Tapestry of the Past by Alvania Scarborough Read Free Book Online Page A

someone is watching you without turning around.”
    It was a surrender, Kalesia acknowledged to herself, as the tautness inside her eased in response. Both of them knew that with her compliance she ceded control to him. She waited for resentment. She’d been taking care of herself for a long time. To her surprise, she found it didn’t bother her as much as it should. Before she could ponder that revelation, Gabriel moved back and settled in his chair, continuing his questioning as though nothing had happened.
    Three hours later, her temper was fraying.
    “Was there any similarity between that murder and this one?”
    She drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair and contemplated throwing the pillow at his head. “I told you. That happened years ago. Nothing ever came of it. No one believed me when I reported that woman’s murder five years ago. Just as no one believed me when I reported a child’s murder two years before that.”
    She put a hand to her throat, hoping to ease the ache there from the effort not to scream in sheer frustration. The man was worse than impossible He grabbed on, refused to let go, made her go over each vision time and again. Asked the same questions over and over, as if he just asked often enough, she’d change her story. He couldn’t get it through his thick skull that this was the way it always was. She’d see a murder and then would have to live with the knowledge that no one believed her. That maybe, just maybe, she could have helped to hold someone accountable if only people were willing to listen, to believe.
    “Tell me again,” he ordered, ignoring her outburst.
    Her hand dropped from her throat to curl on the arm of her chair. “Tell me again. Tell me again,” she mimicked. “I feel like a suspect in a police interrogation. What are you? A cop or something?” The minute the question was out of her mouth, she was ashamed. It wasn’t fair to throw his retirement in his face. Gabriel was still a young man, should have had years left on the force. A man like Gabriel didn’t just change careers without a very good reason. Not that it was an excuse but she was so sick and tired of having to always defend what she saw. Once, just once, why couldn’t someone just believe her?
    “Or something,” Gabriel agreed in a neutral tone.
    The quiet admission stopped her cold. Gabriel met her eyes squarely, the gray gaze shuttered. Kalesia was shockingly aware of having stumbled onto something dark and forbidden. Something intrinsically dangerous. Something that was better left alone.
    Her mouth went dry. She ran the tip of her tongue across her bottom lip.
    Swirling hunger filled the crystalline eyes.
    All at once the lateness of the hour, the fragrance of orange blossom, gardenia and honeysuckle from the nursery, the intimacy of the warm glow of the single lamp spelled danger of a different sort.
    Capturing her gaze with his, he got up from his chair. Most men his size, well over six feet and heavy with muscles from work and not those from a gym, didn’t move with lethal, sensual grace the way Gabriel did. It riveted Kalesia . Never failed to remind her of a large cat. Give him green eyes and the resemblance between him and a prowling panther would be startling.
    It also never failed to rouse every feminine instinct she possessed.
    A deep, wary excitement fluttered low in her stomach. The hand holding the pillow pressed hard against her stomach while the other clutched the arm of the chair as if it were a lifeline. Tiny hairs all over her body lifted just as if she’d stood in the midst of a fierce lightning storm. The sensation caused her nipples to pucker and goose bumps to race over her skin.
    Gabriel stopped in front of her, his legs brushing hers. His gaze went to the pillow and the corner of his mouth lifted. It wasn’t a smile, his expression was too intense for that.
    So what was it?
    His gaze met hers and the breath hitched in her chest.
    Searing heat. Desire.