The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance

punch. I gasped. My God, the hot chick was a Guardian, like me!
    Guardians are families where magic runs strong. The families have been around since time began, near as anyone knows. We’re human, but with some special abilities. Our elders train us to use them conservatively, to help people, not just to accumulate wealth and power for ourselves. Most of us have regular jobs and regular lives. We’re encouraged to marry other Guardians to keep the power strong, but I’d never met a female Guardian who made me think of orange blossoms and cottages with picket fences.
    The hot chick whipped her head up when I tried to read her. Her quick scan of the store passed over Rajiv and landed on me with a scowl that would freeze the whiskers off a brass cat. So I walked over to her. “You’re a Guardian,” I said softly. “So am I.”
    Her expression chilled another couple of degrees. “Then you should know better than to probe someone without permission.” Her voice was somewhere between whisky and velvet, her accent was educated British, and her eyes were a dazzling shade of honey gold. If she asked me to lie down so she could walk over me, I’d do it.
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d be able to sense that.” I gave her my best, earnest nice-guy look. “You were so beautiful I had to know more.”
    You’d think a sincere compliment might soften her a bit, but no dice. She looked like she wanted to whack me with a package of cookies. “Goodnight, Mr Owens.” She had a lot of power to be able to pick up my name when she zapped me.
    “What’s your name?” When her brows arched, I said reasonably, “I’m sure you don’t want me to be thinking of you as the Hot Chick.”
    For an instant, I thought she’d crack a smile, but instead she said frostily, “Maggie Macrae. That’s Ms Macrae to you.”
    A Guardian, all right. The Macraes were one of the best-known British families. As she brushed past me, I asked, “What’s your strongest ability?”
    “Shielding.” She pivoted and crossed to the counter with long, graceful strides.
    No kidding — her shields were blocking me cold. I sighed, regretful but not resigned. Now that I’d met her and knew she was a Guardian, I could find her again.
    Maggie pulled out her wallet to pay for the cookies. “Do you ever have British biscuits like McVitie’s chocolate digestives?” The smile she gave Rajiv was dazzling.
    “No, but I could order some if you want to come back in a few days,” Rajiv said enthusiastically. Though she might not have as much impact on him as she did on me, he wasn’t immune to that killer smile.
    She pursed her lips—her ripe, full, kissable lips—and said, “I shall be in New York for some time, so if you could order four boxes, I’d be most grateful. Will they be in by Monday?” I could listen to her gorgeous voice and accent all night. And if Rajiv put the moves on her, I’d kill him.
    Before he could reply, three guys who looked like your worst nightmare came in waving guns. “This is a stick-up!” one yelled as he shot out the security camera in a blaze of bullets. As glass shards rained down, another snarled, “Give us the money!”
    The robbers were young, and I could see from their wild eyes that they were sky-high on some kind of drug that made them hyper and stupid. A headline flashed through my mind: shopkeeper AND TWO CUSTOMERS MURDERED IN BURGLARY! Thank God I wasn’t clairvoyant—that was fear talking, not a premonition.
    The lead guy, a hulk with a tacky little goatee, spotted me and Maggie Macrae. “Put yer hands up and get over to the counter,” he ordered with a wave of his gun: some kind of big, mean-looking semi-automatic.
    I raised my hands and edged towards the counter very slowly. I tried to look harmless, which wasn’t much of a stretch. Maggie did the same.
    “No problem, man,” Rajiv said peacefully. “You can have all the money in the register. I’ll open it for you.”
    He reached for the cash drawer. The robber who had shot out the camera, a short guy with bare, tattoo-covered arms, shouted, “He’s going for a gun!”
    The tallest guy fired a long blast of bullets, the noise ear-numbing in the small space. The slugs slammed into Rajiv. He pitched sideways, his glasses flying and gouts of blood spurting horribly over his yellow “Buddha Rocks!” T-shirt.
    Maggie screamed, and three guns swivelled towards us. The barrels looked like the Grand Canyon. I dived for the floor,