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newly familiar voice answered.
    "Charms & Virtues," Elias said.

     
2
    Shallow water sometimes reveals shallow answers. But deep water holds deep questions.

    —"On the Way of Water," from journal of Hayden Stone

     
    The riptide rush of fate swept through Elias a second time in less than five minutes when Charity stormed back through the front door of Charms & Virtues
    So strange senses of anticipation that he had experienced the first time he saw her had not been a fluke.
    He watched, fascinated, as she bore down on him via an aisle formed by display counters. He had deliberately subjected himself to this second experiment in order to verify the initial results. No question about it. He felt as if he were being swept out into very deep water.
    Not good. Not good at all.
    But oddly beguiling.
    "Who are you, Elias Winters, and what kind of a game are you playing?" Charity demanded.
    Elias did not look at his wrist to check the time. He hadn't worn a watch since he was sixteen. But he needed to regain some sense of control. He forced himself to look away from the red fire buried deep in the curving wings of her heavy, dark hair. The battered old cuckoo clock on the wall provided a convenient distraction.
    "I'd estimate that took approximately one minute, forty-five seconds, give or take a couple of seconds. You're fast, Ms. Truitt. Very fast. Did you run the whole length of the pier?"
    "You timed me?"
    Crazy Otis, who was back on his perch nibbling on a large seed, chortled.
    "Quiet, Otis," Elias commanded gently.
    Otis subsided, but there was a cheerfully malicious gleam in his eyes. He cracked the seed that he gripped in one claw with a particularly loud crunch.
    Elias noticed that there was a distinctive gleam in Charity's vivid hazel eyes, too, but it was neither cheerful nor malicious. She was simply outraged.
    She was several inches shorter than he was, but she somehow managed to glare at him down the length of her very straight nose. Her full, soft mouth was compressed into an uncompromising line. There was unmistakable warmth just beneath her delicate cheekbones.
    Elias felt his insides tighten. He did not understand his own reaction. Something indefinable in her drew his whole attention.
    "Mr. Winters—"
    "Elias."
    "Mr. Winters, I want an explanation, and I want it now. You're up to something, that's obvious."
    "Is it?"
    "Don't you dare start answering questions with questions. That's manipulative, sneaky, and downright passive-aggressive."
    "If there's one thing you can be sure of when you deal with me, Charity, it's that when I'm feeling aggressive, there's nothing passive about it."
    "You know something? I believe you. That still leaves manipulative and sneaky. And I warn you, Mr. Winters, I know everything there is to know about manipulative and sneaky. I grew up in the corporate world."
    "I appreciate the warning," Elias said softly. He liked the way the skirts of her gauzy, white cot ton dress billowed and snapped around her gently rounded calves. Only a short while ago when she had arrived to introduce herself, those same skirts had floated discreetly, even protectively about her legs. Now she was angry, and she and her skirts had both thrown discretion to the winds.
    The deep sensual hunger rising within him made him uneasy. An attractive, strong-minded woman in a summer dress and strappy little sandals was always an appealing sight, but his reaction today was definitely over the top. What was wrong with him?
    Perhaps he shouldn't be too hard on himself, he thought glumly. It had been a long time since he had been involved with a woman. His long-planned vengeance had become an all-consuming passion during the past few months as his grand scheme moved into its final phase. It had become so strong that it had temporarily blotted out even the desire for sex.
    And then Hayden Stone had died, and everything had changed forever. Ever since Hayden's death he had felt as if he had been cut adrift on a dark, roiling