"Not as major as the trauma that Andrews went through."
"He deserved it. Do you want to talk about the psychic trauma thing?"
"I don't think talking about it will do anyone, including me, any good."
"Okay," she said.
"That's it? You're not going to lecture me about the dangers of ignoring the consequences of serious psychic trauma?"
"Not tonight."
HALF AN HOUR LATER, after consuming two bowls of soup and another glass of whiskey, Fallon Jones fell profoundly asleep on her sofa.
Moving quietly, she turned off the lights and took a spare blanket out of the hall closet. She covered Fallon with the blanket and then stood for a time in the shadows, looking at him. He was too big for the sofa, too big for the tiny apartment. But for some reason it felt right to have him here in her space, surrounded by her plants and the precious used furniture, lamps and dishes that her new neighbors had given her.
Fallon Jones and the secondhand treasures that filled the small apartment anchored her now. She belonged here in Scargill Cove.
8
The smell of freshly brewed coffee and the unfamiliar sounds of someone moving about in his kitchen awakened him. The cramped, stiff feeling told him that he had fallen asleep on the office sofa again.
He opened his eyes and looked out the window at the dark sky of a foggy winter dawn. It was raining but his office seemed much cozier than usual.
Something wrong with the view, Jones. You're a hotshot detective. Figure it out.
Not his office. Not his kitchen. Not even his sofa.
Memory kicked in. He'd had decompression sex with Isabella, eaten her homemade soup and then proceeded to fall asleep on her sofa.
Hell of a way to impress a woman, Jones.
It was an awkward scenario but he felt surprisingly good, rested. He glanced at the table. The clock was still there, wrapped in its blanket, silent and still.
"Good morning," Isabella said.
He turned his head and saw her. And instantly got hard. She was in the kitchen, looking as if she had just stepped out of a shower. Dressed in a robe and slippers, her hair caught back in a ponytail, her face still bare of makeup, she was the most erotic sight he had ever seen.
He tried to think of something intelligent to say and came up empty.
"Morning," he managed.
"How did you sleep?" She cracked an egg into a bowl. "The sofa is a little on the small side for a man of your size, but you were sound asleep. I didn't want to wake you."
Feeling like a great, clumsy mastodon, he lumbered to his feet.
"Sorry about this," he said gruffly. "Not sure what the hell happened."
She looked amused. "You were exhausted. You went to sleep after dinner. That's it. No big deal."
"Didn't think I'd be able to sleep at all."
"You've been pushing yourself and your talent too hard for too long. Yesterday you drew on the last of your reserves when you took down Andrews. Last night your body signaled that it had had enough. It more or less forced you to give yourself a chance to recover."
That wasn't the full answer, he thought. He'd experienced the after-math of violence before and it had kept him awake for a couple of days. It was Isabella's good energy that had made it possible for him to get some much-needed rest last night. But he did not know how he knew that, much less how to explain it to her.
"I'll have breakfast ready when you come out of the bathroom," Isabella said.
Grateful for the opportunity to have a chance to figure out how to handle the situation, he headed down the hall. Once again he contemplated the man with the thousand-year-old eyes gazing back at him in the mirror.
The damage was done. There was nothing he could do now to stop the gossip.
"You really screwed up," he said to the man in the mirror.
When he emerged from the bathroom fifteen minutes later Isabella handed him a warm mug.
He drank some of the coffee and studied the rapidly lightening sky.
"I'd apologize," he said. "But it won't do any good."
"What are you talking about?" Isabella asked.
"This is one very small town," he said. "When I leave here this morning to go back to my place, someone is sure to see me."
She opened the door of the ancient refrigerator. "So?"
"So, by noon, everyone in the Cove will know that I spent the night here."
She closed the refrigerator and set a dish of butter on the counter. "So?"
His usually reliable brain seemed to have locked up like a computer that had been hit by a stealthy cyberattack. It took him a second to realize that he was actually feeling a condition that could be classified as confusion. He never got confused. He tried raising his talent a few notches to see if he could achieve a clearer view of the situation, but it didn't help. If anything he was more confounded than ever.
"It doesn't worry you that everyone will know I slept here?" he asked.
"Of course not." She dropped two slices of bread into the old-fashioned chrome toaster. "It was a rough day at the office. We had a couple of drinks and a meal to unwind and you fell asleep on my sofa. It happens."
"It's never happened to me. Not like that. And we didn't just have a meal and a few drinks, damn it. We had sex."
She raised her brows. "You're worried about your reputation?"
"The problem," he said, groping for the right words, "is that after today the entire population of the Cove will know that we had sex."
"Who cares?"
He drank some more coffee, hoping the hit of caffeine would help him untangle the strange bewilderment that was fogging up his senses. Isabella did not seem to mind the possibility that people would know that they had spent the night together. Why was he worrying about it? Enlightenment did not come.
"It's my reputation you're worrying about, isn't it?" Isabella said. "It is very sweet of you to be so concerned. It's not necessary, but it is sweet."
"Yeah, that's me," he said into his mug. "Sweet."
"There are so few true gentlemen left in the world."
"Uh-huh." He sensed that things were going downhill fast, but he could not think of a way to stop the runaway train.
A rush of tiny springs followed by small popping sounds interrupted his fugue state. In the kitchenette, two slices of toast leaped high into the air.
"The toast," Isabella yelped.
She managed to snag one slice out of midair, but the other landed on the counter.
"Oh, good," she said. She smiled her brilliant smile. "They didn't fall on the floor this time. Of course, those of us with a strong background in the food-and-beverage business do have this two-second rule that is generally applied in such situations. But I hate to apply it in front of guests."