“I don’t control the weather,” Echo said succinctly when she and Rye were finally alone. She’d been about to burst with questions for the past two hours, but she’d held it in until everyone else had left.
“There was little bleedin’ control involved, I’ll grant you that.” She’d come to him in order to master the visions she did not want, and it was clear that she fought natural empathic abilities, as well. Now this? What other surprises were hidden deep in that seemingly delicate body?
The guitar she’d borrowed from him lay abandoned on the small stage; all the customers, as well as Doyle, had gone home. As they’d left, a few had whispered that a fierce storm might be coming.
They were not entirely wrong.
“You were upset to see Maisy flirting with Doyle, I expect, and that...”
“I was not!” Echo snapped defensively.
No, it had not been Doyle. Rye had seen into her 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.”
“Did not.”
Rye leaned back in his chair, thrusting his legs out and trying for a casual pose. He felt anything but relaxed. “You have a gift for song.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“I’m not. It’s time we started your lessons, properly.” The sooner it was done, the sooner he could send her away with a clear conscience. “You have a gift for song,” he said again, “as you have a gift for other things.”
This time, she remained silent.
“Do you burst spontaneously into song without warning? While in the market, or on the street, or sitting in church, do you begin to sing without control?”
She looked confused, and perhaps a little insulted. “Of course not.”
He edged forward, placed his elbows on the table between them, and lowered his voice. “It is the same.”
She did not hesitate to respond with heat. “It is not at all the...”
“It is the same,” he whispered. “As you learn to play the guitar, to hit a certain note with that lovely voice of yours, to sing the right words in the correct sequence. It is very much the same.”
She was quiet as she considered his words. “You make it sound so easy.”
“No, love, it is not at all easy. Neither is it impossible.
“You are more capable than you realize,” he added.
Echo Raintree was beautiful and she possessed incredible talents, but she did not give off an aura of strength. No one would ever see her coming and be afraid. She did not, could not, instill fear with a glance. She was a pretty girl, always lost, always searching for answers. But he saw the strength within her, trapped. Hiding, even from herself.
She fought her strength, denied it. That denial was why she was here now. It was why she was late on occasion, why she ran from the truth of who she was. All her life she’d made light of her abilities, as she’d tried to tamp them down. The result was the mess that sat before him. Echo was definitely a beautiful, out-of-control mess. In order to move on, she would have to not only accept her great abilities, she would have to embrace them.
“I don’t feel capable at all,” she said. “I feel weak and as if my entire life is out of my control. Not just the visions, but...everything.”