"I'm pleased with the progress," Zebadiah said as he stood next to Thomas and his assistant foreman, Steve Shepard, while they looked over at the house. "I thought you would have been a little bit further along, but what has been done is excellent work."

Thomas couldn't tell how upset he was at the fact that they were behind because his face was devoid of any emotion, it might as well have been made of stone. "Thank you, we're moving at a steady pace and are still on schedule," Thomas assured the intimidating man next to him.

Zebadiah Abbott made Thomas nervous, and his gut told him that he was not a man to cross, but he was fair and the few problems that had cropped up in the last two months had been dealt with easily enough.

They were now into June and the temperature and humidity were starting to rise, making it harder to get certain things finished. They should have started in the winter, but Thomas had explained all of this to Mr. Abbott and he had seemed to understand, although he was a hard man to read so he couldn't be sure.

"Is there anything that you need that you don't have?" He turned to look at Thomas, his eyes hard as he waited for an answer.

Thomas was a tall man at six foot, but Zebadiah Abbott was taller, and even though he didn't tower above him it felt as if he did; probably because he didn't have an ounce of fat on him and he was all muscle which made him seem larger than he was.

"No, I have everything that I need, thankfully there have been very few problems with our supply delivery." Thomas missed Abbott's small nod of approval, and he had no clue that Abbott had made sure that there would be no problems.

"I'm still mystified as to how the two firms before you couldn't last two weeks, yet you've managed to last two months?" He looked at Thomas, silently demanding an answer.

Thomas opened his mouth intending to explain by using vague terms such as scheduling and leadership, but Steve cut him off before he could speak. "Oh, that's because we have Lucy?" he said with a nod, oblivious to Thomas's warning look. Zebadiah didn't miss it though.

"Lucy?" he asked, appearing to focus on Steve and not Thomas, even though he was more interested in Thomas's angry reaction.

Steve nodded. "Yep, she talks to the house and makes sure that she has everything that she wants," Steve said as he rolled up the plans they had been looking at earlier. He was a short man with a large bald spot, and he was sweating profusely.

"She, as in the house?" Zebadiah asked.

"Lucy said that we should treat her like we would our Grandmother, and that everything would be fine. The reason that the other crews were run off was because they weren't respectful enough."

Thomas looked at Mr. Abbott, noting that his face was still as blank as a stone, making it hard to judge his reaction to Steve's explanation.

"So, my house is haunted?"

Steve shrugged. "Lucy says no, that the house wouldn't stand for it."

"How does Lucy know all of this?" Zebadiah's calm reaction inspired Steve's confidence.

"She's a witch," Steve explained, but as he realized what he had said he looked at Thomas, who looked at him with enough anger to make him step back. "Sorry, just a joke. I'll go put these plans up in the box," he said as he scurried away.

Thomas caught Zebadiah watching him closely and realized that his anger showed clearly on his face, so he quickly pulled himself together.

"Let's go take a look at what's going on inside," Zebadiah suggested in an even voice that showed little concern over Steve's revelation.

*******

Lucy listened to the blond woman drone on and on to her redheaded friend, Cecelia Nash, a girl that she and Thomas had grown up with, about how the house was the worst thing ever, and that there was no way that she would be living in it once she married Zebadiah. She would let him think that she was going to be happy in the old relic, but once the house was finished and the ring was on her finger, she was done.

The blond woman, whose name Lucy couldn't remember, turned towards her with a frown, as if she had just remembered that Lucy was there. With a quick glance at her baggy paint covered overalls, work boots, and ballcap, she shrugged, as if to say she was a non-entity that wouldn't be a problem.

The blond motioned to Cecelia and they left the room together with Lucy on their heels. She was glad for once that her gift hadn't reared its unwelcomed head because there was no way that she wanted to know either woman's future.

Lucy listened as, with a little cry of greeting, the blond woman ran down the stairs to greet someone at the bottom, and Lucy watched with amusement as Cecelia's eyes grew wide with apprehension, whomever it was they made Cecelia nervous.

The blond woman's voice was joined by a deep male voice and Lucy felt her heart stop. She was sure that it was a voice that she had never heard before, but it was familiar. She stepped away from the stairs, knowing that what was coming was something that she couldn't avoid.

She listened to the man's familiar tread, though she was sure she had never heard it before. Then she watched as the man's dark head crested the banister and his sharp black eyes met hers. But she didn't see him in that moment, she saw him in the future, in love.

Her vision had him smiling as he chased two equally dark headed children up the stairs, laughing as he caught one and threw her over his shoulder. She watched as he looked over his shoulder and Lucy saw herself following him up the stairs, her smile just as broad as his, and her belly heavy with child.

That they were in love was evident, but it didn't feel as if she was watching herself. The woman she saw looked like her and sounded like her, but it wasn't her, at least it wasn't the her that existed now.

Lucy didn't know how long she stared at the man as the vision played through her head, but when she came back to reality he had moved past her and into the room behind her, and she was too afraid to turn around.

Thomas was a little slower to join them, and when he reached the top of the stairs his eyes caught Lucy's with a look of resignation as he pulled her to a corner of the hallway and out of earshot of the other three.

