“We need to talk.”
“I’ve got nothing to say to you,” Cael said, shoving his way past the man who used to be his father as he walked out of the bar.
The estranged man followed him. “You don’t need to say anything. Just listen.”
Cael continued to walk, trying hard not to just dematerialize away. He wished he knew whether or not he’d seen his dad in the past five years. That little bit of knowledge would be helpful. But he figured by the old man’s reaction and the fact that he hadn’t said anything when Cael mentioned the twenty years, if was pretty safe to conclude what the answer was.
“Please, son.”
“Don’t call me that! You have no right to call me that. There are only two men in this world who’ve ever earned the right to call me that. One is sitting inside and the other one is dead.”
“Yes, I heard about Ristéard. I’m sorry. He was a good man.”
Cael was surprised that this stranger standing in front of him, this man he resembled so closely yet hoped to God he was nothing like, knew he meant Ristéard. “What do you know about it?”
“I’ve been able to stay informed. Ristéard and I were … friends.”
“Then you deserted him as well.”
“No. It wasn’t like that. There are things you don’t know, things you don’t understand, things I need to tell you.”
“There’s nothing in this world that you could ever say to me that I’d be interested in hearing. So go back to whatever hole you crawled out of and leave me the fuck alone.” At that, Cael looked around the area for any possible witnesses and dematerialized, proud of the fact that he could. He willed himself back to Bart’s place to … well, calling it what it was, sulk.
Now he had one more thing to brood about. What was his father doing in Whisper Cape? And why now after all these years would he seek Cael out? Maybe you should have stayed and listened if you were really that curious, he chastised himself. Except he didn’t want to give the guy the time of day, let alone listen to what he had to say. The jackass left him and his mother twenty years ago. Fathers weren’t supposed to leave.
Cael had left the bar because … because he, Christ, he didn’t know why. He didn’t like watching Addison dancing with Aiden, wishing he’d been the one holding her, that’s for sure. Then running into his father like that? Shit. He wanted another beer and opened the fridge to find his uncle’s favorite ale. Fisting the neck of a Sam Adams, he twisted off the cap, plopped down on the sofa, and took a much-needed—in his mind—long swig. The deep golden brew was light and summery, a complete contrast to the Guinness he’d had at the bar.
His uncle had lived here in Whisper Cape ever since he could remember. Cael came here as a child, visiting his uncle and his aunt. Bart had found true love with Aunt Jewel, another sweet and wonderful person Cael was shocked to learn had passed away during the past five years. Bart and Jewel never had any kids. Cael knew the story. Jewel had been a victim of molestation for years, the perpetrator a neighborhood teen trusted by her parents to babysit her and her younger sister. A pregnancy resulted when she was only thirteen years old and when she told the boy, he took care of the problem as well as any possible future occurrences. Using an arrow from his dad’s crossbow that had been hanging on the wall for decoration, the asswipe jabbed Jewel in the abdomen, killing the baby and almost killing her. She survived, but was forever barren.
Bart always seemed okay with the fact that she couldn’t give him a son or a daughter. He loved her anyway. He said God had spared his Jewel for him and she’d always been enough for him to love and cherish. They’d talked about adopting, but never got around to it. They were happy enough with just each other.
Seeing Addison dancing with Aiden put him into a wretched mood. He missed Stefan. He thought of how he’d first felt about his friend’s relationship with Claire. They’d been best buds most of their lives and when Stefan fell head over buckets for Claire, Cael remembered feeling a bit left out. That was, until he’d gotten to know her better. Then the three of them hung out together all the time. True, Cael had often felt like a third wheel, but Claire was always quick to welcome him. She was one of a kind. Beautiful, smart, quick-witted … the kind of woman he might consider for himself. Someday. That wasn’t something he saw in his immediate future though. He’d always thought his work was too dangerous to even consider getting wrapped up in any type of relationship. One-night stands had always been his routine in the past. The problem was he didn’t know what his choices had been over the past five years. He did remember that he’d never cared much about whether or not he’d had someone significant in his life, someone to go home to, someone to plan a future with. Someone to … ah hell. Why was he thinking along these lines?
