Read Online A Season of Miracles by Heather Graham - Free Book Online Page A

the evening’s revelers Halloween-ed out and headed home—he left the driver’s seat and checked his watch.
    Too late for his original appointment, but he’d wanted to come back here, anyway.
    He’d never seen anything like the way Jillian Llewellyn had looked at him. He hadn’t expected to be welcomed into the company with pure joy and enthusiasm, but he’d never imagined anything like what he’d encountered.
    She had looked at him with…hatred? Horror?
    Maybe pure blind terror. Or something else. He didn’t know quite what. A combination of all those emotions.
    He had felt shaken. For a moment a chill had settled over him, like something cold and horrible beyond words, and then…
    Then she had started to fall, and the feeling had slipped away, and now he couldn’t even recall exactly what it had been. Maybe he’d imagined it. And yet…
    At the bar, he ordered a beer. They’d dyed the beer with food coloring. Black beer. Interesting.
    As he sipped, he eased back and surveyed the room. Nearly midnight. The band was playing ballads. The bar was still full, but the customers at the tables were beginning to head out. When people moved, he saw the fortune-teller.
    Tarot card reader. Whatever. It was all just fun and bull.
    As he looked at her, she suddenly stared up at him. Her eyes were golden. Amber, glimmering. She was an arresting woman, metallic in color. Even her skin was copper. She was both stunning and disturbing.
    As she looked at him, she suddenly leaned back in her chair, gripping the table. She didn’t seem to be doing anything else, certainly nothing threatening, but the couple who had been having their cards read suddenly pushed their chairs away.
    He wasn’t sure why, but he rose, walking over to her. She straightened, pointing at him.
    But she didn’t see him. He knew that, her eyes had rolled back into her head.
    â€œBetrayer,” she whispered. She began to croon and moan, weaving in her chair.
    He felt the cold again. Like ice. Fear unlike anything he could remember. Yet he wasn’t afraid for himself. He just knew that…
    His head hurt. Pounded. He leaned forward, putting his hands on the table. “Stop it,” he snapped. “Stop it.”
    She jerked forward; her eyes rolled into place. “You shouldn’t have come,” she told him, visibly shaken.
    â€œI shouldn’t have come to the bar?” he asked.
    â€œTo Llewellyn,” she answered.
    He eased down into the chair, staring at her. “Who put you up to this?” he demanded. After all, this was Hennessey’s. A favorite hangout of Daniel’s, Theo’s, and probably Griff’s, as well.
    The name Llewellyn was Welsh. But Robert knew from his long conversations with Douglas that the family had been in Ireland for hundreds of years before he had picked up and made his way to the States.
    â€œMadame Zena,” he said firmly, looking around the pub again for some sight of any one of the Llewellyns, “who put you up to this?”
    â€œNo one,” she told him.
    â€œWell, then, listen to me,” he said, leaning forward. “I didn’t come to Llewellyn to hurt anyone. As a matter of fact, I intend to protect certain people, even though they may not trust me. Protect them, and their interests. So you can call off the mind games. I—”
    â€œYou know nothing,” she said softly. “You are dangerous. More dangerous than you can ever imagine. You’re so powerful and arrogant.” She leaned toward him, suddenly angry, but very still and quiet as she spoke. “You know nothing. And you do not care to learn.”
    â€œExcuse me, Madame Zena,” he interrupted, puzzled and angry, and not knowing why he felt he needed to defend himself to a fortune-teller. “Look, I’m a decent human being, responsible, concerned, intelligent—”
    She didn’t seem to hear him. “You