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"Maybe it's not a performance." She gave him a superior
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sniff. "It's genetically possible, you know. In fact?"
He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her toward him, lifting her off her feet. "Don't make that mistake, Lainie."
She tried to sound cocky. "Wh-What mistake?"
"I'm not stupid."
Their gazes locked. Lainie felt a strange sensation move through her body, not quite fear, and yet close to it. Whatever it was, she'd never felt it before. It made her heart pump harder, made her breathing speed up. Slowly, still staring down at her with a look so hot, she felt singed, he let her go. Casting a disgusted look at the tarot cards heaped on the table, he turned away from her. At the door, he stopped. "I'll expect you back in my cabin in fifteen minutes for supper."
"Yes, master."
Without another word, he left.
Lainie stood there, unblinking, staring at the closed door, wondering what it was he'd made her feel for that second, why her body had reacted so sharply. After a long while, she felt Viloula's gaze on her back, pointed and intense. She turned toward the old woman, and immediately wished she hadn't. There was a small, knowing smile on her puckered lips.
She said a single phrase. "Soul mates."
"Soul mate schmole mate," Lainie said for at least the third time since leaving Vi's cabin. Sure, he seemed a little ... familiar. So what?
The last thing she needed was a soul mate. She stood outside Killian's closed door, staring at the wooden planks bound together by weather-blackened leather. The latchstring hung limply alongside the door, its edges frayed by years of heavy-handed use.
Somewhere a bird chirped, and it was an absurdly normal sound. She inhaled deeply, smelling the sharp, coppery scent of dust and the lingering remnant of woodsmoke.
He's your soul mate, she told herself for the hundredth time since leaving Vi's.
Yeah, and I'm Julia Roberts.
She knew she should believe in what Viloula had told her. In for a penny, in for a pound. If she could believe that she'd turned on her computer and zapped back in time one hundred years, certainly she could stomach the thought that someone back here had called to her, maybe even loved her.
Not.
She shook her head, smiling sadly at the irony. A romance author who didn't believe in love. Judith would be appalled.
Maybe once, a long time ago, she'd believed in that kind of emotion. Maybe once she'd even believed that if love existed, it would find its way to her. But those days, those naive days, were long gone and couldn't be resurrected. Now the only love she believed in was a mother's love. That was something tangible, something immutable and powerful and unconditional. She loved Kelly, and Kelly loved her.
It was enough for Lainie; it had been from the moment she'd conceived Kelly. She didn't need a soul mate. Didn't even want one. Besides, with her luck, he'd go out for a pack of smokes and she'd see him next on "America's Most Wanted."
The thought made her smile. Whatever Mr. Macho was to her, soul mate or fiction or somewhere in between, she didn't care. She had all the emotion she could handle in her life right now. She didn't need a soul mate.
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Feeling stronger, she yanked on the latchstring and shoved the door open. The first thing she noticed was the mouthwatering scent of simmering meat. Her empty stomach rumbled loudly as she went inside.
A single lantern sat on the rickety table, creating a pocket of light in the dingy interior. The bed was a shadow in the corner, noticeable only by the paleness of the sheeting in the meager light.
"You're back."
Lainie started and spun around. Killian was standing to her left, behind the arc of the door and against the wall. He stood in front of a tall, narrow bookshelf, one hand poised against the books, as if he'd been just about to withdraw one.
She gave him a snide look. "Just about to read Crime and Punishment!"
"Why? You want to borrow it?"
