Chapter 10

I met Joshua Johnson one afternoon while working as an intern for the summer for the Olsen Real Estate Investment Company. The meeting became a turning point in my life. It wasn't an epiphany but it turned out meeting Josh was the single most important event of my life.

He arrived wearing casual clothes looking like a teenager. I discovered later he was what he looked like - eighteen. An astute, middle-aged lawyer wearing a three-piece business suit accompanied him. Ostensibly, the lawyer represented an investment company presenting an offer on one of Olsen's many properties, but the legal beagle deferred to Josh's judgment.

I arrived at the meeting with my boss, Harry Jensen, and I was dressed to the nines in a snazzy navy business suit. My skirt was short enough to show off what I considered my best asset - my long legs. Harry, bless his baldpate, looked like he usually looked - wrinkled and scruffy. Harry might've looked scruffy, but he had one of the best real estate minds I'd ever met. Admittedly at the time, I hadn't met many. I was studying business at ASU in Tempe and would start my senior year in a month - my senior year because I skipped the fourth grade and graduated from high school when I was seventeen. Being number one in my class, I earned a full academic scholarship to ASU, which was fortunate, because otherwise, college might not have been possible. I came from a lower middle-class family with three brothers younger than I. Thank goodness, lower middle-class was the norm where I grew up in a small town in northeastern Nevada. I didn't truly understand how poor my family was until I left Nevada.

As was my habit, I scanned Josh and the lawyer when they entered the conference room. For those unfamiliar with the term scan in the context I just used the word, I extended a tendril from the edge of my mind until it gently reached the target. I scanned only for surface thoughts by simply brushing the tendril against the edge of the lawyer and Josh's minds.

The lawyer didn't react. Josh's eyes widened, and then he grinned and said, "Get out of my mind, pretty lady."

Everyone in the room looked at Josh as if he'd just lost his mind - except me. Blushing, I quickly cut off the scan. That's when I felt him in my mind. It wasn't a scan as I knew one. He wasn't reaching for my thoughts, and I couldn't figure out what he was doing. When his scan deepened, without thinking I expelled his probe and threw up a shield.

"Likewise," I said.

"Deal," Josh remarked with a boyish grin that squeezed my heart. "Let's talk after the meeting. You and I have something in common."

I nodded acceptance.

"Nicole, do you two know each other?" Harry asked.

"No," I said.

Josh grinned again, and said, "A first but propitious meeting." He turned his attention to Harry and introduced himself and the lawyer, Gerard Wilson.

Harry acknowledged the introductions and said, "And the pretty lady, as you so aptly called her, Mr. Johnson, is Nicole Halliday. She works for me."

Before the meeting ended, Joshua Johnson purchased a 300-unit apartment complex that Olsen had been trying to dump for quite a while. I worried about his business acumen.

Hah!

While I waited for Josh to join me, I sipped white wine. I was under the legal drinking age, but didn't look it. In my business attire I looked twenty-four or -five. My long, dark hair cascading in waves to the middle of my back helped, that and my high, prominent cheekbones. I was model-thin by nature, which would probably change later in life because I adored fine dining, something I hadn't experienced until I started working for Olsen. One of Harry's jobs was to entertain important clients. His wife was wheelchair bound and didn't enjoy the hassle eating out and entertaining entailed. Early on, she gave me her blessings to act as hostess for Harry, and Harry was harmless, loved his wife to distraction, and never made an inappropriate comment let alone a serious pass at me. Anyway, Harry introduced me to gourmet food and exceptional wine.

I noticed Josh bustling toward me. As he pulled out a chair and sat across from me, he flashed that boyish smile of his and apologized for making me wait.

"Gerard is a very good lawyer, but he's talkative," he said by way of explanation.

The waiter arrived, and Josh ordered iced tea.

"So," he said when we were alone. "We have something in common."

"Are you a telepath?" I asked, getting right to the point.

He shook his head, which surprised me. "Some of what I can do might be construed as telepathic, but I'm an empath." His grin broadened. "You can't imagine how pleased I am to meet you. Only one other person in the world knows about my paranormal ability - my sister - and she's afraid to enter the range of my empathic connections now."

"Why?" If his sister fears him, perhaps I should, too, I thought.

"She thinks that I might plant a need or a concept in her mind that would cause her to do something she wouldn't otherwise do. I'd never consider using my abilities in such an unscrupulous way with her, and she halfway believes me, maybe more than halfway, but doubt lingers."

I shrugged. "Teach her how to put up a shield, for heaven's sake."

He looked contemplative. "I don't think I know how to do that." He grinned again. "You do. You pushed me away mentally, and I couldn't get back in."

I performed a light scan. When his thoughts let me know he felt my mind in his, I said, "Push me out."

"How?"

"You know how. You push your empathic scans into individuals. Do the same but push against my scan."

