“Whatever happens, do not look away.”
She had to look away. She couldn’t fall victim to whatever it was he was doing to her.
“Sarah, do as I say.”
Sarah looked at him. His irises were still moving. Their hold on her was too strong to escape this time. She saw herself moving with him. She saw herself rise into the night sky, out of Glens falls and back to Lake George. She saw the top of her store. Another and suddenly—
She was in her bedroom.
“It’s all right. You’re safe.”
Sarah didn’t recall blinking, but she must have because in a second his eyes stopped moving. She looked around her room. Everything was exactly as she’d left it this morning. Her bed was still unmade because Mom had slammed her door open and demanded to know why her inventory was computerized without hardcopy backup. Her books about Lake George’s history were still scattered all over the floor. Her clothes were still lying across chairs and boxes. She had picked three outfits to wear today. She didn’t know why her appearance should be so important, but lately…maybe she was going through an early midlife or something.
Mister Cuddles jumped up on her bed. He padded toward the foot, looked toward Nathan and hissed.
She picked the cat up, felt her nerves calm somewhat. She didn’t take her eyes off Nathan. “How did you do that…bring me here?”
“Conscious thought.”
She didn’t understand. She didn’t want to understand. What had begun as the worst panic attack she’d ever experienced ebbed to a mild case of anxiety. Right now, there was no way ‘understanding’ would help the situation any. .
“I didn’t know I could transport others.” He looked around the room, as if to reacquaint himself with the surroundings. “I’m glad it worked successfully.”
Successfully? Sarah didn’t want to think about what he considered unsuccessful.
He turned to her. “Do you feel well now?”
She shook her head.
Nathan directed her toward the wicker chair in the corner. “Sit.”
She put Mister Cuddles down, followed him to the chair and sat. Nathan draped a blanket over her shoulders.
“What about my car?” She’d left it illegally parked outside Maggie's apartment building. She couldn’t afford her car insurance as it was. Another ticket would help any.
“I didn’t think of that.”
She glanced at the clock on her nightstand. It was past two in the morning. Mother and Uncle Stan were each in the two rooms across the hall. If they heard her talking, they’d think she’d gone over the deep end.
Nathan knelt in front of her. He placed the palm of his hand on her forehead. “You’re getting sick.”
Sarah shook her head, and the tears came again. “No, I’m fine. It’s just—I don’t know why I freak out sometimes. Ever since the divorce—” She hiccupped again. “It’s just so hard.”
He touched her arms. His hands went up to her shoulders and she leaned into him and put her arms around his neck. Everything she’d had pent up suddenly left her in violent, racking robs.
“I understand, Sarah.”
His words were like velvet in her ear. Others had told her they understood. Her friend Joan, who had been happily married to her childhood sweetheart for over ten years. Coworkers at The Book Connection who had never been married, never had their heart ripped out of them by having a child, never born but still her child, die. She hadn’t believed any of them understood. Not one. But she believed Nathan understood. Loss was familiar to him. Everything close to him was gone, everything he’d never owned or hoped to own. He’d even lost his own absolution.
Her face was nestled in the crook of his neck. His skin was cold, but she expected it, had become used to it. It was just something that made him familiar to her. And right now it was okay.
She moved her face slightly, closed her eyes as the stubble of his cheek brushed against hers. She inhaled the masculine smell, a mixture of outdoors and ruggedness. With her eyes closed, it was almost as if he were real.
Sarah opened her eyes. Nathan was staring down at her. It would be so easy to—
Nathan didn’t give her time to regret any thoughts about kissing him. He leaned into her and his mouth found hers as naturally as if he’d done so a thousand times.
Sarah didn’t give him time to pull away. She tangled her fingers in his hair, giving him the confidence he sought. His tongue slid over her lips, inhaling her mouth, exploring and taking control. There was an eagerness in his kiss, something she would have never expected from him. It was hungry and raw and unbound. And she wanted him. She had never wanted anyone except her ex husband, which now seemed like centuries ago. Nathan was nothing like Art, but there was nothing out of the ordinary about kissing Nathan. He did it as perfectly as any living man. And he made her feel—
Nathan pulled away. He leaned his forehead against hers, his breath labored.
Sarah didn’t dare speak. His forehead was cold against hers, but she felt as if she would self-combust. Maybe she was just lonely. Horny was a better term.
Sarah grasped his hands. “You’re shaking.”
“Am I?” His voice held a ruggedness she hadn’t ever noticed.
She nodded. Instinctively, she rubbed his hands with hers. “I’m sorry Maggie wouldn’t help you.”
“So am I.”
He was watching her rub his hands together with her own. He was so close. She wondered what he was thinking, if he was devastated about Maggie's refusal to help him, or if he was scared that he might be stuck on Earth forever. She wanted to tell him something that would comfort him, but she had no idea what to say.
So she held him, and in their silence, she prayed it was enough.
Her mother suddenly burst into her room.
“Mom!”
Sarah sat back in the chair. Nathan stood and quickly backed away.
“What’s wrong? Why were you hunched over? Are you sick?”
Sick?
It wasn’t until her mother passed directly through Nathan that she realized she hadn’t seen him at all.
