Man of Her Dreams by Debra Webb (good ebook reader txt) 📕

She blinked, startled. “I…that still doesn’t explain what you’re doing here or this outrageous story about my being created at that place.”

She started to pace, her long hair swinging around her waist as she executed an about-face and started in the other direction. Her conservative “teacher” garb couldn’t hide the sexy, vibrant woman beneath. He couldn’t lose her. He had to make her see…to make her understand.

“Doctors Archer and Galen perfected gene manipulation. They designed a team of Enforcers to protect the nation’s interests. Each of us—” he placed his hand against his chest “—has our own special abilities. You and I are seers. We can feel disaster coming…can read the senses and, at times, the thoughts of others. Superior strength and intelligence. The ability to heal at an accelerated rate.”

He could see her remembering a childhood without illness, a broken bone that healed overnight. She couldn’t deny his words though she wanted desperately to do just that.

She shook her head, pausing in her pacing to stare at him. “I don’t have any superior strength. This so-called gift I have is totally unreliable. How can you say we’re the same?”

“You merely lack the training and education I have. You haven’t been properly instructed in the art of focusing your gift. That’s the only difference. Your superior strength has been restrained all these years, but it’s there. You are special, Darby. Not like others.”

“Just stop,” she fairly shouted. “I don’t want to hear this. Center isn’t a good place. It’s bad. They wanted to keep me prisoner…they’re still looking for me.”

He drew in a deep, fortifying breath, gathered his thoughts before continuing. “It’s true that we are not allowed to leave Center as children. But it’s necessary for our own protection. If the rest of the world discovered our genetic superiority, we would be looked upon as lab rats to be analyzed. The ability to design superior beings would fall into the wrong hands and mankind as we know it would collapse.”

Darby shook her head and huffed her disbelief. What he expected her to believe was totally insane. Sci-fi city. How could he believe such nonsense? She refused to consider that his hands, had, in fact, healed overnight without leaving the first scar.

“Once our training is complete and we reach a certain status, we are allowed to leave Center. We are assigned missions, as I was assigned to this one.”

Her gaze tangled with his once more. That was the real reason he was here. Center had sent him. The men in the white coats.

“Why did they send you here?” Willis had been right. This had nothing to do with Lester.

Aidan remained silent for a time. She could see him weighing the words he was about to say.

“Your dreams are right, Darby,” he admitted. “When you feigned failure, Center released you from the program. You were mainstreamed into the population and all continued as it should until Lester’s case brought attention to the gift you had suppressed.” He stared at her for two beats before going on. His eyes begged her to trust him, but how could she? “Dr. Galen,” he went on, “was banished from Center years ago. He has worked hard since to bring us down. When your existence was revealed by the media, Center feared that Galen would try to use you against us.”

The man in the white coat. “So Galen is one of the men in my dreams wearing the white lab coat,” she said, knowing the answer before he replied.

“Yes. He and Dr. Archer. There were others. Lab techs and such.”

“Dr. Archer is the one that I sense is kind,” she persisted, wanting to know more details.

Aidan nodded, then added, “Was. Dr. Galen saw to it that he was eliminated. He’s ruthless, Darby. You must understand how dangerous he is. He wants you and he will stop at nothing to have you.”

Her gaze narrowed. He was hiding something from her. “And what exactly is Center’s role in this? Why were you sent here?”

He stood and moved toward her. She backed away, not wanting to connect with him on any level until she knew everything.

“I came to protect you from Galen.”

“And to see just what I remembered?” she suggested, suddenly certain that evaluating her status was top priority.

“Yes,” he admitted. Those dark eyes looked dull with pain. He didn’t want to tell her any more, but she would know all of it.

She thought of what Willis had told her about the Interpol incident. These Enforcers from Center were vested with the responsibility of keeping the world safe, in a manner of speaking. She’d read enough thrillers and seen enough movies on the subject to know what happened in cases where their secrets were in jeopardy.

“So Center is this big secret,” she commented. “I managed to get loose all those years ago until I suddenly resurface, flaunting the gift I’d sworn I didn’t possess. What were you supposed to do if you learned that I knew too much?” That was the key—she felt it so surely that her soul wept with the knowledge.

“If I learned that you posed a security risk, you were to be eliminated.”

“So you came here to kill me.” The words came out harsh, every bit as cold as the ice currently freezing every muscle, including her heart.

“If necessary.” He reached out to her, closed his long fingers around one arm. She couldn’t move…couldn’t evade his touch. His words had paralyzed her. “Falling in love with you wasn’t supposed to happen. I didn’t know that they’d created us to be together…that the connection would be so strong. I won’t let them hurt you. You must trust me.”

How could she trust the man who’d been sent to kill her?

“I want you to leave,” she said hollowly, the words lacking any real conviction, but no less clear in their meaning. “Now. Don’t ever come back.”

“Don’t do this,” he begged. “I’m the only one who can protect you.”

She laughed, the sound dry,