Edge Of Heaven: Ghosts, Inc., #4

Prologue

Early March

From her position in a plush armchair, Penny allowed her gaze to flicker briefly across the room as she tried in vain not to stare openly at the man who had captured her attention since the moment he had literally swept into her life a scant few days ago.  She was attempting to behave herself.  More or less.  Maybe more.  Especially with Hugh, her kind-of-sort-of-but-not-really boyfriend, seated in the chair next to her.

Not that Hugh would truly care if Penny was ogling another man.  At least not really.  Oh, he would make a scene, of course, so that he would look good in front of her family and friends, acting the part of the besotted male so that he didn't appear to be a complete fraud.  He did have some pride left after all.  He would also pretend that he was being solicitous of her, taking her feelings into consideration as often as he could.  Or perhaps he might even play the role of slightly jealous boyfriend, especially if she stared at another man a bit too long - particularly the Australian-born hunk now sitting across the room from her, watching her through hooded, sultry eyes.  However, Hugh's heart wouldn't be engaged.  His head would say one thing, but his heart was forever out of her reach.  And it always would be.  It always had been.

Penny knew that, of course.  She had known from the moment she had taken Hugh as a lover several months before, the Arbiter or truth seeker in her easily discerning the lies the very moment they fell from his lips.  She had learned long ago that it wasn't always easy being a human lie detector.  In fact, sometimes, it was downright horrible.  Now, this was a moment when she wished she was just like every other woman alive.  Easily fooled by a handsome face and a winning smile.  Ignorance truly was bliss, she supposed.

The modern, independent woman in her knew she should move on and find another man, someone worthy of her and her love.  A man who would love her for herself and what she was.  All of her.  Even the parts that weren't so nice.  She deserved that.  She knew she did.  Penny might be many things but stupid was not one of them.

However, deep inside, she was also still partly the rebellious little girl who craved love and acceptance, even if those things came with complications and conditions.  Unfortunately that part of her personality had prevailed, not giving a damn about the consequences and remaining by Hugh's side even though she knew he wasn't good for her.  Instead of moving on like the intelligent woman she claimed to be, Penny had instead spent months pretending that Hugh was devoted to her.  Just like so many other young women before her had.

Except that Penny was inherently different from those women, and she did know better.  She knew what Hugh was - and more importantly - what he was not.  She had the ability to sense the lies he told.  It was just one of her many paranormal gifts, one that some might argue was by far the most useful to her.  Or it should have been, anyway.

With Hugh, Penny could see the lies in him almost before he spoke them, professing words of love that he didn't mean and promising devotion that he didn't feel.  In this case, she had simply chosen to ignore the facts and pretend that everything was going to work itself out in the end.  Just like so many stupid, foolish young women before her had.

According to her brother Tim, Penny had been squandering her paranormal gifts by ignoring what was obvious to everyone else, at least as far as Hugh and their relationship was concerned.  She was better than that, Tim had told her time after time during their numerous long-distance phone calls while she sailed around the Florida Keys trying to undo the mess she had made of her life.  She was better than Hugh, he had said, and she knew he was right about that, too.  She deserved true love and happiness, not the pale shadow of love that she had grudgingly accepted from the man she currently shared a bed with.  That comment had perhaps hit the closest to home.

Penny knew her brother was right about all of it, but it was also extremely difficult for her to admit that she was wrong.  She didn't want to acknowledge that she had failed so spectacularly in her first adult relationship.  Her entire family - Tim included - already treated her like a wayward child instead of the adult woman she was.  For her, admitting this failure would also be admitting that her family had been right when they had said she was too young and foolish to take care of herself.

So Penny had done the only thing she could think of.  Well, the only thing without admitting that she had been wrong, of course.  She had stuck with Hugh, no matter the cost to her life and her soul.  Unfortunately, all that did was upset her beloved family even more, until the pain and anger between them was so great that she wondered if the relationship could ever be repaired again.

Tim certainly didn't seem willing to give in - not even a little.  He implied that Penny was foolish and silly and yes, even a little stupid.  Not to mention childish and stubborn.  He had also made a point to repeat some variation of those same words almost endlessly over the last few months, ever since she had returned to Pennsylvania from Florida with Hugh by her side.

Truthfully, Penny couldn't blame her brother.  Tim was right, just as he usually was, and he was only concerned because he loved her so much.  Hugh, on the other hand, didn't love her and never would.  Tim was also right that she deserved better.  She could lie to herself as much as she wanted, but in her heart, she knew the truth.  She deserved a man who would give her love and respect, not one who would berate her constantly and keep her chained to his side out of fear for his own life.

