LITMIR.BIZ

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at the soft V neckline of her pale green sweater, she stared at the floor, her eyes unfocusing slightly as she considered his words. She appeared to concentrate for a few seconds, and then she looked up. “I don’t know anything. I’m sorry, is it supposed to mean something to me?” Her words were soft and polite, too proper for his taste, too gentle for what he was feeling.

      “Yes, princess, it’s supposed to mean something. You know that as well as I do.” He knew he was coming on too strong, knew he was probably frightening her, but the confused and angry fog that had enveloped him since Sabrina and Aaron had visited him earlier that evening had wrapped around him once more, and now he was going up and down this emotional roller coaster on autopilot.

      She pushed one of the water glasses she’d filled across the counter toward him. “Alex,” she said calmly. “Why don’t you sit down, and drink some water, and you can tell me what you know. Then maybe I can hel—”

      Lunging forward, he slammed his palm against the counter beside her, causing her to shrink abruptly away from him. “I’m not asking you to do your pretend psychic thing. You know something,” he hissed. “You know him.” It had been so long since he’d thought about his father—he hadn’t expected it to hurt anymore. But it did, and the more he spoke to her, the more that anger bubbled up to the surface, causing him to lash out at her.

      Her deep blue eyes were no longer sleepy—in fact, they looked almost afraid. Of him.

      Ah, crap. It wasn’t like him to try to intimidate anyone, much less a woman who was so much smaller than he was. And if he hadn’t been so desperate for the truth, he might have tried the more effective and less jerk-like method of charming the information out of her first, before attempting the caveman approach. His anger lifted as suddenly as it had come, and he straightened, fully intending to back away and apologize.

      That was before she pulled out the barbecue fork.

      He didn’t know where she’d gotten it from, but before he’d even registered that she was moving, she’d braced one hand against his chest, and the other held a large, two-pronged fork mere millimeters from his left eyeball.

      “Uh, Sophie…”

      “That’s Princess Sophie to you.” Her hand was as steady as an oak tree, and she didn’t look even remotely scared of him anymore. Though her voice hadn’t risen in volume, she looked like a woman who’d put a fork through his eye if she had to. “And for your information, I don’t know a Jack Runningwater. I have never met a Jack Runningwater. I have no idea why you keep throwing that name in my face, though I really wish I did, because I’m a naturally curious kind of person.”

      Still holding the fork in place, she took her hand off his chest, glaring at it briefly as if it had touched him without her permission. “But what I do know,” she continued, “is exactly what I told you before—that the murder victim you found is connected to you somehow, you’re in danger and I have this nagging feeling that I should stay close to you, because I think I can keep you safe. The problem is, I want to stay close to you about as much as I want to stick this thing in my own eye.” She waved the barbecue fork at him, then tossed it on the counter with a clatter, a look of mild disgust twisting her pretty mouth. “Now, I think you were just leaving.”

      He nodded, backing away so she’d see he wasn’t a threat. “I’m sorry.” He felt small and really stupid after that speech. Belatedly taking his baseball cap off his head, he ran his hands through his short hair. He didn’t know why, but he suddenly wanted her to know he meant that apology. “You know, I almost believe you’re not lying to me,” he said. It was the closest he could come to admitting that she might not be the monster he’d created in his head.

      She looked him straight in the eye. “I’m not lying to you, Alex.”

      He took a deep breath. If he wanted the truth, he needed to speak it himself. “But I don’t believe you’re psychic.”

      “Then believe this.” She moved near enough that he could count the freckles dusting her nose, smell the scent of flowers coming from her hair. She might not be psychic, but somehow, in some definitely-not-his-type kind of way, she was magic. And he so didn’t want her, of all people, to be magic. “I am not a danger to you,” she continued. “I have no ill will toward you, and I would do anything, anything I could to prevent something bad from happening to you.”

      Then she reached out and closed her hand around his arm. He opened his mouth, but no words would come out.

      And she gasped.

      Without stopping to think about the advisability of his actions, he let his gaze drop to her lush pink mouth, knowing exactly what she’d felt the minute she’d touched him. “What, Sophie?” he murmured.

      “I don’t know what it is about you—” She stopped, licked her lips.

      That was funny, because he didn’t know what it was about her, either. He moved closer, breathing her in, mesmerized.

      “—that makes me suddenly compelled to say some really bizarre things….” She shook her head, backed away, and whatever it was that had flared up just then dissipated as the space between them grew. Her expression flattened, and she was clearly back to business; the only hint of what had just happened was the faint blush left behind on her cheeks.

      “Never mind—I’m going to leave that alone for a little bit.” Her eyes grew slightly unfocused as she reached up and rubbed her temple. “Humor me for a minute. Who is Jack Runningwater?”

      The name was like a blast of cold water in the face. He had to get out of here. She was beautiful, and she wasn’t his usual dim-and-too-skinny type, and she probably had a voodoo doll of him somewhere in her apartment that she’d bewitched. He was angry at her. He didn’t trust her. He did not, could not, be even the slightest bit attracted to her. For God’s sake, she knew something.

      “Tell me,” she urged.

      He didn’t want to, feeling the old shame he always experienced whenever anyone drew a connection between him and Jack Runningwater, but he knew he should, given that he’d been firing the name at her like a rain of bullets earlier in the conversation. At the very least, maybe revealing some of his cards would get her to inadvertently show some of hers. “Do you remember when Wilma Red Cloud was killed?”

      She nodded, the line between her eyes returning as she obviously struggled to recall the details that had been splashed across newspapers and on the evening news so many years ago. “The first female tribal president of the Oglala Lakota. We read about her in school. Wasn’t she murdered—”

      He nodded, cutting her off. “Strangled by a man from her own tribe. No one knows why, though they suspect he was jealous, or angry that a woman was in such a powerful position.” He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the scuffed linoleum on her floor. “I have it on good authority he was just a no-good drunk.”

      Her expression cleared as she made the connection. “Jack Runningwater. That’s the man who killed her.”

      “I was six,” he said, not acknowledging her revelation. “I don’t remember much about him. I just know one minute I had a home and a family, and the next, my mother was dragging me off the reservation and halfway across the country.”

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