Babe in Ghostland

One Seattle, Washington If she'd only had the right type of psychic abilities, Megan Barrows thought later that day, she would have sensed her doom when Case Lambert stepped through the doorway to Antique Fancies. Instead, when the bell over the door dinged and she looked up and saw him, her hands ceased work on the alabaster lamp she was rewiring, and her heart seized in her chest. "Hello," she said, an uncertain smile on her lips, attraction turning her shy. A tight smile briefly graced the man's face. "Hello." His gaze took a long trip over her tall body, and a frown formed between his brows as his gaze lingered on her chest. She moved sideways a few inches, hoping to hide her A-cups behind the inadequate lamp, her attraction to him fading as quickly as it had come. So he was one ofthose. The man looked away, turning his attention to the late-Victorian tea table beside him, its top loaded with silver candlesticks. He picked one up and turned it over to examine the hallmarks on the bottom, then flipped it around, eyes narrowing as he scrutinized the plating where it had begun, ever so slightly, to wear off the copper core. Megan pretended to turn her attention back to rewiring the lamp, just as the man pretended to examine candlesticks. He was a big guy: six-foot-three according to the height markings on the edge of her door, and with a solid broadness that hinted at years of laboring muscle; no youthful lankiness here. His squarely masculine face showed signs of weathering, and his short brown hair was mussed. She had a brief flash of him driving his pickup with the window down, elbow resting on the sill, wind in his hair, howling along to a country song about the cheatin' woman who done him wrong. His jeans and battered leather shoes, and the faded polo shirt with a breast pocket made lumpy by some object, all hinted at someone in one of the trades. One thing for sure: he wasn't a cubicle monkey from Microsoft. He set down the candlestick and wandered farther into the shop, pausing to stare into a lighted glass case full of small bits and pieces: thimbles, lorgnettes, spoons, figurines, vases. Perhaps he was looking for a gift for his wife. She glanced at his left hand. No ring. A gift for his girlfriend, then? Mother? Aunt Esmeralda? He left the glass case and wandered closer to where she stood at her worktable/cashier's counter, his big frame feeling oversized in the crowded, feminine confines of her shop. The natural assurance of his stance, the silent assumption that he was master of his domain -- master ofherdomain -- grated on her, reminding her of the womanizing dolt she'd worked for while putting herself through college. He made a show of casting his gaze over her shop. "You've got a nice place here -- nicer than I expected. Judging from the outside, I thought it would be full of the usual thrift-store crap that passes for antiques these days." Megan narrowed her eyes. "I must have driven by a hundred times but never stopped," he went on, and ran a fingertip over the gracefully carved line of a chair back near the counter. He met her gaze, his gray eyes direct. "I should have. There are beautiful things here." Attraction shot through her again despite her every thought against it. She blushed and looked down at the lamp beneath her hands, then away, not sure where to set her gaze, afraid he might see that his words had affected her. "The shop belonged to my mother. She started it when I was a child." "'Belonged.' Did she retire?" She glanced up at him. "She died. Two years ago." In his eyes, she saw empathy, the tightness around his mouth loosening. "I'm sorry. I lost my mother a few years ago, too." She nodded, acknowledging the shared pain. "But I have the shop, so in some ways it feels like I see her every day." He raised a brow and looked as iCach, Lisa is the author of 'Babe in Ghostland ', published 2006 under ISBN 9780743470902 and ISBN 0743470907.