She is mine! Judah’s three unspoken words filled the room, expanding, exploding, shaking the walls and windows.
“Stop!” Mercy cried, shoving Eve behind her. “Your rage accomplishes nothing.”
Judah grabbed Mercy by the shoulders, his fingers biting into her flesh. When Mercy whimpered in pain, Eve reached up and placed her hand on Judah’s arm.
“You must be gentle with my mother. I know you don’t want to hurt her.”
Judah’s tenacious hold loosened as he glanced from Mercy’s face to Eve’s, and then back to Mercy. “I won’t harm your mother.” He glanced over at Sidonia, who glared at him with bitter hatred. “Go with your nanny, child. I need to speak to your mother alone.”
“But I don’t want to—” Eve whined.
Do as I tell you to do. Mercy heard the silent message Judah issued to Eve and realized that he instinctively knew Eve would hear his thoughts.
Eve looked to her mother. Mercy nodded. “Go with Sidonia. Let her put you to bed. You and I will talk in the morning.”
Eve kissed Mercy on the cheek. “Good night, Mother.” Then she tugged on Judah’s arm and motioned for him to bend over, which he did after releasing his hold on Mercy. Eve kissed his cheek, too. “Good night, Daddy.”
Neither Mercy nor Judah spoke until Sidonia took Eve away and closed the bedroom door behind them.
The moment they were alone, Judah turned on Mercy. “The child is mine?”
Mercy stood and faced her greatest fear—her child’s father. “Eve is mine. She is Raintree.”
“Yes, she is Raintree,” Judah replied. “But she is more. She told me so herself.”
“Eve has great power that she is far too young to understand. Telling herself that she is more than Raintree helps explain these things to her so that her child’s mind can accept them.”
“Do you deny that she is mine?”
“I neither deny nor confirm—”
“She knew me instantly,” Judah said.
Was there any way she could lie to this man and convince him that Eve was not his? For nearly seven years, since the moment she conceived Judah Ansara’s child, she had kept that knowledge hidden from him and from the entire world, even from her own brothers. Only Sidonia knew the truth of Eve’s paternity. Until now.
“What are you doing here on Raintree land?” Mercy asked.
He eyed her speculatively. “You don’t remember?”
Unsure about what he meant, she didn’t respond as she sorted through her last coherent thoughts before blacking out. It was not unusual for her to faint or to simply fall asleep after a healing, but in this instance, her restorative sleep had been far deeper than normal.
She recalled the car accident and saving the sole survivor by removing her terrible pain, then transposing enough of her own strength and healing power to keep the woman alive.
Suddenly she felt the memory of a forceful grip around her neck, cutting off her air, choking her. Mercy gasped, her gaze shooting to Judah. Taking several calming breaths, she captured those frightening moments buried deep in her subconscious and realized that someone had tried to erase those memories.
“You didn’t want me to remember that someone tried to kill me.”
Judah simply glared at her.
“Do you want me to think it was you who tried to strangle me?” she
said. “I know it wasn’t.”
He said nothing.
“You won’t allow me to remember my attacker. Why? And what were you doing so close to the Raintree home place at the very time it happened?”
“Coincidence.” His deep baritone rumbled the one word.