They drove past Fort Walton Beach and nearly to Pensacola before Ian pulled over at a motel and took a room. One room.

The sun was up, and the curtain was open. Ian stood in a puddle of golden light as Honor looked around and finally sank onto the edge of one of the double beds.

“I’ll go rustle up some breakfast for us,” he said. “And then we’ll talk.”

She nodded. “How far do you have to go to escape a ghost?”

“Damned if I know.” He came over and squatted before her, taking one of her hands. “If you get any urges to run, or anything like that, fight them.”

She stared at him, absorbing the meaning of his words. “You…you think that when I…that I…”

He squeezed her hand. “You don’t strike me as the kind of person who reaches for a knife too readily. And you definitely don’t strike me as the kind who would lunge at me with one. It would be more like you to try to evade me.”

She nodded slowly. “I know. I can’t believe I did that. I can’t believe that was me. It was like being caught in a dream of some kind. A bad dream.”

And maybe that was exactly what it had been. Alone again while Ian went out to find some food for them, she curled up tiredly on the bed and thought about what had happened. She still didn’t entirely trust him, but she no longer felt as endangered as she had last night.

And that was the creepy thing, she thought. That thing had affected her mind. Had made her feel emotions that perhaps hadn’t been entirely her own. In retrospect, now that she was free of the dark feelings that had haunted her last night, she found herself far more disturbed by the thought that the ghost might have planted thoughts in her head than by the idea that Ian had read her mind. It was far, far less distressing to have someone know what she was thinking than to have someone—or something—make her think things.

A sudden shiver passed through her, and she curled up into a tight ball. There was no doubt that she had been manipulated. No doubt. And the thought was horrifying. The question now was who, or what, had done it?

 

“Are you reading my mind right now?” Honor asked him while they ate eggs and biscuits and drank hot coffee at the small table by the window.

“No.” Ian put down his plastic fork and leaned back in his chair, looking at her. “I never did it purposely. Never. But sometimes…it’s as if you broadcast. Or shout. It’s impossible not to hear.”

“Could you do it on purpose?”

“Yes.”

“Damn,” she said, putting down her coffee. “I hate the way you do that.”

“Do what?”

“Those single unvarnished syllables. No. Yes. Either way, it drives me crazy. Elaborate, why don’t you?”

He almost smiled. She caught the glimmer of it in his eyes. “Yes, I can sometimes read minds on purpose. It’s something I avoid doing, for obvious reasons.”

She shook her head. “Not so obvious to me. And what do you mean, sometimes you can do it on purpose?”

He really didn’t want to discuss this. It was apparent in the way he turned his head to one side and fiddled with a plastic spoon.

“It’s a wild talent,” he said finally, his voice rusty with suppressed feelings. “When I was little, it just happened sometimes. It wasn’t something I did consciously, or that I was actually aware of doing. I think the first time I knew there was something different about me was when Mrs. Gilhooley killed her husband.”

He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, and there was something about the way he did it that told Honor how difficult it was for him to remember these things.

“I saw it,” he said after a moment. “I saw it in her mind, just as she saw it standing at the attic window. I saw it from inside her, saw her push the ladder away from the wall. She pushed hard. Really hard. It was no accident.”

Her scalp prickled, but then, almost before she thought about how creepy that was, she thought how terrifying it must have been for a six-year-old boy to witness. Worse, to witness it from inside the head of the murderess.

“I remember…I remember how scared I was when no one believed me, because I knew Mrs. Gilhooley was furious with me and was planning to get even. I had nightmares about it for weeks.”

Imagine, she thought, how terrifying it must have been for a six-year-old boy to know such things. To know that someone capable of murder wanted to get even with him.

“How,” she asked, “did you ever stand it?”

He shrugged slightly. “You get through things because there’s no alternative.”

It was as if he had spread out his life before her and let her see the gray, bleak world in which he had lived. You get through things because there’s no alternative. She had felt like that at times. Occasionally there was no other way to feel. But she had the sense that this man had lived his entire life that way, and sadness tightened her throat.

“Was this, um, before or after the goat?” she asked, hoping he didn’t notice how her voice had thickened.

“Before. The goat was the last straw, I guess. My memory of events isn’t too clear, because I was so young, and because I wasn’t part of a lot of it. I don’t know what she did, what she said or why she was believed. All I know is, not too long after the goat, they tried exorcism on me.”

