Forbidden Territory & Forbidden Temptation: Forbidden Territory / Forbidden Temptation

“So you’re in it for the publicity.”

“No!” She slammed down the phone, pain blooming like a poisonous flower behind her eyes.

The couch cushion shifted beside her and a furry head bumped against her elbow. Lily dropped one hand to stroke the cat’s brown head. “Oh, Delilah, that was a mistake.”

The Siamese cat made a soft prrrupp sound and butted her head against Lily’s chin. Jezebel joined them on the sofa, poking her nose into Lily’s ribs. Groaning, she nudged the cats off her lap and staggered to her feet. Half-blinded by the migraine, she made her way down the hall to her bedroom.

The headaches had never been as bad back home in Willow Grove, with her sister Iris always around to brew up a cup of buckbean tea and work her healing magic. But Willow Grove was one hour and a million light-years away.

The phone rang. Lily started to let the answering machine get it when she saw Iris’s face float across the blackness of her mind. She fumbled for the phone. “Iris?”

Her sister’s warm voice trembled with laughter. “I’m minding my own business, drying some lavender, and suddenly I get an urge to call you. So, Spooky, what do you need?”

The warm affection in her voice brought tears to Lily’s eyes. “Buckbean tea and a little TLC.”

“Did you have a vision?” Iris’s voice held no laughter now.

“A bad one.” Lily told her sister about Abby Walters. “The detective on the case thinks I’m a lunatic.” She didn’t want to examine why that fact bothered her. She was used to being considered crazy. Why should McBride’s opinion matter?

“What can I do to help?” Iris asked.

“Does your magic work over the phone?”

Iris laughed. “It’s not magic, you know. It’s just—”

“A gift. I know.” That’s what their mother had always called it. Iris’s gift. Or Rose’s or Lily’s.

Lily called hers a curse. Seeing terrified little girls crying for their daddies. Broken bodies at the bottom of a ditch, rain swirling away the last vestiges of their lifeblood. Her own father’s life snuffed out in a saw-mill across town—

“Stop it, Lily.” Her sister’s voice was low and strangled. “It’s too much all at once.”

Lily tried to close off her memories, knowing that her sister’s empathic gift came with its own pain. “I’m sorry.”

Iris took a deep breath. “Do you want me to come there?”

“No, I’m feeling better.” Not a complete lie, Lily thought. Her headache had eased a little. Just a little. “Sorry I called you away from your lavender.”

Iris laughed. “Sometimes I listen to us talk and understand why people think the Browning sisters are crazy.”

Lily laughed through the pain. “I’ll visit soon, okay? Meanwhile, don’t you or Rose get yourselves run out of town.”

Iris’s wry laughter buzzed across the line. “Or burned at the stake.” She said goodbye and hung up.

Lily lay back against the pillow, her head pounding. Jezebel rubbed her face against Lily’s, whiskers tickling her nose. “Oh, Jezzy, today went so wrong.” She closed her eyes against the light trickling in through the narrow gap between her bedroom curtains, trying to empty her mind. Sleep would be the best cure for her headache. But sleep meant dreams.

And after a vision, Lily’s dreams were always nightmares.

* * *

BY FIVE O’CLOCK, the sun sat low in the western sky, casting a rosy glow over the small gray-and-white house across the street from McBride’s parked car. He peered through the car window, wishing he were anywhere but here.

When Lily Browning had hung up the phone, his first sensation had been relief. One more wacko off his back. Then he’d remembered Andrew Walters’s demand and his own grudging agreement. Call it following every lead, he thought with a grim smile. He exited the vehicle and headed across the street.

Lily Browning’s house was graveyard quiet as he walked up the stone pathway. A cool October night was falling, sending a chill up his spine as he peered through the narrow gap in the curtains hanging in the front window.

No movement. No sounds.

He pressed the doorbell and heard a muted buzz from inside.

What are you going to say to her—stay the hell away from Andrew Walters or I’ll throw you in jail?

Wouldn’t it be nice if he could?

He cocked his ear, listening for her approach. Nothing but silence. As he lifted his hand to the buzzer again, he heard the dead bolt turn. The door opened about six inches to reveal a shadowy interior and Lily Browning’s tawny eyes.

“Detective McBride.” She slurred the words a bit.

“May I come in? I have some questions.”

Her face turned to stone. “I have nothing to tell you.”

McBride nudged his way forward. “Humor me.”

She moved aside to let him in, late afternoon sun pouring through the open doorway, painting her with soft light. Her eyes narrowed to slits, and she skittered back into the darkened living room, leaving him to close the door.

Inside, murky shadows draped the cozy living room with darkness. When McBride’s eyes finally adjusted to the low light, he saw Lily standing a few feet in front of him, as if to block him from advancing any farther.

“I told you everything I know on the phone,” she said.

He shook his head. “Not quite.”

Her chest rose and fell in a deep sigh. Finally, she gestured toward the sofa against the wall. “Have a seat.”

McBride sat where she indicated. As his eyes adjusted further to the darkened interior, he saw that Lily Browning looked even paler than she had at school earlier that day. She’d scrubbed off what little makeup she’d worn, and pulled her dark hair into a thick ponytail. Despite the cool October afternoon, she wore a sleeveless white T-shirt and soft cotton shorts. She took the chair across from him, knees tucked against her chest, her eyes wary.

Her bare skin shimmered in the fading light. He stifled the urge to see if she felt as soft as she looked.

What the hell was wrong with him? He was long past his twenties, when every nice pair of breasts and long legs had brought his hormones to attention. And Lily Browning, of all people, should be the last woman in the world to make his mouth go dry and his heart speed up.

He forced himself to speak. “How long have you been a teacher at Westview Elementary?”

She answered in a hushed voice. “Six years.”

He wondered why she was speaking so softly. The skin on the back of his neck tingled. “Is someone else here?”

Suspicion darkened her eyes. “My accomplices, you mean?”

He answered with one arched eyebrow.