He began to strip off his clothes, feeling exhausted from all the damn emotion. The realization of losing four people he cared so much about—four people who were basically the center of his universe—all in the span of a couple of weeks was just too much to bear. He tossed his shirt in a basket along with some other clothes he needed to wash and unbuckled his pants. Stripping down to his boxers, he slid under the covers of the small bed in his uncle’s home. He wondered if he had a bed of his own, a home somewhere, and if so, where exactly that might be. He didn’t know how long it would take to get over the shock of his friends’ deaths. It’d already been a week since he’d learned everything about Ristéard. But wait. What exactly had he learned about Ristéard? Only that he was dead and who’d murdered him. What happened to Eidolon? His mother never said. Something to question her about, tomorrow, if he could manage to pull himself out of his fucking depression.
He thought of Addison’s sexy smile again, deciding she was far more pleasant to think about than death, even if she was someone else’s lover. He wrapped his arms across his chest, grabbing onto his own shoulders in a sort of hug and blinked the wetness from his eyes, realizing for the first time in his life that … he was lonely.
***
Sitting across from Bart, Addie picked up her beer and took a quick sip. Bart’s eyes held steady on her face, making her feel uncomfortable. “What?” she asked, knowing full well what he was thinking … that she was cheating on Cael. But she wasn’t. Aiden was only being nice to her. She couldn’t just be rude to him. Sure, she knew he cared for her more than she’d like him to, but he was easy to talk to and she enjoyed his company.
“I didn’t say anything.” Bart raised his eyebrows and held up his hands defensively, the sleeves of his black shirt rolled up, exposing the leather bracelet he wore around his wrist.
“But I know what you’re thinking.”
“What am I thinking?”
“You think I have a thing going with Aiden.”
“Do you?”
“No!” she said quickly but then sighed. “He’s just nice to me. He’s been coming over to the house keeping me company while …”
“While the cat’s away…” Bart interjected.
“Stop it. Please. Aiden is harmless,” she said, toying with the diamond ring on her left hand, twisting it around and around her finger.
“That’s Cael’s ring you’re playing with, not Aiden’s. Twistin’ it like that isn’t going to make it disappear.”
She glanced up at him. “I don’t want it to disappear.”
“No? Seems to me you should. After all, being engaged to a man who doesn’t even remember who you are has to be frustrating.”
“You don’t think Cael saw the ring, do you?” Bart shrugged. “Maybe I should take it off. I thought about it earlier in the bathroom. I hope he didn’t see it and think … oh God, and think I’m engaged to someone else.”
“Dancing with Aiden probably didn’t help.”
“What was I supposed to do? The man grabbed me and started dancing. I didn’t want to make a scene.”
“Addie.” Bart cleared his throat. “I know this is none of my business, but I do know for a fact that Aiden has been smitten with you from the very beginning.”<
br />
“Why do you think that?”
“Something with his eyes. Gerry told me Aiden’s eyes turn a deep royal blue whenever he becomes besotted with a girl. It’s some weird side effect of Aiden’s ability that’s shown up every time Gerry’s witnessed him falling for a new woman and he said he sees it when Aiden looks at you.”
Addie swallowed. Aiden’s eyes had turned dark blue several times. God, what was she going to do? She needed to get her head out of the clouds and tell Cael who she was, that’s what she needed to do. But then, how would she ever know if he was with her because he wanted to be or if it was out of a sense of obligation, thinking it was expected of him? He was that type of person too. He’d do what was expected of him. Well, if she couldn’t tell him about their relationship, she definitely needed to spend less time around Aiden and more time around Cael so maybe he’d rediscover his love for her. But how? Cael seemed to be hiding away with grief as much as she had been.
“Bart?”
“Yeah?”
“Where did Cael go?”