Again she felt the impulse to reach out, but she stifled it. He kept evading her gaze, as if he were afraid she might read emotion in his eyes. He would hardly appreciate her touch, or her overt sympathy.

“Anyway,” he continued after a moment, “after three or four days, the preacher decided the exorcism was a success. After that I screwed up a few more times. I just…sometimes I just knew what people were thinking. And I was young enough not to know how to conceal the knowledge. I slipped. Again and again. After a while, I was shunning other people as much as they were shunning me.”

He rose from his chair and went to stand at the window, looking out at the sun-drenched day, as if the light could drive away the darkness inside him. He shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, and for a long time he didn’t speak.

“It was…like it was with you,” he said eventually. “I slipped. I don’t know if you can understand, but for me it’s the same as hearing you say something. I react to it in the same way, and even if I’m on guard, sooner or later I say something or do something that reveals the fact that I know something the other person doesn’t think I should. It’s just about impossible in retrospect for me to distinguish knowledge gained one way from knowledge gained the other. So I slip. Or I get involved so deeply in what’s happening that I slip. And nobody on earth likes to be around a telepath.”

He was silent for so long that Honor felt he was waiting for some kind of response from her. She wasn’t sure what she felt about what he was telling her. He was a telepath. An exceptional one, to judge by what he was telling her. And, yes, it was unnerving to have someone read your mind. She wasn’t sure she liked the idea at all.

But something else had also gotten into her mind. Something evil. And that was worse by far. Shuddering inwardly, she shook away the memory of last night and tried to focus on Ian. He needed something from her right now, and she wasn’t sure what it was. Or even if she could give it.

Finally he spoke again, his voice low, tense. “The business about the witchcraft, well—” He broke off abruptly and shook his head. Honor couldn’t see his face, but she didn’t need to. The difficulty of this for him was apparent in his tension, in his voice.

“I was seventeen,” he said flatly. “Mrs. Gilhooley had two daughters. Annie—Orville’s mother—and Maggie. Maggie was fifteen. She…got herself pregnant by…um…by her stepfather, Bill Gilhooley.”

“Mrs. Gilhooley remarried?”

“Yes. I guess I forgot to tell you that. She married Bill Gilhooley about eight months after she buried her first husband. Anyhow, Maggie claimed I was the kid’s father. Said I’d, uh, witched her and had my way with her.”

“Oh, my God!” Honor scarcely breathed the words, horrified and aching for him. Such terrible, terrible things to have lived through. “Nobody believed that, surely!”

He gave a snort, but he didn’t look at her. “Oh, yeah, lots of people believed it, even when it was proved that I was somewhere else the night she claimed all this happened. The cops investigated, but they didn’t bring any charges, because there wasn’t any evidence. Some folks believe that was witchcraft, too. Then…then one night Maggie called the cops and said she’d taken poison, and that she didn’t want to die with a guilty conscience. Said I hadn’t touched her. She died and…everybody believed I’d done that, too.

“So I left. Joined the army and left.”

And left the human race, too, Honor thought, staring at his unyielding back. How awful. How unspeakable. No longer restraining the impulse, she rose and went to him, touching him gently on the arm, aware that he might reject her touch.

But he turned suddenly and faced her, and there were no secrets left. There, in the anguish stamped on his face, in the redness of eyes that could not weep, she saw just what it had cost him to tell her. Just how deep his scars were.

“Oh, Ian,” she whispered on a broken breath. Stepping toward him, she wrapped her arms around his waist and held him close.

At first he remained rigid and unyielding, as if he were resisting her concern with all his might. As if he had forgotten how to open himself in even this small way. But then, with jerky reluctance, he wound his arms around her and squeezed her closer.

For a long time neither of them spoke or moved. Honor absorbed all that he had told her and suspected that he was reconstructing the inner walls behind which he had probably entombed all those memories. How awful, she thought. It was a miracle he had survived such a childhood.

“Come on,” he said after a while, his voice calm and expressionless once more. “You haven’t finished your breakfast, and you need to get some sleep before we go back.”

She tilted her head and looked up at him. “What are we going to do?” As soon as she spoke the question, she wished she hadn’t because there didn’t seem to be any answer.

He didn’t answer, just shook his head. “Eat,” he said. “Then sleep. When we’ve had some rest, we’ll brainstorm.”

 

Honor had fallen asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow. Ian, cursed with insomnia, lay wide awake in the next bed, his hands clasped behind his head.

