Many hours later, Charlie woke to the sound of rain, and stretched her arms out to her sides, arching her back, smiling to herself, and slowly opening her eyes. She was surprised, for a nanosecond, not to find Killian in the bed beside her, his head on her pillow, smiling that sexy smile of his as the morning sun painted his face in light. Then she came more thoroughly awake and things became clearer. Her night with Killian had only been a dream, albeit the most vivid one yet. Because really, what else could it have been? And the rain she heard was actually the sound of the shower running.
She rolled over, pushing up onto her hands and knees in the bed and opening the curtains, so she could look out the window, which she’d left open all night. Around her, the forest was coming alive. So many birds were singing so many tunes that it was chaotic and yet perfect. The captive birds in the living room were singing back to them, and it was beautiful and plaintive and filled with longing.
Like her longing for Killian.
Whatever this was, it was good for her. She’d slept like a baby for the first time in weeks. And she didn’t wake up feeling groggy and hungover. She felt good.
The trees cast long shadows over the wildflower dotted clearing that was the cabin’s lawn, the sun still low in the sky beyond them and inching inevitably higher.
There was no sign of Killian. And everything in her wanted to go running out there in search of him.
This whole thing wasn’t exactly fair to him, though, was it? Not when he didn’t even know how short a time she’d be residing on Planet Earth.
It was kind of stupid to think that way, though. It wasn’t as if he could possibly be feeling this thing as strongly as she was.
Yes, he is.
Hell, she probably wasn’t even feeling it as strongly as it seemed.
Yes, I am.
She’d only just learned she had a fatal condition and only a decade and a half to live, give or take. She’d been coerced into leaving her home and her job behind and coming out here to Cabin Goldilocks. And she’d been told she was in grave danger from something even worse than her deadly blood antigen, all in the space of a day.
But I’ve been dreaming of him for weeks.
It was no wonder her emotions were all skewed and overblown.
It’s real. He’s real. And what I’m feeling is real.
She got out of bed, pulled on the robe that had been hanging on the bedpost, and then stopped to look down at the thing as she ran one hand over its sleeves. It was a black silk kimono with bright red flowers, and it was beautiful. Her grandmother must have bought it for her. Along with all the other stuff in the room. Could she really be all that bad?
No. But she could be completely insane.
Takes one to know one, right?
Charlie stepped out of her bedroom and saw that her grandmother’s bedroom door, to her right at the end of the hall, was open. The bathroom door, directly across from Charlie’s room, was closed and the shower was running. Roxy’s phone was on her nightstand. Biting her lip, Charlie gave one last look at the bathroom door and then tiptoed into her grandmother’s room, picked up the cell phone, and scrolled to the text messages to see who her grandmother had been talking to. She’d heard the text sound go off last night, so she knew there had been one.
Someone named Tamara who had no photo or avatar, had written, “What do u know?”
Roxy, who was identified as TOC replied: “Not a lot. 7 Chosen murdered. Gov enticing others to come in. Even claiming a cure.”
Tamara: “Cure? For BD?”
Charlie’s heart leaped at those words. A cure! Jeeze, could that be true?
TOC: “So they claim.”
Tamara: “Reports of many of TC missing. We need 2 come in. Where r u?”
TOC: “Safe. In hiding w my Gr Dtr.”
Tamara: “Granddaughter?”
TOC: “She’s BD.”
Tam: “Like u?”
TOC: “2 soon 2 tell. Maybe more.”
Tam: “She know about us?”
TOC: “Can’t tell her till she trusts me. She’ll run. Already thinks I’m nuts.”
The shower stopped running. There was more to the conversation, several more lines, but Charlie was out of time. She dropped the phone on the nightstand and jogged back into the hallway, making it just to her bedroom door when the bathroom door opened.
Roxy stood there looking at her, and then at her open bedroom door, and then at her again. “You’re up early,” she finally said.
Charlie forced a smile for the secretive woman, realizing how very little she knew about her. “Yeah, not used to all the birdsong. Especially when it’s coming from the living room.”
Her grandmother looked toward her bedroom again and Charlie looked too, noticing that the phone was nowhere near the same spot on the nightstand that it had been in before she’d picked it up. Did Roxy notice?
“I um...just love this robe,” she said, heading for the kitchen. “Is there any coffee yet?”
“Not yet,” Roxy said, but she didn’t follow her. She went into her bedroom, and closed the door.
Charlie winced, certain her grandmother was checking her phone, and trying to remember if she’d closed out of the text message screen or left it open. Hell.