Cora laughed. "You always use that as an excuse. I don't know why you think you intimidate men. You're very nice and sweet."

"And you're a girl." Lake broke off another piece of muffin and shoved it into her mouth. "Men are different. Men go for women like you."

This was news to her. "Really? I think I missed that one."

Lake shook her head again. "They do. Those eyes stop any man in his tracks, I've seen it. You've got this complex innocent-but-worldly image going. Drives them nuts. You really just need to loosen up. Come with me this weekend to Sunsets and we'll have all sorts of fun."

Sunsets was the local bar where everyone went. Depending on the semester and the current student frame of mind, it was either crammed with college grads or it was near empty with retirees and the golf playing, high rolling sect.

"College is dumping it this semester. It's only the golf pros are hanging there." Lake leaned in closer. "And doctors. I met two last weekend. Ohmygod, Cora, you should have been there. Tall, dark and handsome. The other was blond, taller than me and soooo inventive in the bedroom."

Cora held up a hand. "Please. No more. I don't need to hear any more of your war stories." For the life of her, she could never figure out why Lake had singled her to share all her girl stories with. It seemed odd, but then Cora had never been one to have friends, so maybe this was normal.

Kyle had never boasted of his bedroom stories, at least not to her.

"Why is it, anytime I bring up sex, you go all schoolgirl on me?" Lake grinned, pulling the lid off her cup and taking a sip, watching Cora with those big green eyes.

"I don't know. I'm not used to it."

Lake frowned. "Didn't you have a best friend growing up?"

"Yes. Kyle."

"No, silly, a girl friend?"

Cora shook her head.

"A sister?"

"Nope."

"A female cousin that loved to brag how she banged the quarterback on the fifty yard line?"

Again she shook her head.

"Oh well, then. We'll just look at this as your education in female camaraderie."

Cora laughed. "Fine. I give up. You can shower me with all your stories. Then if I ever meet a man I either don't scare off, doesn't laugh off into the sunset, or just freak out, I'll know what to do with him."

Lake grinned, her full lips lifting almost slyly at the corners. "I wonder." She tapped her long purple nails-and Lake always had purple nails-against the countertop. "It's a good thing things are so slow today. I think I'm going to go to the bookstore and get you a book."

"On sex? Trust me, some things I know."

Lake threw her head back and laughed. "Oh darling, there's sex and then there's sex." She reached out and patted Cora's hand. "First the knowledge, then the men. I think we'll make a goddess out of you yet."

She shook her head. "You're nuts. And what are you doing at Sunsets admiring other men when you're with someone?"

Lake tilted her head one way, then the other. "You're forgetting who you're talking to. Simon and I have an understanding."

"Mmmmm." Cora rearranged the jewelry stand, then straightened the chained necklaces hanging there.

"Mmmm... What does that mean? Well, never mind. Suffice it to say, Simon manages to do things that make even me blush."

The bell over the door chimed. Thank God.

"And that's my cue to leave." Lake stood and gathered her paper goods, her cup and muffin crumbs and stopped at the door. "I'll be over tomorrow with goodies."

Cora could only smile and wave. Oh...goody.

Rogan Duran wondered what in the hell he was doing in Sedona, Arizona. It wasn't a place he'd ever choose to go, and yet, like some compulsion, he was drawn here.

Rogan took off his helmet as he climbed off his bike and kicked the kickstand down. He looked up and down the street. He needed some coffee and a place to stay. Clayton was pissed at him, but the man would get over it. He was tired of letting everyone else dictate where he could go, who he could see, what he was doing. Hell, he was lucky they weren't telling him when and where he could piss.

The day was edging towards noon. He'd left Albuquerque, New Mexico this morning around dawn. The traffic on I40 was heavy, but then a storm was said to be moving out of the Rockies and he'd been told that interstate often shut down due to bad weather.

From here, he felt no foretelling of the weather to come. It must be around seventy degrees.

