Page 82 of Diagnosis Attraction

“What if they won’t take you back?” Elizabeth asked.

“There’s always a need for doctors. I’ll be able to get a job somewhere.”

After they’d made their arrangements, they mapped out a route to New Orleans.

“It looks like about a seventeen-hour drive,” Matt said. “We could shoot for six to eight hours a day on the road.”

Their first stop was Bristol, Tennessee, right on the border with Virginia.

As they passed several chain motels, she caught the images in his brain and grinned. Their thoughts were running along the same lines. When he reached to squeeze her hand, she thought how lucky she was to have found this man.

“The feeling’s mutual,” he said as he pulled into the parking lot of an upscale motel.

“How long were you going to keep the information from me?” Jake Harper asked his wife.

Rachel looked up from the table in her New Orleans shop where she read tarot cards. They were in the city—where they spent about half their time. The other half was at the plantation in Lafayette, which Gabriella Boudreaux had established as a refuge for telepaths. Rachel raised her face toward her husband. “I guess I wasn’t going to keep it from you for very long.”

“Do you know who they are?”

“Her name is Elizabeth. His is Matt.”

“You found them when they were on the East Coast. Are they still there? Or are they doing what other bonded couples have done—come looking for their origins?”

She sighed. “I think they’re on the way to Houma.”

“And are they a threat to us? Like Kira and Mickey.” He was referring to the first couple they’d encountered like themselves.

“I think Kira and Mickey were unusual,” Rachel said. “They didn’t want anyone to share their powers.”

“But you don’t know for sure because you always want to see the best in people.”

“I can’t help what I am.”

Jake walked up beside his wife’s chair and slung his arm around her shoulder.

“I love what you are.”

She leaned back against him, reassured by what they were together. She was impulsive. He was cautious, which was often a good thing for both.

“Is the same man after them who was after Stephanie and Craig?” he asked, naming the couple who had recently come to the plantation.

“They ran into some bad problems in Baltimore—that had nothing to do with the Solomon Clinic.”

She opened her mind fully to her husband and let him see some of what had happened to Elizabeth and Matt.

He winced. “It sounds like they’re lucky to be alive.”

“Because they’re resourceful. They’d be a big asset to our community. Especially since he’s a doctor.”

“An asset, yeah,” Jake agreed. “If they don’t want to wipe us off the face of the earth. Are they flying down here?”

“They’re driving.”

“That should give us time to prepare.”

“For the worst?”

“You know I have to think of worst-case scenarios.”

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