Rarities Unlimited 02 - Running Scared
voice.
“Thank you.”
The smile she gave Shane was almost sad. “Two odds make an even, right?”
Chapter 52
Sedona
November 4
Night
S hane waited for Risa to say something more. He couldn’t see her face, but the tension in her body told him how tightly strung she was. His voice whispered through the darkness like another shade of night. “Is the gold here now?”
“No. But . . .” Risa rubbed the gooseflesh on her arms. “Can’t you feel it? It was here. And something still is.”
“Yes, I feel it. I just didn’t identify it as fast as you did.”
“Practice,” she said bleakly, looking around Virgil O’Conner’s empty cabin. “Christ, I hate feeling like this, knowing I’m different. Maybe I should have been a nurse instead of a curator.”
“Maybe I should have been a proctologist.”
She gave him a disbelieving look and then laughed out loud. “Sorry. Was I whining?”
He touched her cheek gently. “You’re entitled. If there was a way to keep you out of this, I would.”
“If you tried, I’d fight you tooth and nail.”
The corners of his mouth turned up. “Could be fun.”
Shaking her head, she started pulling out dresser drawers. There weren’t many clothes to look at. All were of the kind that gave thrift stores their reputations as centers of low couture.
No papers. Certainly no gold.
She glanced at the unmade bed.
“No need,” Shane said quickly. “Nothing on top or underneath except skid marks in the dust left by suitcases or ammo boxes.”
“Short of pulling up floorboards and poking holes in the wall, we’re out of luck.”
“Dead end,” he agreed. “But I know there’s more.”
“Here?”
“Or close by.”
“I wish I didn’t agree with you.” She put her hands on her hips, did a slow circle, and shook her head. “Not this room. The only thing in here . . . isn’t in here anymore.”
“The gold?”
She nodded.
“Like Wales?” he asked.
“Exactly. Damn it.” She rubbed her arms briskly. “I’ve had tingles from artifacts before, but nothing like Wales until Smith-White’s gold. And now this.”
Just like, she thought, glancing sideways at Shane, she had had tingles from men before, but nothing like him. What she felt with him was so different it should have terrified her.
Sometimes it did.
“Same here,” he said.
At first she thought she had spoken aloud about how he made her feel. Then she realized that he was simply agreeing with her about the gold.
“And the gold, too,” he said.
“Stop that!”
He laughed and stroked her bare wrist above the exam gloves. “You have very speaking eyes, darling.”
“I’ll get mirrored lenses.”
“Would it help if I said I felt the same way?”
“About mirrored lenses? Not particularly.”
He lifted her hand and nipped the skin he’d just stroked. “You know what I mean.”
The goose bumps that went up her arm owed nothing to ancient Druid gold. “What if it burns out in a few weeks or months?”
“What if it doesn’t?”
She blew out a breath that was almost a laugh. “One day at a time, huh?”
“That’s how life comes. One day at a time.”
Her smile was shaky but real. “Okay. A day I can do. But I want to get out of this house right now.”
Silently Shane took her hand and walked through the house into the night. “Better?”
“Yes.” She peeled off the gloves and put them in her purse. “Much better.”
“Feel up to a walk?”
She looked down at her shoes. Since her barefoot sprint through the casino, she had made a point of wearing footgear she could run in. That didn’t mean she was eager to take on rough country in tennis shoes.
“How far?” she asked.
He glanced up to the long mesa that loomed behind the house. “Maybe half a mile.”
She followed his look, tossed her purse inside the truck, and said, “Do you know where we’re going?”
“No.”
“Oh, well, that makes it so much better.” She waved a hand toward the cliff looming out of the darkness. “After you, boss.”
The moon’s radiance was strong enough that Shane didn’t have to use his penlight. The trail was well defined by previous hikers. Even if it hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have hesitated. Every step farther up the rise to the base of the bluff made him certain he was heading the right way.
“Feel it?” he asked quietly.
“Yes.” Risa’s voice was clipped, saying more than words about how much she disliked sensing something she knew she
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