“I’ll give it to you when we’re alone. And remember not to think about it around Cathryn.”
Michael rolled his eyes. “Oh, great. Now that’s all I’ll be able to think about. Lucky thing I don’t see her very often.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Lucky thing for more than one reason, buddy! Cathryn might be backing off a little, but she’d still jump at the chance to get her manicured hands on you.”
Michael grabbed my fingers and kissed them. “Only one set of hands I want on me, and you know that.” When I blushed and shook my head, he just laughed.
“Speaking of hands on me, I have the suite to myself again tonight. Want to chance another overnight visit?”
I slid over the plate with my pizza crust so that Michael could finish it. “By ‘chance’, do you mean the risk of you having another bad dream or of me self-combusting?” Zoe had been trying to help me learn how to re-direct my energy so that I didn’t start a fire or burn up myself, but it wasn’t easy. When I was with Michael, it was nearly impossible for me to focus on anything but him. Even thinking about it. . .
“You’re getting all red.” Michael stared at me as I pushed back from the table and fanned myself with a napkin. “What were you thinking about?”
I shot him what I hoped was a smoldering look. Since I was almost literally doing just that, it should’ve been easy. “Your fault. I need some air. Are you just about done?”
He stacked the trays with trash. “We didn’t eat our cake, though.”
“Get a box for it. I’ll meet you outside. I think we need to work on some of Zoe’s anti-combustion ideas.”
“Let’s check on that farm sale while you’re here and we’re alone,” Michael suggested as we climbed the stairs to his dorm. “You’ll feel better once you know.”
“Probably,” I agreed. Michael unlocked the door and pulled his laptop out of its bag while I headed for his room. I’d begun leaving a few things in his room , and I was glad to change into sweats and a t-shirt.
“What’s the name?” Michael called from the living room. I padded into him, pulling on socks as I went.
“Cummings. Matthew Cummings. And the farm was in Westboro Township.” I watched over his shoulder as he navigated through a few different searches.
“Ah. Hmm. There it is.” Michael tilted the screen so that I had better view. “Sale went through last week. Matthew Cummings to Patrick Holmes and Brice Donavan.”
I dropped heavily onto the sofa next to him. “I was afraid of that. I can’t believe that he went through with the sale even after we told him--” My voice trailed off.
“But you said Cathryn was going to give a report to the attorney, not to the farmer. Is it possible the attorney didn’t tell his client what you found out?”
“Not only possible. I think it’s also probable.” I rubbed my hand across my forehead, suddenly weary. “I hate this. Here I’m trying to do something good and it doesn’t make any difference at all in the long run.”
“Could it be that he decided to sell anyway? Even with the information you gave him?”
I shook my head. “I doubt it. He seemed pretty set on keeping it a farm.”
Michael wrapped me in his arms. “I know this bothers you. But I don’t think there’s anything you can do about it. Try not to let it get under your skin. You can leave Carruthers any time you want, if they’re not who you hoped they were.”
I laid my head on his shoulder. “It’s not that simple. I don’t think I’m ready to just give up so easily. Maybe there’s an explanation.”
Michael trailed fingers across my cheek. “Whatever you do, I’m behind you. Always.”
“Thanks.” I snuggled down and let the worry and niggling annoyance over Matthew Cummings and everyone at Carruthers slide off me.
Michael tilted my chin up and kissed me softly. I felt him straining to keep everything in check, holding back, and despite the heat that was building deep within me, I upped the ante, straining to get closer to him, and opening my mouth beneath his. I slid my hands up under his shirt, catching my breath at the feel of his muscles tightening at my touch.
Without breaking the kiss, he eased his hands beneath my legs and lifted me closer so that I lay across his lap, trapped between his body and the arm of the sofa. His hands moved back up my body, and even with the fever rising, goose bumps rose in his wake. I tightened my grip around his neck, intent on pulling him as close to me as possible.
