“Why do you think I’m here? She’s the one thing I can’t have.” I shouldn’t have said that much.
“Yep. You’re a dumbass.” Andrew shook his head and turned up his beer. “That girl would have swooned in your arms. You might have night vision, but your regular vision needs checking.”
“So what do you propose I do?” I picked up a few of the cans and aimed them at the open dumpster. “You know that she doesn’t want me. I’ve told you that much, and obviously a whole lot more.”
Andrew smiled with a little hint of triumph on his face. He simply laid out the plan. “Don’t do anything. Let her come to you. She always does.”
* * * *
Andrew was right, and I hated him for it.
I wanted her.
Still.
After all this time, I was just as in love with Allie Kinsley—Night—whatever. Her last name never mattered. In fact, her first name never mattered. It was her soul I couldn’t free myself from.
She didn’t know she was my wife. The connection I felt to her had never been reciprocated. If she could have been free of me, she would have done anything. That was why I had to get away. I had to flee from the person I became when I was with her.
I was Colby Kinsley, and I was sick of being there, alone, without anyone to share the love I felt. I couldn’t even go home at Christmas. Or at least into the house. I’d made it as far as the gate. About a half mile from the iron entrance, I waited in hopes that there would be some huge sign from God that I was supposed to go in—that I was wanted and needed there.
The crescent moon hung low in the sky.
A shooting star crossed over it.
A song that played the first night I’d realized I’d been in love with Allie for more than a hundred years had played on the radio.
But I was terrified of the rejection I might feel when she gave me the same vacant stare as always.
I had seen many crescent moons, many shooting stars, and heard that song more than a thousand times. I couldn’t go back. Undoing all I’d worked so hard to build even in that first year formed a brick of dread in the bottom of my stomach.
I had seen many lifetimes and so far, none had worked out in our favor.
I couldn’t hurt anymore.
I left that night knowing I was never going back there.
I wanted away from everything Allie.
But my so-called friend seemed to think he knew what was best for me.
So I did what he said.
I did nothing.
A few days later, I was in the library on the fourth floor with my laptop doing research on the effects of genetic altering in fetuses when something told me to look up.
Standing in front of me was Allie.
I stared blankly at her.
Should I talk to her? Should I smile? Should I stand up and go to her? Should I greet her? Why was it so hard to communicate with her after all this time?
She turned and left. I wondered what had been going through her mind, because for the whole ten seconds she had been standing in front of me, I had been thinking so hard about what I should do that I couldn’t catch any of her thoughts.
The cursor on my laptop screen blinked expectantly. There was no way I would be able to take notes, study, or focus. I packed my laptop in its case and put the books back that I had taken from the shelf.
The next day, I found a spot under a tree beside the pond on the far side of the campus to sit and think. Being outside close to nature always brought a certain clarity to my chaotic thoughts. Especially where Allie was concerned.
After my heart stopped hammering and my brain could carry a train of thought, I used the online school library to research my thesis. With the tree against my back, I took a break from researching. On the other side of the pond, thinking a lot like me about focusing and the outdoors, stood Allie.
When she saw me sitting across from her, she thought, Shit.
I couldn’t help but smile. It had been a very long time since I’d really smiled. I looked back down at my books and laptop as if her presence didn’t bother me in the slightest. I sneaked a peek.
She sat down.
Hmmm. She hadn’t left. That was a change.
I’m not going to leave every place I go just because he’s there, she thought. This is my school, too. I have just as much right to be here as he does. So I’m going to plant my butt right here and make him leave if he’s uncomfortable.
She wore a long flowing skirt and a tank top with a belt around the waist. She had spread out her skirt and sat on it.
We sat across from each other for more than an hour. She jotted notes, and I got absolutely nothing accomplished other than reflecting on how much she had changed. I didn’t hear bratty self-centered thoughts. She didn’t seem to be bothered by me being near as much as I was bothered by her presence.
I couldn’t have read a book if it killed me.
She could have been within a mile radius of me and that would have been too close.
I had wondered why for the first few days of fall classes that I was suddenly so keyed up and nervous. I had a horrible time concentrating on getting signups for the initiations finished, and then the room assignments were all out of whack because all I could do was suddenly have more thoughts of Allie.
Thoughts that I had put away for a long time.
They were still there, but I had them in their little box.
They had fit quite nicely in there too, until she came along and messed it all up. By showing up, she’d taken the lid off and strewn our past all over my perfect little world.
Allie’s thoughts were miraculously on her studies. She had always been able to focus and function better than I had. In past lives, her thought processes were different than those of any other human.
Now was no different.
I finally shoved my laptop into a bag and used a book to hide behind.
He’s staring at me. She put her books aside. I feel it.
Her dark brown hair was wispy and blowing into her face with the breeze. She pushed it behind her ears. The wind kept freeing it from behind her cute little ears a few times more times, so she pulled it up with an elastic band.