He ran a hand through his hair. Needed a haircut but that was life and he really didn't care about it right now. He'd taken time off work because he couldn't think, couldn't focus and his boss was about ready to toss him over for some new Georgetown grad. Not that Rogan would blame the man, but it still irked.

He was quickly becoming a has-been in every sense of the word.

Maybe he just needed a change of scenery. Completely different. He knew enough about journalism now, he could buy a small town paper and try his hand at being editor. Why not? What the hell was stopping him?

He hung his helmet on the handlebars and strode down the sidewalk. Looking up and down the street he saw he'd landed in the touristy part of town. Oh well, learn more this way. At least at first.

Desert Cup boasted of the best coffee in town. The sign swung precariously in the Arizona wind. He blinked a couple of times. Damn the air was dry here.

Shaking off the wayward thought and hoping he didn't have bug guts on his jacket or shirt, he strode down the sidewalk, passing a jewelry store.

Desert Cup's door stood open and inviting. Rogan walked into the dimly lit coffee bar, the full robust scent of roasted coffee beans, chocolate and baked cookies pulled a smile from him.

He stood for a minute looking over the menu, written on a chalkboard in weird colors, hanging over the bar. The man behind the counter replaced a clear glass dome over the top of a cake-chocolate from the looks of it.

Rogan was in the mood for a bit more. Again he glanced at the menu.

"Decide yet?" the man behind the counter asked. He looked to be about forty, maybe, five-seven, dark hair going thin on top and pulled back into a ponytail. A gold loop winked in his left lobe and he pushed his glasses up his nose. A Hawaiian print apron covered his clothing.

Rogan ordered a large house coffee and a chicken salad sandwich.

As he waited on his order, he wondered what in the hell he was doing here. Clayton hadn't said anything else after those first few days when the girl in western Maryland was found and identified as previously missing. Miss Danni Owens had been a grad student, last seen leaving the library at seven twenty-one p.m. The parking lot didn't have security cameras and even if they had, some of the lights didn't work.

The local community college was now embroiled in a lawsuit filed against it by students, faculty and Miss Owens' parents. No one liked to see a promising young woman snatched off the street. Her car had still been parked where she'd left it. No sign of a struggle. No marks on it, nothing. Her books were found in a dumpster across town.

Rogan wasn't surprised she was dead. Like the others. He didn't delude himself with false hopes that all these women, with pale blue eyes, were simply being held by some left wing government conspiracy.

When people went missing, it was either because they didn't want to be found, or it was because they had been taken against their will and were probably dead.

Which left the who and the why.

For him, the why seemed self-explanatory. They all had the same color eyes.

The who left him floundering.

Many had thought he was behind it. He wasn't. Regardless of the fact that several of the missing women disappeared near an area where he'd been stationed. Thankfully, while his involvement might be questioned in some cases, he had airtight alibis on all the rest.

Yet, he wondered.

There were nights he'd wondered if maybe he had done it. The blackouts from his injury weren't helpful. Lost areas of time he had no way of proving.

His order was called and Rogan stood, walking to the counter.

"Hi, Monte," a female voice said from the doorway. "I think I'll have my usual. Make it on toasted rye today though." She was looking over her shoulder and then turned back. "And how are the plans coming? Everything still a go?"

"Far as I can tell. Talked to Hanson just this morning and he says Kyle has no idea," Monte answered.

Rogan, busy picking up his basket and cup, froze.

She only stood a couple of inches over five feet, her figure nothing to make a man stop dead in his tracks. But her eyes...

She looked up and her eyes, a pale blue stared at him for a full minute before she blinked, smiled and then shook her head. She turned back to Monte who was behind the bar. "Great. Maybe I'll actually pull a surprise party off for once in my life." She glanced back over her shoulder at Rogan, a smile still on her face, yet a question in her eyes.

Rogan took a deep breath and walked to his table.

What was he doing here?

Chapter Five.

