I paid the bill, and with her hand in mine, we left the restaurant.
My brain whirled with everything I’d just been told, but despite the sickness some of that had brought, just being with Lark tonight was like a missing puzzle piece snapping into place. I found myself pushing aside any confusion and crises of identity I may be having at knowing that my childhood had been a lie. Because she was by my side again. And with her hand soft and warm in mine, for some reason, I felt like I could do anything.
Chapter15
~Larken~
As we headed back to the city, I went over everything that had happened tonight. I may have just dug my grave. But I also may have set myself free. I was so tired of running from the ghosts of my past. They were specters I couldn’t banish. I tried to ignore them, but that was a fruitless endeavor. It was time to face them head-on and then put it all behind me.
Part of me still wondered about Kholt. He’d done nothing to make me feel that he was anything but trustworthy, but after running for so long, feeling confident with others knowing my secrets was something that would take me a while to get used to.
But then there was the other side of having Kholt back in my life. I was feeling things that I didn’t remembereverfeeling before. We had history. Familiarity. Remembered closeness. And while all of that was blurred by the lens of youth, the realities of what it could be were starting to burn like sunshine through a magnifying glass.
When he’d grabbed my hands earlier tonight, my usual impulse to pull away from new closeness like that, to protect myself, wasn’t there. I leaned into the touch instead. Basked in the warmth. Absorbed the contact. The feelings I had being around him lately were a bit startling. The only thing I could liken it to was coming home after a long vacation. Part of me wanted to run from that, and the other part of me wanted to let it infuse me with the things I had denied myself for so long.
I looked over at him, taking in his strong profile in the dim lights of the truck’s interior. As if he could feel me looking at him, he turned his head and met my gaze. That same soft look that I had seen before slid across his eyes, and a warm and caring smile curled his lips. He held out his hand, palm up, then looked back at the road as if he couldn’t bear to watch if I refused him.
My heart skipped a beat, and my stomach flipped, but I didn’t keep him waiting long. I slid my palm against his, the contact electrifying. While it was a simple and innocent touch, it felt somehow sensual. I closed my fist, twining my fingers with his, and he lowered our joined hands to the armrest console between us. I saw him take a deeper breath as if he hadn’t been sure what would happen there and was relieved that it had turned out as he’d hoped.
A frisson of awareness slid up my arm, and my magic awakened. I just barely kept myself from gasping as a mini movie of scenes played out in my mind. Kholt and I together through the years and all the good memories that had been coming to me in pieces since reconnecting with him. But this time, I saw things through his eyes. I felt some of the things that he felt.
I jerked my head to the left and looked at him, seeing him differently now. I had known from a very young age that Kholt cared about me. I knew we were close. Back then, I had known I could count on him—he had been absolutely right about that when he’d brought it up at the restaurant. But what I had just seen, what I hadfelt, was so very much more. Kholt hadlovedme. Really and truly. Granted, it was a teenage love, but he had felt it profoundly. He had believed he would do anything for me, and I now believed that, too.
He caressed his thumb over mine, and I decided to reach out with my magic. It was a bit invasive, and I knew I was acting without consent, but I needed to know. When I whispered the illumination spell in my mind and extended myself again, the answer I got was one that could change everything. Kholt not only loved me, past tense, he still did. He’d never gotten over that love. It had been the benchmark for all his other relationships, including his marriage. One I saw now had barely lasted five years.
I felt tears welling. I couldn’t give him what I knew he would so easily give to me. Those words that so often got bandied about without any care. He’d do it tonight if I asked him. I knew that with a certainty that scared me. But there were things that Icouldgive him. Things I suddenly realized I wanted to give him, more than I had wanted anything in a long, long while. And that both terrified and exhilarated me.
But, more than anything, it empowered me.
Chapter16
“A cult following is a nice way of saying very few people like you.”
~Martin Mull
Lionel stroked his beard and looked across the desk at his son. He’d been pressing him for information since he arrived, getting details he needed in order to keep tabs on him and find his lost little bird. He’d not even let him see his mother yet, something his child was not very happy about.
“Are we done?” Turner asked.
“Watch your attitude and tone, boy. Remember who you’re talking to.”
Turner looked down. “Apologies, Father. I just really need to see Mom. Judith told me that she’s not doing well, and I only have a few hours left before I need to head back to New Orleans.”
“You may go when I say you may go. I have a few additional questions for you.”
Turner fidgeted in his seat. Lionel got a perverse kind of pleasure from that. The power he wielded was heady sometimes.
“So, you’re working for this ghost hunting show.” His tone dripped with derision.
“Yes, Father.”
“You told me about the man who hired you and mentioned that Kholt Leroy is now working with you temporarily, but you haven’t told me about any of the other members of the cast and crew.”
“They’re nobody of consequence, Father.”
The empathic gift to detect falsehoods that he had taken from a member of his flock some eleven years ago or so flared to life, letting him know that his son was lying—or at the very least, keeping something from him.
“Now, I don’t quite believe that. A show with that much standing . . . stands to reason those involved with it would be quite special.” He just stared at his son. To his credit, Turner met his gaze and didn’t look away.