Page 19 of Mistaken

Not that he had any romantic designs on his prisoner. She was an inconvenience to be dealt with and nothing more. He was forced to admit to himself that he understood deep down he could not keep her here forever, and that this was a temporary measure at best, but he also didn’t think she could be trusted to keep his secrets. True, he could always go to the elders and ask them to tell the humans in Los Alamos that Ghost Ranch and its environs were strictly off-limits, and yet he wasn’t sure whether he could trust the mortals to respect such an edict. They definitely had a penchant for sticking their noses where they didn’t belong…and probably thought their devices would be sufficient to protect them should they attempt to encroach on his lands.

In which case, they might suffer quite the shock to find out how wrong they were.

No, he would keep Sarah here until he could think of a better solution to the problem. However, he also realized it was perhaps not optimal for her to be always trapped in her room. Even if he let her out so she could enjoy some fresh air, it wasn’t as if she could get away. The road was several miles from his house, and she would never reach it before he stopped her.

Also, if he showed her some hints of mercy, then it seemed likely she would be less inclined to make another escape attempt. She seemed meek enough now, but that didn’t mean she might not be secretly plotting something.

Humans were devious that way.

Sarah was a little surprised to hear Abdul knock at the door; while she couldn’t be sure that the time on the iPad he’d given her was at all accurate, she also knew it was nowhere close to noon, the hour when she’d expected him to come back and ask her what she wanted for lunch.

So she set down the tablet and went to the door. “Yes?”

“I wondered if you might like some fresh air.”

She blinked, trying to decide whether this was some kind of joke. “Um…sure,” she said after a pause.

At once, the door opened. Abdul stood just outside, wearing the same black hooded robe he’d had on the day before. Idly, Sarah wondered if he had only the one garment and used djinn magic to keep it perpetually clean, or whether he had a closet full of the same outfit and just rotated through the robes as necessary.

“It is a fine day,” he said, as though it wasn’t just a little nuts that he’d offered to let her go outside after making it seem as if she was going to be locked in her room forever. “You may go out in the courtyard. Do not venture any farther than that, however.”

“Not even to look at the pond?” she asked, surprising herself. It might have been wiser to accept the small gift of freedom he’d offered, but she wanted to see how he would react to her pushing the boundaries, if only the tiniest bit.

His eyes glinted within the hood. “You may go to the pond,” he allowed. “But no further. Understood?”

“Yes,” she said. He’d given her that one concession, but his firm tone…underlaid with just the slightest hint of annoyance…told her she’d better not push for anything else.

That was fine. To be honest, it wasn’t as if she could have gone much farther than that, not without trading the thong sandals she wore for something a lot sturdier.

He went to the front door and she followed, guessing that he wanted to be the one to open it for her in order to show his dominance. Under other circumstances, she might have been annoyed by that kind of flex, but now she was only glad that this didn’t seem to be some kind of mind game and that he really did appear to be willing to allow her outside.

As she’d seen from her bedroom window, the day was sunny and clear, although the bank of clouds to the southeast was larger now, getting closer. If she’d been back in Los Alamos, she would have looked forward to a monsoon storm, to being safely inside while the thunder boomed and the lightning crashed. Here, though…here she couldn’t help thinking Abdul might not be the most comforting companion in such a scenario.

But the storm clouds were still far off, and right now the sun was clear and bright, warm but not hot. The morning breeze caught her hair, which was still slightly damp underneath. Because it always went straight even without the help of a blow dryer or flat iron, she’d let it dry on its own…not that she had much choice, since her captor had provided a comb and brush but nothing that would allow her to actually style her long locks.

“It’s beautiful here,” she said, not looking at Abdul. He hadn’t gone back inside but had stopped a yard or so behind her, as if he intended to keep an eye on her the whole time.

Well, she hadn’t planned to bolt anyway. Not now. Yesterday’s little incident had shown her there was no way she could outrun him, which meant she needed to come up with a different kind of plan. In the meantime, she’d play along and do her best to make him think she’d resigned herself to the situation.

“I can see why you’d want to settle in Ghost Ranch,” she went on, since he didn’t seem inclined to respond to her first comment. It was harder than she thought to force the conversation like this, mostly because she’d been so withdrawn the past few years, not wanting to reveal much about her past or what had happened in those last days leading up to the Heat. Once upon a time, she’d been outgoing, even gregarious, but the passage of those months and years seemed to have ensured that the social butterfly she’d been had slid right back into its cocoon.

Abdul shifted, moving a little closer, although he still paused several feet away from the spot where she stood near one of the Adirondack chairs. “Yes, this land has its beauties,” he said. “And it is isolated, which has a charm of its own.”

His voice had taken on a disapproving tinge, and Sarah could see why. He’d thought he could live here alone without interference from humans…and maybe djinn…and then she’d come blundering onto his property without a care in the world.

Rather than address his comment directly, however, she only said, “That’s New Mexico for you. We’ve got miles and miles of empty land. I’m sure thousands of djinn could settle here and not see each other for weeks.”

Was that a chuckle that had just emerged from within his hood? If it was, it had an odd, rusty sound to it, as if he didn’t laugh very often.

And even though Sarah had absolutely no firsthand knowledge of the djinn race and could only go on what other people had told her, she was starting to think that Abdul was different from the rest of them in some way she couldn’t exactly explain.

She wouldn’t even try to ask him any personal questions, though. Since she didn’t appreciate those sorts of intrusions herself, she knew she should do what she could to respect his privacy.

“The djinn have the entire world to choose from,” he told her. “A world with many beauties. There are far fewer than the number you mentioned who have made this state their home, as many would rather have their residences on a beach, or perhaps in a castle or country estate.”

Yes, she could see why a djinn might want a castle. Hadn’t they lived in palaces in that weird plane that had formerly been their home?

“I’m surprised you kept the original house here, then,” she said. “It’s kind of modest by djinn standards, isn’t it?”

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