by Lena North
I stopped and turned to him.
“Yes, I hear you, and I think we need to turn things around,” I said.
“Say again?” he frowned.
“You promised to not get into my head, but I can’t go around telling you when it’s okay for you to hear me. So, we turn it around. If we touch, then you can be in my head whenever you want to, and if I don’t want you to hear, then it’ll be up to me to stop you. Although I might not be so very good at that, so you’ll need to cut me some slack and get out when I tell you.” I tilted my head a little to the side and thought as loud as I could, “OKAY?”
He winced and said with a chuckle, “Jiminella, there’s no need to shout at me, but we can practice volume control later.”
“Okay,” I thought in a way I figured was quieter, but his wince told me that I was still overdoing it.
We walked for a while, and in a surprisingly short time, we learned to communicate almost effortlessly. I was still too loud most of the time, and I couldn’t get used to the idea that whispering my thoughts would put them at an average sound level in his head. We tried a couple of times to hear each other’s thoughts if we didn’t touch, but it didn’t work. He could still hear me perfectly, but I could only sense him, like a warm flow of air rushing through my brain in a way that was far from unpleasant.
Dante also tried to explain how to block him out, but since he’d never had to do it himself, it didn’t work at all. In the end, we settled for me just telling him with words, agreeing that I should ask Snow to tell me how she did it, or if that didn’t work, Mac would be able to show me.
When we reached the outskirts of the village, he left me and walked up through the low dunes to knock on the door to a small, well-kept house. He returned with a blanket, and I saw a young woman waving happily at me from the door, so I waved back. The midday sun was warm, and as we sat there talking quietly about the two years Dante had spent in the army, I yawned.
“You can sleep for a while if you’re tired, Nellie,” Dante said.
The blanket was huge, and he sounded so sweet.
“Okay,” I mumbled and tried to hide how self-conscious I felt as I lay down and closed my eyes.
“Sleep,” he murmured.
“No fair to speak in my head when I can’t reply,” I said with a smile.
“Easily fixed,” he replied, and I heard how he moved.
Then he took a soft hold of my hand, and whispered again, “Sleep.”
I had no clue what to say, so I whispered, “You too,” keeping my eyes closed, not daring to look at him. I wondered if I should say something else, or maybe move my hand away, but then there was a familiar warmth brushing my mind, and I drifted off instead.
I woke up slowly, and the first thing I noticed was that I still held Dante’s hand. When I opened my eyes, he was on his side next to me, and he was sleeping. We’d slept together when I got sick, but it had been dark, and as I watched his beautiful, relaxed face, I wondered what I had gotten myself into.
“Hey,” he whispered, opened his eyes, and smiled sleepily.
“Hey,” I replied.
“Hey!” someone called out, and I jerked my hand out of his, turned around, and watched the woman who’s blanket we were laying on approach us with a basket.
“Sleeping our days away, are we?” she asked Dante with a grin.
“Absolutely,” he replied calmly and sat up.
I did too, and when the woman handed me the basket, I took it.
“Lunch,” she said.
Then a couple of kids were suddenly yelling, and she started laughing. “I swear, they’re like wild beasts. Have to go, before they kill each other.”
Dante called out our thanks for the lunch basket, but she just turned around briefly and smiled without slowing down, and since the noise from the kids was escalating, that was probably wise. While we ate the sandwiches and fruit she’d packed for us, we talked about our ability to speak in each other’s minds. I felt sure that by identifying the wavelength of our thoughts, I would be able to explain how we could suddenly talk in each other’s minds. I shared how it theoretically would be possible to recreate our mental abilities with others and how it shouldn’t be too difficult to figure it out since it had to be similar to other transmissions. Dante smiled at my explanations but rejected the idea of applying any kind of scientific logic, and when thinking about it, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do any tests on either of us, so I backed down.
“What were your parents like?” I asked instead.
“They were wonderful,” he replied immediately and started telling me about how he’d grown up as the only son of two parents who had almost given up hope of ever having a child of their own.
The more he told me, the more I wished I’d had the chance to meet his parents because they seemed lovely. His mom had been above forty when he was born and his father fifty-two, so when Dante arrived they were overjoyed. They hadn’t spoiled him, though, or at least it didn’t seem like it to me, and they had showered him with love and affection, but from what I could tell they’d also been quite strict, or maybe just a bit old-fashioned. Compared to my mom and dad, the stability he’d had all his life seemed like heaven.
Dante didn’t like my parents, and there was nothing I could say that made him change this opinion.
“Nellie, they suck as parents,” he kept repeating.
I wanted to argue with him because he was wrong. They’d done the best they could under the circumstances, and I didn’t blame them for leaving me, not the way Dante did. He didn't understand that it wasn’t easy to having a child who wanted to discuss quantum physics when all you wanted to do was play games involving beautiful princesses and dragons. Since my mom had been so sick when I was born, they couldn't have more children, and they never blamed me for that, but I knew that it was a disappointment to both my parents.
Unfortunately, Dante calling me Nellie in that soft voice apparently made most of my IQ disappear, and I ended up smiling stupidly. It was baffling to find myself acting so silly, and I tried to regain my composure although I had little success with that.
