Thank you, as always, to my critique groups and beta readers, especially Paula Gill for her medical help.

Finally, there are reports that Jack Slade’s ghost just may be where he died—in Virginia City, Montana.

As for what is coming up for Clare and Zach . . . have you ever heard the tale of the amorous miner whose bones appeared in various beds, J. Dawson Hidgepath, and the town of Buckskin Joe?

TURN THE PAGE FOR A PREVIEW OF THE NEXT BOOK IN ROBIN D. OWENS’S GHOST SEER SERIES

GHOST LAYER

COMING SOON FROM BERKLEY SENSATION!

DENVER, COLORADO, SECOND WEEK OF SEPTEMBER

ZACH SLADE’S NEW cane had been delivered when he was gone, a better weapon. The hook handle could snag and yank a leg. Though, of course, it wasn’t large enough to fit around his new lover, Clare, and bring her to him for a kiss . . . or more.

The box the cane had come in leaned against the gray rough-cut stone of the mansion where he rented the housekeeper’s suite. Sticking both old and new canes as well as the box under his left arm, he unlocked the side doors to the great house. Since he’d been shot below the knee, which severed a nerve, and his left ankle and foot didn’t flex, he lifted his knee high to simply walk into his apartment.

Yeah, he was disabled. Had foot drop. His career as an active peace officer, his most recent job as a deputy sheriff, was over at thirty-four.

Instead of wallowing in anger, move on to damned acceptance. He wouldn’t slip back into denial again. He’d finally gotten beyond that. Maybe.

He let the heavy security door slam behind him. Cool air flowed over him from his apartment, and he realized how sticky he was from the long two-day drive from Montana. At least his clothes fit better. He’d finally packed on some more muscle after his weight loss due to the shooting.

Zach tossed the box and his old cane on the empty surface of the long coffee table in front of the big brown leather couch in the living room. Then he slashed the new wooden cane through the air in some fighting moves. He was learning bartitsu, the Victorian mixed martial art that featured cane fighting.

There’d been no bartitsu studio in Montana, where he’d testified against the parole of a serial killer he’d put away a year and a half ago.

He held the cane in both hands, tested it . . . yeah, he could snap it if he wanted; his upper body strength had increased, what with being on crutches for three months.

The peace of his apartment wrapped around him. It had come furnished for a man, except for the small twenty-inch TV screen. Big, long couch he could sleep—or make love—on. A couple of deep chairs, the sturdy coffee table, and a thick old rug with faded colors that must have been expensive at one time.

A floral scent teased his nose and he saw a colorful bouquet of fresh flowers on the dark granite counter of the breakfast bar separating the Pullman kitchen from his living space. He didn’t need flowers in his apartment, but guessed both the old ladies—the housekeeper, Mrs. Magee, and the wealthy owner of the mansion, Mrs. Flinton—thought he did.

He’d pushed the drive because he’d wanted to see Clare, even though those weeks had been the weirdest in his life. More weird than when he’d gotten shot a few months ago. That had just been stupid and devastating.

Right now all he wanted to do was sluice off the travel grime and rest a little so he’d be in prime shape for Clare.

After a quick rap on the door between his apartment and the rest of the mansion, Zach’s elderly landlady, Mrs. Flinton, opened the door and glided through it with her walker. She’d taken him under her wing when he’d arrived in Denver a couple of weeks ago, insisted on renting him this place at a nominal fee.

“Zach, it’s so good you’re back,” Mrs. Flinton said.

He grunted, then realized he wasn’t among his former cop colleagues anymore and had to actually respond. “Good to see you, too. Good to be back in Denver.” And the helluvit was, that was the truth. He’d left the scene of his ex-job and the shooting in low-populated Plainsview City, Cottonwood County, Montana and traded it for big-city Denver, and remained okay.

Mrs. Flinton stopped close and tilted her creased cheek as if for a kiss. So he gave her a peck. She smelled better than the flower bouquet, her perfume fresh and perky. “Have you called Clare yet?” she asked.

He leaned against the back of the couch. “Not yet. I just got in ten minutes ago.” And the time with Clare had been so intense that week . . . then he’d been called back to Montana, and now . . . he just didn’t know.

Scowling at him, Mrs. Flinton poked his chest with a manicured, pale pink fingernail. “Did you two talk while you were gone?”

“We texted some,” he mumbled. Then he rubbed the back of his neck. His hair had grown longer than he’d ever kept it as a deputy sheriff. But his neck, and his fingers, and the whole rest of his body recalled intimately Clare’s fiddling with that hair, how she liked it shaggy.

“The week with Clare before I left was pretty extreme,” Zach told the older woman. Yeah, extreme with events, and incredible sex, too . . . and startling intimacy. A whole week had passed since the end of her first case and he still hadn’t forgotten much of anything.

His body yearned for Clare.

Mrs. Flinton tsked and shook her head. “You’re doing the rubber band thing.”

“Wha?”

“Coming close together, then drawing back.”

“It’s not only me!”

She sniffed. “Clare needs support during these first weeks of learning her new ghost layer gift, as I know from my own experience.”

“She’s got that damn ghost dog, Enzo, to help her,” Zach said.

Another finger poke and a steely gaze. “That’s not the same.”

His phone buzzed, and he welcomed it, paused when he saw Clare was calling. Mrs. Flinton noticed, too. Suppressing a sigh, that his first call with Clare after he’d returned to town would be overheard, he answered, “Zach, here.”

“Hi, Zach,” she sounded like the former accountant she was, cool and professional. Her voice still zinged down all the nerves in his body.

“I just received a call from your boss, Tony Rickman. . . .” Zach lost the rest of the sentence at the pang that he was now working as a private investigator for money instead of in the public sector to serve and protect.

Mrs. Flinton elbowed him, bringing his attention back to the call.

“Sorry, missed that, say again?” Zach asked.

“Zach, do you know why Rickman would like to meet with me?”

That made him blink. “No. He didn’t say anything to me about that. When did he ask you?” Zach’s thumb skimmed over his phone, hovered on the icon for video calling. Wasn’t ready to push it and see Clare’s face if she was on visual, get slammed with more mixed feelings.

“Rickman called not more than ten minutes ago and wants me there within the hour.” Her words were crisp.

“Meet her there,” Mrs. Flinton said.

“I’m sorry?” Clare asked. “I didn’t hear that.”

Now Zach rubbed his forehead. “I just got back from Montana. If you want, I can meet you there at the top of the hour.”

“Oh.”

“You didn’t tell her when you were coming home?” asked Mrs. Flinton.

“Zach?” Clare asked.

“No, Mrs. Flinton,” Zach said loudly. “I didn’t tell either of you when I’d be in. Wasn’t sure of the drive myself. Get over it.”