The Serpent in the Stone

CHAPTER Six

Ian stared as Sara waded into the inlet without looking back. She shivered as the water inched up her slender legs. His gaze traveled up the back of a sensible red bathing suit that had driven the sense right out of him the instant he saw her in it. There was nothing wrong with looking at her, he told himself. But oh, God, she had curves in all the right places.

Then she ducked under and came up with water sluicing down her back, and he wanted to do a whole lot more than look. Get in there, you idiot.

Dustin had offered him a pair of swimming trunks—quite possibly the ugliest Ian had ever seen. He’d refused. His jeans were good enough. He hoped they would also do a better job of keeping his growing interest in her dripping, hourglass figure in check.

Before he could embarrass himself, he stripped off his T-shirt and tossed it on the sand beside his jacket. He strode down the beach and splashed into the water.

Cold water jolted his exertion-heated body, and he huffed in surprise. His arousal fled before an onslaught of chills. Thank God for that.

Watching him shivering with the sudden cold, she laughed. His pulse jumped at the soft sound as though she’d touched him.

He’d thought that by forcing her to admit to her abilities, he could drive away the blazing desire to kiss her the way he had the night of the storm. Even now, he battled the urge to feel her satiny skin under his hands again.

She was everywhere, damn her. At his camp, she haunted his waking hours. A chill would fly up his back as he worked. He’d get the feeling that if he just turned his head, she’d be there waiting. Hair whipping in the wind, arms reaching for him...

He’d have taken a hundred such days over the nights. At night, his dreams boiled with images of a blood-covered man who ordered Ian to help her.

What he wanted right now didn’t qualify as help.

“Ian. What’s on your mind?”

“I thought you could read minds.”

“I can. I choose not to. It’s invasion of privacy.” She waded closer and sank neck-deep.

Good thing she felt that way, because the direction of his thoughts might have earned him jail time. Below the water’s surface, he saw the glint of gold in her repaired necklace. The stone pendant rested just above the curve of her breasts, onyx-black against her opaline skin. He warred with himself, aching to kiss her, longing to retreat.

She backed away and dipped to her chin. Her hair swirled on the water, dark and slick as sealskin. “What’s so important about this falcon of yours?”

Good, a safe topic. “Aside from being an endangered species? I’m hoping for a breeding pair.”

“Was there another?”

“Just the one. If he has a mate, I haven’t seen her yet.”

Breeding? Mate? Okay, maybe not so safe a topic. His body agreed in the most painful way possible. Should have gone with the ugly shorts, he thought, wishing he could loosen the fit of his jeans without being obvious.

“So the falcon is why you haven’t left for Mainland?”

Yes. No. “Partly.” Frustrated, he dove underwater for some distance. He waded back up the inlet until the water level dropped to his waist, and began stretching out his shoulder.

“Does it hurt much? I can’t see how digging all day has helped it,” she said.

“It’s all right. Better than it’s been. I’m off the painkillers, at least.”

He heard water slosh. He looked around and confirmed that she’d submerged.

She surfaced right in front of him. “Will you tell me something?” she asked.

“Hmm?”

“When that man attacked your family...”

He angled a look at her. She wouldn’t meet it. “Say whatever you’re not saying,” he prompted.

She took a breath. “Did his eyes change color the way mine do?”

He stopped working his shoulder and frowned. “I don’t remember.”

She knew he was lying; he saw it on her face. He remembered like it had just happened. One moment, the man’s eyes had been nondescript brown, and the next...

Then came the knife. Then his father’s grunt of shock, and the thud as he crumpled to the floor.

Days earlier, Ian had seen someone else call an object across thin air. A tiny waif of a girl, and her eyes had changed, too. After his father’s death, he’d gone out of his way to avoid her.

Until now.

Sara’s lips parted. “Did he...? How did he...?”

Her gaze flicked away and back like an indecisive dragonfly. Ian saw how much she yearned to ask the questions he didn’t want to answer. He steeled himself. “You want to know how much like you he was.”

“Never mind,” she said, too fast. She turned and started to wade off.

He caught her by the hand. “Gold.” He let go, and wished he hadn’t. “Just before it happened. They were gold.”

She crouched in the water. Ian, still standing, tried not to think about how close she was to his groin. He flew through a mental recital of the Latin name for every bird he could think of. When that didn’t work, he sat down in the shallows beside her, shifting furtively to ease the tightness in his pants, and the conflicting tension in his neck.

“He did the same thing you did,” Ian said at last. “With your necklace, as a kid. Raised his hand and—” He reached into the air and waved his fingers.

“It’s not the same,” she said at once. “I’m not the same.”

He dunked his head backward, washing off the rest of the sweat. Saltwater trickled stinging into his eyes, and he wiped it away. For a time, they both fell silent.

