The Space Between (The Book of Phoenix)

by Kristie Cook

And his story . . . my heart had broken for him several times last night as he told it, though I tried not to let him see. I’d wanted to know more, especially about the accident, but I could tell he’d been avoiding the details for a reason. He’d had a hard enough time telling me as much as he did, which I had a feeling he’d never shared before—nobody knew the real Jeric Winters except for me. The image he projected wasn’t a front. He was the real deal, every bit of it justified.

  I wanted to tell him everything would be okay now, but really, we were both worse off than ever. Still, it had taken nearly every ounce of control I had to keep from crawling into his lap and wrapping my arms around him.

  He must have sensed my desire right before I asked him about his birth mother. He’d paused, and I was scared he was going to clam up completely, maybe even leave, so I had prodded him to go on. He didn’t have much to say about her, though, explaining he only wanted to know who she was. I had a feeling he’d been looking for her acceptance after his adopted family had rejected him so harshly. Maybe that’s what he needed to accept himself and to allow other people into his life. Like, perhaps, a girlfriend.

  I chuckled darkly at myself. I shouldn’t have been thinking about such a thing. There were too many other problems to worry about. Besides, although I felt like I did about him—more than I should have—I knew better about his type. Trying to be the one who could change the bad boy was futile. My brain knew this, but my heart and body wanted to ignore it. Especially when I sat up and peeked out the window to find his god-like body down by the lakeshore, clad in only black workout pants hanging low on his hips and white running shoes. Even my mind faltered then, going to one fun but naughty place. His back muscles rippled and his biceps bulged as he swung the ax down.

  I needed a cold shower.

  No, I needed music. I needed to dance, to work this tension off before we continued our quest for answers. We had lots more of the journal to read, and, of course, I still had to tell him my story. It was pretty boring compared to his . . . at least, up until three days ago. I still hadn’t told him about Uncle Theo and the phone calls with my parents. My so-called “parents” . . .

  Music. I needed music. Loud enough to drown out the phone conversations trying to replay in my mind.

  I jumped up from the bed, took the one step to the bathroom to pee, then the two steps to the living area where the iPod docking station was. I selected my favorite dance playlist and turned the volume up. My body responded immediately.

  The music took control, and I moved to it in the tiny space, dancing on the futon mattress up front where Jeric had slept, spinning in the kitchenette, using the table as a prop. My muscles loosened. My mind went blank. My soul lost itself in the music and the movement. This was exactly the release I needed. Jeric ran to relieve stress; I danced. The space wasn’t big enough, though. After a luscious move with my legs and hips I’d used often in the club, I did a half-pirouette to the door to find more space outside.

  And I froze mid-movement.

  Jeric stood in the doorway. Well, actually, he leaned against the jamb, his arms crossed and the screen door propped against his bare shoulder. His blue eyes smoldered as he stared at me, a sunray glinting off his brow ring. How long had he been watching? Why did he look like that? Was it the music? He could probably feel it, especially as loud as I had it. And me dancing and enjoying something he could never hear again had to be salt in his wound.

  “I’m sorry,” I signed before reaching behind me to turn it off.

  He shook his head, and my hand paused in mid-air.

  “Don’t stop,” he signed, but I stood there, feeling self-conscious as he continued to watch me.

  When I still didn’t move, he did. He straightened up and took a half-step inside, the screen door banging closed behind him. He placed his hands on my hips and gently pushed them one way and then the other. His touch electrified me, and the music embraced me, and self-conscious or not, I couldn’t help it. My body moved on its own as it always does, swaying and swinging and moving to the beat. And my eyes never left Jeric’s, even as his filled with heat. I finally turned and pressed my back to him, still moving to the music, and he grew hard against me. His hands on my hips again, he turned me around and jerked me to him.

