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She frowned, and her brows
furrowed in concentration. “No. She just seemed to be anxious for some reason.
But she never said anything about it or what caused it.”

There was some detail missing, he
was sure. Could she be keeping information from him? It wasn’t that he thought
she was lying, but she wasn’t giving him the entire truth. “Lana, something is
going on here—something dangerous. Someone is after you and we have to out whom
and why. If there is anything that you’re not telling me, now is the time to
spill it.”

“I don’t want to, but I think
you’re right. What I know isn’t important, and you’d never believe me if I told
you,” she said quietly, looking past him. “Look, you’re a P.I., right? Just
think of this as you would any other case and believe me, I swear if I knew
anything, or even suspected that anything I knew would help, I would tell you.”

He wanted to sigh, but didn’t. At
least maybe now they would get somewhere. “What wouldn’t I believe?” She didn’t
answer, so he tried another tactic. “Try me, Lana. You might be surprised what
I’d believe.” Especially after seeing a shapeshifter vanish before my eyes, he
added silently. One that had no scent, he realized. He should have smelled the
shifter—before he even saw it. Another piece to the growing puzzle. He knew she
wasn’t a shifter—he would have sensed that, but something about her….

“Last night, I had a dream. At
least I hope it was a dream. I heard my mom’s voice. She told me to run. That’s
what woke me up, and that’s why I heard the footsteps.” While she explained it,
her eyes kept darting past him, but now that she had finished telling it, they
dared him not to believe her.

He nodded. Could her mother be
sending him messages, too? It would explain why the voice sounded familiar.

This got even more confusing and
complicated by the second. “Tell me about your mom, Lana. What did she do for a
living?”

Her lips tilted up in a small
smile. “She happened to be a psychic, who, on occasion, would work with the
police. Not always, but ninety-nine percent of the time, what she saw came
true. She was sure I had the ‘gift’, too.” She said it with a tinge of anger
and bitterness. “But I don’t, not in the way she did. Sometimes I can sense
things, but nothing to the extent of what Mom could. I don’t have visions.”

She had his full attention now.
“What did she see?”

“Which time? Cole, she saw things
all of the time. She knew of disasters before they happened. A school bus
accident, a kid drowning in a pool, my dad’s heart attack. Hell, she saw the
planes crash into the World Trade Center a month before and was helpless. Those
kinds of things happened all the time. Can you imagine having to see horrific
tragedy after horrific tragedy and not being able to help? To not know who to
warn?” she asked fiercely. “But what could that possibly have to do with me?”

Concentrating on the first part
of what she’d said, he carefully asked, “Lana, do you think your mom might’ve
been anxious because she knew that she was going to be killed?”

She shook her head immediately.
“One thing she could never do was foresee anything to do with herself. Usually,
she didn’t even know things about my dad or me. She said seeing his death had
been a fluke. There was no way to stop it. He even went to the doctor for a
heart check. What mom saw couldn’t be prevented.”

Cole needed time to put all this
together, to collect his thoughts. He wasn’t ready to tell her about the wolf,
yet. “Do you have a pot of coffee going? I could use a cup.” That would give
him time to think, give her something to do, and have the added benefit of
giving him a jolt.

“Sure,” she said and got up to
make him a cup.

Brooding, he watched her. Her
mother had to be the key. There must be something there that she was missing or
not telling him. He tried to sense what she was thinking, but he guessed her
mother’s dream warning had been what he’d sensed before.

Then he remembered what she’d
said. She’d sensed something going on. Could she read him? He decided on a
little test.

This is dangerous. We have to
be very careful
, he thought, concentrating on projecting the thought.

Her back stiffened. Going by that
indicator, he had to say it worked.

She turned around and stared at
him a moment before speaking. “What’s wrong?”

“Why do you ask?” He needed to
know just how much like her mother she was. He kept his eyes intent on hers as
he waited. Then again, she’d never said her mom could sense thoughts or read
them—her mother had visions. This was different.

“I don’t know,” she hedged. “I
guess I just felt you watching me.”

His look hardened. “Are you sure
that’s all it was?”

