The Serpent in the Stone - By Nicki Greenwood Page 0,2

learned of it.

The blond woman bent and hoisted up the pack by Sara’s feet. “We’ll go set up the tents,” she said, and she and the men hurried away.

Sara followed their retreat with an open-mouthed look as though she wanted to call the others back. Then she came toward him with slow, deliberate steps. Her eyes were hazel, not the bright green from before. He found himself wanting to step back anyway. She studied his face, her own as pale as porcelain, but her full lips firmed. “Luis Rivero.”

“Yeah,” Ian said, thinking of his friend back at the university. Luis worked in Sara’s department. It was he who had told Ian of her upcoming assignment in Shetland.

“Man can’t keep his mouth shut,” she muttered. With uncanny insight, she fired, “Are you following me?”

“No,” he lied. “I’m here to study birds. Think you can handle that?”

She backed off one step at a time, with a look that seemed to go right through him. Torn between hostility and unbidden curiosity, he watched her turn to walk away.

Well, you got what you wished for, he told himself. What was he supposed to do with the proof, now that he had it?

It was sure as hell too late to give it back.

****

“He’s cute,” Faith said as she and Sara checked Sara’s tent stakes.

Sara shoved a lock of hair behind her ear and tried to trade fear for focus. No such luck. Her belly was in knots. “Are you nuts? I’m telling you, that man is the same kid who saw me first use telekinesis!”

Faith gave one of the tent ropes an experimental tug and said, “I don’t see why you’re all wound up about it. If he didn’t blow you in when we were ten, what makes you think he’ll do it now? He might even think he dreamed it.” She grabbed another stake, looking much calmer than Sara felt. Uncharacteristic for Faith, whose temper had legendary changeability.

“You didn’t see the look on his face,” Sara snapped. “He remembers, Faith.”

“Well, since he’s here, you should at least have asked him if he wants to come down for dinner,” chided her sister. “He’s alone up there, or didn’t you notice? No army on his heels, waiting to arrest you for being you. You could examine him more closely for nefarious intent.” Faith wiggled her outspread fingers with what Sara assumed she meant to be scathing sarcasm.

Sara refused to admit that she hadn’t noticed much beyond the pulse-pounding look he’d given her...and her reaction to it. Part terror, and part...well, she wasn’t willing to admit what that other part might be. “Sure, I’ll just waltz up there and volunteer to become a government guinea pig,” she said. “What if he’s working for a lab, and waiting to dissect me once he’s proven what I did? I’m not about to make myself his best pal.”

Faith shot her a look of impatience. “Honestly. Don’t you think you’re overreacting even a little bit?”

Snatching a mallet, Sara pounded the last corner stake into the ground. “Need I remind you that his presence here endangers you, too? Mom doesn’t even know what we are, and I trust him a lot less.”

Jabbing toward her with a tent stake, Faith said, “If you won’t go up there, I will. Come on, Sara, this is just crazy.”

Sara flung a hand toward Ian’s camp. “You want him? Go get him. Just don’t cry to me when he goes mad scientist on you. If we’re lucky, we’ll finish this dig without having anything to do with him.”

Her sister secured a last rope, then stood up. She shook her head. “It’s been years. You might consider actually talking to him before you decide he’s out to lock us up.” She stiffened, and her gaze swept the moor. “Did you hear something?”

“No.” Sara checked, but Thomas and Dustin had returned to the boat for a second load of supplies. Faith often heard things Sara couldn’t, but she knew Faith wasn’t using her psychic power at the moment. Worried that Ian might be watching them, she turned in a circle. Nope, nothing. At least, nothing she could see. “Birds?”

“Maybe.” Faith waved a hand through the air as if testing it for vibrations. “I could have sworn— No.” Her mystified tone returned to normal. “If you’re so worried about Ian, you should go up there and keep an eye on him. Just saying.” With that, she walked away to her own tent.

Feeling chastised—and irritable, because Faith was right—Sara watched her