Beverly Barton - The Outcast

She'd leave with Dundee. She loved Dundee. He didn't care, dammit! It didn't matter! He had lived his whole life without Elizabeth Mallory. He'd be just fine without her. He didn't need her. Reece gripped the top rail of the porch banister, his knuckles turning white from the strength of his hold.

The front door swung open. Sam Dundee came outside alone. Reece waited for the second set of footsteps, then, when he didn't hear any, decided Elizabeth was probably getting her bags.

Sam walked over and stood by Reece. "It's snowing."

"Y'all better leave soon, otherwise, you and Lizzie could get snowed in here with me."

"Elizabeth says there won't be more than an inch of snow." Sam bent over, clasping the banister with both hands.

"You believe in her psychic abilities?" Reece asked.

"Yeah, I believe," Sam said. "I've known Elizabeth since she was six years old and my brother married her mother. They moved to Sequana Falls, into Elizabeth's grandparents' home, so that she could be near her great-aunt, who also has psychic talents."

"Aunt Margaret?"

"Margaret has been Elizabeth's guide, her teacher and her protector."

"I thought being her protector was your job!"

"Margaret's and mine." Sam turned to Reece.

Reece faced Sam. "If you've got something to say to me, then say it."

"Elizabeth has risked more than you know to follow you, to stay with you, to help you."

"So, when she leaves with you, she won't be risking herself anymore, will she?"

Sam grinned. "She's not leaving with me."

"What?"

"You chose the wrong time to walk in on us," Sam said. "And you misunderstood what you saw and heard. I noticed you standing in the door. Elizabeth didn't. Odd that she can't read you clearly."

Reece held his breath, wanting to believe and yet afraid to believe what Sam was saying. "She's not leaving with you?"

"Elizabeth and I are family." Sam grasped Reece's shoulder in his big hand. "Elizabeth and I are not lovers. We aren't in love."

Reece nodded his head, acknowledging what Sam had said. "She shouldn't stay with me."

"She won't leave you."

"You couldn't persuade her to go with you?"

"No. She's staying with you because she believes she's the only one who can save you," Sam said. "She'll risk being caught with you and charged with aiding and abetting a criminal, she'll risk the possibility of being killed if she gets caught in the cross fire if the law finds you, and she risks her sanity by going into town and facing people whose thoughts and emotions she can't control."

"What do you mean, people's thoughts and emotions she can't control?" Reece stared at Sam, noting the concern in his expression.

"Elizabeth reads minds, she picks up on the energy that comes from people's thoughts and from their emotions. Often she can predict their futures or see into their pasts just by touching them. Sometimes she can control these energies. Other times she can't. When she can't control them, can't shield herself, then she's bombarded with too much input."

"That's the reason she lives secluded in the mountains, isn't it?" Reece asked. "So she won't be exposed to too much psychic energy coming from other people.''

"She almost had a nervous breakdown when she went away to college. We learned then that she didn't dare risk living in a city or even a large town."

"Will she be all right out here? Away from town?"

"She probably would be if she stayed, since she only occasionally picks up anything telepathically at distances, the way she did with you. But she doesn't intend to stay out here," Sam said. "She's meeting me in town tomorrow at Gary Elkins's office."

"Why?"

"She knows it's possible that if she can meet everyone involved with B. K. Stanton, she plight be able to read them and discover which one of them is the murderer."

"No, I can't let her do that," Reece said. "I won't let her put herself at risk for me."

Elizabeth opened the front door and stepped outside. "You two finished with your man-to-man talk?"

"Just about." Sam released the banister, stood up straight and smiled at Elizabeth.

"It's too cold out here for y'all to stay much longer. For goodness' sakes, it's snowing." Elizabeth walked over and stood between Sam and Reece.

"I'll see you in town in the morning." Sam gave Elizabeth a quick peck on the cheek, then walked down the steps and out to his rental car. "You take good care of my T-Bird."

"We could swap," Elizabeth suggested.

"No need to do that, kiddo. You keep the Thunderbird." Sam opened his car door, glanced up at Elizabeth and then over at Reece. "She's worth a king's ransom, Landry. Remember that."

Sam got in the Regal, started the engine and drove away without a backward glance. Elizabeth slipped her arm around Reece's waist. He pulled her close. She laid her head against him.

"You should have gone with him, Lizzie."

"I couldn't leave you."

A sharp, breathtaking pain hit Reece straight in the gut. He couldn't let this happen-he couldn't let Elizabeth care for him, and he didn't dare feel anything more than sexual attraction for her. He wasn't a man accustomed to women like Elizabeth-honest, caring and loyal, with a purity of soul that frightened him.

"You're putting yourself in danger by staying with me." Reece pulled away from Elizabeth, turning to look down into her crystal-clear blue eyes. Eyes that spoke so eloquently without words. Eyes that told him how much she cared, how deeply she longed to share his misery and lighten his burden.

"You don't really want me to leave, do you?"

"Besides the fact that you could get injured accidentally if the law finds me, you're sure to be in big trouble unless we can convince them that I kidnapped you." Reece walked the length of the porch, leaned back against the wall and gazed out at the forest, trees and brush blanketed with a light dusting of newly fallen snow.

Elizabeth stood near the steps, looking across the porch to where Reece rested his back against the house. Why was it so difficult for him to accept the fact that she wanted to stay with him, to help him, to comfort him? Surely the good Lord wouldn't have sent Reece to her if he hadn't meant the two of them to be together.

Reece kept his gaze focused on the scenery. "Sam told me what you're risking, emotionally and mentally, by leaving Sequana Falls, by exposing yourself to so many other people's thoughts and feelings."

"Sam told you?"

"He thought I had a right to know."

"He shouldn't have told you."

Reece turned around slowly, admitting to himself that he had to face Elizabeth and yet not wanting to look into those all-too-knowing blue eyes of hers. Why now, God, why now? he asked himself. Why send someone so special into my life when my whole world has crumbled around me? Why offer me something that I can never have, something I'm not worthy of, something I didn't dream could ever be mine?

"You're going to wind up getting hurt, one way or another, because of me." When he saw her take a tentative step forward, he held up a hand to warn her off. "I can't give you what you want. I'm no good for you, Lizzie. What do I have to say or do to get through to you?"

"I thought we'd settled this argument." She wanted desperately to run to him, throw her arms around him. She couldn't; he wouldn't accept her. Not now.

"When you go into Newell and meet with Gary Elkins, you're going to be exposed to hundreds of people, maybe thousands. How can you deal with that kind of attack on your mind?"

"It's not as bad as Sam led you to believe." Elizabeth knew she was trying to convince herself as much as Reece. "When I went away to college I was only in my teens and I hadn't been able to train my mind to shield itself."

"Can you shield your mind now?"

"To some extent," Elizabeth said. "Every living thing gives off energy. I read the psychic energy people emit. Sometimes that energy is so strong I can't block it."