Page 27 of Stilettos & Secrets on the 7 Seas

“Really?” I threw away the rest of my sandwich. “If a man was stalking Helga, he’d have to be brave.”

“Or insane.” Paulina giggled. “She’d squash him flat as a fritter.”

Mary slammed the phone into the receiver. “He’s not much of a man. Don’t know why Helga’d want to bed that one.”

“Who am I to bed?” Helga rounded the corner, her shoulders barely passing through the doorway to the front office.

“That Bob’s been breathing on the phone again.” Mary sent Helga an accusatory glare.

“Not Bob.” Helga shook her head. “I bed him last night. He still sleeps from time vit Helga.” Her face split into a wide, post-coital grin.

“That means we have a new stalker.” Mary rolled her eyes to the ceiling as if this job came with unnecessary problems.

“Or a ghost,” Paulina added.

I hoped it was Bob, or a new stalker, and not Marco calling from the great beyond. Was that even a thing? I picked up my coffee and left the front office and the talk about ghosts behind. I found my brother sitting on the floor repairing a piece of equipment.

“Whatcha doing?” I scooted back on the therapy table across from his makeshift mechanics.

Eli pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and looked at me with vigilant blue eyes a shade lighter than our mom’s. “The intersegmental traction machine threw a belt. I’m fixing it.”

“Impressive.”

He studied me a second. “Victory asked me if you were OK.”

Victory was my other roommate. She had adorable twins and was currently visiting Aunt Itty at Fantasyland in Florida.

“When did you talk to Victory?” I slurped the last of my iced coffee and wished I’d supersized it.

“Last night.”

“Are you two,” I paused a minute, trying to figure out how I felt about Eli possibly dating a time traveler who spent years of her life stuck in the 1800s as a slave on a cotton plantation. “Dating?”

“I wouldn’t call it dating. I mean, she’s had a lot to deal with since she returned to our time.”

“I’d say.” She was held hostage by the crazy Mafusos, gave birth to twins, and almost drowned in my living room.

He picked up a wrench and cranked something on the table. “She’s not ready for a relationship, but we talk on the phone, and we take the twins to the park.”

I breathed a sigh of relief and wasn’t even sure why. Victory was a beautiful, intelligent woman, and I should be happy my brother liked her, but she could predict the future and had scary visions, making her just shy of being labeled a clairvoyant. Having her dating my brother and being a potential sister-in-law made me uneasy.

“Jen?”

“What?”

“I asked if you were all right?” He paused with the wrench in his hand and his elbow balanced on his knee. I had told Eli about Marco. He respected my choice to time travel and I respected his decision not to, but occasionally he offered his brotherly advice.

I chewed the corner of my lip. “Did Victory have another vision?”

“No. Just a feeling that you were going on a journey. And something about another trip to the ocean. A trip I hope whoever travels as your defender doesn’t summon you to help.”

Damn.

“Can I have Monday off?” I paused when he stopped and looked up at me. “The jump is on Tuesday, and I know I’m already off the rest of the week, but I need the extra day to prepare.” What I didn’t say was I didn’t have a defender. I’m the primary on the mission, and I needed to hunt down my invisible boyfriend and ask him if he has a secret map.

“Sure. Paulina can cover. We’re not swamped on Monday.” He turned back to the broken table, tapped something metal with the edge of the wrench. “Are you going to Sunday dinner?”

Double-damn with a mental head slap. I’d been so focused on Marco that I’d forgotten about Sunday dinner at my parents’.

---