Midnight Jewels

explain. The self-contained quality about him spoke of a unique kind of aloneness. She wondered if that state of isolation ever slipped over the border into a state of genuine loneliness. Surely at the edges the line between those two states was very thin.
    Or perhaps, like the leopard on the screen or a ghost from another dimension, Croft Falconer did not need or want to share his world with anyone else.
    Mercy sensed the strength and pride and power that made up Croft's nature and realized that a part of her responded with a sense of respect. This man was rock solid all the way through.
    Mercy chatted easily during dinner, guiding the conversation into safe channels. She told her guest about her shop, about living in Ignatius Cove, and asked him questions about the business aspects of running his self-defense schools in two different states. He talked easily, politely, and with civilized grace, but he said very little that Mercy could grab hold of to analyze and examine in detail.
    All the while she was silently looking for answers to questions she wasn't yet sure how to put into words. She felt driven to learn as much as possible about Croft, and his reluctance to talk about himself only increased her need to learn his secrets.
    She wondered about his past, about the kind of life he had led that had made him choose a career in the world of martial arts. She would have expected an American involved in such a physical business to come across as either a highly competitive, professional athlete or a super macho, thick-brained gorilla.
    Croft clearly did not treat his career as a sport. He did not have the mentality of a jock. And although he was quietly, supremely sure of himself, she couldn't write him off as a muscle bound gorilla. There was too much thoughtful, analytical intelligence behind his golden gaze, too much evidence that he had done a great deal of critical self-evaluation. His self-assurance rose from the fact that he knew himself well and accepted that which he knew. She sensed instinctively that he had evolved an all-encompassing lifestyle. It had its own rules and scale of right and wrong, both of which probably operated somewhat independently of society's norms. The important thing was that he would always abide by his own rules.
    The philosophy of violence, the study of it, was apparently a way of life to him. A tiny, warning shiver went through Mercy as she wondered if perhaps Croft were equally knowledgeable about the actual practice of violence. Studying the martial arts was one thing, but in truth most karate and judo experts never used their skills outside a gym. She did not want to believe Croft had firsthand experience of his subject.
    But what else could have given his hazel eyes such a dark, fathomless quality?
    Mercy pushed aside her doubts until the meal was over. At that point she found herself faced with finding a subtle but firm way of terminating the strange evening. She told herself she had indulged her growing fascination with this man long enough for that night.
    "You'll be on your way back to Oregon bright and early tomorrow, I imagine," she said with a calm she wasn't feeling as she poured two tiny snifters of brandy. They had moved back into the living room. It seemed to Mercy that the painted cat on the screen was watching his counterpart with complacent interest.
    "No." Croft spoke with a calm that was far more genuine than Mercy's. "I don't think so. I owe you a meal."
    She smiled involuntarily. "Afraid of being in my debt?"
    "I like to keep the Circle closed."
    "So you've said."
    "This is a debt I will take pleasure in repaying." He smiled, set down the brandy glass and got to his feet. When she looked at him he reached down to pull her up beside him.
    Mercy was unprepared for the small shock that gripped her when his fingers closed around her wrist. She was even more unsettled by the gentleness of his touch. The power in him was under exquisite control. A woman would always be aware of the strength in this man, she thought, but she would never fear it. Yet even as she was stunned by the realization of him, he was releasing her.
    "Croft?"
    "Dinner tomorrow evening?" He stood very close but made no effort to take her into his arms.
    Good grief, surely that wasn't what she wanted. Not so soon at any rate. She needed time. Once again she heard a distant chime, the faintest of warning bells. But the bells fell silent as she looked into Croft's eyes. The reckless need to know