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so quit worrying. Life is good."
Rachel picked up a pencil and rolled it between her fingers. "I suppose
you're right." Except her gut told her there was more to this case than they
knew. Then again, her various body parts had been lying to her all morning and
most of the night. Ever since she'd met Nathan Cross.
Nathan Cross. Refusing to allow the heat his name evoked in her to reach her
cheeks, she let her mind wander over what she knew about him: Aside from the
fact that he looked even better out of a tux than in one, he liked art so much
that he made a career out of teaching its history, and he didn't pick up women
who hit on him at museums.
Maybe he was married. What a crime that would be. All that man and only one
woman could enjoy him.
She lost the battle to stem her rising blush and felt the blood fill her
face.
No, Nathan Cross wasn't married. Besides the fact that he didn't wear a ring,
she'd seen the appreciation in his eyes. He hadn't been thinking about another
woman when he'd turned her down at the gala.
Which made her wonder why he'd been desperate to the point of rudeness to get
away from her only to walk two blocks in the bitter cold and happen upon an
assassination about to occur.
She chewed on her jelly doughnut, pondering, then tossed the uneaten half in
the trash and helped her teammates pack up. They had flights to catch.
She, on the other hand, felt some vacation time coming on. She had plenty of
unused days, and she planned to take a few of them.
In Chicago.
Nathan felt Rachel's presence a. full second beforeshe opened the door to the
bar where he was nursing an empty shot glass. He smelled her signature
rosemary scent. Who made perfume out of rosemary, anyway?
He lifted his glass toward the bartender. "Make it two."
"A double?"
"No. Two glasses."
The realization that he'd smelled her before he'd seen her, before she'd even
come inside, grated his nerves. He didn't understand it; he shouldn't be able
to feel a human this way. He shouldn't have been able to slide so deeply into
her mind three nights ago. And when he had, she sure as hell shouldn't have
been aware of him there.
Yet she'd snapped herself awake when he'd touched her, as if she'd actually
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felt his hand. Sitting stark upright in bed with the sheet clutched to her
chest, she'd stared into the darkness as if she could see him.
Impossible.
She'd been having a bad dream, that's all. She'd frightened herself awake and
seen only the nightmare images in the seconds before they faded, not him.
But if she had looked back at him, seen him standing before his window, she'd
gotten an eyeful. And if his body had reacted to the impact of her imagined
gaze, jumping to life as if she'd been the one to touch him so intimately,
that was only wishful thinking on his part.
It had been a long time since he'd been with a woman.
It would be a lot longer yet, he reminded himself as she strolled toward the
bar. He planned to live the rest of this life, his last life, in celibacy.
Sure, he could have a woman if he wanted one. Use a condom so that he
wouldn't have to worry about stealing another baby from its mother's arms.
He'd gained a little relief from the craving that drove him to reproduce that
way in the past. These days he could even have a vasectomy if he wanted. Then
he could be with as many women as he cared to, whenever he cared to.
But he wouldn't, because he didn't want just sex.
He wanted a mate. Someone to kiss good night and cook breakfast for.
If he shared his life with a woman, sooner or later she was bound to find out
about him. She'd see something she shouldn't see.
Then&
He wouldn't let himself think about what happened then. It was enough knowing
that a relationship with Rachel Vandermere would come at too high a price. For
both of them.
She dropped a black leather clutch bag on the counter, hiked up the hem of a
modest black dress that fell to knee-length, and swung herself onto the stool
next to his. The bartender dropped two whiskeys in front of him, and he pushed
one to her with the back of his hand, then downed his in one gulp.
Surprisingly, she followed suit, swallowing the drink without so much as a
sputter.
"Thanks," she said, and slapped the glass down on the bar. "I needed that."
He took out his wallet, flipped a twenty on the bar, and turned to leave.
"I missed you at the funeral," she said, stopping him cold. "Rhys Keller was
your friend. I assumed you'd want to pay your respects."
He turned, the whiskey burning in his gut. Something else burning a few
inches lower. "There you go assuming things again. I would've thought a cop
would deal more in facts than supposition."
"Which part did I get wrong? Rhys wasn't your friend, or you don't want to
pay your respects?"
"I don't have to stand beside his grave to say good-bye to him. He isn't
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there. He's dead."
God, it hurt to say it. Hurt like a hole right through him where his
friendship used to be. Nathan didn't know whereLes Gargouillen went between
lives; none of them did. But he knew it was a cold and empty place. Dark and
silent. It wasn't as if Rhys was sitting on some cloud watching his family and
friends mourn him below.
"He might not have been there," Rachel conceded. "But his father was, and his
little boy, Patrick. I'm sure it would have comforted them "
He snatched his jacket off the bar. "You don't know what the hell you're
talking about, lady." Patrick might have been happy to see him, but he was
just a child. Too young to understand. "I have to go."
She stopped him with a firm grip on his arm. He could easily have jerked away
from her, but the contact surprised him so much that he went perfectly still.
People didn't touch him often. Something to do with his sunny disposition, he
supposed. He'd once had a student tell him he was about as approachable as a
Rottweiler with a T-bone.
Rachel Vandermere, however, did not look intimidated. When he finally pulled
his gaze away from the spot where her hand rested on his arm, she hooked her
off-kilter eyebrow, making her face even more uneven, and more interesting,
than usual.
Curse him for noticing.
"Let me guess." She smiled at him. The look was casual, almost friendly, but
there was something less affable just beneath the surface of the expression.
"You're late for another engagement."
"As a matter of fact "
"This isn't a social call, Professor Cross." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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