Years ago he had done his best to bury his abominable talent, and until a few days ago he had succeeded, relatively speaking. It was possible for any skill to atrophy through lack of use. His telepathy might have been born of genetics, but it was also a skill that could atrophy.

And it had. But not nearly as much as he had thought, and he was recovering it more quickly than he would have dreamed possible. He hadn’t tried to read Honor’s mind—he’d been telling the absolute truth about that—but it was getting so he was receiving flashes from her all the time. Never before in his life had that happened with anyone to this extent. It made him uneasy.

Even now, the flashes of her dreams were dancing around the edges of his mind. Just random snatches that told him she was having a mild nightmare about some inchoate threat. If she started to get really frightened, he would wake her…or would that be an invasion of her privacy?

The thought had troubled him ever since he’d grown old enough to be concerned with such things. If he couldn’t help doing it, how could it be an invasion? But perhaps he should leave the illusion of privacy intact, for the sake of the person he was eavesdropping on?

He didn’t know, and he wasn’t sure he even cared anymore. In his adult life, he’d had a couple of intimate relationships. Each time he had carefully chosen a woman in uniform, one who would understand the demands of his job, the fact that he might leave without warning and offer no explanations when he returned. Someone with whom the army provided enough impersonal topics of conversation that he could avoid getting too intimate, too involved.

And each time, eventually, he had slipped in a way they could not ignore. Each time he had seen horror in their eyes. Uneasiness. Condemnation. He was an abomination.

Mrs. Gilhooley had first called him that, and the word had been echoed by many in his childhood. Away from the atmosphere of his parents’ church, the epithet had changed, but not its meaning. Weird was the word he’d heard most often. Creepy was another one.

Lifting his head a little, he looked over at Honor. She was still dreaming, and a little more anxious now. He wondered how long it would be before she turned from him in horror again. She had last night. He’d known the instant when she realized that he had looked into her mind. He’d felt her horror and fear.

That seemed to have faded considerably since their lovemaking, but he never for an instant doubted it would return. He’d grown up hearing that he was some kind of unnatural genetic accident. A mutation. An abomination.

And nothing in his life since had convinced him that he wasn’t.

 

Honor woke slowly, feeling more comfortable than she had in a long time. It was as if she had reached some kind of resolution in her sleep, as if some internal equilibrium had finally been established. Or maybe, she thought drowsily, it was just a protective reaction to all the stress of the past few days. At the moment, she didn’t care. It was enough that, for right now, the tension had let go.

For now the looming black shadow was gone.

She opened her eyes and looked straight into Ian’s cat-green ones. He was on the next bed, just three feet away, but suddenly Honor felt he wasn’t close enough. She wanted him here, beside her. Touching her. Exploring some of the incredible possibilities he had opened up for her last night, in those all-too-brief moments when they had lost control together. It was as if some fire in her had been ignited last night and only slightly damped down by fulfillment. As if a craving had been planted in her, a craving that could never quite be satisfied.

He saw it. Read it. Perceived the yearning, however it was that he did such things. And this time she didn’t mind. There was only a momentary uneasiness that quickly fled.

“Yeah,” he said, and sat up. Crossing his arms before him, he tugged his olive T-shirt over his head and bared his chest. “I hear you,” he said roughly. “I feel you. I’ve never been so in tune with anybody in my life. I don’t know if this is good or bad, but I’m through pretending it isn’t happening. This is the way I am, lady. If you can’t handle it, let’s find out now.”

He stood and unbuttoned his jeans, never turning away, just watching her steadily, waiting for some objection. She didn’t object. Instead, she held her breath as expectancy grew heavy at her core. He shoved his jeans and briefs down together and kicked them aside. Then he stood there and looked down at her, waiting. He was completely exposed to her, completely vulnerable to whatever she might say or do to him. He was making himself as vulnerable to her as she felt to him. As vulnerable as he could make himself. Her throat tightened at the understanding.

Whatever her mind might be broadcasting to him, she realized, he was going to wait for her to say yes or no. He understood that her desire for him might not be something she wanted to acknowledge or give in to. He was granting her the right to decide, regardless of what she was thinking and feeling. And that eased her discomfort a little more.

And, oh, he was magnificent! Honed to a peak of physical perfection in every respect. And so perfectly male. Slowly she lifted her arms and reached for him.

