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As was often the case, Lila couldn’t read Bear’s expression. If anything, impassive would be the word for it. Her heart was doing all kinds of flips and plunges, like a trapeze artist at a circus. When he finally spoke, he could have been talking about the latest liquor delivery.

“So you saw a knife being thrown? Did you see who threw it?”

“No. I just saw her. Her back. The knife flying through the air towards her. I tried to see who threw it, but that part wasn’t available.”

“Available?”

“I only see what I see. I have no control over it. It’s not like a video camera. Like I said, I don’t even know if it’s real.”

His dark eyes stayed locked on her. “Have you ever been wrong?”

“Well…I can’t say. I see or sense all sorts of things, and I have no idea if they’re all true or not. Some have been true. But there’s no way to know if all of them are.”

It unsettled her that he was taking her so seriously. She wasn’t used to that. Her close friends did, but the few other times she’d tried to warn someone about something she’d seen, that had been the end of the relationship.

“But you said you get premonitions,” said Bear. “Have those been wrong?”

“No.” She swallowed hard. “Those haven’t been wrong.” She braced herself for follow-up questions. Like when? How about an example? But he stayed focused on the situation before them.

“Then quite likely there’s some truth to everything else you see, too.”

“Maybe. But there’s something else.” She realized that her hands had balled into tight fists and her nails were digging into her own skin. With a conscious effort, she forced them to relax. “One of the reasons I like being here in Firelight Ridge is that I pick up a lot less of that kind of thing. It hardly happens at all here, just a few blips here and there.” She could practically list them on the fingers of one hand, that was how rare it was. “It’s a huge relief.”

“So the knife-throwing vision?—”

She recoiled, horrified. “It’s not a vision. I wouldn’t call it that.”

“What word would you use?”

“I don’t know. Blip. That’s all it is. A little blip of an image.”

“Okay, let’s go with blip, then.” His tone was as dry as a gin martini, but she detected no mockery in it. “Was it weaker than what you usually see? How is it different since it happened here in Firelight Ridge?”

“It wasn’t weaker,” she admitted. “It was strong. Like other blips I’ve experienced. But since I am here, and in general, my intuition isn’t as strong, I just thought I would tell you that, too. So you can take it into account.”

He gave a brief nod. “I’m not the one who matters. We have to decide what to tell Officer Cromwell. He just got out of his vehicle.”

There was something in his voice when he said that name…she knew he didn’t like the guy. “Why do we have to tell him anything? He won’t believe me. Whatever I saw, it won’t factor into his investigation. Why would it? I want to help find the murderer, but if he won’t take me seriously anyway, what’s the point?”

He appeared to think it over, then came to a conclusion. “I’ll offer to be his local eyes and ears. I’ll find a way to bring up the knife. Maybe an anonymous tip or something.”

“You can do that?”

“I can do what I can.” He eyed her for a moment, then his gaze went past her, to the bar building at her back. “Here he comes now. I suggest we go inside where we can control the conversation better.”

With a flick of his wrist, he flung the axe at the chopping block. The blade lodged in the wood, the axe handle at a jaunty angle.

Just like the blip.

Her eyes blurred as the images swamped her again. A woman dodging prickly branches as she dashed through the forest. She was panting, desperate. She had to get away. She had to tell someone.

And then came the knife. It seemed to have wings as it sliced through the air. How could it be so precise, so direct? It found its home in the middle of the woman’s back and she arched in response. A bird pierced by an arrow. A butterfly pinned to a wall.

She emerged from the “blip” with a gasp. Bear’s hand gripped her shoulder. He was so close she could smell the birch sap on his clothes. “She was trying to tell someone about something. I don’t know what.”

“Okay. Okay.” His murmur poured over her like a soothing potion. Surfacing from one of those episodes was always intensely disorienting. But that hand on her shoulder helped. A lot. “That’s good. That’s good. Cromwell’s here. Can you talk to him? I can tell him you’re not feeling well.”

“No. I can do it.” She drew in a breath, the sipping-through-a-straw type that always helped her reorient. Putting it off wouldn’t make it easier.

“Be right there,” Bear called over her shoulder. “Grab yourself a drink if you want.”

“You two okay?” The voice was sneering and gruff and Lila didn’t like it one bit.

Bear didn’t answer, and a moment later the back door closed as Cromwell went inside. “You ready?” he asked.

“Yes. Ready.” Her heart was still fluttering, but she could deal with that. “One question before we go in,” she said when they were just outside the door. “Do you believe me? About what I told you? It doesn’t sound…woo-woo?”

“Woo-woo?” He glanced down at her with a frown.

“You know, too ‘out there.’ Bullshit, basically.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve never known you to sling bullshit. You’ve always been straight-up with me. I don’t know much about that kind of thing, but if you say you see these blips, why should I doubt you?”

Right. Why should he doubt her? Why had so many other people doubted her? Was it so hard to be open-minded and realize that you didn’t know everything?

“For some people, it’s threatening.”

“Yeah?” He opened the door for her. She ducked under his arm and stepped into the dimly lit bar. The smell of sawdust embraced her. “Well, I don’t feel threatened.”

Her mouth went dry. That might be the sexiest thing any man had ever said to her. She could understand Bear not being affected by a physical threat. He was a large man packed with muscle and experienced with handling both humans and wildlife. But this was not something in the physical realm. Even so, he took it in stride.

Bear was special. She’d known it from the minute she’d laid eyes on him. But he’d kept such a firm distance between them that she didn’t really “know” him.

She had a feeling—not a “blip” but a hope—that that was about to change.