She sighed. “No. I had the sudden
feeling that we’re in some kind of immediate danger.”

He nodded, satisfied. “Lana, you
have more of a gift than you realize. I projected that thought to you.”

She paled and put down the cup
she’d just poured. “What?”

“Don’t look so shocked,” he said
gently. “You had to have suspected something after that dream last night. I
don’t know if you can read minds, but you can certainly read strong emotions.”

“No.” Her answer was immediate.
“I have good intuition and I can read body language well. I’m not psychic.”

Well, he wouldn’t try to convince
her of that just yet, but he had to make her understand. Their safety—her
safety—could depend on it. “Lana, I want your promise on something.”

She raised an eyebrow and eyed
him warily as she walked back to the table and waited.

“I want your word that you’ll
listen to that intuition of yours and that you’ll tell me if you get any more
strange feelings, vibes—whatever you want to call it. Promise me,” he insisted,
his eyes boring into hers. This was too important for her to try to shove aside
or ignore. He didn’t know what the danger would be, but he knew it was there,
just as he knew the sun would rise tomorrow. Somehow, it involved that damn
wolf shifter.

“I don’t know that it would do
any good, Cole. If I had any of my mother’s talent, don’t you think I would
have known she was in danger?”

The bitterness in her voice
surprised him. He reached across the table and touched her cheek. “Not
necessarily, sweetheart. You said it yourself: your mom couldn’t always see
things about her family and maybe that was passed on, too.” She felt guilty,
and he found that it hurt him to see her hurting. That was another thing he’d
think more about later.

Her eyes lightened. She
apparently had never thought of it that way. “Thank you for that.”

“Anytime, Lana. But now I want
your word,” he urged again, determined to have it.

“I’ll tell you,” she assured him.

He nodded and smiled. “Think I
could get that coffee now?”

“Crap. Yeah, just a minute.” She
went back to the counter and poured another cup for herself and the cup she’d
sat down. “Sorry, it slipped my mind.”

“Thanks,” he said as she sat back
down. “Did your mom live close to here?”

Sadness flashed into her eyes.
“Yes, about half an hour away. She left the house to me, but I couldn’t….”

He took her hand in his. “I
understand.” He didn’t want to pressure her—it was the last thing he wanted to
do, but if her mother had been involved…. “I think we need to go over there.
Maybe there’s more there that will give us some insight as to what’s going on.”
He hoped they could find something there—otherwise, they would stay in the
dark. Being a good P.I. could only get them so far—he still needed a place to
start.

“I….” She took a deep breath. “I
haven’t been there since I…I sorted through her things.”

The idea of going to the house
didn’t thrill her, but he really believed it to be the next logical step.
Somewhere there had to be answers. “You won’t be alone. I wouldn’t ask if I
didn’t think it was important. Did you happen to bring anything of hers here?”

“Just a few things. Some of her
jewelry, books, a few special odds and ends.”

His eyes narrowed thoughtfully
for a moment. “Anything like a diary or a journal? That seemed to be a logical
place to find some answers, he thought.

“No, I didn’t come across
anything like that. I remember when I was a little girl she kept a journal, but
I don’t recall seeing it in years. I’m not sure what happened to it, or if she
even kept it up. She only started it while she was pregnant with me, she said.”

Her eyes misted, making him feel
like a heel for dredging up sad memories. He cursed himself but prodded on.
“Could it still be at the house?”

“I doubt it, but I hadn’t
finished going through everything.”

It might’ve been a slim shot, but
it was the only one they had. “We’ll see if we can find anything.”

“I guess,” she agreed with a
shrug.

He watched her, delighting in the
movement of the light on her multi-toned hair. God, she had great hair. The
same images he’d had before of his hand wrapping in her hair, played back in
his mind. Ruthlessly, he shoved them aside. Now wasn’t the time to think of
sex—not even great sex, but he knew that when he made love with her—and he
would—it would be great. “Good,” he said huskily.

“I have a little bit of work I
need to get done before I can go,” she said, resigned.

