smiled tentatively and walked toward the lady. “I’m sorry. I feel like I should know you.”
“You know a great many things, not all of which can be explained. But you trust in your gift, as you should. You’ll share that ability with one to come, and teach her to nurture it. As you must. The ability that brings you your greatest sadness will also save your life.”
Shane felt, rather than saw, the jolt the words had on Cassie. And he’d heard as much cryptic nonsense from the stranger as he wanted to. “C’mon, Cass,” he said shortly. “I thought you wanted to go see Hawk.”
But she remained rooted to the ground, her gaze on the woman before her. If she’d heard him, she gave no sign of it. The older lady leaned forward, a slight lilt to her voice. “Your daughter will share your gift and you will teach her to use it well, not hide it as you’ve been forced to. Accept your future without the fear you’re used to regarding it with. There is joy there, as well as sorrow.”
“My daughter? But when…”
Irritation turned to something else. His hand went to Cassie’s back, in an effort to move her away. “Lady, this fortune-telling nonsense might play with the rest of the fairgoers, but you picked the wrong couple to lay it on.” He couldn’t believe his damnable luck. All Cassie needed right now was a stranger’s babblings to encourage her in her own ridiculous notions.
Her attention switched to him. “It is you, Shane, who regards it as nonsense, but you must learn to listen, and to accept. Cassie’s fear for you is well founded. Afghanistan holds dangers for you that cannot be comprehended. Consider well before deciding your course. Your decision will change everything.”
There was a moment of stunned shock before fury began to boil. He looked at Cassie, a bitter sense of betrayal almost choking him. “No wonder she looks familiar to you. How long did it take for the two of you to cook this thing up?”
Cassie stared at him, a mask of confusion on her face. “What? Shane, this only proves what I’ve been trying to tell you. I knew you shouldn’t go on that assignment. It isn’t too late. You could still back out.”
He took a step away from her. And then another. It was safer that way, given the rage surging through him. “Someone more easily controlled might even fall for this scene. Of course, a more honest woman would never have set up such an elaborate ruse to manipulate a man, but hey, whatever means necessary, right?”
Hurt mingled with determination in her expression, but he wasn’t going to allow it to affect him. Not when it appeared that he’d been the biggest fool of all time. Had he given it a thought, he would have found it ironic that the greatest betrayals in his life had been perpetuated by frauds and fakes who’d pretended to love him.
But he wasn’t much in the mood to appreciate the irony.
“Shane, you have to listen.” There was desperation in Cassie’s voice, in the clutch of her fingers when she laid them on his arm. “If you go through with that assignment, I’m afraid you may not come home alive. I told you about my dream—”
He jerked away from her touch. “You told me. What you didn’t tell me was the lengths you’d go to get your own way.”
“This isn’t about me! It’s about—”
“Finally something we can agree on.” His jaw was tight, his chest felt as if a vise squeezed it. “This isn’t about you at all. Not anymore.”
The older woman was speaking again, but he couldn’t hear her. There was a roaring in his ears, and a fist punching his heart as he turned to leave. The first step felt like a surgical slice, neatly peeling away a part of his life he’d begun to think of as permanent. With the second step, a blessed sort of numbness settled in and he welcomed it, even knowing it wouldn’t last. The lack of feeling made it possible to take the next step. And then the next. Soon he was striding rapidly toward the parking lot where he’d left his vehicle. Away from the charlatan spouting her cryptic psychic nonsense.
And away from the only woman he’d ever loved.
Chapter 2
Three months later
Shane pushed open the door of his house and was immediately assailed by the dual odors of Pine-Sol and stale air. Although his housecleaner had been instructed to keep the place clean in his absence, she’d obviously neglected to air it out regularly.
He walked through the entryway to drop the bundle of mail he’d collected from the Post Office, then went back to the porch to retrieve his bags. He set them down in the hallway, nudging them out of the way with one foot. Leaving the door open, he went back to deal with the mail that had accumulated in his absence.
The place felt foreign, distant somehow. Which was amazing, considering the places he’d been living for the past several months.
Living. That was the operative word. He’d come back to the States alive. There had been times he’d been convinced that would never happen.
Without any real interest, he began sorting through the mail. Half of it was junk, which he set aside to be discarded later. There was an oddly disorienting feeling to be reading advertisements guaranteeing financial success, and catalogs featuring malnourished, scantily clad models, when only twenty hours earlier he’d been in a country where a man was routinely killed for the dollar in his pocket or the half-worn boots on his feet. Where a baby died for lack of ample penicillin. Where the medications that could save lives were bartered by warlords and thieves as lucrative items on a thriving black market.
Like a flick of a switch he turned that memory off and concentrated on the task at hand. Three piles—for junk, professional and personal. The latter was woefully thin, consisting of only a letter that looked to be from his lawyer. Until… His hand faltered when he came upon the plain white envelope without a return address. He didn’t need one. He recognized the handwriting.
Cassie’s.
A memory of her face flashed into his mind, its appearance a bit too easily summoned for comfort. With slightly more difficulty, he pushed the mental image aside. She was out of his life. Had been for three months. Nothing contained in the message would change that.
He let the letter drop from his fingers to land on the top of the third pile, and continued sorting. The wound in his shoulder had stiffened up on the plane and throbbed dully. The bandage needed to be changed, and he’d have to get a new prescription now that he was home. Somehow he couldn’t summon the interest or inclination to do any of that at the moment.
The phone rang, the sound startling in the silence of the house. Shane answered it and, upon hearing the voice on the other end, felt his blood go glacial.
“Shane? Oh, thank the goddesses. Where have you been?”
“Gran.” His voice was flat. “How did you find me?”
He could almost picture the careless wave of her hand. “Oh, that doesn’t really matter, does it, sweetie? What matters is that you’re finally home. Someone at the hospital where you work told me that you were out of the country. Did you enjoy your vacation? I always worry about your working too hard.”
Shane’s mouth twisted wryly. “The vacation was fine. What do you want?”
Her
