He could be normal, he could be with Ashley. If she’d have him. “I understand.”
“No!” Ashley cried out, stumbling from the trees. Her hair hung down around her in wild waves, her clothes back in place. She looked frantic, half asleep, as if awoken from a nightmare. But it wasn’t her nightmare, only his.
She didn’t want him.
“You can’t do this! I know how much you want to leave.” Tears brimmed in her hazel eyes, turning them a mossy green. She wanted him to leave, but only because she thought he wanted it. His heart filled, bursting.
She was so stubborn. So brave. So beautiful. How could he not love her?
“Do ye want me to leave?” he asked quietly.
Her lips set into a firm line. For one horrifying moment he thought she’d say yes. Then her face crumbled, the tears falling one by one down her pale cheeks.
“No.” She closed her eyes. “Damn it, I’m selfish, but no. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want you to leave me here to face this by myself.”
She didn’t say she loved him. He didn’t care. “Then I’ll stay.”
She opened her eyes, wild with panic. “You can’t! Not for me. I already have too much guilt on my conscience.”
“Then I’ll stay for me.” He looked at Raphael who was watching them curiously, confused, no doubt, by their silly human emotions.
“You’re sure?” the angel asked.
Cristian gave a curt nod, his heart racing with possibilities. “Positive.”
Raphael didn’t try to stop him. Instead, the angel smiled. “I don’t blame you.”
In a flash of brilliant white light, he was gone. Silence settled heavily around them. Ashley’s lower lip trembled, her emotions so mangled, he couldn’t catch one. What was she thinking?
“Cristian, you shouldn’t have done this for me. You’ll regret it, you’ll hate me eventually. Call him back.”
“I know yer in love with Devon, but if—”
“Stop.” She rushed forward and pressed her palms to his chest. “Listen to me. Yes, I’m depressed that my dad is truly gone. Yes, I feel horrible for Devon, knowing he’s suffering, but we’ll figure something out, right? We’ll help him.”
He nodded, swallowing hard. What was she getting at?
“But I’m not in love with Devon. It’s you, Cristian.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “For one horrible moment I was relieved when it wasn’t you who died. I know,” she said, tears slipping down her cheeks once again. “I know I’m a horrible person for thinking that way.”
He clutched her upper arms and pulled her against him. “Stop it, yer not.” He held her close, silently thanking God for this moment. “Tell me…” he whispered desperately. “Tell me ye—”
“I do,” she said. “I love you Cristian.”
He crushed his mouth to hers; a kiss of possessiveness, of passion, of love. He felt that kiss all the way to his soul. But all too quickly, she pushed back.
She looked up at him, hope and despair mingling in her eyes. “Tell me you won’t regret this. Being human, being mortal.”
The sun was rising, birds chirping their merry morning welcomes. It was a new day. A new beginning. This is what it felt like to be human; to believe in hope and possibilities and love.
“Being human means being able to love. And I love ye more than ye could possibly know.” He cupped the sides of her face. “Even a moment with ye would be better than a lifetime without.”
She gave him a wavering smile. “Do you mean it?”
Grinning, he scooped her up into his arms and started for the cottage. “I love ye Ashley Hunter, yer crazy arse and all.”
The End
About Lori Brighton
Lori has a degree in Anthropology and worked as a museum curator. Deciding the people in her imagination were slightly more exciting than the dead things in a museum basement, she set out to become an author. She sold her first book, Wild Heart, to a New York Publisher and has since started self-publishing.
To find out more about Lori visit her at: www.LoriBrighton.com
Interested in more? Read an excerpt from Lori’s Young Adult Book, The Mind Readers!
The Mind Readers
Lori Brighton
Chapter 1
The man sitting across from me at the café was thinking about murdering his wife.
He imagined stabbing her and pretending like it was a robbery. Or perhaps, he thought, he’d take her hiking, push her off a cliff and say it was an accident; that she’d slipped. I wanted to tell him it wouldn’t work, that in those CSI shows on T.V. they always suspected the husband first.
