Beverly Barton - The Outcast

"Who are you talking to?" Reece asked.

"My aunt Margaret."

"Who's this O'Grady you're talking about?"

"He's-" Elizabeth removed her hand from the telephone. "Oh, Aunt Margaret, you shouldn't have done that. You're wrong. There is no one here with me. I'm not in any danger."

Reece grabbed the telephone out of Elizabeth's hand, slamming it down onto its cradle. She glared at him.

"Just what do you think you're doing?"

"What made her think you weren't alone?" Reece grabbed Elizabeth by the shoulders. "What did you tell her?"

"I didn't tell her anything." Elizabeth struggled to free herself from Reece's biting fingers.

He tightened his hold. She cried out in pain. Releasing her shoulders, Reece grasped her around the waist, jerking her into his arms. "If you didn't tell her about me, then how does she know you're not alone? Why does she think you're in danger?"

"Dammit, Reece, you're the most distrusting man I've ever known." When he pulled her closer, his face only a breath away from hers, she squirmed in his arms. "Let me go."

"I have reason not to trust people, believe me." He pulled her so tightly against him she could barely breathe.

She looked up into his eyes, those searing amber eyes so like MacDatho's. He was as much a lone wolf, as much a wild animal as Mac. But with her, Mac was a gentle beast, confident and secure in her love. Reece didn't trust her enough to be tamed. A man as hard and tortured as Reece would have to trust a woman completely, would have to love her with his very soul before he would give her the power to tame him.

"Aunt Margaret has psychic abilities. That's the reason I'm here in Sequana Falls. My mother and stepfather brought me here so that she could be my guide, my teacher."

"Are you telling me that your whole family is a bunch of gypsy fortune-tellers?"

"Believe what you will. I'm telling you that Aunt Margaret sensed I wasn't alone, that there was danger lurking about." Elizabeth wasn't sure she could make Reece understand; in the three days he'd been with her, she hadn't been able to convince him of her psychic abilities. There was no point in explaining that she had felt Aunt Margaret's worry and concern, and had plugged in the telephone so her aunt could get in touch with her without the elderly woman delving into Elizabeth's mind and discovering Reece's presence.

"What's your aunt done to upset you?" Reece asked.

"She's sending O'Grady up here just as soon as the roads clear a bit."

"O'Grady?"

"He's Aunt Margaret's gentleman friend. He works for me. Helps me around the greenhouses. He drives my nursery van and makes deliveries into Dover's Mill and surrounding towns."

"When will the roads be clear enough for him to get up the mountain?"

Elizabeth hesitated momentarily, then told Reece the truth. "By morning if he drove the van. The weather's changing pretty quickly. A warm front is headed our way. O'Grady won't try to come in the van. He'll either borrow his grandson's Explorer or he'll get the boy to drive him up here today."

"If O'Grady can make it up the mountain today, then the sheriff's deputies can make it up here." Reece shoved Elizabeth away from him. She staggered slightly, then regained her balance.

"Now that the storm is over, they'll start checking Dover's Mill and the area around Hunter's Lake again. They're setting up roadblocks at all the major intersections and will be going to all the towns close to Dover's Mill, doing door-to-door checks. O'Grady will come up the mountain today because Aunt Margaret sent him. The local authorities won't start combing this side of the mountain until late tomorrow. They'll be looking for your frozen body."

"They think I'm dead?"

"They know that if you stayed in the mountains your chances for survival were slim. Once they've checked the few places you could have found shelter, they'll be convinced you froze to death."

"Are all these great revelations coming from shrewd female intuition or from your hocus-pocus abilities?"

"Would you believe me if I told you the truth?"

"Which is?" he asked.

"That I'm clairvoyant, precognitive and have limited telepathic powers."

Reece's gut tightened into a knot. Damn, but she talked a good game. She had him half-convinced she was a witch. After all, she had left her door unlocked for him, and she seemed to believe in him, in his innocence, with no proof whatsoever. She had nursed him back to health with astonishing speed and without the aid of modern medicine.

"Well, if you know all and see all, then you're aware that I'm planning on getting the hell off this mountain today. Before your aunt Margaret's boyfriend comes calling or before the deputies get within ten miles of this place."

"There's no need for you to leave yet." She knew he would be safe with her for another day. If only she could persuade him to stay until she'd had a chance to call Sam. In his business, Sam had contacts all over the world. It shouldn't be any big deal for him to run a check on Reece and get all the details about the murder, the trial and the possibility of other suspects.

"If you think you can persuade me to stay, then your soothsaying abilities just went haywire. No way am I hanging around here long enough to get caught. I'm not going to prison."

While they'd been talking, Reece had unconsciously backed himself against the wall. He balled his hands into fists, his whole body tightening into a rigid statue of fear and anger.

Elizabeth took slow, even steps, moving toward Reece with the unwavering certainty that she had to get through to him, she had to reach his mind, convince him that she wanted to help him, that he could trust her.

Reece glared at her. She came closer and closer. He wanted to warn her to stay away from him, but he didn't say a word. He simply watched as she stood in front of him, reached out and placed her warm hands on each side of his face. She shut her eyes.

Reece swallowed. A sensation of tender concern seeped into his mind. What the hell? She held his face, tracing his bones with her fingertips. He didn't know what she was trying to do, but he wanted her to stop.

When he wrenched his face out of her grasp, turning his head to the side, Elizabeth opened her eyes and smiled.

"I can't read your mind, Reece. You won't let me."

"Good for me!"

"But I can sense things. Just little things."

"Like what?"

"I can sense your loneliness. You're completely alone. Or at least, you think you are." Reece's inner turmoil stirred within Elizabeth, the great sense of bitterness almost overwhelming her. "You resent others. Your mother. Your father. Everyone who has touched your life in any meaningful way. You won't let anyone close to you for fear of being hurt."

"Shut up, dammit!" Reece turned his back on her and walked away, out into the hallway.

Elizabeth followed him, placing her hand on his back when he braced his open palms on the wall and leaned his forehead against the wooden surface.

He tensed at her touch, but she did not withdraw her hand. "You've been locked away for five months. All I could sense was a cage. But now I know it was a jail cell. The first time I saw you, I saw the shock and pain on your face. I saw the blood on your hands."

Reece whirled around, grabbing her by the shoulders, his eyes wild with the realization that Elizabeth knew things she couldn't possibly know.

"How the hell did you know I had blood on my hands? That was never in the newspapers, never on television or radio. How did you know?" He shook her soundly.

"Reece, stop it!"

He stared into her pure blue eyes, and the truth came to him as surely as if he'd been struck by a bolt of lightning and survived the ordeal. "I didn't kill him. I heard the gunshots. I ran into the library and found him. I tried to stop the bleeding, but it was too late. He died. Damn him, he died and his blood was all over my hands."