He sank down beside her on the bed and wrapped her in his arms, drawing her flush against him. The layers of her clothing were only a small impediment as she felt the strength of sinew and muscle against her.

“I can hear you,” he murmured roughly, touching her tousled hair. “I can feel what you want. Do you want me to pay attention? Or do you want me to try to ignore it?”

Her breath caught a little, and she gave a moment’s serious thought to the degree of intimacy he was talking about. Making up her mind proved surprisingly easy. “Listen,” she said. “You’re right. If I can’t handle it, let’s find out now.”

He nodded and closed his eyes. For a moment her heart stopped beating as she realized he was listening to what was going on inside her, to her scattered thoughts and powerful yearnings. To every barely formed desire.

And then he caught her chin gently in his hand and took her mouth in a breath-stealing, soul-searing kiss. His tongue plunged deeply, roughly, coaxing hers into erotic play. And, as always, just his kiss was enough to ignite her smoldering hunger.

He broke away from her mouth long enough to tug away her shirt and shorts, just long enough to pull away her bra and panties. Then he rolled half over her, pinning her to the bed with a thigh between her legs, and his chest against her aching breasts.

And then he caught her face between his hands and stole her breath by the simple act of whispering her name as if it were torn from the depths of his being.

“Honor…”

Her eyes fluttered open, and she gazed into the depths of his. And saw into his soul. Saw loneliness. Terrible, terrible loneliness. And a yearning. White heat. Hunger.

“Touch me,” he whispered. “I need…”

She understood, though she didn’t know how. Even as her own hungers made her restless, she felt his needs in her heart. Touch him. He hadn’t been touched in so long, hadn’t allowed himself even that very human contact. He had held himself aloof, and now he was asking her to shatter his isolation. She spared one last hope that this wouldn’t prove to be the biggest mistake of both their lives.

Then she gave herself up to the blossoming heat and touched him. Her hands stroked down his shoulders to the small of his back, enjoying the incredible smoothness of his warm skin, thrilling to the way he shuddered at her touch. Then her hands traveled lower, finding his muscular buttocks and instinctively digging her fingers in.

Finally, driven by a restless hunger and a need to possess this man in whatever way he would permit, she shoved gently, urging him onto his back. Without a murmur, he rolled over, offering himself to her eyes and hands.

There was something incredibly seductive about holding a man like this captive to her hands, her whims. Something even more seductive about the feel of steely muscles bunching beneath her palms as she swept them over him. Something thrilling about the restless, helpless movements he made in response to her touch and his rising heat.

Slipping her hand downward, she skipped over his silky length to tender, delicate, private places. When she cupped him, he shuddered and went perfectly still, drawn taut as a bowstring. The man who seldom suffered another to touch him now permitted her to trespass. Needing her touch more than he needed safety. Trusting her to do no harm.

The weight of him filled her palm, a promise of life, strength and virility. His submission to her touches was the most erotic experience of her life, and her own body responded with a flash of heat and dampness. Licking her lips, breathing raggedly, she ran her fingers teasingly up his length.

He groaned and was suddenly galvanized. Reaching for her, he turned her onto her back, lying over her and driving his tongue into her mouth again. He found her breast with his hand, kneading fire into her every cell. Rivers of burning lava poured through her, causing her to arch upward against him and clamp her thighs around his. She heard herself moan his name, heard him groan in response. She needed more. More. Much more.

And he knew it. Dimly she was aware that his hands and mouth moved to answer her every wish, her every ache, her every desire, no matter how fleeting or unformed. From her mind he took the least of her impulses and wove them into an erotic fantasy around her, at once satisfying her and deepening her need.

And somehow, as he answered her every whim, she felt the longing in him, the need to be cherished in return. His life had been so lonely, so empty, and for so long he had been on the outside, held at a distance by hatred and fear.

Tears prickled in her eyes even as her body arched upward in passion and begged him to finish it. Even as she reached for the sunburst within, she reached out to wrap him in the first human warmth he had known since childhood. With arms and legs she surrounded him and tried to shelter him, with heart and soul she yearned to give him ease.

And he felt it. A great shudder tore through him, and he opened his eyes, hiding nothing from her, not the shimmer of unshed tears, not the agonizing need for acceptance. He kept them open as he settled between her legs and slowly drove his flesh into her, claiming her body with his.

And when he was buried deeply in her warmth, he cradled her face gently in his hands and gave her a tender, almost reverent kiss. Then, with slow, deep, satisfying thrusts of his hips, he carried them both up and over.

