The Mortal Falls

by Anna Durand

  He eyed me with wary eyes. "Are you certain you wouldn't prefer I left?"

  "Positive." Sort of. He expected me to shoo him away, to stop my family from seeing him. Part of me really, really wanted to sequester him from the rest of my life, but another piece of me longed to escort him straight over to the motor home, knock on the door, and introduce him to my parents.

  Nevan stepped backward, shoulders square.

  I recognized the movement and the way his gaze went distant, like he was visualizing another place. He intended to poof away to who-knew-where any second.

  He swallowed visibly, his lips compressing.

  My God. I recognized that too, a manifestation of shame, similar to what I'd witnessed when he enchanted Sandy. He honestly believed I wanted him to go, and the knowledge pained him.

  Which bothered me a lot more than I liked.

  Static electricity rushed over me, faint yet distinct.

  Pivoting toward him, I held up a hand to halt his departure. "Wait. I said I want you to stay."

  "You informed me your family could handle my appearance." He sighed with exaggerated drama. "In point of fact, you have not said you wish me to remain here."

  "Stay, dammit." My turn to sigh, with irritation. "I want you to meet my family."

  Laughter echoed from around the front of the building. Hand in hand, Nevan and I ventured a little further into the parking lot. A group of people milled near the shop entrance, gesticulating and smiling, their cheery voices merging into a melee of sounds. I noticed the familiar backside of a curly mass of chestnut-brown hair, attached to a woman at the center of the hubbub.

  My mother pivoted our way, as if she'd sensed my approach. Delight lit up her face and she waved her hand with fierce energy.

  Where was Dad? I searched the faces of the people surrounding Mom, but he wasn't among them.

  Nevan grasped my arm, pulling me up short. He pointed to another, smaller throng gathered in front of the Porter family's monstrosity on wheels. "What is this?"

  The half dozen people gathered there formed a semicircle around someone sitting on the ground. I tilted my head left and right, struggling to see past the bodies. A blonde young woman shuffled sideways to hook her arm around her male companion's waist. The woman was Sandy. She smiled brightly, but the person on the ground must've done something, because her eyes went wide and her mouth opened on an oooh. Her companion watched the spectacle, whatever it was, with equal awe.

  What on earth was happening over there?

  The answer revealed itself an instant later. Another onlooker moved aside, granting me an unimpeded view of the man seated cross-legged on the gravel at the center of crowd. His gray hair — cut in a short, military-type style — fringed a round face etched with wrinkles. Though I couldn't see his eyes from here, I knew they were an ice-blue echo of mine. His wrists rested on his knees, palms up, the thumb and forefinger of each hand touching to form a little loop. The lotus position. The breeze carried his litany of soft ohmmm's across the parking lot.

  My father was meditating in the middle of a freaking parking lot at the rock shop where I worked.

  "Do you know him?" Nevan asked.

  "Sort of." I watched Sandy crouch down to speak to my father, who responded with a beatific smile. "He's my dad."

  Just then, someone hollered from across the parking lot. "What the hell is going on out here?"

  I cringed at the sound of Stan's gravelly voice. With no explanation for my hours of being gone, I expected to be fired on sight.

  Stan stormed down the path into the parking lot. His face flamed a particularly disturbing shade of maroon. His head jerked left and right until his gaze slammed into me. His arm shot up, one finger zeroing in on me. "Porter!"

  His voice thundered even louder, reverberating off the trees, the metal building, the motor home. I sidled up to Nevan, grateful beyond measure when he hooked an arm around my shoulders.

  My father paused in his ohmmm'ing to stare at Stan. Ken Porter set his hands on his thighs, fingertips curling over his kneecaps. He said something to my boss, who stopped short. Stan glanced around, seeming almost embarrassed, and squatted beside my father. After a quick discussion, the two men exchanged smiles and Stan assumed the lotus position.

  Stan Lagorio was meditating. Ohm's and all.

  The shock of seeing blustering Stan chilling out with my dad left me immobile. I'd intended to trot over there and greet my parents, but all of a sudden I couldn't summon the will to move away from Nevan and relinquish the bizarre security he provided.

