His gaze flicked briefly to where Sara had folded his trench coat neatly over the back of his chair, the edge of that damned letter from his father visible at the top of the pocket. Like a grim shadow.
Mike looked quickly away again.
“I’m trying to warn you, angel. I’m a guy with a very uncertain future.”
Sara stared thoughtfully at him. “Would you like me to rune you?”
“I already have a whole line of bank creditors willing to do that.”
Sara laughed softly. “Not ruin. Rune. I could do a reading for you with the rune stones.”
“I don’t know about that—” Mike began, but Sara was already leaping eagerly up to go in search of her little rocks or whatever the hell she was talking about.
She returned quickly with a small velvet bag. She opened it to display the contents—smooth flat stones bearing weird markings on them.
“This is a practice that goes all the way back to the days of the Vikings,” she said.
Mike eyed the stones warily. “No offense, Sara. But I don’t think something invented by a bunch of guys who wore goofy horned hats could be that hot of an idea. If this has anything to do with predicting my future, I’d just as soon not know.”
But Sara hastened to reassure him. “No. I’m not into doing fortunes like with the Tarot cards. Even I find that frightening. Rune stones are more gentle. All they do is get you in touch with your inner guide.”
“Angel, my inner guide has about as much sense of direction as an old bloodhound that’s lost its sense of smell.” Mike gave a nervous laugh, edging his chair away from the table. This was probably all a bunch of baloney, but he’d seen Sara pull off some damned strange things. He wasn’t sure he was ready for another one.
But she was giving him The Look. The big-eyed one that always melted him down like a triple-decker ice-cream cone on a hot day.
“Aw, what the hell!” he mumbled, scooting his chair back. “Go for it.”
It wasn’t the most encouraging request Sara had ever received, but she made the best of it. Clutching the velvet drawstring bag, she struggled to block everything else out of her mind—her own wishes, hopes and dreams. To think of nothing but Michael. His name. His image.
The stubborn beard-shadowed jaw, softened by the uncertain look to his dark brown eyes. The boyish rumple of hair at odds with the man’s body poured into that T-shirt and jeans. The sexy growl morning seemed to put in his voice and—
And this was not exactly helping with her concentration.
Maybe it was safer just to think his name.
Michael. Michael. Michael, Sara chanted to herself. Closing her eyes, she reached into the bag and drew out a rune. Her fingers trembled a little when she saw what it was. The stark figure of an X. Maybe she hadn’t done such a good job of blocking out her own wishes after all.
Mike leaned across the table to squint at the stone suspiciously. “So what’s that mean? X marks the spot, like I’m going to find a treasure or something?”
“No,” Sara said, feeling reluctant to tell him, anticipating his reactions. “It signifies partnership.”
“Partnership?” Mike frowned. “No way, doll. I always work alone.”
“There—there are other kinds of partnerships besides business ones, Michael.”
There was a long painful pause and then Mike touched her hand, saying gently, “I’m sorry, angel. But I already tried that kind, too. And it was a total disaster.”
That was because his ex-wife hadn’t been at all right for him, Sara wanted to argue. But sometimes she wasn’t sure where her psychic perceptions left off and wishful thinking began.
“Darcy and I had a lot in common,” Mike continued. “If I couldn’t make things work with her, I can’t imagine I’d ever succeed with anyone else.”
“But partnership doesn’t mean thinking and acting alike. It’s good for two people to remain separate and unique. The book of runes says that even people in love have to let the winds of heaven dance between them.”
“In my case, it’d be more like the blasts of hell.”
Sara slowly drew her hand away, wondering exactly what she was doing here. Giving Mike a reading or begging the man to fall in love with her. Either way, you couldn’t convince someone of something they didn’t want to believe in.
She started to put the stone back in the bag when Mike suddenly stopped her. He took the rune from her and studied it. Sara cringed, expecting some wisecrack, some jeering remark about what a load of nonsense it was.
But all he did was ask, “So you do these stone readings for other people?”
Sara nodded. “I’ve been pretty accurate with them or so most of my customers tell me.”
“Like with your mind reading.”
“Oh, I’ve never been real good at that, Michael, except... with you.”
“So what am I thinking now?”
She glanced up and only had to meet his eyes to know. Desire mingled with deeper feelings. He wanted her in his arms, wanted to offer her things that the man, himself, didn’t even know he had to give.
Without a word, Sara slipped onto his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. He buried one hand in her hair, easing her close enough for their lips to meet. The kiss tasted of morning, bright and sweet with all its promise of a new day, new hopes and new dreams. It would have been perfect except...
Except for the constant shadow that darkened Mike’s thoughts.
She drew back, stroking the hair gently back from his brow. “Don’t worry, Michael,” she murmured. “Whatever is in that letter from your father, I’m sure everything will turn out all right.”
Mike had been hungry to kiss her again, but she felt his entire body tense beneath her, his eyes darkening with reproach.
“Sara!”
She winced. “I’m sorry. But when I touched your coat, I couldn’t help sensing it was there.”
“I might have known as much. There’s no keeping anything back from you.” He thrust her off his lap, and stood up abruptly, stalking a few paces away from her, the tender mood shattered.