Now she was stuck in a bad situation that she didn't quite know how to get out of any longer, and her brother wasn't being of much help in that regard.  Not that she had asked for his help.  She had too much pride for that.  Or stupidity.  She was no longer certain which.

Penny had considered turning to her friends for help, but for the most part, they were Tim's friends, too, which made the situation a little more complicated.  And they didn't like Hugh any better than her brother did.  Though to be fair, Hugh didn't like any of them, either.  Especially Tim.  In fact, Hugh treated most of her friends and co-workers with barely concealed hostility.  Then again, Hugh didn't think much of anyone who wasn't his now deceased - and in his mind, sainted - ex-girlfriend, Jill.  These days, Penny wasn't even certain Hugh liked her all that much, even though she had freed both him and Jill from a long-time spell slash curse that had wreaked havoc with both of their lives.

It was the after-effects of breaking that curse that had eventually killed Jill, even though no one from Ghosts, Inc., the Altoona, Pennsylvania-based paranormal investigative group that Penny worked for, had discovered that rather significant bit of information until much later - several months after Jill's death, in fact.  Penny knew that Hugh blamed her for Jill's eventual death, even though the real blame lay with a woman named Connie Drake, who was really Linley Zenk, a woman from Hugh's past who was obsessed with him.  

Obsessed to the point of using dark magic spells to obtain what Hugh would not give freely - namely himself.  Linley was the one who cast the spells that muddled Hugh's mind and drove Jill away after she nearly drown during an investigation.  Penny had merely been the one to release both of them from the spell's clutches.  Not that it really mattered, at least not to Hugh, though he would never admit it aloud.

With Jill gone, Hugh had made a good show of pretending to be in love with Penny, even going so far as to indulge her with a fake wedding ceremony when they had vacationed off the Florida Keys the previous fall.  However, his heart hadn't really been his to give away, and it never would be again.  It belonged to Jill - now and always.  Penny had known that too, but she had been so intent on proving to her brother that she was all grown up that she hadn't given much thought to the consequences of her actions.  Or she hadn't until it became clear that Hugh was just with her for the sex and nothing more.

For the most part, Penny and Hugh's relationship had only ever been about sex, at least if she was being completely honest.  She and Hugh had hated each other at first sight when they had met in Miami.  The two of them had done nothing but fight from the moment her plane touched down until the moment she broke the curse.  That should have been a portent of things to come, but once more she had been foolish and rash, and ignored every warning sign that she had been given by the universe.  

In a rush of adrenaline after Penny had banished Linley into another dimension while aboard the Torchlight House Bed & Breakfast paddlewheeler, Penny and Hugh had indulged in what probably should have been a one-night stand and nothing more.  But both of them had been out to prove something to the world.  That night they began what Penny now knew to be a tremendously stupid long-term affair.  Not to mention that she had loved the sexual power that she had felt surge through her the first time Hugh had touched her.  She couldn't deny that, either.

Wiser and wearier now that she had finally returned home, Penny had made several attempts to end their relationship over the last few months, but each time, Hugh would guilt her into staying, mostly with thinly veiled hints about how she had killed Jill, even if had been accidental.  There was no possible way that Penny could have known that lifting the curse would cause the death of the already gravely ill woman.  Not even Reed Talbott, GI's resident spellcaster, could have known, which was something Reed had repeated to Penny many times over.  It wasn't her fault that Jill had died.

Not according to Hugh however.  He insisted Penny should have known, using guilt as a weapon to keep her by his side.  In turn, Penny grew cold and distant, yet not confident enough in herself and her choices to leave a man who didn't want her and sometimes openly hated her.  Around and around the two of them went until they were locked in a cycle of hate and guilt that neither one of them knew how to end.  Well, at least she didn't know how to end it.  She wasn't certain about Hugh.

Penny desperately wanted to break free but she had the feeling that Hugh wanted to keep her by his side - out of spite and a sense of security if nothing else.  He liked things as they were and was content with the sameness, even if it was causing them both misery.  In that way, Hugh was very much like Carl Fulbright, the man Ghosts, Inc. had brought to Haverton House in Philadelphia to help, while at the same time see if they could assist the ghost of executed Revolutionary War-era spy, Ethan Cole.  If Penny and the others on the team could pull this off, both men would receive precisely what they wished for and more.  The universe would right itself once again.  At least this little corner of it.  Carl's and Ethan's.

But not Penny's.  She still had a very long way to go if she was ever going to figure out how to break free from Hugh's tight, controlling grasp.  At least she was no longer sharing his bed.  That was a start she supposed, even though it was only a small one.  Still she was convinced that in time, she could find a way to sever ties with him completely.  It simply might take some time.  More than she wanted certainly, but she would be free.  Eventually.  She just had to be patient.

