Raintree: Oracle. Linda Winstead Jones

mind clearly enough to know better, but she didn’t need to know everything he saw or sensed. He didn’t like how easily he slipped into her mind, how oddly near her thoughts were to his. The ability to see so much wasn’t normal for him, not now. Even before, such connections had been all but impossible.

      “Something upset you, and the wind came,” he said. “Was it a missed note? An unexpected thought of your parents?”

      She leaned back, pursed her lips and then said, “I did think about my parents and wonder how long it would take Gideon to get them to Sanctuary.”

      “That was likely it, then.”

      Echo seemed to relax a little. “Maybe there was just a perfectly normal shift in the weather,” she argued.

      “Wishful thinking, love.” The endearment slipped out. Love. Maybe she was so upset she’d miss it. “There was nothing normal about that change in the wind.”

      She narrowed one eye. The expression was likely meant to be fearsome, but it was not. There was not a fearsome bone in her fine body. “By the way, speaking of not normal...stay out of my head!”

      He remained calm. “You invited me in, or I could not have been there.”