Free Beyond the Darkness by Jaime Rush Page B

her. She stepped out, wrapped in a towel. He saw her in his peripheral vision as he reached for another handful of peanuts. Long wet legs and soapy hair that hung halfway down her back. She knelt down, her knees cracking, and opened the cabinet. She grabbed two bottles and returned to the bathroom. A minute later he heard her howling.
    “Cooooold!”
    Served her right. She’d already taken over the Tank, his nickname for the RV, infiltrating it with her energy and her presence: chick magazines lying on her seat, the floor, and the table; beauty products filling every spare inch in the bathroom; and a bottle of aquamarine nail polish sitting in the cup holder. She was permeating his senses. Those few times he’d had a woman here, it wasn’t for long. And no one like Petra.
    She spent another twenty minutes drying her hair, and then longer doing who knew what. When she finally came out, she smelled good, she looked good, and suddenly she was way too close when she grabbed up her magazine and dropped into the seat next to him.
    “That’ll teach you to listen to me.” Yeah, he’d sounded terse, and the fact that it stole the soft expression from her face meant he’d done the right thing.
    Fire lit eyes the color of a mountain lake on a summer day. “I had no idea how much time had passed. There’s no clock in the bathroom.”
    “Running out of water is the least of your problems. You weren’t supposed to heal my wounds. I need to be able to count on you.”
    “You saved my life. Why can’t I at least heal your scratches?”
    “You need to conserve your strength. We don’t know what we’re going to encounter.”
    He’d felt her healing him last night. It was warm and loving, and if he’d surged to wakefulness, he might have done more than admonish her. He prided himself on his iron control, and it was all he could do to will his body not to respond in obvious ways. Inviting her to join him on the bed, bad idea. It was an innocent gesture. When he woke, he watched her sleep, as he had before. She was an angel, hugging her pillow, body curled up. He didn’t feel the least bit innocent watching her, wanting her.
    She pouted. “You sound like Eric, who forgets he’s actually my little brother.”
    “That’s a good way to see me, like a bossy big brother.”
    “Except my brother never kissed me the way you kissed me the night you saved my life.” She was stroking the arm of the seat, a quick, nervous gesture.
    “Forget that kiss. It didn’t mean anything.” That was an indulgence he shouldn’t have allowed himself.
    “Forgotten.” She picked up her magazine and flicked the pages, reminding him of the way an agitated cat flicks its tail. “When I didn’t hear from you, I realized it was just the whole saving-my-life thing that made it so powerful and magical. Sort of powerful and magical. I mean, it was nice . But, like LeAnn Rimes says in her song, ‘life goes on.’ I didn’t sit around hoping you’d call or anything. I’m enrolled in college, learning to be an esthetician. Next I want to take massage school.”
    “It suits you.” And her date, too, but he didn’t want to know about the guy. As he’d walked up to their table, she had a glow on her face, smiling, happily unaware of her terrible fate. “The massage part of it, anyway. That jives with your healer.”
    She looked at him from above the top of her magazine. “My healer?”
    “You’re a healer. It’s a strong part of your psyche.”
    She lowered the magazine, obviously forgetting that she was mad at him. “I remember how, whenever I would rub someone’s shoulders, they’d make such a big deal out of how good it felt. I didn’t know then that I was healing more than their tightened muscles. But I also felt uncomfortable touching people. Now I know it’s because I was taking on their pain. I’ve been working on that, though, touching without absorbing. You told me to put a shield up, and it works. I know you probably think