Raintree: Oracle (Raintree 4)

She came up with an address, could see the street sign and the numbers on the old building. The boy should not be here. There was a skateboard...

“When?”

Again, she went to that new place in her head. It was harder than coming up with an address, much harder, but when she saw the time she laughed. “Not yet. Duncan, the fire has not started yet!”

In an instant the vision disappeared, on a flash of flame and a fading scream. Echo opened her eyes to find that she was still on the stairway. Duncan was beside her, one arm wrapped protectively around her. A wonderfully heavy arm was draped around her waist. A comforting hand pressed against her back. She turned her head; his face was right there and she was so happy...she kissed him.

It was a kiss of joy, a way of celebrating a bit of newfound control and the fact that this time she was not too late. But it was a kiss, and as kisses sometimes do, it changed quickly.

Echo was far from a stranger to kisses. Friendly and passionate, impulsively and well-planned...she had been kissed. But this kiss with Duncan swept her away in an instant. He tasted so good; their mouths fit together so well. She forgot fire, she forgot the constant rain; she forgot who she was and why she was here. Only for an instant, but it was an instant that shook her to her core.

Duncan’s shield didn’t come down, not entirely, but it shimmered. It was weakened. Weakened by her and the kiss he had not expected. She felt that, too.

As a first kiss, it was unplanned but stellar. Heaven above, it was amazing. He smelled good. Their mouths fit together without even a hint of awkwardness. Their bodies aligned perfectly, and if she had her way this moment would never end.

It was Duncan who pulled away, who broke the short but passionate kiss with a curse she could not understand. Gaelic, she supposed. She only knew it was a curse because of his tone.

He cursed, but he did not move away. His body remained close to hers; he held her, still.

When Duncan had joined her he’d closed the door behind him, the door between the stairway and the pub and the people there. Though there were many people close, she and her boss, her teacher, were effectively alone. She could relax here, for a moment or two. She did not have to jump up and make excuses, did not have to explain away what had happened. Not the vision or the kiss.

“Thank you,” she said. For the help, for the training, for unexpectedly coming into the vision with her, something she had not known was possible. And yes, for the kiss. In spite of his scowl, she grinned. “I have a phone call to make.” She jumped up and ran up the stairs to his room; this was a call she’d prefer to make in private.

She was dialing when she glanced up and out the window and realized that the rain had stopped and the moon shone brightly in a cloudless sky.

Chapter 8

Having realized some real success, Echo approached her next lesson with a renewed purpose. If she could help people, if she could save lives instead of simply watching people suffer and die, then she had no right to wish her abilities away. Duncan seemed to understand that she was determined to be a better student.

He locked the pub doors, front and back. Instead of sitting at a table for their lesson, as he normally did, he moved a few tables aside, clearing the center of the big room. She’d meditated and worked on her focus, and they’d discussed her past troubles and tried to identify clues she’d missed, clues that might help her to identify and improve her gifts.

Looking back, she admitted there had been signs she’d missed. She’d been so determined to deny the visions, she’d blocked all the clues.

A part of her still longed to be normal, but who was she kidding? That wasn’t meant to be. She was Raintree.

Echo and her teacher, a man she was much too attracted to for her own good, especially after that kiss, stood face-to-face in the space he’d cleared for this lesson. He stood so close she had to tip her head back in order to look him in the eye. Those eyes were so dark, so intense, she held her breath for a long moment. He would barely have to move in order to put his mouth on hers again.

“Why are we here?” she asked when he remained silent and still for too long.

“You came to me, Raintree. Have you changed your mind?”

Echo shook her head. She didn’t mean here in Cloughban; she meant here in the center of the pub. But she didn’t argue. She knew damn well he hadn’t cleared the floor for a dance.

“Listen,” he whispered.

Not to him, she knew that, so she didn’t respond. He’d get to the point eventually. He always did.

“There’s energy everywhere. Inside us, around us. Between us.”

Oh, yes, there was definitely energy between them...

“Don’t get distracted,” he admonished, as if he’d read her mind. Again.

“You are not a carnival fortune-teller,” he continued. “There is no ace up your sleeve, no con man’s tricks in your repertoire. You, Echo Raintree, are connected to the energy in this world in a way few, if any, will ever know. You are an oracle, a prophet. A miracle.”

“I don’t understand what this...”

“Accept who you are, here and now. See and feel the energy around us, and accept yourself not as a small part of it but as its master.”