Rafe Sinclair's Revenge. Gayle Wilson

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      “You’ve cut your hair.”

      He always noticed things like that. Maybe too much. Still, the fact that he had noticed, that it mattered enough to him to mention it, caused an unwanted thickness in her throat.

      She had spent a very long time without anyone around to notice those things. Not her hair or her clothes or the condition of her soul.

      From force of habit, her hand lifted, fingers spread, to rake the chin-length hair back from her face. When she realized what she was doing, she forced her hand down, away from the strands that had once been long enough to tangle around his bare, sweating shoulders as they made love. Long enough to occasionally catch in his early-morning whiskers, the feel of them so sweetly abrasive against her skin.

      At the memory, a jolt of sexual heat seared mercilessly along nerve pathways that had seemed atrophied. They weren’t. Painfully, unexpectedly, she knew that now.

      “What are you doing here?” she asked again, ignoring those unsettling emotions.

      He always managed to suck her in that way. Noticing. Caring. Being aware.

      So damn aware. Aware of every aspect of her existence, as no one in her entire life before she’d met him had ever been.

      Steeling herself to face him, she walked across the dining room and through the wide double doorway that separated it from the living room. She always kept the French doors open between the two, so that they were really one.

      Which meant, she supposed, that after more than five years, she was once more in the same room with Rafe Sinclair. Something she had thought would never happen again.

      “And you’ve lost weight,” he added softly.

      His voice had come from the shadows near the fireplace. He was standing in the darkest corner of the room, and with the drapes pulled against the force of the afternoon heat, it was very dark indeed.

      His left arm was lying along on the top of one of the built-in bookcases that flanked the small fireplace. Sometime in the past a tenant had painted them a glossy white. That paleness provided a stark contrast to the dark gray shirt he wore. It was long-sleeved, buttoned at the cuff, despite the heat.

      As her eyes gradually adjusted to the room’s dimness, she was able to discern other details. In his left hand, the one resting atop the bookcase, he held the tumbler that had been missing from the sideboard. It was still half-full.

      His right arm hung loosely at his side, the fingers of the hand curled slightly inward. He seemed perfectly relaxed, exuding the same aura of confidence that had always been such a part of him.

      She hadn’t found the courage yet to look at his face. She would have to, of course, but she needed a few seconds to prepare.

      He had had that time. He had obviously been watching her since she’d come in through the back door. The place where he was standing gave him the perfect vantage point to do so.

      His position had been carefully thought out. That was a lesson he had taught her—to use every advantage your adversary allows. He had given himself both time and opportunity to study her, while she had been completely unaware of him. Unaware and unprepared.

      Except she hadn’t been. He had at least played fair in that respect.

      That’s why he’d poured the whiskey. Why he’d left the decanter unstopped. To let her know he was here. She just hadn’t figured it out as quickly as she should have.

      Out of practice, she acknowledged.

      “I asked you a question,” she said instead of responding to his comments about her appearance.

      That was certainly none of his business, but that wasn’t why she didn’t respond. There was something too personal about discussing those things with him. Too near an intimacy neither of them wanted.

      “Griff came to see me.”

      Of all the things he might have said to her, that was the last she would have expected. Rafe had made it as clear to Cabot as he had to her that the part of his life that had included them was over and done. She had gotten the message. Maybe Griff had a thicker skin.

      “About what?” she asked, beginning to get her equilibrium back.

      Her first reaction to his presence had been strictly visceral. Given their history, that was probably inevitable. It didn’t mean she couldn’t bring her intellect to bear on the reason he was here.

      All she needed was a bit of detachment. Surely after nearly six years that would be possible.

      “Someone at the agency passed along a security alert. They think Jorgensen may still be alive.”

      She tried to decide from his tone what he felt about that. As always, it was impossible to read anything from what he’d said. Not unless he wanted her to.

      “Griff thought you should be made aware of the possibility,” he continued.

      Griff thought you should be made aware…

      “So why didn’t he call me?”

      “I assume because he doesn’t know how.”

      “You did.”

      There was no answer. In the dimness she watched as he brought the glass to his lips and took a long swallow of her whiskey. She wondered, feeling slightly vindictive, if he needed it.

      “So how did you know how to find me?”

      The more important question was, of course, why would you still know how to find me?

      “I know how your mind works.”

      She thought about that for maybe ten seconds. “That’s not an answer.”

      “I trained you.”

      “Don’t you think I might have learned anything after you left?”

      There was a small movement at the corner of his mouth. “Probably not.”

      She resisted the urge to tell him to go to hell. At least she had learned when he was deliberately goading her.

      “Okay, so now I’m aware that the company thinks Jorgensen could be alive,” she said. “Anything else?”

      “I like your house.”

      “A little place in the suburbs. Isn’t that what we all dreamed of?”

      “Is it? What you dreamed of, I mean.”

      You’re what I dreamed of. As much as she hated admitting that, she could no more have stopped the thought from forming than she could have stopped herself from entering this room once she had known he was here.

      “I guess that would have depended on which day you asked me,” she said.

      “How about today?”

      Inexplicably the tightness in СКАЧАТЬ