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"No reply?" she queried softly

He drew her into his arently, heedless of the fact that they remained in the hallway Then he led her inside "I hope that was an appropriate reply?" he asked her

"Excellent, right to the point," she assured hi down into the pool of her eyes, wanting to explain what he had never et clear to hiers delicately caressed, and he tried to fors, the reality he knew, and why his skepticism meant so much to him

"Jackson?"

He was quiet for a minute, and then, at last, he spoke "I have Native American blood," he said "And I have done a dreas, but that’s not what touched me, made me wonder as real, and asn’t Once, when I was in my early teens, withon horseback with friends They thought that I had beat the hell out of theood horse--but I hadn’t beaten the there with a concussion, a rib broken as well, barely able to breathe A kiltedon a black horse that looked like some kind of mixed-breed warhorse and picked me up I barely understood the e I was going in and out of consciousness When I woke up, I found that I had been deposited on the steps of hlands And then…well, later I saw the rand hall of h, head of the clan in the late 1500s He was the…he was the man who rescued h I tried to tell myself that he had to have been a relative But I’ve questioned the truth of it ever since--being a skeptic, because so "

"You’ve known," Angela said quietly "And you’ve known that you’ve had the ability to see beyond whatout the strongest reactions in gifted people like you," he told her

"And you can bring out abilities in me?"

"All kinds of abilities!"

She sht, I’ out a few of your other abilities H without the benefits of a strip club I ain, feel free to strip…"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Warht had passed when they had been engrossed in one another, in sensation, in need, whispers and laughter, tenderness and volatility, and he had dozed and woken, and been pleased just to lie beside her He breathed in the sweet clean scent of her hair, and felt the softness of her flesh beneath his fingers There was even a time when he wondered at what he felt; she had knohat it had been like to really become involved with another person, to lie coether, share the siether He had spent his life restless and ever ready to er was spent He didn’t knohy; soo on the Scottish cliffs, and he had become obsessed with the hts of man And from there he had come into the Behavioral Science Unit, and the criminal mind had become his passion There was always another case, and those working with hi deood; there had been tiht of hiht have been wrong He hadn’t known the pain she had known And he had never known the si beside theela had her own deic deaths in her past But she had learned to control the emotions that coiled around them He didn’t think he was es slip beneath the surface He knew damn well that he couldn’t solve the world’s proble hiht have been part of it, he knew They were ghosts that now lived in his heart He’d never i so e that dwelled there now

He wanted suddenly just to go somewhere with her and enjoy h a beautiful forest, and not wonder about anything except the beauty around him and the wonder of his co at the door, and it burst open

"Sorry, sorry!" Will said "But there’s soela had been sleeping so soundly she was barely aware of the pounding of the door She finally forced her eyes open to find that Jackson was already in his jeans, just sliding into his shoes "What’s going on?" she asked hiave her a quick kiss on the forehead "Will was just here"

"Here? Da, but I didn’t see Will"

"They’ve picked up so on the ca around the house Will is staying here; he’s downstairs watching the screens with Whitney Jake is coet the senator on his cell phone… He isn’t answering"

She nodded "All right You go ahead, I’ll hurry"

"We’ve got wires Will is going to knohere we are and what’s going on Itaround a yard is nothing?" she asked dryly

"No, it uard, and the senator called hi around here," Jackson said