Page 8 of Polestar
She sighed.
What stupid shit did I say last night?
All she could piece together was the recollection of feeling… but it was gone again before she could grasp it.
Her heightened anxiety made chaos of her emotional barrier.The self-control that her boss, Jack Maeda, had been working to help her hone was rice paper thin.And with all the rain and the wind, being called to duty, and the storm forcing the plane down, it had all just torn through.
She glanced at the door again.Had Agent Bjornson touched her?If he had, she didn’t recall it, and normally she did.
Sometimes, when all her barriers became depleted, the slightest touch could bring her to her knees with information overload.But it would stay with her, like an echo chamber, until she could snatch every piece and categorize it.
This was different.
Her vision had gone blinding white.Then she fell into darkness.
Emotions, thoughts, impressions.None were tangible.Not enough.Too much.
Either way, she decided that until she had better control over her channeling, she wouldn’t touch him again.
Not that sheshouldtouch him again, because sheshouldn’t.
Although, part of her secretly wished she could remember if he had touched her at all.
Ana’s cheeks burned as images of all those tattooed muscles rolled through her brain, where the psychic impressions wouldn’t.
She cleared her suddenly dry throat.
For the best.
I prefer clean-cut men;she reminded herself.Like Antony… her heart crumbled at the reminder.
Antony’s smiling face rose in her mind’s eye, blotting out everything else, followed by his other expressions.Confusion over her explanations of her work.Resolve when he’d ended their long-term relationship.Fear over her insistent warnings that something was wrong.Pity when he left on his voyage out to sea.Routine training exercise.
The end of her world loomed with his disappearance.
She shut down the rest with a deep, deep breath and turned her focus back to the window.
Thiswas her life now.
She’d always been devoted to her work at the GPSA.And after so many recent heartbreaking experiences, it was her life’s work now.
No time for distractions, like attractive Viking-ish pilots, or dead relationships.
Her grandmother had warned her.
Ana hadn’t listened.
She was listening now.
The plane descended the last few hundred feet.She barely felt the wheels graze the tarmac as they coasted to a smooth stop.
Much better than last night’s landing.
Agent Bjornson emerged from the small cockpit door once he parked the plane and turned the engines off.
With her laptop bag slung over her back, Ana was already trying to free her suitcases from the aft baggage compartment.She glanced back as he opened the door hatch and lowered the steps.
A moment later, his large hand hovered over hers, straining on the suitcase handle.“Go.”