“My sister has pyrokinesis, among other things,” she said at last. “Fires, she can light fires. She could be dangerous, but she’s not. We’ve never hurt another person in our lives.”

“And your father?”

“I never saw him do anything like what Faith and I can do,” she said. “But he was a good man. A good father.”

“So was mine.”

Bird cries sounded in the air over the surging of ocean on rock. Ian looked up. A flock of gulls passed overhead. Reminded of his work, he got to his feet once more. “We should go.” He offered his hand to help her up.

She took it, but released it again as soon as she’d gained her feet. Wet tendrils of her hair settled in the hollow between her breasts. Ian gritted his teeth. Elanoides forficatus, Buteo jamaicensis, Pandion haliaetus. He spun away, then stalked out of the water after his shirt and jacket.

She’d brought a sweatshirt and jeans. He found it easier to breathe once she’d put them on over her bathing suit.

But not by much.

****

During the walk back to Ian’s camp, he explained the basics of rock climbing. Sara tried to listen, but couldn’t concentrate. She told herself she only lagged behind because she was thinking about his climbing instructions, but then she looked up.

He’d tucked his shirt and jacket under his arm, and she had an uninterrupted view of his naked back. She followed the line of his broad shoulders, down through a mesmerizing vee to his narrow hips. As he walked, she stared at the play of muscle. He had such a beautiful back. She hated to linger on the scars.

Seeming to notice she’d fallen behind, he paused. “Something wrong?”

She shook her head and hurried to catch up.

They said nothing more until they arrived at his tent. He showed her how to buckle his spare belt and ropes and adjust them to fit her body, then donned his own gear. “Ready?” he asked.

“You know you’re crazy to do this kind of thing voluntarily?”

He grinned and led the way to the cliff.

When they reached it, Sara craned over the precipice with apprehension. “So you want me to jump off a cliff?”

He laughed. “It’s easier than it seems,” he told her. “The ropes do a lot of the work. I’ll show you. Grab the other helmet.”

“Are we rock climbing or doing high-rise construction?”

He buckled his own helmet. “The falcon likes to dive-bomb if he thinks you’re too close to his roost. Ever been around a pissed-off bird with sharp talons?”

Shrugging, she picked up the other helmet and buckled it on. “Aren’t we going to scare him off?” she asked.

“We’ve worked out a mutual safe distance. The helmets are just insurance against him redrawing his lines.” He gave his anchor points an experimental tug, then started over the edge of the cliff. Feeding out the rope, he lowered himself down, placing his feet in the sturdiest crevices. When he was a short way below, he looked back up. “Come on.”

“I think I’d rather fly,” she said, hanging back.

He cocked his head. “You could do that, couldn’t you?”

Was he teasing her? No, not about her powers. He couldn’t be. “Yes, if I shapeshifted. I can’t levitate myself, or I’d be floating down there instead of attempting suicide with this contraption.” Setting her jaw, she knelt and climbed down. The ends of her hair, still damp, billowed in the updraft.

Placing her feet where he instructed her, she made it to his level before her foot slipped on a ledge. She yelped and started to slide. Gravel spilled away under her.

He grabbed her by the harness and steadied her as the ropes caught. “I’ve got you. You’re doing fine.”

“You’re loving this, aren’t you?”

“A little,” he admitted, flashing a dimple at her. “It’s nice to be back on the other end of the professional know-how.”

“So this time, I get to be the rookie.”

He chuckled and continued down the cliff. “Keep it coming, rookie.”

He showed her how to rappel downward until they got within sight of the roost. He swung near enough to put a hand on her arm and stop her descent, then pointed.

The roost huddled in a crag out of the wind, no more than a shallow ledge of granite. Crouched on its edge, watching them with suspicion, was the falcon.

Excitement surged through Sara. She bent close to Ian’s ear and spoke in an exuberant whisper. “He’s beautiful. This is amazing!”

Ian lifted the camera hanging around his neck and leaned back in his harness to photograph the bird. “And you thought this wasn’t going to be any fun. Check out the view. This is prime real estate.”

At his gesture, she turned around in her harness. The lowering sun glittered on the waves. Birds keened below, and the ocean pounded in her ears. Unst lay just visible on the horizon. “Wow. It feels like we’re the only two people on earth out here.” And that, she thought privately, had far too much appeal right now.

“This is why I’d hate being tied to a desk all the time,” he told her.

The falcon took flight and soared away over the water. She watched it go, captivated by its grace. When she looked back, she saw Ian smiling at her. “Thank you.”

“What for?”

“For the cliffside with a view,” she said, then smiled. “What do you need my help with?”

He sobered at once. “I was hoping you’d try an experiment with me. If you don’t mind...”

She frowned when he didn’t continue. “Shapeshifting.”

“If you can,” he added. “Just to see if you can understand him. I wouldn’t ask you to get too close or do anything dangerous. And I’d really like to know what it’s like to fly.”

