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in. Everything? What did that mean?
“Last night,” Echo began tentatively, “did you... Was it...?”
“Last night was just us.”
She relaxed. No matter what had happened to this point, she believed him. “So you haven’t used your woowoo on me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
She sighed and stepped away. As much as she loved being close to him, as much as she loved holding on, she couldn’t let her emotions make her accept anything and everything. Crap!
“Explain, please.”
He looked guiltier than he had as he’d explained how he’d killed his wife. “I’ve influenced you to forget a few things you’ve seen here. That’s all.”
“That’s all?” Her feeling that something was off about this town, the way she had somehow missed the large number of foreigners, the way she occasionally forgot Cassidy. It all made sense now. He’d been poking around in her brain! That was unforgivable. “If you’ve been playing with my memories, how can I even know what’s real?”
“My influence has been minor, I promise you.”
Echo crossed her arms, adopting a pose that said, Stay where you are, buster. She needed to think about this. She didn’t know many people who had the ability to push or remove thoughts from another’s mind. It was a rare ability, and there was an unspoken rule about using that ability on friends and family.
She had the distinct feeling Ryder Duncan cared very little for unspoken rules. She calmed herself with the knowledge that he had been protecting his daughter. His daughter and his home. Cassidy didn’t need protection from her, but...he hadn’t known that.
Echo allowed herself to relax a bit. If Ryder was right about what he could do, he could’ve made her leave Cloughban at any time. She would’ve climbed into her rental car and hit the road believing it was her own idea. He could’ve sent her away and wiped the memory of this place, and him, from her mind. But he hadn’t.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m all but dormant.”
All but. That was nonspecific. And insufficient. He had enough power to join her in a vision, to affect her memories, to send the Cloughban history book flying into his hand. She wouldn’t call that dormant, but those talismans were dampening something. Everything, he said. How was that possible?
“Why are you ‘all but dormant’?” she whispered.
For the first time since this strange conversation had begun, he looked angry. At her? At life? It was impossible to tell.
“Because I choose to be,” he snapped. “The control you need, the mastery over your abilities, there’s a reason some come to me to learn. I learned long ago that too much power is not a good thing. Not for me, and certainly not for my daughter. She needs a father, not a resident wizard so enamored of his own powers that he can’t...”
“Can’t what?” she asked when he faltered.
“Can’t love. Not a child, not a woman. The old saying about absolute power corrupting absolutely? It can be true.”
Was it true of Ryder? Had he been corrupted?
“Yes,” he whispered.
“Get out of my head.”
“I can’t.”
“Use your damned control! You keep telling me how easy it is, use it now!”
“I never said it was easy, and where you’re concerned it’s damned near impossible.”
They couldn’t be connected, not like this. He was everything she didn’t want! Wanting him physically, enjoying each other in his bed, that was one thing. But to be connected, mind to mind, soul to soul... No. She would never be free of the magical world if she fell in love with a wizard who was damned mayor of a damned enchanted town filled with damned strays!
“Independents,” he whispered.
* * *
She knew! Somehow the damned Raintree woman knew.