“You don’t have come. Would you
rather I go alone?” Though he really did not want her left alone, he didn’t
want her emotionally hurt either. He could have someone watch her for a few
hours. There were a few people he’d worked with in the past that he trusted.

“No,” she said, her back rigid.
“I’ll go with you. If there is any kind of clue there, I want to help find it.
The animal that killed her needs to pay.”

The hardness in her voice
surprised him into a smile. “Good. Have you eaten anything?”

“No, I wasn’t hungry.”

He frowned. She was already a
little thing and he doubted she weighed much more than one-ten. “Why don’t you
fix yourself something to eat?” he suggested. “We can go later.”

“It’s okay. I’m not really much
of a breakfast person, anyway,” she admitted.

Chuckling, he said, “Breakfast is
the most important meal of the day. I’ll cook. Do you have any eggs?” The
impending search would come soon enough, and he hoped to keep her mind off it as
long as possible—plus, he really wanted her to eat something. He’d already
eaten, but she didn’t have to know that. She nodded warily and he grinned.

Within ten minutes, he’d prepared
them each an omelet. He felt her eyes on him and smiled to himself as he turned
off the burner. He’d bet his last dollar that no man had cooked for her before.

He found plates in the dish
drainer and put the omelets on them, then pulled the toast from the toaster. It
wasn’t much, but it would do. He turned around and found her watching him
intently. “What?” he asked as he put the plates on the table.

“You cook!” she accused.

He laughed and sat down. “I eat,
therefore I cook,” he explained with a shrug of his shoulders. “My mom made
sure I could fend for myself in the kitchen. And if you want the truth, cooking
relaxes me.” After she’d taken a few bites, he said, “Well?”

“It’s good,” she admitted, taking
another bite.

“Were you worried?” he teased.

“Not with the way you handled
yourself. I figured you must know what you’re doing.”

He grew serious. “Yeah, I do,” he
said with an edge to his voice. “You’re going to be okay, Lana. I’ll keep you
safe.”

She looked up at him and nodded.
“I know.”

“Finish up while it’s hot,” he
instructed. He watched her surreptitiously as she finished her breakfast.
Something
brewing there
. He could see it, but decided not to ask about it. He
couldn’t afford to make her guarded around him. She had to feel safe with him.

Besides the danger, he had to
deal with his attraction to her. He was a healthy thirty-year-old male. He’d
felt lust before, but never the kind of hot desire that he felt for this feisty
woman. He couldn’t remember if he’d ever felt this kind of almost instant
attraction. It went deeper than simple desire or lust. It almost seemed like it
was destined.

Could she handle his being a
shapeshifter? He knew that most people wouldn’t be able to handle that. Maybe
she’d be different though. She’d been raised with paranormal experiences.
Still, he kept his shifting ability secret for a reason. Very few people knew
about the legacy of his family.

When her plate was empty, he
smiled. “Did you like it?”

“It was scrumptious. I can do
breakfast, but it’s never tasted like this.”

“Glad you liked it,” he said with
a grin.

Lana pushed her plate away with a
sigh. “Alright, give me about an hour or so to get some stuff done, then I’ll
be ready to go.”

“Sure thing. I’ll just watch some
TV and keep myself occupied, if you don’t mind.”

The hour went by fast, and just
as the show he’d been watching ended, she walked back into the living room.
“I’m done, for now.”

“Okay,” he said as he stood up.
“We should get this show on the road.”

She didn’t look happy. “I guess.”

God, he hated to see that light
leave her eyes—and it had. In an instant. “It’ll be okay,” he assured her.
“Believe that.”

She tilted her chin. “How can you
be so sure?”

“Because I will do whatever it
takes you keep you safe. That’s a promise.” He intended to keep that vow.

“This isn’t your responsibility.
If you don’t want to be involved, I’d understand.”

He gave her a sharp look through
narrowed eyes. “Do you honestly believe that I’d leave you alone now that I
know you’re in danger? After everything you’ve told me and what I’ve seen for
myself?” he demanded. Damn it. She tried giving him an out, but her words just
pissed him off instead.