Underneath his guarded exterior, she saw a flash of wonder that made her heartbeat skip. She felt the same thing every time she shapeshifted. “It’s scary. Incredible.” She cast her gaze up at the top of the cliff. “Did you ever just stand up there with your arms spread and let the wind rush through your fingers?”

He shook his head.

“That’s what it’s like. Stepping off the edge of the world.”

Something flickered in his eyes then, the subtle but unmistakable connection of understanding. “That’s the way it is when I climb.”

They stayed on the cliffside, talking and birdwatching until the sun began to descend. By the time they reached the top again, she couldn’t contain her enthusiasm. “I can’t believe you do that for a living. What a rush!”

They removed their gear and sat on the cliff edge, dangling their legs over the side. “Well, it isn’t always this much fun,” he told her. “The tradeoff is that I have to spend most of the year in a classroom or in board meetings, justifying the fun part of my career.”

“Board meetings, ugh.” She swung her legs back and forth, heady with the sensation of sitting on the edge of a cliff. With him. And for once, having a conversation that lacked suspicion on both sides.

What a nice change.

Warm with sunshine and good humor, she asked, “What information do you have about peregrine falcons?”

“A few photos, some of my sketches. Nothing else that’s specific to the Eurasian subspecies. Why?”

“The more I know about an animal, the easier it is to shapeshift into it.” At his look of interest, she hurried to add, “I’m not promising much. I can try it, but I might not be able to keep the shapeshift for long. And as for talking to it, I can’t promise anything at all.”

He nodded soberly, but she could tell he was bursting with questions. She folded her hands in her lap and wondered why she’d agreed to this insane endeavor. “I’ll come tomorrow afternoon. Can I see your sketches?”

“Yeah, they’re in my tent.” He got to his feet and picked up the rest of their climbing gear.

She took a last look at the copper-gold water and followed him back to his camp.

Inside, he combed through a stack of books on a table. He handed her a thick volume on North American wildlife. “That one has a good color plate and a writeup on the American peregrine. The Eurasian is similar, so it might be what you’re looking for. I’ve got a couple days’ worth of notes on our friend Horus down there—”

“Horus?” she interrupted, then smiled. “The Egyptian falcon god?”

“Seemed appropriate.” He flashed that dimple again.

She clasped the book to her chest. “Well, all we have to do next is find him a mate, and you’ll have your Hathor.”

“Who’s Hathor?”

“She was the wife of Horus. Goddess of music, dance, motherhood, and”—she cleared her throat and opened the book, staring hard at a picture of a grizzly bear—“sexuality.” She hugged the book to her body like a shield while her cheeks flamed.

He crossed the tent. When she looked up, he was holding his journal, flipping through the pages. Their gazes met.

Ian lowered his journal. He glanced down at her lips, and ages passed in silence. Sara wanted to run away, run toward him, escape, ignore it, and savor it, all at once. She swallowed, not knowing what to do. Not knowing what he wanted to do.

He took a hesitant step closer and then stopped, rigid with tension. “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” He pitched his journal on the cot, strode forward, and kissed her.

The contact exploded through her. Her every nerve fired like a Roman candle. She breathed him in, smelling saltwater and fresh air as he plunged his hands through her hair and pulled her closer. His stubble scraped her chin. With a muffled moan, she parted her lips.

He slanted his mouth over hers, deepening the kiss. Oh, God, everything she remembered about their last kiss was wrong, so wrong, only a shadow of what he really felt like pressed against her. Invading her mouth, invading her space, tearing her senses asunder and putting them back together in totally the wrong order. Careless of anything but the need to touch him, she dropped the book.

It fell on his foot. “Ow!” He lurched backward.

“Sorry!”

He gave her a rueful, sidelong look and sat down on his cot. “Was that a hint?”

She blushed, still feeling the tingle of his mouth on hers. “No.”

“Good.” He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her down onto his lap for another scorching kiss. His mouth left hers to skim along her jawline. She gasped, feeling him nip at the tender skin just under her ear, and splayed her hands across his back to trace the ridges of his shoulder blades under the taut muscle.

In one fluid motion, he raised her arms and pulled her sweatshirt off over her head, then tossed it to the floor. His hands settled on her waist, burning hot through the thin fabric of her bathing suit. He bent his head to her throat and rained feather kisses there. It felt so good...

Too good. The last time she’d been like this with anyone... Had it really been so long?

Oh, God, how embarrassing.

She felt the weight of the amulet lift from her chest as he pushed it aside. Realizing where his trail of kisses was leading, she stiffened.

He stopped at once and raised his head. “What?”

Words stuck in her throat and she closed her eyes, trying to blot out humiliating memories. She hugged herself in dismay. Why was it still so hard?

His hands came to rest on her arms, urging them out of their protective embrace. “Don’t you want this?”

