a Touch of the Past (An Everly Gray Adventure)

by Charles, L. j.

  "You’re saying I put her in danger." It took a minute to process the words hanging between us. Guilt and shock swept through me.

  "Stop the car," I yelled, reaching for the door handle.

  A distinct fuck colored the air as the latch released under my fingers. Pierce skidded to a stop on the side of the road, slammed the car into park, and grabbed my shoulders. "You were a child when Loyria Gray set this in motion, and you can’t stop it." He gave me a hard shake.

  I wrenched free of his hold, fighting the nausea churning in my gut. "I can go back to North Carolina."

  "No. You can’t."

  "Yes—" I nodded my head vigorously— "of course I can. This whole mess can disappear. Go back to the way it was. To the way my mother left it."

  Pierce ducked his head. "It was too late for that the minute you booked your flight." Calm, monotone—his voice was a direct contrast to the horror washing through me.

  I was responsible for putting my grandmother in danger. My only living relative, and her life was at risk because of me. It was too much. I couldn’t squeeze a breath into my lungs.

  Pierce dragged me across the console, hauling me onto his lap. No mean feat in a Boxster. He crushed me against his chest and held on until I stopped struggling.

  By the time I was able to inhale a full breath, I realized he was right. There would be no turning back. I had to take responsibility for what I’d done and focus on not making any more unknowing mistakes. Not with my grandmother’s life. I needed to protect her no matter what the cost.

  I pushed away from Pierce, the steering wheel jabbing into my back. "You’re telling me I triggered more than our government’s interest. Terrorists? Are we talking terrorists here?"

  He nodded. Once.

  "No, can't be," I said emphatically, crawling back into the passenger seat. "It’s hard to believe our government watched me that closely, much less other governments. It’s simply not possible. This sort of thing happens in action movies, or maybe computer games, not in real life."

  Pierce cleared his throat with a frustrated growl.

  "I’m nobody. Totally not important enough to snag anyone’s radar." I desperately needed him to agree with me, preferably with encouraging words rather than a garbled snarl.

  Silence hung heavy. He slid his sunglasses down his nose and focused on me. "They don’t send me out unless there’s a good reason."

  "Go," I said, waving my hand at the road ahead of us. It was up to me to prove this was all a mistake. I would protect my grandmother. Somehow.

  It took us over an hour to find her neighborhood—and that was with GPS. Turned out that Hawaiian country roads were sporadically marked and definitely weren’t kept up by the highway department. Probably had something to do with the rapid growth of vegetation in the tropics.

  I grabbed for the dash as bounced over a deep rut in the dirt road. "You should have gotten a Jeep."

  He shot me a look. "Right, and exactly what I asked for."

  "So how come—?"

  "Unrequested upgrade." He snapped the words out. "I’ll fix it when we get back."

  I pointed to a hand-painted post stuck in the ground next to a narrow path. "There. The address on that sign is only a few numbers off from my grandmother’s. Where exactly are we, anyway?"

  "North Shore. Big waves. Surfer’s paradise." Pierce slowed, and we both scanned potential driveways, all marked with faded, hand-painted signs. The air was heavy with afternoon humidity, and the tension rolling off Pierce was strong enough to push me toward the passenger door.

  "What’s wrong?" I asked, pulling the scrunchie out of my hair so I could redo the straggling curls into a tight knot at the base of my neck. I turned to look behind us. Nothing. No cars. No people.

  His eyes darted from side to side as he scanned the area around us. "Her house isn’t here."

  I nodded toward a cutoff up ahead, and slightly to the right of us. "Looks like there's a side road between those bushes, and the house numbers are wonky here, so it could be up there.

  The neighborhood was a mish-mash of pristine, elegant homes nestled alongside places in such disrepair I couldn’t imagine anyone living in them.

  Pierce turned onto the road I’d indicated and followed it, bumping through potholes and over small mounds of dirt for a couple of miles before pulling to a stop in front of a dilapidated wooden structure.

  "You think this was a house?" I tried to rebuild it in my mind, to get a feel for how it must have looked when it was new.

