Before Sunrise by Diana Palmer

over two years ago.”
    She was still trying to breathe normally. It wasn’t easy. Her knees shook. She dropped down into her desk chair with the last dignity she could summon. “Oh.”
    He was able to relax, too, finally. He perched himself on the edge of her desk facing her. His face was solemn. “I’ll tell you all about it one day, when you’re ready to listen.”
    â€œDon’t hold your breath,” she bit off.
    â€œI told you once that I never do anything unless I’ve considered all the consequences,” he replied. “I thought…hating me might spare you any sadness.”
    â€œWhy should I have been sad?” she asked in what she hoped was a normal voice. “We were friends.”
    He shook his head. “More than that.”
    â€œNo.”
    Her mutinous expression said it all. She wasn’t giving in, no matter how passionately he tried to convince her that he still cared. He had to bide his time.
    She’d kept the newspaper clipping. That registered. Then his eyes went past her to the open desk drawer and he saw the charm his father had made for her three years ago. She still had it!
    She saw where his eyes were looking and she closed the drawer abruptly.
    â€œDo you remember what I wrote you about it?” he asked. “My father said to keep it with you always. I didn’t understand why. He said it would save your life one day.”
    She shifted in the chair. “You said he was a medicine man.”
    â€œYes. He still practices. He mentioned that charm again when I told him I’d found you.”
    The wording was odd. She lifted her eyes to his. “Found me?”
    He averted his gaze. “Bad choice of words. Met you again,” he corrected. “He said that you must put the charm in your pocket, and put these behind it. You must do this every time you go out alone.”
    He drew two large Mexican peso pieces out of his hip pocket and handed them to her. They were heavy and still warm from his body.
    She felt the weight and thickness. “What are these?”
    â€œVery old, Mexican pesos that have been in my family for a long time,” he said. “My father was very specific about where you keep them, too—in your right slacks pocket or a fanny pack.”
    She traced the heads on the heavy coins, touchedby his father’s concern. “Why does he think these will save my life?”
    â€œHe has visions,” he told her. “A psychiatrist would call them delusions or the aura from migraine headaches—which he also has. But he knows things. He has two brothers. One is disgustingly normal and lives in California. The other lived with his Apache wife in Arizona until her death, and stayed on there to raise his son. He has the same gift of precognition that my father has. His son is in the CIA. He always knows when something’s wrong with him.”
    â€œI’ve known people with that gift,” she confessed, meeting his dark gaze. “Your father knew I was in danger before you came here!” she said suddenly, as the thought occurred to her.
    He nodded. “He gave me those coins a month ago. He said I was going to see you when I came to North Carolina.”
    â€œDid he know…that you were coming to North Carolina?”
    He glanced down at the big coins in her hand. “Yes. God knows how. I was working out of Oklahoma until this summer. But because I’m Native American, and they’re starting this new organization, I’ve been attached to the Indian Country Crime Unit. They sent me here when they got the news of the homicide on the YonahReservation this week.” He hesitated. “I took a week off back in the summer and went to Charleston.”
    Her lips parted. “I haven’t been to Charleston in three years,” she blurted out.
    His expression was hard to describe. “I know,” he said with feeling.
    â€œYou…were looking for