A Gift of Thought Read Online Free Page B

the clinking of silverware against fine china. Rachel’s ‘friends’ had made an early start to the evening, but the diners must be on dessert by now. Or maybe that was wishful thinking; she wanted Ty back at the house sooner, not later.
    Finally the noise quieted, and Ty’s voice came back, “Report.”
    Sylvie paused. She didn’t know how to explain what had happened. At least not where she couldn’t be sure who could overhear. “We had a visitor,” she finally said. “I don’t know how he got inside. The security system is up and running but he was in Chesney’s office.”
    “What? What the hell were you—”
    “It was fine.” Sylvie interrupted Ty. She knew he was questioning her decision to enter the house, especially with Rachel in tow. If she hadn’t recognized Lucas, it would have been a terrible decision. Maybe it had been anyway. “But I don’t know how he got past the system. It’s still online and it looks like it’s working the way it’s supposed to. Can you send a tech?”
    “Fine?” There was a sarcastic edge to Ty’s voice.
    Sylvie pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to hold back a hasty retort. She couldn’t do this, not right now.
    She wanted to get home. She needed to get home, to the safety of her small apartment, the comfort of her solitude. She wanted to close the door behind her and shut the world out. “Ty, do you really want to have this conversation while you’re on duty at a party? Or do you want to send me a damn tech?”
    This time the silence was on his end. “Was anything stolen?”
    “No.” And then Sylvie added, “Not that I’m aware of.” Could Lucas have stuffed something in a pocket before she’d gotten there? Damn, it hadn’t even occurred to her to check.
    “All right, I’ll tell—”
    “No.”
    “No?”
    “Chesney, right?”
    “Mr. Chesney,” Ty corrected her dryly.
    Sylvie tried to restrain her sigh. “Yeah, whatever. Don’t tell him.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Is this . . . .” Ty paused. They didn’t often speak about her sixth sense. Ty knew about it, had for years. But for both of them, not talking about it had become habit.
    After Sylvie ran away from Tassamara, she’d joined the Marines. Her first duty station was Somalia. Peace-keeping forces, that’s what they called them.
    Right.
    Peace-keeping.
    Sure.
    In a world dominated by strong men, Sylvie kept her head down, but on a terrible October day Ty listened when she told him what she could do. For the next decade, they’d stayed close. And when the detailed background checks required for intelligence jobs killed their chances of career advancement, they’d joined forces.
    In Sylvie’s case, she’d gotten out of the Marines barely ahead of her dishonorable discharge. It turned out that stealing the identity of a dead girl to join the service was frowned upon. Sylvie would have loved to protest—she’d been seventeen, too young to join. She hadn’t had a high school diploma and they would have rejected her. Hadn’t her decade of service proved her worth? But there wasn’t any arguing with the system.
    And in Ty’s case, ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ hadn’t been enough. He hadn’t told, but he hadn’t been as careful as he needed to be either. He’d never get the position as intelligence specialist that he’d been up for, and now that the service knew . . . well, his military career was dead.
    Sylvie had been bitter, too bitter to move forward, but Ty had been more practical. Fortunately for her, he’d dragged her along. As he built his own security business, her skill as a bodyguard and a reader of people had been a cornerstone of his success. Enough so that he paused now, willing to listen to her reservations.
    “I don’t know,” she said. Everything was churning inside of her. She couldn’t make sense of the way she felt. But she knew she didn’t want to tell Chesney that Lucas had been in his office. Not now, not yet.
    “All right,” Ty