LITMIR.BIZ

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had changed him scared her.

      “You have to tell me what you mean.”

      He looked as though he didn’t want to speak.

      “You’re the one who brought it up!” she threw at him.

      “Yeah. Because of the reason you came here.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then said, “Shelley, I’ve never told this to anyone. Well, I mean, my mom figured it out. But I never admitted anything—even to her. Especially to her.”

      She kept her gaze steady. “I’m still not following you.”

      “When I was kidnapped, I was just an ordinary kid. When I came back, I was different.”

      She wanted to scream at him. Whatever he was planning to say, he was dancing around it. “Spell it out,”

      “Okay. I can make people do things.”

      “That’s your terrible secret?” she shot back. “Well, what’s the big deal? I can make people do things, too. I can make Trevor go to bed at bedtime. I can make his nursery school teacher be more sensitive to his needs.” She bit her lip. “Well, I could do those things—before he disappeared. So what exactly do you mean?”

      He thrust his hands into his pockets. “I mean that I can suggest a course of action—and the person will follow it. I don’t mean I say or do anything. I just think about it—and they do it.”

      “That’s … nonsense.”

      His stance turned aggressive. “Oh, yeah? So you think it was all your idea to leave me?” “Of course it was!”

      “Not true. I put the idea in your mind—and you did it.” “How?”

      “I don’t exactly know. I came back from those three missing months with the power to influence people.”

      She stared at him, trying to take that in, and trying to figure out what it meant to him. She’d driven here through a raging storm because she needed his help. Now it seemed as though he’d come unhinged. From the news that he had a son and that Trevor was missing? Or had it started earlier—when he’d walled himself off from the world?

      As she regarded him, she started putting a bunch of things together, a bunch of things that added up to very odd behavior. He’d given up raising horses. He had an alarm system to warn him if someone was sneaking up on him. He was holed up here in this house like a hermit. He had a bunch of guns, not just normal rancher’s hardware. And she was locked in here with him.

      Suddenly, she was wondering what Matt Whitlock might do if he thought he was cornered.

      When he started toward her, she cringed—giving away her fears.

      He stopped short, staring at her. “You’re afraid of me,” he said in a flat voice. “No.”

      He shook his head. “It’s written all over your face, but I don’t blame you.”

      “You say you have this talent—and you never told anyone about it,” she challenged.

      “That’s right.” He sighed.

      “Why not?”

      His expression turned glacial. “For starters, my mother tried to beat it out of me. I’ve told you what she was like. Strict. Absolutely certain of what was right and what was wrong. She used to talk about the neighbors. The people in town. She’d make judgments about them—and nobody ever came up to her standards. She even drove an extra fifty miles to a dry goods store because she didn’t like Mr. Mason, the guy who owned the mercantile in Yuma.” He took a breath.

      “When she realized what I could do, she was sure it was the work of the devil. None of that made for an idyllic childhood.”

      Her heart squeezed, and she tried to imagine what it must have been like for him—if he was telling the truth.

      He sighed. “I see you’re having a little trouble with the concept. Do you want me to prove it?”

      “How?”

      “We’ll call Ed Janey over from the bunkhouse, and I’ll get him to do something.”

      “Maybe it will be something he was going to do anyway.”

      He laughed. “I mean, you can choose what you want him to do.”

      “Like what?” “Anything.”

      She thought for a minute, trying to come up with something Matt wouldn’t think of. Something that wasn’t obvious. “You used to keep cans of vegetable beef soup in the pantry. Do you still?”

      “Yes.”

      “Tell him to get a can from the shelf—and take it home,” she tossed out, sure that would be the end of the experiment.

      To her surprise, Matt said, “Okay. Come back to the kitchen and we’ll call him.”

      He walked past her, and she could have refused to go along with this crazy plan. Instead she climbed off the couch and followed him down the hall.

      When she stepped through the door, he was holding the receiver of the wall phone and dialing.

      “Ed?” he said.

      She couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, but she made sure Matt wasn’t giving his foreman any clues.

      “There’s somebody over here who wants to say hello to you. Would you mind coming over?”

      “Yeah. In this weather.”

      He hung up and turned to her. “He’ll be here as soon as he can get his coat and boots on.” “Okay.”

      She walked to the table and picked up the mug of chocolate. It wasn’t very hot anymore, but sipping it gave her something to do while she waited in the kitchen with a man who might be insane. She didn’t want to think about it that way, but she couldn’t stop herself from studying Matt’s blue eyes, his mouth, his big rugged hands. He’d left his gun in the mudroom. Did he have another one in a kitchen drawer?

      The clock on the wall ticked off the minutes, and she wondered if Ed was really coming. Or had Matt even spoken to Ed? Maybe this was all a sham. Like in a horror movie. She fought to get that notion out of her head.

      When Matt saw her watching him, he went to the window and looked out at the wide expanse of white. A few minutes later, there was a knock at the back door. She heard someone stamping snow off his boots. Then Ed Janey came into the kitchen. He’d hung his coat up and was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. His shoulders were a little stooped, his hair had gone completely gray, and his weathered face was more lined. But he had the same lean body that she remembered from when she’d lived at the ranch. They’d been friends back then.

      “Shelley?” he said as soon as he saw her. “Is it really you?”

      “Yes.”

      He crossed the kitchen and wrapped her in his arms. “It’s so good to see you.”

      She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “And you, too.”

      “What brings you here?”

      She glanced at Matt, then away. “I needed Matt’s help with something,” she said in a low voice.

      Ed stepped back and studied her. “You got troubles, honey?”

      “Nothing too bad,” she managed to say.

      He looked from her to the window and back again. “Heck of a day for a visit.”

      “I was passing by,” she murmured, wondering if he believed her.

      They chatted about old times for a few more minutes, and she heard regret in Ed’s voice. Obviously he wished that Matt was working the ranch. Did the foreman feel useless? Probably, and that was a shame, because he’d been such an important part of the

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