Tell Me No Lies (50 page)

Catlin buried his hand in the fragrant softness of Lindsay's hair, tilting her head back until she was forced to meet his eyes. The pain revealed on his face made her cry out in protest.

"Do you understand?" he asked harshly. "I had given my word to protect you, and I was thinking about breaking that word. I knew that if I turned around and went back to that hotel I could have you. If the emotions you felt for me were really love – great, no problem. If not, you were too good, too generous, too kind to throw me out when the adrenaline wore off for you, because by then you would know how much I needed you. Either way, passion or compassion, you would be mine." Catlin let out his breath in a hissing curse, then said simply, "I waited as long as I could. Three weeks."

Lindsay looked into his eyes and saw his truth as clearly as his self-contempt. "Catlin, don't," she said, her tone dark, husky. "You could have waited three years and the answer would still have been the same. I love you."

His smile was bittersweet, painful. "I hope so, honey cat, because I sure as hell love you." Abruptly he let go of her and stepped back, shoving his hands deep into his pockets to keep from touching her. "Last chance. Tell me to go away and come back in three months. Two months. One – "

Lindsay smiled despite the tears aching in her throat. "None," she said. "Not a month, not a week, not a day. Not even an hour. A second, maybe. No more."

Catlin searched Lindsay's eyes intently, seeing through tears to the truth beneath. Slowly his hands came out of his pockets. In the palm of his right hand was the familiar blue-green of ancient bronze set in a circle of beaten gold. He caught Lindsay's hand and slid the ring onto her finger.

"It's not a traditional kind of ring," he said, brushing his lips over first the bronze and then Lindsay's lips, "but we've hardly had a traditional kind of courtship, have we?"

As Lindsay looked down at the small, ancient coin, her breath caught and she went very still. The halves had been welded together, revealing the complete outline of a flying bird. She tried to speak, to tell Catlin what his gift meant, but all she could say was his name and her love as his arms pulled her close, holding her as though he were afraid something would take her from him once more.

Crouched within an incandescent pool of light, alive with timeless designs, the dragon's eyes saw all truths, all lies, all fears, all dreams, all the billion possibilities of reality… and one of those possibilities was a bird with two wings, two lives soaring.