Sara sighed, deeply regretting she’d said anything, certain Mike would close up on her, try to shut her out as he always did from this part of his life.
But instead, he wrenched the letter from the coat pocket and thrust it at her.
“Well, here! You might as well go ahead and read the damned thing.”
Sara stared down at the envelope, stunned by the gesture, by the level of trust it implied.
“Take it,” Mike snapped when she hesitated.
Her fingers closed slowly over the letter, and as soon as she did so, she shuddered. The aura was bad, very bad. One touch and she could already feel so many things, the darkness that engulfed the soul of the sender.
“Read it,” Mike said. “It’s really not that big of a deal.”
Sara wasn’t sure she wanted to, but beyond Mike’s tough-guy act, his manner of hardened indifference, she could sense what he needed, wanted from her. Reassurance.
But as Sara unfolded the letter, she knew she couldn’t give it to him. The words scrawled by an unsteady hand were brief and simple.
“Mikey, I’ll be getting out soon. I know you haven’t wanted anything to do with me and I don’t blame you. But I’m asking just this once if you could come to see me before I’m released.”
But it was the raw emotions bleeding beneath the pen strokes that left Sara deeply shaken.
“What are you planning to do about this?” she asked, lifting her eyes from the page.
“Ignore it.” He gave an angry shrug. “Like I did all the rest of his damned letters.”
“You can’t this time.”
“Why the hell not?”
Sara tried to find some gentle way to tell him, but there wasn’t any.
“Because...because your father’s dying, Michael.”
“What?”
Sara swallowed and repeated, “He’s dying. That—that’s what he meant in the
letter by getting out, being released. Permanently.”
Shock and disbelief clouded Mike’s eyes. “Then why didn’t he just come out and say so?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t want to prey on your sympathy to get you to come to him.”
“Oh, please!” Mike gave a snort of contempt. “If there’s one thing my father is good at, that’s using every trick in the book to con people into doing what he wants. If he had a card like that in his hand, he’d play it to the hilt.”
“Maybe he’s changed. I can feel traces of a terrible despair and regret.”
“Regret for what?” Mike snatched the letter from her hand. “That he wasn’t able to have me finished off? That he got caught?”
“No, I think you need to go see him, Michael, talk to him before it’s too late. You said yourself that you once had doubts whether he was the one responsible for the attack on you.”
“Well, I don’t have them anymore.” But despite his fierce declaration, there was a hint of uncertainty in his eyes. Bitterness warred against the hope of a twelve-year old boy who’d once seen his faith in his father shattered, his faith in anything good. The bitterness won out.
Mike started to tear the letter in two.
“Wait,” Sara cried. “Let me hold it again. If you won’t go see him, maybe I can concentrate harder—”
“No!” Mike said, shredding the paper to bits. “I shouldn’t have shown it to you in the first place.”
“It’s all right, Michael.” She laid her hand gently on his arm. “Don’t you understand? You can’t make love to someone without letting them get close to you.”
“Why not?” he asked, tossing the remains of the letter in her trash can. “I’ve been doing it all my life.”
He whirled around, yanking her hard against him, smothering her protest with his kiss. Trying to distract her and himself, as well.
But her words kept echoing in his head. Your father’s dying, Michael. He didn’t know if Sara could be right about that or not. But it didn’t matter, because he’d closed the door on Robert Parker a long time ago. He didn’t even want to think about it. He sought to kiss Sara senseless instead, focusing all his pain and confusion into a raging need.
She responded for a moment, melting against him. Then she braced her hands against his chest, seeking to put distance between them.
“Michael, please,” she panted. “We’ve got to talk about this. I’m afraid for you.”
“Don’t be.” He tried to silence her with another kiss, but she resisted.
“I’m afraid if you don’t go and see your father now, you’re going to be haunted by the shadow man for the rest of your life.”
“Is that another one of your psychic predictions?” he demanded with exasperation.
Sara looked up at him with troubled eyes. “No, just something that I feel, here in my heart.”
Mike flung himself away from her, raking one hand back through his hair, annoyed to find his fingers weren’t as steady as they should have been.
“Listen, angel,” he said. “I’ve got news for you. I had everything under control until you came along and started messing with my aura. I can deal with my own shadow man.”
“But you haven’t.”
A surge of anger kicked through Mike, mostly because he knew she was right. “Anyway,” he said, “it’s not your problem.”
“Yes, it is, because I lov—” Sara broke off what she’d been about to say, biting down on her lip. “From the very beginning, there’s been some kind of strange link between us. It’s what brought you to work on the case with me, searching for John Patrick and—”
“It wasn’t any damned mystic link,” Mike exploded. “It was a man named Storm.”
“Who?” Sara asked, her brow clouding in bewilderment.
A part of Mike wanted to stop before he said something he was going to regret, something that would shatter the light in Sara’s eyes. But he’d wind up disillusioning the woman sooner or later. It might as well be now.
“Storm,” he repeated impatiently. “Xavier Storm, the casino king who owns half of South Jersey. You must have heard of him.”
Sara slowly shook her head.
“I keep forgetting you’re not from this planet,” Mike muttered.