Cora worked on her website that afternoon. Trying to update was a pain in the ass. It was time to give herself a new look. The flat, drab blue background did nothing for her. Maybe she'd purchase Photoshop Elements and play with layering. Lake was always going on about how easy it was. And she already had Frontpage. How hard could it be? She liked the blue colors, but maybe she'd layer it with some green and purples. Give it a sky theme. Maybe do some of that fading stuff with stars and moons in the background.

She grabbed the mini-legal pad she always kept close and jotted down a few notes. The bell above her door chimed and she looked up.

All afternoon she'd only had five customers stop in, but then it was midweek and that was life. She knew closer to the weekend things always picked up. Which was why she was closed on Tuesdays and closed early on Wednesdays at four instead of five. It was now three fifty- three.

She sighed. Oh well, if she could get a sale, that was all that mattered.

Hell.

It was him.

Faded and worn Levi's, their starched crease arrow straight, stretched over long legs and trim hips. Black boots. A long sleeved, dark red shirt under a chambray shirt with a button missing and a brown leather jacket tossed over his arm. She looked across the street and noticed the Harley hadn't moved. Was it his? She'd bet it was. His face was weathered and creased from life or worry-perhaps both. Deep lines bracketed his mouth and eyes, his forehead. She wondered, for some absurd reason, if he ever smiled.

His eyes were a dark, chocolate brown. A color she'd always thought of as soft, but his were hard, unwavering and a bit unnerving. His brows, dark as his hair, faintly arched over his eyes, his nose was Romanesque and slightly crooked as if it'd been broken in the past. As he neared, she noticed again the scar splitting his left eyebrow. His mouth was firm, the lips neither full nor too thin. His neck was thick and corded, his shoulders probably the same.

Cora sighed. Just as before in the coffee shop, she felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room and she couldn't decide if she wanted to stay or run.

The soft mood music she had on chimed from speakers, the birds chirping, the piano soothing. It seemed contradictory to the mood that suddenly filled the shop.

"Can-" She cleared her throat. "Can I help you?"

His dark, unwavering gaze skewered her to the spot, narrowing and crinkling at the edges.

Then he smiled and it completely changed his entire countenance. The worry and seriousness lining his face seemed to relax as he walked closer.

Cora was glad for the counter between them.

"I don't know, maybe you can." He looked around the shop as he stopped at the counter. "What is this place?"

"Mystic Moons," she answered, standing now and straightening the area around the cash register.

"I got that. I wanted to know what it specializes in."

"Natural products. Shampoos, soaps, all organic and from age-old recipes. Things our grandmothers would have used or great-grandmothers in many cases." She walked over and glanced at him. "Books on herbs. Here's some rosemary." She pointed to the potted plant.

He picked it up and sniffed, then nodded. His eyes were narrowed, but not in study, more like confusion.

"Here's a book on spells," he said, picking it up and setting down the rosemary.

"Yes, well, that's what people want now."

"So you provide. Are you a witch?"

She sighed. For some reason that question always bothered her. "Look, what I am or am not, is really no one's business but my own. I have customers who look for certain materials. I merely provide those materials. Just because you go into a music store and see a large selection on rock doesn't mean every person working there is into heavy metal."

He grinned at her again, his head tilting to the side. "Anyone ever told you, you have amazing eyes."

She rolled hers. "No, never." Cora walked back to the counter and let him cruise. What was he doing here? She knew it wasn't to buy any new age mysticism.

"I hear you're psychic," he said, picking up a green marble orb from its pedestal of silver trees.

This time she sighed. "And?"

He turned and pierced her with those eyes. Cora shivered and rubbed her arms, holding his stare, though she wanted to look away. "So do you do like..." He frowned and put the orb back. She noticed his fingers were long, scarred and the nails blunt. The cuffs from his red shirt peeked out from under the chambray sleeves. "Do you?"

His question jerked her attention back to him. "I'm sorry, do what?"

"Do you tell fortunes?"