Michael plunged his hands under my t-shirt, rubbing my back. He groaned and pulled his mouth from mine. “Tas, you’re burning up again. We need to. . .ahhh.” I pulled him flush against me and took his mouth again. The heat was there, but nothing existed for me in that moment but Michael and me. Some small part of my mind tried to remember Zoe’s suggestions for re-channeling energy, but nothing made sense.
Michael broke away from kissing me again, but this time it was only to run his lips down my neck to my collarbone. His fingers teased around my waist and skimmed my stomach so that I sucked in a sharp breath.
And then abruptly he sat up, dropping me unceremoniously onto the sofa. I started up in alarm, not sure what had made him stop, but he pushed me gently back and lifted my t-shirt up away from stomach. I heard his thoughts at the same time that he drew in a hissing breath.
Blisters. All over you.
“Blisters? Are you sure?” I peered around his hands, but he carefully laid the shirt back on me and ran his hands over my neck.
“And here, too. Tas.” Dropping back on the sofa—this time a safe distance away from me—Michael groaned. “You’re on fire from the inside. I can still feel the heat from you all the way over here. Go get a cold shower. You’ve got to bring your temp down.” He ventured close enough to touch my forehead and swore under his breath. “Or I’m going to have to take you to the emergency room. That would be interesting.”
I tried to get up, but the room was spinning around me. Clutching the side of the couch, I dropped my head down onto my knees. I was dimly aware of Michel going into the kitchen, and a moment later I felt the cold washcloth on the back of my neck.
“Take it easy,” he murmured. “Let’s get you steady, then we’ll cool you down.” He replaced the washcloth several times, patting it gently on my face and murmuring comfortingly. When I began to shake as the fever broke, he wrapped a light blanket around me and held me tight.
“What am I going to do with you?” he whispered, kissing the top of my head.
I lifted my eyes just enough to see him. “Move to Alaska?” I suggested. “We could live in an igloo.”
Michael laughed softly. “And have you melt the house every time I kiss you? No, thanks. I think we need to come up with another solution. I’m not willing to give up kissing you, but I can’t have you burning up, either.”
I snuggled closer and shut my eyes, drifting off to sleep.
“Okay, Zoe,” I said as I marched into the upstairs conference room where we always worked. “No more messing around. We need to get serious about figuring out this fire thing.” I lifted up my shirt to show the fading but still visible blisters. “This came from Friday night.”
“Good heavens.” Zoe peered at my stomach. “What on earth were you doing?”
“I. . .I was with Michael.” I tried not to sound flustered, but I knew my face was red. “You know. Kissing.”
“Kissing?” Zoe arched her eyebrows.
“Yes, kissing! It was Friday night, I was spending some time with my boyfriend. My long-term, committed boyfriend,” I added, just to remind Zoe that I wasn’t a floozy.
“Hmmm.” Zoe cocked her head, looking at me speculatively. “Must have been quite a kiss.”
I sighed my impatience. “Zoe. . .really.”
“All right, all right.” Still staring at me, she pursed her lips and tapped a finger to her chin. “Sit down.”
I sank into a chair across the table while Zoe continued to stare and tap. I had grown used to her odd habits, and I knew in this mood,
she could not be rushed.
“So what we know is that your fire power is linked to your more. . .” She waved her hand, making a circular gesture. “. . .amorous emotions. Am I right?”
“Yes.” This was mortifying. “They always were. I found it was easier to cast fire if I had, umm, you know. Kissed someone.”
“And you never had a problem then? When you were first learning to cast fire, and kissing Michael to make it easier?”
I squirmed. “Actually, it wasn’t Michael. We had broken up for a while, and it was--” Why on earth was I explaining this again? “No, it was someone else.”
“Ah.” Zoe nodded. “I see now. And how do you feel about those early experiences? Any guilt? Shame?”
“What are you now, my shrink?” I jumped up out of my chair, and across the room, a coffee mug flew threw the air, crashing into the opposite wall.
