Morning Light (20 page)

Loni briefly considered lying to him. It wasn't something she did often, though, and she feared lack of practice would have her mucking it up. “I, um…had dreams about you.”

“Dreams about me,” he mused aloud. “What kind of dreams?”

“Uneventful ones, mostly. I just dreamed of you is all.”

“When?”

Loni shifted in the saddle to give herself a moment to formulate an answer. “Now and then.”

“Now and then
when
?”

She wasn't very well practiced at evasion, either. “All my life.”

Silence, a very long silence. He angled her a questioning look. “You've dreamed of me all your
life
?”

“Mostly. Not when I was really tiny, I don't think, but then, maybe I just can't remember back that far. Since I was about five, for sure. I called you my dream cowboy. That was part of the shock for me when we met at the grocery store. I'd dreamed of you all my life, and suddenly there you were, a real, live man.”

“
That
is weird. I mean…that is
really
weird. Did I always look like I do now, or did we grow up together without me knowing about it?”

Loni gnawed her bottom lip, trying to imagine herself in his shoes. Correction, in his boots. After he'd heard her mother's tirade she thought he was handling all of it pretty well. “You looked just as you do now. I've always known, way deep down, that I was destined to meet you someday. I just never thought it would be under these circumstances.”

“Trying to rescue a child, you mean.”

She nodded.

“So what circumstances were you expecting?”

Heat pooled in her cheeks. She tugged the bill of the John Deere cap lower to conceal the blush. No such luck. He saw it anyway.

“
Romantic
circumstances?”

Loni really,
really
wished he would let it drop. But she supposed that was too much to ask. “I outgrew the notion long before I met you. I'm a woman now. I realize how silly it was for me to think…”

“Think what?”

Loni shot him a resentful look. “Must we discuss this? It's a little embarrassing. You know?”

“No, I
don't
know, and yes, we must discuss this. If I've been the leading man in your dreams all your life, I think I have a right to know what kind of dreams they were.”

“It wasn't like that. Nothing ever happened in the dreams. I just
saw
you; that's all. As a teenager I fantasized about you a bit, thinking…oh, I don't know, the silly things all young girls think about, I guess.”

“That we were going to fall in love?”

In truth, Loni had always believed in her younger years that Clint Harrigan would be the one great love of her life. She couldn't bring herself to admit that to him, though. “I'm older now, and a whole lot wiser. I understand that nothing like that is remotely possible between us.”

Another long silence. Then he did the nose-rubbing thing, which she was quickly coming to realize was a nervous habit, his way of stalling when he couldn't think what to say. “Did I miss something?”

Loni frowned at him in bewilderment. “What do you mean?”

He gestured with one hand. “Did I imagine that kiss we shared last night? What do you mean, ‘nothing like that is remotely possible'? Was it
that
bad?”

He looked so offended she had to laugh. “No, of course it wasn't bad. It's just…well, think about it. We're nothing alike. The inside of your truck looks like a junkyard.”

“All that
junk
is important. Tools of my trade, so to speak.”

“Maybe so, but there's a total lack of organization. How on earth do you find anything?”

“I manage. And I fail to see how the condition of my truck factors in. Haven't you heard? Opposites attract.”

She shot him another look, this time a searching one. “Are you saying you're attracted to me?”

“I don't find you unattractive. As I recall, I told you that last night.” He thumped himself on the forehead. “Oh, that's right. You thought I was just being nice. News flash: I don't swap slobber with a woman I find unattractive.”

Loni wrinkled her nose. “Yuck.”

“You've never heard of swapping slobber?” A twinkle of devilment entered his eyes. “I don't kiss a woman I find to be unattractive, then. Does that suit you better?”

“Much, thank you.”

“Back to the dream-cowboy thing. Why isn't anything like that remotely possible for us? Do you dislike me?”

“No. I like you a lot. It's just that I don't think we suit. I was raised in the greater Seattle area, and my lifestyle is so different from yours. I know next to nothing about ranching, even less about horses, and can't picture myself being happy, over the long term, in a rural setting. By the same token I can't imagine you being happy in the city. There's also my clairvoyance to consider. Everything about me is against your religion. Remember? Your words, not mine.”

“I've changed my mind about that, and you know it as well as I do.”

“You have, and I appreciate it very much. But the fact remains that you find it unsettling.” She hummed the sound track of
The Twilight Zone
as a reminder. “My mother is home hugging my childhood security blanket. For all I know she's spying on us right now. Tell me the thought of that doesn't bother you.”

That shut him up, but only for a moment. Then he lifted a hand as if to wave and said, “Hi, Mrs. MacEwen. She hasn't become a notch on my belt yet, but the day's still young.”

Loni giggled. What was it about him that made her want to laugh all the time? Especially when their reason for being here was both serious and urgent. “You are incorrigible. She's very worried about that, you know. If she's tuned in she'll have fits and drive Daddy crazy all day.”

“Good. She'll be too busy bending his ear to spy on us.” He rode in silence for a few feet. “I'm confused. I distinctly remember you saying that your abilities are much stronger than your mother's. Yet it seems to me she has a much better handle on her gift than you do.”

“How is that?”

“She has no trouble touching your blanket and tuning in to see what you're doing. But now you aren't able to summon visions by touching Trevor's bear. They just come to you or they don't.”

