The door closed, leaving Addie alone with her sorrow once again. She opened the box, pulled out the necklace and read the inscription on the back of the gold heart. “Forever Friends.” Addie smiled. She couldn’t have picked a better gift. Breena was going to love this. Yeah, she’d go to the party, but she honestly didn’t know how she would muster the courage to face them without breaking down, sobbing. She hadn’t seen Breena since Maia’s wedding. One of the last things Breena said to her before leaving was, “Please don’t cry,” and that’s really all Addie had been doing for the past two weeks, on and off. When she’d given Breena a hug goodbye, knowing full well that through the little girl’s empathy gift Breena would receive all the sorrow Addie felt for Cael’s disappearance, Addie let the grief flow into the child. She closed her eyes at the vision. “I am such a horrible person. Poor Breena.” All she’d wanted was to help. Breena blamed herself for Cael’s disappearance because she didn’t catch the bullet Finn shot into Gerry’s shoulder. My God, catch a bullet? Who can do that? Breena could and had managed to stop one of the bullets with her hand, deflecting it into a large limb in a nearby oak tree. The branch split with a thundering snap that reverberated through the forest as part of the tree hit the ground, sending splinters, leaves and dirt into the air. Yeah, Breena had some extraordinary powers. Oh, God. And then I gave her all my sadness on top of her own guilt.
Addie placed her face in her hands.
“I’m a mess, Cael,” she whispered into the stillness of the room, a room so ghostly still since he’d been gone. Her mind and soul possessed a similar emptiness now that she couldn’t hear his thoughts or feel him in her head. “I miss you so, so much. Why can’t you hear me? Why can’t we communicate anymore? I know you’re not … gone from this world. That I know. I do feel that … here.” She placed her hand over her heart as the single tear dripped down her cheek. Tired of crying, tired of the stabbing pain in her heart, she wanted to feel something else, anything else, but the only thing she had was her powers. She held out her hands and felt the heat generate through them and up her arms. She closed her eyes, willing the fire to take control.
Chapter 4
Cael tossed and turned, kicking the thin sheet from his legs before jolting awake. He bolted upright and gasped. He’d never seen anything like that before in a dream. A quick scan of the room reminded him of where he was. At least he remembered that. He hoped he hadn’t screamed aloud. The last thing he needed was Finn barging in to find him squealing like a girl from a damn dream. Sinking back down against the pillow with his arm draped across his forehead, his entire body clammy and dripping with sweat. Cael squeezed his eyes shut. He quickly blinked them back open as he realized he had a hard-on.
The erection pulsing on top of his stomach wasn’t all that abnormal, but the dream that got it that way was. There was a woman, a beautiful woman with long gorgeous brown hair. She wore a sheer white gown that clung to curves in all the right places. Except … except she was on fire. Or was she? Her face had been blurry, unrecognizable … but the fire wasn’t burning her. It was almost as if she controlled the flames.
“Jesus.” What the hell did it mean? Was she someone he was supposed to remember? He didn’t know anyone who could withstand burning when covered in flames. Not even Ristéard could do that.
***
Over the past two weeks, Cael and Finn spent almost every waking hour together. Their lack of passports kept Finn from leaving the island but Cael still wanted to stick close to him, if for no other reason than the fact that he was the only familiar person around and he was in the same predicament. He thought maybe Finn was feeling a little out-of-sorts, insecure, and baffled like he was. Finn had to be bewildered about how they’d arrived in that piece of paradise, while Cael was just perplexed as to why. Every day of the entire past week, Cael had woken up with that same damn dream too. So, the idea of sticking together seemed right; there was nothing else about this strange and awkward quandary that did.