I dropped my book too low as I watched her.
Allie stared straight at me as her slender arms finished the last twist of her hair.
She, without any further notice, picked up her books and gathered the rest of her things and left.
She had always been so beautiful. That hadn’t changed.
I had changed.
I had been mean to her, degrading even. The first time I had seen her in years, and I had been an ass.
She’d always called me an ass. Maybe I hadn’t changed much.
If she wasn’t ready to talk to me then there was no sense in chasing her to apologize. When she was ready to get her spunk back and tell me off the way she used to when I was being pigheaded, if she ever did, then I would know it was time. Right now she didn’t care about me at all or she would have let me have it full force.
Chapter 5
After a few more completely coincidental run-ins with Allie on this impossibly large campus, the next weekend came. Andrew had invited the same crowd to a party only this time the party was not on campus. He had rented the lake area nearby so that we could be outside.
I hadn’t completely dumped the blonde that Allie had seen me with at the first party, but I wasn’t far from it. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to her when the party got under way, but I would before the night was over. She was nice. We hadn’t kissed.
I hadn’t kissed anyone other than Allie.
Ever.
Besides the times Grace had forced me into it.
Allie, Nicki, and Lacee pulled up in the parking lot.
I waited in a crowd near the boat dock with a red cup in my hand.
Allie didn’t look around. She didn’t seem nervous or appear to be searching for anyone.
I’m here to have fun. If I run into Cole, I’ll be nice and that’s that, she thought.
Well, she didn’t hate me.
That was a plus.
The thing that was not a plus was the fact that a guy with blond hair and muscles everywhere slinked up to Allie and slipped his grimy arm around her waist within a few seconds of her arrival.
Rage drew a red curtain over my vision. I completely interrupted the girl informing me of her idea for a party with paid entry where all the proceeds would go to the nearby family who lost their house to a fire.
I could think of nothing other than walking over the man and smashing his face into the tree that stood behind them.
“Excuse me.” I stepped between two people standing in front of me. I zigzagged through the people around us.
“You okay, buddy?” Andrew slipped up beside me on my left. He had been beside in the crowd with me. Damn busybody. He was worse than a girl.
“Either I’m leaving or she’s leaving,” I said in a set tone.
“No, bro. You need to calm down. She’s here. That’s the first step. Let her deal with punks like that herself. She’s smarter than most of these girls. I’ve gotten to know her pretty well.”
“I can’t watch another man grope her all night.” Nausea clamped down on me.
“Look, she might not have come here to meet that guy.” Andrew nodded to them. “He might just be a—” Andrew paused when he saw the way the guy was looking at Allie “—okay, so maybe he’s not just a friend, but you have got to be patient.”
“I’m about to rip him from limb to limb.”
Andrew gripped my arm.
The force didn’t hold me back, but the moral support did.
Andrew leaned in. “No. You’ve had so much experience in this, you should know that Allie will come to you no matter what. Back off. Unless that guy appears to be a creep and does something she disapproves of, you are going to stand here and be the calm and collected Cole that everyone expects you to be.”
So far Allie was smiling. No one had made her uncomfortable.
Andrew was right.
I didn’t need to fly off the handle in front of everyone.
Back down, I told myself.
My instincts screamed at me to do exactly the opposite.
I remembered why I left our home when I was seventeen—again. This scenario poured salt into a wound that I thought had long since healed. Seeing Allie with another man, even in a social setting, was difficult for me.
Andrew took my empty cup, handed me a beer, and stayed close.
I took a long draw off it as I stared at Allie. I was far enough away that she wouldn’t see me unless she searched for me.
Discretion had never been one of my strong points. At least, when it came to Allie.
I wouldn’t hide.
“Come on.” I nodded in Allie’s direction so I could filter through the thoughts of the guy standing beside her.
Who was this guy? Was he an acquaintance? Had she just met up with him here? Had she been seeing him for some time? It had been a matter of days, and I was obsessing again. I had been delusional to think that getting away from her would be cut and dry.
I finally was able to tune into Allie’s creepy date.
What a rack. He leaned back and took a sly glance at her backside. What I wouldn’t do to get my hands on that—
I shuddered before the rest of his thoughts made it into the central processing part of my brain. That shudder was not a normal shudder of disgust.
I was going to shift if I didn’t get control of myself soon. I willed myself to stay beside Andrew. At least he was quiet
It made concentrating easier.
Deep, slow breaths.
Focus on something else.
Thoughts of the past snaked through my mind. One day in the late 1800s, I had come upon Allie and one of her suitors in the woods and saved her from his wandering hands and disrespectful notions. Okay, that memory was not remotely helpful, but it was there eating at me. I hoped it was not indicative of what would happen that evening. I had never had the power of premonition on my side.
The guy left Allie’s side and then came back shortly with a bottle in his hand.