Penny was confident in her plan.  Or she had been until a few days ago when Simon White had walked into her life and upended her world both physically and emotionally with just a single handshake.  After that, nothing had been quite the same.  She wasn't certain it ever would be again.  And the last thing she now wanted was to wait much longer to be free of Hugh McKenzie and the hold he had on her life.

Because Simon stirred something inside of Penny, a part of her she had long thought dead.  When she looked at him, she wanted to be strong and confident again.  More than that, she wanted to be worthy of his time and attention.  Maybe even his love.  At the moment, however, she was anything but worthy - at least in her opinion.  More than that, she wasn't certain how Simon felt about her, though she thought she detected more than a spark of interest in his gaze each time he looked at her.  In some ways, it was as if she could read his mind.  She had no doubt he could read hers if he wanted.

Simon was an Australian-born Confessor, a psychic who collected the intimate paranormal knowledge from the mind of someone about to die.  That person confessed their knowledge to Simon so that it might be passed on to help others in the paranormal investigative field.  He then kept that knowledge locked inside of himself until he placed it somewhere safe, to use his exact words.  Like most people in the paranormal world, Penny had little knowledge of what Confessors really did with the knowledge once they acquired it, mostly because there were so few people who would admit to being Confessors in the first place.  Simon was the exception.

As Penny was quickly coming to learn, Simon was the exception to just about everything, whether it was paranormal or personal in nature.

He was also the kind of exceptional man who did very funny things to Penny's insides the longer she was around him - more so than any man she had ever met.  And for as much as it thrilled her that he could make her think incredibly naughty thoughts about him, she also rather wished that he didn't cause such an uproar in her already overcrowded and overloaded mind.  All he did was completely confuse her already muddled thoughts.  That was something she certainly didn't need.  Or want.  She had enough problems as it was.  She did not want to add Simon, and her reactions to him, to the list.  Even though she could admit that she wanted him.  Desperately.

From the moment Simon had walked through the front door of Haverton House with her friend and fellow investigator, Ryan Frost, Simon's presence had been like a physical blow to Penny's person.  He made her head spin and her heart ache all at the same time.  Boyishly handsome and supremely sexy, with blue eyes the color of a cloudless summer sky and permanently tousled sandy blonde hair, Simon was perfection personified, at least as far as she was concerned.  One look at him and Penny yearned to know him better, to talk to him and learn his deepest secrets.  She wanted to fill his thoughts in the same way that he was filling hers.  She wanted to feel his body next to hers, feel the heat of him, and bask in the warmth of the strong, uninhibited emotions that she could sense bubbling inside of him, even without the use of her psychic abilities.

Penny simply wanted to drink in all that he was and relish every moment of the experience, as juvenile and silly as that sounded.

It was as if she was pulled to him by some unseen force, an attraction and need bigger than anything she had ever encountered.

She also had the distinct impression that he could heal everything that was broken inside of her.  He could restore the light and energy that had been slowly draining out of her from the moment she had met Hugh.

And she hated every minute of it.  Sort of.

Penny didn't want to want Simon.  In fact, she would have preferred it if she felt nothing more than mild curiosity - if that - when she looked at him.  She definitely did not want to experience the intense longing and need he stirred up inside of her.  He was a complication she didn't need, especially when she was trying so hard to figure out how her life had become such a mess and what she was going to do about Hugh.

Her only defense against the sheer force of nature that was Simon White had been to become what her friend Josh Winston had called "an über-bitch," which had only served to make her angrier than she already had been.  Angry at both herself and everyone around her.  In fact, it was an anger so deep that she was even frightening herself.  These days her mind literally ached with pain, which was unusual, as well as a little terrifying.

Penny didn't get sick.  Ever.  She didn't get headaches or anything even close to them.  But when she was around Simon, chaos reigned in her mind.  She wanted nothing more than to lock herself in a room and sit in silence until the pain passed and she felt like herself again.

Unfortunately, she also had a job to do and resting wasn't really an option.  Penny was trying so hard to be an adult, trying to do what was expected of her, all while figuring out how to deal with a man who claimed to love her but in reality hated everything about her.  There was no room in her life for one more complication, particularly one as sinfully sexy as Simon.

In short, Penny didn't want Simon around; he was only making matters worse.  He made her feel - truly feel - real passion and desire for the first time in her life.  All with just one look.  Any other time, she would have welcomed it.  Relished it.  Basked in it.  But not until she somehow broke free of Hugh.  Then?  Well, then she would take it one step at a time, maybe get her body to stop reacting so intensely to his.