They’d explored the island and done some snorkeling in the beautiful shallow waters around their over-the-water bungalow fit for honeymooners. Cael had to laugh at that. There he was in an elegant cottage in one of the most romantic spots on earth with another guy. Figured. They’d managed to make the best of their situation, windsurfing and even taking some scuba lessons. Cael figured it had to be the most beautiful underwater experience anyone could have. In the evenings, they hit the bars and talked to women, but found that most of the attractive ones were there with someone or worse yet, newlyweds. They must have tried just about every kind of restaurant from the little holes-in-the wall to the fancy schmancy big and expensive ones. Cael liked the small family-owned ones the best. The complex they stayed in had a few nights of events with fire dancers and tons of seafood. Cael sat on the edge of the bed thinking about the guys dancing around throwing fire sticks in the air and remembered the girl in his dream who had been on fire. He’d had that dream five times now. It had to mean something. Being secluded on this island didn’t help in figuring things out, and he’d had about as much seafood and looking for love in all the wrong places that he could handle. He still hadn’t learned much about Finn either. Sure, they talked about their childhoods. Finn told him about his time in the Scots Guards, which he found rather fascinating, but no red flags popped up in his head suggesting the guy had done anything to prompt the scene involving them wrestling for a gun.
Cael wanted this to be over. Could he possibly be getting tired of paradise? No, not really. The island, the ocean, and the sunsets were sensational, the best he’d ever seen. The calm of the tranquil waters in the lagoon and the soothing sound they made as they gently lapped under the bungalow he slept in had trickled into his soul, solacing the shock of his friend’s sudden death. But there was something missing, something nagging at the back of his mind that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Could it be the woman in his dream? The woman on fire but not burning?
Standing in front of the mirror, Cael studied the new tattoo on his arm. Finn and he had gotten a little drunk the other night and Finn came up with the bright idea of getting tattoos. As stupid as it had been, he rather liked it. The woman in his dream haunted him. When he described her to the tattoo artist, the guy actually got it, which surprised the hell out of Cael that he’d been able to articulate and recreate the woman from his dream, considering how inebriated he’d been. He carefully fingered the flames shooting up from her arm. It was still a little sore. She was lovely. She didn’t have a face in his dream, but the one the artist inked was beautiful.
He loved the peaceful nature of the local people but he was just fed up with the hunt for beautiful women Finn insisted on engaging in every night. He shook his head; never in his entire life would he have thought he’d tire of that scene. Finn on the other hand, wanted to explore every bar and restaurant the small island had to offer, claiming this was his only chance to be in a place like this with all the right ingredients for romance, or better stated, hot sex. Shit, Cael couldn’t argue with that but just for one night he wouldn’t mind staying in, relaxing and simply reading a great mystery.
“Get a move on, lad,” Finn yelled before strolling into Cael’s room. “What’s this?” Finn asked when he noticed Cael sitting on the bed in nothing but his swim trunks. “Why aren’t you ready yet?”
“Tired. Tired of the bar scene, I guess. I don’t feel much like cruising again. Most of the women here are already involved. Nobody in their right mind comes to a place like this by themselves, looking to find a perfect mate.”
“You sound like a middle-aged old fogey instead of the twenty-five year old lad you claim to be. Come on, it’s Saturday night. We gotta check out this place I heard about today from some locals. Supposed to have a live band and dancing. Think about it, holding a slender young female in your arms. There’s gotta be some bonny young ladies just waiting for a good-looking guy like you to walk into their lives and sweep them away from …” he splayed his hand through the air a
round him, laughing, “all this gorgeous paradise.”
Cael laughed, then flipped the guy off as he stood and walked to the bathroom. “Okay, okay, I’ll get ready.”
Finn closed the door behind him and Cael yanked a T-shirt over his head, rolling up the sleeves so the material wouldn’t irritate the tat. Deciding that looked a little too much like showing off, he unrolled it enough so that only the mystery woman’s legs showed. Then he moved. “Shit! Not such a good idea.” He pulled the light cotton shirt over his head and grabbed a sleeveless tank instead. He’d just have to go with the muscle shirt for a while until his arm healed. At least the tank didn’t appear to be a calculated sleeve roll-up just to show off a tattoo. Finn had been wearing a sleeveless tank also, which made it even worse because now they looked like the fucking Bobbsey Twins. He shook his head and chuckled to himself. It wasn’t like they’d ever see any of these people again anyway. Besides, he was learning that Finn had a way of taking any situation and turning it into something positive and amusing. He wished he could find something about Finn he didn’t like. The guy was growing on him. Over the past week, they’d become … well, friends, he guessed. Finn was funny, a definite lady’s man, charming them with his deep, rhythmic Scottish lilt, not that any of them ever took him up on his wild offers of sexual ecstasy. Not for the lack of trying, but Finn, like Cael, always returned to the bungalow alone. Cael supposed he hadn’t seriously tried to smooth-talk his way into one of the island’s hot babes’ beds. That was what gnawed at his mind. It just wasn’t like him, but for some reason his stubborn subconscious kept shoving that haunting dream back into his vision. Damn it, he was stuck on the fire woman. Well, he chuckled again, now she was stuck on him.
