LITMIR.BIZ

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want to go there. Not yet. It was too soon and she wasn’t ready.

      “You know what I’m talking about.” He braked when a car cut in front of him. “It’s as if you somehow knew something had happened to Carissa.”

      “You can’t be serious.” Hypocrisy will get you nowhere, Noelle Cooper.

      He nodded. The tightness around his mouth revealed his determination. He was going to discuss the subject no matter what she said.

      “Nathan, I’m not psychic. I’m surprised a former pastor like you would suggest such a thing.”

      “No, not psychic. But you’ve always been able to perceive things others don’t,” he said. “I remember you had dreams several days before your mother died.”

      “You remember that? We were seven.”

      “You told me about it, and it stuck with me. It scared me, because every time you had a dream after that, I was afraid someone would die.”

      She closed her eyes and leaned back against the headrest. Growing up as country neighbors, she and Nathan had ridden horses and bikes, hiked, explored caves, and wandered over the extensive acreage of the combined Cooper and Trask properties. They’d done homework together when they were old enough for homework. She’d shared her thoughts and dreams with him, and he’d remembered, after all this time.

      “So you do know what I’m talking about,” he said.

      “Just because I had dreams before Mom died doesn’t mean anything.”

      “Remember that orange-and-white kitten of mine that got lost when we were ten? I told you about it, and you went right to it. I’d looked for at least two hours, and you found it in five minutes.”

      She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. This was just great. She was stuck in a moving vehicle halfway to Hideaway with Nathan Trask, who seemed to be very much in the mood for an argument.

      She pointed to a sign. “There’s your turn. Focus on your driving for a few minutes, will you?”

      He shot her a quick glance that said, “This subject is only tabled, not closed,” but made the turn in silence.

      Chapter Four

      Ihave to think…have to get control! Where did she go? What if she knows it’s me? She could beat me to the house, she could tell the others that I tried to kill her!

      But I didn’t kill her. I stopped myself. I can stop this if I try hard enough. I can keep the fear from controlling me.

      She’s just lost in the cave somewhere, scared and alone. I need to go back and find her and take her home. Maybe if I stay with the others when this thing hits…when this slow, shifting spiral into terror strikes me…their presence might force me to control my actions.

      Yes. I’ll have to find her. Everything will be okay.

      Carissa won’t be able to find her way back without my help. I’m in control.

      I can stay in control.

      Nathan took a bypass around Branson’s busiest highway, increasingly aware that Noelle’s silent observation of the passing roadside was a sign that he’d struck a nerve. This new road had very little traffic, but he waited to speak, respecting her wish for silence, until they were on the far side of Branson.

      “I wish you’d at least talk to me about it,” he said at last.

      She cleared her throat but didn’t answer. A few moments later, she sighed, but still didn’t speak.

      “It’s okay,” he said at last. “I understand. It’s difficult. The kind of gift that you’ve been given can’t be an easy thing to live with.”

      She gave a soft snort. “Gift? You’ve got to be kidding.”

      “That’s what I’d call it.”

      “Do you remember where I found the kitten?”

      “At my grandmother’s, up the road, in the milk barn.”

      “Big surprise,” she said dryly. “Cats love milk.”

      “I’d just finished looking everywhere in that barn before you led me to her.”

      “So I got lucky.”

      “I can’t count the number of times you’ve practically told me what I was feeling without my having to say a word.”

      “That happens with friends,” she said.

      Nathan drove in silence for a few more moments while Noelle returned to her study of the passing hills and hayfields. She wasn’t fooling him. He knew her too well. She couldn’t deny something they had grown up knowing—she had been blessed with an unusual amount of empathy.

      No, not just empathy. Intuition, too, and more…

      They’d never talked about it, when they were children, because then it hadn’t seemed like such an unusual thing to them. He suspected that for the past ten or twenty years she had even tried to deny the gift completely. Or maybe she hadn’t experienced it. Noelle’s lifestyle in her late teens and twenties had not given her much of an opening for guidance by the Holy Spirit.

      He couldn’t remember when she’d first shown signs of this special sense about other people. She was right, she did have a logical thought process and a natural gift for reading body language. She also had a genuine affection for people.

      But there was something extra, besides all that, and the best definition he could find was to call it “a discernment.” Some might say it was unnatural, but if anything it was supernatural, a spiritual gift from God, because, somehow Nathan was sure, Noelle had never attempted to “conjure” this gift.

      He couldn’t help wondering about last night, but for now he wouldn’t push it.

      “Be gentle with Jill when you see her,” he said, knowing Noelle would appreciate the change of subject, even if it did mean talking about another uncomfortable issue.

      “Fine. I’ll just tenderly punch her in the nose.”

      He grinned as he negotiated a sharp curve past Reeds Spring. “I think she feels partly responsible for Carissa’s disappearance. Carissa was bringing back a ledger from the office for Jill to look at. You knew Jill and Cecil formed a business partnership for Cooper’s Sawmill?”

      “Yes, she told me. Sounds like Aunt Pearl’s not crazy about the idea.”

      “Pearl doesn’t like losing authority, but Cecil and Jill finally managed to convince her that they need to modernize if they’re going to retain their edge in the market.”

      “Meaning computers,” Noelle said. “Jill told me two weeks ago that they’d already purchased two. Also that Melva’s tackling the job of entering data for the whole year, and Jill’s learning the system with her. Aunt Pearl must be fit to be tied.”

      Nathan chuckled. “She hates anything she can’t understand.”

      Noelle glanced at him. “But Jill has her nursing job at the clinic. How does she have time for both?”

      “Maybe you should talk to her about that.”

      “I did, but Jill wouldn’t listen. Remember, I’m the baby sister without a brain in my head.”

      Nathan heard the frustration in her voice. Noelle and Jill loved each other very much, but they never quite overcame the clash of wills that should have been settled between them long ago—Jill’s fierce need to nurture versus Noelle’s equally fierce need for independence. Jill nurtured not only her sister, but her extended family, the patients she worked with at the clinic and the clinic staff, as well. Consequently, she had little time to nurture herself. She was often irritable and stressed.

      Nathan braked for a slow moving car in front of him. “Jill’s

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