Page 126 of Ruthless Rustanovs

She broke off, the emotion of it getting to her now, the same as it had gotten to her back then. Like an old wound that healed over, but still sent pain shooting across your nerve endings whenever you dared to press on it. Trevor was and probably always would be that old wound.

She waited for Bair to come at her with some questions. But he continued to sit across from her with his legs around hers. Patiently waiting to hear the rest of her strange story. So she forced herself to continue.

“Anyway, my mother—she, ah—it’s hard to explain.

But she talks with spirits—future, past, and in-between.

And they tell her things. That’s how she knew about all my stuff with you.

And that’s how she knew where Trevor…I guess you could call it ‘ended up’ in his next life.

He’s an 11-year-old Asian kid now, and he lives with his two moms in that townhouse across the way.

So, I…ah…came out here to see about him. ”

Only when she finished her explanation did Thel dare to look up at him.

Jesus, this weekend! First she’d told him about the cancer, and now…

now this. He’d asked for Sirena, the newly created girl he’d met in Greece.

But he was getting more Thelxiope than she ever dared to share with him, or anyone else for that matter, before.

She waited for the shift. For his legs to fall away from hers when he came to the conclusion most folks would.

That her mother was crazy and that Thel might as well be, too.

After all, she not only believed her mother had these gifts, but she’d also taken the time to come to the house of an 11-year-old boy who looked and sounded nothing like her brother.

Bair’s stone-cold eyes flicked to the window. He was probably trying to decide if he should leave right now or have her committed first, she thought to herself ruefully.

But then he asked, “Have you seen him yet?”

Thel let out an expulsion of breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“Yeah,” she barely managed to get out, her voice cracking.

“He and his moms went somewhere earlier. He’s not mentally challenged now, but I could see Trevor inside him, because it looked like he was asking his moms all these questions.

Just like Trev used to do with me and Willa.

I knew it was him the moment I saw him. I’ve been waiting all this time for them to come back.

I know it’s crazy, but I just want one more glimpse before I leave San Francisco. Just one more…”

Again, he seemed to consider her words carefully, and Thel watched him until their waitress interrupted with two plates of hot food.

Bair looked up at the young waitress as if he’d forgotten they’d even ordered food. But then he took out his wallet and put another $100 on the table.

“More tip,” he told her. “We will be here for maybe much longer time.”

Thel’s heart just about exploded then, and she gazed at her Beast with shining, adoring eyes as the happy waitress said, “Take your time!”

“You believe me,” Thel whispered after the waitress left with the swiftly pocketed hundy.

Bair’s mountainous shoulders lifted with a bored shrug.

“I grew up in Siberia and my grandmother was a devout Buddhist. She had one strange story, which I will tell you now. Her great-grandfather used to be white Siberian tiger, but he fell in love with her great-grandmother, a young Buryat girl who lived in the village closest to his forest. Soon after, a hunter shot and killed my great-grandfather and his dying wish was to be with the Buryat girl he loved. At the same time a fifteen-year-old boy in the village died of influenza. The Buddha decided to be kind. He passed the tiger into the dead boy, and her great-grandfather came back alive on his deathbed with no memories, except that he used to be a tiger. He took her great-grandmother to wife, but they soon found his human life came with a curse. He and the rest of his line could only have one child. That is why my grandmother only had my mother, and why my mother only had me. My grandmother told me this story about her ancestor nearly every night when I was a little boy. So you see, she made your story easy for me to believe.”

He shrugged again like him believing her crazy story was no big deal at all, but then he frowned when he saw the expression on her face. Soft as the summer day.

“Why do you look this way at me now, Siren?”

“Because,” she answered, unable to wipe the cheesy grin off her face. “You just told me something about yourself. A lot of something about yourself.”

Now he shifted, looking more uncomfortable than she’d ever seen him. “We both did.”

“Yeah,” she agreed with a teasing smile. “We both did. It was almost like we were a real couple, without a fucked up power dynamic, for a second or two.”

But then her smile faded. Because they weren’t that kind of couple, were they?

He looked at her. And she looked at him. Maybe thinking the same thing.

That too much had happened between them in the past.

That there was no way a man descended from a Siberian tiger and a woman descended from a Greek siren could ever be a normal couple.

That this was just temporary, and as soon as the opera’s run was over, they’d be done.

Thel thought all of this as she looked across the table at him. Then she asked, “So how would you feel about coming back to New Mexico with me for a little bit?”