As he stood and stared at the guy in the mirror, a part of Finn’s statement suddenly caught his attention, the twenty-five-year old lad you claim to be. He did look as if he’d aged a few years. Nothing you’d catch at a quick glance, but for the first time, he considered the fact that maybe, just maybe, more of his memory was gone than he’d realized. Something worth checking out.
A short thirty minutes later, he and Finn sat outside on a deck attached to a bar covered with a thatched roof, a little hole-in-the-wall place where mostly locals hung out. They’d hit almost every major tourist spot on the island and Finn decided that they weren’t going to get laid visiting places that only couples and newlyweds patronized. So here they were, and Finn had his eyes set on the beauty with the long black silky hair sitting next to him. Her eyes the color of black onyx, legs that sang “caress me” and her soft French-Tahitian accent only added to her sultriness. Cael had to admit, Finn had mighty fine taste in women. Somehow, Finn had managed to convince the young lady to join them after her shift.
As the sun slipped into the horizon, Finn’s hand slipped around the petite waist of the girl. She giggled, sipped her gin and tonic through a straw, and ogled Finn. It appeared as if Finn might have finally struck gold. The slit in her short, thin opaque pareo opened, revealing the smooth caramel skin of her upper thigh and Cael had the sudden need to be somewhere else.
He could take a hint. He wasn’t one to interfere with someone else’s good fortune so he got up. “Be back later,” he said as he headed inside to the bar.
Finn nodded and gave him a cocky grin before returning his attention to his night’s prey. That was the way Cael saw it anyway. But this time, he wasn’t entirely sure who preyed upon whom. What did it matter to him? Let them enjoy each other. He smiled and sauntered to the bar, plopped down on the only vacant stool available and motioned to the bartender for a refill. Might as well; it didn’t look like they’d be going anywhere for a while.
Cael glanced around as the chubby, mocha-skinned barkeep set another Mai tai down in front of him. Turned out the band Finn had promised consisted of a piano player singing hits from the 80’s and 90’s. The dance floor was about six feet by eight feet and having more than two couples on it at a time was pushing the limits. But the place was packed inside and out. Only six stools graced the bar, and at least four to six people occupied each of the four oblong, wooden tables.
While Finn remained occupied with the hot petite waitress, Cael motioned to the bartender. “Hey, you got a local newspaper lying around I could take a look at?”
The guy shook his head. “Nope. Got a couple of magazines though, if you want to take a look at those. They’re kinda old and worn, but if you’re just looking for something to keep you busy while your friend puts the moves on my waitress …” He shrugged. “Just sayin’.”
“Ah, he’s harmless. Your waitress is safe.” He hoped. “But sure, I’ll take a magazine, as long as it’s not Cosmo’.”
“Will ‘Road & Travel’ work?” He held up a couple of worn out copies of magazines.
Cael shrugged. “Okay.”
He flipped through the pages, not really interested in cars. With his ability, he never had the need or desire to own one. Travel on the other hand, did spark his interest. Sipping his drink and perusing page after page, wishing for a good book to get lost in instead, he suddenly stopped flipping and almost choked on his drink. A picture of a brand new silver Lexus ES 350 sports car took up an entire page. It wasn’t the car itself that startled him, though it was a beauty, but the caption at the top of the page, which read: “Your new 2013 Lexus is waiting for you!”
