She shook her head and looked past him toward Sidney, who was making moves to start another set. “You should go home,” Marley said. “Excuse me.”
Shoot, had he heard someone giving her instructions just now?
Gray pushed his shoulders back and watched her through narrowed eyes. She disturbed him, yet he didn’t want to leave her. Could someone really choose to leave their body and go “traveling”? That he would even ask himself the question worried him.
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave,” Marley told Gray.
Gray held his breath. She sounded like a soft echo of the male voice.
Marley couldn’t concentrate. Her attention was split. Uncle Pascal had never, ever communicated the way he was doing now. He had located her mind—just found it and started talking and telling her what he wanted her to do. And he’d come because he had sensed danger, sensed her alone out here and with a man she knew little about. Did it mean her uncle could find and transmit to any mind—at will? Had he simply never chosen to do so before tonight? That was incredible. She considered herself a strong talent, but her own telepathic abilities were mostly short range and by mutual invitation.
Marley wondered what Gray would think if he knew she and her uncle were talking about him—in a manner of speaking.
“Who is he?” Uncle Pascal asked. “Do you know anything about him?”
Marley responded in thought: “Not really. He’s a journalist who used to be a policeman. I’m not sure what to think, but he could be okay. How did you find me?”
“All you need to know is that I can.”
Gray sat opposite her and reached for her hands. She was too surprised to pull away in time.
“I…I’m not sure, but I think I’m feeling something weird,” he said. “Did you hear a voice? I mean…someone talking without being here? Are you cold?”
“Uncle, he’s picking something up from us.” The last thing she would have expected was for Gray to mention being cold.
“He can’t be.”
“Can you hear what he’s saying?” Marley asked.
“No. I’m aware of a man with you and what you feel about him. You feel threatened.”
She didn’t want to discuss that. “He’s a sensitive. I don’t think he even knows it yet, but he could be a problem eventually.”
“Get home to me. Has something happened, something you haven’t told me about? I think you’ve traveled recently.”
Marley worked hard to close her uncle out. She must think unobserved for a while. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Marley, do not shut me out. I must be in contact and know you’re safe.”
He could find and enter her mind, but not see where she was. That was something. “Be patient,” she told her uncle. “This man is hearing parts of our communication. Not much—or I don’t think so—but he’s getting caught up in the open channels between us. We should stop now.”
“Marley—”
With an effort that left her weaker, she shuttered Uncle Pascal from her. What he’d just done was unheard of, at least in reputable psi circles. He had simply found her telepathically. She didn’t like it and from now on, she would make it as hard as she could for him. Safety was one thing. Fear of being spied on was another. But he would always make his presence known, wouldn’t he? That was one of the family’s rules of honor. They didn’t just sneak in and out of each other’s heads.
How had Uncle Pascal known she was in the middle of something bizarre?
“You look so serious, Marley.”
“Could have been just a fluke this time,” she said carelessly, still feeling his hands holding hers.
“What?” Gray said.
“Um. You asked me if I’m feeling cold?” She couldn’t risk involving him in her world. His fingers were icy. Apparently he was too cold to know her hands were also deeply chilled. “Are you sick?” She didn’t know what else to say and looked at the way he held on to her, at his big, well-used hands and the way they covered hers.
“I’m not sick,” he said.
He was a man who would be noticed wherever he went. Marley decided she would certainly notice him and felt uncomfortable with the idea. She stood up, pulling away from him as she did so. “I have to talk to someone,” she said. Rather than starting another set, Sidney was getting ready to leave.
“Sidney?” Gray said. “You want to talk to her before she leaves.”
Marley didn’t respond. She didn’t have to, but was it an easy assumption that she would try to talk to Sidney before she left. Or had Gray picked up on her intentions again?
Hurriedly, she left him and walked the length of the club.
Sidney was much taller than Marley, who had to look up at her.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Marley Millet. Could we talk for a few minutes?”
“I don’t think so,” Sidney told her in a slightly nasal, purely upper-crust New Orleans accent. “Maybe another time.”
“It’s about Amber,” Marley said. “And you, of course.”
That earned her a more interested look down Sidney’s elegant nose. She took the card Marley offered, but barely glanced at it.
“You’re with Gray Fisher,” the woman said.
“You know Gray?”
One shoulder rose, causing the front of a black dress to gape.
Sidney laughed low in her throat. Her lashes fluttered. “I suppose he’s decided I’m good enough for his little story now.”
“That’s not what I wanted to ask—”
“You were always good enough for a story, Sidney,” Gray said, joining Marley and cutting off whatever she had been going to say next. “You’re in my lineup. Or I hope you’ll agree to be.”
Sidney watched him through narrowed eyelids. “Would I have been in your lineup if you hadn’t lost two of your preferred interviews already?”
“If that’s what you believe, I won’t try to change your mind. Let’s forget we had this discussion.”
“I will not, Gray Fisher,” Sidney said, all but purring. “I’d be honored to talk to you, but not tonight. My family worries if I’m out too late.”
“When, then?”
“I hoped we could talk,” Marley managed to get in. “Could I call you?”
Sidney smiled at her, but spoke to Gray. “Give me your number and I’ll get in touch with you.”
He was taking a card from the inside pocket of his jacket when Marley saw her brother, Sykes. Or rather, more-or-less saw him.
Nearby, one ankle crossed over the other, his weight braced against a post, stood all more than six and a half feet of Sykes Millet. His black hair curled to his collar and his brilliant blue eyes laughed at her. The smile that curved his lips would be a killer to any other woman looking at him.
No other woman looked at him tonight because only Marley would be able to see him. And she could see straight through him to the wall behind.
Chapter 9
“Marley! Wait!” Gray caught up with her when she reached the curb in front of the Hotel Camille. “Marley—”
“I can’t talk to you anymore.”
“Never again?” he asked.
She glanced at him, but didn’t crack a smile. “Most likely.”
Gray prepared for battle.
“Sidney won’t call you,” he told her.
“Do you really think she’ll call you?” she asked tightly, scanning the street in both directions.
“Yeah, I do. She’s still ambitious enough to want publicity. You saw that. Amber was the talent. Hey, you don’t live so far from here. We can walk.”
Marley stepped off the sidewalk. “I’ll get a cab,” she said, searching up and down the street again then back at the hotel entrance.
The Camille wasn’t the kind of place that kept twenty-four-hour doormen around. No help would come from there.
The street was silent and empty.