Don't Give Me Butterflies

by Tara Sheets

  She turned off the faucet and dried her hands.

  “Come upstairs with me.” He stepped closer and she could feel the heat of his body behind her.

  They were still staring at each other through the reflection in the window. She bit the insides of her cheeks, grounding herself in case she decided to blurt “Sure! Race you to the bed!” With careful determination, she gathered herself together and said, “I can’t. I have to get to bed.”

  “Agreed.”

  “I have to get to my bed,” she said with a laugh, stepping around him. Keep it light. “And we have to forget about this.” She backed away, gesturing between them with her finger.

  His expression was unreadable, so she continued before she lost her nerve. “I just really want to focus on work right now, and settling in here with friends. I don’t want any complications so I think we should just carry on like before, okay?”

  To her surprise, he started to smile. But it wasn’t an “okay-sure-no-prob” type of smile. It was the kind that held all sorts of secrets. The naughty kind. “Yeah, Kat. We can try that.”

  “Good,” she said brightly.

  Before Jordan had a chance to say anything more, she gave him a quick wave and bolted out the door. She walked briskly to her apartment, chin held high, back straight. Well, the Queen of Impulsive Decisions had derailed her plan to stay away from him, but she wasn’t so far gone that she couldn’t jump right back on track. And that’s exactly what she’d do. A couple of kisses and a crazy make-out session didn’t amount to much. As long as she kept her focus on work and practical things, she’d be totally fine.

  Later that night, she lay in her new bed with Hank curled up on the quilt beside her. Every time she tried not to think of Jordan, the memory of them together came roaring back to life.

  She rolled onto her back and stared at the tiled ceiling, thinking hard about work. She needed to go over the details about the Pet Adoption Day.

  Jordan’s hard, lean body pressing against hers as he rolled her onto the grass.

  She flopped onto her stomach. She needed to make some more calls tomorrow. Remind the volunteers what time to bring their foster pets.

  Jordan’s mouth at the sensitive spot near the nape of her neck, trailing lower, and lower still.

  She turned sideways and curled into a ball. Lots to do. Lots to do.

  Jordan’s hand sliding under her dress, the fabric bunching between them. His fingers caressing her until the pleasure burned so hot and bright, she felt as if she was coming apart at the seams.

  Kat sat up fast, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. She refused to think about it. Instead she walked to the small table and stared at the mesh butterfly cage. It was easy to sense life in the cocoons now. She had a feeling it wouldn’t be long before they broke free and spread their wings. She almost envied them. Soon they would be something completely different, something better and bolder and brighter than ever before.

  She sat at the table, leaning her chin on her hands. Maybe, if she was really careful and followed the plan, her life could be better, too. All she had to do was stay the course and focus on what was good for her. She was smart. She could totally do that. No problem.

  Jordan’s hands tightly gripping her waist, his mouth hot and insistent on her bare skin.

  No problem at all.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Kat stood in the middle of Emma’s attic, surrounded by a sea of dusty boxes, steamer trunks, and various odds and ends from the Holloway family’s past. Emma and Juliette had invited her over to spend Tuesday night participating in what they called “Operation Family Tree,” a project they’d been working on for the past two hours. Kat had agreed, hoping it would help her focus on something other than her tumble down Lusty Lane with Jordan Prescott yesterday evening.

  “So, what exactly are we looking for again?” Kat asked, edging around a dusty carousel horse.

  To say the attic was odd would’ve been a vast understatement. It was crammed to the brim with Holloway heirlooms, and it had a strange way of changing and shifting, depending on where Kat was standing. The changes were so subtle, she didn’t notice them at first. When she passed the old carousel horse, the air smelled of candy apples and popcorn, and when she ran her hand over the wooden horse’s side, she swore she heard the faint sound of laughter and carnival music.

  A dainty floral chair smelled like fresh roses, and when Kat brushed past an oil painting of a leopard, she thought she heard it purr. There was a cuckoo clock with a mechanical bird that popped out whenever she passed by, and a sun hat that sounded like the ocean when she placed it on her head.

