studied her hair, almost as though mesmerized by it, then slowly transferred his gaze to her own widely opened eyes. Then he gave a rather sharp tug to the hair in his grasp.
“You are very foolish, señora,” he repeated. His voice was still slightly raspy, and Melanie suspected the reason why. The harshness had nothing to do with a lack of language skills but was, rather, because he seldom spoke.
Something in his tone, in his rough touch sent a spark of fire through her. Again she had the sensation that the two of them seemed to be alone on this hillside, far away from all humanity. She was suddenly and deeply aware of this strange man’s sheer masculinity and, by contrast, her own femininity. Her lips parted in wonder at the feeling. How long had it been since she’d felt anything like this? More than a year? More than two or three, perhaps. Since Chris had been born probably, and possibly even before that.
Part of her wanted to reach up and cover this healer’s hand with her own. Growing inside of her was a desire for affirmation, need to show him she understood a want he hadn’t voiced. But before she could speak, his hand dropped her hair and came to rest on his chest. Melanie swallowed, tasting an odd disappointment. Such raw power he held in those lax fingers, yet all he’d done was touch her face, hold a single, wet lock of her hair—
“Let me go,” he said. Though his voice was nearly a whisper, the command was as sharp and clear as a clarion.
Slowly, almost painfully, she unlocked her arms, setting him free. She refused to meet his eyes. To do so was to drown in his abject aloneness, that cold, crystalline rejection. To linger there was to willingly submit to what she knew was his double-edged power—the gift of life or the capability of total destruction.
But he remained motionless, didn’t pull away from her. And now that she was no longer holding him, the intimacy of their positions seemed all the greater, for his head still pressed against her breasts, his body still curved against hers.
As if in rescue, she heard the distant whine of sirens. It was probably the sheriff and ambulance the abuelito had called earlier, which raised another set of questions. Would Teo Sandoval stay long enough to hear her request? After meeting his eyes, touching him, did she even dare ask it of him now?
“Quickly, El Rayo…you must go now,” Pablo said. “The sheriff comes. People. You have to go now. Johnny’s only a mile from here, maybe less. If you don’t wish them to see you, you have to hurry. ¡Andale!”
The other man motioned for Teo to rise, but made no move to help him. In fact, he kept his eyes studiously averted. Melanie saw a look of pure hatred cross Teo Sandoval’s face and recoiled from it even though it wasn’t directed at her but at the attendant who had spoken.
His muscles rippled and contracted and Melanie bit her lip against the visceral reaction the motion inspired in her. She saw Teo give Pablo a cold, measured look that seemed to contain some dreadful message, and shivered inwardly. She hoped she would never live to receive such a baleful glare.
“Let him go, señora. It’s no favor to keep him here,” Pablo continued. Melanie’s brow furrowed. Even to her still dazed mind, the man no longer had the look of a backward, poverty-stricken gas station owner, but instead seemed to have something of Teo Sandoval’s strong, potentially threatening aura about him.
“I’m not stopping him,” Melanie said, and even to herself her voice sounded hoarse and taut with tension. She allowed her hands to slide away from him, to the cold, wet ground where the mud felt slimy and slick after the roughness of his shirt, the warmth of his body.
In a swift, powerful stretch, Teo silently pushed to his feet and, after a moment’s hesitation and a slight sway to the right, turned as though to leave. For a dismaying moment Melanie thought he would disappear without a word, and wondered if perhaps the man was like an idiot savant, capable of incredible feats but not “fully there.” The PRI files hadn’t indicated anything like that, and yet the scientists had deemed him a barbarian. Her mind hotly denied the idiot savant possibility, and without conscious decision, she called out in protest.
“Teo!”
He stopped as if shot, and turned back to look down at her. Though she felt none of that soul-shattering connection that had gripped her earlier, she was all too aware of an inordinant amount of relief at the look of wariness, of cold intelligence, in his eyes. She found herself holding her breath.
“Who are you?” he asked. His voice was still rough and scratchy. And this, too, inexplicably served to ease her confused mind. He wasn’t wholly recovered, and therefore had to be human, after all. His eyes darkened as he waited for her answer.
She told him her name and he nodded slowly, as if he had expected her to say Melanie Daniels.
Pablo muttered something, but trailed off when Teo turned his silver-blue gaze in his direction. The attendant shrugged and looked away uncomfortably, shoving his hands into his pockets.
Teo’s eyes were narrowed as he switched his gaze back to her. “How do you know my name?”
Melanie could see a wealth of wariness on his face and noted that his entire frame seemed a testimonial to that tension. She knew, by his question, that her earlier suspicions that he didn’t wish to be found were accurate. Teo Sandoval. The one man who could possibly help her son. This was him. Until this moment she hadn’t let herself truly believe it. But it was true. She’d found him. He had to help her, but instinctively she knew she would have to tread very carefully.
He was still waiting for an answer to his terse question. Melanie drew a shallow breath. Was he telepathic, as well? Her mind was closed to him, certainly—she had been able to close it at will since childhood, even though it opened alarmingly easily in sleep—so he couldn’t be reading her thoughts. But was it possible that he could read deeper than mere surface thoughts, perhaps pluck the truth from her subconscious?
“I—I heard about you. I read about you in the f-files at the Psionic Research Institute.”
If she’d expected him to look shocked or even recoil in some exaggerated rendition of horror, she would have been disappointed; he did neither. He merely stared at her with the cold flat expression she was coming to associate with him.
“I need your help,” she said finally.
Something flickered in his eyes at that, but his facial features didn’t shift an iota.
“My son…he…”
“I help no one,” Teo rasped.
“But…the mechanic?”
Teo waved a hand dismissively, but didn’t try to correct his obvious falsehood or to explain away the contradiction.
“Please…” she murmured, staring up at him, blinking away the sudden sting in her eyes. “You have to help me.” She wasn’t surprised that her voice sounded as hoarse as his.
“No.”
“I can pay. I’ll pay you anything,” she said, knowing even as she said it that it wouldn’t help, wouldn’t matter. The amount of money he’d gained control of years ago, money in an account established by the PRI, was enough for anyone’s needs. More than that, however, was the fact that anyone able to survive in the wilds of the New Mexico mountains—alone—for so long couldn’t have much interest in material objects.
Something