  "It’s still a house. Just not much left of it." Pierce got out of the car with a single, fluid movement, circled around, opened my door, and waited.

  I squinted at the faded white paint that used to be a number. "Looks like this is the place," I muttered. An uncomfortable mix of relief and disappointment lodged under my breastbone. No one had lived here for a long time.

  Pierce grabbed my hand and yanked me out of the car. "Fingers needed here."

  I pulled back, adrenaline skipping under my skin. "What if she was…?"

  Pierce cupped his hands around my shoulders, holding me steady. His touch broke through what was left of my control and tears slipped down my cheeks. "What if she was killed in there?"

  "There’s more at stake here than a possible homicide. And you won't rest until you know what secrets are hidden in there."

  He was right. I headed toward the building.

  "Hold it. I need to put the top on. Rains here most every afternoon."

  Damn. My heart wasn’t ready to accept that Grandma might have been murdered. First my parents, now this. But I couldn’t take a chance on missing any information about her, especially since I could keep it to myself. My fingers. My images. My choice to share. Or not.

  Pierce blew out a sigh. "Let’s go."

  I carefully planted one foot in front of the other, then stopped and pointed at my new slippahs. "Wildlife?" I asked, scanning the knee-high grass surrounding the house. It would be good to know about any and all hidden critters before I took one more itty-bitty step.

  "None that you’ll see." Reassurance wasn't Pierce’s forte.

  "That can’t be true." I examined the lush grass and shrubs. "Lots of hiding places for all kinds of furry families. And this is the tropics. Big bugs live here."

  "Go." He ran his hand around the back of his neck, cracking it.

  "Right." I made my way toward the front of the building, bending down to touch the ground every few feet. The images were of birds, rain, and wind blowing through the grass. No furry families.

  Pierce angled his chin toward the house.

  "Don’t rush me." I poked the tip of my finger against his chest. The solid wall of muscle revealed a clear image of him in the shower. Whoa, baby. I seriously considered resting all four fingers against him for a better look.

  Mitch, Everly. You love Mitchell Hunt.

  My vision must have been obvious, because he stepped back and a grin spread across his face. "That good, huh?"

  "Don’t let it go to your head," I snapped. I hated getting caught with my fingers in a male pin-up, so to speak. It was seriously time for Mitch to come home. Preferably before I got myself into trouble.

  Pierce angled his head toward the house again.

  "Okay. Okay, I’m getting there." I wandered in the general direction of a few boards that were hanging askew, and that had once passed for a front door.

  Six-foot-two inches of testosterone-laden male followed close behind me.

  I spun to meet him toe-to-toe. "Don’t crowd me." I barely caught my errant finger before it poked his chest again.

  He held his hands up and backed away. One step.

  I shook my head and turned toward to the house. If this was how secret agents worked…suddenly the memory of Pierce deliberately touching my fingers crashed into my head. I spun around again. "Why did you touch me this morning? My fingers? It was intentional. When I got the image of Central America."

  "Thought you might see that I’m on
your side."

  "Huh? You forced me into a pre-selected hotel, tossed a dossier about my family in front of me, told me I’m the bad guy, and had my phone calls routed through your cell. Oh, yeah. You’ve created a real trusting environment."

  I spun on my flip-flop and headed for the house, catching his reflection in one of the shards of glass that used to be a window. He was rhythmically tossing his cell in the air, his lips compressed in a tight line.

  I fought the happy dance licking at my feet, and let him wrestle with how I figured out that he'd been listening in on my calls. The lilt of chimes at the entrance to Cinnamon Girl had an unusual melody—one that had whispered in the background of the call I made to Annie. I couldn’t have heard it through the connection unless it had been filtered through another phone on the same line—someone who was listening in on my conversation. Someone who just happened to be standing right next to the front door of the shop.

  Score one for me.

  It gave me the courage to let my fingertips brush against the fragments of wood that used to be my grandmother’s front door. The rough surface scraped my fingers and images rushed to meet me.

