He cleared his throat. "I can't use the plural, but I am fond of my own."

"I can't say, since I haven't seen yours yet."

Yet? His knees about buckled. "I'll introduce you sometime."

"We'll see."

At least that wasn't a firm no. With her still over his shoulder, and her ass in his peripheral vision, they stood in the keeper's room, surrounded by shelves of oil lanterns, measuring cups, pitchers, a box marked Wicks, two funnels, three cans of kerosene, and a fire bucket. "Does this room suit you?"

"Spell you!"

"Aw, use the F word, I'll take you up on it, and neither of us will care where we sleep."

She gasped. "I never use the F word. Say pluck if you must, and only in an emergency."

"Did I say that out loud? Sorry, you bring out the beast in me." Morgan stood the stunner on the floor for the sake of his sanity.

She straightened her Licensed to Thrill bare-midriff T-shirt and When Hell Freezes Over panties, the vast expanse of curvaceous skin between them a fine, bronze tan.

"You're acting like a frustrated bear," she said, recalling his attention.

A frustrated male bear, he agreed mentally, because he needed to get laid.

"I am not sleeping on any floor," she said, swinging her hair for emphasis.

"Neither am I. Glad that's settled." He took her by the hand and tugged her back to their bedroom. "What's the difference between me three feet away or one foot away?"

"Six inches," she said.

He gave her a double take. "You must have failed math."

She smirked. "You must have failed sex ed."

"Ah, now I get your drift, Kismet. You figure if I face you from a foot away, we'll be six inches apart?"

"Right. This isn't a king, you know."

"Nor a queen, and neither are you. You've underestimated my inches, by the way, but what say we keep my impressive manly length safe from your womanly wiles and hang a curtain between us?"

"It Happened One Night style? You're kidding?"

"Get over it. Sure we'd be stuck in the same bed, but sleeping separately, more or less. I'd do my best, but I am a man."

"Your point?"

"Exactly."

She slithered close enough for her bare midriff to touch him, and he sure wished he'd taken his shirt off. She ran a hand around his earlobe. "You think I'll turn you on?"

"Of course I don't think. I know you will. You already have. I hardly expect to sleep for the discomfort, but at least my back won't be broken, too."

"Try to scale our 'wall of Jericho,' and your cock might be."

"Warning taken. Cock shrinking in complete understanding."

He wished she didn't have such a hopeful glint in her eyes. "Is there any rope left in the house after our giant spiderweb clothesline?" she asked.

"Let's go see. After you," he said, him down to his last pair of sweats, and her in her skivvies. Why were they never both in their skivvies at the same time? He flipped on the light at the bottom of the stairs simply to improve the view of her going down.

Already, he'd had enough of being a gentleman.

Gentlemen slept on floors. Gentlemen never got laid.

In the closet beneath the stairs, he found more rope.

"Holy monkshood," she said. "I guess you have been here a lot, if you can find anything in that black hole."

"Monkshood?" he asked, stopping, so she plowed into him. He turned to steady her. "What does that mean?"

"It's an herb that witches used years ago to make flying ointments, in the way that marijuana makes you fly. I hear that spilling blood on monkshood flowers makes war magick, but I'd never do that."

"More than I needed to know," he said, but the unvarnished reminder of her witchy delusions helped him recover his equilibrium. He didn't know which was more disturbing, the truth about the magickal herb, or his fear that she might suspect his past. Not that he'd been a monk . . . precisely.

After they fastened the rope to the bed's footboard and headboard, taut and straight, she helped him throw one of her blankets over it to form a wall between them.

She stood on the bed and looked over it at him. "It happened one witch," she said.

"Is that an invitation or a promise?"

"It was an observation. The walls of Jericho stay up, thank you very much."

A few minutes later, Morgan settled in the bed like a stiff in a casket, stiff being the operative word. Soon enough, he discovered that bed-sharing involved heat, hundreds of degrees higher than normal. Since said heat was not about to be translated into sex-when had it ever?-he got up to shed the rest of his clothes, down to his navy boxers. He also opened the second window.

Destiny's giggle at the sound of his actions turned him hot with embarrassment, until she began to chant.