 

Afterward she wondered how she could ever have been so naive as to think anything would change. Ian stayed beside her, holding her while the cool air dried their damp skin, but he had withdrawn in another way. He had let her see his vulnerability, had let her glimpse the lonely man who yearned to belong to someone, and then he had pulled back inside himself, as if he really didn’t care at all.

Unconsciously sighing, she tunneled her fingers through the soft, dark hair on his chest and savored the warm skin beneath. Maybe, she thought, he was feeling uncertain because he had revealed so much and wasn’t sure how she would react. Whether she might use it in some way. He had said, after all, that he couldn’t read every thought in her head. Maybe he had no idea what she was thinking right now.

And maybe she owed him some of the same honesty he had given her. He had revealed his past at her insistence, had exposed painful wounds to her. Didn’t she owe him the same trust in return? A secret for a secret, so that no one felt at a disadvantage?

“Ian?”

“Mmm?” The sound was a deep rumble in his chest. She loved the way his low voice vibrated inside him. It was one of the many very masculine things about him, things that affected her in ways that were hard to explain, but that drew her to him.

“Are you reading my thoughts right now?”

“No.”

No. That damn word again. “Not at all?”

“Not a thing. It’s not constant, not infallible, and it sure as hell isn’t reliable. You’re a closed book right now. Completely private.”

And maybe that was part of his problem, she thought. She was closed to him, and he couldn’t tell what she thought and felt about what had just happened. About him.

Tilting her head back, she looked up at him. “We’re going to need to discuss that thing in my house before we go back.”

He nodded, looking watchful. That wariness hurt her a little, after all that had just happened between them, but she understood it now that she knew about his past. And the best way to deal with that was to tell him something equally private about herself and her past. To offer him her emotional vulnerability.

“Do—do you remember last night?” she asked, her mouth going dry and her voice growing a little unsteady. God, this was hard! “When…I was afraid I was repulsive, and you said I wasn’t?”

“Yes.”

She couldn’t force herself to look at him. “Do you know why I felt that way? Or did you just pick up on the feeling?”

“Just the feeling.” He shifted his hold on her, and then astonished her by tucking her closer and stroking her back soothingly. “Who made you feel that way? Tell me what happened.”

“I got married when I was eighteen.” Her heart was beating a nervous, rapid tattoo, and she was sure he must be able to hear it. “My…Jerry was a really nice guy, and I think he was just seriously confused. I honestly don’t think he meant to hurt me. It’s just that…well, he was homosexual. And…he couldn’t have sex with me. So I—” Her voice broke, and she couldn’t continue.

“Got to feeling inadequate and repulsive,” he finished for her. “Got to feeling maybe you were responsible for his problem.”

Slowly she lifted her gaze to his face, and she was astonished by the incredible amount of understanding there.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You’re not repulsive. You’ve been driving me out of my mind since I first laid eyes on you. And now that I’ve got you right where I want you, I think I’ll take advantage of you one more time.”

The look in his eyes right then seemed to reach deep inside her and untie some old, aching knot. Free of its constriction, she felt as if she could draw her first unfettered breath in years.

 

They showered, dressed and went looking for a restaurant for dinner. They’d spent the entire afternoon making love, talking little, but as evening approached, they both knew they were going to have to face the horror lurking at home. The interlude was over.

And with the return of reality came the return of Honor’s uneasiness. What did she really know about this man, except that he had had an unfortunate childhood, and that he had taken her to the moon, proving that all those romantic old songs weren’t lies?

But he had distanced himself again, almost as if his earlier exposure of himself and his feelings had left him raw and unable to bear any closeness. What if he had only used her? What if she had just been convenient?

The restaurant he selected served everything from steak to seafood casserole. When they had ordered, he turned his strange green eyes on her. “We have to talk about what we’re going to do. If it could manipulate someone into shooting at me, and you into trying to stab me, there’s no telling what else it can do.”

Just like that, the last lingering glow from the afternoon was gone. Honor leaned forward, resting her forearms on the table, and absently drew a pattern on the Formica with her fingertip. “I don’t see what we can do, to tell you the truth. You didn’t find anything useful in those books, did you?”

“Actually, I think I did, indirectly. After reading about all those lost ladies and murder victims and all the rest of it, it occurred to me that most of them had one thing in common—unfinished business. If we can figure out what your ghost—”

“It’s not my ghost,” Honor told him, suppressing an unhappy shudder. “God, I wish you wouldn’t keep saying that. It makes me feel…cold. Like someone walked on my grave.”

