“Of course. You don’t think I’d let you out of my sight, do you?”
I swallow him in a kiss.
A hot, impulsive, grab-your-face kiss. The kind that says Thank God you’re here, because I don’t think I could last another minute without you.
“Mmm . . .” he sighs, stroking my back and relishing my rare vulnerability. Beneath my lips, I can feel his stretch into a smile. “Miss me?”
Goose bumps dance across my skin. Not just because I’m liplocked with the handsomest guy I’ve ever known, and he smells as fresh as the open air and grass we slept on last night, but because Zuhna’s right—I’m as ripe as they come. I can feel my desire for him moistening parts of my body I hardly knew existed, filling the cool morning air with heat. But also with relief that I’m not alone with Zuhna anymore.
Creek presses his chest against mine, as if to prove my point. My nipples stretch to meet him, greeting the hardness of his body. But then he wraps his arms around me, sensing how frightened I really was to be away from him in the camp.
“She couldn’t hurt you, Robin,” he whispers into my hair. “Not with me around. That’s why I let you go off with her. I wanted to hear what she’d say.”
“You saw me walk away with her and everything?
“I always keep track of you, remember? That’s how we met—I was your stalker.” His lips reach into a smile. “It was fun.?”
I sock his arm. That arm, the one with Partners carved into it.
“Ow!” He yelps, laughing and rubbing his bicep.
“You let me think I was all alone with that crazy gypsy chick?”
“I wanted to see what she would show you.”
All of a sudden, I remember that I still have Zuhna’s suede pouch in my hand—the one she claimed helped guide me to the scorched meadow. Or I should say, formerly scorched meadow that’s now perfectly green. “Did you, um . . . see anything?” I ask Creek.
He falls silent. But I notice his cool blue eyes flicker a little.
“I don’t see what you and Zuhna see,” he admits, thrusting his hands in his pockets.
The irony’s not lost on me, considering Zuhna’s blindness.
“But that doesn’t mean I can’t tell what’s happening to you.”
In that moment, I feel as transparent as glass, as though Creek sees through me more clearly than Zuhna. He glances down at the pouch in my hand and then looks at me strangely, as if something about me has changed.
And God as my witness, I can taste his blood in my mouth again, that blend of iron and copper and soul. I try and swallow to force it away, but it doesn’t work.
Is that the difference? I wonder. Are we linked now more than ever before—because I took a lick of my true love’s blood?
“Creek,” I sputter, “do you think I really am the next . . .”
I can’t get the words “Gypsy Queen” out of my mouth. It’s too damn weird.
Creek presses his palms over my temples, staring into my eyes.
And I realize something about him has changed, too.
He’s a man, now—eighteen—all grown up.
And the daylight has become stark, revealing every scar and burn mark on his skin from his horrendous childhood, along with the tattoo of a snake winding down his forearm that he got to cover it all up. What used to look devil-may-care about him to me now seems as hard as a soldier who was simply hiding beneath his happy-go-lucky front. We’re alike, he and I. We had to grow up fast in our own ways. But what does the future hold for us now?
“Robin,” he whispers, tracing his finger slowly around my head like an invisible tiara. He runs his hand gently down my neck to the stone heart that’s buried between my breasts, where he lets his fingers linger. “You were always a queen in my book.”
I blush, feeling the heat suffuse from the stone through my breasts and into my entire being. Arching my back toward him, I wish I could have him here—right now—for breakfast. But for this moment, I let his warm hand pulse inside my bra, seeking one breast and then the other, tenderly pressing my nipples. White sparks overtake my vision as the sensation makes me soar . . .
I swipe another kiss. “Happy birthday, baby,” I breathe, feeling the blood swell in my chest.
A shrill cry cuts through the air like a wild bird, giving me a start. I hear the sound of violins rise, low and mournful at first, then swirling in elegant notes to a brighter tune.
Creek smiles. He leans in and draws a slow breath, as if to inhale my essence for a second, and gently removes his fingers from my skin. He kisses my breastbone with soft lips before readjusting my shirt so no one can spy the stone heart.
