God, it sounded like a terrible gift to have. What kind of burden must it be for Knox to have spent his entire existence saddled with that kind of knowledge? Or to be aware that every touch could open a door onto hideous truths he had no choice but to see?
“I think if I had that ability, I’d never want to touch anyone.”
He didn’t answer. And in his silence, she couldn’t help recalling that back in the diner, he had touched her too. She could still feel the hum of electricity their brief contact had spurred inside her.
“We shook hands earlier tonight. Did you feel all of my sins too?”
She was almost afraid to ask. Especially when she was hiding the fact that she, too, had an unusual, unique gift. Aside from that secret and the fact that she’d been born a Breedmate, Leni had to believe she’d committed hundreds of small sins in her twenty-seven years.
Including more than a few impure thoughts tonight alone when it came to Knox.
He swiveled his head toward her, studying her for a long moment. “When I touched your hand, all I felt was you.”
While she was relieved, he sounded anything but happy. In the semidarkness of the vehicle, his icy blue-gray eyes smoldered with banked embers. On a curse, he yanked his attention back to the road. He drove in silence again, a tendon pulsing beneath the dark whiskers that shadowed his cheeks.
His grip was bare on the steering wheel, his gloves folded on top of the dashboard. Thedermaglyphson the backs of his strong hands had first caught Leni’s eye in the diner. Now they drew her gaze again. She knew the changeable Breed skin markings functioned as emotional barometers. At the moment, Knox’sglyphswere filling with traces of dark colors, making the interlocking swirls and flourishes appear to come alive.
As cool and in control as he seemed there was an undercurrent of violence to him, even in his stillness. Like a viper waiting to strike.
He was the most dangerous thing to blow through Parrish Falls in all her recollection, and yet tonight he’d proven to be her biggest ally. Even if he seemed less than overjoyed about that with every passing minute.
She thought back to his conversation with Sheriff Barstow, all of his cagey non-answers about where he’d come from and where he was heading. No doubt, a man like Knox didn’t have to explain himself to anyone. But still, she wondered.
She glanced at his nearly pristine black parka and his big boots, also new-looking, which seemed more suited for a hiking trail than a hundred-mile trek into the harsh back country.
“What are you doing this far north, Knox? It’s obvious you’re not from anywhere around here.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah, it is.” She pivoted on the seat to face him. “So, where’d you come from?”
“Medway, over at the Interstate.”
“I mean before that.” On a short exhalation, she tilted her head in challenge. “You don’t sound like you’re from Maine or anywhere else in New England. You don’t look like it, either.”
“That so.” At first, she thought it was all the reply he was going to give her. For a long while he said nothing, his silence unreadable as he steered the truck past a drifted section of the narrowed two-lane. “I’ve been on the road for the past five months.”
“That’s a long time.”
He shrugged dismissively, still staring at the road ahead of them. “I prefer to keep moving.”
Looking at him, she found it hard to picture him idling anywhere for long. His big body radiated a restless, almost volatile, energy. Like a force of nature, something wild and unstoppable. Something untamed.
The exact opposite of her.
She had always been the steady one in the midst of turbulence and trouble, the one who took care of others first.
The one who stayed.
She studied Knox’s stoic profile in the darkness. “I’ve never been anywhere else but here. I can’t imagine being away from my home for so long.”
It was impossible to say that without thinking about her sister. She’d been gone nearly five-and-a-half years now. Long enough for everyone in town to have written her off for good. But not Leni. She couldn’t bear to think Shannon could truly be gone.
And so she stayed.
Even when in her heart she knew the only way to truly shield Riley from his violent father and the rest of the Parrish clan was to take him as far away from Parrish Falls as she could.
But where would she go?
