LITMIR.BIZ

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Or end it when it was time.

      But what did that matter now? She couldn’t do it anymore. Her “gift” had always been there and very early on she had found it proved much more useful if she kept it to herself. Nobody had believed her anyway unless she demonstrated it and then it seemed to scare them off.

      Only after she heard about the COMPASS team and applied for it had she been totally upfront about what she could do. Telepathy had become a large part of her job, maybe the most important skill she had. Was that why Mercier no longer wanted her as a field agent? Did he realize she had lost it? And if he did, how could he know it wasn’t a temporary loss? How could she?

      Somehow, though, she needed Nick to know she had been inside his head, to believe it now. Maybe she just needed to convince herself it had been real and that it could be again. “You had some serious stuff going on in that mind of yours.”

      “Like worrying about a jail term if I let you have your way with me,” he said lightly. “Did that register at all?”

      “Yeah, I got that, and I’m apologizing for it, okay? Can we be friends again, Nick? Can we put all that behind us and just…get on with this?” God, could she sound more needy?

      “Good friends, always,” he agreed with an emphatic nod. “We’ve never been other than that, Catie. Just relax and don’t worry about a thing.”

      Cate couldn’t let it go. It sounded too pat, too easy. “So you’re not still mad about it, even a little?”

      “Of course not. Can’t you read my mind and tell?” he teased.

      No, not even a little bit. She’d get it back, though. She had to. God, it was like a giant hole in her awareness, that missing ability. Yet another handicap she had to overcome. She missed it as much as she would any of her other five senses. But Nick couldn’t help her with this.

      She needed to understand precisely what her other handicaps were. “Nick, could you explain it to me and dumb it down to layman’s terms? Dr. Ganz told me everything, but I didn’t get much after his initial message of doom and gloom.”

      Nick sighed and renewed his grip on the steering wheel as if bracing himself for something unpleasant.

      “All right. Hitting that rock caused bruising and trauma to your brain. When there’s a sharp blow to the head like that, the bruising and the damage to the internal tissue and blood vessels is due to a something we call coup-countercoup.”

      “Sounds like a double whammy,” she said, trying to conceal her fear.

      “Exactly. The bruise directly related to trauma at the site of the injury is the coup. When the brain jolts backward, it can hit the skull on the opposite side and cause a bruise called the countercoup. The impact of the brain against the sides of the skull can cause a sort of tearing of the lining, tissues and vessels. The result of that can be bruising or swelling of the brain and internal bleeding. That’s why Ganz did the surgery, to relieve the pressure from the bleed.”

      “I see.” Cate ran a finger over the healing scar and the stubble of hair growing in around it.

      Nick continued. “Some injuries aren’t so bad and the symptoms and disabilities disappear over time, while some are severe and may result in permanent impairment.”

      “So how severe is mine?” she asked, hating how scared she sounded. But she had to know. “It must be pretty bad.”

      He glanced at her and tried to smile. “Well, certainly not minor, but you’re still very lucky. All your motor functions seem to be working, if a little slowly. They will get better, though.”

      So maybe she’d get her extra faculty back in time, she thought, hanging on to the hope.

      “What’s your main concern here, Cate?” he asked.

      “Going back to work. Why is Mercier so dead set against that?”

      He shrugged. “The seizures would be my guess. You had several immediately after they brought you in. Grand mal type.” He hesitated for a few seconds. “Those could happen again at any time in the future with little or no warning. You can see how that would hamper you as a field agent and put others at risk.”

      “Ah. Well, suppose I took antiseizure meds?”

      “Could impair cognitive functions you’d need to have sharp on the job.”

      “Space me out you mean?” She swallowed hard and closed her eyes. “Okay, that’s enough. I get the picture, though I don’t necessarily agree that I’m a lost cause.”

      Somehow she’d think of something to get around Mercier’s main objection. Maybe have a number of EEG’s over the next few months and prove there was no longer a threat of seizures. She hadn’t had a single seizure since she woke up. Mercier would be convinced eventually.

      She could hear just fine, no numbness, her taste and smell seemed okay. But occasional double vision and the loss of her sixth sense worried her. She felt lost without the telepathy.

      She couldn’t talk to Nick about the absence of that skill if he didn’t even believe she had it to begin with, so she deliberately changed the subject.

      “My moving in with you won’t mess up anything you’ve got going, will it? With someone else, I mean.”

      “No, I’m not involved at the moment. How about you?”

      “No. There’s no one,” she answered, even as she suddenly realized there probably never would be—nothing serious anyway. She compared every man she met to Nick. Why hadn’t she noticed before that she was automatically doing that?

      She ran her thumb beneath the seat belt where it pressed against her chest. “So this Boy-Scout deed of yours. It wasn’t really your choice, was it?”

      He hesitated just a beat too long. “I care about you, Cate. I want you to recover to the maximum extent and also make sure you can deal with whatever is not possible.”

      She sat up straight and glared at him. “Well, that sounds depressing as hell and pretty damned pessimistic. What do you mean?”

      He punched off the radio. “You do understand that full recovery is probably out of the question? I know Ganz told you that. Solange Mercier affirmed it and I have to agree.”

      “Bull, you don’t have to,” she scoffed, sitting back and crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t care what any of you say, I can whip this, Nick. If you’re giving up before we get started, I don’t need your so-called help!”

      Rising fury had her close to hyperventilating. Her face felt hot as hell and her nails bit into her palms. She recognized the unwarranted anger and knew the heightened emotion was a product of her injury. She deliberately tamped it down. It was a good sign that she could control it, Cate decided with a firm nod. Progress already.

      “I’m not giving up, Cate,” Nick told her, shaking his head. “Only trying to prepare you.”

      “I am prepared,” she said, biting off the words, determined not to unleash her feelings and give him the notion that they were uncontrollable. “I’m fully prepared to do whatever is necessary and then some. I will get back to top speed and I’ll do it in three months. You watch me.”

      He shot her a look that contained no sympathy whatsoever. She hadn’t expected that. She had thought he would cajole, maybe tease or argue just to strengthen her determination. Instead, he focused again on the highway. “I see we’ll have to work on your acceptance of limitations.” His voice was matter-of-fact. “That will be your greatest challenge.”

      He turned the radio on again. Cate watched him for a few minutes, wondering what was going on in that mind of his right now. God, she wished she could read him the way she used to. But the gift was gone, buried under the snow in the Bernese Alps, along with her balance and depth perception. Maybe forever.

      What if he was right? She would be so screwed.

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