  One of his hands slid up my side, over my shoulder and to my face. I arched my body up and into him, and his piercings rubbed against my own hard nipples poking through the measly cami I wore. His erection pulsed against my belly. His eyes held me hostage. His thumb skimmed over my bottom lip. My mouth parted.

  This wasn’t the first time I’d moved like this with a guy and not the first time I delighted in the feeling. But it was the first time I felt it was right. That acting on my desire was not only good, but, with Jeric, necessary.

  Apparently, he didn’t feel the same.

  He closed his eyes and released his hold on me. I stumbled backwards, hitting my butt against the counter.

  “I’m sorry,” he signed as he opened his eyes. “I can’t . . .”

  I sucked my lower lip between my teeth and nodded. “You mean you don’t want to.”

  His eyes filled with incredulity. “Are you kidding me? I want nothing more! I can’t stop thinking about splaying you out on that mattress, feeling you under my hands, knowing what you feel like inside.”

  My eyes widened, the visual taking me by surprise.

  “See?” he signed. “You deserve better. You deserve someone who can treat you like a lady.”

  “And you can’t?” I taunted. I knew otherwise. He already had treated me with more respect than any guy ever had. The way he had looked at me last night right after those men had left, worried about my bleeding head—no man except Daddy and Uncle Theo had ever looked at me with such kindness and caring. He hadn’t even tried to come to my bedroom last night.

  “I don’t know how,” he said. “It’s hard as hell to keep my hands off you. I don’t know how to do this, except to keep going on runs and chopping wood. I mean, look at you in those short shorts and . . . all that.”

  He looked down at my braless chest and away.

  “You drive me crazy, Leni,” he continued. “And you think I don’t want to?”

  I swallowed hard. “And that’s why you won’t even kiss me?”

  He shrugged. “You deserve to choose. I don’t want to force anything on you, especially not me.”

  Ah. Huh.

  “I’m just talking about a kiss.” I had no idea why it had suddenly become so important to me. Where were my priorities? Why did I feel like this was a priority?

  He chuckled, a small smile showing a hint of his dimples, although his eyes burned once again. “I don’t think I can do just a kiss. Not with you.”

  His words reminded me of Jacey and Micah’s first kiss. Would a kiss with Jeric feel the same way? Maybe that’s where this was all coming from. I wanted to know. Needed to know. My heart pounded with the thought. I took a step closer to Jeric.

  “Try,” I said aloud, his eyes on my lips.

  “Leni . . .” He warned.

  “I’m asking. Isn’t that what you want?” I took another step, now up against him again. I looked up at him through my lashes. “Don’t make me beg.”

  He groaned, then the next thing I knew, his hands returned to my hips, pushing me backwards until my butt hit the counter again. Then they were on each side of my face, and his mouth was crashing down on mine.

  My stomach jumped into my throat then did that crazy plunging feeling as soon as our lips touched. I couldn’t breathe, forgot I even needed to as his mouth pressed harder. And then his tongue flicked out, over my bottom lip, wanting in. I pushed myself against him, welding my body to his as I parted my lips and met his tongue with my own.

  Oh, my God. Jacey was right. The feeling was indescribable.

  My soul tugge
d and pulled as if trying to escape my body. Pulled toward him. And at the same time, I felt his coming for me, and they met in the minute space between us and danced and mixed and bonded together, creating the most amazing and unbelievable sensation I’d ever felt. I’d almost call it an out-of-body experience except I still physically felt every nerve ending in my body, and each one was on fire from head to my curling toes.

  Jeric’s hand slid down my back as he pulled tighter, our mouths and tongues still moving together. His fingers slid under my shirt, pressing into the skin over my ribs and sending a thrill throughout my body. I moaned with pleasure, wanting more, more, more, but instead, I pushed him away because no way could my body handle more. Otherwise, it might burst into flames.

  He took several steps back until he was against the screen door again, and we both stared at each other, gasping for breath. I wished I knew what he was thinking. He had so much more experience than I did. Had he felt the same thing I had, or was that just another kiss for him?

