"Michael himself."
Nikki's eyebrows rose. "Why?"
"He will be role-playing, remember, and will see you as me. He and I were never intimate, though my role as saloon girl meant we did share a kiss or three." Seline paused, as if waiting for a reaction. Nikki shrugged, even though she knew Seline couldn't see the gesture. Michael had told her many times he and Seline had never been sexually intimate, and Nikki trusted the truth of his words. But he'd never said they hadn't kissed or touched, and she'd be a fool to think otherwise.
After another second of silence, Seline continued, "While instinctively he will be drawn to you, he will fight it, because deep down he knows that he and I never happened."
"So that's another way of maybe tripping the spell—dragging him into bed."
"Possibly. But one thing you should remember—the Michael you meet in Hartwood will not be your Michael. He will be rougher, harder."
How much rougher and harder could he be than when she'd first met him? He'd been so close to edge, so close to becoming one with the darkness, back then. And though he'd only really threatened her once, it was something she was never likely to forget.
"Is there anything else I need to know?"
"Plenty. But Camille will fill you in on the rest of it." Seline paused and added softly. "Bring him home safely, Nikki."
She intended to.
After all, they had a wedding planned.
Chapter Four
Nikki squatted on her heels and studied the ramshackle town sitting in the heart of the windswept hills of sagebrush that surrounded them.
Hartwell was bigger than what she'd expected and better maintained, though, in many ways, that wasn't surprising. The town and surrounding hills were a California State Historic Park—though what had happened to the rangers living here was, at this stage, anyone's guess. Maybe Weylin had forcibly enlisted them into his mad schemes.
There were probably a good fifty or sixty houses down there that could be described as being in a reasonable state—at least from this distance. There were another thirty or so that had either half or fully given way to the elements. Most of the buildings were wooden and the streets dirt, though a couple of the streets still had wooden sidewalks that snaked past the buildings. What was surprising were the people—there had to be at least twenty visible—some walking along the streets, some tending to horses, and others walking back from the skeletal mining structure situated halfway up one of the hills. If she didn't know better, she would have sworn this town was still functioning rather than having been abandoned a hundred years ago.
What she couldn't see was any form of a barrier.