Nobody's Angel (The Earth Angels) Read Online Free Page B

into a pool of disappointment. So much for her fantasy of mutual attraction. “I told you I’m fine.”
    “You must be made of some pretty tough stuff.”
    “Thanks. I think.” Before she lost her mind any more than she already had, Kendall discreetly shifted out of his reach and turned back to the counter. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you showed up this morning. It saves me the trouble of hunting you down.”
    “Yeah?” Like her, he settled back to dig into his cup of oatmeal, though his gaze remained fastened on her with unsettling intensity. “Why were you going to do that?”
    “I wanted to thank you for all you did.”
    He offered a seam-straining shrug. “I didn’t do anything.”
    “Still, I’m grateful.”
    “Your gratitude isn’t necessary.”
    Kendall froze as the jarring sense of déjà vu smacked her in the face. What was it about her that made men reject her thanks? “There’s another reason I wanted to talk to you.”
    “Oh?”
    “Why did you ask if the veil in Dave Beamer’s eyes was white?”
    There was an odd flicker in his expression before he sipped his coffee. “Did I?”
    “Absolutely. I mentioned I had seen a veil in Dave’s eyes. You asked if it was white.”
    “Or some other random color. I was trying to distract you.”
    “Red,” she said with a snap of her fingers. “Not some other color. You wanted to know if the veil I had seen in Dave’s eyes had been either red or white. Why those two colors?”
    “There was nothing specific about it. I was just doing my job.”
    “It felt like more than that.” Her chin lifted in a staunch refusal to back down, because the moment she’d seen that milky wrongness in her attacker’s eyes at the hospital, her memory snagged on Zeke’s odd questioning. “It’s as though you were specifically looking for a sign of either red or white in Dave’s eyes. Maybe you’ve run into this phenomenon in your work?”
    “Not that I can recall.”
    “What does the color white in a person’s eyes signify?”
    “I’ve already answered this. It’s not significant.”
    “What about red? What does that signify?”
    “Investigative journalism,” he muttered. “I just remembered what your specialty is.”
    When his mouth flattened, she decided it was time to throw a change-up. “Look, all we’re doing is talking, okay? I promise, this is off the record.”
    “Who cares whether or not it’s on the record? There’s nothing to tell.”
    “Okay.” Frustrated by her lack of progress, she reached over and picked up her smartphone charging on the counter. “I’m capable of finding the answers for myself.”
    He pushed his empty oatmeal cup away. “What are you doing?”
    “Indulging in my profound love for super-fast search engines.” With a determined click she sent out the request, then raised her brows. “Goodness. Who knew there was so much information out there regarding strange colors in a person’s eyes? Setting aside the articles on camera flare, there seem to be lots of hits on the occult and paranormal—”
    The hand that held her phone was suddenly engulfed by his, as if her fingers were no bigger than a toddler’s. Startled, Kendall looked up to discover he’d once again left his seat and was now towering over her. Too late, she realized she was trapped on her stool as he leaned his free hand on the counter beside her, his knee brushing her outer thigh while his other hand kept hers captive.
    Alarm spurted through her, but this wasn’t the self-preservation sort of alarm a rational woman should feel when cornered by a man she didn’t know. This alarm was an inexplicable thrill, fueled by an attraction to a man who made all her feminine instincts flutter. If his goal was to intimidate her, he was doing it wrong. The only thing he’d managed to do was jack her pulse up straight into the stratosphere.
    “You do like to push things, don’t you?” Zeke moved closer still, until there was no more than a breath