As we’d moved on to talk about my university years and the work I’d done there, I suddenly felt how my thoughts started to race, my shoulders tensed and I clenched my jaws together. I bent my legs so I could rest my chin on my knees and wrapped my arms around them, trying frantically to relax. Dante moved immediately, and sat down behind me, putting his long legs on my sides and taking hold of my hands.
“Let go of your legs, Nellie,” he murmured, and I did. “Breathe with me,” he continued, brushing my mind with his strength and warmth.
“Breathe in slowly, in through your nose,” he whispered, “and out through the mouth.”
I did what he told me, and as we breathed together, I felt how I calmed down. The soft breeze from the water filled my mind, and the warmth from him surrounded me and made me feel safe.
“How did you know what to do?” I asked and leaned back into his arms.
“Asked around,” he murmured. “Searched the net, talked to some people. Figured there had to be a way that didn’t involve Mac fainting to get you to relax.”
I chuckled and turned my head.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” he replied but didn’t say anything else.
I couldn’t interpret the look on his face, so I moved out of his arms and started to gather up the paper wrappings from our lunch, to put them back in the basket. His brows had narrowed, but I wasn’t sure what it meant and had no intention to ask because I suspected that I wouldn’t like his answer.
“We should head back,” I said instead.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he agreed.
I had been the one who said we should go back, so I had no reason to feel disappointed, but I did. We walked slowly, though, and Dante had grabbed my hand, so we kept talking silently about the next couple of days.
I was looking forward to working and told him so. He wanted m
e to take it easy, and I said I would, but he still didn’t look happy. I tried to pull my hand away, but he didn’t let me.
“Can we talk about last night, and about right now?” he said suddenly.
“What?”
“You can’t get so upset just because I frown, Jiminella,” he said gently.
“I know,” I told him. “I’m being silly.”
“Not silly, silly,” he grinned. “You feel what you feel.”
“I wasn’t like that before,” I told him, but continued honestly, “Or, at least, I was better at acting like it didn’t matter when someone was upset with me.”
“I don’t want you to pretend,” he said immediately. “And you can be scared and upset by everyone else, but not me. I’ll protect you from the others, but we need to find a way for you to cope with me.”
Liking what he’d told me but not sure what to say, I opted for saying nothing at all.
“I’m pretty easy, Nellie,” he murmured. “I don’t get mad a lot, never did, but it happens. I can’t watch my every word around you, though, so we have to find a way.”
I thought about that, and I knew he was right. I couldn’t expect him to walk around on eggshells, worried that my feelings would be hurt.
“I’ll work on not taking everything so seriously, but you have to stop worrying about me,” I said. “I’m feeling so much better, and I might still be a bit shaky, but I’m not weak.”
“Okay,” he said. “I can do that.”
“Okay,” I echoed, and then we continued walking in silence.
A couple of men from the village called out to us when we were turning to leave the beach, and then they stopped to chat. Dante didn’t let go of my hand and only squeezed it harder when I tried to pull away. I knew it was so we would be able to talk silently, so I relaxed, but it also felt good.
I’d met both Tommy and Roberto briefly at one of the coffee drinking events I’d been to, and soon enough we were discussing issues Robbie was having with his radio.
“I’m sure the store in Prosper could help…” Dante started. He was frowning, and I knew that he was trying to protect me, but I didn’t want him to. I thought that I’d be perfectly able to handle a little light discussion about electrical wiring, so I squeezed his hand.
“Please don’t worry so. You have to let me try, Dante,” I told him. “You’re frowning, and I’m not getting upset, so you need to do your part and stop worrying. You’re in my head, and if I start feeling sick, then you can intervene. As long as I’m good, then please let me try.”
Without waiting for a reply, I went back to the discussion and soon enough we had come up with a couple of things for Robbie to look into. He was quite a lot older than me but didn’t seem to get insulted when I corrected a few of his assumptions.
“It’s so good to have you here, Jinx,” he said instead. “No one in this village is interested in electricity, except for changing lightbulbs and maybe some basic cable pulling.”
I smiled at his condescending description of the rather skilled electrician on Dante's crew that had worked on the house.
“You know quite a lot, though,” I told him because he did. I had enjoyed the discussion immensely. “Did you learn in Prosper?”
“Robbie always has his nose in a book,” Tommy said.
I turned to defend Roberto, and maybe myself, but Tommy just grinned.
“Now, Jinx,” he chuckled. “No need to look like that, I didn’t mean that it was bad. I bet you have your nose in books all the time too and it saved Danny, so we know what it’s worth.
“Tommy,” Roberto barked out. “This is Jinx Sweetwater. She doesn’t read books, she writes them.”
I started to protest when Dante spoke.
“You wrote books?”
“Not books exactly, Dante. They’re more like pamphlets.”
“Pamphlets,” he echoed.
“Not many,” I assured him and, thinking to tone it down a bit, I added, “And just a couple of them are included in the mandatory curriculum at the University.”
He looked at me for the longest time, and he had an exasperated look on his face. The two older men were chuckling, but if they were laughing at Dante or at me, I didn’t know.
