Tightrope (Burning Cove #3)(66)

“I love my Dad and I respect him, but it would not be a good idea for me to go to work for him,” Matthias said. “I think he knows that as well as I do. Pretty sure Mom knows it isn’t a good plan, too, but, well, she’s my mom.”

“Does she know that the consulting work you do is sometimes dangerous?”

“She knows and she understands but it makes her nervous. She’s more concerned about my talent, though. She’s afraid that it has made it impossible for me to ever find someone I can really trust, someone I can love. Someone with whom I can have a family. She’s afraid I’ll become a paranoid recluse.”

“Does she have a particular reason for believing that might happen?”

“She thinks that the tendency may be in the bloodline and that it’s directly linked to the lie-detecting talent.”

“What do you mean?”

“My great-grandfather had the gift, they say. Family legend has it that it drove him mad. He took his own life. But he was a chemist. I looked into the old records and I think it’s more likely that he died when he accidentally poisoned himself in the course of a lab experiment. It’s Uncle Jake who really worries Mom. He also has a talent like mine. He always lived alone and he always drank too much, but things got worse when he came home from the Great War. He told me that he can only ignore the lies when he’s drunk. Mom won’t say it out loud but I know she’s afraid that one of these days he’ll take his own life.”

“She blames the lie-detecting talent for your great-grandfather’s and your uncle’s problems?”

“Yes.”

Amalie thought about that for a while.

“For what it’s worth I don’t think you’re in danger of going down your uncle’s or your great-grandfather’s path,” she said.

Matthias tightened his grip on her hand. “Why not?”

“For one thing, if you were headed in that direction I think you would have shown signs of severe depression and paranoia by now. It looks to me like you control your talent. It doesn’t control you.”

Matthias came to an abrupt halt, forcing her to stop, too. He turned her so that she faced him in the moonlight. His eyes were bottomless pools of dark energy.

“That’s how it feels to me,” he said. “But Uncle Jake and the stories about my great-grandfather have scared the hell out of my mother.”

“Understandable.”

“What makes you so sure you’re right about me?”

She smiled. “Flyer’s intuition.”

He caught her chin on the edge of his hand. “I told you, in my family, we take intuition seriously.”

“So, what would you do if you decided to settle down?” she asked.

“Promise you won’t think it’s crazy?”

“Dreams are never crazy. Impractical, sometimes. But not crazy.”

“I’ve been thinking of starting my own research and development company. I’d like to focus on communications devices. I think there’s a future in that line.”

She smiled at the enthusiasm and excitement in his voice.

“Matthias, that’s a wonderful plan,” she said. “Are you going to follow through and open your own engineering firm?”

“Do you really think it’s a good idea?”

“I love the idea. Are you hesitating because you’re afraid of disappointing your parents?”

“No, they’ll understand. The real problem is that my plan might not work. Starting up a new company is always risky. But in these uncertain times, it’s even more of a gamble.”

“You could spend your entire life waiting on certainty. The world is always an uncertain place. You should follow your dream, Matthias. Open that research and development company and see where it takes you.”

“And if it takes me off a financial cliff?”

“You’re an engineer.” Amalie smiled. “You’ll figure out how to build a ladder and climb back up to the top of the cliff.”

Matthias cradled her face between his palms. “That’s what you did, isn’t it? You rebuilt your life after that bastard Harding tried to kill you and the circus went out of business.”

“It’s what people like us do.”

He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her close.

“You’re right,” he said against her mouth. “It’s what people like us do.”

The kiss set her senses on fire. She was intensely aware of everything around her. Fiercely alive. Thrilled. She was flying.

He released her for a moment to unfold the blanket and spread it out on the sand. When the makeshift bed was ready, he bent down long enough to unlace his shoes.

Barefoot, he looked at her from the opposite side of the blanket.

She stepped out of her own shoes and walked to the center of the blanket. He met her there. They fell to their knees and reached for each other.

By the time the scorching embrace ended she was on her back and naked except for the frilly panties. Her clothes were in a careless heap at one corner of the blanket. Matthias’s trousers and shirt were in the same pile.

And then his lips were on her throat and his hands were moving slowly—too slowly—over her breasts and down to her thighs. When his fingers slipped under the edge of the wide-legged panties, she almost lost her breath.