Between Darkness and Daylight Read Online Free Page A

thing, always drove the wedge between Ransom and him deeper, pushing them apart rather than drawing them together.
    He was a competent professional, clinically trained, experienced in substance and child abuse and other mental health issues, with all sorts of degrees and certificates under his belt to prove it. But when it came to dealing with his own flesh and blood, he was a complete novice. Why did he find it so easy to deal with other people's children and not his own nephew?
    He didn't believe for a minute it was because he had no emotional investment at stake. Even after the years with Child and Adult Protective Services, when his recommendations routinely ripped a child from its mother's embrace or split up siblings, he still got choked up. He’d been a social worker with the New York City public school system for a couple Between Darkness and Daylight
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    of years now and he hadn't left behind the emotional roller coaster, or the pain of that other life. He was still bombarded daily with children in trouble—teen pregnancies, misbehavior in class, truancy, and child and substance abuse.
    It unnerved him to know that his own nephew fell right into some of the same categories as Manuela and so many of the other high-risk teens he dealt with every day, and he was finding it harder and harder to communicate with the kid. Shouting, of course, didn't work; it only made things worse. No matter the decibel level of his messages, everything he said seemed to go in one ear and out the other, so he tried to stay away from that route as much as possible. Time-out didn't work, and corporal punishment wasn't an option, not for Zane. He’d decided early on he’d never raise a hand to the boy—the kid had had enough of that from his father before Sage found the courage to give the no-good bastard the boot.
    He’d tried everything to make the kid's adjustment a little smoother, everything short of conducting a séance and channeling Sage so that the boy could have one more moment with his dead mother. If he could have done that, though, he would have, and not just for Ransom's sake.
    More than a year later, he still missed his sister; she’d been his other half, his better half. She’d saved his life. He couldn't have paid her back if he’d tried, but the mess he was making with Ran's life was a piss-poor effort if he’d ever seen one.
    Zane took a deep breath and collapsed into his swivel chair. He pressed a thumb and finger to his burning eyes, knowing they were bloodshot from another sleepless night spent worrying about his next move with Ran. It was as if he were in a chess match with a master against whom he had no hopes of winning.
    A shiver went up his spine when he leaned back and the chair squeaked under his 190-pound frame. He jerked up as if he’d sat on a tack someone had placed in the seat.
    Zane felt it right away—rainbow colors of emotion bursting bright behind his eyes—fear, frustration, indignation, and fight-or-flight adrenaline spiking through his veins. Ever since Ransom was born, he'd had this link to the kid, had known when he was hurt, sick, tired, or in trouble. He didn't know if this was because he and the boy's mother were twins, with all the intimate connections this entailed, or if it was because 22
    Gracie C. McKeever
    he had been Sage's coach and one of the first to hold Ran in the delivery room, forging his own bond with him. But he knew the connection existed.
    Lately, however, it hadn't given him any insight into the teenager's troubled psyche.
    And…it wasn't all Ran who Zane was feeling right now. There was another, her emotions red-hot and seething, merging with and overwhelming his nephew's until they were almost one.
    What the hell was happening to him?
    Zane leapt to his feet, breaking the connection. He staggered to his office's open window, leaned a forearm against the jamb and pulled in the warm Indian summer air.
    He’d never been sucked into a link that strongly before. It