The Sage… and a stranger.
She deliberately placed herself in their path when she met them at the gate, annoyed because she'd told the old man she didn't want to see any more strangers for a while. Not after the last ones. The visit by Wintersole and his female — what? — companion had left her unsettled.
But not nearly as much as Wintersole's eyes. It took her a while to figure it out, but once she did it unnerved her completely. An unusual pale gray, just as the Sage had said. But more than that, a right eye paler than the left, so much so that the iris merged with the white sclera and the pupil stood out like an infinitely deep black hole. The difference between the two eyes made them appear to flicker and, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't establish eye contact with him. She always found herself looking at one eye or the other or, much worse, somewhere between the two.
To think that he and I…
In spite of the warmth of the sunlight, she shivered.
Sasha doesn't trust him either, she thought as she moved toward the two men. I wonder if this one will be different?
To a casual observer, she appeared relaxed and outwardly pleased to see her visitors. However, beneath the loose-fitting tunic, she held her sinuous body tense, ready to strike at the first hint of aggression. After beaming a welcoming smile at the bearded old man, she focused all of her senses on the face and body language of the stranger.
'This is the one I told you about,' the Sage declared by way of introduction, then stepped aside in his characteristic, clumsy manner, suddenly leaving her to confront the newcomer directly.
I know you.
The totally irrational awareness momentarily erased every other thought from her mind.
She instantly and instinctively averted her eyes and brought both hands up to control what she sensed was the stranger's dominant, striking hand reaching out toward her — clasping it in a moderately tight grip with her right hand and pressing her other hand firmly around his muscular wrist. In a single graceful motion, she pressed her upper torso against his to neutralize his brute male strength — and then brushed her lips across his cheek.
'I'm pleased to meet you at last.' Her soft throaty whisper sounded perfectly poised and confident, as if she'd known him forever. However, her own reaction, as well as his — or rather, his complete lack of one — undermined her self-assurance.
He simply stood there.
But then, he wouldn't feel threatened or mindlessly stimulated, she reminded herself, because he's not one of them.
This second instinctive rather than rational thought that simply appeared out of her subconscious told her that this man — whoever and whatever he was — represented a terrible danger.
But also an intriguing opportunity.
For reasons he couldn't explain, Henry Lightstone also found himself instinctively on the alert, something he, too, found extremely confusing and disorienting when combined with his awareness of how much this sleek, sensual, and strikingly beautiful woman attracted him.
When he noticed her staring down at her hands, he glanced down and discovered — much to his amazement, because he had no memory of doing so — that he'd automatically brought his own hand up to encase her firm but much smaller wrist in a move that was somehow… defensive.
Confused and uneasy, and vaguely aware that she seemed equally uncomfortable, he looked up… and discovered much too late that she had done the same. For the first time during this almost surrealistic interval, his eyes met hers.
The effect was instantaneous and, in a blood-pounding and stomach-wrenching manner, almost hypnotic. He instantly knew that he had never seen — or even imagined — such a woman in his entire life.
What did she say? His mind struggled to remember. I'm pleased to meet you at last? What does that mean?
Alarm bells began clanging madly in the back of Henry Lightstone's head.
Who the hell are you, lady?
'Karla. Karla Pardus,' she answered his silent question, unfortunately with a split-second hesitation that immediately caught his attention.
'Henry,' he countered, instinctively deciding not to put forth a pseudonym just yet. His intuition, honed by years of working covert investigations in which it often served as his primary source of protection, warned him to get away as quickly as he could.
But other more primitive senses — curiosity, opportunity, and erotic fascination — urged him to stay.
'You said 'at last'?' He responded with forced lightheartedness, finding it impossible to turn away from the deeply alluring, gold-flecked green eyes highlighting an intriguing face that was, in some indefinable manner, both outdoorsy tough and sensuously enticing. 'Does that mean you've been expecting me?'
'Of course, for some time now.' She turned to lead the two men into the screened-in porch, a move that struck Lightstone as leaving her exposed and vulnerable for some unfathomable reason, but it didn't appear to bother her. 'After all, I am a witch.'
They sat at the table, sipped hot tea or chocolate, and conversed about matters of little consequence for almost an hour, allowing the Sage to guide the conversation in and around his favorite topics. As they talked, Henry Lightstone found himself progressively intrigued by the young woman's mannerisms: the way she sat, relaxed yet visibly alert; the way she moved, easily with almost feline grace; the way she smiled, tomboyish yet seductive; and especially the way she maintained contact — with her eyes, and with a light brush of warm fingers against his hand.
It all seemed so casual, warm and open when she did it, and yet she maintained a distance that took it — and her — out of the realm of mere flirtation.
He sensed that she gently probed his past with her occasional questions and brief comments that wove around the old man's rambling discourse. Periodically, though, a vacuum would arise in these parallel conversations that Lightstone felt compelled to fill, sometimes answering her questions, sometimes not. But her questions never threatened him, and she never pressed. Soon he found himself weaving threads of his cover through the fabric of both conversations as the opportunities arose.
He decided that she was the most self-confident woman he had ever met, and yet easily one of the most vulnerable.
Neither that realization nor his awareness of it made any sense at all.
He also became vaguely aware that the old man's ramblings increasingly gave way to periods of quiet mumbling and contemplation of the rough porcelain mug that the woman kept refilling from the thermos of hot chocolate. But because these gaps allowed him and the woman to continue their own conversation with less effort and interruption, he barely noticed.
Finally, the Sage slumped in his chair with his chin resting on his chest.
For a moment, it looked as though the old man had fallen asleep. But then, as if suddenly revitalized by a burst of energy, he sat upright, grabbed for his white walking stick, announced that he was late, and got up and hobbled toward the door.
'Guess I don't need to worry about our soothsayer trying to wrestle the check out of my hand.' Lightstone laughed wryly as they watched the old man stagger to the pathway, secure his walking stick to the frame of his ancient motorbike, carefully place his dark glasses in his shirt pocket, strap on the large protective helmet, kick some life into the small motor, and putter down the road, trailing a billowing cloud of smoke.
The woman smiled. 'If he ever does, you'd be wise to keep a very close eye on your wallet.'
'A pickpocket as well as a con man?' Lightstone smiled, too. 'Interesting fellow.'
'But not exactly your type,' the woman observed candidly. 'How did the two of you meet?'
'Through one of my buddies.' Lightstone recited a few of the well-rehearsed details related to his fictitious past with Bobby and Susan LaGrange without mentioning their names. 'They bought a cattle ranch here a few months ago. Said if I was ever between jobs, I should visit.' He smiled again. 'I am, so I did.'
'You met the Sage on a cattle ranch?' A curious expression swept across the woman's face.
'I didn't, my buddy did. It's kind of a strange deal,' Lightstone admitted. 'He's under the impression that he's got one of those mythical Bigfoot creatures living on his property.'