“What does this Mr. Storm have to do with anything, Michael?”
“Simple. He warned me against taking your case and he’s been doing his best to make my life hell ever since.”
Sara’s eyes went wide. “Why would Mr. Storm do a thing like that?”
“Because for some reason he doesn’t want John Patrick found. My guess is that at some point, Patrick and Storm had a run-in. Storm probably did something illegal and Patrick knows about it or—or maybe Storm even had the guy killed and his body dumped in the bay. Hell, I don’t know. My detective instincts just smelled something fishy, that’s all.”
“And so you took the case, hoping to get justice for John Patrick?” Sara ventured.
“No!” How damn naive could the woman be?
“I took the case hoping to get revenge for Mike Parker. Storm’s the guy who broke up my marriage. He seduced my ex-wife.”
Sara went pale and silent at his blunt words. Then she laid her hand gently on his. “Oh, Michael. I—I’m so very sorry.” Mike stifled a groan. The last thing he wanted or needed was her sympathy.
He shook her off with an impatient gesture. “So now you know why I was so anxious to solve the mystery of John Patrick. Not because of any link between us or because I felt sympathy for some dead dame who lost her son. I’m no damned hero, Sara. I don’t do anything for anybody except for my own selfish reasons.”
“That’s not true,” Sara said. “If that’s what you are really like, I would have sensed it.”
“Yeah? Well, maybe you’re not as psychic as you think you are.”
Sara flinched as though he struck her, the hurt in her eyes tearing at some place deep inside of him. He couldn’t have said anything worse if he’d studied up on it for a year. Sara turned away, gripping the back of the kitchen chair, her hair veiling her face.
Mike wanted to reach out and take back his words, take her back in his arms. What the hell was he doing? Shoving away with both hands the best thing that had ever happened to him.
But he wasn’t the best thing that had ever happened to her and he knew it. It would have come to this in the end. It always did with him.
Though it hurt like hell, he managed to keep his distance from her. “This John Patrick case has turned out to be nothing but a big waste of time anyway,” he said. “I’m never going to find the guy.”
“Are you telling me you want to quit, Michael?” Sara asked without looking at him.
“Yeah, and you should, too. Just forget about it.” He swallowed thickly. “Forget about everything.”
“Fine. If—if that’s what you want. Just send me a bill for the days you already worked.”
“There won’t be any bill,” Mike said, picking up his trench coat and flinging it over his arm. “I figure between all the psychic readings you’ve given me, we’re even.”
“But I didn’t do a good job, Michael.” Sara gave a bitter laugh. “It wasn’t until now that I was able to figure out who your shadow man really is. Maybe you should go home and look in the mirror.”
And she turned slowly, giving him a deep sorrowful look that Mike knew he’d remember for a long time to come. He strode toward the door while he still could, getting the hell out of there.
Long moments after Michael had gone, Sara simply stood there, her throat and eyes dry. She wasn’t crying. She knew that would come later and it was going to be bad.
But for now she was taking Mike’s advice. Just forget it. Forget everything. It would be a good trick if she could pull it off. Just forget the loving that had been beautiful beyond her most incredible imaginings.
Numbly she moved back to the table to clear away the coffee cups and put away her rune stones. The single stone m
arked X still lay discarded by Mike’s cup.
Sara picked up the rune, cradling it in her hand. Partnership....
Maybe you’re not as psychic as you think you are. Mike’s harsh words seemed to whisper in her ear.
“Maybe I’m not, Mr. Parker,” Sara said bleakly, dropping the stone back in the bag.
He was lost in the alley gain. Mike shrank back, but this time as the shadow man stepped into the light, he was stunned to see his own face reflected back at him, glaring with menacing hate. He cried out as he took the knife and drove it into his own chest....
Dammit! Mike forced himself awake, bolting up in bed, his body soaked in a fine sheet of sweat. Through his bedroom window came the night sounds of the city, harsh and indifferent—traffic rushing, horns blaring, the shouts of a pair of drunks fighting in the street below.
It was a long way from the peace and warmth of Sara’s bed. Swearing again, he shook off the last vestiges of his nightmare and dragged himself out of bed. Switching on the bare bulb that dangled above his bed, he stumbled across to a small cabinet.
Fishing out a bottle of whiskey, he poured himself a belt, letting the fiery liquid burn down his throat. Well, this was an all-time low, even for him, he thought blearily. Drinking alone, finding comfort in a bottle. Mike Parker in his skid-row-bum mode.
Glancing up, he caught sight of himself in his bathroom mirror and grimaced. Unshaven jaw, hollow, reddened eyes, straggly hair. Hell, he was the stuff nightmares were made of. He slammed the bathroom door closed, shutting out the sight.
Moving back to the bedroom, he noticed that stupid stuffed dog abandoned on a chair. It seemed to be staring at him, its single glass eye beaming a constant reproach.
“What are you looking at?” he growled.
Shoving the dog aside, he plunked down on the chair himself, placing one hand to his throbbing head. Man, for a guy who didn’t believe in love, he was a real mess. These past few days since he’d last seen Sara were among the most miserable of his life, and that was saying a lot.
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