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  After a night of casual observance, Hayes decided this wouldn’t be a bad time to live in. Better than fifty years ago. It would take some learning but he could figure out how to operate these handheld devices everyone talked into. Even the automobiles were plentiful. Hell, he remembered being around when the first ones rolled onto the road. Learning to drive one, well, he’d risk it.

  He certainly liked the independent, self-sufficient ladies of this time period. He always liked a woman with brains. That reminded him, he should be getting back to Chance. He could only stray so far before being drawn back to his master and bottle. Tonight he pushed those boundaries.

  Hayes materialized back in her kitchen and found Chance sleeping, her face crunched up against her arm and the table. She’d been using one of those strange electric devices with words and pictures on the screen. A computer if he recalled right. He grinned when he saw what she’d been reading about. It didn’t surprise him in the least that Chance would find out as much as she could about genies.

  The smile faded. Exactly how much could be found out? There were things she didn’t need to know, secrets he needed to maybe one day free himself. It wouldn’t do to have this little woman discovering his weaknesses. As he studied her face he thought maybe he had her all wrong. This woman, she didn’t intend to harm anyone. Live and let live, that’s the way she looked at things. He learned a great deal about her through their sparse conversation.

  She had every reason to despise this world, being abandoned as a baby, raised by multiple families, never having anything to call her own. He’d seen people with plenty whining they still didn’t have enough. Time would tell though. After her first wish, he’d know if Chance was unique in this world or the same as the rest.

  Right now, though, he couldn’t let her sleep all crumpled up like this. He whisked them both back into her room, settled her down on the bed and pulled the covers up, all without touching one hair on her body. With a simple thought he doused the lights and was caught by the sight of her in the silver stream of moonlight beaming through the window.

  He’d never had the pleasure of meeting an honest-to-goodness angel, but from the knowledge he absorbed through his shackles he knew what they looked like. Chance, she resembled one. Innocence and wisdom, kindness and a raw toughness, it all reflected on her pretty face.

  Hayes stood there in the dark, watching her sleep, wondering what it would be like to have a woman like her to call his own. A sense of loneliness overcame him, filling his chest with a heavy weight. Beneath that crushing heaviness another feeling emerged. One of quick desire, hot and consuming. Somehow he knew if he crawled into bed with her, ran his hands down her lush, satin body and caressed her flesh with his mouth, she would melt into an orgasmic puddle. He knew exactly where to place his lips, too. The need for her grew until his body hardened and his brain whirled inside his skull.

  Scrubbing his face with calloused hands, he quickly inhaled and let the air release from his lungs in a slow, steady stream. What the hell was going on? He couldn’t afford this line of thinking. Reeling from the onslaught of bizarre emotion, he struggled but managed to push it all aside. Staying focused on reality would be his only saving grace.

  Quietly, Hayes left the room. Deciding to take this time and learn something and put his mind back on course, he wandered around, checked out her humble living space and marveled at some of the furnishing she had. Chance had unique tastes. Her collection of antiques and modern pieces made for interesting décor. He’d been around, seen a lot, but nothing like the lamps and knickknacks she had.

  He remembered seeing a barn outside so he transported himself inside it. Instantly he felt her here. This small, rustic space, this was where she found happiness. It hung in the air like a rainbow full of bright color. Hayes let the positive atmosphere wrap around him, sink in until he couldn’t stop the smile from spreading on his face.

  She had a pile of wood stacked in one corner, old timber obviously rescued from a torn-down building and a few wood spools. On a workbench she had strips of metal laid out in different stages of polish. He strolled over, laid his hand on the metal and felt its smoothness. She created in this barn. He felt that now, could sense the painstaking work lingering around the bench.

  Glancing around, he found other projects half-finished, electric lights made from old gas lanterns, wooden storage boxes being refinished and decorated, even some barbed wire twisted around old fence posts with lights fixed inside the mass. What an incredible mind Chance had. It seemed she could look at anything and see endless possibilities for its use.