  Grandma.

  Six

  My grandmother was a beautiful woman. The images of her were faint, but her beauty was soul deep, and clearly reflected in the warm, whiskey shade of her eyes. It calmed me, just watching her on my internal monitor. She’d definitely been here and not that long ago. Fingers of anticipation skittered up my spine. Maybe she was still alive, then. Not here anymore, but somewhere.

  I recognized the dress she wore. Stepping back, I tried to reconcile the images with the disrepair of the building. This place had clearly been vacant for years. Grandma couldn’t possibly have been living here as recently as last year, but that dress hadn't been for available until recently. I took another step back. Right into Pierce.

  "What?" The single word came out as a Saint Bernard-sized bark.

  I elbowed him in the belly. "Back. Off." My teeth were clenched so tightly my jaw twitched.

  He snagged my arm, twisted it behind my back, and hauled me against his body. "Talk to me."

  Guess my attempt to deflect him with anger hadn’t worked.

  I dropped my forehead against his chest, a feeble attempt to hide my eyes. He’d made the perfect move to give me time to think, decide what to tell him. I’d never been held so securely and gently at the same time. It was unnerving. This whole scene had moved beyond strange, and well into weird and spooky territory.

  "My grandmother was here," I whispered into Pierce’s shirt.

  He loosened his grip on me. "Alive?"

  "Yes. She walked out the door, and then leaned against it, holding it open while she set her bags on the porch," I explained, pointing to the stoop where we stood.

  "How many bags?" he asked.

  "Two. Smallish. She could manage them by herself." I struggled against his hold.

  He released me, stepped back and slid his sunglasses down his nose. Those fey eyes focused on me, holding me riveted in front of him. Hell, I could barely breathe, much less move.

  I broke our locked gaze, shifted an inch, two, then pushed out a breath, and turned to examine what was left of the house. I needed time to process what I’d seen, and that meant his attention had to be diverted.

  "Water." I fluttered my hand in front of my throat, shooting for a damsel-in-distress diversion. The vision of my grandmother had brought tears to my eyes, and rather than blink them away, I let them trickle down my cheeks.

  Pierce shoved his shades against the bridge of his nose, jammed his hands in his pockets, and rocked back on his heels. "Describe her," he ordered.

  Oops. He'd bypassed my fluffy female impersonation, and gone right into his super spy persona. I wiped the tears off my cheeks and headed for the car to grab a bottle of water. I hadn't been lying about needing the water.

  North Carolina is warm in the fall, but not like this. I'd heard that Hawaiian weather could change in a heartbeat, and this particular beat had been hanging around for about fifteen minutes without a breeze. The trade winds that kept the islands comfortable had apparently taken a break, and the air was shimmering with heat. I snagged a bottle of water from the console, and leaned against the car while I studied the house and took a few swallows of bordering-on-hot water.

  Pierce snapped his fingers at me in a talk gesture.

  "Long, gray-white hair in a braid down her back, weathered café au lait skin, traditional build, but not heavy." I stopped to take another sip of water. "I look nothing like her."

  His attention didn’t waver. Not for a second.

  "Laugh lines around her eyes and mouth." I couldn’t keep a smile from spreading across my face. "And her eyes were brown, lighter than I expected. Attention-catching eyes," I said, rounding off my description of her. As much of a description as I was going to share.

  The images kept fading. I tried to pull them up and hold them close to my heart, but they slowly faded into nothingness. It wasn’t how my gift usually worked, but these were old images, and I was positive my grandmother had set the pictures up for me to find—energetic photos instead of the real thing.

  Still, her dress was going to stay my secret. At least until I figured out how to reconcile the image I’d gotten with the reality of the scene in front of me. The dress was made from a unique fabric, and had been featured in the Nordstrom catalog—A Tribute to Hawaii—that had come out when they’d opened the Honolulu store.

