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It was tempting. She’d be lying if she said it wasn’t. The girl she had once been would’ve done just that without being told. She would’ve washed her hands of this family that wasn’t hers, of this trouble that wasn’t hers, and in a matter of hours she’d be on a plane headed out of here.
That girl had never known love. The woman she had become did. Funny, she’d always thought love would be all flowers and beauty and fun. Tra-la-la, love songs all around. Ha. So far, it was anything but.
“You need me here,” she insisted.
“I don’t need you or anyone else.”
Her feelings should be hurt, but she understood Ryder’s pain. More than that, she felt it. For once, experiencing the pain of another didn’t make her want to run and hide. “Someone has to make it snow,” she said lightly.
“I can make it snow, once I’ve...once I remove the talismans.”
She experienced yet another pain. He should never have to make that decision, should never have to become someone he’d left behind years ago in order to save his child. That old Ryder...that wasn’t a man she ever wanted to meet.
But saying that now wouldn’t make things any better. She kissed Ryder on the cheek, surprising him, and then she released his hand and jumped up. “I hope there are eggs. That’s pretty much all I know how to cook.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’ll eat,” she said confidently.
The kitchen was small but very well organized, and there were indeed eggs. Some kind of thin ham, too. She wished she knew how to make scones, but she didn’t. Eggs and ham would have to do. Maybe the
re was some leftover bread she could toast. Echo didn’t bother to look up when she realized Ryder had followed her into the kitchen. He stood in the doorway and watched her.
“Don’t argue with me,” she said. “In my vision it’s snowing when you take that thing off. To my knowledge, I’ve never been wrong. Unless you can make it snow now, before you...” Change? Transform? Go dark? She wasn’t sure what to call it. “Well, you know. Unless you can do it now, then I’ll still be around tonight.”
“My mother was a Gypsy.”
Echo turned to face him then, and though it was hard, she smiled. “I know. I saw the look in you the day we met.”
He did not look surprised. To be honest, his expression remained so blank it was impossible to tell if he felt anything at all. “My father took a lot of grief for marrying her, rather than one of their own, but I suppose he loved her. One of my earliest memories is of her teaching me a spell. I didn’t have quite enough power to suit her, so she supplemented my mental powers through her own kind of magic. I could control all the elements by the time I was eight. The way her face lit up when I did something extraordinary...I lived for those moments.
“Unfortunately for her, I didn’t remain a child who was willing to perform for his mother’s approval. I studied on my own, and I grew stronger every day.” He caught and held her eye. “I can shift into any animal, make you see and believe anything I wish you to see and believe. A little snow? All it would take is a snap of my fingers.”
“What happened?”
“Why do you assume something happened?”
“Because if everything was hunky-dory, I doubt you would have gone to the bother to suppress all those abilities.”
The moment of silence that followed that statement was almost palpable. He was deciding what to tell her, how much, how little. With a push she might be able to see for herself, but she wanted him to tell her. She wanted him to trust her.
Finally, he spoke. “You know the saying about absolute power corrupting absolutely?”
She nodded.
“It’s true,” he said in a lowered voice. “The people around you seem less than human, because they’re so weak. It doesn’t matter if someone gets hurt, and if someone dares to get in your way, you’ll squash them like a bug. They won’t be missed.”
It was a bleak picture, one he painted too well. “Who died?”
“More than one,” he whispered.
She turned to look at him, gave him her full attention. She should be horrified, but she was not. This was Ryder. He loved his daughter and would do anything for her. Echo was almost convinced that he loved her, too. Almost. He was not a man who could kill people because they got in his way.
“Tell me,” she whispered. Tell me everything.
For a long moment he remained silent, and she thought he might not say another word. He was torn. Tormented. She could say, Never mind, or push him to go on, but instead she simply waited. He would get there in his own time, or he would not.
Finally, he spoke. “Before I married Sybil, I left Cloughban to work for a man who promised me money and power and women. Everything a young man wants and needs.” Was that a smile? No, it was a grimace that offered her a glimpse of the man he had once been. “All I had to do was help him get rid of a few men who stood in his way. Bad men all, but that doesn’t matter, does it? I killed them. We took their ill-gotten gains.”