  “You’re a remarkable woman,” he whispered, careful not to disturb the positive vibes she’d filled the barn with.

  Maybe when she woke he could convince her to share some of her imagination with him. A rustling sound outside caught his attention. Hayes stood perfectly still and listened. This time the handle on the barn door rattled. Maybe Chance woke up and came looking for him? Didn’t seem likely. He looked up into the rafters, spotted a perfect perch to hide and watch and popped himself to it.

  The door opened slowly and a man entered. Hayes frowned. Chance hadn’t hinted at having a man in her life and freely admitted to not having family. So who was this sneaking around her barn in the dark? He looked a bit older than her, maybe by ten years or so, a little paunchy around the waist and tall. In the darkness Hayes couldn’t tell if the man’s hair was black or brown but he wore it short.

  The intruder walked around, touched everything, snooped through boxes and inspected her pieces. At one point he chuckled and tossed a little horse figurine to the other side of the barn. Hayes’ hackles went up. The man had no right to damage her belongings. He had half a mind to jump down and ask the guy what his story was. No, he couldn’t intrude, not like that. It went against the rules.

  The man made his way back to the barn door, walked through it and closed the place up. Hayes wasn’t sure this guy had finished his sneaking around and felt compelled to observe further. With a clear thought, he appeared outside in the darkest shadows and watched as this intruder made his way toward the house. Damn it, he couldn’t actually do anything to stop the man from breaking in. Or could he?

  Rules stated a genie couldn’t physically interfere in a chain of events, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t cause something else to obstruct the process. The intruder headed toward Chance’s bedroom window. Wouldn’t it be interesting if a herd of deer came stampeding through this particular area? The mere thought produced thirty animals all on a dead run toward the house.

  Hayes slipped farther into the shadows. The man turned his head at the sound of hooves thundering across the ground. Instead of making tracks away from the house, the bastard ran for the front porch. After a silent curse, Hayes produced a swarm of bats and a large cloud of bugs that happened to hover around the light on the porch.

  The guy ducked, covered his head and made little squeak sounds as he tried to figure out how to escape the bats without being trampled by the deer. He finally ran to the end of the porch, jumped over the railing and pressed himself up against the side of the building. That wouldn’t do. Hayes pictured thousands of slithering bugs on the siding.

  It took a moment but the bastard eventually realized he was being overtaken by the insects. Slapping at himself as he ran from the house, the intruder disappeared into the darkness. Hayes stifled a chuckle, made sure to reward the deer with plenty of food deep in the woods and put the wormy-like bugs back where they came from. Once the bats consumed all the bugs around the light, they took flight high into the sky and returned to their normal nightly adventures.

  Satisfied with the outcome, Hayes stepped out of the shadows and was struck by a burning pain deep in his gut. His knees buckled, dropping him to the ground as he held his middle with his arms. Even his wrists seemed to be blistering where the invisible shackles were.

  “I get it,” he groaned and then panted, trying to draw air into his lungs. Sweet Jesu
s, he had an inferno going on inside his gut. “Okay, lesson learned.”

  As fast as it came on, it vanished. Hayes fell forward to his hands and knees, gasping for air as the remnants of the pain subsided. Eventually the only discomfort he noticed was around his wrists. After transporting himself back inside the house, he turned on a light and held out his arms. Huge, ugly, angry blisters circled his wrists.

  He tried to fix the damage but no amount of genie power worked. No, it wouldn’t, he finally accepted. The scars would serve as a reminder, he supposed, not to interfere in a master’s life. Going through Chance’s kitchen drawers turned up a few towels. He wet them and then sat down at the table and draped them over his burned flesh. It helped but the painful sting remained.

  Sitting quietly, Hayes pondered the mistake he’d made. Although he didn’t interfere directly, he did impede another’s actions. It didn’t seem to matter if a master did this but he couldn’t use his own free will. Christ, this life had reached its limits for him. He hated it and right now he wouldn’t care about being sucked into an oblivious dark chasm, never to exist again. A man could only take so much.