“Okay.” He gave a little shrug. “The ghost. We need to figure out what’s holding the ghost here.”

“Of course!” Honor couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “Just walk up and ask it, right? I’m sure it’ll sit down with us and explain…” Her voice trailed off as understanding struck. “No,” she said hoarsely. “You can’t. I won’t let you. That thing could hurt you. It could get into your mind and do terrible things. Ian, no!”

He reached across the table and captured one of her hands with his. “What’s the alternative?” he demanded quietly. “You can’t live in that house. You can’t afford to live anywhere else, and even if you stay with me, you’re obviously at risk, to judge by what happened last night.”

She wanted to look away from his eerie, haunting gaze, but she couldn’t. A small shiver passed through her, and she felt her fingers return his clasp. As if she trusted him, even though right now, to be truthful, she wasn’t sure she did.

“Honor, we’ve got to get rid of that thing.”

She nodded. “I know.” There didn’t seem to be any alternative. “But, Ian, that…that thing has twice caused someone to try to hurt you. What makes you think you can just open your mind to it and come away unscathed? What if it provokes you into hurting someone? What if it turns you into a criminal? People could get hurt, and you could wind up in prison for the rest of your life!”

Something in his gaze grew chilly and remote. He had gone away to some place so deep inside himself that she was almost sure he had forgotten where they were. Had forgotten he was not alone. And then, after a long moment, his green eyes focused on her, and he spoke, his voice low, intense.

“No one can control me,” he said levelly. “It’s been tried by the masters. I don’t break, and I don’t kneel.”

Hell looked out of his eyes then, just a glimpse of the anguish of the damned, before he turned away and leaned back to allow the waiter to serve them.

When the waiter left, Ian faced her again and held her gaze unwaveringly. “Trust me,” he said quietly. “In this, just trust me.”

Famous last words, she thought grimly, and looked down at her plate of steamed oysters. “I don’t know if I can,” she said finally. “I honestly don’t know if I can.”

Another storm was gathering as they drove east toward home. Honor didn’t remember this much rain from her years here as a child, and she commented on it.

“Late afternoon thunderstorms frequently blow up over the Gulf and move inland at this time of year,” he answered. “It’ll get better.”

Leaning her cheek against the headrest, she watched him drive and thought about all that had occurred between them in the past twenty-four hours. Part of her desperately wished she could savor the change in her, practice her wiles and give herself up to the wonder of having Ian McLaren for a lover. Another part of her, though, whispered warnings and cautions, reminding her that she certainly ought to know by now that very little was what it appeared to be.

“When do you go back to work?” he asked.

“Thursday morning.” Two days.

“That’ll give us time to move whatever else you might need over to my place. In addition to what you brought yesterday.”

She stiffened a little, not sure what he meant and how she should react. He turned and looked at her from those incredible eyes of his, and a faint smile curved one corner of his mouth. She realized with a twinge of discomfort that he was hearing her thoughts again.

“It’s okay,” he said. “As much or as little as you want, Honor. I swear. I just don’t want you trying to live in that house until we take care of this thing.”

“And what if we can’t? Take care of it, I mean.”

“Then we’ll think of something else.” His jaw squared as he stared down the long, winding ribbon of wet pavement that stretched before them. “We’ll think of something else.”

Five more wet miles passed before he spoke again, startling her. “I knew your father.”

She twisted on the seat and looked at him. “I wondered.” Both men had been Rangers, after all.

“I was First Battalion, out of Fort Stewart.” Georgia.

“He was Second Battalion.” Fort Lewis, Washington.

“I know. But years ago…years ago he saved my life. He led a team in to rescue me and a couple of my men after we were…captured. Maybe he wasn’t a perfect dad to you, but he sure was one hell of a soldier.”

“It was his whole life,” she said. “His whole life.”

“No room for you?”

“He made some after Mom died. I’ll give him that. He ran me like one of his troops, though. Why did you bring this up?”

“Because I owe your old man. I want you to know that, if you start to get scared of me again. I owe him. And if the only way I can pay him back is to look after you, I will.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before? Didn’t you think I needed to know?” She didn’t know whether to be annoyed or frustrated with him.

