A Step Away (The Wanderer Book 2)

by Jocelyn Stover

  “I remember being lowered from Kade’s horse and hands digging through my hair, searching my scalp, then a warm shooting sensation racing through my body, gone as quickly as it started.”

  “Like lightening through the veins, is how I’ve heard it described before,” Hal says.

  I suck in a breath. “Son of a bitch!”

  “What?” Hal asks.

  “I knew that kiss was too good to be true,” I answer. I was thinking back to that day on my porch when I’d finally expressed my feelings for Kade. We had argued and then he’d kissed me. Hot electricity had coursed through my blood but I hadn’t put two and two together. I hadn’t realized the sensation was exactly the same as when he’d healed my head in the desert.

  “Kiss?” Hal repeats seconds before bursting into laughter. “Did it rock your world, sweetheart?”

  “Shut up,” I tell him, slouching down in my seat. Leaning back against the head rest I close my eyes, giving my brain a break from the information overload. My world has been turned on its head again in the last two days, leaving me to speculate as to what’s real and what’s not. The line becomes more blurred every day. Having to traverse both sides is exhausting and I assume it will only get worse.

  The truck comes to a stop and I open my eyes. Noticing we’ve parked, I unbuckle my seat belt and face Hal, ready to ask the question on my heart, the one I have to ask before I can move on.

  “Hal? Why didn’t Kade take this assignment?”

  “Like I told you, I didn’t give him the chance. After that stunt he pulled, making you immortal, Adil was only too happy to give it to me when I petitioned him privately.” His deep brown eyes bleed into mine begging me to drop the subject.

  “We’re here.”

  I survey the high end strip mall we’ve parked next to as I step out of the car. Eyebrows raised I glance at Hal and ask, “And where is here exactly?”

  Rolling his eyes and grabbing me by the hand, Hal leads me to one of the vacant storefronts. I peer inside while he fishes a set of keys out of his pocket. Swiftly unlocking the door he ushers me inside before I can protest. It takes me a moment to recognize the place, what with the layer of dust and white sheets covering the equipment.

  “This is a bakery,” I blurt out, stating the obvious.

  “Yes, it is,” Hal acknowledges, trying hard to keep a straight face when I stare at him dumbstruck.

  “What are we supposed to do here?”

  “We bake.”

  Oh thank you Captain Obvious, I think to myself. Convinced he must be joking, I start looking about, searching for a hidden button or lever - anything that might unlock a hidden door. This place has got to be a façade hiding some underground safe-house.

  “What are you doing?” Hal asks, curious.

  “Trying to figure out where the entrance is hidden.”

  “What entrance? Gwen, this is a bakery. It also happens to be an excellent cover.”

  “Really, how so?” I ask, halting my search.

  “For starters, there won’t be a whole bunch of employees I’ll have to constantly be suspicious of and monitor. You and I can run this place by ourselves. Given the size and layout, security and surveillance will also be easy to manage, and differentiating sinister patrons from those here for their afternoon sugar fix will be a breeze,” he explains.

  “There’s only one problem,” I say, resting a hand on the dingy counter top.

  “Oh, what’s that?”

  “I don’t know how to cook, let alone bake!” I exclaim.

  Rolling laughter echoes around the room. “Fine. I’ll bake, you can decorate. Now give me a hand,” he says as he begins to uncover the tables and chairs.

  Somewhere between dusting and mopping I realize I’m enjoying myself. I feel fantastic, better than I have in months, even considering the physical exhaustion from the manual labor. There’s something gratifying about working with your hands, I think. Smiling, I glance up from my task to catch Hal’s reflection in the store front window.

  “The furniture will have to be replaced,” I tell him, turning around and holding up a warped chair.

  “Most of the laminate is peeling off the table tops and counters as well,” Hal adds. “Thankfully the majority of the equipment seems to be in working order.”

  I nod and spare a moment to look at the industrial size mixer he’s busy inspecting.

