Sam grinned. "She's not leaving with me."
"What?"
"You chose the wrong time to walk in on us," Sam said. "And you misunderstood what you saw and heard. I noticed you standing in the door. Elizabeth didn't. Odd that she can't read you clearly."
Reece held his breath, wanting to believe and yet afraid to believe what Sam was saying. "She's not leaving with you?"
"Elizabeth and I are family." Sam grasped Reece's shoulder in his big hand. "Elizabeth and I are not lovers. We aren't in love."
Reece nodded his head, acknowledging what Sam had said. "She shouldn't stay with me."
"She won't leave you."
"You couldn't persuade her to go with you?"
"No. She's staying with you because she believes she's the only one who can save you," Sam said. "She'll risk being caught with you and charged with aiding and abetting a criminal, she'll risk the possibility of being killed if she gets caught in the cross fire if the law finds you, and she risks her sanity by going into town and facing people whose thoughts and emotions she can't control."
"What do you mean, people's thoughts and emotions she can't control?" Reece stared at Sam, noting the concern in his expression.
"Elizabeth reads minds, she picks up on the energy that comes from people's thoughts and from their emotions. Often she can predict their futures or see into their pasts just by touching them. Sometimes she can control these energies. Other times she can't. When she can't control them, can't shield herself, then she's bombarded with too much input."
"That's the reason she lives secluded in the mountains, isn't it?" Reece asked. "So she won't be exposed to too much psychic energy coming from other people.''
"She almost had a nervous breakdown when she went away to college. We learned then that she didn't dare risk living in a city or even a large town."
"Will she be all right out here? Away from town?"
"She probably would be if she stayed, since she only occasionally picks up anything telepathically at distances, the way she did with you. But she doesn't intend to stay out here," Sam said. "She's meeting me in town tomorrow at Gary Elkins's office."
"Why?"
"She knows it's possible that if she can meet everyone involved with B. K. Stanton, she plight be able to read them and discover which one of them is the murderer."
"No, I can't let her do that," Reece said. "I won't let her put herself at risk for me."
Elizabeth opened the front door and stepped outside. "You two finished with your man-to-man talk?"
"Just about." Sam released the banister, stood up straight and smiled at Elizabeth.
"It's too cold out here for y'all to stay much longer. For goodness' sakes, it's snowing." Elizabeth walked over and stood between Sam and Reece.
"I'll see you in town in the morning." Sam gave Elizabeth a quick peck on the cheek, then walked down the steps and out to his rental car. "You take good care of my T-Bird."
"We could swap," Elizabeth suggested.
"No need to do that, kiddo. You keep the Thunderbird." Sam opened his car door, glanced up at Elizabeth and then over at Reece. "She's worth a king's ransom, Landry. Remember that."
Sam got in the Regal, started the engine and drove away without a backward glance. Elizabeth slipped her arm around Reece's waist. He pulled her close. She laid her head against him.
"You should have gone with him, Lizzie."
"I couldn't leave you."
A sharp, breathtaking pain hit Reece straight in the gut. He couldn't let this happen-he couldn't let Elizabeth care for him, and he didn't dare feel anything more than sexual attraction for her. He wasn't a man accustomed to women like Elizabeth-honest, caring and loyal, with a purity of soul that frightened him.
"You're putting yourself in danger by staying with me." Reece pulled away from Elizabeth, turning to look down into her crystal-clear blue eyes. Eyes that spoke so eloquently without words. Eyes that told him how much she cared, how deeply she longed to share his misery and lighten his burden.
"You don't really want me to leave, do you?"
"Besides the fact that you could get injured accidentally if the law finds me, you're sure to be in big trouble unless we can convince them that I kidnapped you." Reece walked the length of the porch, leaned back against the wall and gazed out at the forest, trees and brush blanketed with a light dusting of newly fallen snow.
Elizabeth stood near the steps, looking across the porch to where Reece rested his back against the house. Why was it so difficult for him to accept the fact that she wanted to stay with him, to help him, to comfort him? Surely the good Lord wouldn't have sent Reece to her if he hadn't meant the two of them to be together.
Reece kept his gaze focused on the scenery. "Sam told me what you're risking, emotionally and mentally, by leaving Sequana Falls, by exposing yourself to so many other people's thoughts and feelings."
"Sam told you?"
"He thought I had a right to know."
"He shouldn't have told you."
Reece turned around slowly, admitting to himself that he had to face Elizabeth and yet not wanting to look into those all-too-knowing blue eyes of hers. Why now, God, why now? he asked himself. Why send someone so special into my life when my whole world has crumbled around me? Why offer me something that I can never have, something I'm not worthy of, something I didn't dream could ever be mine?
"You're going to wind up getting hurt, one way or another, because of me." When he saw her take a tentative step forward, he held up a hand to warn her off. "I can't give you what you want. I'm no good for you, Lizzie. What do I have to say or do to get through to you?"
"I thought we'd settled this argument." She wanted desperately to run to him, throw her arms around him. She couldn't; he wouldn't accept her. Not now.
"When you go into Newell and meet with Gary Elkins, you're going to be exposed to hundreds of people, maybe thousands. How can you deal with that kind of attack on your mind?"
"It's not as bad as Sam led you to believe." Elizabeth knew she was trying to convince herself as much as Reece. "When I went away to college I was only in my teens and I hadn't been able to train my mind to shield itself."
"Can you shield your mind now?"
"To some extent," Elizabeth said. "Every living thing gives off energy. I read the psychic energy people emit. Sometimes that energy is so strong I can't block it."
"Can you read everybody? Do you pick up on everybody's psychic energy?''
"Almost everyone. Some people shield their minds and their emotions without realizing they're doing it. But no one can shield themselves all the time."
"You can't read me all the time, can you?"
"No, I can't. You won't admit your true feelings even to yourself. You won't allow anyone to get close to you. You've closed your mind and your heart to others because you're afraid."
Reece walked toward her, his gaze locked with hers, his amber eyes hypnotizing her the way an animal often does his prey as he moves in for the kill. Elizabeth stood perfectly still-waiting-her heart racing wildly, her breathing shallow and quick. He reached out, circling the back of her neck with his big hand, drawing her forward until her lips were at his throat. She tilted her head, staring up at him, excitement and uncertainty shining in her eyes.
"Why is it that you can read other people so clearly, that you can see into other people's futures, but not mine?"
Tears formed in Elizabeth's eyes. Her bottom lip trembled as she forced herself not to cry. "I told you that I can't read your future because our futures are entwined, and I have always refused to look into my own future. You see, Reece, I have my own fears."
He brought her face closer to his, their lips almost touching. "You can get inside my head, Lizzie. You've done it before. I heard you calling my name when I was at the motel and you were trying to find me. I told you where I was and how to get there, didn't I? And I realize now that all those months I stayed in jail, before and during the trial, I kept getting these odd feelings that someone was trying to talk to me, to comfort me, to let me know I wasn't alone. I thought I'd been caged for so long I was going crazy."