Reunion (7 page)

“You’re the psychic. You tell me.”

“What did you see?” she asked.

His expression stilled. “What do you mean…what did I see?”

She touched his forehead. “In there. What did you see?”

A chill settled over Laura’s body as she waited for his answer, staring absently at the way the rain ran down his face and wondering if all of it was rain, or if it was mixed with tears. His silence was more telling than he could have known, though his only visible reaction to her question was a slight flaring of his nostrils.

“Gabriel…what did—”

“Hell. I saw hell.” Then he turned to walk away.

Without thinking, Laura reached for him again, clutching at him as if he—or maybe it was she—were drowning. Her hair was slick and plastered to her head. Her nightgown and robe molded to her body, and her bare feet were beginning to chill. But the fire in her voice was something Gabriel couldn’t ignore.

“You listen to me, Gabriel Connor. As long as you draw breath, it’s never too late. But if I’m going to help you, you’re going to have to trust me.”

Tension coiled in the pit of his belly as he stared into her face. He wanted to believe her. No…he
needed
to believe her.

She stood without moving, her hand upon his arm, her gaze unwavering.

Still he hesitated, looking down at the rose that lay in the puddle between them. He kept thinking of one just like it lying on a dead woman’s chest, and then tonight, the rain-soaked token that the killer had once again left behind. And while it had yet to be proven that what he’d seen tonight had actually taken place, his gut instinct told him that it had. He took a deep breath, exhaling softly so as not to wake the demon that slept within him, and stared deep into her eyes.

“Miss Dane?”

“No. Laura, remember?”

He shrugged. “Laura, did you ever consider the fact that I may be going crazy?”

“Do you believe you’re crazy?” she asked.

A long moment passed before he answered, but the determination in his voice was impossible to miss.

“No.”

“Then the question is moot,” she said.

“You could be putting yourself in danger.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time. It won’t be the last,” she retorted.

“I don’t believe in psychics,” he said.

A gust of rain splattered itself across her face and the front of her clothes. Shuddering, she wrapped her arms around herself.

“And I don’t believe in Santa Claus.”

He almost smiled. “Well, isn’t this something? Two skeptics trying to play doctor in a house of cards.”

Then he looked up at the sky, as if he’d just realized rain was still falling, and tugged at her hand.

“We’d better get inside.”

He stepped over the puddle, leaving the rose adrift on the ever-widening surface. In spite of the fact that he believed he’d just “witnessed” another murder, his step was light, and he knew the reason why. Laura Dane was willing to believe.

Unsure of the paths in the darkness, Laura let him lead her toward the house, and all the way there, she fought an overwhelming feeling of doom. Even after they were both warm and dry and back in their respective beds, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was setting herself up for a terrible fall.

Prince Charming Killer Strikes Again!

Laura’s eyes narrowed nervously as she scanned the headline of the morning paper before reading the accompanying story. As one would expect, the authorities hadn’t given many details, but there were enough for her to make a preliminary judgment about Gabriel Connor’s newfound powers.

She glanced up as the housekeeper came into the dining room and set a silver chafing dish on the sideboard.

“Breakfast is served, Miss Dane.”

“Thank you, Matty, but I’m waiting for Mr. Connor.”

Gabriel walked into the dining room on the heels of her statement and kissed Matty good morning before she could make her getaway.

“Good morning, Matty, my love,” he said, grinning because he’d flustered her. Then he glanced at Laura. “No need to wait any longer, I’m here.”

He picked up a warm plate from the sideboard and held it toward her, indicating that she should serve herself first.

Thankful to be doing something besides confronting Gabriel about the story he had yet to see, she set the paper on the chair beside her, then got up from her own chair and began filling her plate, all too aware of the man behind her. Just as she was dropping a spoonful of scrambled eggs on her plate, she felt his arm against her shoulder and knew that if she turned, she would be able to see herself in his eyes. She took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves, but when his voice rumbled close to her ear, she jumped, both from his proximity as well as what he said.

“Do you like the hot stuff?”

Gabriel’s fingers were tangled in the length of her hair as he tilted her face for a kiss. He tasted of cinnamon and something cold, and Laura knew that for the rest of her life, the scent of that spice would make her heart skip a beat.

She dropped the spoon back into the eggs. It hit the metal edge of the dish with a sharp, melodic clink as she turned, trying to focus on the present instead of the vision that had just played through her mind.

“What did you say?”

Gabriel was pointing to a dish just to her right. “Hot. I asked you if you liked hot food.” Then he added. “Hot as in spicy, not as in heat.”

Her mouth formed an inaudible O as she followed the line of his finger.

“Matty makes a salsa with habañero peppers that’s great on scrambled eggs. But it’s very, very hot. A little goes a long way.”

Laura felt like a fool. Salsa. He’d been talking about salsa, not sex.

“Then I think I’ll pass,” she said, hoping her smile wasn’t as lopsided as it felt.

“To each his own,” Gabriel replied, toasting her with a brimming spoonful of the thick, red sauce before sprinkling it liberally onto his eggs and hash brown potatoes.

Laura arched an eyebrow. It even smelled hot. “Yes,” she echoed. “To each his own.”

“Did you sleep well?” he asked, and then looked slightly embarrassed when he added, “I mean after I…after we—”

“I’m fine.”

Still uneasy about sharing any part of his life with a stranger, he nodded, then looked away.

Laura glanced at his face. She could feel him withdrawing and, without thinking, yanked a conversational point out of the blue to keep him from shutting her out completely.

