Mystic Memories by Gillian Doyle, Susan Leslie Liepitz Page A

enough.”
    She choked. “Thank you . . . I think.” As the alcohol swirled warmly through her body, she thought back to her adolescent years of orthodontia and the daily brushing with whitening toothpaste, all in the effort to attain a dazzling smile that didn’t fit into this world. “Healthy teeth are a family blessing, sir. I am thirty-four.”
    “Impossible.”
    “It’s your turn to tell me where you were born.”
    “I have no memory of it.”
    “You’re not getting off so easily.”
    “I don’t know my birthplace. And that is the truth.” Though his voice remained calm and unemotional, he cut his meat with a vengeance, slashing it into small pieces with his knife. Cara leaned back against her chair, her fingers still curled around the stemware.
    “You are telling the truth.”
    He nodded, keeping his eyes on his plate, forking food into his mouth. In silence, she watched him eat for another moment or two before he became aware of her eyes on him. He tipped his head, gesturing toward her food. “Eat,” he grunted with a full mouth.
    Continuing with her own meal, she told herself his past was none of her business. She should drop the subject, especially since it appeared the captain was not comfortable with the discussion. She chewed the meat and swallowed, looking for a benign topic of conversation to alleviate the tension in the air, even though a gnawing in her gut pressed her to continue the difficult line of questioning. She tried to ignore it.
    They were back to where they had started, eating in silence. Despite her earlier response to the delicious food, she seemed to have lost her appetite. She pushed the carrots around on her plate, picking at them now and then. Occasionally she cut a bite of meat. The gravy had congealed on top of the potatoes, making them far from appealing. But without a convenient fast-food drive-through, there was no guarantee when or if she’d get another full meal such as this one. So she forced herself to finish the food on her plate.
    Inwardly, Cara sighed, knowing how much she had fouled up this first meal with the captain, intentionally or not. If she didn’t make amends, he might take back his offer to stop in San Juan Capistrano.
    “I’m sorry we got off to the wrong start,” she offered.
    He glanced up, his face unchanged. “I, too, am sorry.”
    Since he didn’t elaborate, she speculated that he was sorry for more than his surly behavior. He was probably also regretting bringing her on board.
    He was a contradiction of himself. Sometimes keeping his distance. Sometimes opening to her. But she suspected it was his curiosity that attracted him to her. After all, she was an oddity in this time period. And, as a lone woman in a world of high-testosterone males, she was undoubtedly sparking his interest on a physical level as well. She wasn’t exactly immune to him either.
    Still, she’d seen his pain, his unease over not knowing his origins. She wanted to help him, and she could. Her gift could allow it. And therein lay another problem—how could she explain her unusual abilities that would allow her to unlock his past without jeopardizing her safety. Did they still burn witches in 1833?
    However reluctant she was to antagonize him again, her stomach gave her the same internal nudge she’d gotten at the rancho with Andrew’s father. That experience had taught her not to ignore the pain in her gut when it prodded her to do something she didn’t want to do. It would only get worse until she followed the inner guidance.
    “Captain, I could help you if you’d only let me—” Read your mind , she’d almost said. “Maybe if you talked about your past, the parts of your childhood that you do remember—”
    “I said I have no memory of my early childhood. Leave it be.”
    “But it obviously bothers you.”
    “Hell, yes! I have no idea who my parents are. Or where they might be. Whether they are dead or alive. Do you know what it is like to have no