Gift of Gold

show up out of the blue is always a bit disconcerting.”
    She felt defensive. Damned if she was going to admit to this man that she had suffered a momentary hallucination tonight.
    “Take it easy,” Jonas said soothingly. He released her hand and put his arm around her shoulders.
    Verity found herself nestled closely against his side. The warm, heavy, oddly comforting weight of his arm around her sparked mixed emotions. On one hand, she was still aware of an inexplicable uneasiness. A part of her insisted on irrationally associating Jonas with the fear she had known a few minutes ago. But another, equally primitive and very feminine part of her was convinced that the masculine power in Jonas offered safety from those same terrors. In desperation, she tried to make normal conversation.
    “It figures my father’s only here because he’s in trouble. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. Now he’s got a loan shark after him. Are you sure about those dueling pistols?” she asked.
    “Sure about them being genuine? Yes, I’m sure.”
    She glanced up at him, curious and perplexed. “How can you be certain without doing some sort of tests?”
    Jonas shrugged, the action somehow pulling her more tightly against him. “I’ve seen a lot of old guns. I know what old steel looks like. I know what old craftsmanship looks like. And I know what a dueling pistol feels like.”
    “What it feels like? What do you mean?”
    He was staring straight ahead at the light in her cabin. “It’s hard to explain. A good dueler feels right in the hand. The aim is true. Point it and it’s aimed. You can sense it. In a real duel there’s no time to line up the target in the gun’s sights. All you can do is point the weapon in the general direction of the target. Dueling pistols are usually fairly heavy, too. They’re designed so that in the grip of a very nervous man the aim is less likely to be affected by a jerky trigger finger.”
    Verity shivered. “Makes sense. I can imagine how nervous I would be if I were standing on a so-called field of honor at dawn waiting for someone to give the signal to fire.”
    Moonlight glinted briefly off Jonas’s bleak smile. “The feeling goes beyond nervous, believe me. It’s similar to the sensation you get when you hold a rapier with an unblunted tip and face a man who’s holding another one just like it. Talk about life on the edge.”
    “You really were an expert on old weapons at one time, weren’t you?”
    “Yes. Feel better now?”
    “I told you, I feel just fine. Perfect. Peachy keen,” she retorted, irritated by the concern in his voice, even as she longed to indulge herself in his unexpected solicitude. “Why do you keep harping on how I feel?”
    He stopped in the middle of the path and tugged her around to face him. His hands slid under the lapels of her coat. The moonlight and the night washed away the gold in his eyes, leaving colorless, gleaming gems that seemed to see past all her defenses into the depths of her soul. A faint echo of the panic she had experienced earlier shot through Verity. She caught her breath, half-preparing to run.
    Jonas’s hands tightened on the lapels and he held her still. “Relax,” he ordered quietly. “It’s over for now.”
    “What’s over?” she whispered, searching his moonlit gaze for answers to questions she did not know how to ask.
    “Nothing. Never mind.” He groaned and pulled her closer. “Verity, you’re safe with me. I swear you’re safe. Please don’t run from me. I’ll take care of you. I swear it.”
    She stared at him, stunned by the intensity of his words. “Jonas, please, I don’t know what’s going on here.”
    “Yes, you do. You’re not a child. You’re a woman and you’re attracted to me. I’ve seen it in your eyes. I can make you want me, honey. Really want me. I knew it when I kissed you in the spa.” His voice was low, caressing, mesmerizing. “God knows, I want you. Let me have you. Give yourself to me. Let me show you how good it can be between us. Verity, I
need
you. Now. Tonight. I’ve waited as long as I can.”
    In that moment she believed him. He wasn’t the only one who seemed to have the power to look into souls tonight.
    She was looking at him but she was also looking into him in a way she could not explain. She knew only that when he did battle with his silent ghosts, the struggle was not unlike what she had gone through dealing with the strange, amorphous fear that had