"Then I noticed how caring you were, worried about your friends, strangely vulnerable," he admitted, rubbing a thumb across her cheek. As he'd anticipated, she moved her head and tilted to the side, almost laying down. He followed her. "Yet at the same time, you gave as good as you got. You kind of remind of a cactus."
She frowned. "Wow. The girls must just flock to you."
He shrugged. "You do. You've got this sort of unappreciated beauty and grace about you."
Her small chin jutted out. "I don't know if I want to knock you on your ass or not."
He raised a brow. "I was trained, babe. I could take you any way I wanted."
"Didn't you already do that?" she asked peevishly. "I want to be mad at you."
"Then be mad at me." He cupped her face, remembering what she said. "You said, when you woke up, do you remember? You said he had your name. What did you mean?" Though he suspected.
She relaxed somewhat and looked away from him. "I never know what triggers these dreams, visions, whatever. I just get them sometimes. And I knew. I remember the first dream I had where I could see her eyes, where I saw the jars and realized..."
"Realized what?" he asked.
"Realized I had the same color of eyes. And I don't know," she said, shrugging. "I just feel like he's getting closer, or something and then tonight I dreamed he wrote my-my name." She licked her lips. "I go between Candice and Daniella." A slight tremor went through her.
He kissed her forehead. "I'm not letting you out of my sight. There is no way. No way, he's getting anywhere near you."
"No one can stop things that are meant to be," she whispered.
He leaned up on his elbow and stared down at her, rubbing his hand over her silk covered arm. "I'm not letting anything happen to you. For three years I've lived in some sort of frozen... I don't know..."
"Wasteland?"
He nodded. "Yeah that's about right." He touched her lips, her cheek. "I'm not losing you. Not to him." He leaned down and kissed her. "Not to anyone."
She shook her head.
"Look, let's just say I'm willing to believe you've got special gifts, that several people are blessed with special gifts. However, I've been in situations where I know things were not happening the way they were meant to. I've seen cases where guidance is one thing, set in stone is another."
"But you can't-"
He shook his head. "No, I know. I'm not going to let this bastard take another thing from me. He's stolen enough."
Chapter Sixteen.
Cora and Rogan strode into Desert Cup, neither smiling, both tired and exhausted. Monte was behind the bar serving several customers.
Chris was glaring at them.
Rogan motioned towards the sulking man. "What do you know of Chris?"
She shrugged, leaned closer and whispered, "Not much, he's new around here. Just got here a bit before Christmas, supposedly started classes at the college. I don't know. He's always glaring at me, but then I think he probably glares at everyone."
Rogan studied the man. "How old is he?"
She shrugged again. "I don't know. Lake and I were talking about it one time. He's older than you'd think. I forget. I think Lake may know. For some reason I remember us talking and I said I thought he was in his early twenties, but she said he was more into mid thirties. I don't know how she knows these things, but she does."
For a moment he paused, looked at her and smiled. "You're doubting her psychic capabilities?"
She rolled her eyes.
"How's my girl this morning? How'd the date go?" Monte asked, handing over the large to-go cups to the group at the bar who then shuffled to a table.
"Jeez, everyone knows about my love life now, huh?"
Monte only smiled, his mustache twitching. "So you have an official love life now?" He grinned and wagged his brows at Rogan.
"Shut up, Monte," she said, and pulled her wallet out.
Monte, still ruthlessly grinning, shook his head. "Oh no. This one is on the house. A reason to celebrate."
Good God. Cora leaned over the bar. "True it is. Spectacular, mind blowing, completely exhausted the next day-reason to celebrate." She motioned to Rogan. "Send my coffee with the sex god."
Rogan's chuckle behind her was deep and sexy. She was still confused and not sure what to think or do about him. What they should do. How they should go on. Doubts still swam in her mind, dark and elusive. Should she believe him? Was it just her? Or was it the fact she reminded him of a lost love?
She walked out of the coffee shop. "What no details?" Monte shouted.
She glared at him over her shoulder and strode across the street. Lake was leaning against the doorway of her shop with shades on and slouchy pants and a tie-dyed button-down shirt with rhinestones on it. "I knew it. Mr. Harley can ride can he?" Lake asked.
"What the hell?" Cora asked, shoving her key into the door. "Do I have it tattooed on my forehead?"
Lake tilted her head. "Why yes, there it is, clearly visible now. In flashing scarlet. I was well and truly fucked last night."
"You are so bad."
"And from the stupid grin on your face, you're not so good either. Or would that be he's so damn good, he makes you bad?"
Cora threw her hands up as she flicked on the lights. "Fine. I had sex. Sex in the open. On his Harley! Then on the ground. Then in the apartment in bed and again this morning in the shower." There was also that quick pop he'd given her in the kitchen while the coffee brewed, but she figured Lake didn't need to know that one.
