“You turned out beautiful, intelligent, kind, and incredibly creative,” Roan said. “You’ve got a strong spirit, Shiloh. A helluva backbone.”
She perked up. “What? You saw my backbone the other day when I was nailing that Trex down your cabin porch? Is that when you stopped seeing me as a New York City cream puff?” She saw delight burn in his eyes, that wonderfully strong mouth of his curving recklessly upward.
Snorting, Roan put the cup on the lamp stand and sat up, elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them. “I never thought of you as a cream puff.”
“What then?”
“A city slicker.”
“And while I may be that, I have other qualities and skills that move beyond that label.”
“Indeed you do,” Roan agreed. “I just wonder where you got that fearlessness of yours. From your mom? Your dad?”
She touched her red hair. “I got this, my green eyes and risk-taking personality, from my mom.”
“What was she like?” Roan wondered.
“My mother was an artist. She studied at the Sorbonne, in Paris. She loved Europe and had many adventures over there in her early twenties.” Shiloh grinned. “My mother ran with the bulls in Spain, right along beside the men.”
Brows rising, Roan said, “That’s really something. She didn’t get hurt, did she?”
“No,” Shiloh said, fondly remembering the story. “And I have photos of her with her Spanish boyfriend before, during, and after the run.” Giving Roan a warm look, she added, “You’d have loved my mom. She was an absolute free spirit. She lived out of her heart. She did everything on emotional whim. She had such faith in the unknown. She never had a lot of money but it would always turn up when she needed it. To help pay for her art training in Paris, she worked as a cabaret dancer at a club in downtown Paris.”
“I thought you might have some dancing genes in you.”
“How could you know that?” Shiloh asked, amazed at his perception.
“Just watching you,” Roan murmured. “You do everything with gracefulness whether it’s pulling a plate out of the cupboard or laying Trex on my cabin porch. I thought you might have taken ballet lessons when you were younger.”
Heat flashed up her neck and into her face. “I did.” Staring at Roan, she whispered, “Do you read minds, too? Is this some special gift you created because you were in black ops?” She saw him grin and ruefully shake his head. It wasn’t lost on Shiloh that Roan missed nothing. The man was more than just a casual observer of the human condition. He watched her and intuitively knew her without any background information about her younger life. That made her breathless and stunned, but not afraid of him. There was a quiet steadiness to Roan, a man of honor. A man of his word. And she felt so incredibly safe and protected when she was around him.
“I don’t know where it came from,” Roan admitted. “The male line of our family were all born with a caul over them. I was too.”
“Ohhhh,” Shiloh said, eyes widening. “If you’re born with a caul over you at birth, it means you’re a seer. A visionary. Very psychic.”
Holding up his hands, Roan chuckled. “Darlin’, don’t look at me like I’m some kind of fortune-teller because I’m not.”
“But,” Shiloh said excitedly, setting her cup aside, “you see.”
“I think a better word would be ‘perceive,’ Shiloh. I’m good at assessing people. It’s easy for me to read a face, a voice, and interpret a person’s body language. It did come in damn handy when my team and I were in areas that were always dangerous and bad things could happen in a heartbeat. I’d like to think my gut hunches, my ability to observe, saved us more than a few times out on patrols.”
“Did your team know you have this skill?”
“I didn’t tell them I was born with a caul,” Roan told her drily. “It wouldn’t have gone over well with the guys. It’s tough for military people to believe or trust something like I had. But over time, I proved my hunches so often they just accepted it and, later, were all very glad I had that skill in place.”
“They just didn’t call it what it was: You’re psychic.”
“No,” Roan said wryly, “they’d have called it ‘woo-woo.’”
She laughed. And so did he. “And so,” she went on, her mind racing with connections, “I’ll bet you’re really good with wild horses that need to be tamed?”