Entranced Read Free

have to try. I have to try just anything.”
    Mel kept her silence for a moment, because it shamed her to realize that she
was
insulted. She was trained, she was a professional, and here they were cruising down the coast to see some witch doctor.
    But she wasn’t the one who had lost a child. She wasn’t the one who had to face that empty crib day after day.
    “We’re going to find David, Rose.” Mel took her hand off the rattling gearshift long enough to squeeze Rose’s chilled fingers. “I swear it.”
    Instead of answering, Rose merely nodded and turned her head to stare out over the dizzying cliffs. If they didn’t find her baby, and find him soon, it would be all too easy just to step out over one of those cliffs and let go of the world.
    *  *  *
    He knew they were coming. It had nothing to do with power. He’d taken the phone call from the shaky-voiced, pleading woman himself. And he was still cursing himself for it. Wasn’t that why he had an unlisted number? Wasn’t that why he had one of those handy machines to answer his calls whenever anyone dug deep enough to unearth that unlisted number?
    But he’d answered that call. Because he’d felt he had to. Known he had to. So he knew they were coming, and he’d braced himself to refuse whatever they would ask of him.
    Damn it, he was tired. He’d barely gotten back to his home, to his life, after three grueling weeks in Chicago helping the police track down what the press had so cleverly dubbed the South Side Slicer.
    And he’d seen things, things he hoped he’d never see again.
    Sebastian moved to the window, the wide window that looked out over a rolling expanse of lawn, a colorful rockery, and then a dizzying spill of cliffs dropping down to the deep sea.
    He liked the drama of the view, that dangerous drop, the churning water, even the ribbon of road that sliced through the stone to prove man’s wiliness, his determination to move on.
    Most of all, he liked the distance, the distance that provided him relief from those who would intrude, not only on his space, but also on his thoughts.
    But someone had bridged that distance, had already intruded, and he was still wondering what it meant.
    He’d had a dream the night before, a dream that he’d been standing here, just here. But there had been a woman on the other side of the glass—a woman he wanted very badly.
    But he’d been so tired, so used up, that he hadn’t gathered up the force to focus his concentration. Andshe’d faded away.
    Which, at the moment, was just fine with him.
    All he really wanted was sleep, a few lazy days to tend his horses, toy with his business, interfere in the lives of his cousins.
    He missed his family. It had been too long this time since he’d been to Ireland to see his parents, his aunts and uncles. His cousins were closer, only a few miles down that winding cliff road, but it felt like years rather than weeks, since he’d seen them.
    Morgana was getting so round with the child she carried. No, children. He grinned to himself, wondering if she knew there were twins.
    Anastasia would know. His gentler cousin knew all there was to know about healing and folk medicines. But Ana would say nothing unless Morgana asked her directly.
    He wanted to see them. Now. He even had a hankering to spend some time with his brother-in-law, though he knew Nash was hip-deep in his new screenplay. Sebastian wanted to hop on his bike, rev it up, and whoosh up to Monterey and surround himself with family and the familiar. He wanted, at all costs, to avoid the two women who were even now heading up the hill toward him. Coming to him with needs and pleas and hopelessness.
    But he wouldn’t.
    He wasn’t an unselfish man, and he never claimed he was. He did, however, understand the responsibilities that went hand in hand with his gift.
    You couldn’t say yes to everyone. If you did, you’d go quietly mad. There were times when you said yes, then found your way blocked. That was