Since I have a pretty new cover, we should do an excerpt for author’s choice to go with the pretty new cover…

Get out, get away, move fast…it was a scream inside her brain, an instinct to get a hell of a lot distance between her and that quiet little street where Alex and Gus had managed to live undisturbed for some time.

“I don’t trust anybody,” Gus whispered.

“You’re going to have to learn.” She wished she could make him understand just how vulnerable that kid was. How exposed. “You’re doing your best to take care of him, Gus, I get that. But that boy is like an exposed nerve bed. He’s got no training and too much raw power. Anybody who knows how to look for psychic skill would be able to find him in a heartbeat.”

Tense silence stretched out, before a low curse shattered it.

“Mierda,” Gus snarled, his voice furious and hot.

Vaughnne’s grasp of Spanish was pretty limited, but she understood that one.  Lifting a brow, she said, “Shit doesn’t even cover it.”

“How did you know?”

“I just told you.  He’s exposed.  He has no idea how to hide himself.  Hell, he’s like a neon sign in the dark.  Anybody who knew how to look could find him,” she said.  “And if the wrong people come looking?  He’s got problems.  Today, the wrong people came looking.”

Then, from the corner of her eye, she saw him shake his head. “The boy reads people. He can see danger. He’d know—”

“He never saw me.”

Silence, once more, fell between them and she had to fight not to cringe under the weight of that deadly stare. Her instincts were screaming again. Danger, danger, danger, a terrible litany that had her wanting to run, and hide. Far and fast. Hide from Gus.

Finally, he broke the silence, his voice almost terribly gently as he asked, “What does that mean?”

“He never saw me.  I’m not a threat to you, but he had no idea that I’m psychic, that I was there to watch him. He has no idea that people out there, like us, can sense him. He doesn’t know how to hide what he is.  He may be a force to be reckoned with, but he didn’t realize there was another psychic right in front of him.  And Gus?  I’m not all that. If I can hide what I am, there are plenty of others who can do the same. Others who can hide what they are, what they think. He’s powerful, but he’s just a kid…a scared, untrained one.”

“And how do I know you do not lie to me?” he demanded, his voice edgy and harsh. The gun was jamming into her ribs now, hard enough that it was going to leave a bruise. “You could be lying now. You say you’re—”

“The first time I saw you walking up my sidewalk, I thought to myself…the view was fine,” Vaughnne whispered into his mind. Her gift was telepathy and it worked best in words, but if she had to, she could project images. It took more thought, and it worked best if the emotion was strong.

Fortunately, she had plenty of strong emotion when it came to Gus. Lust definitely counted, right?

She projected the image of how it felt, that first look, the sight of him, how it had sent heat and appreciation flooding through her.

Then as she heard his harsh intake of breath, she shifted the focus of her thought. “Then I looked at the boy and I was caught between nerves and pain. He’s too young for the burden he’s bearing, Gus…and you know it. I don’t even know what his burden is, and I know it.  I can see it on him.”

She pushed the image that she carried of Alex into Gus’s mind. That first image, Alex, all long, skinny limbs and big, scared eyes, and a fear he tried so hard to hide.

“Enough,” Gus said, his voice flat. “Enough.”

Due out sometime in 2013. Dunno when.  Part of the FBI Psychics series

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