Dearborn Read online

  His laugh warmed the room around us and made me slip my confession back into the little pocket of my soul where I kept it hidden. “There’s plenty about you I haven’t figured out,” I said. He was a riddle I couldn’t solve. A puzzle with too many lost pieces.

  He smiled down at me. “It’s probably better that way. Let’s just enjoy tonight. We’ll worry about the rest tomorrow.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  He pulled away from me. “Let’s go then. Work before play.”

  QUINN

  WILLOW’S PERFECT LIPS PULLED AT the corners as I pulled into the parking lot. “This is the errand we had to run before dinner?” Her laugh was brighter than the blue and white Lowe’s sign glowing on the top of the building.

  “I thought this was your idea of a perfect night in Cincinnati. Is it not?” I tried to look wounded.

  “No, it’s exactly what I expected on this trip, so it is perfect.”

  “Well, you have a spa appointment in the morning, so I wanted to go ahead and knock some of this out tonight.”

  “Spa appointment? What are you talking about?”

  “There’s a spa in the hotel. I made you an appointment for a massage. They’re also going to paint your nails. Fingers and toes.”

  “You’re spoiling me, Quinn. You’re going to turn me into a monster.”

  I could tell she regretted the words as soon as they left her lips. I didn’t ever want her to feel as if she was walking around on eggshells with me, though. “You work too hard,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t turn it into a thing. “You deserve to be pampered. And I’m still groveling.”

  “If this is your kind of groveling, then go ahead and slip up from time to time. I can handle it.”

  “Easily done. We have to hurry, though,” I said reaching for the door handle. “We have dinner reservations back at the hotel at nine.”

  She was still grinning from ear to ear when we entered Lowe’s. We headed straight for the bathroom fixtures. I stood back and let her make magic as she picked out sinks, faucets, and toilets. I gave my opinion only when asked. After all, it was her house and her would-be bed and breakfast.

  We loaded up a huge rolling cart with everything she picked. The manager had agreed to store it for us overnight if we paid before we left. That way we wouldn’t have to take it back to the hotel; though irritating the valet guy might have been worth the hassle.

  After about an hour of perusing through tiles and cabinetry, we headed for the lumber department. She didn’t know what I was looking for, so I pushed the cart ahead of her. Lumber was stacked clear to the ceiling. Just as I realized we would need to get help to get what I needed, a small forklift came wheeling around the corner. Perfect timing.

  I pushed our cart over to the side. “Let’s wait here for him to unload and then we’ll get him to help us.”

  “What are you working on now?” she asked.

  “Some shelves in the upstairs hall closet.” The house had very little storage. She would need somewhere to put extra linens and those little complimentary bottles of shampoo and conditioner I imagined would be in all of the bathrooms. “You’ll need—”

  A crash, followed by a familiar rat-a-tat, sent me flying into Willow. I threw myself on top of her, shoving her to the ground. She landed with an oomph I felt more than heard as the gunfire continued over our heads. I covered her body with my own, keeping us as flat as possible. The enemy couldn’t have her. They’d taken too much from me already.

  After only a few seconds, the gunfire subsided, and it was only then I realized Willow was gasping underneath me. “Nooo,” I heard myself yell. I rolled off her to check for injuries. There was no blood, but I ripped open her shirt to look for the shot that would rob her from me.

  She slapped my hands away. “Quinn! What are you doing?” Her voice was strangled, her eyes wild. “Stop!” She yanked her shirt closed.

  She’s okay. I ran my hands through my hair, clawing at my scalp mercilessly. The sound of gunfire continued to echo through my mind. Starting at my feet, a tremble rolled through my body. I felt like I was on fire, I was so hot.

  Her hands were on my face. “Quinn. Come back to me. Quinn,” she whispered, her voice filled with the desperation I felt. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

  She’s okay. She’s not hurt. I stared into her wide, unblinking eyes.

  “I’m okay.”