“C’mon,” he sighs, “I think they have plans for us.”
“Plans?” I reply as he grabs my hand. “What plans?”
Creek smirks. “You’ll see. We’re not as far from Turtle Shores as you might think.”
We walk toward the camp, where it’s obvious that everyone is up now, folding blankets, feeding horses, and chasing chickens and children. But what I didn’t expect are the whimsical decorations that run from wagon to wagon that seem to match the light and airy violins. Thin wires coil around little ceramic pots holding lit candles, which hang between the wagons and trees, sparkling around the camp like stars. The sight is so lovely it makes me gasp.
“Do they always celebrate daybreak like this?” I ask Creek, just now noticing the colorful scarves that dangle from tree branches, waving in the breeze like wings.
Creek shrugs. “No. I think they consider this a kind of holiday.”
When he gives me a wink, it takes a second for it to sink in.
“Because it’s your birthday?” I ask, floored. “How would they know?”
Creek stares at Zuhna’s pouch in my hand again, lifting his gaze to the tree limbs to spy the last thin outline of the round moon in the sky. He reaches down and rips up a handful of weeds with a pretty wildflower in the center and holds it out to me.
“Weren’t you listening to Zuhna?” He replies. “The gypsies know, the same way they know everything—by feeling the days and seasons. The ripeness of things.”
He tastes one of the shoots at the root the way Zuhna did. “Hmm, not bad,” he smirks. “Might make a half decent tea. With leaves that can tell the future, like birthdays.”
Could he sound more like Granny Tinker? I marvel, wondering if spooky redneck sorcery runs in his family, too. He lets the grasses fall through his fingers, but tucks the delicate wildflower tenderly behind my ear. Then he plays with a curl of my hair for a moment before taking a step back.
My heart nearly stops at the way his eyes admire what he sees.
You would’ve thought I was in that silver gown again with him at a ball in Cincinnati, the way his eyes shine, tracing along each curve of my face and body. And I can’t help stealing a glance at my sneakers, half-expecting them to turn into glass, and wondering if the nearby horses were once field mice. Meeting each other’s gaze, we both feel it. This potent moment in a slightly secluded glen near the camp, both of us on the cusp of blossoming into something grown up—something altogether new.
And there’s my Creek. Tall, handsome, gallant as always, with that big crooked grin on his face, looking at me as if I’m his star.
The music echoes lightly around us, and he holds out his hand.
“Dance?” he whispers. The yearning in his eyes steals my heart for eternity.
You goddamn thief, I think to myself, smiling inside. Each day you swipe everything I’ve got in my soul all over again.
I hesitate, wanting to remember him this way—so beautiful and perfect and into me, with no one else in the world watching, except for maybe that little girl who’s always spying behind trees. This is us before we face the rest of our lives. I inhale a deep breath and lift my chin.
“Always,” I smile, taking his hand.
He holds me close, swaying his hips in time with mine in the glen. The song the violins are playing is foreign to me and a touch exotic, w
ith sharp and sometimes lonely notes, but so rich it practically fills me to my bones. And I feel a shudder from the stone at my breast.
All at once, I realize this is what Martiya didn’t get to do—dance with her one true love in the glen before she was murdered, before their bodies were set on fire. Their lives—their love—were cut short.
“That’s not going to be me,” I whisper darkly like I’m cursing at the stone. I push it deeper into my cleavage with my fingers to stop its wobble. “Creek and I are going to make it.”
“What?” Creek says. He keeps his hips swaying in motion, but tips up my chin, puzzled.
“You and me—we’re forever, right? Come what may?”
Creek envelops me in a kiss, wrapping his arms around my body.
He speaks no words, letting his closeness and the music do all the talking. When the violins stop for a second, he leans his forehead against mine.
“Forever for me began the very moment I set eyes on you. I protect what I love, Robin.”
And to my surprise, he snatches Zuhna’s pouch from my hand and opens it, brazenly scattering all of her herbs and wildflowers around us in a circle. Tossing the pouch into the tall grass, he encases me in his arms again, holding tight, as if he’s never letting go.