“Is there anything you haven’t done?” Dante asked finally.
I was about to let him know that there were plenty of things I hadn’t done when Tommy interrupted us.
“You could write a book about all Robbie’s inventions then.”
Roberto started protesting, but I was intrigued.
“What have you invented Robbie?”
“Noth –”
“Plenty of things, but his rat-machine is the best. Everyone in the village has one,” Tommy shared proudly.
“Rat-machine?” I asked.
“It’s not really a machine, Jinx,” Robbie said, shuffling his feet and looking awkward. When I kept looking at him, and his friend nudged him with an elbow, he finally explained. “My wife got us one of them air fresheners. You know the kind you put in the socket, and it pushes out some godawful tropical hibiscus scent that’s supposed to hide the normal smell of a house?”
I giggled because I shared his view on air fresheners. Some sweet-smelling candles could be nice, but the synthetic fragrance from electrical plugs had always burned my nose.
“Well, I opened it up to see if I could change the scent to something that didn’t make my eyes water, and while I was at it, the wife was suddenly screaming from the kitchen.”
He spoke slowly, and when he made a pause I wanted to ask him to continue, but Dante suddenly squeezed my hand.
“Nellie, relax. He’ll get to the point eventually. We’re not in a hurry.”
I looked up at him, and he had the sweetest smile on his face. Then he let go of my hand and used his arm to instead pull me into his side. I smiled too then, wrapped my arm around his back and turned to Robbie.
“Mice,” he said.
“What?” I mumbled.
“We had mice in the kitchen. This wasn’t news to either of us, because rodents have always been an issue in Marshes, but the wife hates them.” He snorted softly, mocking his wife’s dislike. “Anyway, I got this idea to add a small transmitter to the perfume-thingie. Adjusted the sounds and eventually, I found a frequency that repels rodents and changed the smell to a mix of mint and lemon balm because they hate that. Everyone in the village has one now, and it seems to keep mice and rats away. I’m working on another one that repels spiders, but that turned out to be a bit trickier, so I haven’t been successful yet.”
I blinked. What an absolutely ingenious device.
“Do you have a patent on that,” I asked.
“No,” he replied calmly. “Too much trouble, and why –”
“We are filing for one this afternoon, Robbie.”
“Jinx,” he said.
“Jiminella,” Dante rumbled warningly.
Tommy was just grinning.
“Stop it,” I said and glared at them all. “Robbie. You need a patent, and then you should find someone to help you set up a small scale production. Get some beautiful wooden covers, maybe painted. Designer looking, you know. Danny will help.” Then I turned to Dante. “I’ve filed tons of patents. I have eight approved for myself, and the first time was hard, even for me, but after that it was easy. It will take less than an hour in total.”
Our eyes held for a while and then he sighed.
“Okay,” he said quietly to me and turned to Robbie. “Jiminella has been sick, so she needs to cut back on her working hours. She can help you file the patent, but everything else goes through Danny or me.”
We made plans for Roberto to bring his drawings over to Mrs. C, and then we continued walking our separate ways. Dante grabbed my hand again, and murmured softly, “What am I going to do with you?”
“Nothing?” I replied, and he chuckled but didn’t say anything else.
Why would he do anything, I thought. We had a connection with the way we co
uld communicate. I liked him, and I thought that he liked me, but I didn’t sense that he was interested in anything other than friendship. I was admittedly not very experienced with men, but surely he would have kissed me, or at least hugged me? He’d held my hand, but that had been so that I could hear his thoughts, and he was a very touchy-feely kind of man. He called everyone honey and sweetie, and I’d seen him put his arm around several of the women in the village.
Suddenly, I was looking forward to seeing Mary and Wilder. Maybe there was something I should do to make Dante see me more as a girl and less as a pathetic buddy that he needed to watch over all the time. My girlfriends would know, I decided.
Chapter Twelve
Woof
I had been so sure both Wilder and Mary would come with Kit, but they didn’t. I swallowed and straightened my back, and when Kit approached me, I did what I would likely not have done just a few weeks earlier. I asked him.
“The girls didn’t want to come?”
I tried to sound calm, but I couldn’t hide my disappointment, and Kit stepped closer to wrap me up in a big hug.
“Of course they wanted to come, Jinx,” he murmured. “Then that big, blond guy showed up two nights ago, and they talked for hours. Don’t know what was said but when he’d left, Wilder told us they’d wait a few more weeks.”
“Dante was at Double H?” I asked, trying again to sound calm and in control but since I’d looked forward to seeing my girlfriends and didn’t appreciate Dante’s meddling I was failing miserably.
“No,” Kit said slowly, clearly aiming at placating me. “Wilder and Mac was in Norton so he came there, though I think he might have gone to Prosper to talk to Mary too.”
I stepped out of the embrace and nodded, deciding that I’d have a little discussion with Dante later.
“You look better,” a deep voice rumbled.
My voice split up into a wide grin, and I spread my arms out.
“Olly!” I said, and then I was wrapped up in another huge hug. “Dante didn’t tell you to stay away too?” I murmured.
I felt his laughter more than heard it and when I leaned back, I could see that his eyes had lit up with it.