Grave Intentions by Lori Sjoberg Page A

last week when he got himself blown up. The kid had been nagging him about it for days. “Let me go ask Adam.”
    He found Adam still sacked out on the couch, his bare feet resting on the coffee table. The TV remote was in one hand, and he scratched the dog’s belly with the other.
    “Hey Newbie, do you—”
    “Yes,” Adam said before David finished his sentence.
    Sneaky little bastard had it all planned out ahead of time, David thought with a strange sense of approval. He ought to be pissed, but he had to give his crew credit for getting their ducks in a row. “Well then, I guess it’s settled.”
    Ruby’s voice teemed with satisfaction. “Wonderful. We’ll pick him up in twenty minutes.”
    “Just make sure you bring him back in one piece.”
    He could almost hear the smile in her voice. “As you wish.”
    David knocked on Sarah’s door about an hour later, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. No answer. His gaze darted down to the lot, saw the little red Mazda still parked by the mailboxes.
    Maybe she was in the shower. Maybe she had a hot date tonight and didn’t want to be bothered. Maybe he should just leave a note on the door—
    “Well hello there, stranger,” Sarah said when she opened the door. She’d ditched the work clothes, looking much more relaxed in a pair of denim shorts and a tight fitting Miami Dolphins T-shirt. Her dark brown hair hung loose about her shoulders and her feet were bare, showing off a set of brightly polished pink toenails. When she looked into his eyes, a smile lit her face and put a lump in his throat. “Long time no see. I figured you were either dead or avoiding me.”
    “Now that hurts. I’d never avoid you.” David smiled, hoping a little charm would cover the fact he was lying through his teeth. “Work’s been keeping me pretty busy.”
    “I can relate.” Sarah reached out and gripped his right arm before he even realized what she was doing. “So how are those cuts healing?”
    His first impulse was to pull his arm away, but he forced himself to play nice and let her search for injuries that had long since healed. Might as well get it over with, he thought with a grim sense of resignation. After dodging her for the better part of a week, he doubted she’d let him off the hook without a thorough examination.
    “They’re fine,” he told her, acutely aware of the warmth of her fingers as they trailed over his arm.
    When she glanced up, he met her gaze and sent out a mental suggestion. Everything’s fine. No need to keep looking. It failed to work, which threw him for a loop. Throughout the week, he’d tested his ability to influence the mortal mind. So far, he hadn’t run into any glitches.
    Until her.
    Why couldn’t he manipulate her thoughts? For the life of him, he couldn’t figure it out.
    “How about the lacerations on your torso? Some of those looked pretty nasty.” She let go of his arm and pushed up the hem of his T-shirt. Her brows wrinkled when she found no lingering signs of injury. “I’ll be damned,” she muttered under her breath. “Unbelievable. You’re an incredibly fast healer.”
    “I told you I’d be fine after a good night’s sleep.”
    Sarah’s mouth curved up on one side, her expression somewhere between skeptical and amused. “So you told me.”
    Her fingers trailed lightly across his stomach, and for a few seconds David forgot how to breathe. Closing his eyes, he focused on the warmth of her fingers, the exhilarating sensation of flesh against flesh, wishing she’d press a little harder, a little lower.
    “How’d you get these?” she asked, breaking his train of thought. Her hand paused over the trio of faint circular scars on his lower abdomen, just above the beltline. “I didn’t notice them the other day.”
    Probably because she’d been too busy picking shrapnel out of his skin and trying to badger him into a trip to the emergency room. “Oh, I got those a lifetime ago,” David replied, putting a