  It was as though each item in the attic was individually hand-dipped in Holloway memories, and those memories rippled outward, melding together, when touched. Kat was fascinated. She felt as if she could spend an entire month in the attic and never grow bored.

  Emma and Juliette were much more blasé about it. Tonight they had only one goal: to find a missing link somewhere in their ancestors’ belongings that would connect Kat to the Holloways.

  “We’re looking for a family album. Or family photos. Or anything remotely family-ish.” Juliette’s muffled voice came from behind a dressing screen in the far corner. She emerged with an armful of clothing heaped so high, it obscured her face. “I can’t believe how much the Holloways have accumulated over the years.” She dumped the pile of clothes on top of several boxes. “I mean, look at this stuff, Em. It’s like the Queen of Sheba left her wardrobe here.” She held up a white gauzy dress with a gold snake for a collar and Egyptian-style hieroglyphics around the border.

  Emma was kneeling under one of the attic windows, going through a cardboard box of what appeared to be dishes. “I think that’s from one of the aunts. Grandma once told me we had a relative who was all into stage acting and opera.”

  Kat navigated her way around stacks of boxes, toward Juliette’s clothing pile. Beautiful gowns in rich shades of emerald, sapphire and amber twisted around sparkling skirts, embroidered scarves, and elaborate headdresses. She lifted a blue velvet gown and held it up. Even in the weak attic light, the dress glowed like a crown jewel.

  “Okay, it’s official,” Kat announced. “You guys have the coolest family, ever.”

  Juliette, who had gone back behind the dressing screen, let out a laugh. “Cool is one way to describe it. You could also say crazy, odd, loony—”

  “Bizarre, unconventional, deranged,” Emma added.

  Juliette hefted another pile of clothes from behind the screen and said, “Peculiar.”

  “Freakish,” Emma called back.

  “And don’t forget . . .” Juliette grabbed a theater hat off the floor and shoved it on her head. It was black satin, with a huge swath of black tulle cascading over the edge. She flashed a devious smile. “Witchy.”

  “You look really good in witchy,” Kat said. “And even if people called you those things, the whole mystery behind your family is kind of romantic, you know?” She held the blue dress up to her shoulders and turned this way and that. Really, it was too beautiful to hide in the shadows.

  “Try it on,” Emma said.

  Kat started to say “no,” but the dress suddenly clung to her body like it was charged with static electricity. “What the—?”

  “That,” Juliette said with a laugh, “is the house. Remember when we told you it was opinionated?”

  Kat nodded, wide-eyed. Goose bumps rose on her arms, but it was from excitement, more than anything else. She wasn’t afraid. She was just surprised.

  “Well, the house thinks you should try on the dress,” Juliette said. “And so do I.”

  “Me too,” Emma called. “Just have fun with it. Juliette and I used to play dress-up here when we were kids. We played pirate kings and fairy queens and what was that one you liked, Jules?”

  “Sasquatch hunters.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” Emma gave her cousin a long-suffering look. “I always had to be Bigfoot in the ratty fur co
at.”

  “Because you were better at lumbering about,” Juliette said with a laugh. “And I was better at sneaking. We were playing to our strengths.”

  Emma rolled her eyes.

  Juliette nodded to the blue dress that was still clinging to Kat. “Go ahead and give it a whirl. You should do it now, because we might not see it again.”

  “It’s true,” Emma said, stepping over a rolled-up rug to join them. “The hardest thing about all this”—she swept her hand wide—“is that it’s ever-changing. We’re constantly finding things we’ve never seen before.”

  “Or losing things we swear we left up here,” Juliette said. “One time I found a slingshot, and I was so excited because I spent the whole afternoon gathering stones for it. I was going to try it out on Mean Mikey Matthews because I overheard him saying he was going to toilet paper our house. Remember that, Em?”

  Emma nodded. “So Mean Mikey came in the middle of the night with his cronies, and Juliette went running up to the attic to get her slingshot, but it was gone.”