“True, but there's a special link between my mom and me. She has also practiced, making her ability stronger when it comes to Deirdre and me. We are her daughters. She couldn't do the same with a stranger.”

“Hmm.”

Frowning thoughtfully, Clint said nothing more. Loni was greatly relieved. She'd been half-afraid he might return to the subject of her dreams about him. The last thing she wanted was to get backed into a corner and confess that she'd fantasized about falling wildly in love with him for most of her life.

Several hours later Loni realized she hadn't had a vision of Trevor in over twenty-four hours, and she couldn't stop worrying about him. Frightened for his safety, she fished Boo from her saddlebag. But when she held the still-damp bear in her hands, nothing came to her.

Still riding abreast of her, Clint watched as she stuffed the bear back into the bag. “Nothing, huh?”

“No. It really worries me.”

He gave her a pointed look. “Maybe you should try harder. Your mother has mastered the art of tuning in on you at will. If she's learned to focus her concentration that well, why can't you?”

“I've always shied away from trying to strengthen my power.”

“Why?”

She struggled to put her feelings into words. “As it is, I leave it up to God. If I strengthen my gift and circumvent Him, how will I know for certain that what I see is sent by Him?” She gave him an appealing look. “It's extremely important to me that I not use my gift in any way displeasing to Him.”

“Damn, you're starting to sound like a Catholic.”

Loni was so tempted to pluck her rosary out of her jacket pocket and wave it under his nose. It was all she could do to stop herself. “What if I were a Catholic? Would that be so difficult for you to conceive? And for your information, it isn't only Catholics who want to comply with God's will.”

“Of course it isn't only Catholics who—” He broke off and sighed audibly. Then he slanted her a crooked grin. “Are we having our first fight?”

Loni refused to smile, absolutely refused. “You didn't answer my question. What if I were a Catholic?”

“You'd probably be so riddled with Catholic guilt over being a clairvoyant that you'd be hiding in a closet, afraid to come out. It would be very difficult for someone like you, so innately and powerfully gifted as a clairvoyant, to find peace with her gift and be a practicing Catholic. You'd be so worried about misusing your abilities that you'd—” He stopped his horse and gave her a study so intense that her cheeks burned. Then he said, “I'll be damned!”

His outburst was so loud and vehement that Loni flinched and Uriah snorted.

“Why the hell didn't you tell me?” he demanded.

She drew Uriah to a halt. “There was never a good moment.”

“You're a
Catholic
?” He phrased it as a question, but it was more a statement. Then he jerked off his hat, wiped his forehead with his sleeve, and stared off into the trees. “Suddenly all the pieces fit. A clairvoyant who's afraid to use her gift. It was staring me right in the face, and I didn't see it.”

“I'm not
afraid
to use my gift,” she corrected, stung by the accusation. “I simply refrain from trying to control it. It's not like athletic ability or being artistic, you know.”

“Why isn't it?” He nudged Malachi back into a walk and whistled to the packhorses to fall in behind him. “Forget everything you were ever taught in religious education about clairvoyants, Loni. Your gift doesn't fall into that category. If you were ever told different, put it straight out of your mind. It's an ability given to you by God, and He surely wants you to
use
it. Otherwise why would He have given it to you? Take this thing with Trevor, for instance. Why do you think God has sent you visions about the boy?”

“So I can possibly save his life.”

“Exactly. Saving a life isn't evil.
Taking
a life is. Do you think God wanted Michelangelo never to hone his talents as an artist? What a loss to the world that would have been. Do you think Joan of Arc covered her head with a blanket, trying not to have her visions? No. Instead she prayed and meditated, opening herself to God so He could communicate His will to her. Do you think Saint John felt
evil
when he had visions that inspired him to write the Book of Revelation?”

“No, of course not. But I'm not a saint, and I don't receive profound messages.”

“The hell you don't. It's pretty damned profound when you see things that could help you save a life.”

“Yes, but—”

“No buts. Every life is precious. You can't save every kid in the world, and you can't save every Cheryl Blain. What you can do, though, is hone your skills to the utmost of your ability so you can save a lot of people in your small corner of the world. Prayerfully, of course, and with God's help. It's my opinion that you can't go wrong if you strengthen your gift through prayer and never use it in any fashion contrary to God's teachings.”

“I can't believe that
you
are lecturing
me
. On Friday night you explicitly told me that believing in clairvoyants was against your religion.”

“Yeah, well, I was wrong. Look at me. I'm a goat roper. What the hell do I know? When I talked with my dad, he set me straight. There are clairvoyants of the bad sort and clairvoyants of the good sort. You have to be a
thinking
Christian to realize the difference, and I never bothered to think about it because I didn't believe people like you really existed.

“Now I
know
people like you exist and I
have
thought about it. You don't use your gift for financial gain. You don't use it to your advantage at all. In fact, it appears to me that it has adversely affected your entire life. I was flippant that night, and I was rude to you as well. I'm
sorry.
All right? I never meant to hurt you. I thought you were a fruitcake who'd find someone else to bother once I got rid of you.”

“You just said it.”

“I just said what?”

“The words that never fix anything.”

He scowled at her. Then he plopped the hat back on his head. “It's a good thing nothing between us is remotely possible, because I swear, you'd drive me to drink. I'm apologizing to you from the bottom of my heart, and you throw the words back in my face.”