Mind Game by Christine Feehan Page B

She didn’t want to know, but she wanted it to go away. Dahlia didn’t trust anyone enough to share such a moment of total awareness. And there had been something proprietary in the energy rolling off of him. An element that was both male and very confident. Very determined. Extremely sexual. She glanced at him, then away. He was a hunter, a man who took months to single-mindedly follow a target and never missed. Dahlia shivered. She didn’t want him to focus on her.
    “I think cocoa would be perfect. A hot cup so I can sleep.” She doubted she could do so even with the warm drink. She couldn’t remember ever sleeping with someone in the same room with her. The idea made her feel slightly ill.
    Nicolas pulled out the MRE, a sealed bag of prepared food the military provided for troops in the field. “There’s plenty of food, Dahlia.”
    “Is it edible?”
    “I eat it all the time.”
    A faint smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “That isn’t saying much. You probably would eat lizards and snakes.”
    “They can be quite tasty, cooked the right way. I often ate snake with my grandfather on the reservation where I grew up.”
    He didn’t look at her, but kept busy preparing their meal. Dahlia had a better sense of him now. The conversation seemed casual enough, yet something in his voice told her he was imparting information he rarely shared with anyone. He was wearing only a pair of jeans. His bare chest was bronzed and heavily muscled. She couldn’t help her gaze straying occasionally in his direction.
    She cleared her throat. “Your grandfather raised you?”
    “I never knew my parents. They died shortly after I was born. Grandfather was a spirit guide and believed in the old ways. It was fun growing up with him. We spent months in the mountains tracking animals and learning to be a part of nature. He was a good man and I was lucky to grow up with him.”
    “You must have learned a lot from him.”
    “Everything but the one thing that mattered.”
    The regret in his voice was genuine and it tugged at her. “What would that be?”
    “How to heal. I know all the chants and the right herbs and plants, but I just don’t have the gift the way he did.” Nicolas divided some of the food and put the rest away. He had the feeling they might need it later, and he believed in being prepared. “He taught me that all lives are important and before we learn to take life away, we should learn to give life back. And he could. You should have seen him. He was a good man, highly educated. He also knew the history of my people and the old ways. He respected nature and life and he could bring harmony to a chaotic situation just by being there.”
    Dahlia sighed. “He sounds like a very intriguing man. I had Milly and Bernadette. Bernadette was the medicine woman in the bayou. Quite a few of the locals would come to ask her to help them. She delivered babies and treated all sorts of things, mostly with plants and herbs. She was a trained nurse, but she told me her early and best education was here in the bayou with another woman who knew medicine. She taught me quite a bit. I liked being in the bayou, out in the open, away from everyone.”
    She had to turn away from him, away from grief and anger. She had to be in control at all times, as long as she was in his company. He helped ease the bombardment of energy, but more than once, Dahlia had lost control and others had suffered the consequences. “I’m very tired. Do you think we should take turns being on guard?”
    “I doubt it’s necessary. There are enough natural alarms around us. We’d both probably wake up immediately. I sleep light.”
    She didn’t doubt that he slept light. There was something very self-contained about Nicolas Trevane. He exuded confidence and authority. “I’m going outside for a few minutes. If something does happen tonight or tomorrow, there’s a boat tied up just around the bend. It’s old and it leaks, but it has gas in the