Chapter 5
Days began to run together. Addie lost track of how many. She’d slept most of the day today, not unlike all the other days recently. Nowhere she wanted to go. Nothing she wanted to do. Sleep was an escape as long as she didn’t have a nightmare, but lately she dreamed of Cael most times. Unfortunately, he didn’t remember her in any of those dreams. Too much like real life.
Addie watched particles of dust float within the ray of light coming in through the window as the sun began its slow descent into the horizon. Like most things, cleaning house was not a high priority. Glancing at the kitchen, she considered making some coffee when the faint knock on the door jolted her. Addie didn’t know why it surprised her. She’d been expecting another visit from Darcy or Maia. What she hadn’t expected when she opened the door was Aiden. Aiden was Gerry’s best friend growing up and best man at his and Maia’s wedding a few weeks ago. Aiden had come by a couple of days after Cael’s disappearance to check on her, offering coffee and donuts, but Addie had been rude. Very rude, she remembered. He hadn’t been back since.
She sighed. “Why are you here?” Still rude, she thought, but wasn’t sure she cared.
“Came to see how you are. They say you haven’t left here since the wedding.” His voice dripped with the same thickly coated Scottish accent Gerry possessed.
Addie shot him a dagger-riddled glance. “Yes, I have,” she stated defensively. “I went to …” She hesitated and thought about the place where she’d last seen Cael and cried, begging him to hear her thoughts again and come home. Her voice shaky and raw, she tried to finish the sentence, “…to the spot where …”
“The spot where your boyfriend disappeared,” Aiden finished for her.
She turned away from him, trying desperately to keep the well of tears in check at the memory. “Yeah, and what business is it of yours, anyway?” God, Addie, the man’s only trying to be nice.
“None, I guess.” Aiden rubbed his chin, looked around the living room. She followed his eyes as they swept over the furniture, taking in the chairs and marble-topped coffee table. Then his brilliant blue gaze traveled to the all-too-comfortable deep-red leather sofa where she and Cael enjoyed many pleasant conversations as well as some steamy sexual encounters while taking in the heat from the large rustic fireplace. Aiden meandered his way through the entry, his gaze lingering on the massive window spanning the entire wall, and the breathtaking view of the ocean. His eyes glanced briefly up the stairs before settling back on hers. “This is a nice place you have. I can see why you might want to hole up here and hide for a while.”
“I’m not hiding,” she shot back at him
, not meaning to sound so curt. Lowering her voice a tad she added, “I’m … adjusting.”
He nodded. “Aye, I see that you are.” He reached out, took a strand of her hair that hung annoyingly in her face between his thumb and finger, slid them to the end. She flinched at the gentle gesture. “You look thin. When did you eat last?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, I ate …” she had to think about that. When did she last eat? “Um … recently.” Addie frowned, pissed that she couldn’t think of a good reason not to be nice to him. He was only trying to help.
He nodded again. “I, uh … was on my way home from Manny’s grocery store. I saw the smoke from the chimney and thought I’d stop in. I have a couple of steaks in the car. I wouldn’t mind sharing … if you want.”
Her stomach grumbled at the mention of the steaks and she placed her hand over the traitorous organ in an attempt to cover up the rumble. Maybe she was hungry, but having Aiden in for dinner was not going to happen. She was certain to find something in the kitchen to fix. Maybe. There had to be some leftovers from the last time Maia brought her something to eat.
Aiden grinned at her. “Your stomach seems to like the idea of food.”
Something about Aiden tickled her. He always seemed a little shy, but not, if that made any sense. He was full of charm but unpretentious. That was it. He was pretty hot for an older guy too. Okay, he wasn’t that old and he wasn’t as gorgeous as Cael. Addie caught herself comparing the two; well, maybe, but in a different way. Her mind rambled on with the strangest thoughts lately. It must be because she hadn’t been taking very good care of herself.
Aiden swiped his hand through his shoulder-length dark hair similar to the way Cael always did. Addie shook her head. “No. I …” she glanced at the kitchen. “I have dinner. I ... I’m sure of it.” Why was she having such a hard time talking? “I mean, I do. I do have dinner … already.”
A Secret Fate Page 4