  Juliette made a sound of disgust. “Just disappeared right out of the box I put it in.”

  “But in its place was a Polaroid camera,” Emma said. “Which worked out better, anyway. Juliette snuck into the garden and took pictures of them. Then she left the pictures on the principal’s desk with an anonymous note.”

  “And Mean Mikey got detention for a week,” Juliette said with pride. “His parents grounded him and made him clean it up, too. But I still think it would’ve been more fun to sling pebbles at him.”

  Emma glanced at Kat. “You’ve probably figured out by now that she’s the bloodthirsty one.”

  “But didn’t they see the Polaroid camera flash when you took the pictures?” Kat asked.

  “Nope,” Juliette said smugly. “It didn’t have a flash.”

  “But . . . Then how did the pictures turn out?” Kat asked. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Who knows?” Emma said breezily. “If it’s from the Holloway house, it rarely makes sense.”

  “So now’s your chance,” Juliette said. “Go try on the dress and make the house happy. There’s a mirror behind the screen.”

  Kat picked her way through the boxes until she got to the red dressing screen with Japanese flowers. She quickly undressed and pulled the sleeveless gown over her head. Miraculously, the static electricity was gone. It slipped on in a whisper of silk velvet, sliding over her curves like it was made just for her. The neckline came up high in a halter style, but when she turned around and looked in the mirror, she couldn’t help saying, “Whoa.”

  The back dipped into a low V that accentuated Kat’s small waist, and the skirt of the gown fell to the floor in soft, elegant folds.

  “Let’s see,” Emma called from across the room.

  Kat emerged from behind the screen, feeling a little shy and a whole lot glamorous. She slowly turned in a circle.

  “Holy Hollywood pinup girl!” Juliette said. “You look like a million bucks.”

  “Gorgeous,” Emma agreed. “And it fits you like a glove. It’s perfect on you. I think you should keep it.”

  Kat gasped. “No.”

  “You’re keeping it,” Juliette said with finality.

  Kat looked at them like they were crazy. “Heck no, I’m not taking this dress. It probably cost a fortune.”

  “It didn’t cost us anything,” Juliette said. “Besides, every girl needs a gown to misbehave in, and that’s yours. The house thinks so, too.”

  The overhead light flickered.

  “See?” Emma said.

  “Thanks, all of you. But, no.” Kat walked behind the screen again. “Besides, where would I wear it? It’s a little too dressy for feeding chickens and cleaning animal kennels.”

  “If you like it, it’s yours,” Emma said. She pulled an emerald green enamel box off a pile of clothes. “Hey, I remember this jewelry box. It was my grandmother’s.” When she opened the lid, a lovely melody began to play. Emma started humming along.

  “Ooh! I think I found something,” Juliette exclaimed.

  Kat emerged from behind the screen in her old denim shorts and T-shirt. She made her way over to Juliette, who was rummaging inside a brown steamer trunk.

  Emma joined them as Juliette pulled out a large, thick photo album.

  “This could be one of the family albums we’ve been searching for,” Juliette said excitedly. She plopped onto the floor and opened the album.

  A couple of postcards were tucked into the front page. One was a glossy image of the great pyramids of Giza in Egypt. Another was a tropical beach.

  “I think these are from your mom,” Juliette said, handing them to Emma.

  Emma held the postcards and murmured, “Yes, I remember these. She sent a few when I was little.” She turned to Kat, handing her the postcards. “My mom’s gift is wanderlust. She travels the word, helping people in need, and can’t ever rest unless she’s on the move. I was raised here by my grandmother, who had kitchen magic, like me.”

  Kat studied the glossy images in her hand. She turned the tropical beach card over. Having fun in the sun. Hope all is well. That was it. The message wasn’t even signed. It seemed so . . . impersonal.

  “Do you ever see her anymore?” Kat asked.

  “No,” Emma said. “She belongs out there. It’s her calling.” She seemed resigned, as if she’d come to peace with her mother’s absence a long time ago. Kat felt an unexpected wave of sadness for what Emma must’ve gone through.

