Eliana Read Free Page A

reminder of his pretty face. The old taunts returned to haunt him. “Face of an angel. Son of a devil and a demon.” It never ended. Not even with a beautiful woman he admired.
    She tugged at the zipper on her skirt and tried to wriggle out. “Maybe this will convince you. I—oh shit.” She closed her eyes and let out a strangled moan.
    “Let me.” Gently, he pulled the skirt over her hips and legs and stifled a gasp of dismay. Thick scars crossed her hip and belly. She’d been wounded. Badly. Without meaning to, he caught images of gunfire. Grief. Pain. No wonder she’d refused a hospital.
    “If you’re going look at me without any clothes on, you should at least tell me what your name is short for? Conrad? Con Man? Genghis Khan?”
    He covered her with a blanket. Knowing shock caused her to babble didn’t ease his disappointment. He sighed. No matter how hard he’d tried to Americanize his name, it always drew commentary. “Kon with a K. Short for Konstantin. It’s German.” He’d also changed his last name from Jäger to Hunter in an attempt to further distance himself from his past.
    “So that’s what your accent is. Your Spanish sounds funny.”
    He’d tried to be rid of that too, but certain words refused to be spoken any other way. “My father was German. We lived in Barcelona for a while. That’s where I learned my Spanish.” If she remembered any of this in the morning, he’d be surprised.
    “I’ve seen you somewhere. On TV or something.”
    “Probably.” For a while, he’d been a model for a line of men’s underwear. That gig led to modeling for advertisements and romance book covers. He’d never truly enjoyed the work, but he’d earned enough money to found a clinic within the enclave for indigent, low-income, and uninsured people to have access to medical care. The clinic offered both traditional and alternative medicine such as the energy work he provided.
    One of his demonstrations had been picked up by the public television station and was a favorite during pledge drives. The show featured ways ordinary men and women could learn energy healing, though Kon was careful not to reveal the extent of his abilities. “I’m going to call the doctor right now, all right?”
    “I told you. No fucking doctors.”
    He loved the intensity with which she ordered him around, but this was one matter he wasn’t going to back down on. To his relief, Doc Jensen was on call and arrived within a few minutes. She took one look at Eliana and hurried over.
    Kon went to the far side of the room and searched the ragged cloth wallet which had been in her jacket pocket. There was no cash, no credit cards. The Arizona ID was just that—not a driver’s license. Eliana Reyes, 9/30/1973, and since it was 1992 that made her nineteen. The address was in Nogales. Behind it was a military ID and dog tags for John Tall Elk. Her father? It was possible; they had similar eyes and facial features.
    The only other item in the wallet was a bent photograph of five children. He picked Eliana out immediately, as she was the eldest, and her appearance was subtly different from the two boys and two girls. Everyone in the picture was smiling, but the haunted looks in their eyes told Kon it was a rare moment of happiness.
    Doc Jensen’s voice rose as Eliana fought, swore, and made another futile attempt to leave the bed. Exhaustion finally won out, and she submitted to the doctor’s treatment, though Kon could sense her fury from across the room and without his Sensitivity.
    When Eliana was sedated, Doc Jensen joined Kon. “The burns will heal,” she said, “but I’d like an X-ray of that hip for an idea of what we’re dealing with. It’s obvious she was shot and had surgery to repair the damage, but I’d like to see if there’s something more we can do for her. I’ll write her a prescription. She’s too young to be in so much pain.”
    “I’ll talk to her when she wakes.” Kon had doubts Eliana would agree