He studied her profile in the next flash of lightning. “Something’s wrong.”
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
With his brain back on track, he reached out and wrapped his fingers around her neck. “You were driving from the Hollow to the Cove, Sadie, in weather no sane person would take on without extremely strong incentive. As I recall, you’re stubborn, but relatively sane.”
She started to speak, then broke off and grabbed his chin as lightning snaked through the clouds. “You’re bleeding!”
“A little. It’s not...” He hissed when she poked at the gash. “Well, it was going numb.”
“Sorry.” She lightened her touch and her tone. “Eli, you were barely conscious when I found you. You could have a concussion.”
“I could also be halfway back to New York. Might have been except for a damn bulldog. Don’t ask. Just trust me when I tell you I’ve been hit on the head more times than I can count.”
She formed her lips into a smile. “To which I’ll simply say, no comment—and you can let go of me now.”
“I will, just as soon as you tell me why you were heading to the Cove in a storm that scared Rooney spitless for close to twenty minutes.”
“I—seriously?”
“Talk to me, Sadie.”
She blew out a breath. “Fine, I got an email. It was—unusual. I don’t know how or why, but it also seemed familiar. Like a memory buried deep in my head. So deep I can’t visualize it.”
“You got a familiar feeling from an email?”
“Well, I say feeling. It was more like a punch of pure creepy. And a strong sense that the sender was watching me.”
“Was he?”
“I don’t see how. I was in my office at the Chronicle. The guy on the phone couldn’t have...” She halted there, bit her lip. “I, uh, didn’t mention him, did I?”
“Not unless my brain’s shorting, and I doubt that.” Because his fingers were still curled around her neck, she couldn’t draw away. That she made no effort to do so told him a great deal—most of it not good. She was scared. “What did the guy on the phone want?”
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t have been going to the Cove in a storm that scared your great-grandfather spitless.” Her eyes, as gray and stormy as the night, slid past him to the trails of mud that slithered down the driver’s window. “The ravens must be significant.”
Eli’s grip tightened. “You wanna back that up for me?”
“The card was animated. One of the ravens was inside a cage, the other was out. The outside one scratched the word MINE in blood with his talon. I freaked at first, but after a while I convinced myself it was no big deal.”
“How long’s a while?”
“Not sure, maybe fifteen minutes. Afterward, I decided to proofread a column I’d imported for the weekend edition about fanatics and the rising numbers of them who’ve begun to act on their so-called beliefs. And there I was, right back to freaked. Seeing as he knows everything raven-related, I figured the best thing to do would be talk to Rooney, who, in case you’re unaware, never answers his phone.”
“I am aware of that, actually.” But Eli’s response was preoccupied as he searched his mind for—something. “A raven in a cage,” he repeated. “Why can I almost picture that?”
“No idea, but please tell me there isn’t a legend in the Cove about this kind of thing.”
“Not that I know of, and it’s the card part that’s ringing a really distant bell.”
“That bell could be your head still ringing from the whack it took when you almost wound up in the bog.”
“There is that,” he agreed.
When thunder caused the ground to tremble, she stared straight into his eyes. “You know where we are, don’t you.”
It wasn’t a question, Eli reflected. “Yeah, I know. This is where you and I met the night we discovered Laura’s body.”
“Met, argued, walked and found.”
“It’s been two decades, Sadie.”
“I have a long, and vivid, memory.”
“Ditto, but right now I have a more immediate problem.”
The breath she released ended on a laugh. “You really don’t, you know. You’ve got a flat and no spare, which means your vehicle’s stranded. Mine, on the other hand, has all four tires intact. Seeing as it’s on the other side of the pine, the Hollow as a destination wins by default.” A light danced up into her eyes. “Looks like you get to check out that bulldog after all, Lieutenant.”
“Yeah, well.” He moved too quickly for her to react. One moment, his gaze was sliding across her mouth. The next, his own was covering it.
The last thought Eli had before his brain shut down was that kissing Sadie Bellam would be either the best thing he’d ever do or the worst mistake he’d ever make.
Chapter Five
For a suspended moment, Sadie’s mind and senses blanked. Then everything inside began to sizzle and snap.
She hadn’t kissed him in Boston. Oh, she’d wanted to, too many times to count, but whenever she’d thought about it, the ring on her finger had become a lead weight reminding her that she was engaged to another man.
There was no ring on her finger now, Sadie’s overheated senses pointed out. But that still didn’t make kissing him a good idea.
Unfortunately, the sound that emerged from her throat more closely resembled a purr than a protest. She also suspected the fingers she’d curled into his hair were holding his mouth on hers rather than trying to push him away.
Fascination wove a greedy path through the sparks. Eli was seducing her with his lips and tongue, with his whole mouth, in fact. Although it was difficult to form a thought, Sadie wondered if she’d ever been kissed quite this thoroughly before. If she had—and she doubted it—the memory eluded her.
A crackle of lightning preceded another ground-shaking peal of thunder. The storm sounds matched the heat currently shooting through her veins. With her fisted hands, she tugged him closer. She wanted to climb over the console and onto his lap, to let herself slide from fantasy into reality. She wanted to return the demands of his mouth, then simply sink in and not think at all.
The fingers on her neck slid up into her damp hair, and his thumb grazed the side of her jaw. Her skin tingled everywhere, and her breathing—well, maybe she’d stopped breathing, because her head was alive with sensations she couldn’t hope to untangle.
The next thunderbolt vibrated the body of Eli’s truck and shot straight up into her bones. Prying her mouth free, Sadie raised uncertain eyes. “Why do I feel like someone just reached down and gave us a really hard shake?”
“I thought it was my brain trying to shake some time-and-place sense into us.”
Or sense in general, Sadie reflected. A sigh escaped as she forced her spinning emotions to disengage.
Did it surprise her that his kiss would be off the scale? Hardly. After one dance in Boston, she’d expected that scale to blow eventually.
It was an effort to separate herself from him and keep her voice steady. “This shouldn’t have happened, Eli. We shouldn’t have let it happen.”
Skimming his knuckles over her cheekbone, he held her gaze. “I won’t argue with you, but only because I know what I can and can’t give a woman. More than sex is more than I’ve got inside