Reason to Believe by Roxanne St. Claire

Author:Roxanne St. Claire
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Star

CHAPTER FIVE

* * *

“YOU GET BIG POINTS for not asking a million questions.” Arianna leaned back in the deli booth, pushing away a barely eaten green salad. “About Brian, and our past, and what I was feeling in that room. I know you want to know all that.”

“As much as I like getting big points, those aren’t the questions I want to ask.” He reached across the table and touched the thin gold band she wore. “Why do you handle this thing the way you do?”

She jerked her hand away, staring at him. “How . . . when did you notice that?”

“The first time I watched you on the set.” He ate one of his French fries. “It’s kind of hard to miss.”

Was it? “And what did you think?”

“That you had a nervous habit.” He wiped his mouth, and set the napkin on the table. “But then you proved that the ring has an inordinately high value to you. And back in Brian’s office, you practically broke your finger yanking on it while you were . . .” He paused, and when she didn’t offer a word, he said, “Thinking.”

“I wasn’t yanking on it,” she replied. Or thinking.

“I’m exaggerating for effect. You were playing with it, twisting it . . .” He pushed the ring a little, turning it on her finger. The act of letting someone else touch it was as intimate as if he’d touched her body, and it sent the same kind of shiver through her. “You were using it,” he said softly.

She felt her jaw drop, then snapped it closed. “You’re right. A nervous habit.”

“You need it, don’t you? It gives you . . . whatever you need to do what you do.”

Her whole body sagged with the shock of his observation. “You couldn’t know that.”

“But I do know that.”

She covered the ring protectively, as if she could keep the secret to herself. “I’ve never told anyone,” she said, looking hard at him so he understood the magnitude of the statement. “Not even my father knows.”

She considered, and discarded, various forms of the truth. Why lie to this man? For the first time that she could ever remember, she utterly trusted someone. It was that golden aura. And those intense blue eyes. His pure heart and raw courage and unfettered intensity. She trusted him. And here, in a crowded deli in the San Fernando Valley, she decided to reveal her innermost secret to a man she’d known for less than two days.

“My mother gave this ring to me when she died. On her deathbed, in the hospital, if you want the whole melodramatic truth.”

“I do.”

She took a deep breath, and barely realized she’d threaded her fingers through his. While she talked, he gently turned and twirled her ring, stroking her knuckles, soothing her, eliminating her fear. That was his gift, and it was powerful.

“My mother was a well-known crime psychic who helped the LAPD solve some of their most unsolvable crimes.” She watched his fingers on the ring, strong and clean and gentle.

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