Read Online SeaChange by Cindy Spencer Pape - Free Book Online Page B

not
psychic, not really, but once in a while I do get these creepy feelings and
they usually turn out to be right. When my parents died, I knew something
terrible had happened the minute I woke up that day. I didn’t get the call for
another hour.” Her voice started to rise, her spine again.
    He squeezed her in a quick hug. God, did that feel good. “No
need to get defensive, I believe you. Go ahead.”
    “God, this is too weird.” She gulped in a lungful of air. “Out
there in the Zodiac, I got one of those feelings and I told Brad we needed to
head in. Before the cigarette boat showed up. It was just this icy chill down
my spine.”
    “But he didn’t listen?”
    “No, he did, but the motor was old and didn’t want to start.
They were there by the time he got it going.”
    “That sucks.”
    “Yeah. Big-time.” She took another deep breath. “And
sometimes I have dreams that tell me to do something, seem to point the way.
They’re almost always right. I tell myself that it’s just my subconscious being
smarter than the rest of me.”
    “Which could be true.”
    “Yep.”
    “Or it could be that you are, in fact, a little bit psychic.”
    “I really don’t know what to believe. But tonight, maybe my
subconscious, or Granny’s sight, or whatever the hell the voice in my head is,
is trying to tell me that Brad’s still alive. He could be, couldn’t he? Still
out there somewhere and needing help?”
    “Wow.” He rocked back against the pillows, dragging her more
fully into his lap. It felt nice, so she let it happen. It had been a long time
since she had anybody but Brad to lean on in a crisis, and that had been a very
different sort of friendship. She buried her nose in the hollow of Jake’s neck,
breathed in the salty, musky scent of him, felt the vibrations in his throat
when he spoke. “That’s a pretty big leap.”
    “I know. It sounds stupid when you say it out loud.”
    “Not stupid. Wishful, perhaps.”
    She adored the fact that he didn’t laugh, didn’t tell her
that she was crazy. Even Brad had only humored her strange forebodings. He’d
never really accepted them. She’d never even thought about telling a boyfriend,
not since the one she’d been dating when her parents died had immediately
broken up with her and told her to go see a shrink. There hadn’t been any since
she’d felt close enough to trust with her secret.
    Jake continued. “But wishful doesn’t mean wrong. Next time I
talk to Wen, I’ll ask him to check the hospitals and such up and down the
coast. He’s got a vast network of contacts in Mexico. If anyone can find Brad,
it will be him.”
    “Thank you.”
    “No problem. It would be nice to know I didn’t screw up as
badly as I thought.”
    “You really did try to find him, didn’t you?” She pulled
back just enough to look at his face, then reached up to smooth the furrow
between his eyebrows.
    “For an hour. After that, I figured it was too late, and I
wanted to get you back to the States, to a hospital.”
    “Thank you for that too, even though I didn’t end up needing
it. And for God’s sake, please don’t beat yourself up. I know you did
everything in your power to find Brad.”
    He smiled and gave her another hug. After that, it was the
most natural thing in the world to reach up and kiss him.
    “Hmmm. Good morning,” she purred when they came up for air a
few minutes later.
    “It’s looking that way,” he agreed, rubbing his leg along
hers. He shifted her in his lap so she was straddling his hips, then he dipped
his head down to nip along her collarbone, pushing aside the neckline of her
stretchy cotton nightshirt. “If you don’t want this to happen, now’s the time
to say no.”
    Tingles from his little bites were running along her skin
and sending urgent messages straight to all her feminine parts. She tilted her
head to give him better access. The hard ridge of his erection pressed up
through the thin fabric of his running shorts and