The Haunting of Josie by Kay Hooper Read Free Book Online Page A

that she felt heat sweep up her throat to color her cheeks. Her heart seemed to be beating harder, and she could have sworn that her lips were actually throbbing.
    “Good Lord,” she muttered. What on earth was wrong with her? She couldn’t recall ever having reacted this strongly even to the actual touch of another man—and certainly not to the mere memory of his touch.
    With an effort, Josie shook off the sensations. And the ridiculous thoughts. After all, it made perfect sense if she considered the matter logically. In her present state of mind—unusually intense, highly conscious of her feelings of aloneness, and more than a little anxious—she was bound to react strongly to most
any
new element in her life. And as for the stunningly powerful response to Marc, after long weeks of convalescence, he had doubtless stored up so much sexual energy, it was practically radiating from his body.
    No wonder her first impression of him had been so positive. With the combination of pent-up sexual intensity and extraordinary good looks, he could probably seduce a marble statue.
    Josie found herself smiling again, and shook her head ruefully. Enough of this. She was being absurd, and that was all there was to it. Marc was her landlord and her neighbor; last night’s kiss had been in the nature of an experiment—he had, after all, said as much—and that was as far as it would go. All she had to do was be distantly friendly and make it clear she had come out here for solitude.
    Simple enough.
    Again, she started to put the thermos up in one of the cabinets, and again she stopped and gazed at it, this time thoughtfully. Well…distant but neighborly. Surely there was nothing wrong in being a good neighbor.
    “Should I?” she asked Pendragon, who was sitting on a stool washing paws and face after his breakfast.
    “Yaahh,” he replied promptly and definitely, holding one paw suspended as he looked at her.
    She couldn’t help laughing, but Josie found herself filling the thermos once again with hot, fragrant coffee. Ruefully aware that she might well be setting a dangerous precedent but shrugging off the possibility with a peculiar sense of defiance, she stuck a note to the thermos that said she had to make a trip to the store for groceries this afternoon, and if Marc needed anything, he should let her know.
    As she had the day before, she took the coffee across the garden to the cottage and left it hanging on his doorknob, then returned to the house. She made her own shopping list while she ate toast with apple butter for breakfast and listened absently to the radio.
    Finished with her meal and the list, she straightened the kitchen and put the list into her shoulder bag, which she left on the breakfast bar.
    She was just about to go into the front parlor and begin the mammoth task of organizing the jumble of files and papers into something approaching a system when her gaze fell on something she hadn’t noticed before: a simple little cup hook just to the left of the cellar door.
    Pendragon’s key was hanging there.
    For a moment Josie felt oddly suspended as she stared at it. That key had been lying on her dresser last night…though she wasn’t at all sure how it had gotten
there.
She had noticed it this morning while brushing her hair, and had left it there in the bedroom. She was positive she had left it there. So how on earth had it gotten down here? The hook was at her eye level, which meant the cat could not have hung the key there even if he’d wanted to.
    She went over and lifted the key from its hook, and studied it as it lay in the palm of her hand. Small, old-fashioned key of tarnished brass, faded ribbon. Yes, definitely Pendragon’s key. She half turned and regarded the cat, who was still sitting on his stool. He had finished his morning ablutions and returned her gaze with his usual serenity.
    “I don’t suppose you hung this here?”
    The cat tilted his head a bit in a very unfeline gesture, then made a