His nose barely touches mine, but those blue eyes of fractured ice look as if they’re melting right through me.
“Robin, I already have everything I’ve ever wanted,” he whispers, low and intense, as if draining his soul into mine. “And there ain’t no gypsy spell on earth that’s gonna get past me. As far as I’m concerned, eighteen is looking pretty damn fantastic.”
I close my eyes, letting his words ring in my ears, ring in my soul. But then I hear a swift shuffling through the grass, followed by odd mumbles.
When my eyes flutter open, I spot a red-haired woman coming at us with a broom. She’s muttering in a tongue that’s doesn’t sound gypsy or like anything else I recognize. She starts brushing at us, scooting us faster with her broom toward the camp.
“Dolgozik!” She cries. “Time to eat! Work!”
We laugh at each other a little, then sigh and follow after her toward the fireplace between the wagons, which holds the black pot with steam rising. A row of children are huddled around it, munching on what appear to be hot cakes. They smell divine. I’m so hungry now that’s all my mind can focus on, and the red-haired woman drops her broom and fishes out a couple of cakes with a stick from the black pot for Creek and I. Wolfing down the first bite, it nearly scalds my tongue—but the taste is out of this world. Within a few more bites, my mouth is an explosion of almond and vanilla, and the light sweetness goes to my head.
I reach in my hand for another, tossing the cake between my palms as it cools. I hear laughter as I greedily stuff it into my mouth.
“Good, ya?” says a blonde, portly woman across the fire. She has bright cheeks and braids over her head and looks Swedish or German—and that’s when I truly notice some of the other gypsies. Since we arrived at nightfall yesterday, I assumed everyone was dark haired and tan. But now, in broad daylight, I realize this isn’t a traditional gypsy band at all. A few men and woman look Romanian or Hungarian, like you’d expect, but the rest are blonde, red-haired, fair or freckled—as though they’ve come together from all over Europe. The one thing they have in common are their creative clothes. There’s lots of ribbon and embroidery and crazy-quilt-style patches, as if bright colors are highly valued. And though they sometimes seem to be muttering in different languages, a welcoming smile is universal.
Creek nudges next to me, chomping on another hot cake. “You remember the trailer park at Turtle Shores, right? How the misfits all banded together to make a family.” He nods his head at a man walking by with an awkward limp. “Here, they’ve found their family, too.”
“So I’m the heir apparent to the . . . misfits?” I smirk, remembering all the charming crazies at Turtle Shores—the only people I’ve ever known in my life who made me feel like I belonged.
Creek slings his arm around me. “Not much has changed, sweetheart,” he laughs. But his eyes soften at the sight of a few old men seated beside a wagon who softly stroke their violins with bows, filling the air with a profound beauty. Some of them don’t have teeth or hair, and one has a patch over his eye. But together, they make the morning sound exquisite.
“Poshrats,” I hear a soft, familiar voice say. Turning around, I see Zuhna again. She’s holding a leather apron in one hand, and her empty suede pouch in the other, with a smile curling over gold teeth. The sight of it makes me blush, and I hope we didn’t offend her. “We are the wanderers,” she says. “Some are zingari—gypsy. Others only part, or not at all. But we all travel. And work.”
She turns and points to a silver Airstream trailer beneath a tree, surprisingly modern in this setting. But next to it is a burly man with an anvil on a tree stump, pounding out horseshoes.
“You—time to get busy,” she nods at Creek, handing him the leather apron. “Your woman comes with me.”
My eyes grow wide, wondering what she has in mind. I watch Creek walk off to the blacksmith, tying the apron around his neck and back before he sneaks a look over his shoulder to check if I’m all right. With a deep breath, I give him a nod and follow after Zuhna to an old-fashioned wagon, painted red on top with lovely scroll designs on the sides beside its door. All around us are other traveling people on chairs and tree stumps, stitching blankets, stringing beads for jewelry, sharpening knives, or tooling leather. These are the wares they’ll eventually sell at markets, I assume. When we reach the wooden steps of the wagon, Zuhna pats her hand to feel for the wrought-iron handle and opens the door wide.