"Tell me," she insisted. She was blocked by his body, and thankfully, he filled her vision allowing the previous one of the man with the dark eyes to fade.

"Steve told Mr. Abbott about the house and he claimed that you were a witch." That was one good thing about Thomas, he never pulled his punches; they still hurt, but at least now she knew what to expect from Mr. Abbott.

"Thomas, aren't you going to introduce me, I assume this is Lucy?" The deep voice asked from behind Thomas, and Lucy closed her eyes at the sound of it. It was the same one she had heard in the car as she had said his name. Thomas reached up and squeezed her arm before he stepped away.

"Zebadiah Abbott, this is Lucy Monroe, Lucy is handling all of the wood restoration in the house. Lucy this is Zebadiah Abbott, this is his friend, Gianna Beckett, and you know Cecelia Nash, she sold Mr. Abbott the house."

Cecelia and Gina looked at her with haughty looks, and when Gianna reached out to take Lucy's hand in greeting Cecelia stopped her with a little shake of her head. It was subtle, and she wasn't sure if Thomas caught it, but as she turned her eyes up to meet Zebadiah Abbott's dark gaze, she knew he had.

"Ms. Monroe," he greeted, holding out his hand. Lucy really didn't want to take it, but she didn't see a way not to without being rude so she placed her hand in his.

"Mr. Abbott," she said, her voice much deeper than usual as her hand was enveloped in his, and she had a sudden vision of him standing by a window and the sound of breaking glass as he was thrown backwards. She physically jerked at the shock of the image, and when the color red filled her vision she jerked her hand away from his.

*******

Zebadiah's expression didn't change as he watched her eyes dilate and he skin turn pale before she jerked her hand away. If this was a witch he was unimpressed. Although he had found it odd that Thomas had seemed so protective of her. Her small stature and baggy clothes with a ballcap pulled low was not in the least witch like, but her gray, almost sliver eyes, gave him pause. She didn't appear to be more than twenty at most.

"Would you show me some of your work?" he asked, watching her nod and then turn towards the room behind him.

"This," she had to clear her throat, and he had to admit that her deep honey tones were very sensual, "this is the first room that I've done, and I'm almost finished. There were years of paint to strip away, and I was pleased to see the intricate details that had been hidden by the many layers." She took the time to point some of them out, paying attention to the lover's knot carved into the mantel of the fireplace as she traced it with her fingers.

The room had originally been the study or library, and the built-in bookshelves and multiple fireplaces had presented a challenge, but she was pleased with the result.

"This took you two months?" Zebadiah was impressed with the result, the room practically glowed.

"Yes," she cleared her throat again, "the other rooms shouldn't take as long, there's not as much to do as there was in this one, and Thomas has explained that some of the rooms on the third floor will remain painted." She did her best to hide her displeasure over this fact, but she failed miserably. For a supposed witch she was very easy to read.

Her eyes met his across the room as they assessed each other silently, and Zebadiah couldn't help but think that there was something familiar about her, as if he had met her somewhere before.

"Are you sure we haven't met before?" he asked suddenly, the feeling was too strong to ignore.

"I'm sure," she said, looking away from him.

He walked over to her, getting into her personal space, and he could hear her sharp intake of breath as his shoulder brushed hers, but she kept her eyes forward as if the light touch hadn't happened. "A lover's knot," he said, tracing the outline as she had. "I wonder what it means?"

"Probably that whoever built the house was in love," she said simply as she stepped away from him.

Zebadiah was intrigued, most woman in his circle pushed themselves into his space. It was as if he made her uneasy.

"Perhaps," he said before suddenly turning towards the others in the room. "What do you think of it Gianna?" he asked, watching the woman as she crossed the room when she was spoken to, wrapping her arm in his as she reached him, proving his point.

"It's lovely Zebadiah," she assured him in a purr.

"So lovely that I might have to reconsider leaving the paint in the other rooms, it seems a shame to put so much effort into only a few rooms." Zebadiah noted the excited spark in Lucy's eyes, and he paused as he realized how pleased he was that he had put it there.

He extracted his arm from Gianna's and held out his hand once more to Lucy, watching as she bit her lip in hesitation, but whatever she was thinking she pushed it aside as she placed her hand in his. He watched as her eyes dilated once more, but this time instead of growing pale she turned a pleasing shade of pink, and he couldn't help but wonder what she was thinking.

Realizing that he had been holding her hand longer than was acceptable for a polite handshake he dropped it, surprised that he was sorry to do so.

"It was a pleasure to meet you Lucy Monore," he said with a rare smile. Lucy looked up and met his eyes, and he swore he heard little girls giggling. The sound was so real that he looked at the other two women in the room to make sure it wasn't them.

When he looked back at Lucy she had turned away and moved back towards her tools, and he realized that the sound must have been his imagination.

With a farewell to Thomas, he motioned for the other ladies to proceed him and they left, but not before he took one last glance at the small woman with her ridged back.

Perhaps she was a witch because she had certainly bewitched him with only a handshake. He felt an intense need to know more about her, and he hadn't felt anything like it since he was a very young man. He would be lying to himself if he didn't acknowledge that it excited him.