  She’s okay.

  I blinked at her, trying to figure out why she was there and thanking God above that she wasn’t hurt.

  “Can you stand up?” she asked. “How’s your ankle?”

  I looked down at my ankle and the events of the past few days assaulted me. Willow and me at dinner. My confession about my condition. The deer blind. Willow and me at the hospital. Driving home afterward. The awful things I’d said to her. Waking up in the forest behind the house again. Discovering the boot was gone but my foot was better. Watching her sleep in the car. Wishing for that kind of peace.

  You’ll never sleep like that again. Not with your condition, I told myself.

  Your condition. The agony of the truth barreled into me. It had been another episode. Just another episode. I looked around to discover quite a few people gathered at the end of the aisle. They watched me curiously. They looked at Willow with pity.

  The employee from the forklift spoke first. “Ma’am, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

  Had I hurt her? She was holding her shirt shut. Her arms wrapped around herself. I knew instinctively I’d done that.

  I tugged at my hair and she grimaced, bending at the waist in half. She held out her hand to the Lowe’s employee. “I’m fine. I promise.”

  “Would you like to call the police?”

  “No, he’s with me. He didn’t hurt me.”

  “Are you sure? You don’t look well.”

  I listened to their exchange, feeling sicker and sicker by the second. I’d done this. Confused a pile of falling wood with enemy gunfire. Confused an aisle in Lowe’s with an ambush in enemy territory. Humiliated her.

  “I’m fine. He’s my boyfriend. He didn’t hurt me. He was protecting me.”

  I turned and ran, her words echoing through my head over and over. He’s my boyfriend. He didn’t hurt me. He’s my boyfriend. He didn’t hurt me. He’s my boyfriend.

  I dodged the crowd at the end of the aisle and continued until I was standing beside my truck. I opened the door, climbed inside, and gripped the wheel. I wanted to run away, to spare us both any further humiliation, but I couldn’t leave her after what I’d done to her. The least I could do was get her home safely. I tried to talk myself down using the techniques the Army doctor had taught me. I counted down from one hundred but couldn’t match my breathing to the numbers rushing from my mouth.

  “Quinn. I’m here.” She tapped on the window, warning me before she even opened the truck door. She was so scared of me that she was afraid to get in. I’d fucked everything up again. I rolled my forehead back and forth against the steering wheel.

  The door opened, and she slid inside.

  “Aren’t you afraid to get in here with me?”

  “Why would I be?” she asked. Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

  “Because I hurt you. I threw you to the ground and ripped your shirt.” Even saying the words caused my heart to ache. She would never trust me again. Never want to be around me.

  “You did not.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Quinn, you didn’t hurt me. You were protecting me. I completely understand what happened, and it’s fine.”

  I groaned. “I ripped your shirt. I humiliated you in front of all those people.”

  “For days, I’ve been hoping you’d rip my shirt off. This wasn’t really what I had in mind,” she said with a hint of amusement. “But I’ll take you any way I can get you.”

  She spoke her last words with such force that I turned to look at her only to wish I hadn’t. Her body language didn’t match the conviction of her words. She’d thrown her ar
m across her lap, and she was nearly doubled in half again. “Are you sick again?”

  “It will pass. I just need a few minutes.”

  She was positively green. “I’m taking you to the hospital.” I raised my hips off the truck seat so I could dig through my pockets for my keys.

  “No,” she groaned. “You can’t.”

  “Why not?” I said, turning the ignition. The truck sputtered back to life, but Willow grabbed my arm before I could put it into drive.

  “We aren’t going to the hospital, Quinn. They can’t help me there.”

  “What do you mean ‘they can’t help you’?” A myriad of bad scenarios skated through my mind. One seemed to ring louder than the others did. Willow was sick a lot, but despite my pleas, she’d refused to go to the doctor, putting me off with one excuse after another. Now, she was flat out refusing to let me help her. It could only mean one thing. “You already know what’s making you sick.”

