Mind Game (GhostWalkers, #2)(26)

Dahlia went directly to the mattress. She wasn’t going to be a baby about sharing the only place he could stretch out in either. That, too, was beneath her dignity.

“You want the wall or the outside?” He didn’t look at her, giving her space.

Her first inclination was to take the outside, but he was far better with weapons, and she was smaller. She could easily crawl off the mattress without disturbing him, whereas he didn’t have a hope of doing the same. “I’ll take the wall.” She hoped she didn’t suddenly develop claustrophobia.

Nicolas waited until she was lying on the thin mattress. He knew what it took for her to allow him to have the outside. It was more practical, but she had spent her life away from people, living a solitary existence, talking only to a couple of older women and Jesse Calhoun. Nicolas wanted a long talk with Calhoun. The man had to have been working for the same people who had used Dahlia as an operative. Just what had they been using her for?

Nicolas felt Dahlia shrink away from his body when he settled his weight beside her, stretching out fully. “Are you going to be able to do this, Dahlia?”

She closed her eyes, wishing he hadn’t asked her. Wishing his tone wasn’t so gentle, almost tender. Wishing the warmth of his body didn’t envelope her and drive away the shivering she hadn’t been able to stop since she’d found Milly and Bernadette dead. Murdered, execution style. “What did you bring in the pillowcase?”

“The pillowcase?”

“From my room. I saw you had a pillowcase from off of my bed.”

“I picked up as many things that looked like they might be of sentimental value to you and shoved them in it. A few books, a sweater, a stuffed animal. I didn’t have much time.”

Dahlia turned her head to look at him. “That was very considerate. I doubt if too many people would have thought of it under the circumstances.”

Her drowsy voice conjured up images of satin sheets. He’d never laid on a satin sheet in his life, but he suddenly had visions of her looking up at him, naked, her dark hair spread out on the pillow, candlelight playing lovingly over her body. He didn’t trust himself to answer. And he didn’t trust his body to behave, even as uncomfortable and as tired as he was.

He turned away from her, on his side, giving her as much room as he could and took command of his breathing, slowing it down so he could fall asleep. Once he touched the rifle that lay beside him and the Beretta that was next to his hand. He could feel the outline of his knife, sheathed, but unhooked in case of quick need. He was ready should her enemies find them.





CHAPTER FIVE


In his youth, Nicolas spent weeks alone, fasting in the mountains, waiting for the vision to come to him, to tell him of his special gifts. His Lakota grandfather said he needed patience, and Nicolas had done everything required of him, yet he could not interpret his dream. The prophecy came to him when he swayed with weariness, when he was sick or wounded, but it had never come to him while he actually slept before. The vision made no sense. There was nothing tangible to hold on to. It left him frustrated and feeling inadequate, unable to live up to the potential his grandfather had “seen.”

In his dream, there was the steady beat of the drum. He smelled the smoke of the sacred fires. The healing lodge opened for him, waited for him. He knew the words of the healing chants, and he recited them over a man with the great wound in his chest. He passed his palms over the wound, felt the cold breath of death against his own skin.

Small hands covered his. Warmed his hands with the breath of life. The small fingers held an object he couldn’t see, but knew was important. His voice rose in the prayer of life. He sang softly to the spirits, asking them to aid him in healing the terrible wound. He felt the object pressed into his palm, felt it grow warm as if gathering heat from an outside source to pass to him. He saw the red-orange flames dance through his fingers. The object was gone before he could identify it. Once again he placed his palms directly over the gaping wound. The smaller hands slid over his. A thousand butterflies took flight, wings brushing against his stomach at the touch of skin against skin. His singing rose with the smoke and drifted upward toward the sky. Beneath their joined hands, all around the wound, flames danced a ballet, and the wound slowly closed until the chest was unmarred.

He tried to see who aided him in the healing, but he could never see beyond the smoke. He could never see whom he healed. He felt the caress of those small hands sliding over his bare skin and looked down to see a wealth of shiny black hair sliding over his belly, gleaming like strands of silk, teasing and taunting him until his body hardened with urgent demands.

Nicolas frowned and reached for her, determined to know who she was this time. His fingers tunneled into the mass of hair. He came awake instantly, aware his fists were bunched in Dahlia’s hair and his body was as hard as a rock. Her head lay on his stomach and she moved restlessly, fighting nightmares. He suppressed an aching groan of sheer frustration. If he woke her, she would be embarrassed. If he didn’t, her nightmare and his discomfort would more than likely escalate. He lay motionless, his hands in her hair when her breathing changed abruptly. He knew instantly she had awakened.

Dahlia woke in the dark with fear choking her. It was a familiar nightmare, one that never quite faded away. Shadowy figures watching her. Always watching her. She needed open spaces where she could breathe, and at the sanitarium she often crawled out onto the roof. She lay perfectly still, listening to the steady sound of Nicolas’s breathing, yet she knew he was awake. He lay in the darkness, probably awakened by the movement of her body, the way she tensed, the way her breathing had quickened. She was certain he was that attuned to her. And she was that aware of him.