Кей Хупер - Out of the Shadows

It was, Bishop had said, their own unique afterglow.

Miranda wondered how long the effects would last this time. Would it be days or hours before they could use their abilities again? And when they could, would they discover, as they had before, that their joining had created something remarkable?

Bishop moved behind her, and she turned onto her back to look up at him as he raised himself on an elbow.

"Wow," he said.

"I think you said that the first time," she observed.

"I wouldn't be a bit surprised." He touched her face gently. "I guess I'd expected all the years we were apart to change everything."

"Some things," Miranda said, not without ironic humor, "seem to be immutable."

Bishop smiled. "In this particular case, I hope you don't expect me to be upset about that."

Honestly curious and a little surprised, she said, "Then it doesn't bother you to be so ... exposed?"

"To you? No," he answered without hesitation.

"It did once."

"I was an idiot then. I think I've mentioned it."

"I think you have."

He hesitated, then said, "I don't know how much came through just now, how much you've had a chance to think about, but you have to realize I never meant to go behind your back, Miranda."

"I know that." She had felt his regrets, so intense even after all these years that it had been painful. "I know that Kara agreed to help you only after you promised you wouldn't tell me." She paused. "But you did go to her without telling me, and you did that because you knew I would have said no."

Bishop didn't deny it. "I told myself she was old enough to decide what she wanted to do, that you were just being the protective older sister, worrying too much, and that once she helped us catch the bastard you'd agree it had been for the best. But I knew it was wrong. Going to her without telling you first was a ... betrayal of you, a betrayal of everything we were trying to build between us. But — "

"But," she finished dryly, "you thought you could justify it."

"Yeah, I did." He didn't try to do that now, didn't argue as he had then that to catch a vicious killer virtually any means could be justified. He simply said, "I was wrong. Nothing could have excused hurting you like that, destroying your trust in me. Even if ... even if it had turned out differently, it would have been over between us. It took me a long time to realize that. And understand why."

She was silent, watching him.

"And it was a professional mistake too. I closed my mind to all the facts I should have considered. You knew Kara far better than I did, understood her abilities in a way I never could have. You

realized how vulnerable she was to a stronger mind, especially a psychic one."

"You had no way of knowing Harrison was psychic," Miranda reminded him. "None of us had."

He nodded, but said, "The difference is that it was a possibility you would have considered — if I'd given you the chance."

"Maybe."

He frowned slightly as he gazed down at her. "Miranda, you haven't spent all these years thinking any part of it was your fault, have you?"

"If we hadn't been arguing about it that last day, if I had just let you get back to doing your job, then maybe—"

"Miranda." His hand lay warmly against her face, his thumb moving in a gentle, soothing motion across her cheekbone. "It wouldn't have made a difference, you know that. You have to know it. There were two teams of agents and half a dozen plainclothes officers stationed all around the house. I would have been outside with them. Even if I'd been there, I wouldn't have known what was happening inside until too late."

"Your spider-sense might have—"

"You're forgetting." His mouth twisted in self-loathing. "I wanted to confess, but I had some idiotic idea that you'd be more likely to forgive me if I confessed after we made love that morning."

She had forgotten that, which might have been surprising except for the utter chaos of the emotions that had followed during that endless day and all the days afterward.

"Very much a man thing, that sort of notion," she murmured, unable to resist.

"Apparently. And a stupid thing." He grimaced. "You know, I think it's one of the things I'm most ashamed of, that I had the colossal conceit to believe — honestly believe — that you wouldn't be able to stay mad at me when you were ..."

"Weak with satisfaction?"

He closed his eyes briefly. "I don't believe I've ever been so wrong about anything in my life."

In retrospect, Miranda couldn't help but see the humor in it, but all she said was, "Let's call it a lesson learned and move on."

"Thank you," he said sincerely. "Moving on — since we had made love that morning, the spider-sense was temporarily out of order. Psychically, I was blind as a bat. So I wouldn't have had a clue that something bad was happening inside the house. Hell, I couldn't even sense a direct danger to myself."He briefly touched his left cheek. "Which is why I got this."

"I wondered. I knew you got it that day when Harrison — when he got past all the cops, but I never thought about how he was able to get that close to you."

"That's how. I never saw him coming. In any sense." Bishop paused. "He also got my gun. Killed four more people with it."

Miranda hadn't know about that. "I'm sorry."

He nodded. "Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that you weren't to blame in any way for what happened. It was my fault. Start to finish, it was my fault."

"Ultimately, it was Harrison's fault. He killed my family, Bishop, not you."

"Yes, but I made them a target. If I had gone to you first, it would have all been so different. I don't know if I'd have been able to convince you, but I do know that if you'd been involved, you would have been able to protect Kara, maybe even prevent Harrison from following that psychic connection back to her."

"I think you overestimate my abilities," she said, deliberately light.

"Do I?" He kissed her, taking his time about it, then said, "You knew this would happen. Us."

She didn't try to deny it, ruefully aware that he had mined that little nugget from her own brain during the wild kaleidoscope of mental communication. "I knew. And I wasn't happy about it, not then."

"What about now? Regrets?"

"No." She reached up to briefly touch his cheek, absently tracing the scar. "I don't know how I feel, except that I'm glad you're here. I'm not thinking past that."

"I'll settle for that. For now." He kissed her again, his brows drawing together as he sorted through the images and emotions stored in his brain. The exchange between them had been rather like viewing a videotape in extreme fast-forward mode, and it was only now that they could begin to sift through and understand all the information.

"You knew we'd be lovers again," he said slowly. "But there was something else, wasn't there? Something else you saw even before any of this started."

Miranda hesitated even now, not because she didn't want to confide in him but because she was uneasily aware that she might already have changed the future she had seen. Everything else had happened in the expected order, except for this. Five. Five victims, and then they became lovers again — that's what she had seen.

Had she changed the future? In building up her shields so strongly to close Bishop out and try to avoid any closeness between them, had she inadvertently caused the ideal situation that would make it possible for him to revive their relationship — and their bond?

And if she had . . . what would be the repercussions?

"Miranda?"

She smiled. "I don't know about you, but I'm starving."

"Miranda—"

"I'm not stalling. Well, not much." Whether or not she had changed the future, sooner or later she'd have to tell him what she had originally seen. Or he'd find the information stored in his own mind. And since she was reasonably sure of what would happen when he discovered it, any delay seemed wise. "I just think that since neither of us is sleepy and the storm may knock out the power at any time, we should take advantage of all the modern conveniences while we can."