I felt his push.

"Now shield yourself."

"How?"

"Visualize a mental shield around your mind. Picture a mirrored surface on the shield. The mirror supposedly helps by reflecting the intrusive scan."

I pushed again and bounced off his shield. A deeper probe pierced his shield, though. "Make your shield stronger."

Seconds later, as hard as I tried, I couldn't get past his reinforced mental barrier.

"Now you know how, teach her," I said.

"She's not an empath or a telepath."

"Doesn't matter. Neither is my father, but he learned how. You know as well as I that it's merely a visualization process. She might not be able to push you out of her mind, but she can construct a shield."

He sighed and slumped with relief in his chair. "If nothing more happens between you and me, what you've just shown me just made today one of the best days of my life. I can't thank you enough." He sat up. "Would you like to feel how I feel?"

"Waddaya mean?"

He took my hand in his, and suddenly an enormous amount of gratitude washed over me, overwhelming all other emotions.

He grinned. "As you can feel, I'm grateful."

"Wow!" I whispered.

"You're a telepath, huh?"

I smiled. "Yes."

"Read my mind."

I probed him, but his shield was still in place. "I can't. You haven't lowered your shield."

He looked confused.

"Once a shield is constructed, you need to imagine it gone before a telepath can get back in," I said.

"Sandy will love that feature. Sandy's my sister. She and I are partners in the investment company that purchased the apartment complex this afternoon."

"Ah, Josh, I..."

I felt him in my head and automatically pushed him away. Ah, what the hell? Why not? I thought and said, "Go ahead, but be gentle."

He chuckled, and I felt him in my mind again. His scan felt different than how I believed mine would feel, but then I only had my dad's description of what he felt when I was in his mind wandering around. I chuckled silently. I'd been in his mind for years before he started to sense my presence.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Searching for an attitude," Josh said.

"Explain, please."

"I don't read minds, not like you, but I can pick up the meaning of a group of thoughts, not individual words, but rather what I call an attitude. For instance, from the attitude I found, you think I made a bad business deal today."

I blushed. "Sorry."

"No problem. Read my thoughts."

A few seconds later, I grinned. "You're going to flip the property and already have a buyer. Ten to twenty percent's a pretty good profit, considering you'll never take possession of the apartment complex or use any or your own money except the earnest money deposit, which you get back from your buyer tomorrow."

"Hey, you're pretty good at this."

"Thanks." Another light scan told me he'd raised his shield, and it dawned on me that I didn't know if my shield functioned well enough to ward off his scans. "What's my attitude now?"

I felt his push bounce away and smiled.

"I can't read your attitude, but I can sense your emotions and sensations. For instance, your little toe on your left foot hurts. You trimmed your toenail too close."

Did my eyes widen? Yup.

He grinned and I melted.

"Would you like me to fix it?" he asked.

"You can fix it?" I asked, a little surprised.

"Easily."

"Do it. This I've gotta see."

He closed his eyes, looked relaxed, even serene, and suddenly the pain in my toe disappeared. I thought he'd open his eyes, but he didn't, not for a few more seconds.

"There," he said. "All better."

"Amazing!"

"Amazing is the ideal word for what you do. Do you know other telepaths?"

I chuckled. "I know some phonies who think they're telepaths, but none of them can even approach what I do - or you. They formed a club of sorts, and curious and wanting to meet others with my unusual ability, I attended a meeting using a fictitious name and address. When I realized there wasn't a true telepath in the bunch, I never went back. What about you?"

"You're the first. I'm happy to hear you wanted to meet others like you. If you could sense my emotions you'd know how pleased I am to have met you. Are you married, in a committed relationship? Please say no."

"No, but..."

He laughed. I enjoyed the sounds of his laughter.

"No buts. I must see you again. I have a million questions, maybe more, and I'm sure you're no different." He nodded his head toward a man eating at a table near the entrance to the dining room. "See that man eating spaghetti?"

"Yes."

"Say you'll meet me again, or I'll make him put his face in the plate of spaghetti."

I chuckled. What the hell? "No, I won't meet you again."

A quick scan let me know that he knew I wasn't serious, that I just wanted to see him push the man's face in the spaghetti. I watched, and a few seconds later, the man lowered his face to his plate and wallowed around in the red sauce and pasta. I hooted with laughter. "What did you use? Telekinesis?"

"No, I used an attitude dominated by a need. I gave him a need to wallow like an oinker in the spaghetti."

I laughed again. "Remind me to keep my shield up around you."

"No need. I don't misuse what I do with friends, and I already consider you a friend. Tomorrow's Friday. We'll go to dinner and talk and talk, and for what's its worth, even if you weren't a paranormal phenomenon, I'd want to know you better. You're astonishingly beautiful. I love your dark, wavy mane, and your legs are incredible, so long, so sleek. Silky, too, I bet."