“You’re crying.”
Sarah wiped her eyes. She stood too quickly and knocked over the chair she’d been sitting in.
Without thought, she hugged her mother. Sarah recalled the time Mom had caught her smoking in her room. She’d been fourteen, and she’d sprayed her bedroom with so much air freshener it was a dead giveaway.
Pressing her mother up against her, Sarah motioned for Nathan to leave. Nathan didn’t budge.
Instead, he up righted the chair.
Her mother pushed her back at arm’s length. “Sarah, really. Pull it together. Is it that time of the month?”
Sarah’s pulse raced. Mom’s back was to the chair. Mom had seen it fall. If she saw it up right…
Nathan stood behind her mother. He was grinning ear to ear. Sarah motioned for him to tip the chair back over, but he burst out laughing. Then he deliberately tipped it over.
The chair crashed to the floor so loudly Sarah couldn’t help but scream.
Her mother whirled around. “What in the—”
“Mister Cuddles, Mom.” Sarah hurriedly up righted the chair. “Didn’t you see
him just now? He jumped.”
“He’s on the bed.”
“Well…he is now, but I saw him. He leapt onto the chair.”
“It sounded like it fell.”
“How could it when I already tipped it over?” Sarah pushed it against the wall. “Are you feeling okay, Mom?”
Her mother was looking at her like she was crazy. Sarah glanced at Nathan, and he moved beside her. His mouth was inches from her ear.
“Sleep well.” Giving her a peck on her cheek, he vanished.
Her mother continued to gape at her. “Sarah, what’s going on? I heard you in here talking to yourself and now you’re acting weird.”
“I can’t talk now, Mom.”
She hurried to the bathroom across the hall.
She stared at her hands which were shaking beyond control. She squirted some lotion onto them. Frantically rubbing them together, she couldn’t stop her racing thoughts. Maggie. Nathan bringing her home like he had. His kiss. She wondered where he was going tonight.
When she came back out, her mother had gone back to bed. Stan was standing in the hall. He was wearing his favorite blue robe with the ducks on it. She kissed his cheek.
“Who was that man in your room?”
Her hands started to shake even more. She pulled Stan back in his bedroom and shut the door. The room was lit in a lavender glow from his nightlight of the cow jumping over the moon. Sarah couldn’t help the stab of homesickness. For years, Mom told Stan that nursery rhyme. Whenever he was having an episode, it always calmed him down.
The spare room which had contained only a bed she’d brought from Syracuse was now transformed into what could only be described as decorating by Uncle Stan. Stan had brought with him his own lavender curtains, his celestial comforter that he absolutely refused to give up despite years of wear, and his pictures. Hundreds of photographs. Most were crooked or contained a nice shot of Stan’s thumb either in the center or off to one side. Mom had painstakingly framed each one with the frames Stan would pick out at the store. Stan loved going to the store, shopping for frames. Or anything lavender.
Stan slowly retrieved his glasses from the nightstand. It was one she’d planned for Michaela. “Why were you hugging that man?”
“He’s a friend,” she told him.
“Is he afraid of Mom?”
“No, he’s just—”
“Mom can’t see him.”
Sarah felt the hair on her neck stand up. “But you can.”
Stan nodded.
“Why? Do you know why?”
Stan shrugged, as if seeing ghosts were the most natural thing in the world. “I’m special, Sarah. Did you forget?”
Sarah tried not to laugh. It was always at the most serious moments that Stan said something so profound yet so undeniably sensible that—
“You’re crying again.”
Mom stood in the doorway. “I’m just getting over a divorce. It’s a pretty logical reaction, don’t you think?”
“Why are you being sarcastic to me?”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are, Sarah. I came to help you.”
“Then stop lecturing me.” Sarah wanted to say more. She wanted to ask her mother why she swept her divorce under the rung like it was nothing. . She wanted to tell her it wasn’t something she could just get over like she claimed to do with her own ten years ago. Divorce wasn’t hereditary like Mom seemed to think.
“You divorced Art a year ago, honey. It’s time to move on.”
“I have,” she bitterly answered.
“I don’t think so. You bought this store way up here.”
“I wanted a bookstore for years. You know that.”
“Yes, but why did it have to be so far away?”
“I always liked this area. You know that.”
Her mother sighed. “I think this was an outside manifestation of the divorce. You’ve been grieving for a year, and that’s too long.”
“Too long to get over loving someone?”
“Oh, please! Don’t give Art that much credit. He’s not worth it.”
Mom had been outraged when she’d heard about Art’s affair with Tanya. So much so that she’d told Art, his family, Tanya at her work place of all places, exactly what she thought of the whole thing. It wasn’t that Sarah didn’t appreciate it. Mom obviously cared about her. It was the way she went about it.
“All I’m saying is I want to see you getting on with your life. And that’s why I’m here.”
“Why? To try to get me to go back home?”
Her mother sighed. “It’s too late for that. You’ve already established yourself here. But I was hoping to help you make a go of it.”
“But what about your shop? How long do you expect to be here?”
“As long as you need me.” Her mother gave her a pat on the shoulder. It was a gesture as good as could be expected.