  He could be looking at this all wrong. Instead of worrying so much about other people he should be more concerned about his life. He got snookered into the bottle, why couldn’t someone else? Hayes looked back toward the hall where Chance slept. She didn’t have family, no one to miss her. All he had to do was tell her a partial truth and he’d be free. At this point she didn’t seem to have anything she wanted badly enough to use a wish on.

  Hayes looked down at his blistered wrists. Every time he tried to do something right he wound up punished for it. Maybe it was time to start acting like a genie. That meant lying, twisting facts and only caring about himself. Chance was a beautiful, smart woman. It wouldn’t take her long to figure out how to free herself.

  Still, the thought of tricking her didn’t sit well in his gut. Too damn bad. He’d had enough. He wanted a chance at life. Hayes let his head roll back on his shoulders, trying to squash the guilt already building inside him. A consolation prize perhaps. Yeah, he’d give her a few days to come up with two wishes. While he waited he’d continue to hint at how a simple wish would free him. That way Chance would at least have a taste of what she truly wanted before becoming imprisoned.

  That worked. It had to. He couldn’t go on like this. Man wasn’t meant to live this long, much less being a slave.

  Chapter Five

  Chance crept out of her bedroom, tiptoed down the hall and peeked around the corner. It all had to be a dream. There couldn’t be any other explanation for it. Men didn’t materialize out of a bottle, especially men who looked like him. She’d been working too hard, that’s all. All that rummaging around in dank boxes filled with mold and who knew what else, she’d finally breathed in something dangerous. Yeah, that’s what she’d go with. It made perfect sense to her.

  Her gaze skimmed through the living room first, making sure no one was there. Everything as it should be. Next she shifted her attention to the kitchen. No one at the table, just her laptop and, hey, how’d she get to bed last night? Last thing she remembered was sitting there reading.

  Movement caught her attention and, damn it, there he was, standing at the sink looking out the window. Oh hellfire, so much for her dream theory. He still had on the faded black shirt with the sleeves rolled up and his long black hair hung down around his shoulders. Same man from last night. Chance chewed her bottom lip. Now what?

  As she stood there trying to figure out what to do next, a strange feeling of déjà vu overcame her. In a moment of hazy recollection she knew this man was no stranger. She’d met him before. The feeling grew until she could nearly see him in a different place, like a tent. Out of nowhere a warm wash of pleasure hit. Somehow she stifled a moan as warm liquid pooled between her legs and her thighs quivered along with every nerve ending. Then, as fast as it hit, it all vanished.

  “Mornin’,” he said without looking her way.

  She wanted to groan, run back to bed and hide under the covers until he went away, or until she could get her head straight. What the hell? She didn’t react to men like this. Okay, time to deal with this. “Good morning,” she muttered, easing her way into the kitchen.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  “Yes, I did. Thank you.” Now that she thought about it, she slept like a rock. She hadn’t felt this rested in forever. Very odd. “Um, did you sleep? I mean, I’m not sure, do genies sleep or do they just stay awake all the time?”

  He grinned, turned toward her and the way the early morning light caught his face and hair, it made her breath freeze in her lungs. Holy crap, he was handsome. He looked like a badass angel standing there in her kitchen. Good and evil shimmering around his body. Her arms actually moved to reach out and touch him.

  Get it together, she warned herself. You don’t know this man at all. He could be dangerous. Chance mentally gave herself a shake and forced her gaze to shift to the coffeemaker.

  “Genies sleep,” he answered. “I’ve been doin’ a lot of sleepin’ over the past fifty years. Thought I’d take as much time as I could and enjoy this taste of freedom.” He turned back to the window. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a sunrise. I forgot how beautiful they were.”

  “It’s a pretty time of year.” Chance grabbed a coffee filter and grounds. “Fall is my favorite season.” She filled the carafe with water and then poured it into the maker. “I love the colors.” God, this was awkward.