“Home, I expect.”
“Home?”
“Well, his temporary home at my place. He downed his beer, said he was sorry for bailing on me and walked to the door. I tried to get him to stay, but he said he was tired.” Bart shook his head. “The boy’s hurting. He’s lost his best friend, in his mind only recently, and then a few days later, he learns his father figure and his aunt are also gone. You have to understand, to Cael, these things have only just occurred. It’s got to be a lot to absorb.”
Addie nodded. “What should I do?”
“I’m no expert, but I believe he needs some tender loving care. Cael is usually a strong individual. He’s seen some awful stuff as a cop. He ought to be able to handle the deaths better than he is. Even though he did love them all, it seems to me there might be a bit more going on with him than just the passing of people he cares about.”
“What do you think that is?”
Bart shook his head. “Don’t know.”
Addie didn’t know what to say to that.
“You should try to find out.” When she blinked at him, he added. “I know everyone thinks it best if Cael rediscovers his love for you on his own, but nobody said you couldn’t give him a little nudge.”
“A nudge?”
“Don’t sit around waiting for him to come to you. Put yourself out there, get in his way. That’s all I’m sayin’.” He finished off the rest of his beer and stood. “Now, it’s time for me to go home.”
“Do you need a ride?”
“Yeah, that’d be nice. Thanks.”
Chapter 10
After driving Bart home and actually visualizing Cael inside the little cottage possibly sleeping … without her, Addie wanted to scream. It took every ounce of control she could muster not to run into that house and try to shake his memory back into his brain. That’s what she wanted to do, like that was even possible. Now she paced in front of the fireplace back at the beach house, the same fireplace where she once tried to burn the sacred book. She frowned remembering how the flames only danced around it, never even singeing one page of the thing. Why was it that somethings just couldn’t be damaged? Relationships, on the other hand could be severed in the blink of an eye. Where was the justice in that?
Had Aiden’s little trick helped or hindered the possibility of getting Cael to pursue her? Wait … why did she have to wait for Cael to pursue her? Bart had given her some pretty good advice. It was up to her to start something and that’s what she’d do. She’d ask him to dinner. This was not the middle ages, after all. Women asked men out all the time. Asking him didn’t mean she had to tell him anything. She could pretend to try to get to know him again, couldn’t she?
God, after the conversation with Bart, Addie couldn’t sit still let alone go to bed. All she could think about was Cael possibly having seen the ring and then watching her dance with Aiden. She grabbed her jacket and shrugged it on. Stepping out onto the blanket of wet grass spanning the yard from the door to the edge of the archway, she headed down the gradient that lead to the soft, white sandy beach to the spot where Cael first told her about the Sectorium. The spot where they suddenly couldn’t keep their hands off each other. The spot that almost led to x-rated sex on the beach. Thank God for teleportation.
A blanket of clouds covered half the sky and swallowed most of the moon but she smiled at the sight of the scattering of stars to the south. She found their brilliance mesmerizing as she considered whether the large bright spot to the left of the bluish star could be Saturn. She’d studied the constellations briefly during her courses in college, enough to know Saturn was a late or earlier riser, depending on which way you looked at things, usually making its appearance around one thirty in the morning. Focusing back on the ocean before her, she realized she’d walked out way beyond where the water had been earlier in the day. The tide was out, adding about another two hundred yards or so to the sandy beach, reminding her of the way a tsunami pulled all the water out into the ocean to make its enormous wave. She knew of course, it was because this stretch of the Oregon coast was so shallow, but it was an eerie feeling, nonetheless. She couldn’t help but rub her hands up and down her arms as she glanced around thinking about the way the earth and the moon reacted to each other. Like magnets, they pulled each other, causing this weird sensation of standing in the middle of the ocean with no water. She realized what it must have felt like when Moses parted the Red Sea, the fear of the water coming back at any moment. Magnets, she thought again. The moon and the earth were attracted to each other the same way some people were. Were she and Cael like magnets? Would they always come back to each other after being separated? She had to believe there was some centrifugal force, or gravitational pull at play that separated them and would eventually pull them back together. If it could only be that simple.