Until then, Penny wanted Simon to go away, at least for now, and if he wasn't going willingly, well maybe she could be miserable and nasty enough that he would leave voluntarily.  Even though the idea of him leaving, not to mention the thought of her never seeing him again, made her heart twist and ache.  Just a little.  And, well, there was that little issue about people switching bodies, the very reason why they were all here in Philadelphia in the first place.  

The case had to come first.  She knew that.  However, Simon could leave after he was finished assisting Carl and Ethan.  Unlike Hugh, Penny would never put her personal feelings above a case, nor ask anyone else to either.  But after the switch?  Simon could just walk away.  She hoped.

Except that Penny's every instinct told her that he wasn't about to do that.  She saw the way he was chatting with Josh and laughing with Ryan, immediately fitting in with the GI group in a way that Hugh never had.  Not that Hugh had even tried, really.  Both Josh and Ryan held a great deal of power within GI, and if they asked Simon to stay, she knew he would.  No, the cocky Australian wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, and she had a feeling she had better get used to his presence in her life.

If only he would even give the slightest hint that her presence was affecting him just as much, it might be easier to tolerate the entire situation.  She wanted to see him flustered and nervous, just like she was.  She wanted him to get angry, the way she had, and lash out with words meant to hurt.  Instead, Simon was just as calm as ever, as if he could see right though Penny's act and knew precisely what he was doing to her, sending her emotions into a turmoil.

Damn him!

Then, as she gazed into a mirror hanging on a nearby wall, the very same one she had been staring into for the last few minutes trying to avoid even looking at Simon, she was surprised to see that he was watching her.  It wasn't obvious, or at least it wouldn't be to most people, but from where she sat, Penny could see Simon's eyes tracing the lines of her body, lingering on her hips and the swells of her breasts.  Then he swallowed hard and clenched his hands for a moment, his knuckles turning stark white, before he abruptly released his grip on the chair's arms and looked away.  It was brief, but she had seen it, seen the emotion he was so very good at concealing.

He wanted her.  Just as much as she wanted him.

More than that, she affected him on a paranormal level.  She could tell by the way Josh, who could see auras, was staring at Simon, his eyes clearly tracing something around the Australian's body that wasn't visible to anyone else in the room.  She could see it in the way Ryan, a dark reaper, kept glancing at his friend, as if something was amiss.  It wasn't simply all in her imagination.

A brief thrill of joy shot through Penny.  Simon was just as affected as she was.  He was simply better at disguising it.  That made her feel a little bit better and brought a small smile to her lips.  So.  There was a flesh and blood man inside the cool, collected shell that was Simon White after all.

Beside her on the chair, Hugh shifted, clearly hoping to drag her attention back to him, and Penny forced herself not to sigh in annoyance.  Hugh.  There could be no room for Simon in her life at the moment, no matter what he made her feel.  At least not until she decided what to do about Hugh.  And that was a problem she had no easy answer for.  She wasn't certain she ever would.

Chapter One

Late March

Penny Hawthorne sat looking out the window as the private jet began to taxi down the runway, the bright south Florida sun bathing the interior of the luxurious cabin in a golden glow.  Outside the window, she could see a row of neatly planted palm trees swaying gently in the early spring breeze, the tips of their fronds appearing to be dipped in liquid gold, their trunks highlighted orange and bronze, giving the entire scene a surreal appearance.  Waves of heat shimmered on the tarmac in the distance as the plane moved closer to take off, but inside she felt nothing but frigid, freezing cold.  So cold that even the jet's air-conditioned cabin felt warm in comparison.

Hugh was dead.  

She and her friends had just laid him to rest next to the rest of his family in one of Miami's oldest cemeteries.

And she hadn't shed a single tear.

She might not have been in love with him any longer - if she had ever really loved him all - but she didn't wish him dead.  She had cared about him.  Or rather, some part of her had, even though he had never returned those sentiments.  She should feel sadness, she thought.  Or pain.  Or loss.  She would have even accepted a sense of relief that her long nightmare was finally over.  However, at the moment, she was far too numb to feel much of anything at all.  Well, she did feel a sense of relief, but not for herself.  She felt relief for him.  His days of misery were finally over and he was at peace.  That was something, she decided, even if it wasn't completely appropriate.  Or perhaps it was.

Hugh McKenzie had been confused and conflicted for the entire length of their involvement and really, Penny couldn't fault him for that.  She had burst into his life, the proverbial Golden Girl coming to free him from a curse he hadn't even known he had been living under.  She had been his savior and in some ways, he had been hers.  Neither of them had been perfect, but each had been able to offer the other