“So…about this Matty who makes wonderful salsa, has she been with you long?”

There was a pensive expression in his eyes as he answered. “She’s been here as long as I can remember and then some.” Then he grinned. “It’s hell trying to be in charge of a woman who has changed my diapers and doesn’t hesitate to remind me of the fact on a regular basis.”

Laura laughed as she laid her napkin in her lap, thankful that, for the time being, he was concentrating on their meal and not the missing paper.

Gabriel paused, his coffee halfway to his lips as he stared over the rim to the woman sitting at his right. When she laughed, she was downright stunning. And when she bent her head toward her plate, a dark, tousled curl kept falling out of place, tumbling to the middle of her forehead like a recalcitrant child.

It reminded him of an old nursery rhyme his mother used to read.

There was a little girl, who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very, very good, and when she was bad, she was horrid.

“Are you?” he asked.

Laura looked up. “Am I what?”

Stunned that he’d voiced his thoughts aloud, he flushed. “Nothing,” he muttered.

“No fair,” Laura said. “You can’t start something and then not finish it.”

The look in her eyes caught him, holding him suspended between one breath and the next as an odd tingle started to inch its way up his spine. He had a sudden vision of her lying on her back beneath him on a bed, his fingers tangling in those curls. He grunted beneath his breath, as if he’d just been kicked in the gut.

“Your hair. It made me remember something,” he muttered.

Laura dropped her fork beside her plate, her eyes widening in disbelief. The smile she’d been considering stayed where it was. Hair was the last subject she’d been expecting to discuss.

“What about my hair?”

Now Gabriel felt silly. “Uh…that curl,” he said, glancing at the way it lay on her skin and wondering if it was as soft as it looked.

Laura frowned and started to push it back in place when Gabriel grabbed her hand.

“Don’t,” he said sharply, and then turned her loose as quickly as he’d grabbed her. “Sorry,” he said, and then shrugged apologetically. “Look, I’m not insulting you. I just got caught thinking out loud.”

“I don’t understand.”

I don’t blame you. I don’t understand this myself.
But this time Gabriel didn’t voice his thoughts. Instead, his gaze raked her face, from the delicate cut of her chin to the freckles on her nose, then back to that impetuous curl that had caused so much trouble.

“‘There was a little girl, who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good…”’ His voice trailed off in the middle of the sentence.

Laura found herself caught in the intensity of his gaze and muttered the end of the rhyme. “‘…she was very, very good, and when she was bad…”’

Gabriel finished what he had started, grinning at his own wit. “…she was better.”

Laura’s eyebrows arched as she hid a quick smile. “That’s not the way I learned it.”

Gabriel picked up his fork and dug back into his salsa-spiced eggs. “If you’d been a boy, you would have.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m eating with a male chauvinist.”

He picked up a small crystal bowl and extended it toward her. “Honey?”

Laura glared at it, then at him. “Shouldn’t that be an olive branch or something similar?”

He grinned. Damned if he wasn’t inclined to like this woman anyway, crazy psychic or not.

“Only if you’re a bird in need of a place to perch,” he said.

Laura grinned back at him and took the bowl of honey he’d offered.

“You may or may not be psychic, but you’re certainly a caution,” Gabriel said, watching as she twirled a thin strand of the thick, amber sweet on top of her toast. It puddled on the surface like tears too thick to fall.

“Darn,” Laura muttered, more to herself than to him as she licked the honey off her thumb.

Gabriel felt as if he were watching her from outside himself. When his belly tied itself in a knot, he looked away, trying to concentrate on something else besides Laura Dane’s mouth and the tip of her tongue.

Suddenly uncomfortable with the pseudocamaraderie that had sprung up between them, they finished the meal in near silence. It wasn’t until Matty came in to ask if they needed assistance that Gabriel thought to ask about the morning paper.

Matty looked about the room, puzzled as to where it had gone.

“I put it on the table, just like I always do,” she said.

Laura flushed guiltily. “I’m sorry. Here it is,” she said, and pulled it from the chair beside her. “I laid it aside when I sat down.”

Satisfied that she was not at fault, Matty bustled out of the room, leaving them alone.

He held out his hand, expecting Laura to hand it over, but when she hesitated, his gut knotted. The expression on her face said it all.

“Well, hell.”

Laura opened the paper, but she didn’t have to look to remember what she’d already read.

“I want you to do something for me.”

His eyes glittered. “Depends.”

“Tell me what you remember from the dream.”

“I spent most of the night trying to forget it.” His voice was angry, his words sharp and bitter.

“Please,” she said. “I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself.”

His hand was shaking as he shoved it through his hair. Even as the words were accumulating themselves inside his mind, he was feeling the scar beneath his fingertips and wondering if it ran into the depths of his brain. Something had tied his mind into knots. He closed his eyes, remembering—and wishing the hell he could not.

“There’s a man on the ground. It’s dark where he’s lying, but I see…saw…trees. Um…he had an umbrella. It’s slightly beneath him…and the crystal on his watch is shattered.” Gabriel shuddered and took a deep breath. “As shattered as his face. The time…his time…stopped at fifteen minutes after twelve. He’s staring up toward the sky, and rain is falling onto his face and then running out the corners of his eyes like tears.” He swallowed, as if the words he spoke had a bitter taste. “There’s a small dog nearby. Grey…no, white, I think. And the rose.” He opened his eyes. His gaze caught and then locked on Laura’s eyes, staring intently, as if he was trying to measure the impact of what he was saying to her. “There’s a rose on his chest, and the stem has no thorns.”