“Of course.”
“What’s your real name?”
“Rane.”
“Is that your first name, or your last?”
“It’s the only one you need to know.”
She regarded him a moment, her brows drawn together in a vee. “I don’t suppose you want to tell me who or what you’re hiding from?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. How long have you been a magician?”
“About twenty-five years.”
She stared at him in disbelief. He couldn’t be much older than twenty-five, thirty at the most. “I don’t believe you! What were you, five when you started?”
He smiled faintly. “I’m older than I look.”
“Really?” Her gaze moved over his face; there were no telltale signs indicating he’d had any work done. “He must have been a very skilled doctor.”
Rane laughed. “Trust me, I’ve never gone under the knife.”
“Are you married?”
“No. Are you?”
“No. So, where’s home?”
“Here.”
“You live in Kelton?”
“I don’t live anywhere.”
“You’re making this extremely difficult,” Savanah remarked, wondering at his emphasis on the word live.
“Sorry,” he said with a sly grin. “I said I’d grant you an interview. I didn’t say it would be easy.”
Savanah hit Pause on the tape recorder when the waitress arrived with their drinks.
Rane smiled at the waitress, then dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the tray. “Thanks, Sylvie.”
The waitress winked at him, then sashayed away, hips swaying provocatively beneath her tight black skirt.
Savanah had ordered a strawberry daiquiri. She sipped it slowly. Rane was extremely closemouthed. She would have given a year’s pay to know what he was hiding.
Setting her glass aside, she started the tape recorder again. “Do you have relatives here in town?”
“No.”
“Any family anywhere?”
“Sure. I wasn’t hatched under a rock.”
“I’d ask for their names, but I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t tell me.”
His smile confirmed her suspicions. “Anything else you want to know?”
“You haven’t told me anything yet,” she said irritably. She glanced around the club while she gathered her thoughts. “You know, I must have passed this place a hundred times and never noticed it.”
Rane shrugged. That wasn’t surprising. She wouldn’t be able to find it again if she looked for it. “Enough about me,” he said. “Tell me about you.”
“Why don’t you just read my mind?”
“I could do that, but conversation is more stimulating, don’t you think?”
“How did you know about Mr. Tabor? No one, and I mean no one, knew I had a crush on him.”
“I saw it in your mind, just like I said.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Is it?”
“What am I thinking about now?”
“You’re wondering if coming here with me was a smart thing to do.”
Savanah blinked at him, unnerved to realize that he really could read her mind. “Who taught you all those amazing tricks?”
“No one.”
“But…”
“I just do what comes naturally.”
She frowned. “Are you telling me that they aren’t illusions, that they’re real?”
He nodded.
“Aside from reading my mind, can you do any of those other magical feats offstage?”
“Sure.”
“Which ones?”
“All of them.” He cocked his head to one side. “You don’t believe me, do you? What would you like me to do? Transform into a wolf, or just disappear?”
“I should imagine doing either one in here would cause quite a stir, don’t you think?” Savanah said dryly.
He smiled. It was the first genuine smile she had seen from him and it hit her like a bolt of electricity. For a moment, she forgot everything else, thinking only that she would be willing to do anything he asked if he would just smile at her like that again. His physical presence was almost overpowering, but that smile…it was a deadly weapon.
The waitress appeared a moment later, giving Savanah a chance to regain her composure.
Rane ordered another glass of red wine. Savanah declined a refill. Rane’s smile was intoxicating enough.
“Have you run out of questions?” he asked after the waitress moved away.
“No, but what’s the point? You haven’t answered any of them.”
“No?” He arched one black brow. “I thought I was being very cooperative.”
Savanah shook her head, then took a deep breath. She hadn’t expected this to be easy, but she hadn’t expected it to be this difficult, either. He was hiding something, she thought again. But what?
He lifted his glass, his gaze intent upon her face as he sipped the wine.
The heat of his gaze brought a quick flush to her cheeks and made her stomach quiver with pleasure. Lordy, he had the most mesmerizing eyes she had ever seen.