As Addie had that thought, a sudden and immense pain struck the back of her head. She reached back to rub the spot not comprehending exactly what had happened as the earth, the stars and the sandy beach all became nothing but blackness.
***
Tossing and turning in the small twin-sized bed in an attempt to keep his feet from hanging over the end, Cael landed face down on the twisted yarns of the beige and light brown carpet. “Shit.” He pushed himself up on all fours and glanced up at the small bed. No point getting back into it. He couldn’t sleep, not with all the drama being tossed around in his brain like a garden salad. What was his father doing in Whisper Cape and did his mother know he was here? Why did he even care? That was the bigger question.
Eric Sheridan had left Cael and his mother when Cael was only ten years old. He remembered the day like it was yesterday though, how his mother came into his room, her eyes red from crying. She sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to explain a subject that was impossible for a ten-year-old boy to grasp, which had him choking back the bile collecting at the base of his throat. Later, he sat on the floor of his room, his back against the wall, his knees bent up in front of him, trying hard to suppress the tears as they flowed from his eyes. Finally, he gave into the uncontrollable sobs and laid his head on top of his arms.
A few minutes later, his father came in to tell him it was for the best, that he still loved him but he couldn’t stay. He promised he wouldn’t ever forget him and he would always be in his life. Lies, all lies. Sure, in the beginning he’d come around for his birthday, but later he just mailed the fucking gift. Each year the present found its way into the trash, unopened.
The guy had a hell of a nerve coming into his life now, saying he needed to talk to him, the same man who left because he couldn’t handle the pressures of having a wife who could instantly disappear on him and a son who would be able to do the same one day. Well, wasn’t that just dandy, Dad? As if Cael had any choice in what his abilities would be. He hadn’t even come into his powers yet and the man didn’t have the guts to stick around long enough to see if he would actually develop any abilities
. Now he was here and wanted to talk. What the fuck about?
Cael tugged on some jeans and shrugged into a hooded sweatshirt. He needed to think. He quietly made his way past Bart’s bedroom, heard his uncle’s soft snores. Good. Glad he made it home without Cael’s help. He’d worried a little about that, considering they’d been drinking and Bart had been relying on Cael’s mode of transportation to get him home safely. He wondered who’d given him a ride. He shouldn’t have left him like that, but man, Cael just couldn’t sit there any longer watching that beautiful woman dance with her boyfriend or possibly her husband. Cael hadn’t a clue what type of relationship they had, but it was a good thing he’d gotten up when he did. Otherwise, a confrontation with his old man could have occurred in front of everyone there, something nobody needed to witness, not even Bart.
Cael dematerialized and reappeared somewhere close to the cliffs on a quiet street with a few houses positioned toward the ocean with what Cael considered spectacular views. It was a little nippy and he tugged the hood of the sweatshirt over his head to keep his ears warm.
He turned to cut across the yard in front of one of the homes to get a closer view of the water and so he could walk along the cliff and think. When headlights flashed across the road, he looked up and heard the screeching sound of tires peeling off the road, bulleting the car out of sight. Man, someone was in a hurry. He glanced up at the house in front of him. He liked the placement of it, the way it faced the span of grass leading up to some sort of cove. The house was gorgeous, with wall-sized windows both upstairs and down, facing the ocean and the cove. As he approached the small inlet, he thought he’d like to have a place like that. He stopped at the edge of the cliff and studied the little area. Nature’s way of forming remarkable structures always amazed him as he eyed the archway above the water sloshing in and out. He tilted his head and studied the formation of rocks through the opening of the archway. When looked upon at the right angle, it appeared to form the shape of an angel or a ghost, and somehow seemed magical, almost making him a believer in those rumors of voices whispering in the wind. He wished he had someone to share this moment with.
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