  “Not just a kiss,” he signed, and he shook his head as a smile slowly crept over his face. My favorite one with all the dimples. “Not with you. Now I understand what that Jacey chick meant.”

  “You felt it, too?” I asked aloud with disbelief.

  His smile widened, then became a grimace as he shifted his hips. “I need to go chop more wood.”

  My lips quivered with a smile of understanding.

  “I guess I shouldn’t take a swim in the lake, then?” I teased, not really planning on it although the cold water sounded appealing to my heated core.

  He cocked a brow. “What would you be wearing?”

  “It’s the lake. What do you think? Nothing.”

  He made a face that looked like a grimace was fighting off a grin. I thought he might actually be in pain. “I think I’ll go for a run then.”

  I laughed. “Kidding! A swimsuit, dumbass.”

  “A bikini?”

  “Of course.”

  His eyes slid over me, to my feet and back up, sending a wave of chills over my skin and a flame of heat inside. “Yeah. I’ll go for a run.”

  He took off before I could stop him. Feeling bad that he’d left for no reason, I changed into my bikini to sit in the sun. The water would be too cold this early in the season for an actual swim. I pulled my shotgun out, too—last time Jeric left me, I’d been attacked. And now that I thought about it, the ambush felt strangely similar to the one Jacey described in her journal. Another so-called coincidence? I wondered as I opened the screen door. A buzz from behind me made me jump.

  Jeric had left his phone on the counter, and it vibrated as a new text lit up the screen. I couldn’t help but see it when I glanced over: a girl wondering what he was doing and when he’d be around. Ugh. Was this something I wanted to deal with? How many, exactly, would be texting? As I stared at the phone, curiosity got the best of me.

  I wouldn’t normally spy like a crazed girlfriend, but really, how well did I know this guy? I mean, in a way, I felt like I knew him as well as I knew myself, but I didn’t really know him. In fact, everything he told me last night could have been lies for all I knew. I didn’t feel that was the case, but a girl couldn’t be too careful, especially since I’d brought him to my camper, let him sleep in the only home I had left. I deserved to know more, didn’t I? And the fool didn’t have his phone password-protected, so he was asking for it.

  With all of that justification, which really didn’t justify anything, I swiped the screen to open his phone. The text message app came up first, but except for the one that had just come in, the cache was blank. His contacts list only contained business numbers and email addresses. He had a Facebook app, but his last status update was over a month ago, saying, “Leaving for Italy. See ya later, haters.” His email inbox was empty, too. So either he wiped out everything regularly, which could mean he had something to hide, or he didn’t have many life connections. My phone was pretty empty for that very reason, so it was possible. When I tapped on the photos app, however, all benefit of the doubt disappeared.

  My hand shook as I stared at the first photo that came up. The sound of footsteps on gravel outside made me nearly drop the phone, and I spun around to look out the window. Jeric quickly approached the backside of the camper.

  With the phone still in my hand, I picked up my gun, went outside and leaned against the picnic table, waiting. Jeric stopped by my truck and stared at me, a mischievous grin tugging at his lips. I glared back at him, and his expression shifted into bewilderment until his gaze fell on his phone in my hand. He rolled his eyes and walked toward me.

  “You looked at my phone?” he signed. I didn’t answer. “You can’t be mad at what you found. This thing between us is new, and I know lots of people, including girls. I can’t help it if they text me.”

  “And the pictures?” I asked aloud, unable to sign since my hands were full.

  He sighed. “I’ll delete them if you want. They mean nothing to me.”

  “Oh, really? Even the one of Mira?”

  All color drained from his face.

  “That’s what I thought,” I said, and I shifted the gun, very close to pointing it at him again. He stepped backwards until he was by the truck. “How do you know Mira? Why do you have a picture on your phone of her? What have you done with her and my uncle?”