"Not that he stares at my ass,

Or drools o'er my boobs,

No caress 'neath a breast.

Lip-locking or Frenching.

"Beneath curtain fencing,

He probably won't duck.

That's as may be,

But I wish myself luck."

Morgan raised himself on an elbow, confused yet captivated. She needed luck? For what? Resisting him? She would call that a spell, he knew from past experience with her and her sisters, but it hadn't sounded so much magical as practical.

With her words, the seductress had given nothing-or everything-away. He couldn't believe she hadn't caught him drooling or staring. And though he'd made a couple of cocky admissions, she must have taken them as jokes.

Pluck him; he could still hide his feelings like a pro. The ability to hide his struggle between his faith and his humanity probably stemmed from growing up with a mother who made Hitler look like a wuss.

He wished there was something he could say right now, but Destiny would be better off assuming that he didn't want to pin her to the bed and pluck her senseless.

Despite the size of Celibate Charlie, and after all the books he'd read about pleasing a woman, he didn't think he was ready for a hands-on-scratch that, he'd mastered the hands on. It was the man-on-woman type exercise that he wasn't ready for. Ah, who was he kidding? He was so ready, the imagery alone had Charlie doing stretches to prepare for the big event.

Morgan lay carefully back against his pillows and didn't move a muscle . . . that he could control.

An hour later, the bed hadn't creaked once. Destiny had either fallen asleep, or she lay as wide-awake as him. Un-moving.

Despite her final words, he felt the need to find some common ground between them. He cleared his throat. "I did know a little girl named Meggie once."

The bed creaked, a sign of interest, because she'd probably turned his way. "Was Meggie a relative?"

Her words had been so charming, he'd forgotten she was psychic. Damn. "What makes you think that?"

"Her smile," Destiny said, "reminds me of yours."

"I don't smile." Morgan turned to face away from her, despite the walls of Jericho. "I suppose you think you know?"

A big creak, a full-body shift. Deep interest. "What am I supposed to know?" she all but whispered.

"That I had a sister named Meggie."

"Oh, Morgan. I didn't know. Honestly. She died so young. I'm sorry."

Morgan shifted, uncomfortable in his own skin, never mind the bed. "My family fell apart," he said.

"If it's any consolation, Meggie looked at you with a great deal of love."

He cleared his throat again. "I almost wish I believed you saw her."

"Meggie looks about twelve years old," Destiny said. "Her long, burnished blonde hair is the same streaked shade as yours. She's wearing a red plaid jumper that looks like it might have been a school uniform. The bows on her braids are the same plaid as her jumper."

Grief rushed Morgan, hit him in the solar plexus. She had described Meggie's last school picture to the hair ribbons. He fisted his hands, swallowed, and rubbed his chest. "Get the hell out of my head."

Chapter Nine.

HIM telling her to get the hell out of his head wasn't exactly a positive statement, but Destiny didn't think this was the time to say so. Somewhat heartsore as a result of his abrupt dismissal, Destiny allowed that if she lost one of her sisters, she might not be half as nice.

"I'm not in your head," she said, softening her tone, "but Meggie's here for a reason, or she wouldn't have shown herself to me.

"She said she needs her brother to remember, and at first, I thought she was talking about Horace."

"Horace?" Morgan asked, grasping at the subject change like a lifeline, though she couldn't see him beyond the curtain. "Another ghost? Is he as young as Meggie?"

"No, he's about my age, handsome, with a sense of humor, and a thick head of dark hair. Virile," she added, to tick Morgan off and replace sorrow with ire, sure she could hear him gritting his teeth. Jealousy. Good sign.

"What the Hades is this Horace guy doing here?"

"He was the last lighthouse keeper, and he looks yummers in that uniform, I'll tell you, but he doesn't know why he's here."

The bed creaking and Morgan mumbling about plucking lighthouse keepers were the last sounds Destiny remembered. She woke to find Morgan doing push-ups on the floor, on her side of the bed, Caramello riding his back, kitty paws around his neck. She wished she'd brought a camera.

Destiny bit the inside of her lip, she was so charmed. "Good morning," she said. "You're working up quite a sweat."