The Beholder Read Free Page B

shivers rippled, and her trembling became uncontrollable.
    That’s when she noticed the glow from an open sign. The Wayside Café. A definite windfall. She drove half a block and parked behind a Jeep and a sheriff’s car.
    She donned the gloves Mrs. Winston, a client in her pet-psychic business, had knitted for her. Dog faces flopped on the end of each finger and looked very much like Max, Mrs. Winston’s depressed Scotty. The gloves were pretty horrible. Fashion accessories a child would wear, but Nina could never refuse handmade gifts from clients, particularly if they were as nice as Jane Winston.
    As soon as she put her hand on the latch to open the door, Koda’s telepathic thoughts dove directly into her psyche. Wait!
    Now you show up.
    I was in a meeting.
    Koda’s habitual excuse when he didn’t want to be found.
    I could have used your help back there.
    You know the rules. I can’t interfere. I can only take you to the Quiet Place and offer advice.
    Then you could have taken me to the Quiet Place. I’d have settled for that.
    Can’t. Sorry. You’ve been using it too often. I’ve been warned.
    Warned? It’s mine to use.
    It is a gift, and you’ve abused it.
    I don’t see that I’ve done anything so terrible. I needed the breaks. Being bombarded by constant emotions drains me. You know that. Truth was that at times Nina felt a hundred years old. In the Quiet Place, she escaped her responsibilities, avoided the shivers and cleared her head. What was so wrong with that?
    I’ve been advised that you are using it as a crutch.
    Well, excuse me. I thought I could use it at my discretion.
    Not when it harms you.
    I think I should know what is good for me and what is not—thank you very much.
    You should, but you don’t. Case in point—you could be in danger right now. Take my advice and don’t go in the café.
    But I’m freezing, and I’ve got a migraine coming on, and there’s hot stuff in there to drink.
    Don’t go in.
    Sorry, but there may not be another café within miles of here. I have to.
    Suit yourself. This last was said in a snit, and his presence left her mind in a final whoosh.
    “Go ahead, be that way,” Nina said aloud. It hurt her head to speak, and Max’s many faces blurred before her eyes.
    She hesitated for one minute, staring at the inviting hot-coffee sign over the counter; then she held her throbbing temples and climbed out of the car.
    Frosty air swirled through her jeans and up her coat. Pellets of hail stung her face. A gust tugged at the tight braid she had coiled into a bun at the back of her head. She felt some of the pins falling out, reached to grab them and missed. The thick black braid flopped down her spine, thumping against her. She ran to the door, snuggling her woolen coat closer around her neck.
    Between fighting the weather and her headache, she wasn’t paying attention as she opened the cafe door. A man startled her. She stumbled backward.
    His hands shot out with superhuman reflexes and caught her.
    The moment he touched her, a shiver speared her, a presence not totally human or animal, but both. A shifter, or two-skin as her people called them. She sensed the inhuman creature caged within his flesh, raging to be set free, tearing at her mind. She panicked and broke his hold on her arm. A pair of harsh jungle-green eyes and a hulking solid-muscled body swept past her peripheral vision as she wheeled and fled.
    “Are you okay?” His resounding baritone rumbledover the wind, the tones resonating from deep within his large chest.
    “Yes—never mind.” She yelled over her shoulder,
    running for the safety of her car. Koda had been right this time.
    She jumped inside and locked the doors. She couldn’t start the engine fast enough; then she sped away.
    Abruptly it occurred to her that the temporary interruption with the shape-shifter had diverted her thoughts from the shivers, and her headache had subsided. Though she felt as tightly strung as a guitar string