Page 27 of Snow River

Stepping closer to her, he put his hand under her chin and gently lifted her face.“I shouldn’t have tried to use your ability.It’s yours.It belongs to you, and how you use it is your decision.I’m glad you told me because now I know you better.It doesn’t freak me out, it doesn’t make me think you’re weird.Hell, I’m not one to judge anyone.Any day now, you’re going to say, what am I doing out there in the mountains working at a dingy dive bar with a half-mute giant?”

She let out a burble of laughter, a sheen of tears softening her deep purple eyes.“You aren’t acting half-mute right now.”

“Sometimes I have things to say.I like having you here.You could turn into a green mini-Shrek and I’d still like it.Got it?”

She nodded.She seemed mesmerized by him, unable to tear her gaze away.

“Another thing.If I overstep or say something that hits you wrong, don’t be afraid to tell me.You don’t have to watch your words.You don’t have to run after me and apologize.This is new to me, too.”

“What is?”Her question was so soft he had to bend to hear it.“What’s new?”

“You.You’re new to me.”He couldn’t explain it any better.Lila rewrote the rules.She changed the game.She changed everything.

And then she changed things even more.She went up on tiptoes, set her hands on his shoulders and tilted her face toward his.Riveted by the look in her eyes, he barely knew what was happening, barely knew he was bending toward her, until her lips were soft and warm under his.

And then he couldn’t get enough.

The kiss pulled them into a wild rush of tumbling emotion and sensation.At first he fought to keep his head above water—Danger!Rocks!—but then he gave in because the current was irresistible and it was taking him somewhere beautiful, somewhere he’d wanted to go for so long, maybe ever since she’d first walked into the bar.

Her kiss was electrifying, like the first time he’d ever seen the sun burst through a storm cloud.Fresh, like the first raspberry of the season.A little spicy and unexpected, a brush of teeth against his lip, a hot sigh mingling with his breath.

She dropped back down off her tiptoes.Her eyes were wide and dark, the purple drowned out by the black of her pupils.“I’m sorry.That was very impulsive.I…I shouldn’t have done that.”And she fled back into the bar.

14

“I toldyou we have a problem.How many times are you going to make me do this?”

The dead woman stood over Lila’s bed, hands on her hips.Allison Casey did not look happy at all.

Lila tried to sit up but found she couldn’t.Her body felt drained of all capacity for movement.She could barely even move her lips to speak.But maybe she didn’t need to.This was a dream, after all.“What do you want me to do?”

“You have to pay attention.You gotta take care of this situation.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“How am I supposed to do that,” mocked the woman.“You sound like a coddled child.Do you always run from your problems?You tried to leave once already.I bet you’re gonna try it again.You gotta be tough to survive out here.Are you sure you have what it takes?”

Lila struggled to find her voice, which kept wanting to disappear into the back of her throat.“Did you?You didn’t survive.”

“Oh, so now you’re going to be rude to the murder victim?”

“I’m sorry.That was uncalled for.I’m really sorry about…well, the way you died.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”The dead woman shook out her hair, which danced in the quiet dream air.Gravity didn’t seem to operate the same way in this dream state.“That’s a literal statement.You don’t know the half of it.”

“So tell me.What don’t I know?What does it have to do with the woman in Snow River?Is she connected to you somehow?”

“That’s what I’m trying to get through your thick skull.Are all young people in your generation so dimwitted?”

“Dimwitted?”Outraged, Lila wrenched herself out of her sleep paralysis and sat up.

The woman was gone.

“Coward!”Lila shouted.

Then she remembered that Molly was spending the night on the sofa bed in the living room.She had to fly out first thing in the morning for a hearing in the Chilkoot case, and didn’t want to make the half-hour drive from her and Sam’s place when the roads were icing up every night.

“Lila?”Sure enough, Molly padded into the room in her footie pajamas, which Sam had given to her as part of a “first winter in Alaska survival package.”Her hair was in two pigtails, a style Lila remembered from elementary school.“Are you okay?”

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