Gift of Gold

feet.
    Jonas blinked at the upper-class English accent. His eyes widened.
    “Amanda?”
    “No, I’m not Amanda. I’m Verity. Come with me. We’re getting out of here.”
    He turned back, seeing the images of the dawn-lit scene already fading rapidly.
    Disoriented, Jonas whirled to face Verity. She was pulling at his arm and shouting commands.
    “I said come with me, dammit.” The English accent was gone. The voice was once again Verity’s. “We’re getting out of here.”
    “Honey, it’s okay.” Jonas tried to soothe her but she was already tugging him back down the corridor. “Everything’s under control. It’s all right. Just calm down, Verity. I want to do some exploring.”
    “How do we get out of this corridor?” she demanded. Jonas became aware of the pistol in his hand. He opened his fingers and dropped it.
    The corridor vanished at once. Jonas was again facing Verity across the small table.
    It didn’t surprise him to realize that he was sexually aroused. Having experienced the same after-effects on the previous two occasions when he had encountered Verity in the corridor, he was expecting it. The only difference this time was that the desire to pull Verity down onto the nearest bed, strip her, and bury himself in her was stronger than ever. Sweat trickled down the side of his face.
    “Well,” Emerson said, looking from one taut face to the other, “how was the minivacation?”
    “We almost lost our traveler’s checks,” Verity said in a grim voice.

 
    Chapter Twelve
     
    Jonas could feel the tension radiating from Verity as he walked back with her to her cottage. It had a heightening effect on his already simmering desire. But he was determined to control himself tonight. Verity had had a traumatic experience this evening. The decent thing to do was to give her time to adjust. She was bound to want to talk it all out.
    He told himself that if he was a gentleman he wouldn’t try to push her into bed tonight the way he had the last two times. He ought to show some respect for the effects of the experience on her. Tonight was a night to be spent soothing, gentling, and reassuring her. Jonas was determined to be gallant even if it took every ounce of willpower he possessed.
    There was no doubt that Verity needed some soothing. He could almost see her nerve endings glowing in the dark. He wasn’t sure he could explain to her just why it was so important to him that he start testing himself, start seeing how far his talent could stretch. He wasn’t even certain he could explain it to himself. But he knew a strong sense of urgency, one he had felt ever since that morning when he awakened in Caitlin Evanger’s ugly house.
    “Poor tyrant,” he said softly. “It really got to you, didn’t it?”
    “Of course it got to me. What did you expect?” she snapped.
    He winced. “Not quite what happened, I’ll admit.”
    “What does that mean?” She peered up at him in the darkness.
    Jonas paused, searching for words. “Verity, when I found your earring in that alley I knew there was something special about you. I knew you were more than a woman I wanted to take to bed. But I can’t really describe what I felt when I touched that earring. Just a sense of certainty. A sense that you were somehow important to me. I knew I had to find you and discover what it meant. I had never had that feeling about anyone else in my life.”
    “In other words you fell for my brain, not my body?”
    He squeezed her hand a bit too tightly in retaliation. “Spare me the sarcasm tonight. I’m trying to explain things to you. At any rate, when I found you again, nothing really became any clearer until the night I tried picking up the pistol with you standing next to me. I hadn’t stepped into that corridor for years but I recognized it instantly. I also realized something else. All of a sudden I wasn’t alone in that tunnel in my mind. You were there. It was the first time I had ever had anyone else with me.”
    “Not even when you were testing your ability at Vincent?”
    He shook his head. “No. Until I met you I had no idea it was even possible to take anyone with me into that corridor. I had always found myself alone in there, and believe me, that damn tunnel has got to be the loneliest place in space or time.”
    “I can believe it.” Verity’s fingers tightened comfortingly through his. “My God, I can believe it.”
    Jonas felt the gentle warmth in her touch and smiled to himself. He was