Free Falling From Grace by S. L. Naeole Page B

and slowly helped me into a sitting position.   The dizziness that engulfed me was troubling.   I felt like I had been drained of all my strength and energy — not unlike how one feels after not eating all day.   I looked at Robert’s hand, the one that I had been holding when my mind started suffocating — that’s what it was, my mind had suffocated — underneath the rush of his every thought.   In it was a cloth that appeared to be stained with blood…but whose?
    “It’s yours.   Your nose started bleeding right after you fainted,” Robert answered guiltily.   He seemed very pale, his voice just as shaky as mine.   Of course he would.   He’d been in my head, shared the same fear, saw everything in my head go black…and he’d shared my pain.   That would be enough to scare anyone out of their wits.
    I reached for the cloth he was holding and looked into his face.   I decided to try something.   I needed to focus on something.   I looked at his lips — too distracting — his nose, yes, his nose would work.   It was a mighty fine looking nose, but when I blocked out everything else, it was just a nose, and I could concentrate.   Is it still bleeding?
    Not anymore.   It stopped just before you woke up.   And thank you about my nose.  
    I was so amazed, I actually blushed.   Where once I might have been terrified — even mortified — now I was in utter and complete awe; he could hear my thoughts, and I could hear his.   This was a genuine connection.   With someone I didn’t know at all.
    “What do you want to know?” he asked me, turning so that he could face me more comfortably, gearing up for a long discussion it appeared.
    “Um…well…you said that you were born with the ability to read minds.   Why?   And why can I now hear yours?   Can I hear anyone else’s?   This would have helped me out a great deal a few months ago if so.   And what was that — when I passed out — why did that happen?” I rambled quickly as the questions rushed out one after the other.   I felt unable to stop it as I looked at him and waited for him to answer before the inquisition could continue.
    “You can hear my thoughts, Grace, because I allow you to.   You can only hear the thoughts that I allow you to.   As for the other…I can’t tell you that now.   You already know more than I was willing to reveal,” he whispered, looking past me at some unseen thing with such sadness in his eyes, my fingers itched with an unfamiliar longing to hold his, to comfort him in some way.   “I will tell you that I am your friend, Grace.   You now know a secret about me that no one else outside of my family knows, and I’m trusting you not to share it with anyone.”
    He was trusting me… Who trusted me?   Not even Graham had done that, and he knew me better than anyone.
    “It’s not my secret to share, Robert.”  
    Cautiously, I held out my hand, scared that what had happened earlier would happen again if he did, but more afraid that he wouldn’t accept it at all.   Why should he take my hand?   He had just met me — what did he know about me?   And what if what had happened to me frightened him, proved just how much of a freak I was?   Could he really trust someone like me?
    I know everything I need to know to trust you.   His voice filled my head and he took my hand, as if to confirm, to acknowledge our fast formed friendship.   You can trust me, too.   I will not betray you.   I am nothing if not a loyal friend and guardian.
    “Um…thank you,” I said to him, my voice tinged with disbelief, and looked around us, needing a distraction from his hypnotizing stare.   Hadn’t he said this was the Bellegarde family retreat?   “Does this place belong to your family?” I asked aloud, knowing he had heard my thoughts before they had reached my lips, but feeling a need to fill the silence, I uttered them anyway.
    “Yes.   This area has been in my family’s hands for centuries,”