  “Spring was always my favorite,” he whispered. “Seein’ the new life emerge from the ground, blossom and grow. You miss the small things.”

  She heard the longing in his voice. It tugged at her heart, made her stomach flutter. What if she never got to see the fall colors again? A simple thing but something she looked forward to. Don’t go there. Don’t connect with him. It could only mean trouble.

  “Are you hungry? I can make some eggs.” She went to the fridge, opened it up and began pulling out eggs, some bacon she bought earlier in the week and butter. Anything to keep herself busy.

  “Don’t go to any trouble for me. Sharin’ your meal last night, that was more than I deserve.”

  He moved toward the table. That’s when she saw the bright-red marks around his wrists. They looked angry and painful. “What did you do to yourself?” Chance put everything on the counter and stepped up beside him. Oh they were ugly looking blisters.

  “I did somethin’ I wasn’t supposed to do. This is punishment.”

  “What the hell did you do? Punishment? From who? Sit down and let me look at those.” Suddenly all the apprehension vanished as she ran to the bathroom, grabbed some antibiotic ointment and bandages and quickly returned to doctor his wounds. “Tell me, what did you do?”

  He didn’t say anything. She supposed he had the right. Was it any of her business? As she gently smeared ointment on his wrists it occurred to her this man was as real as they came. She wouldn’t be able to feel his damaged flesh and he wouldn’t be tensing from the discomfort if he weren’t. Nope, no dream, no hallucination. This brawny, old-as-dirt yet ruggedly handsome man lived and breathed and he claimed she was his master. If that’s the case, he owed her some sort of explanation.

  “Hayes.” It felt strange saying his name yet it rolled off her tongue with familiarity. “Please, tell me what happened.”

  He gave a heavy, breathy sigh. “Genies aren’t supposed to interfere with the actions of mortals. I broke that rule. This is the punishment.”

  His brief explanation sounded flat to her. He had more to the story. “You knew that and still tried anyway?” Chance wrapped gauze loosely around his wrists.

  “I thought I had a way to get around it. Apparently not.”

  “You healed my burn last night,” she reminded him. “Why not heal your own?” His burns made hers look like a bug bite.

  “I tried. My skin will scar and it will remind me of my place. Thank you for your concern, Chance.�
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  She went to the sink to wash her hands. “Are you going to tell me what it is you did to deserve such horrible punishment?”

  “If it’s all the same to you, I don’t want to push the issue. I still feel pain like any other man.”

  Chance cringed. She hadn’t thought about him receiving further retribution. She had so much to learn about this genie business. “Okay, fair enough.”

  Silence stretched between them as she cooked eggs and fried some bacon. It gave her time to think. Each passing minute proved Hayes to be a real man. Granted, one who had lived for over one hundred plus years and in an old whiskey bottle, but still authentic enough.

  “Have you thought about your first wish?” he asked, breaking the silence.

  “No.” Really, what would she wish for? She had everything she needed and after reading those articles last night, who wanted to risk it? Chance filled two plates with eggs and bacon, slapped toast on a side plate and carried them to the table.

  Hayes stared at the plate as she sat and then glanced over at her. The wonderment in his gaze made her uneasy. “Coffee. I forgot coffee.” After pouring two mugs, she returned to the table. “You better eat before it gets cold.” With that she dug into her plate.

  “You’re a good cook,” he said around a mouthful of eggs.

  She couldn’t stop the laugh. “Not really. In fact, I’m known for not being able to cook. It’s hard to screw up eggs though. That lasagna you had last night, it was made by a friend of mine. I couldn’t make that stuff if my life depended on it.”

  “I guess times have changed. I assumed all women knew how to cook.”

  “I suppose most do because they have someone to teach them. A person can’t learn if they aren’t taught. I never had the urge to learn on my own.” There were too many other things in life she found important. If she had to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, well, that was just fine.