Stars of Fortune (The Guardians Trilogy, #1)(63)

“I’ll take these.” Bran took the stack of five. “And let him know.”

“Maybe she’ll make it back before we sit down.”

Annika rubbed Sawyer’s arm. “You shouldn’t worry. Riley is very smart and very strong.”

Sasha thought it excellent advice, and tried to take it. By the time they’d finished the meal—with compliments to the chef and his apprentice, as there was barely a grain of rice left—the sun had set, the moon, fat and white, had risen.

“Maybe a couple of us ought to go down and look for her.”

Doyle arched eyebrows at Sawyer. “In what?”

“Your bike?”

“She doesn’t have a curfew, Daddy. If she was the damsel-in-distress sort, yeah, we could go down, slay the dragon for her. But she’s got a Beretta, a combat knife, and a badass attitude. She can take care of herself. Plus.” He wagged his beer. “If she’s hooked up with one of her contacts, she’d be pretty pissed with the white-knight routine.”

“Well, I’m worried, too. I didn’t think she meant it about not coming back tonight. And.” Sasha lifted her phone. “She’s not answering my texts.”

“She answered mine,” Bran commented.

“Yours? When?”

“Before I came down. I just sent her one that asked if all was well. She texted back: Five-by-five. Precisely that.”

“What, precisely, does five-by-five mean?”

“It’s all good,” Doyle told Sasha. “Everything’s fine.”

“She added she’d likely bunk in the village with a friend.”

“What friend?” Sasha stopped herself, huffed out a breath. “None of our business. And Doyle’s right. If anyone’s armed and dangerous, it’s Riley Gwin. I’m just jumpy because I’ve gotten used to everyone being right here.”

Sasha pushed up, grabbed empty plates. “I’m going to do the dishes until I stop being jumpy.”

When the dishes weren’t enough, she scrubbed down the kitchen. She was looking for something else to clean when she spotted Bran leaning against the door watching her.

“Still jumpy then?”

“I can’t get rid of it.”

“I have just the thing.” He grabbed a bottle of wine, two glasses, then her hand. “Come with me.”

“Where?”

“We’ll have a drink on the terrace, you and I. It’s as you said earlier, everyone seems to have closed up in their separate spaces. Maybe we all need that for a night. But you and I have another need, to my mind. We’re having a date.”

“A date?”

“We are. A drink on the terrace in the moonlight, conversation about nothing that troubles you. And when I’ve softened you up with the wine, I’ll take you inside and have my way with you.”

“You don’t need the wine for that.”

“You’re a gift to me, fáidh, that’s the truth. But wine and conversation make a nice prelude. You had a bit of that conversation with Doyle on the boat.”

“He asked if I inherited the sight. You know, I never thought of it?” Surprised at herself, she shook her head. “I never asked if someone in the family before me had it. No one ever spoke of it, so I assumed I was the only one. I was the oddity.”

“There’s a difference between the odd and the special.”

“I’m getting there. I think we were—are—so closed up in my family. If there’s a problem, lock it away or cover it with excuses.”

“You’re not a problem—and no one should be allowed, even yourself, to think of you that way.”

“Maybe that’s why it’s been so easy to be part of this—no one considers me a problem. And it’s why it was so easy for me to move away. I love my mother, but we’ve both been fine with phone calls, emails, the rare and short visit. Just not a lot of common ground, I guess.”

“Would you ask her now—if there’d been anyone else in the family with your gift?”

“I might, if I feel a need to know. She’d tell me if I really pushed it. I don’t think she’d lie to me, and I’d know if she did. But . . .” She looked up at the full, white moon sailing over the dark sea. “It doesn’t seem very important anymore.”

She sipped wine, smiled when he took her hand in his. “I used to hate dating, so I gave it up. I’ve changed my mind.”

“We’ll have to make time for a true one.”

“This is true.” More true, more real, more lovely than any she’d ever had.

And perfect to her mind. A soft night, a full moon, the song of the waves, and a hand clasping hers.

He gave her romance again.

When he rose, she stood with him, turned to him.

“Jumpy now?”

“No. But I think I’m going to be.” She wrapped around him. She pulled him close. She took his mouth this time. And reveled in the knowledge she could. “Let’s close ourselves off,” she murmured, “in our separate place.”

“You undo me, Sasha.” He turned her into the room, shut the door behind them.

The moonlight was enough, sliding pale and blue into the room.

It felt like a dance, twining her arms around him, circling with him toward the bed. She rose up to meet his mouth with hers, and thought what a wonder to have found so much so fast. To be able to close out everything but this, but him.