"Damn. He can ride." She sighed. "Wow."
Cora grinned, then giggled. "Wow does sum it up, huh?"
"On a Harley?" Lake laughed outright, the sound throaty and real. "I want details, girlfriend. Details."
Cora shook her head. "Don't think so."
"I always give you details."
Cora cocked a brow. "Yes, but I never ask for them." Seeing Lake was going to ask again, she added, "No."
"I just knew you were going to say that. I love to live through fantasy. Come on. Just one itty-bitty detail?"
Smiling, Cora booted up the computer. "Okay, one itty-bitty detail...it's not itty-bitty."
Lake laughed and slapped the countertop.
"Well, I'm glad I impressed someone," Rogan said from the doorway.
This was one of those times the floor could just open up and swallow her again.
"I'll just leave you two, to...um..." Lake trailed off and nodded to Rogan on the way out the door. "By the way, your aura is lighter," she said to Rogan.
He frowned and looked at her as if she'd just spoken to him in Russian.
"Uh-thank you?" he answered.
Then Cora realized something. "Wait. What about you and Simon? Isn't turn about fair play?"
Lake froze and the laughter died from her eyes. "Simon and I..." She shook her head. "Since when have I been a serious girl? I think I'm going to break it off with him. Fun while it lasted right?"
Cora frowned. "You know best."
Lake nodded then looked up and smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Honey, sometimes I clearly don't know shit. Clearly don't see it either." Then she shook her head. "Look, I'll catch up with you later. I need to think and meditate."
"Okay."
Rogan and Cora watched Lake walk out the door and turn down the sidewalk to go to her own shop.
"So I can ride and am not itty-bitty. Given you've also called me a sex god in front of witnesses I feel empowered. And my aura is lightened. Which I have no idea what the hell that means." He set her coffee down on the counter in front of her. Her mind was still on Lake and the darkness that seemed to shadow her friend just before she left. What had brought it on? Had it been the sex talk?
No. Simon? Maybe they just had a fight. But she'd seen Lake before, after she and her current lover had a fight. Or when she broke up with one. Or when one dumped her. Cora had never known her friend to be pensive about it. Lake rolled with the punches and often threw them herself.
"Come in, Cora? Do you copy?"
"I'm sorry." She blinked and focused back on the man before her. "What did you say?"
"I asked what you were doing today. What your plans were." He leaned over the counter.
"Why, so you can post a guard?"
He raised a brow. "I'm thinking about it. I still know people."
She shook her head. "I don't want a guard. I've gone to the police. I need to call Detective Palacios this morning and talk to him again." She shrugged. "After that, it's up to him, to them, to find him and for me to help anyway I can."
He shook his head. "I don't like this." He caught the back of her neck. "Personally, I think you need a vacation."
She watched him. "To where?"
"Nova Scotia?"
She laughed. "I'm not going to some very cold place clear across the continent to get away from here."
He sighed and only studied her for a minute. "Fine. I had a feeling you'd say that. How about this, I make a call and get a friend to check things out and see what he can dig up."
"Dig up?"
"Yeah, a cop friend back in D.C."
"You have lots of friends?"
He shook his head. "Many I did have are either dead, overseas, no longer acknowledge me, or I've just lost contact with."
"Dead?" she asked, taking the flowers she'd put on the counter yesterday to the back room to refresh the water and clip the ends off.
He followed her. "Yeah. There was the explosion and two good friends were killed."
"What happened?"
"Well," he said, scratching the edge of his mouth. "We went in to get some of our boys out. Got them out too. Several of us were supposed to capture the terrorists. Then everything just lit up. I remember flying, hearing the others yell, something sliced into my skull and that's all I know. I woke up in Germany."
She wanted to hug him, but knew he wouldn't want that. Instead, she dumped the clipped ends into the trash and refilled the vase, shoving the purple tulips into it. She'd give them another two days and that would be it. Turning, she walked up to him. "I'm sorry for your friends."
He nodded and crossed his arms as he leaned against the doorway. "I am too."
"What were their names?" She eased past him.
"Why?" He followed her down the hall.
"Because they shouldn't be forgotten." She set the vase beside the computer monitor at the counter and moved the necklaces and toe rings closer to the flowers. People tended to notice fresh flowers in this day and age, and then they'd notice the merchandise. Cora realized he hadn't said anything and looked up at him, pausing.
He stood staring at her, a muscle bunching in his jaw, his eyes narrowed.
"What?" she asked.
He shook his head. "You're special, Miss Cora O'Donnell."
She smiled, hoping to lighten his serious mood. "So I've been told all my life."
"Like a cactus."
She shook her head. "What were they like?"
She heard him sigh, even as she rearranged the candles yet again.
"They were loyal, I guess. Hard workers."