  I clearly remembered thumbing through that catalog while I was sitting in the kitchen at my parents’ house. Along with the house, I had inherited Harlan and Millie, the gardener and housekeeper, respectively. Millie had marked the page, and it struck me as odd at the time, because it wasn’t a style my prim and proper housekeeper would ever wear. The dress was distinctive, a watercolor print of deep-sea shades that ran from purple to aqua—just like the ocean surrounding the islands.

  It looked beautiful on my grandmother.

  And it wasn’t for sale until last year.

  I took another swallow of water and glanced over the rim of the bottle toward the house. It couldn’t have fallen into disrepair that quickly. Mother Nature didn’t work that fast, but humans could. And the tropical climate would have helped.

  I dropped the water bottle into the console and strode toward the house, determination in every step. I wanted answers.

  Pierce didn’t say a word, but he dogged my heels with controlled precision.

  I stopped in front of the door, and ran my fingers over the wood again. Got the same image of my grandmother. "It’s definitely her," I said.

  He gave his trademark nod.

  I made my way to the side of the house, stopped in front of a broken window, and ran my fingers along the flat surface of the glass, careful to avoid the sharp edge. It was hot to the touch and I jerked my hand away, sticking my fingers in my mouth to cool them.

  "Try this." Pierce handed me a handkerchief.

  I wrapped it around my fingers and touched the glass again. There was energetic movement, but no images that were clear enough for me to get a picture. I stuffed Pierce’s handkerchief in my pocket, and continued around the side of the house, being careful where I stepped.

  Pierce pointed to the window. "See anything?"

  I shook my head. Once. Thought I’d give cryptic a try, and then I wrinkled my nose at him and went to work running my hands over the wooden siding.

  No images. Which wasn't surprising since humans with strong energy fields, or who are emotional, leave a more lasting imprint than, say, someone who just brushed against the house. The picture of my grandmother at the front door probably stayed clear because she was emotional about getting a message to me.

  I circled around to the rear of the house. A crooked porch extended along the back with a worn rocking chair tucked into a corner. Without touching it, I imagined grandma passing the time, rocking as she basked in the calm of the valley below.

  When Pi
erce caught sight of it he crossed his arms and nodded in a silent, but direct order. It was irritating as all hell. Lucky for him I’d already planned on exploring every bloody inch of the chair.

  I carefully ran my fingers along the top and back, then over the arms and seat. The images were as clear as the one of Grandma at the front door, leaving no doubt that she'd planted them for me to find. My pulse leaped into my throat, and I ran my fingers over the chair again.

  "El?" It was a not so subtle demand—a nudge for me to share what I was seeing. I turned to face Pierce and breathed in small sips of oxygen. The sun caught in his hair, highlighting the dark shade with streaks of gold. Angelic—a messenger from the devil—leaning against the porch rail, insouciance personified. At least he’d stopped crowding me.

  "She sat here often. Reading, writing letters, just sitting…" I lost focus as I became absorbed with the images.

  Pierce pushed away from the porch railing, the movement breaking my concentration. He took two deliberate steps toward me, the heat from his body warming the three inches of space he’d left between us.

  My body hummed.

  He slid his sunglasses off, hooked them on his shirt pocket, and framed my face with his hands. His lips brushed against mine. The breath backed up in my lungs, crowding my heart, and then he took the kiss into smoky darkness.

  Emotion caught up with me, and I floated into the kiss as though it were my last link with sanity. Maybe it was. Too many surreal images of my only living relative were messing with my ability to separate the emotional overload from the reality of my purpose here—to keep her safe.

  Pierce’s lips softened as they rubbed against mine, and the kiss lasted long enough to leave my knees wobbly.

  When Pierce finally stepped back, I licked his spicy taste from my lips, and realized my fists were curled into the fabric of his shirt. Heat flooded my cheeks. I smoothed out the wrinkles, and tactfully ignored the image of the salesgirl flirting with him when he’d purchased the shirt.

  The man had moved from friend to bodyguard. From someone I'd trusted to a potential enemy, and I’d still responded to his kiss like a hormonal teenager with no sense. Worse, it was probably exactly what he’d planned—to keep me unbalanced enough to spill secrets.