Startled, he blinked and then frowned and tried again . . . with the same results. Her mind was closed to him. Pulling his own mind back, Valerian gave his head a shake and then simply stared at the woman who might well be his life mate.
She was short. Or at least shorter than he would have expected his life mate to be. Valerian was six-foot-two himself, and he would have placed her at five-two or five-three, so a good foot or so shorter than him. She was also extremely thin, with her collarbones looking sharp and boney where the scooped neckline of her T-shirt revealed them, and there were pink, almost red bags under her eyes rather than the dark shade most people got. Even so, she was still lovely to him, with large green-almost-teal eyes, full, inviting lips, and long, wavy dark hair.
Lovely, but she needed food and more sleep was his diagnosis, and then Valerian tuned in to what she was saying and decided it was frustrating not being able to control her.
“—so, I’ll process the refund later tonight. Right now, though, if you’ll give me the key, you can be on your way and I’ll go gas up the cart and bring it in.”
Valerian stared at her blankly, his gaze moving from her expectant expression to the hand she was holding out over the counter. He then glanced down at the key with the Shady Pines Golf Course fob he’d forgotten he held.
“Oh. Right,” he muttered, and held his hand out. Her fingers brushed his skin as she took the key fob from him, and they both gave a little start at the electricity it sparked between them. Valerian almost closed his fingers around hers in response to the visceral jolt, but the presence of the other woman stopped him just as he started to curl his fingers.
If his reaction had been to want to grab her and hold on, hers was obviously the opposite. While the petite brunette had given a start at the initial jolt, she had then snatched her hand back and pressed it to her chest. Her other hand was now rubbing it as if to erase the tingling sensation they’d both experienced. She also took a step back from the counter, instinctively putting space between them.
Noting the avid curiosity on the face of the other woman—a tall, thin redhead with a narrow face, large green eyes, and freckles—Valerian forced a smile and said, “Good night,” then simply turned and headed outside.
He had his phone out and was dialing Stephanie McGill’s number before the door had quite closed behind him. Valerian listened to it ring as he crossed the patio at the side of the building where tables were set up for golfers to enjoy a meal or drink before or after their round. He was rounding the corner of the building by the time his call was picked up.
Two
“Finally,” was Stephanie’s enigmatic greeting when she answered the phone.
Valerian came to an abrupt halt in front of the clubhouse and echoed uncertainly, “Finally?”
“Yes. It took you long enough,” she said, sounding amused now.
Valerian pulled the phone away from his ear to look at the face of it as if that would explain her words. He felt like she was speaking Dutch to him. Well, not Dutch. He spoke Dutch. Actually, he spoke several languages, but that was neither here nor there. Giving his head a shake, he put the phone back to his ear and asked, “It took me long enough to what?”
“To find your life mate,” Stephanie said as if that should be obvious.
Valerian’s eyes narrowed at the words. Life mates were like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for unmated immortals like himself. A precious, longed-for gift that each of them searched for. It could, and often did, take centuries or even millennia to find that one person, mortal or immortal, that they could not read or control and could live happily in peace with. Someone like the petite brunette he’d just met in the clubhouse was for him. Or at least appeared to be. The main sign of a life mate was the inability to read or control them, as had happened when he’d tried to read the brunette.
Of course, there were occurrences when an immortal couldn’t read a mortal for other reasons. For instance, madness and brain tumors had been known to interfere with reading and controlling mortals. But judging by Stephanie’s words, that wasn’t the case here. The brunette was indeed a possible life mate to him. The word possible being inserted there because while he, as an immortal, recognized what she was and what they could have together, the brunette didn’t and had the free will to refuse to be his mate, just as she would with any man, mortal or immortal.
Pushing that thought away for now, he considered Stephanie’s words. “It took you long enough . . . to find your life mate.” As if she had known all along that Natalie was his. And probably she had, he thought grimly. While Marguerite was usually the one who set up life mates with their partners, Stephanie had some skill in that area too. She also had some strange woo-woo going on with her. She could read absolutely everyone but her mate, even older immortals, and apparently she could read minds over the phone since she’d known why he was calling.
Or, Valerian considered, maybe this was a different branch of that woo-woo stuff Stephanie had going on. There was some suggestion she could see the future or something. That would explain her knowing that he would call about the brunette.
“How do you know why I called? Did you see it in my future?”
Stephanie snorted at the suggestion. “No, I didn’t see it.”
“Well, then how—?”
“Why else would you call?” she interrupted him to ask. “You’ve never called me or Thorne before, so I figured you’d met her. You have met her, right? At the local golf course?”
“Yes,” he sighed the word.
“Finally,” she repeated her greeting with exasperation. “I can’t believe it took this long! I mean, come on, Valerian! You got crazy quick possession of the farmhouse, and have lived there all summer. It’s now the end of September. As nuts as you are about golfing, I expected you to want to take a gander at the local golfing hole right away.”
“I did,” Valerian admitted, starting to walk again, heading for the parking lot. “I’ve been golfing here at the Shady Pines Golf Course since the day after moving onto the farm at the end of June. Thanks for pointing me in the direction of the farm, by the way.”
“Well, you said you liked the area, and I noticed her in town and was quite sure she’d be a mate to you, and then I heard from my neighbor that the farm down the road was for sale and—” He could picture Stephanie shrugging in the pause before she finished with, “It seemed too perfect. Obviously, you and Natalie were meant to be.”
“Natalie?” he asked quickly. “Is that her name?”
There was a pause and then Stephanie asked, “Haven’t you met her yet?”
“Yesss.” He drew the word out with the uncertainty he was suddenly feeling. Valerian was ninety-nine percent sure they were talking about the same woman, but there could be other women working at the golf course besides the two he’d just met. Maybe he couldn’t read the little brunette because she had a brain tumor and it was another woman Stephanie was speaking of. Which wasn’t likely, he acknowledged. Still, it was just as likely as his actually meeting his life mate at all and while still so young. Valerian had only been born in 1790. The chances of finding his life mate before reaching four or five hundred years old was like winning the lottery would be for a mortal.