  “A remodel is definitely in order, so be glad I’m loaded.” He winks, flashing me that devastatingly sexy grin of his. Seriously, how is this guy single? I wonder for the millionth time. Then I have a premonition: I’m still standing here in the bakery but it’s spotless and filled with customers. The line to get inside wraps around the building and while I stand at the register ringing up customers, Hal is handing out free samples at the counter and is surrounded by enamored women.

  “Oh shit!” tumbles out of my mouth.

  “What?” Hal looks up curiously.

  “Working here with you and that better-than-sex smile of yours is going to be a nightmare.” I roll my eyes, dreading the next few decades and all the lusty women who’ll be cluttering up our shop trying to snag a piece of Hal.

  “I told you it’d be easy to tell the serious patrons from the ones with ulterior motives. It’s the perfect cover,” he says.

  “Oh, they’re all going to have ulterior motives,” I shoot back.

  “But not sinister ones,” he states and grins again. “So what should we call the shop?”

  Wiping my brow, I pause to consider his question. I haven’t the foggiest idea. I play a few word games in my head trying to come up with something catchy but I fail miserably.

  “I don’t have a clue,” I admit. “Can’t we just call it Hal’s Goods?” I tease, knowing his personal goods are going to be what draws the crowd, not my mediocre baking skills.

  “No, but it’s a step up from Zafir’s suggestion.”

  “Oh really, what did he want to call it?” I question.

  “Frosted Knobs,” Hal replies.

  I should have known, I think to myself. Leave it to Z not to contribute anything useful.

  “How about Iced?” I propose after running through the lists of things that can be made in a bakery. It would certainly paint the more classic picture of cookies and cakes. I might actually be able to make cookies, with enough practice, that is.

  “Yes, I think that will work splendidly,” he tells me. Pulling out a sketch pad, Hal draws the layout of the shop and we dive right into ideas for the remodel. Hal is a fantastic artist and I half wonder if there’s anything he can’t do well. The task of getting this place up and running again feels daunting. It’s certainly not something we will be able to accomplish over night, but I’m looking forward to it. After months of being idle I think I’m going to enjoy bossing people around for awhile. I still have my reservations about the actual baking, but supervising an array of subcontractors over the next couple of months, now that I know I can handle. Suddenly I feel better about my life and my future and I ride that wave for the rest of the afternoon.

  “It’s getting late, let’s call it a day,” Hal announces.

  “Yikes!” slips out when I look outside and see it’s past sunset. “I’ll get the lights.”

  Heading into the kitchen the giant mixer catches my eye and I stop to stare at it. I can see my reflection in its smooth stainless steel surface, but the image is distorted. Recognizable yet unrecognizable at the same time: that is exactly how I feel right now. Since the sealing I’d thrown myself back into my old life trying to make it fit. I believed that once the investigation at Preston-Ward was over things could get back to normal. I’d convinced myself that given enough time and space I could get Kade out of my system. My immortality throws a wrench in that plan though. Now I know there will be life for me after Ben, which makes it that much harder not to pine after Kade. Unsettled, I continue to stand there motionless, barely aware of Hal who has come to stand behind me.

  “How am I going to do
this?” I think out loud. Somehow Halim knows I’m not really talking about baking.

  “It gets easier, in a few years everyone you know will be dead,” he answers in that wise, understanding way of his.

  Chapter 4

  "Thanks." The blanketed statement covers everything that I can't express at the moment. I'm thankful to Hal for getting me out of the house today, for giving me purpose, for knowing what to say when things go all pear-shaped, and for volunteering to put up with my crazy for the unforeseeable future.

  "For what?"

  "Just everything." I smile and hope my short answer will be enough. Hal nods as if he understands or can read my mind. Unbuckling the seatbelt, hand on the door latch, I pause and stare at my house. "I need your help, again."

  "With Ben?"

  "Yes."

  "How's he doing with all of this?" Hal asks.

  "All this," I say waving my hands around for emphasis. "He doesn't know what all this is, you know that." Hal just stares at me with a you-know-what-I-mean expression.

  "Fine, fine, he's believed everything we’ve told him, it's just that he's never going to buy me owning a bakery without help."