  Kat handed the cards back to Juliette, who was browsing through an old photo album.

  “See anything useful?” Emma asked.

  Juliette turned the page. “I don’t know yet.”

  Kat peered over Juliette’s shoulder. The page held small black-and-white photos. Most of them were landscape images of grassy hills and cottages in the distance. A couple photos showed two women in dresses with aprons and work boots.

  Juliette closed the album and stood. “I’ll take this one home with me and report back. Let’s all get together at O’Malley’s pub on Friday night. Gertie and Molly are going to be there. Kat, you want to come?”

  “Sure,” Kat said. Gertie and Molly were Emma’s and Juliette’s friends who worked at the local hair salon, and they were always vivacious and full of chatter. It had been a long time since Kat had gone out just for fun, mostly because she was broke. But Friday was payday, so she’d have money for the first time in what felt like ages.

  “Good.” Juliette slapped dust from her broomstick skirt. “I have to go now. Logan’s parents are flying in from Florida to meet me. Ever since he told them we were engaged, they’ve been riddling him with questions about me. Now they’re coming out and there’s nothing I can do except light a few of those Peace and Acceptance candles I make, and hope for the best.”

  Emma placed a hand on Juliette’s shoulder. “You’re not going to need the candles. They’re going to love you.”

  Kat murmured her agreement, unable to imagine anyone not loving these women. They were so open and generous and kind. They were special, and not just because they both had a gift like her. They were unusual because they accepted her completely and without judgment. Even if Kat never found out who her parents were, she would always be grateful for Emma’s and Juliette’s friendship.

  It was dark by the time Kat pulled in to Willowbrook Lavender Farm. Jordan’s truck was parked on the side of the yard. Just thinking about him made heat rise up the back of her neck and her limbs go weak. She wasn’t sure it was possible to pretend things were normal between them, but she had to try. Luckily, it was too late to run into him.

  She hopped out of her car and set Hank on the grass. He immediately took off to see Waffles. Kat leaned against the garage wall and looked up at the stars. It was dark outside, except for the single floodlight near the animal pen.

  A fluttering sound came from overhead. She held her hand out, instinctively knowing her friend was close by.

&n
bsp; Edgar the crow landed on her outstretched hand, carefully wrapping his talons around her wrist.

  “And where’ve you been?” Kat asked in a soft voice. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

  Edgar tilted his head and rose into the air, then settled on her shoulder. He rubbed his head against her cheek.

  She reached up to pet him, grateful for his presence. Making her way across the grass, she came to a stop at the fence where Hank was snuffling around the ground beside the sleepy donkey.

  “You guys are my family,” Kat whispered. Edgar pressed his head to her cheek one more time, then disappeared into the night sky.

  She may not have a family like Juliette and Emma, but she had her animals, and that was more than enough. It had to be.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “You’re the handsomest three-legged dog I’ve ever met,” Kat assured the shivering animal who was cowering under her desk. She’d arrived to work on Wednesday morning to find the dog’s crate dropped outside the front door of Daisy Meadows Pet Rescue before they even opened. He was alone and afraid, and the only paperwork that came with him—much to Smitty’s annoyance—was a note taped to the top of the crate that read:

  Thanks for taking Lucky off my hands. Joe.

  There were a couple of things Kat realized immediately. The first being that Joe was a total dillhole. The second thing she realized was that Lucky wasn’t old. He couldn’t have been more than three, and he buzzed with a youthful, nervous energy that was only contained because he was scared of people.

  She could tell right away the dog was anxious, so she spent the first hour taking calls from the floor near her desk.

  At first, Lucky was uninterested in Hank’s encouragement to come out and sniff around the office. But after a while, the dog warmed up to Kat, calmed by her voice and the waves of reassurance she sent him. She felt a jolt of triumph when he crawled out from under her desk and laid his head in her lap. His back right leg was missing, and he had an odd, loping gait when he walked, but Kat could tell it didn’t bother him anymore, which was a huge relief.