Touched (Second Sight) by Hazel Hunter Read Free Book Online

she was ready to leave.
    “Really,” she said, as Mac closed the car door. “I’d prefer if you didn’t.”
    He shook his head, his face serious in the pale green glow of the streetlamp across the narrow street.
    “Look,” he said. “I don’t want to have to worry. Just let me hear the deadbolt fall and we can call it a night.”
    He sounded so sincere. She flashed back on that moment in the dorm room when their hands had accidentally touched. He’d been genuinely concerned for her–and he liked her legs.
    “Fine,” she said at last. “I’m on the third floor.”
    She took the lead, up the cracked cement path that led to the dingy building. The exterior lights had stopped working some time ago but the street lights were enough, plus the constant background light from the skyscrapers of downtown, only a few miles away. 
    “Watch your step,” she said, beginning the climb. He didn’t say a word, just fell in behind her. They climbed like that and, as they did, she thought of the day. It must have been months since she’d spent so much time with people. And she’d actually worked alongside them–Mac, the sergeant, even Brendan. It felt good to think she’d actually made a difference. And it was so good not to be all alone. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how wearing that had been.
    As they reached her landing, she took out her keys. 
    “I’m glad Anita made Ben eat something,” Mac said. “He was looking gray.”
    Isabelle tensed as she turned to him and the keys fell from her hand. A shadow fell across his face, the street light behind and below him, and she couldn’t see his eyes. 
    “Our hands touched,” he said quietly.
    Her breath caught. So, he’d remembered. When she’d read Brendan she’d wondered if Mac had put two and two together. Blood pounded in her ears. People never knew their own thoughts this well. But Mac was obviously not like other people.
    “I didn’t mean for that to happen,” she said quickly. “You grabbed my–”
    “Hand,” he finished. “I know.”
    Even in the cool evening breeze, she felt her cheeks flush hot, as though she’d been caught in the act of some…some…crime. So the FBI agent had caught her in the act. He stooped in front of her and picked up the keys.
    “I’d never read anybody without their permission. Never .”
    “I didn’t say it was a bad thing,” he said holding out her keys. But just before she could take them, he quickly raised them up and out of reach. “Are you saying it was bad?”
    No reading was good. Too often she learned things that were better left unknown. Reading Mac, though, even as quickly as it had ended, had been a revelation. On the outside, he was the man in charge, a solid pillar for Ben and Anita to lean on, a smooth professional to everyone he met. But inside, intense emotions ran fast and deep. Suddenly, though she remembered that she’d also read the word psychobabble.
    Hold on .
    She looked up at her keys and Mac’s shadowed face. He had yet to say that he actually believed she did readings. Not once during the day had he acknowledged it. In fact, he’d gone out of his way to supply other explanations for what she’d seen.
    “May I have my keys?” she said evenly.
    “Not until you tell me,” he said.
    He sounded serious.
    But is he?
    People were almost never ready to hear about their own thoughts. In fact, most of the time, people were blindsided by them. Did he really want to hear about the reading? Fine. If that’s what he wanted, that’s what he’d get.
    Who was the brunette? Isabelle thought. It was the one question worth asking and yet the one that she dared not. Who is the woman who makes you sad?
    She wanted to know. More than that, she wanted Mac to know that her ability was real. But more than anything, in this moment, she didn’t want to push him away. She was tired of pushing people away.
    “So, nothing to tell me?” he asked. “Nothing–”
    “Did you get an eyeful of my