“Come, it’s time for you to stop looking like an American,” she says gravely, inviting me inside. “I’m sure they’re already trying to find you.”
A chill works its way down my spine.
“They?” I reply to test her.
“Alessia’s family,” she says impatiently, walking up the steps. “They always try to destroy the Gypsy Queen.”
“What did they do with her?” I scamper into the wagon filled with an old stove and quilts and pillows, a lot like Granny Tinker’s. “Did they dump her in an institution in the mountains? Where is it—”
Zuhna merely pats the stone at my breast. I flush with embarrassment, realizing she knows it’s still there.
“You will see after tonight. And then you will go find her.”
“How?” I ask breathlessly, but she places her finger gently on my lips.
“In time. You must get ready now.”
For the love of God, sometimes I want to slap her. But she’s blind, and I can’t exactly draw a map to Alessia’s whereabouts myself. I have to wait and trust her instincts. I can hear the ringing of Creek’s hammer against the anvil outside, and I still wish he was with me as a buffer against Zuhna’s spookiness. Just as I’m about to open my mouth and suggest I go out there to help him, Zuhna cuts me off.
“Strip,” she says. “Your clothes. Now.”
She heads to the wagon door and shuts it.
Before I can utter a word, she’s turns and lifts my t-shirt over my head.
“W-What—why?” I stutter, shocked by her boldness. Her fingers are working nimbly at my jeans button, in spite of my efforts to push away her hands.
“You hush, and behave your-self,” she orders, tossing aside my sneakers. She feels her way to a bench cabinet and opens it up, pulling out a skirt and pretty cotton blouse with bell sleeves.
It’s a lovely peasant blouse, embroidered with intricate chains of flowers and leaves over the yoke. I notice that Zuhna’s face softens, becoming more tender than I’ve ever seen before, and it just about breaks my heart.
Was this hers as a younger woman, or maybe her daughter’s once? Something about its soft and pristine cotton seems like an heirloom.
Whatever the case, I can tell Zuhna’s attached to it, and it’s no small gesture that she’s giving it to m
e. For a traveling woman of few possessions, this blouse might very well be one of the most treasured things she owns.
She cradles the fabric in her arms and holds it out to me like an offering.
“Here, this was mine once. On my wedding day.”
I pause, my mouth falling slack, hesitant to accept it.
“Zuhna,” I protest, “I can’t take something so valuable from you. Don’t you have another gypsy-style blouse or anything?”
“Do you love him?”
The blush that travels from my cheeks to the rest of my body with lightning speed surprises me in its prickling heat.
I remain quiet for a moment.
“Of course I do,” I reply breathlessly, as if it’s something I’m ready to fight for. “With everything I’ve got—”
“Good,” she nods. “Then you wear this tonight.”
There’s no arguing with Zuhna. With her shoulders held back and her mouth in a straight line, she hands the blouse to me whether I like it or not. I smile a little, running my fingers over the intricate embroidery that feels like silk.
“Thank you,” I whisper, still not quite comprehending her generosity. Out of respect for her, I climb out of my jeans and into the skirt she’s pulled out, then look around. There’s a pair of leather boots on the floor—with rounded toes and a buckle on the side like motorcyclists wear. They’ll have to do.
“Do I look gypsy enough yet?” I ask her, suddenly realizing my mistake. My cheeks burn hot.
Zuhna just laughs—a long, deep cackle, filling the wagon.
“Ya,” she nods. She smoothes my skirt down over my hips and pats down the puffiness of my sleeves. Then she sets her hands on my shoulders. “But you need one more thing.”
As she unbuttons her riding coat, I get a better look at her clothes, too. Her blouse is maroon with ruffles beneath a black vest appliqued with birds, moons, and stars. Her wide hips fit into a tiered, midnight blue skirt. Casting off her coat, she works a stack of silver and gold bangles from her wrist, and before I can stop her, her strong hands grab my arm and slip the bangles onto mine.
I gasp at her extraordinary generosity.
Stone of Thieves (Robbin' Hearts Series Book 2) Page 8