  After the resealing Kade and I had concocted a feasible story for Ben and Melanie in order to explain why I wasn't going to return to work. I admitted to them that I had gone in to work the evening my lab was vandalized but that I hadn't been there when it actually happened. Since I’m a work-o-holic, that much of the story wasn't a stretch. I then pretended to be afraid to return to work after so narrowly missing the vandals and the subsequent murder of the CEO in his office. The fabrication was heavily influenced by Wanderer magic, but it worked and neither one of them has questioned me since. I followed through with half-hearted job searches as well to keep up appearances.

  "We should probably be formally introduced," Hal says and winks.

  Ben doesn't have a jealous bone in his body but I wonder how he'll take the news of me working so closely with eye candy like Hal.

  "This might be harder than I thought," I joke.

  Unlatching his seatbelt Hal opens the cab door.

  "Let's do this then."

  Breathing deeply, I harden my resolve and exit the vehicle. Hal follows me up the path and almost runs into me when I stop short at the bottom of the stairs.

  "Wait a minute." I whip around to face him. "How do we explain you? I'm mean, how did we meet and decide to become partners?"

  One step ahead of me, like always, Hal grins mischievously.

  "Simple. I'm Kade's brother newly arrived from Boston, whose life's ambition is to own a bakery. You, you're simply looking for a career change. Something low stress where people are unlikely to be murdered in their offices late at night," he explains.

  Blinking, I am shocked at how feasible Hal makes it all sound. I mumble "okay" and proceed up the stairs.

  We find Ben in the kitchen standing over the stove cooking. "Hey babe, just in time," he says as he heaps noodles on the plates stacked next to him. As he glances our direction he sees Hal. "Oh," he blurts out, genuinely surprised. Turning to stir the marinara sauce I can hear the humor in his voice when he asks, "Is this the part where you tell me you're leaving me?"

  "No, what....this is just Hal!" I try to explain as shock scrawls across my face. He's kidding of course, but his ill-timed humor, coupled with hitting a nail he isn't aware of on the head, sends me reeling. In a lot of ways I feel very much like I have left him. Cocking his head to the side, Ben looks at me with concern.

  "It's okay Gwen, I was only teasing," he says as he pulls me close and tucks me under his chin for a moment. Releasing me, he wipes his hand off on his jeans and offers it to Hal. "Sorry, my man."

  "No worries," Hal says as he shakes Ben's hand.

  Pulling myself together I address them both. "Hal is Kade's brother, he's just moved from Boston. We're going to be business partners."

  "Oh really," Ben replies, grabbing an extra plate from the cupboard. "Why don't you tell me about it over dinner? Hal, you hungry?"

  "I could eat."

  Digging into spaghetti, we outline our business venture to Ben. "So Hal's already rented a space, we drove by it today. It needs a little TLC."

  "She's being kind. It needs a lot of work but the price was right. It’s an excellent location, and I have great financial backing from my miserly older brother," Hal explains.

  I almost choke on a breadstick when he depicts Kade as his miserly older brother.

  "You know Gwen's terrible in the kitchen right?" Ben announces to Hal and I sock him in the arm for throwing me under the bus.

  "What? The guy needs to know what he's in for," Ben replies, all innocent smiles.

  "Gwen's been up front about everything, but I need someone who's good with numbers to keep me on budget and help with the books."

  "Gwen's got OCD like tendencies, so she'll be great at that if you can handle her," Ben winks and I smack him again.

  “I'm not that bad," I tell Hal while still looking at Ben, just waiting for him to contradict me. When he doesn't I move on. "So, what do you think?" I ask, trying to read Hal’s face hoping to gauge how much Wanderer influence he's had to exert to get Ben to buy the story we’re selling him.

  "I'm totally surprised, but I think it's great."

  "Good, because I start tomorrow."

  * * *

  After dinner Ben clears the dishes and I walk Hal to his car. "That went better than I thought. How much magic did you use? I was trying to watch but I couldn't tell."

  "Not much, that guy of yours trusts you. Ben would believe almost anything you choose to tell him without influence."

  "Is that so?"

  "Yeah. He's unique. In another life I think we could have been friends."