  His brow furrowed. “Leni—”

  “What have you done to them?” I yelled. I inhaled a deep breath, trying to keep my cool. Stupid tears of anger burned my eyes, but I blinked them away, taking control as Mama had taught me. But all of this had meant nothing to him. None of it. It had all been part of his psycho plan, whatever it was, and, if he got into my pants, so much the better. I couldn’t believe I’d fallen for it all. Red-hot rage burned in my chest, but I refused to let him see it and was glad he couldn’t hear the waver in my voice. “Where are they?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. You know Mira?”

  I wanted to spit fire at him, but if I didn’t say my words clearly, he wouldn’t understand. “Of. Course. I. Do. She takes care of my uncle, as if you didn’t know that already. One more time: where are they?”

  A swirl of expressions passed over his face. “Mira’s my grandmother. The one I came to see, remember? Except I couldn’t find her. She’d moved or . . . something.”

  “Yeah, missing with my uncle. Except in the two years she’s been helping Uncle Theo, she never mentioned anything about having a grandson.”

  “No, she wouldn’t, would she?” The hurt in Jeric’s face almost made me regret my words.

  “She never even mentioned being married, either. No family at all.”

  Confusion flickered in his eyes. “Nothing?”

  “No. Nothing. Just a guy she used to take care of before my uncle, but she didn’t even like that guy. Said he was a cold-hearted bastard who drank himself to death.”

  “Sounds like my gramps,” Jeric said. His middle finger stroked at the ring in his brow for a moment. “She never did seem to love him, but how could anyone love that asshole? But to forget the rest . . .” His head tilted, and his eyes narrowed. “Wait. You say she’s missing?”

  “Not just missing. Gone! At least, my uncle is, and I’m assuming she’s with him. Everything about his very existence has been wiped out. As if he never even lived.”

  Jeric’s eyes filled with concern. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I did.”

  “You never said your grandmother was Mira.” Ah, shit. I nearly dropped the gun as things began to clear. “Everything’s starting to make sense. Sort of.”

  I tossed his phone to where he still stood by the truck and took the bullet out of the shotgun’s chamber before laying the weapon on the table. I wanted to pace while I thought out loud, but J
eric wouldn’t be able to see my hands or my lips. So I walked back and forth a few times under the shade of the awning, thinking hard, then stopped in front of the truck, where he leaned against the bumper.

  “The voice had told Jacey her existence in this world would disappear. With everything else we have in common with her and Micah, that must be what’s happening to us.”

  “She wasn’t even sure she heard it.”

  “Like I’m not sure I heard, ‘We always find you.’ Except they found her, and they found me last night, and it’s all too . . . coincidental. And my uncle is gone. Everything about him wiped out. Your grandmother has disappeared, too, and for all we know, her existence has been obliterated. The rental car company, Jeric. They had no record of you. And you said you’d rented from them a few times, right?”

  “It’s been a couple of years. Maybe they clean their database.” By the look on his face, he knew this theory was weak, especially since he’d had a current rental. He blew out a breath. “Unbelievable.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s happening.” I turned away and paced a couple more times, then faced him again. “There’s more.”

  And as much as I’d wanted to pretend they’d never happened, I told him about the calls to my family the other night.

  “We don’t have a daughter,” my mom had said after I explained who I was since she claimed to not recognize my voice. “We don’t have any children.”

  We hadn’t talked in a while—had no reason to anymore—but her words had been a knife to my heart. No matter what I’d said, how much I pleaded with her to speak the truth, she denied my existence.

  “I recited everything I knew about her and Daddy,” I told Jeric as fresh tears rose. “About their marriage, her miscarriages and then being so happy when they got pregnant with me. She demanded to know how I knew everything, even called me a stalker. For the first time in my memory, she lost her cool. She screamed at me, saying, ‘We don’t have any children! I couldn’t have babies!’ Then she hung up on me, so I called my daddy. He said he didn’t have any uncles, only aunts, and denied any relation to Uncle Theo or me.”