Gift of Gold

saying widened her eyes.
    “I know a few basic positions and moves, stuff I picked up because of my interest in old weaponry, but that’s all. I’ve learned to use a knife over the years and I can handle a gun if I have to, but let’s face it, a man doesn’t have a lot of use for a sword or a rapier in this day and age. My interest in them was purely academic.”
    “You fought like an expert tonight,” she whispered.
    “As he did that day in the lab when he nearly killed the technician,” Caitlin added. “That was the most significant conclusion the final lab report held. Somehow you have the capability of picking up the skills as well as the emotions connected with the man who used whatever object of violence you’re handling.”
    Jonas lifted his head to look at Caitlin. “It’s not that simple, Caitlin. It never was. That’s what I tried to explain to the researchers. They wouldn’t listen to me. They didn’t understand what could happen in a situation where I deliberately tried to do that. I’m not sure I knew myself. I only know I didn’t want to find out. Until tonight, that is, when I had no choice.”
    “You could have died.” Verity clutched his leg so tightly that Jonas thought she would leave marks. “I sensed it. That’s why I wouldn’t let you kill Kincaid. I knew that if you took that final step, whatever lay in the past would somehow gain control of you. No one could survive that kind of takeover.”
    She knew, he realized. She understood all of what had happened back there in that corridor.
    Caitlin frowned. “Why would he have died? All he was doing was tapping in to skills in addition to emotions. What’s the difference?”
    Verity shook her head. “You don’t know what you asked of him when you set him up to kill Kincaid for you. If Jonas had killed a man while under the influence of those powerful…
    Jonas tugged warningly at the fistful of red hair he had been toying with. “Never mind, Verity,” he said softly. “She doesn’t understand. No one understands except you and me. No one else knows what happens when we’re together in that corridor.”
    Caitlin stared from one to the other. “What are you saying? That Verity is somehow involved in the process? Does she have a talent for psychometry, too?”
    Jonas shook his head, annoyed with the woman. “No. She has another kind of talent altogether. One I’m not going to try to explain to you. It doesn’t concern you.”
    Caitlin read the cold dismissal in his eyes and sighed. She looked at Verity. “I want you to know something, Verity. I never meant for you to be in any real danger tonight. Please believe me. I had a plan, but everything went wrong. Kincaid must have second-guessed me somehow and come up with his own plan.”
    “What was your plan, Caitlin?” Verity demanded softly.
    Caitlin looked at Tavi and then back at Verity. “It was simple enough. You’ve been bait all along. I intended to use you as bait again after the ball tonight.”
    “Bait!”
    Jonas felt murderous all over again but he held on to his temper. It was the only way he could get the whole story. “Let’s have it, Caitlin.”
    “Very well. You have a right to know. The pieces of my plan for revenge came together very slowly over a long period of time. I wanted Kincaid to die on that rapier. I needed him to die that way. But there was a problem. I knew no one who could or would kill a man in that way.”
    “Except me when I was under the influence of the past.”
    She nodded. “About a year ago I remembered you and your abilities and I got the first glimmer of a plan. But by then you had disappeared. You’d been gone from Vincent for four years and no one there knew what had happened to you. I finally found you down in Mexico. Money will buy anything, including very good private investigation services. But before I could think of a way to approach you and ask for your assistance, you came north on your own and went to work for Verity. Tavi and I went to the Sequence Springs Spa to meet you and to determine what the relationship was between you and Verity. I realized when I met you that you would never willingly help me, regardless of how much money I offered. You had the makings of a
condot
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ere
but you weren’t a true mercenary. Money alone would not buy you. And I soon realized you didn’t particularly like me.”
    “But there was Verity,” Jonas supplied harshly.
    Caitlin nodded sadly. “There was Verity. I realized