The other baffling aspect of Isabella's personality was that she did not have a problem with his moods or a temperament that required a lot of time spent walking alone on the beach down in the Cove. She simply accepted him as he was.
He understood the physical attraction. Isabella lacked the generic perfection that made so many female movie stars and fashion models look as if they had popped out of the same mold. But her strong, striking features and mysterious golden brown eyes had riveted him from the start.
She wore her shoulder-length dark hair in a severe, no-nonsense twist that highlighted the sharply sculpted angles of her chin, nose and cheekbones. She was curvy in all the right places but he had yet to see her in a skirt or dress. Her daily uniform invariably consisted of jeans or dark trousers, a long-sleeved shirt that she wore with the sleeves rolled up, and low boots or flats. She carried a backpack instead of a purse. The backpack was not a fashion statement. It was sturdy and functional, and it was filled with stuff.
It was as if Isabella was always dressed to go for a hike. Or maybe dressed to run? The thought had floated through his head on more than one occasion during the past month.
He was quite certain that she was a strong intuitive talent of some kind, although she seemed reluctant to discuss the exact nature of her ability. Fair enough. She did not press him about his talent, either. In addition, she had no problem with the concept of working for an investigation agency that specialized in the paranormal. In fact, she acted as if she'd had some experience in that line. That was not a huge surprise. A lot of powerful intuitives found themselves in the investigation or security business. If they didn't follow that career path, they sometimes wound up as shrinks or storefront psychics.
When he had pointed out that Jones & Jones was closely affiliated with an organization devoted to research into the paranormal, she had simply shrugged. She had then proceeded to inform him that every office, even one run by a psychic detective, required sound, efficient management.
"I realize that you are a bit obsessed with control," she said. "But I believe we have established that the time has come for you to learn to prioritize and delegate. You should be devoting your talents to investigation, not to keeping your office organized."
He had no clear recollection of having actually hired her. True, he had been toying with the notion of employing someone to help him get a handle on the heaps of papers, books and computer printouts that littered the small office. Even the thought of having someone around to make sure he did not run out of coffee had become an increasingly attractive notion. But he had not gotten to the point of advertising the position. For one thing, he had no idea how or where to go about the business of finding the kind of office assistant he needed.
But Isabella had taken the matter out of his hands. She had quit her job as a waitress at the Sunshine Cafe across the street, walked into J&J and announced that she was his new assistant.
The transformation of the headquarters of the West Coast office of Jones & Jones had happened within a matter of days. Where once controlled chaos had reigned, there was now efficiency and order. Isabella had even managed to unearth the small kitchen off the main room of the office.
The only problem in the arrangement as far as he could see was that, having accomplished her initial objectives, Isabella now wanted to do some real investigation work.
"Norma is willing to pay us for our time," Isabella said. "The house is only a few miles from here. Why not let me check it out?"
"There's nothing to check out," Fallon said. "Norma is new to the local real estate scene. She'll soon figure out that the reason she can't sell the old Zander mansion isn't because of the rumors. It's because the place is more than a hundred years old. Every potential buyer who walks through the front door realizes immediately that it would be a nightmare to remodel the house and bring it up to code."
"Norma thinks it's the mansion's reputation that is killing the deals. She's convinced that if she can advertise that she had the place certified as ghost-free by a real psychic investigation agency she could sell it."
"This is a joke, not a legitimate case. It's bad for the image of J&J."
"J&J is so low profile it doesn't have an image," Isabella said in a tone of sweet reason. "Why not take the easy money? I'll spend an afternoon at the house and report to Norma that all the ghosts have been dispatched. She'll write a check that will go straight to our bottom line."
"Arcane keeps J&J on retainer," Fallon pointed out. "We get plenty of other business from members of the Society. We don't have to go after the Lost Dogs and Haunted Houses trade. And on the rare occasion when we do take on that kind of job, we hand it off to one of our contract agents who doesn't mind the work."
"Norma's office is over in Willow Creek. She says the Zander house is about three miles from there somewhere out on the bluffs. There are no other J&J agents available for a radius of nearly a hundred miles. We're all she's got."
"Forget it," Fallon said. "I need you here."
"This will only take an afternoon. I think we should develop new revenue streams."
He wasn't into the zone. Nevertheless, his intuition went ping, sounding a lot like his computer when a new bit of data arrived.
"You were a waitress before you took this job," he said thoughtfully. "Don't tell me you picked up the term revenue stream in the food-and-beverage business?"
She ignored that. "You said yourself that the Governing Council or whatever it is that runs the Arcane Society is starting to whine about the costs of the recent operations against that Nightshade conspiracy you're chasing. It would be sound policy for J&J to find other sources of income in case our budget gets cut by the Council."
"The Council can grumble all it wants. Zack is the Master of the Society and he understands what's at stake. He'll see to it that I get the funding I need."
"Fine." Isabella gave him another radiant smile. "Then I'll take Norma Spaulding's payment as a commission for my work. I could use the money, given the lousy salary you're paying me."
He felt like a deer in the headlights when she used that smile on him. It was more dangerous than the crystal gun that had turned up in the Hawaii case. His finely tuned brain seemed to short-circuit when she glowed the way she was glowing now.
"You're the one who told me how much to pay you," he said, grasping at straws. "If you wanted more money, why didn't you ask for it?"