by Linda Howard
She coped. After she was eighteen, she was out of the system and on her own. In the thirteen years since then—for her entire life, actually—she had done what she could to stay below the radar, to avoid being noticed, to never, ever be a victim. No one could reject her if she didn’t offer herself.
She had stumbled into gambling in a small way, in a little casino on the Seminole reservation in Florida. She had won, not a whole lot, but a couple hundred dollars meant a lot to her. Later on she’d gone in some of the casinos on the Mississippi River and won some more. Small casinos were everywhere. She’d gone to Atlantic City but hadn’t liked it. Las Vegas was okay, but too too: too much neon, too many people, too hot, too gaudy. Reno suited her better. Smaller, but not too small. Better climate. Eight years after that first small win in Florida, she regularly won five to ten thousand dollars a week.
That kind of money was a burden, because she couldn’t bring herself to spend much more than she had always spent. She didn’t go hungry now, or cold. She had a car if she wanted to pack up and leave, but never a new one. She had bank accounts all over the place, plus she usually carried a lot of cash—dangerous, she knew, but she felt more secure if she had enough cash with her to take care of whatever she might need. Unless and until she settled somewhere, the money was a problem, because how many savings books and checkbooks could she be expected to cart around the country?
That was her life. Dante Raintree thought all he had to do was educate her a little on her talent with numbers, and—well, what did he expect to happen? He knew nothing about her life, so he couldn’t have any specific changes in mind. Was she supposed to become Little Mary Sunshine? Find other people like her, maybe develop their own little gated community, where, if you ran out of charcoal lighter fluid at the neighborhood barbecue, one of the neighbors could breathe fire on the briquettes to light them? Maybe she could blog about her experiences, or do talk radio.
Uh-uh. She would rather eat ground glass. She liked living alone, being alone and depending only on herself.
The phone rang again, startling her. She scrambled across the bed to look at the caller ID, though why she bothered, she had no idea; she wouldn’t recognize the number of anyone calling Dante Raintree, anyway. She didn’t answer that call, either.
She had sat on the bed, thinking, for so long that the afternoon shadows were beginning to lengthen, and she was drowsy. Thank goodness for that phone call, or she might have fallen asleep on his bed, and wouldn’t that have been an interesting situation when he got home? She had no intention of playing Goldilocks.
But she was sleepy, as well as hungry. After a late breakfast, she hadn’t had lunch. Why not eat a light dinner now and go to bed early? She couldn’t think of any reason why she should wait for Raintree, since he hadn’t had the courtesy to tell her when he might be back.
The least he could do was call—not that she would answer the phone, but he could always leave a message.
Definitely no point in waiting for him. She raided the refrigerator and made a sandwich of cold cuts, then looked at all the books in his bookshelves—he had a lot of books on paranormal stuff, but she chose a suspense novel instead—and settled down in the den to read for a while. By eight o’clock she was nodding over her book, which evidently wasn’t suspenseful enough to keep her awake. The sun hadn’t quite set yet, but she didn’t care; she was still tired from the night before.
Fifteen minutes and one shower later, she was in bed, curled in a warm ball, with the sheet pulled over her head.
The flare of a lamp being turned on woke her. She endured the usual grinding fear, the panic, knowing that her mother wasn’t there even though, all these years later, her subconscious still hadn’t gotten the message. Before she could relax enough to pull the sheet from over her head, the covers were lifted and a very warm, mostly naked Dante Raintree slid into bed with her.
“What the hell are you doing?” she sputtered sleepily, glaring at him over the edge of the sheet.
He settled himself beside her and stretched one long, muscled arm to turn out the lamp. “There appears to be sand in my bed, so I’m sleeping here.”
FIFTEEN
“Don’t be silly. I couldn’t leave the house, so how would I get sand? It’s salt.” Maybe he expected her to deny any involvement, but that would be silly, given that she’d been the only person in the house after he left. Maybe he also expected her to get all indignant and starchy because he was in bed with her, but for some reason, she wasn’t alarmed. Annoyed at being awakened, yes, but not alarmed.
“I stand corrected.” He used his superior muscle and weight to shove her over in the bed. “Move over. I need more room.”
He had already forced her out of her nice warm spot, which annoyed her even more. “Then why didn’t you get in on the other side, instead of making me move?” she grumbled as she scooted to the other side of the bed, which was king-size, like every other bed in the house.
“You’re the one who put salt in my bed.”
The sheets were cold around her, making her curl in a tighter ball than usual. Even the pillow was cold. Lorna lifted her head and pulled the pillow from beneath her, tossing it on top of him. “Give me my pillow. This one’s cold.”
He made a grumbling sound, but pushed the warm pillow toward her and tucked the other pillow under his head. She snuggled down into the warmth; the soft fabric already had his scent on it, which wasn’t a bad thing, she discovered. She had known him only a short time, but a lot of it had been spent in close contact with him. The primitive part of her brain recognized his scent and was comforted.
“What time is it?” she asked drowsily, already drifting back to sleep.
“You know what time it is. It’s a number. Think about it.” He sounded drowsy himself.