Instead, I huddled deep within my down jacket, the diner booth pressing uncomfortably hard against my back. I didn’t dare move for fear of drawing attention to myself. I didn’t want to know his thoughts. I wished he’d keep them to himself. But I suppose he couldn’t help it. The thoughts seeped from his mind like the fog currently drifting in from the harbor.
Slowly, I slid him a glance out of the corner of my eye. With his thinning brown hair combed neatly into place, and his blue button-up shirt free of wrinkles, he looked like a normal suburban dad. But if there was one thing I’d learned early on in life it was that normalcy, as we thought of it, didn’t exist. It was amazing and frightening what humans were capable of.
His pale blue eyes met mine. My heart slammed frantically against my ribcage. I dropped my gaze, my long, dark hair falling around my face like a curtain. He’d noticed me looking at him. He was wondering if I was a virgin. He hoped I was. Pervert. Bile crawled up my throat. I wrapped my hands around my cup of Chai tea, hoping the heat would warm my insides. It didn’t.
But the guy sitting at the table next to me who’d been imagining killing his wife and was now imagining seducing me wasn’t the problem. No, it was the guy sitting across from me, the man with his bright orange hunting cap pulled low over his eyes, the guy waiting for the right moment to rob the café… he was the one who worried me.
For a second I thought about alerting the owner. Common sense and years of warning got the better of me and I remained stubbornly silent. With a trembling hand, I latched onto the strap of my bag, gripped my cup and slid from the booth.
My conscience screamed at me to return, to help, say something. Years of warning overtook any soft feelings. Shifting my bag strap to my shoulder, I scurried from the café before guilt got the better of me. Outside the air was crisp, cool. It was early fall and the bees were swarming an overflowing trashcan. Dumping my cup, careful to avoid the stinging insects, I pulled my hood atop my head and stuffed my hands into the soft, fleece-lined pockets on my jacket, trying to get warm…always trying.
A black truck zoomed by, sending fall colored leaves of orange, red and yellow into the air. For one brief moment, as the leaves settled around me, I felt like I was in the safety of a snow globe. But safety was an illusion. We were never safe. Not the people in the café. Not the few pedestrians strolling down the sidewalks. And certainly not me.
A deep shout resounded from inside the café, a muffled demand. I shouldn’t have been surprised, still my heart made a mad leap for my throat. People screamed, the sound noticeable even through the thick glass windows. I wouldn’t turn back. Trembling, I stepped off the curb, glanced left, then right and darted across the street. I had five minutes to make it home in time and couldn’t be late…again or Grandma would worry. I focused on the long road that led to our small Cape Cod style cottage, focused on the crunch of brittle leaves under my sneakers, focused on breathing. I would not react to the scene around me. I couldn’t. As Grandma repeatedly warned, my very life depended on silence.
Boom!
A sudden blast rang through the air, vibrating the glass windows. A flock of black starlings burst from the maples lining the road. I flinched, sucking in a sharp breath of cold air and resisted the urge to drop to the cracked sidewalk. Surprise faded quickly and guilt churned deep within my gut. A sickening guilt that was almost unbearable. So muc
h guilt. Angrily, I shoved the feeling aside.
A woman with gray hair who was walking her poodle next to me froze, her gaze pinned to the café. “My God, I think they’re being robbed!”
I didn’t respond but continued down the sidewalk, forced my feet forward as she fumbled with her cell phone.
Taking in a deep breath, I slipped the ear buds of my iPod into my ears. Home. I had to make it home before I was late, before nerves got the better of me and I was sick all over the sidewalk. Or worse, before I turned and raced back to the scene.
But even as I attempted to ignore the guilt thrumming in time with the music, anxiety clawed its way into my lungs, making it hard to breathe. I knew, deep down, I could have stopped it. If only I wasn’t a coward. If only….
Sometimes it really sucked to be able to read minds.
