Free Belonging to Taylor by Kay Hooper

what?"
    But Dory said no more on the vague subject, just smiled at him with curious wisdom and requested that he finish the story.
    Baffled, Trevor had the elusive feeling that he should have understood her—and hadn't somehow.
    It was just one more puzzle piece fitting nowhere.
    Jamie, that serene wraith, saw everything—like her mother—and possessed the most even temperament Trevor had ever known; she was neither uncaring nor controlled, but simply calm and serene. She was sweet and confiding, never bored or restless. She was the seamstress of the family, willingly putting aside something else to mend a tear or sew on a button. In looks, she was the feminine image of her father except for dreamy gray eyes, and she had something of his soft, hurried style of speech. And, emotionally, of all the daughters she seemed the closest to her father.
    Talking to Trevor casually, she told him that Luke hoped the fifth Shannon child would be another girl.
    "Does he?" Trevor asked with a smile, thinking how tranquil her Madonna-like serenity was.
    "Oh yes. He says he's had so much fun with girls, and girl babies are so sweet."
    "Doesn't he know if it'll be a girl?" Trevor asked curiously, having already discovered that each of the daughters was utterly matter-of-fact about their psychic abilities.
    Jamie giggled suddenly. "He always guesses the sex of his patients' babies, but he never can with Mother's. He says she hides it from him. The rest of us are sure it's a girl, but Mother won't say, and she's the only one who really knows."
    Trevor recalled Taylor's remark about it being difficult to surprise a psychic. Another one of Sara's gently humorous games? he wondered.
    With the Shannon family ... who knew?
    Jessie, the moppet, was temperamental, moody; she fought her way through highs and lows with equal energy and boasted incredible determination in her slender, tomboyish form. His own love and understanding of music had made him something of a demigod in Jessie's eyes, and she talked to him without any of the emotional emphasis she used with everyone else.
    "D'you really think I'm good enough, Trevor?"
    "You've got talent, Jess, real talent."
    She smiled blindingly at him. "I'm glad you came here to belong to Taylor. I knew the mailman was. coming this morning before he came around the corner, and I passed Jamie the salt before she asked for it. I didn't think I was psychic at all until you came."
    "Not everybody's psychic, Jess," he reminded gently. "I'm not."
    "You're not?"
    "No."
    Jessie frowned at him. "You're sure?"
    "Very sure," he answered, amused.
    She gave him a rather odd look, he thought, but seemed to accept his assurances.
    He wondered, though.
    And Taylor ... Taylor. She grew more beautiful every time Trevor looked at her, her chestnut hair more vibrant, her candid blue eyes more vivid, her mismatched features more fascinating and alluring. She was intelligent, humorous, tolerant. She was, both ostensibly and actually, the briskly capable hub around which her peculiar family turned. Viewing her family with love and respect, she was nonetheless ruefully aware of their oddity and entirely tolerant of it. And she was the most honest woman he'd ever met.
    He knew why men would be attracted to her; her beauty was certainly a part of it, but those eyes, those honest eyes ... and since he knew well that the intelligence of American men was at least equal to that of foreign ones, he didn't doubt that men had been following Taylor around for years. He wondered about those others but didn't ask. He felt no conceit in the sure knowledge that only male friends preceded him, but he felt a strong responsibility in the knowledge that he had the power to hurt her, and hurt her badly.
    He didn't consider his careful guardedness as nobility. He knew only that until he was as sure as she was, their relationship would remain platonic and feelings undeclared. And there was still a niggling unease in the back of his mind, a stout wall