  "Do you fear your family?" Nevan asked.

  "No, of course not. I love them, really, I do. But they are unusual. And most people don't like unusual, especially if it comes packaged with chanting and incense burning and crystal talismans."

  He rubbed my arm, the gesture so tender my heart sped up at the implications of it. I couldn't think that way, though because he was forbidden to get involved in mortal affairs.

  Except he was involved in the affairs of one mortal.

  Nevan tucked one finger under my chin, angling my face up to him. "I'm unusual myself, and not inclined to be judgmental about talismans or chanting."

  So true. He was a supernatural being. Of course he wouldn't balk at my family's devotion to all things New Age. He was, in a way, the embodiment of their beliefs.

  Which meant I was a complete jerk. I'd pooh-poohed my family's lifestyle since I hit puberty, and it turned out they'd been right. The supernatural did exist. I found myself, in this very moment, nestled under the arm of an elemental spirit.

  "Perhaps," Nevan said, "you're not truly worried about my reaction to your family, but rather about their reaction to me."

  Hmm, yes. There was the issue of Nevan, who even in his demure, mortalesque form exuded a sensual confidence — and oh my heavens, he was jaw-droppingly hot either way. Then there was the lingering desire that sizzled over my skin, inflamed by the slightest touch, even from his hand quite chastely holding mine or his arm looped around me.

  Rein it in, Lindsey.

  I bound up my sexual urges, but I couldn't bear to pull away from Nevan. No harm in accepting comfort from him.

  Without moving my head, I glanced at my father, still seated lotus-style smack in the middle of the parking lot. Would my parents notice the sexual tension crackling between me and Nevan? Did it matter? I supposed I cared what they thought because I wasn't entirely sure what I was doing. Cavorting with a magical being. At least nobody had seen me with him in his natural form.

  Travis had seen — too much, too soon — and it sent him on a trip to la-la-land.

  He couldn't handle the truth about the supernatural. My parents were predisposed to believe.

  "Would ye prefer I whisk ye away from here?" Nevan asked.

  "No." Dammit, I refused to be a coward. I gripped his hand harder, maybe a bit too hard, but he didn't flinch. "I want to see them, but you have to understand. I gave up on the New Age lifestyle, then I ran off to Texas and got into trouble and, well… It's complicated. I told them Calder dumped me for another woman. They know nothing about what happened to me three years ago."

  Neither did Nevan, but in spite of the curiosity evident in his gaze, he refrained from asking.

  "I'll introduce you," I told him. "Just do me a favor. Promise not to be your usual scoundrel-ish self."

  "I promise to behave in the presence of your kin. I've already made the sacrifice of covering myself, so as not to embarrass you." He inclined toward me, his lips near enough to kiss. For a heartbeat, I thought he would kiss me — and he did, sort of. He pecked the tip of my nose. "I shall support and protect as necessary. You have my word."

  "Thank you."

  His lips contorted, as if he fought against grinning or frowning. I couldn't decide which. "You were doing so well with not thanking me. I gather your
family's arrival is disquieting and has made you forgetful."

  "Sorry, it comes out of my mouth all on its own. Blame my parents. Those bastards, they raised me to be courteous and thoughtful of others' feelings."

  He threaded his fingers through mine, his mortalesque eyes glimmering with a hint of the sylphesque fire masked within them. "You do love your family, don't you?"

  "Of course I do." My eyes found Dad again, and an old feeling resurfaced to pluck at my heart. I'd missed my family. "They've always been there for me, when I'd let them. They're good people."

  "They'd have to be, to raise a daughter like you."

  Aw hell. Every time he paid me a compliment, the urge to smack one on him got harder and harder to suppress.

  A child's gleeful cry split the air. "Zeeeee!"

  Nevan's mouth dropped open a smidgen, his eyes flaring wide for a split second as he caught sight of my little brother. Ash Porter was hurtling across the parking lot, arms flung out, a silly grin on his face.

  "What is that?" Nevan said, with the disbelief of a man who'd never met a ten-year-old New Age devotee.

  Before I could respond, Ash was there, hurling himself up at me. I caught my brother in midair and he clamped his arms around my neck. His golden-brown hair, cut short like my dad's, tickled my cheek.