Oh, how she wanted it. There was no measurement for how she wanted it. She hesitated, trying to put the awkwardness into words, but he was so close, still touching her, confusing her. Had she spent the last couple decades buried in work just to avoid this? “You wouldn’t...”

“Understand?” His hands slid down to grasp hers. “Try me.”

Her cheeks burned even as she forced the embarrassment down. “I haven’t... Not since I was sixteen.”

When she stole a look at him, his expression hadn’t changed. He waited for her to continue.

“He was popular, good-looking, all of that. I thought he really liked me. We... Things didn’t go well the next day. I feel like such an idiot.” She tugged one of her hands out of Ian’s to rub at the back of her neck. “He spread it all over school. A couple of his swim team friends followed me around for the rest of the year, asking if I’d help them with their workouts. I never faced him about it, because I was afraid to get any closer to him, because then he’d find out about my powers, and make everything worse—”

Ian stopped her with a finger over her lips. “Kyle Wagner?”

“Oh, God.” She shot up. Bad enough that she’d spent the rest of her school years trying to live down the undeserved reputation Kyle had put on her...the attention from which had made it all the harder to hide her gifts.

Worse, that the man now kissing her and doing such mind-exploding things to her—and she still wanted it—had heard the gossip.

Ian stood, too. “Don’t even think about him. He doesn’t have a right to be in there,” he said, touching her temple.

The gesture was so close to a caress that she arched backward in surprise. “What do you know about him?”

“I know he was a punk, and he ought to have been castrated. He and his little cronies had a bet going on girls. One of them did the same thing to a friend of mine.” He touched a finger to the scar over his eyebrow. “That’s how I got this. And as for your...” He sighed. “As for what you are, he never found out, did he?”

She shook her head, studying him. “I could have used a friend like you.”

As soon as the words were out, she pulled away. She picked up the wildlife book from the floor. “Can I borrow this?”

“Sure.”

She moved toward the door.

Ian bent and scooped her sweatshirt off the floor. “Sara…why don’t you stick around for dinner?”

She smiled. “Okay.”

****

Ian enjoyed Sara’s company, which wasn’t very surprising in itself. The surprise was how much he enjoyed it. They had talked about their jobs with companionable enthusiasm, and now the sun dipped lower and lower in the sky. “Pass the coffee, would you?” he asked as they finished dinner.

She handed over the pot, and he poured himself a fresh cup. He sniffed it and took a sip, rolled it critically around his tongue, then swallowed.

She wrinkled her nose at him. “Why do you do that? You did the same thing at the pub. It’s just coffee, and you look like you’re at a wine tasting.”

He gave a lopsided smile. “Old habits die hard. My mom owns Waverly’s Deli back home. When she opened the shop five years ago, she was looking for the perfect blend of coffee. I got to be the test subject.”

“Well, I’ve tasted the end result, and I think she hit the nail on the head. I go there on my way to work. What’s her secret?”

“I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

She shot him a playful scowl, and he chuckled. When she flung a cloth napkin at his head, he caught it and threw it back at her.

Joking with her. Who knew?

She’d be returning to her camp soon. He found himself looking for ways to stall her. Even though he knew what she was, now. Even though he’d spent twenty years believing that anyone with such abilities ought to go straight to hell.

But damn it, she made him laugh—especially when he said something that caught her off guard, and she gave him that cute smirk. Not to mention the way his body reacted when the wind shifted, and her hair lashed around her shoulders. Why, oh, why had he given her that sweatshirt back? He liked the bathing suit a lot better, even though it was getting cold out and he knew if that was all she had on, her nip—

Hot coffee sloshed out of his cup and onto his hand. “Son of a...”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just me being—damn it—never mind.” He lowered the coffee cup to the ground, and sucked on a burned knuckle. His gaze zeroed in on her lips, and he pictured them closing over his fingertips one at a time...

He shut his eyes.

More Latin.

“Cinnamon drop?” she said.

He risked a look. She dug into her pocket for a fistful of something and reached toward him, opening her palm.

Candy. He remembered the maddening, spicy taste of her the first time he’d kissed her. You’re really pushing my good behavior, God. He took a piece and shucked it out of its wrapper into his mouth. “Thanks.”

She did the same with another piece. “I should go. Do you need help with the dishes?”

“No, I’ve got them,” he said, getting up. He offered his hand.

She took it and he pulled her onto her feet. She smiled.

A tiny, sharp pain lanced through him.

He couldn’t hate her.

He couldn’t even dislike her.

They said their goodbyes, and she walked away down the island.

A slice of sun remained visible on the ocean’s horizon, staining the sky with its red-orange glow.

Leaving the dishes, he strolled toward the cliff edge to watch it finish setting.

Just before the last glimmer faded, he spread his arms and let the wind rush through his fingers.