Surely, she wouldn’t take it.
She took it and a short swig.
It won’t be long now. I’ll have those beautiful legs wrapped—
My shivering increased.
Did I give in to the pull and shift, or did I just go put the stupid moron out of my misery?
The solution should have been simple, but I was never presented with easy cut-and-dry problems like the rest of the world. I had to be different.
New loud music blared in my ears saving me from anymore of the creep’s moronic thoughts. They became garbled, detached notes instead of verbal phonics.
I stepped back into the dark, just in case.
Andrew stood watch.
“Get it together. You don’t want to do that here.” Andrew glanced sidelong into the woods.
I stepped even farther into the foliage. “If something happens, and I have to go for a few minutes, will you watch over her?”
“Nothing is going to happen.” Andrew was more sure of me, than I was myself.
Allie and her two very pretty new friends had gained a crowd of guys around them now.
It was more than excruciating to watch.
No one would ever understand how trying it was to remember like it was yesterday, your wife lying in your bed holding you, and then, what felt like the next day, she was out of your life. Whether I took the next breath or not, and how I took that breath, if I got to take it, solely depended on her actions, once again, just like no time had passed.
I held my breath.
Allie’s companion’s hands had begun to wander a bit.
When I resumed each breath, I was dizzy from lack of oxygen. After an hour of watching Allie and seeing her down at least two or three mixed drinks, she began to get tipsy. And as the seconds rolled by, she became wobbly.
I would eventually have to step in.
When she started laughing loudly and dancing, that was my cue. She tripped on a rock and fell. She reached for whoever was the closest and it happened to be the creep I had been worried about the whole night.
When Allie grabbed his arms he came down to the ground with her.
Now’s my chance, he thought.
His hand slid up her stomach and his fingers almost crested Allie’s breast as his lips came toward her.
This isn’t fun anymore. Why is this guy kissing me? Get off me. She shoved him, but he pressed her down. No, no, no!
I darted to Allie and tossed the guy off her as if he were a wet rag.
Allie’s eyes widen as she struggled to sit up.
“It’s time to go.” I reached for her as my muscles quaked.
“You can’t tell me what to do anymore!” Allie’s speech was slurred.
I hauled her to her feet, not remotely moved by her show of insolence.
I pulled her to me and narrowed my gaze into hers. “You’re way too blitzed. It’s time to go home.”
She jerked her arm away from me and turned to wobble off. “You don’t want me anymore. If I get too blitzed and sleep with every guy here, you can’t stop me. Mind your own business.”
“You are my business!” I tried to catch some piece of clothing, if not her hair to drag her out of there if she didn’t consent.
My girlfriend for all intents and purposes, Kira, had just arrived at the party and rushed to my side to see what the fuss was about. She impatiently cleared her throat.
“She’s right, Cole,” Kira said. “You shouldn’t try to save every stray you find.”
Allie spun around and tripped, but steadied herself. “If you know what’s best for you, you will back up off him, right now.”
Kira stiffened her jaw and looked Allie over as if Kira were somehow
superior in stature. “Dear, you are in no condition to be threatening anyone. Besides, you are nothing to him.”
Allie turned to me and smiled a malicious smile.
“Oh, really? Well, why don’t you just ask him who I am. Go ahead.” Allie looked me directly into my eyes.
“Cole? What is she talking about?” Kira asked impatiently as if this was ruining all her fun.
“Don’t do this. Not here. We need to talk in private.” I tried to take her arm, but she jerked away. I wasn’t sure exactly what she thought she knew.
Allie stepped nose to nose with me. Then she said loud enough for the whole party to hear, “I’m Allie Kinsley. His wife.”
Now we had an audience. And I had no response. How the hell did she know? Had she remembered? Or had someone told her?
“I think you’ve had about enough.” I didn’t care who heard anymore. “And since when did you start drinking?”
The crowd gathered around us.
“You’ve missed three birthdays and three Christmases, you idiot! How would you know anything about me?” she said.
I did a quick calculation and realized she was right, but I couldn’t be concerned with holidays. Allie might start blabbing more than anyone needed to know about us.
“Seriously, Allie, we need to go.” I pulled her toward my car. “We can’t do this here.”
“Well, you know what? It’s not all about you anymore,” Allie said.
I scooped her up and carried her to the parking area. I had to get her out of there before she blurted out anymore to the rest of the school. I had to act as if she was just someone drunk and spewing off at the mouth.
“I’m not going with you,” she said.
“You sort of don’t have a choice.” I couldn’t help but grin at her.
She clutched a handful of my shirt and had the sweetest, most helpless look on her face. How could I have ever left her?
Someone tapped me on the shoulder.
“She obviously doesn’t want to go with you, Kinsley.” It was the guy whose explicit thoughts I’d had to put up with all evening. “Why don’t you let the girl have a little fun?”
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