  “I’ve wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how.”

  Oh, my God, no! I can’t lose anyone else. I can’t do it. It was as if someone had their hands around my throat. “Are you dying?” I choked out.

  “No.” The warble of her answer did little to reassure me.

  “You are, aren’t you? And you’ve been afraid to tell me.” I gestured wildly to the store and her and myself. “Why are we doing this then?”

  “I’m not dying,” she said, gasping and clawing at the dashboard. “It’s you. Just you. If you would settle down for a minute, I’d be fine.”

  I stilled immediately, staring at her for a moment while our conversation at Pond & Duck replayed in my mind. I have an extremely sensitive stomach. Being around people can be very difficult for me, she’d said. It’s you. Just you.

  “I make you sick?”

  “It’s not what you think. Let it go, Quinn,” she pleaded.

  “But I do, right? I make you sick? You said it depends on what’s going on around you, but what I think you meant is, it depends on if I’m around you.” Even as the words rolled off my tongue, I didn’t understand them. How could one person make her ill?

  She leaned back in the seat, seeming to resign herself to something. “You’re confused. I understand, but if you’ll calm down, I’ll explain.”

  I turned off the truck again and took several deep, measured breaths. Willow remained silent while she waited for me to do as she’d asked. When she put her hand over mine, I felt infinitely better. When my breathing was more regular, she spoke. “Not everyone in Woodland Creek is what they seem. It is a town full of people with special abilities.” She turned toward me, looking much more like her normal self. “I’m one of those special people, Quinn.”

  Of course, she was special. Her special had been giving me a reason to get up every day.

  “Do you know what an empath is?”

  I shook my head at a loss for words.

  “An empath is someone who is affected by other people’s energies. Some empaths are weak receptors. They may only have a vague feeling of positive versus negative. They may not even know who the source of the energy is. Other empaths, like me, are strong receptors and can pinpoint every emotion the people around them are having when they’re having it. In my case, I feel other people’s emotions as my own.”

  I ran my hands over the steering wheel. “So you’re like a mind reader?”

  “No,” she said adamantly. “I don’t know what you’re thinking. I only have extra insight into what you’re feeling, not the thoughts and motivations behind it.”

  “You feel what I feel? When I’m feeling it?” It was complete and utter nonsense. I’d always known Willow was a different kind of soul, but I’d never considered she was insane.

  She leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. “If you’re angry, I’m angry, too. If you’re grieving, I do, too. When you think about the past, I’m right there walking beside you. I don’t know what happened while you were in Afghanistan, but I feel your losses as if they are my own.”

  “What am I feeling right now?” My words were short and punctuated, directed at Willow just like the enemy gunfire I’d thought I’d heard in the store.

  “Confused. Disbelieving. Angry.”

  “Well, that’s easy. You’re spouting nonsense at me. Of course, I’m confused and disbelieving. What are you feeling?”

  A tear rolled down her cheek, but she didn’t open her eyes. “Confused. Disbelieving. Sad.”

  “Because that’s what I’m feeling?” I asked, already reaching for the door handle.

  “No, because I know I just lost you.”

  I was out of the truck and running, listening only to the sound of my boots pounding the pavement and ignoring the nagging voice in my head.

  Running was the only thing that would help. It was the only way I could make sense of the world around me. Cincinnati sidewalks were a poor substitute for the woods behind Willow’s house, but I ran with little regard for my surroundings. Commercial turned to residential, and I realized I’d been running for a long time, likely more than an hour. Purposely or not, I’d put miles between myself and Willow.

  I still didn’t know how I felt about what she’d told me. Maybe I should ask her, I thought bitterly.

