Wow. He really had it going on. I still didn’t get how I’d never noticed before.

Oh boy. Was I slow, or what?

In the guise of giving myself a minute, I drank half the bottle, then swiped my mouth and stared at him. “You were hit, too,” I said with remarkable calm, given that my heart had just bounced off my other internal organs with the impact of a freight train. “We were both hit, and we were both changed.”

He opened his mouth, but at that exact moment, Marilee-tall and lush and darkly gorgeous in black jeans and boots, and a black beaded leather jacket-appeared in the doorway.

“Morning,” she said, and held out a steaming mug for me, not even blinking at the fact that I wore nothing but Kel’s T-shirt and a towel.

Or that there was a brand-new hole in the door of her dead employer’s private quarters.

She didn’t acknowledge any of that because her eyes had locked on Kellan. Specifically, on the fact that his loose sweats hung low on his hips, and that he wore nothing else on his fabulous, mouth-watering body. She let out a slow smile as she leaned with easy negligence against the jamb, acting like sex on a platter, when only yesterday she’d completely ignored him.

Prelightning.

Presexual healing.

This made me mad, and it had little to do with the green-eyed monster.

Okay, it had everything to do with jealousy.

Marilee put her hands on her hips and thrust out her perfect breasts a little, demanding all eyes on her.

I would have liked to compete with that, but I was also still stunned over the realization that Kellan had been hiding a little secret.

A big secret.

“Where were you just now?” Kellan asked Marilee, and if I hadn’t been so blindsided by his secret, I’d have fallen a little in love with him on the spot for not noticing Marilee eating him up. “The B &B was locked, and you didn’t answer the door.”

“I was busy,” she said with apology but no excuse.

“We got locked out,” he said.

“And the windows were locked, too,” I said. “So he had to-”

Kellan shook his head at me. He didn’t want me to mention the breaking-the-door thing. But if she so much as looked, surely she’d see the gaping hole.

“They were painted shut,” Marilee said, not taking her eyes off him. “Don’t feel bad. No human could have opened one.”

I wrapped my chilled fingers around the steaming mug she’d handed me and considered different ways to get her to stop drooling. Strangling her seemed like a good option.

Apparently not much of a mind reader, Marilee moved toward Kellan and the couch, as if yesterday had never happened.

But no one messed with Kellan’s head. Well, no one but me, damn it. Secrets or not, hot or not, Kellan was mine. I put down the mug. According to Axel, I wouldn’t want to drink it anyway.

Before I could step between the two of them, Marilee put her hands on Kel’s shoulders and rubbed. “Oooh, you’re tense. We have some massage therapy appointments open today, if you’d like one.”

And that green-eyed monster bit me hard. The bitch! Those were my shoulders to touch, not hers. “Okay,” I said grimly, giving Kellan a dirty look. Damn men. They were such stupid, easy creatures, led around by a single appendage, which didn’t even have the capacity to think for itself. Honestly, it was a miracle they managed to function on a daily basis. “Thanks for the coffee, but I really have to talk to Kellan now. Privately.” I added a smile that could be called such only because I bared my teeth.

Marilee shot me a measuring look, which I returned, probably with some fire added, and she lifted her hands in a little gesture of surrender.

She moved toward the door, making sure to brush against Kel as she did, even stopping to practically purr, just before she pulled out her ace card, which was to stagger slightly, then put her hand to her head, letting out a quivery little sigh and saying, “Oh dear.”

Kellan put his hand on her arm. “What? Are you okay?”

“Yes. Yes, of course…” But she wavered unsteadily, then fell right against him so that he had no choice but to catch her as her legs buckled. Her eyes rolled up, lashes fluttering, as she began to faint.

What a pathetic, novice move, I thought. Kellan could see right through that fake faint.

But no, his face had gone all tight with concern and worry, and he’d caught her up in his arms. Clueless!

I’d have let her head hit the table. “Oh, Axel,” I said sweetly but loudly, aiming for the front door. “How lovely to see you this morning.”

Marilee bolted upright in Kellan’s arms, her gaze darting to the front door.

Which was open, and empty.

My eyebrows shot straight up as I sent Marilee a top-that-beeyotch look.

She lifted a shoulder as if to say she’d had to try, then she slid down Kellan’s body. With a touch to his jaw, she smiled once more. “I’m okay now, thanks. I feel all better.”

Uh-huh. I’ll bet.

“You sure?” Kel asked, clearly still concerned.

Unbelievable.

“Oh yes. Really.” Marilee smiled. “I’ll be in the big house making breakfast.”

“Uh…” Kel said, clearly remembering her sauce. “Yes.”

“Give me about half an hour.”

And then she was gone.

“Huh.” He scratched his head and turned back to face me, looking like that rumpled, bemused professor again. A rumpled, bemused professor with no shirt and loose sweats slipping down his narrow hips, a gap between the string tie and his flat, firm stomach wide enough to dip a hand in-

My brain was out of control. “That was a fake faint.”

“Rach, she was shaking.”

“I’m shaking.”

“You are not.”

“Well, I could be.”

When he shot me an even, patient look, I lifted my fingers and made then tremor. “See? And oh…” With dramatic flair courtesy of freshman high school drama class, I laid the back of my hand across my forehead. “I feel funny…”