She had never thought of time as a number, but as soon as she did, the image of three numbers popped into her head. “One-oh-four.”
“Bingo.”
Mildly pleased, she went to sleep.
She woke before he did, which wasn’t surprising, given how early she’d gone to bed and how late he’d gotten in. She lay there through the tense expectation of being hit, then slowly relaxed. The bed was toasty warm; he gave off so much heat that she could feel the warmth even though they weren’t touching.
Sleepily curious to see if the time thing worked again, she thought of time as a series of numbers and immediately saw a four, a five and a one. She pulled the sheet from over her head; the room was getting a little brighter. Without any way to check—short of getting out of bed and going down to the kitchen, which she wasn’t willing to do—she supposed four fifty-one was close enough. How handy was that, to not need a clock?
Dante was lying on his side, facing her, one arm bent under his head, his breathing slow and deep. The room was still too dim for her to make out many details, but that was okay, because she wasn’t ready for details yet; the general impression was sexy enough as things were.
What was a woman supposed to think when a healthy, heterosexual man slept with her for the first time and didn’t even try to cop a feel? That something was wrong with her? That he wasn’t attracted to her?
She thought he was dangerously intelligent and intuitive.
Sex was definitely part of their relationship, if knowing someone for roughly thirty-six hours could be described as a relationship. Some of those thirty-six hours had seemed years long, especially the first four or five. She couldn’t say that their time together had been quality time, either. On the other hand, since she hadn’t seen him at his best, she thought she might know him better than someone who had known him for a much longer time but only in a social setting, so she wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t made a pass at her during the night.
She wasn’t ready for sex with him, might never be ready, and he knew that. If he’d tried to storm the barricades, as it were, she would have stiffened her resistance. By simply sleeping with her and not making any overtly sexual moves, he was, in a way, cou
nteracting those first terrible hours together and making sex a possibility, at least.
He wasn’t even naked, though the boxers he’d worn to bed didn’t cover much. She wasn’t naked, either; he’d had all her clothes brought to her, so she was sleeping in her usual cotton pajamas. Perversely, because he hadn’t tried to have sex, she began to wonder what it would be like if they did—then suspected that he’d known that would be her reaction.
Sex wasn’t easy for her. She didn’t trust easily; she didn’t arouse easily. Voluntarily giving up her personal sense of privacy was difficult, and the payback was usually not worth the cost. She liked the feel of sex, and when she thought about it in the abstract, she wanted it. The reality, though, was that the execution didn’t live up to the expectation. Regardless of what she was doing, she seldom relaxed completely, which she thought good sex probably required.
The thing was, she was more relaxed with Dante than she’d been in a long, long time. He knew what she was, knew she was different, and he didn’t care—because he was even more different than she was. She didn’t have to hide anything with him, because she didn’t care if he liked her or not. She certainly hadn’t tried to hide her temper or sweeten her tart tongue. Likewise, she had no soft-focus ideas about his character. She knew he was ruthless, but she also knew he wasn’t mean. She knew he was autocratic, but that he tried to be considerate.
So maybe she could let herself go and really enjoy sex with him. She didn’t have to worry about his ego; if he started going too fast, she could tell him to slow down, and if he didn’t like that…tough. She wouldn’t have to worry about his pleasure; he would see to that himself.
She wondered if he took his time, or if he liked to get down to business.
She wondered how big he was.
Maybe she could relax enough to enjoy it, and even if she didn’t, at least she could satisfy her curiosity.
With a suddenness that startled her, he threw back the covers and got out of bed. “Where are you going?” she asked, surprised when he headed toward the door instead of the bathroom.
“It’s sunrise,” was all he said.
And? The sun rose every day. Did he mean he always got up at this time, even when he’d had only four hours’ sleep? Or did he have an early appointment?
She didn’t follow him. She had her own appointment—with the bathroom. She also wanted to give him enough time to have that first cup of coffee.
When she left her room forty-five minutes later, after having made the bed and put away her clothes, she went to the kitchen but found it empty. A pot of coffee had been made, however, and she smiled with satisfaction.
Where was he? In the shower?
She didn’t intend to stand around waiting for him to make an appearance. She was in the living room, heading toward her bedroom, when he appeared on the balcony two floors above.
“Come up here,” he called down. “I’ll be outside.”
His bedroom had a deck—or was it a balcony, too?—that faced east. She had looked at it yesterday, but hadn’t gone out, because his damn command had kept her from stepping outside. There were two comfortable-looking chairs and a small table out there, and she’d thought it must be a comfortable place to sit in the afternoon when the sun had passed its apex and that side of the house was shaded.
She went up the two flights of stairs to his bedroom. His bed, she noticed, had been stripped; that gave her a sense of satisfaction. She could see him sitting in one of the chairs outside, so she went to the open French door. Coffee cup in hand, he sat with his head tilted back a little, his eyes almost closed against the brilliance of the bright morning sun, the expression on his face almost…blissful.
“You’re handy with the salt, aren’t you?” he said neutrally, sipping the coffee, but she sensed he wasn’t angry. Of course, the coffee from the kitchen wasn’t dirt-flavored. When he made the next pot of coffee in here, he might not be as sanguine about things.
