Read Online Clearer in the Night by Rebecca Croteau - Free Book Online Page B

and painful tangle of limbs and elbows. He must have seen me coming, though; he wrapped his arms around me, and managed to roll us both towards the grass, instead of landing on the sidewalk, and take the worst of the fall. We ended up side by side, and I looked up as I caught my breath—then lost it again as I met Eli’s deep blue eyes and slight, almost teasing, smile.
    “Well,” he said, without loosening the circle of his arms. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
    I almost relaxed. For no reason, for no sane reason, I almost let him hold me. And then I forced a laugh and pushed myself away. “Hey, sorry about that, I was—”
    He let me go, still smiling that secret smile. “It happens.”
    I sat up, collecting my arms and legs and detangling them from his. “Do you regularly get knocked over by girls who can’t be bothered to see where they’re going?”
    “Okay, it’s not an everyday occurrence.”
    “What are you doing here, anyway?” My tone was more accusatory than I’d meant it to be, but I let it stand. Because I was curious.
    He lied so smoothly that I almost didn’t notice. But the tightness around his eyes and the change in the tension of his smile were unmistakable. Plus, I knew. Trying to think too hard about it—trying to understand what he was thinking the way I’d study the pattern of his shirt—made my head hurt, and it felt like trying to climb a sheer cliff made out of glass, but still. I knew in the way that meant I wasn’t wrong. “I was just going for a walk.”
    “So you live nearby, then?”
    “It was a long walk.” The smile was fading, and fast. Why was he lying about this? Had he been watching me? Following me? And then the smile came back, all in a rush. “There’s really no point, is there?”
    “In what?”
    “Lying to you.”
    “I don’t appreciate it, that’s for sure.”
    He stretched out on the grass, his arms behind his head, like a surfer stretching out to catch some rays in a bad movie. “Of course not, no one likes to be lied to. But that’s not what I mean. I’m never going to fool you, am I? Do you always know when people are lying to you?”
    Right. Now I remembered why I didn’t like him. “I don’t read minds,” I snapped. Because admitting it was a one-way trip to the looney bin. It wasn’t possible. No way.
    He was flat out grinning now, but his eyes—they were the color of the ocean, deep blue and very cold—were serious. “I didn’t say that you did.”
    “You keep saying things about me. They’re not true. I don’t know why you’re saying them.” I hugged my knees to my chest. If I was going to sound like I was five years old, I might as well play the part.
    His smile faded, slowly, and he reached out and touched my knee with three soft fingers. I didn’t flinch away from him, but holding still took more effort than I’d expected when he moved forward. “I don’t know who convinced you that your gift is a curse, Cait. It isn’t. It needs to be honed, trained, so that you don’t do things you don’t mean to—but it’s a gift, all the same.”
    “I’m—I’m good at reading people. At understanding why they’re saying the things they are. I understand people. That’s all.”
    “Sure,” he said, but that sideways smile was back, and he was lying again. No—humoring me. Which was worse. “So did you get a chance to try out the book?”
    The book? Oh. “No. Mom had pizza and movie plans last night, and then I passed out.”
    “So you’re staying with her for now. That’s good.”
    Everyone sure seemed to think so. “I suppose.” He raised his eyebrows and waited. The silence stretched, until the words filled it up. “Mom and I have never been especially tight. But maybe we can fix that, this time.”
    “I know that the church prays for you on a regular basis.” My turn to raise an eyebrow, and he shrugged. “When your grandmother is a deacon, it’s hard not to attend on a regular basis. We’ve been worried