Sarah kept silent. And they all went to bed after telling Stan about how the cow jumped over the moon.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Vowing never to go back to Fort William, Nathan spent the night atop French Mountain. He’d fashioned a makeshift bed in the crotch of a rotted tree. It was fairly tolerable despite the bark which kept sticking him in the spine. It wasn’t so terrible. At least it kept him off the ground. He didn’t know if there were wolves in the area, but he didn’t want to take any chances. Even if he was already dead.
He pulled his jacket tight around himself and shivered despite the muggy summer air. An owl sounded in the distance. Its music was eerily desolate and as cold and solitary as the night, but it was still better than being at the fort. Nathan didn’t know why he’d insisted on staying there as long as he had. Fort William was nothing more than a tomb, a representation of the worst two years of his life. Of suffering and hopelessness and death. He didn’t want to think of death anymore. He wouldn’t think of it. Death trapped him. And he was tired of feeling trapped.
He would live here on French Mountain. Starting tomorrow, he would build a cabin in these woods. It would be a home just like he’d intended to build in White Creek when he returned home from war. It would be a simple structure with one room and a loft; a home of comfort and sanctity, and in it he would never feel like an outsider again.
His decision felt right. Perhaps the only right decision he’d made since coming back to Earth.
Kissing Sarah tonight had been another right decision, if, in fact, it had been his decision in the first place. He wasn’t certain. She had seemed to want to kiss him just as much as he had her.
Did she want him? The idea set heavy upon him. It settled over him and slowly drifted into his consciousness. It was something foreign and new, and it—
It made him feel alive.
Why would Sarah ever want him? He had nothing. He was nothing. He didn’t even understand what he was anymore.
He tried to imagine what it would be like if things were different, if he’d known Sarah in his lifetime. He didn’t think she was someone he would have ever sought out. It wasn’t that she was unattractive. She possessed a strength that he would have never favored in life. Jane wasn’t like that. She would have never had the strength to move to a new town all alone, to live alone, operate a business alone.
He had no idea what his feelings for Sarah were. He knew how he used to feel about her. He used to pity her because she was on her own and things seemed difficult for her. Sarah was kind and good and hurt, and it wasn’t fair that her former husband, a man he didn’t even know but now despised, should abandon her.
He’d never felt anger for anything concerning Sarah before. But now…had the kiss changed the way he felt? Or had it changed sometime before that? He wouldn’t deny that he’d wanted her tonight. He’d be a fool even trying.
He wondered if it was somehow wrong to kiss a mortal or to want to kiss her again. He hadn’t been shot down with lightning yet. He sure as hell hadn’t seen or heard from any drifters who might reprimand him for breaking any rules.
High in his treetop, Nathan examined the area he’d mentally chosen for his cabin. Night was black as pitch, but he could see as clearly as if it were midday. It would take him the better part of the summer to build his home. He would need tools to cut logs and a horse to drag them. Exactly how he was to obtain them, he hadn’t a clue.
“Are we fancying ourselves a bird up there?”
Nathan nearly jumped out of his skin. He scanned the ground below him and saw Cole Turner.
He was dressed in black, a perfect blend to the night. Nathan suddenly thought of the tales his father used to tell when he was a boy. Frightening stories of bogeymen and headless hunters who roamed the night in search of children who refused to go to bed on time. He felt the hairs along the back of his neck rise.
“What do you want?” Nathan’s voice came out louder than he’d anticipated.
“Why do you want to live here?”
Frustration knotted into a pulsing ache in Nathan’s temples. He had no idea how Cole knew about his plans for a cabin. He didn’t want to know how.
Refusing to be intimidated, Nathan jumped down from the tree. “It’s obvious I’m here for good, wouldn’t you say?”
“That’s a fair observation.” Cole’s tone was mocking, reeking with a humor that soured Nathan’s stomach.
“Then why shouldn’t I build a home?”
“I don’t blame you, I suppose, but why do you want to live here?”
Nathan had no intention of telling him that he liked it here. That if he concentrated very hard he could almost make out the light from Sarah’s bedroom window from up here. It wasn’t any of Cole’s business, although he had the distinct feeling Cole already knew.
Nathan watched Cole slink around the cabin site. Cole was pacing over the area as if measuring it with his feet. He examined every tree in the site, pointed to them as if counting them.
Nathan wondered if it were possible to make material things, things like tools, appear. It couldn’t be possible. He’d been able to transport himself and Sarah to other places, but inademate objects were a whole other matter. It couldn’t possibly—
“Well, that’s your problem.” Cole stopped pacing and faced him. “You have a negative attitude. Nothing’s going to work out for you that way.”
“Get out of my mind.”
“I’m just trying to help.”
“If you wanted to help, you’d get me the tools I need.”
“You already know how to get them yourself.”
Frustration turned to anger. He was sick of Cole’s riddles. And of everything being so difficult. He wanted to hit something, smash it into a thousand unrepairable pieces.
And he wanted that something to be Cole.
Cole closed the distance between them. His gait was easy and confident like a contained fire. “You transported a mortal last night. I should think you could easily manipulate tools. Or an entire house. Why do the work when it could already be done for you?”
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