Rachael hesitated, unsure if she should let him have the run of Rio’s home. The elder seemed unshakable even in the face of her distrust.

He took the decision out of her hands by going through the pantry. She retrieved the knife from the chair cushions while his back was turned and replaced it in the sheath. As casually as possible she put the weapons out of sight.

“You don’t think much of me, do you?” he asked as he began chopping vegetables.

She picked up a second knife and helped. “Not much. I can’t see much wisdom in your sentence of banishment. It smacks of hypocrisy if you ask me, which technically you didn’t so I guess I shouldn’t offer my opinion on the subject.” She hacked a tomato into tiny little pieces. The sound of the blade hitting the chopping board beat out a fast tattoo of annoyance.

Delgrotto paused in the act of cutting up wild mushrooms. “You’ve used a knife before,” he observed.

“You’d be surprised what I can do with this baby. Working in a kitchen can be damned boring, and we women just think up things to hurl the cutlery at. In South America, we pride ourselves on target practice.” She gave him a chatty smirk. “Sometimes it was the chef if he was particularly obnoxious.”

“I see.” Delgrotto raised his eyebrow. “What might constitute being obnoxious, just so I don’t make the same mistake.”

“Oh, you may as well be as obnoxious as you like. You’re already in my book of evil and obnoxious people. I think I even underlined your name a couple of times.” She slashed an onion until it was nothing but sauce.

“I’m certainly not evil, my dear. I may have made one or two mistakes in my life, but I don’t think I’ve ever been evil.”

She shrugged. “I suppose passing that sort of judgment is all subjective. It depends on the point of view. You don’t think you’re evil, but someone else may very well think you’re the devil incarnate.”

Delgrotto paused to watch in fascination as the knife chopped through the remainder of the vegetables so fast her movements were a blur. “I suppose that’s true. If one turns the view even slightly, there is always a different slant. Where were you raised? You are obviously one of us.”

Her hands stilled and she looked up at him. There was a moment of silence. Only the sound of the rain on the roof could be heard. Even the wind stilled, holding its breath. Delgrotto glimpsed the fury in her eyes. In her heart. “I am not one of you. I will never be one of you. I don’t like people who play god, not in this life, and not in any other life.”

“Is that what you think we did?” His voice was gentle.