  He kicked his feet in an airborne happy dance. "Zee, it's you!"

  Since Ash was all but choking me, I unclamped his arms from my neck and set him on the ground. He latched onto my left hand. I tousled his hair and he giggled. "Who else would I be, Ash? Do you throw your arms around every girl you see?"

  "No, I'm not stupid," he said, rolling his eyes. "I haven't seen you in months and months and months." My brother scrutinized me with an adorable look of concentration, his tongue poking out between his lips. "You look different. What'd you do to yourself?"

  "Nothing. I emailed you a picture of me last week." But I hadn't seen my family in person for over three years. Wow. Three years. "You've gotten bigger, though."

  He puffed up, lifting his chin. "One point two inches taller than my last report."

  "Impressive." Yeah, my brother gave me regular reports on his growth, texted straight to my phone. Little boys were weird.

  Ash appraised Nevan with youthful seriousness, tongue protruding again, and crossed his arms over his chest, partly obscuring the Superman cartoon on his T-shirt. Nevan raised a brow. Ash puckered his lips. "Dude, are you Lindsey's boyfriend?"

  I opened my mouth to say no.

  Nevan leaped in ahead of me. "Yes, in fact, I am."

  13

  "My name is Nevan." He offered his hand to my brother, who accepted it. "And you are?"

  "I'm Ash. So you're, like, really Zee's boyfriend?"

  "Zee?" Nevan scrunched his whole face.

  I got out one syllable before my brother bulldozed over me.

  "It's what I call Lindsey."

  "Why?" Nevan asked.

  Ash rolled his eyes and dropped his head back. "Duh, it's from her name. Lind-zee. Get it? Everybody should have a wicked-cool nickname. She hated it at first, but I think she's starting to like it."

  "I see," Nevan said.

  Ash grabbed my hand and Nevan's, leaning his weight into it as he urged us to follow him. He half dragged us across the parking, swinging our hands, skipping and peppering us with questions he rarely gave us time to answer.

  "Dude, you need a nickname," Ash told Nevan. "I mean, if you're gonna be part of our family, it's kinda required."

  "He's not — " I cut myself off before I rejected Ash's suggestion about Nevan joining our family. Instead, I jumped into yet another lie. "Nevan and I haven't been seeing each other that long."

  Okay, not entirely a lie.

  Nevan raised my hand to his lips, feathering a kiss across my knuckles. "I am, however, immensely fond of your sister."

  Nevan was immensely fond of me?

  "Awesome." My brother tugged our hands, ensuring we'd continue trailing him across the parking lot. He released our hands as we reached my father and his circle of admirers. "Dad, I've got totally sick news. Lindsey's got a boyfriend."

  And of course, he spoke the last part in a mocking, sing-song tone.

  Nevan bent close to me to murmur, "I thought he was happy about this news, but he called it sick. Does he find me nauseating?"

  "To a kid, sick means it's great."

  "I… see." He straightened, but seemed to have developed a permanent crease in his forehead.

  Ash took off, dancing around us as we approached the motor home, taunting me with his chant of "Lindsey's got a boyfriend, Lindsey's got a boyfriend."

  When my dad approached us, I introduced him to my sort-of boyfriend. After sizing up Nevan with a dubious expression, my father thrust out a hand to shake Nevan's with shocking vigor.

  "Nice to meet you, son." Dad sealed his other hand around Nevan's, tugging him closer. "If you hurt my daughter, I'll hunt you down and blow a hole through your skull the size of my fist. Understand?"

  To his credit, Nevan stayed placid. "You have my word, sir. I've no intention of bringing harm to Lindsey, or of letting anyone else harm her. I stake my life on that promise."

  Dad scowled at Nevan for several seconds, during which my pulse rocketed to levels no human should endure. At last, Ken Porter smiled and set my would-be boyfriend free. "Welcome to the family, Nevan."

  I gaped at my father. Welcome to the family? I barely knew Nevan. Yet everyone assumed this was a relationship, and more than that, a serious relationship.