“Payback.”
“I guessed.”
He didn’t say anything else, and after a moment she shifted her weight. “Was that all you wanted, just to say that?”
He looked around, as if he’d drifted off into a reverie and was faintly surprised by her presence. “Don’t just stand there, come out here and sit down.”
Just thinking about doing so gave her the sense of running into a wall. “I can’t.”
That got a quick smile from him as he realized she was still housebound. He didn’t say anything, but immediately the mental wall disappeared.
“Crap,” she said, stepping outside and going to sit beside him.
“What?”
“You didn’t say anything, you just thought it. I’d hoped you had to speak the command out loud, that I had to hear it, before it would work.”
“Sorry. All I have to do is think it. I was tempted to use the gift yesterday afternoon and tell a few people to go jump in the lake, but I restrained myself.”
“You’re a saint among men,” she said dryly, and he gave her a quick grin.
“I was dealing with the media, so, considering the level of temptation, I tend to agree with you.”
Media, huh? No wonder he had refused to take her with him.
“I called last night to tell you I wouldn’t make it back until late, but you didn’t answer the phone.”
“Why would I? I’m not your secretary.”
“The call was for you.”
“I didn’t know that, did I?”
“I left a message for you.”
“I didn’t hear it.” The answering machine was in the kitchen; she’d been in his bedroom when the last phone call came in, which must have been him calling her.
“That’s because you didn’t bother to play it back.” He sounded annoyed now.
“Why would I? I’m not—”
“My secretary. I know. You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?”
“I try,” she said, giving him a smile that was more a baring of her teeth than anything related to humor.
He grunted and sipped coffee for a while. Lorna pulled her bare feet up in the chair and looked out over the mountains and broad valleys, enjoying being outside after an entire day cooped up in the house. The morning was cool enough to make her wish she had on socks, but not so cool that she was forced to go inside.
“Do you want to go with me today?” he finally asked, with obvious reluctance.
“Depends. What are you doing?”
“Overseeing cleanup, talking to insurance adjusters, and I still don’t have an answer to why two detectives were asking questions immediately after the fire, so I’m pursuing that by going directly to the source.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“I’m glad someone thinks so,” he said wryly. “Get ready and we’ll eat breakfast out. For some reason, I don’t trust the food here.”
SIXTEEN
Tuesday morning, 7:30 a.m.
The man sitting concealed behind some scrub brush had been in place since before dawn, when he had relieved the unlucky fool who had been on surveillance duty all night. When he saw the garage door sliding up, he grabbed the binoculars hanging by a strap around his neck and trained them on the house. Red brake lights glowed in the dimness of the garage; then a sleek Jaguar began backing out.
He picked up a radio and keyed the microphone. “He’s leaving now.”
“Is he alone?”
“I can’t tell—no, the woman is with him.”
“Ten-four. I’ll be ready.”
His job done for the moment, he let the binoculars fall before the light glinting on the lenses gave him away. He could relax now. Following Raintree wasn’t his job.
“Has the fire marshal said yet how the fire started?” Lorna asked as they drove down the steep, winding road. The air was very clear, the sky a deep blue bowl. The shadows thrown by the morning sun sharply delineated every bush, every boulder.
“Only that it started around a utility closet.”
&nbs
p; She settled the shoulder strap of the seat belt so the nylon wasn’t rubbing against her neck. “So have one of your mind readers take a peek and tell you what the fire marshal thinks.”
Dante had to laugh. “You seem to think there are a lot of us, that I have an army of gifted people I can call on.”
“Well, don’t you?”
“Scattered around the world. Here in Reno, there are nine, including myself. None of them are gifted with telepathy.”
“You mean you can’t call your strongest telepath, tell him—” “Her.”
“—her the fire marshal’s name, and she could do it from wherever she is?” “The telepath is my sister, Mercy, and she could do it only if she already knew the fire marshal. If she were meeting him in person, she could do it. But a cold reading, at a distance of roughly twenty-five hundred miles, on a stranger? Doesn’t work that way.”
“I guess that’s good—well, unless you need a stranger’s mind read from a few thousand miles away. I suppose this means mind reading isn’t one of your talents.” She hoped not, anyway. If he’d read her mind that morning…
“I can communicate telepathically with Gideon and Mercy, if we deliberately lower our shields, but we’re more comfortable with the shields in place. Mercy was a nosy little kid. Then, when she got older, she wanted to make sure we couldn’t pop into her head without warning, so she armored up, too.”
“What all can you do? Other than play with fire and this mind-control thing.”
“Languages. I can understand any language, which comes in handy when I travel. That’s called xenoglossy. Um…you know I have a mild empathic gift. Something that’s fun is that I can make cold light, psycholuminescence. That’s usually called witch light.”
“Bet that comes in handy when the electricity goes off.”
“It has on occasion,” he admitted, smiling. “It was especially fun when I was a kid, and Mom made me turn out the light and go to bed.”
That sort of home life was as alien to her as if he’d grown up on Mars, and it made her feel vaguely uneasy. To get away from the subject, she asked, “Anything else?”
