Sea Haven 01 - Water Bound

watched him leave and snuggled beneath the blanket, hoping it would help her stay calm.
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Chapter 8
    LEV took the pans out carefully, staring out the window while he considered the best course of action. The longer he was in Rikki’s company the more he found himself wanting to be with her. She intrigued him. While he was certain others would find her ways off-putting, he found them endearing. Obviously her sensory system was not functioning properly. For a man who had always believed he felt no instinct other than survival, he found he had a protective side. She seemed to bring it out in him.
    He was a loner. So was she. Neither felt comfortable in the company of others. Neither liked to be touched, yet he found he liked her hands on him and she didn’t seem quite as opposed to his touch either. Never had he trusted anyone enough to actually go to sleep with them, yet he had with her
    —and so had she. He believed in fate and the sea had brought them together for a reason.
    His memory of his past was coming back one small piece at a time, although, truthfully, he didn’t remember anything about a yacht or what he might have been doing on it. The good thing was that maybe it didn’t matter.
    He was dead to the outside world. Rikki was the only one who really knew of his existence. He could build a whole new life. Start over again. Be someone else.
    First, before anything, he had to buy time with her. That was imperative. His gaze swept the terrain outside the kitchen window. The cover was good as long as no one was on the drive leading to her house, or trying to sneak up on them through the trees. He’d told her the truth when he admitted to having a few gifts of his own. While he cooked a few slices of bacon, he studied the grounds out the kitchen window.
    Rikki had obviously set up her house with an eye toward protecting it from fire. The trees were a distance away. The flowers and bushes surrounding the house itself were plants that held water and would burn slowly. She didn’t think in terms of guns. Did he think those fires were aimed at her? Of course they were. The investigators had a scapegoat in a young teenage girl who obviously was a social misfit in their eyes.
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    Rikki had been a target not once, but four times. No one had bothered her in the last four years and that meant one thing to Lev—whoever was trying to kill her didn’t know where she was. But they’d be searching for her, and when they found her ... they’d find Lev. She wouldn’t be unprotected. He settled on pancakes for breakfast, thinking the texture of eggs might bother her more than the pancakes.
    He heard her coming and turned to watch her walk into the room. She flowed, like water, but he could see she was uncomfortable.
    “I was reading the newspaper article again,” she greeted. “The bodyguard was identified as Sid Kozlov. Does that sound at all familiar to you?”
    He wanted to smile when she studiously avoided looking at the bacon and pancakes. Instead, she went straight to the door and opened it and then began pacing around the table as if her nervous energy was so overwhelming she couldn’t stand still. Damn, he found her adorable. How could anyone not see her struggle to overcome whatever sensory problems she had? He couldn’t help but admire her for the life she’d created for herself.
    “Yes.” He had promised himself that he would tell her the truth as much as he could. “It’s one of about ten names I recognize.”
    She sent him her small frown and rubbed the bridge of her nose as she continued to circle the table. “Are you telling me you have ten names?”
    He nodded. “That I can remember.” He gave a casual shrug. “Who knows how many more I have.”
    “So Lev is one of those ten names?”
    “Yes.” His voice was curt, short and clipped.
    She hadn’t taken her gaze off of him, but she still couldn’t tell if she was annoying him. She didn’t pick up social cues as easily as other people.
    “I don’t like it when people interrogate me, so anytime you think I’m doing that, it’s okay not to answer me.”
    “Is that what you do when you don’t like a question? You simply don’t answer?”
    She shrugged.
    “So if I ask you a direct question, will you answer me?” Because he had all sorts of questions he wanted to ask her. Especially about the men in her life. There was no evidence that she was dating, and he’d looked. He could only stay up twenty minutes at a time, but