“I wanted…” He hesitated, then forced the words out with evident effort. “I just wanted you to accept me for what I am. Since that’s out of the question…” He shrugged and let the words trail away, appearing not to care one way or the other.

Honor knew better. Out of the question? Suddenly she wasn’t wondering what she should feel. She knew; she was mad. “Who said it’s out of the question? And if you think I’m going to trust you just because you say you owe my father—” She broke off sharply, spluttering.

And suddenly, catching her utterly by surprise, sorrow pierced her with a sharp ache. He had just wanted her to accept him for what he was. Without trading on old relationships or old obligations. Just him, Ian McLaren, what she knew of him. Was that so awful? Was that too much?

“I don’t want your pity,” he said harshly.

He had picked up on her feelings again, but he had read them wrong. “Believe me, I’m not feeling any pity. You’re not in the least pitiable. And if you’re going to read my mind, at least do it right.”

His head jerked a little, as if she had caught him by surprise. Then he asked, “It doesn’t bother you?”

“It’s bothering me a lot less than I thought it would,” she admitted. “Maybe because I don’t have any real secrets. Certainly none after…” She felt herself coloring and let her words trail away.

He laughed softly and reached out, snagging her hand and holding it on his thigh. “I loved it,” he said. “Believe me, I loved it.”

“But you must have—” Embarrassment smothered the words. She couldn’t really be asking this, could she?

“Never,” he said gruffly. “Never before. I never let myself. I never dared to.”

“I wish…I wish I could read your mind.”

“I wish you could, too. And sometimes I think you almost do.”

She thought back over the day and realized that sometimes she felt she could tell what he was thinking, what he was feeling.

“There have been a couple of times,” he continued, “when I’ve been almost positive you’re a latent telepath. When we first met. And today. Most definitely today. You read me like an open book.”

“Not an open book. You’ll never be that.” Another mile passed, then another, and she realized they were almost home. And then she remembered something he had said, something she had wanted to ask him about.

“Ian?”

“Hmm?”

“What did you mean, you were captured by a demon?”

Suddenly he slammed on the brakes, turning off the two-lane highway onto a muddy dirt road so sharply that the wheels skidded briefly. He brought them to an abrupt, rattling halt. For a long moment there was no sound save the quiet rumble of the engine, the whoosh of the air conditioner and the patter of rain on the hood.

“God, Honor,” he said finally. Just that.

She wondered if she should apologize for bringing up the subject, but that didn’t seem right, since he had told her about it when they’d been nearly strangers. Maybe, she thought, maybe she had just caught him unawares by dredging up deeply buried memories. Painful memories.

Spurred by her concern, she released her seat belt and slid closer to him, ignoring the stick shift. He let go of the steering wheel immediately and wrapped her in his powerful arms. A shudder ripped through him as he released a long, ragged breath.

“Sorry,” he said gruffly.

“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

She felt him shake his head, and his arms tightened. “I just…don’t like to think about it. If it catches me off guard, like just now, I…react kind of strongly.”

Pressed against his shoulder, she inhaled his rich, musky scent and wondered why she had never before realized how good another person could smell. How comforting that aroma could be. But there were more important things to think about now. She tipped her head back and tried to see him clearly. “You’ve buried a lot of things, haven’t you?”

“A few.”

Well, she understood that, she guessed. Imagine her having forgotten being locked in that closet when she was so little. Imagine having forgotten that kind of terror. Imagine terror so great that you had to forget it.

Ian unleashed another sigh, cupped the back of her head in his hand and gave her a soft, quick kiss. “It was that time I mentioned before, the time your father led the rescue team. I took a patrol on a reconnaissance into…never mind. We were taken prisoner and…tortured. Only three of us were still alive when your father arrived.”

Honor held him as close as she could and waited, willing him to feel how much she cared.

“The worst…the worst of it,” he said raggedly, “the worst was knowing what that guy was thinking. Knowing how much…pleasure he got out of the screams. He was—he was getting off on it.”

Something inside Honor grew silent and still, grew cold and empty as shock filled her. As a helpless anger was planted in the soil of her caring. As she wondered how anybody could survive such a thing. Turning into him, she held him as fiercely as she could, trying to tell him what words never could.

“I didn’t scream,” he said, in an oddly calm voice. “Not once.”

It had been his victory. His only victory in that hell. Honor stifled a sob and blinked back tears as she came to understand. He didn’t break. He didn’t kneel. He endured.

And now, for her sake, he was going to face the evil and hatred in her house.