Chapter 2
“Café was robbed, one person shot. They just announced it on the news.” Grandma lifted her remote and turned the volume down on the T.V. nestled in the far corner of the counter. She was settled behind the round table where we ate all of our meals. A table that, according to her, had come across the ocean with her English grandparents over one-hundred years ago. I was pretty sure I remembered her buying it at a garage sale when I was a kid.
Hello to you too, Grandma.
I dropped my backpack on the kitchen table and headed straight for the refrigerator, my sneakers squeaking over the pea green 1970’s linoleum. I shouldn’t have been annoyed by Grandma’s blatant attempt to pry. I’d been living with her since I was five and my ability had surfaced. Grandma hadn’t said so, but it was obvious Mom pretty much thought I was a freak and had shoved me into Grandma’s capable arms, the one person who understood. Another freak.
I barely remembered Mom. But overall, my childhood hadn’t been horrible. Lonely, as we’d moved a lot; a little complicated as Grandma had to explain away my uncanny ability to know what others were thinking. But I couldn’t complain. I had a roof over my head and plenty to eat. Most importantly, she protected me as well as she could.
Grandma didn’t look like your typical old lady. Yeah, she was in her fifties, but she colored her dark hair and refused to cover her trim body with something as hideous as a housecoat. I got my hair and eye color from her, but my smaller features from my mom’s side of the family. Grandma was blunt and a little cold and it showed in her narrow face. But she’d taken care of me when no one else would, and for that I was reluctantly thankful.
“Anyone die?” I asked, pretending a nonchalance I certainly didn’t feel.
“Nope.” She said the word with ease. Her lack of empathy had always bothered me. She snapped her cookbook shut and peered up at me through her wire-rimmed glasses. I tried to ignore her hazel eyes, but it was impossible. I swear Grandma’s beady gaze could read a person’s soul. It was why I’d never lied to her. What was the point when she’d know the truth?
I wrapped my fingers around the handle of the refrigerator, relief releasing sweetly from my gut. No one had died. Just injured. No death. No guilt. At least not this time. But it was there, always in the back of my mind. Shame was the worst of it, knowing I could help if I’d just open my mouth. But as Grandma had taught me early on, there were worse things than feeling guilty, like feeling dead. I hadn’t realized a person could “feel” dead, but knew it was pointless to argue with Grandma.
“Cameron, isn’t that the café you visit?”
I pulled the refrigerator door wide, the burst of cold air adding to my unease. As if she didn’t know where I went. As if she didn’t know every tiny thing I did. “Yeah.”
“Were you there?”
I pulled out a can of coke, letting the chill aluminum numb my fingers, hoping that numbness would move to my heart, my gut, my brain. No such luck. “Yeah. I was there”
There was a short pause. I knew what she would ask next. Not that I could read her mind. I’d never been able to read Grandma’s thoughts like I could others. Grandma had learned, over the years, how to keep her thoughts to herself. An ability she refused to share with me and I knew why…then she wouldn’t be able to spy on me. Her power would be gone. And at times like this, I resented the hell out of her.
“Did you know?” she asked, her own voice casual.
Did I know the man was going to rob the café? Did I know he had a gun? Did I know someone might die and I could stop it? I swiped my hands on my jeans, wiping away the condensation. Slowly, I nodded.
“You didn’t say anything?”
Annoyed, I released a puff of air through pursed lips. Why did she even bother asking? She knew the answer. “No,” I grumbled.
“Good girl.” She pushed her chair away from the table, the legs screeching across the linoleum, and stood. “You’d only be courting questions and trouble. You remember what happened in Michigan. Always remember that when you want to warn someone. I’m going to the garden.”
Michigan. There it was again. As if I could ever forget the incident. The time I’d blabbed and we’d almost been caught. The time I’d realized I couldn’t trust anyone with my secret.
I watched her move to the door, my bitterness growing with each step she took. Whenever she praised me for keeping quiet, it felt so patronizing. Like inside she was smirking. Good little girl had done what she’d been told once again because she was too afraid to rebel.