  I immediately hated myself for even thinking it. Willow had never done or said anything to hurt me. In fact, she’d only tried to help me. Even though every fiber of my being wanted to reject her explanation for her illness, certain things made more sense now. As ludicrous and unbelievable as it seemed, it explained how she always knew how to deal with me. She seemed to know me better than my only family did. She knew when to push me and when to back off and leave me be. Or did she give me time alone when I needed it because she also needed the time to recover herself? Were the broken pieces of my soul cutting her too?

  She is fine and well when you are happy.

  I thought about all of the time we’d spent working on the house together, laughing at stupid jokes and making out when we should have been working.

  When you take a turn for the worse, she does too.

  ‘I can feel you closing down on me,’ she’d said in my apartment the night before. Afterward, she’d doubled over in pain, clutching her stomach as I lobbed vile, spiteful words at her that came not from anything she’d done but from the hate growing inside of me.

  ‘You’re hurting me, Quinn,’ she’d cried.

  I turned around and began running back toward the store with all of our best moments running through my head faster than my feet could carry me.

  Willow’s eyes begging me to kiss her the first night.

  Her thighs clenching around me when I’d finally kissed her in the kitchen two days later. I’d known then it was my last first kiss.

  Willow dancing around the coffee table and raising the hem of her shirt teasingly after the Clue game.

  The feel of her skin under my mouth as I brushed kisses across her stomach.

  The shudder that ran up her spine as I did it.

  One great moment after another flashed through my mind. It was only when I reached the empty truck that I realized I still held the keys in my hand. I’d left her alone in an unfamiliar city with no way to get back to the hotel or, worse, home if it was what she wanted. I started the engine of the truck once again on a mission to apologize, something I seemed to spend a lot of time doing.

  WILLOW

  THE CAB RIDE TO THE hotel had been a dark moment for me, something I rarely had on my own. I ignored the cab driver’s glances in the rearview mirror and pushed away the sympathy the Plexiglas barrier separating us couldn’t keep out. I stared out at the window as we passed unfamiliar streets and I slipped further and further from Quinn.

  Begging the front desk clerk for a key to our room wasn’t fun. I’d explained that my boyfriend had the only key, and we’d lost each other in the Halloween festivities downtown. Calling Quinn my boyfriend to the Lowe’s employee felt like the truth. To the hotel clerk, it was as much a
lie as my false explanation of where I’d lost him.

  I didn’t know what he was to me, or if he’d ever let me be anything to him.

  In our room, I curled in the chair by the window and watch the clock tick away the minutes. Our nine o’clock dinner reservation came and went, and I turned my gaze to the distant river, knowing he was somewhere out there, trying to unravel the future I’d imagined for us.

  I’d confessed what I was—at least partially—and his revulsion took root in my heart. If he couldn’t handle even that part of me, there was no way he could handle the rest. I knew from my time with him that grief was a way of life for him. But now, I grieved for him instead of with him because, in my heart, I knew he was unreachable.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d told a man about the curse I lived with, and it wasn’t the first time I’d been shunned afterward. I didn’t blame Quinn though. The truth uncovered weeks of lies. He would feel violated and betrayed—how could he not—and that was only if he believed me, which was doubtful. Unless you grew up shrouded in magic the way I had, it was nearly impossible to believe in it. To accept me for what I truly was, a man had to believe in the intangible, place an unquantifiable amount of trust in the unknown, and have faith I would never betray his trust. Most men didn’t have it in them. My desire for a normal boy from the normal side of the tracks had taught me that.

  Tim had been the first to teach me the lesson. His mind hadn’t been broad enough to understand that reality is often more than what the human eye can see. I’d opened up, explained why I always seemed to know things he would never tell me, and his response had been incredulous doubt. He’d walked away and then spread awful rumors about me around town. He’d painted me as a crazy and a weirdo, and every time he came into my diner, I was reminded there was some truth to it.

  Now, Quinn would do the same if he came around me at all.

  I wasn’t worried he would hurt me as Tim had. Whether he knew it or not, I knew his heart as well as my own. For a moment, I’d held it in my hands.