  An involuntary snort escapes me. In another life... a normal one. How weird would that be? No Sylph, no Wanderers, no Nephilim. Maybe if all of this didn't exist I wouldn't feel torn, and I could be happy. A small piece of my heart tears and widens the growing fissure running the length of the life- sustaining muscle. No, I couldn’t be happy without Kade.

  "Thank you for tonight."

  "You're welcome, I'll see you at 7 a.m.," Hal says.

  "7?" I shriek.

  "We've work to do and your boss," he says pointing to himself, "likes to get an early start."

  Locking the front door behind me I wander back to the kitchen and help Ben with the dishes.

  "It'll be good for you to get back to work. You haven't been yourself these last few months," Ben states.

  I stop short, halfway through loading the dishwasher. I knew I’d acted weird my first few days back after the resealing, a weirdness I’d tried to pass off as food poisoning. Since then I've worked really hard to appear normal.

  "What's been wrong with me?" I inquire, trying not to sound defensive.

  "Nothing, you just haven't seemed happy."

  "Everything I've worked towards for the last few years was destroyed and my boss was murdered in his office, you bet I haven't been happy," I snap as my temper rises. Then there's Kade and this whole other world that doesn't exist for you, I want to scream.

  "I didn't mean anything by it," he says soothingly, running a hand down my back. So calm and steady, Ben is the perfect foil for my flash fire temper.

  "I do love you, ya know," I blurt out uncharacteristically.

  "I know."

  Leaning back against his chest Ben embraces me and I try to bottle my feelings.

  "Being a housewife isn't for you, so it's good to see you excited about a new adventure. I just want you to be happy again."

  “I am.” I lie.

  Kissing the top of my head he steps away. “I’ll finish up here. Go get ready for bed, you’ve got work tomorrow.” A torrent of guilty emotions follows me to the bedroom, promising to make sleep nearly impossible. I wasn't lying when I told Ben that I love him but it wasn't the whole truth either. I crawl under the covers and pretend to be asleep when he ambles into the room. Shu
cking out of his clothes, he crawls into bed and I roll to my side, continuing the charade. I keep my breathing slow and steady hoping to avoid sex with my wonderful, adoring husband. Who knew getting to have your cake and eat it too would hurt this badly?

  Chapter 5

  Kade

  Rejected again.

  With empty arms I watch Gwen race from the room in a fiery streak of red. Forbidden from even comforting my love, I make no pursuit. This latest fiasco, like all the others, is my fault. For all my wisdom I seem forever doomed to make the wrong decision where Gwen is concerned, but now my foolish pride has made her miserable as well, and that I cannot bear.

  I beat feet to the library and abscond with an atlas and the largest world map I can find. Ducking out before anyone catches me I return to my room and lock myself inside. I sit down on the bed and spread the map out before me, trying to think like a Sylph. Despite having been one thousands of years ago the task is harder than you might expect. While I remember in vivid detail the atrocities I committed in the past, I can no longer fathom the motives behind my actions.

  Looking at the map I ask myself if I were a Sylph where would I go, what would I be doing? Several minutes of deep contemplation later I run a hand through my tousled hair, frustrated. Thoughts of Gwen keep sneaking into my head, making it difficult to concentrate. What I wouldn’t give for us to be able to go back to the beginning, back to...

  I break off mid thought, struck by an epiphany. I’ve been asking myself the wrong question! I need to go back to the beginning. Reaching for a pencil, I begin marking the map. After the original sealing the angels divided the Sylph spheres and scattered them to the four corners of the earth. So where did Himyar come from? Where has his sphere been hiding all these years? With my pencil I recreate the nomadic search patterns used by the Wanderers over the centuries, starting from Essam. In the beginning we traveled by horseback, which significantly limited the amount of ground we could cover. As time went on and transportation evolved we were able to expand our search, first to other continents and finally the entire world. Staring at my map, it’s easy to see that every inch of Asia has been gone over with a fine tooth comb hundreds of times. Radiating out from there the markings are fewer and indicate that places such as North America have not been searched quite as thoroughly. Still, there isn’t a land mass anywhere that hasn’t been covered at least once. What’s been overlooked?