" Why are you holding a knife?” he asked, mimicking her tone.
Shock blurred her vision.
The ease had gone out of his posture. Suddenly she knew he was a man poised to spring if he needed to. And this was what he’d been leading up to all along.
She cleared her throat. “Oh . . . this?”
“Yes,” he said softly. “That.”
She remained silent. She idly tested the tip of the knife with her fingertip. Very sharp. Perfectly deadly.
“Let me guess. It’s not what I think.”
Think, Tommy, think. “I’m carrying a knife,” she said slowly, “because . . . I don’t own a pistol. "

― Julie Anne Long , It Happened One Midnight (Pennyroyal Green, #8)