  The three men in my life — Nevan, Dad, and Ash — glommed onto each other, plunging into an animated conversation. Nevan laughed at some joke my father told. Ash danced on his toes.

  Dumbfounded, I could do nothing more than stare at the trio.

  My mom, having disentangled herself from the crowd by the shop entrance, trotted up to our group. My mind had slipped into neutral, but somehow I managed to introduce my mother to Nevan. She snared him in a bear hug.

  I stood immobile, hip-deep in shock. Mom never hugged anyone except family members and very close friends. When I'd introduced her to Calder, she'd barely shaken his hand. Calder was gorgeous and charming too, yet my family never took to him this way.

  Maybe they'd sensed what I'd blinded myself to — that Calder was not right, on a fundamental level. I should've seen it. Unused to the attention, I'd been snowed by his innocent sweetness, his casual confidence, and his keen interest in me. Was I making the same mistake with Nevan?

  Mom finally relinquished her hold on him, chortling at whatever he'd said. I couldn't take my eyes off his face, that beautiful grin, those mesmerizing eyes.

  Dad slapped Nevan on the back. Ash hopped up and down, assailing Nevan with more questions.

  My mother moseyed over to me. "A boyfriend? Since when?"

  "It's a recent development. Sorry I didn't tell you."

  "You like him more than Calder."

  "Not sure yet."

  "Pshaw. It's plain to see you do." She picked lint off my shirt. Or maybe it was otherworld moss. "It's okay, I like him."

  "You — do?"

  "Hooey, do I ever." She fanned her face with one hand. "He is gorgeous, a real hunk. That boy could make an old woman swoon. And he clearly adores you."

  "Don't you think he's… odd?"

  She tsked. "I trust my intuition, sweetie. Trust yours."

  My shoulders caved in, as if great pressure compressed me. "I don't know. What if this thing with Nevan doesn't work out? What if he changes, like — " Like Calder. But I couldn't say it, because my family knew nothing about Calder's transformation or what he'd done to me. "What if Nevan turns out to be something other than what he seems?"

  "You'll leave him." She formed a gun with her fingers. "And he if lays a finger on you, I'll off him."


  Yeah, my entire family subscribed to the notion of shoot first, dispose of the body later. Only in self-defense, of course, or in the defense of another. Mom told me once she believed in the essential goodness of mankind, but sometimes a man needed a reminder to be kind delivered at the business end of a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver.

  Mom owned one of those. She stashed it in her purse. Cindy Porter had also given her only daughter a Bond Arms Mini derringer. For my birthday. Along with a crystal pendant designed to calm negative energies.

  For the first time, I understood the juxtaposition. A woman could believe in the supernatural and carry a loaded gun inside her waistband.

  My gaze drifted to Nevan, where he was still chumming it up with Ash and my father. Despite years of scoffing at New Age stuff, deep down I had never stopped believing. I let popular opinion sway me into denying it, but I'd always believed. Even before I met Nevan. That's why I'd accepted everything he told me and showed me.

  And yet I'd spent years scoffing at my family.

  "Jeez." I scrubbed my face with my hands. "I am such a jerk. All these years, I've treated my own family like a band of kooks. You must hate me."

  Mom kneaded my shoulders, freeing tension I hadn't realized was there. "Lindsey, you are not a jerk, and of course we don't hate you."

  "I'm being punished. Karma's a bitch, right?"

  Her fingers stilled. "What do you think you're being punished for?"

  Damn. Freudian slips were real too.

  "Tell me," she said, "how you feel you've been punished."

  "I meant because of this crappy job. Karma hates me. I thumbed my nose at it and now I'm suffering for my arrogance."

  My mother snorted. "Poppycock."

  Against my will, my lips broke into a smile. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I'm not sure I deserve it."

  Mom swung a finger past me, off to my right. "Your karma is standing right in front of you."

  Tracking the line of her finger pointing, my gaze fell on Nevan.

  He sat cross-legged on the gravel, one-third of a circle completed by my dad and Ash. Eyes closed, they appeared deep in meditation. Nevan seemed more relaxed than I'd ever seen him. His serene expression triggered a pang of something I'd buried deep inside me, under a mountain of pain, locked behind that damn vault door.