The screen door banged against the frame and she disappeared into the back garden. Truth was, Grandma controlled me; she knew every one of my dark secrets, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. At times I felt beaten down, exposed, exhausted. Imprisoned like an animal at the zoo, constantly watched. One of these days she’d find me pacing my room…back…forth.
But in less than one year I’d be free of Grandma. She had to know I was eager to attend college, yet she never said anything. She had to know that when I went away, I could do whatever I wanted. Part of me worried that she had some nefarious plan to keep me by her side forever. I shuddered at the thought.
Slowly I made my way to the screen door. Grandma stood in the middle of our small, overgrown yard, just stood there, looking at her stupid lilac bush. She worked on that thing night and day and still it didn’t bloom. Why, I wanted to know, would she waste her time? But she never could give me a proper answer. She’d lost her son, she’d lost her daughter-in-law and maybe she knew she was losing me. Was the lilac some desperate attempt to hold onto something?
A horn blared out front, pulling me from my morose thoughts. For a brief moment, I paused, feeling bad about leaving her here alone. She didn’t have friends, she didn’t have family but for me. Her entire life revolved around some desperate attempt to keep me safe from unknown enemies. I knew, deep down, she was only trying to protect me, but it didn’t make me feel any less caged. The horn blared again. If I stayed here, I’d become alone and bitter. I’d become her, and I couldn’t let that happen.
I set my pop on the counter and moved to the front door. Emily was parked alongside the curb, her new red convertible shiny, free of dents and scratches. I knew that wouldn’t last long, the girl had almost flunked Driver’s Ed. I hadn’t said how ridiculous it was to get a convertible when you lived in Maine. Icy roads and convertibles didn’t mesh. But Emily loved the car and Emily got what she wanted, everything but attention from her parents.
Blonde and blue eyed, she was everyone’s idea of perfection and she was my best friend. I couldn’t hate my abilities, no, because if I couldn’t read minds, I would never be friends with Emily. I would never get the grades I got, and I wouldn’t be as good at soccer as I was. I knew answers, I knew game plays, I knew what people were thinking practically before they did.
“Come on!” She waved me over, large Chanel sunglasses covering half her face. Fall in Maine was far from warm, but she liked to pretend she was some incarnate version of Audrey Hepburn. If anything, with my petite features and dark hair, I looked more like the old movie actress. But if Emily wanted to be Audrey, Emily got to be Audrey.
/> I tripped down the brick steps, eager to escape if only for the evening. Some days were harder to get through than others. Today was one of those days. At times I felt like I was acting; no one knew the real me. My smile wavered and I swallowed over the sudden lump in my throat. They only knew the person they wanted me to be. It was exhausting. But today I didn’t care. I wouldn’t care. Today no one had died at the café and I was going driving with my best friend. And most importantly, after today I’d no longer have to take the bus to school.
“It’s gorgeous,” I said the one thing she was waiting for me to say, the thing she wanted to hear. She could have gotten a car months ago, but had waited for them to ship this one specially from Germany or some other car-loving country. “You’re so lucky.”
Because we were constantly moving, it made it hard for me to get a job and buy my own car. Heck, I’d be happy to have my Grandma’s rusty Toyota.
Emily shrugged, but I knew she was thrilled I was envious. Emily’s desire was to be worshipped and envied by all. Not that she was a horrible person. No, she wasn’t. At least not deep down. I was the only one who knew she cried herself to sleep most nights. I was the only one who knew what was wrong when her gaze got that far away, sad look. Both doctors, her parents were often gone and Emily looked for attention where she could get it. Of course she’d never admit that dark secret, but she didn’t need to.
How I wished I could tell her I understood. But she’d die if I admitted I knew the truth. And so I pretended that everything was great and so did she. I pulled open the passenger door and settled onto the soft, black leather seat. I held no illusions. I knew Emily and I wouldn’t be friends if it wasn’t for my ability. I knew exactly what Emily wanted me to do, think, say, and because of that, I was her perfect B.F. We sure as heck wouldn’t be friends if I told her what I was really thinking, but today that didn’t matter because the sky was clear and the air somewhat warm for October.