“Well,” she said, dragging her gaze from his, “since you’re not going to answer my questions, I might as well go home.”
Rising, she turned off the tape recorder and dropped it into her handbag. “Thanks for the drink.”
“Don’t go.” His voice was little more than a whisper, but she heard it clearly enough.
“Give me a reason to stay.”
“The night is long,” he said, his voice soft and somehow vulnerable, “and I don’t want to be alone.”
Chapter Three
It wasn’t Rane’s words so much as the look of desolation in his fathomless black eyes and the tone of his voice that made Savanah decide to stay. Resuming her seat, she studied the man sitting across from her. It was hard to imagine that he was ever lonely. He was devastatingly handsome, he could be charming. She doubted he ever lacked for female companionship when he wanted it. His voice, his smile—how could any female possibly resist? And yet there was a deep sadness in his eyes that she hadn’t really noticed before. Was he mourning for someone? Was that why he seemed so melancholy?
“So,” she said, “what now?”
“I still want to know about you.”
“There’s not much to tell. I’m a reporter for the Kelton Chronicle. I live at home with my father. And I’m not very good at getting interviews with magicians.”
A slow smile spread over his face. “If I was going to tell anyone my secrets, Savanah Gentry, it would be you.”
There was that smile again. She could almost forgive him for being so taciturn. Almost. “That’s very flattering, but I still don’t have a story.”
“Maybe there isn’t one.”
“I don’t believe that.”
She ran the tip of her finger around the rim of her glass. “What do you do when you aren’t mesmerizing audiences and ignoring reporters?”
He shrugged. “Nothing very exciting. Watch the sports channel. Go to the movies. Take long walks…”
“Walks? Really?”
“Why do you sound so surprised?”
“I don’t know. I guess I pictured you more as the zero-to-sixty type.”
“Can’t I enjoy both?”
“I knew it! So, what do you drive? Something incredibly fast, I’ll bet.”
“Fast enough.” He had tried his hand at racing for a while, until he got into a monumental wreck that no mere mortal would have survived. They had pronounced him dead at the scene. He hadn’t raced under his real name, of course. There had been quite a stir the following day when his body turned up missing at the morgue. The newspapers had had a field day speculating on what had become of his corpse.
He leaned forward, his gaze intent upon her face. “How about it, Savanah Gentry? Are you brave enough to go zero to sixty with me?”
He wasn’t talking about cars and they both knew it. For one impulsive moment, Savanah was tempted to go with him, to indulge in one crazy, wild, once-in-a-life-time night of unbridled passion, to do something totally outrageous and out of character. But only for a moment before her good sense kicked in. “I don’t think so.”
“Afraid of me?” he asked, a challenge lurking in his dark eyes.
“Not exactly.”
“Then what, exactly?”
“I don’t make a habit of hot-rodding with men I hardly know.”
“Afraid I’ll make you disappear?” he asked with wry amusement.
Savanah nodded. That was exactly what she was afraid of. She had covered too many stories where women got involved with seemingly nice, wholesome guys and were never heard from again. Sometimes their bodies turned up in a ditch, sometimes they were discovered by joggers in remote areas of the mountains, and sometimes their bodies were never found. When Savanah got her name in the paper, she wanted it to be in the byline of a great story, or as the recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature, not as the hapless victim of a violent crime.
Sitting back, he muttered, “Smart girl,” then gestured at her glass. “Can I buy you another?”
“I don’t think so. I’d really like to know how you transform into the wolf.”
“You and a couple hundred other people.”
“Would you tell me if I promise to keep it a secret?”
“I’ll show you,” he said, “but it will cost you.”
“How much?”
“No money involved.”
She canted her head to the side. “What do you want?” she asked suspiciously.
His gaze slid across her lips. “A kiss.”
She blinked at him. “A kiss? That’s all? Just a kiss?”
“Along with your promise that this is completely off the record.”