He raised one brow. “Got a better theory?”
She contemplated the glowing pool. “You’re the take-charge type. Not your fault. It’s part of who you are.”
Jake made no comment. Inspired by his lack of argument, she warmed to her theme.
“The way I see it, your ex-wife was probably telling you the truth when she said that you were trying to run her life. Running things is what you do.” Clare raised a finger. “But your instincts weren’t the problem. Neither were your intentions. The real issue was that she didn’t know how to hold her own with you.”
“Think that was it?” Jake asked in an odd tone of voice.
“She probably couldn’t set boundaries and, when necessary, put you in your place. So, in the end, she panicked and fled the scene, leaving you confused and bewildered and wondering what the hell you did wrong.”
“You sound very certain of your analysis.”
“Yep.” She nodded, feeling very sage now. “You are what they sometimes call an alpha male. Leader of the pack. Trouble is, in the modern world, there aren’t a lot of packs to lead so your natural talents get applied to whatever comes into your orbit. Family, spouse, business, whatever.”
Silence greeted that statement.
Clare turned her head to see how he was taking her brilliant insights. A cold shock went through her when she realized that he was watching her with an unnervingly enigmatic air.
“How did you know?” he asked evenly.
She cleared her throat. “Sorry. Just a wild hunch, honest.”
“How did you know?” This time the question sounded distinctly dangerous.
“That you are a much stronger talent than you lead others to believe?” A trickle of unease penetrated the pleasant wine haze. “Uh, well, it really isn’t all that hard to tell. I mean, it’s sort of obvious.”
“No, it is not obvious.” He put his half-finished wine down on the table. “And it isn’t in the Arcane Society’s genealogy files, either, at least not the ones that are open to the public. So how did you figure it out?”
“I’m getting a little confused here, Jake. What, exactly, is so secret about you being a take-charge type?”
“I’m talking about your alpha male comment. Don’t try to slide out of this. You know, don’t you?”
Understanding finally dawned on her. “Oh. I see. You’re a hunter.”
He watched her with the steady, unblinking gaze of a top-of-the-line predator.
“Yes,” he said.
“Actually, I hadn’t guessed that part. Just that you’re a high-end talent.”
The corners of his eyes tightened ever so slightly.
She cleared her throat. “Well, you have to admit that it does sort of explain your little problem with your marriage. Everyone knows that hunters are very difficult to match.”
“Some people think that’s because our type of sensitivity is so damned primitive,” he said. There was a gleaming edge on every word. “They used to call us throwbacks. Some people still do.”
“Get over it. We’re all primitive beneath the surface. That’s why they invented civilization, remember?”
“Civilization doesn’t always work.”
“Maybe not, but it’s definitely way ahead of whatever is in second place.” She frowned at the nearly empty plate. “Are you going to eat that last piece of bruschetta?”
There was no response to what seemed to her to be a perfectly polite question. When she looked up from the plate she saw that Jake was still studying her with a disturbing gaze.
“What now?” she asked.
“It doesn’t bother you.”
“Knowing that you’re a hunter? Nah. It’s kind of reassuring.”
“Why?”
“It explains why you have to lie a lot. I respect secrets, Jake. And I know how to keep them. Trust me. Now, about that last piece of bruschetta.”
“Help yourself,” he said.
“Thanks.” She scooped up the bruschetta and took a crunchy bite. “What with having to shop for this dress and nearly getting run down in the garage, I didn’t have time for lunch. I’m starving.”
“Dinner will be ready soon.”
“Lovely.” She drank a little more wine, ate the last of the bruschetta and settled back to enjoy the descent of the desert night.
“Level-ten hunters often make other sensitives nervous,” Jake said after a while.
“Hey, you want to narrow your social life down to a humiliatingly small vanishing point? Try telling everyone you know that you’re a human lie detector.”
“I can see where that might do the trick,” he said.
“I blame the whole negative attitude toward hunters on the Jones men,” she said. “The Joneses who are the direct descendents of the founder, that is.”
“Why do you hold them responsible for the bad image?”
“They haven’t all been what we call hunters by any means, but some of them were and over the years that bunch managed to make themselves legends in the Society, right?”
“I’ve heard that,” he agreed.
“That’s all well and good. Every community needs its legends. But the problem with a powerful legend is that it usually consists of a little dollop of truth surrounded by several layers of fluffy lies. After a while the lies conceal the truth at the core and everyone starts to believe the lies. In the case of hunters, there has been a decidedly dangerous image associated with that type of talent because so many of the stories connected to the Jones men who were hunters involve violence.”
“So?”
She took another sip of wine. “The way I see it, hunters, in general, get a bad rap simply because of those darn Jones men. If they had pursued normal, ordinary careers the way you have instead of chasing after bad guys, no one would think twice about a sensitive who happened to be a hunter today.”
“You don’t think that answer might be a little too simplistic?”
“Makes sense to me.”
He let that ride for a while.
“Did your engagement end because of your sensitivity?” he asked eventually.
“Nope. I did a pretty good job of covering that up. It ended because of what happened here in Stone Canyon.”
“The McAllister murder?” he asked.
“Uh-huh. Between you and me, I think someone right here in Stone Canyon phoned Greg and warned him that he was engaged to an ax murderer.”