“Not your shrink, no, but I do need to understand. Do you see how you’re losing control here? After months of keeping your powers in check?” Around the table, the chairs slid in and out. The portraits on the wall began to tremble.
I closed my eyes and focused on using every trick Zoe had taught me, channeling the energy and pulling it in. I practiced my careful breathing. Going deep within, my mind opened; I sensed Zoe’s emotions and picked up a sense of others nearby. All the people who worked at Carruthers were educated to guard their thoughts, but I could usually still discern feelings and moods. Everyone had his or her own stamp, almost a personal scent. Fee was in the house, I realized. I sensed the secretaries, the house staff and. . .I frowned. Someone else. Not anyone I knew, which wasn’t surprising; I hadn’t met all the operatives yet. But there was something about this presence that was almost familiar and yet made me uneasy. I drew back my mind and opened my eyes.
“Better now?” Zoe hadn’t moved, but she was watching me closely.
“Yes.” I sat down again. “And. . .yes. I feel guilty about what happened with Rafe. Because of what I did to Rafe and because I was unfaithful to Michael.”
“That explains quite a bit.” Zoe clapped her hands once, and all of the tension in the room vanished. Whether it was some spell she cast or simply my relief at sharing some of my feelings, I relaxed back into my seat.
“I believe your residual guilt is feeding the fire, as it were. It was all right when you could cast the fire outward, but now that you are re-channeling that energy, it just festers. . .or perhaps more accurately, smolders. I don’t think we can solve this problem until you’ve come to terms with those feelings.”
“But I have!” I protested. “I talked to Aline—she’s my therapist—about the whole thing. And I told you.”
“What about Michael?” Zoe’s face was full of compassion, but I knew she wasn’t going to let me duck this question.
“Of course he knows. I told him.”
“You told him, but have you resolved it? Are you both at peace?”
I bit my lip. “I guess maybe not. Michael just wanted us to forget all that, but I know it still bothers him.” I thought of his dream and shook my head. “No. We’re not at peace about it.”
“That’s it then.” Zoe stood. “Go make this right, and then we’ll see what we can do. But I imagine that once you ease the guilt, you’ll find the heat is no longer a problem.” She winked at me and smiled. “At least the heat that blisters, that is!”
I blushed again. “All right, I’ll do that. Thanks, Zoe, and I’m--”
“Tasmyn!” I turned, startled at the tone of Cathryn’s voice. “What are you doing here?”
I shrugged. “I guess ‘I work here’ isn’t the answer you’re looking for?”
“You weren’t scheduled to be at the house today.”
Bewildered, I shook my head. “I know. I needed to see Zoe.”
Cathryn turned to the other woman. “I wish you had told me Tasmyn was coming up.”
“Cathryn, what’s wrong? Why are you freaking out?”
She set her mouth in firm line. “I’m hardly freaking out. I’m just surprised to see you, and you know I don’t like surprises. And we have some guests in the house who—it’s a sensitive situation. We don’t want people wandering around and running into them.”
“Fine. I won’t wander. I’ll stay right up here with Zoe.”
“We need Zoe right now. I’m afraid you’ll have to finish your session later. And Tasmyn?” Cathryn fastened her eyes on my face. “Please make sure you go down the back stairs and out the side door. And--”
“Yes, I know. Don’t wander. I promise, I’ll go directly to my car and won’t even pass go. Thanks, Cathryn. Your welcome is always so warm.”
“Don’t make more of this than it is, Tasmyn. We’ll see you later in the week.”
“Are you sure you want me to come up then?”
Zoe stepped between us. “Tasmyn, why don’t you work on what we discussed? We’ll talk again on Wednesday. If you need me before then, you have my number.”
I slipped past Cathryn in the doorway and made my way to the stairs. As I stomped down, fuming at being sent home like a naughty child, I picked up that same oddly-familiar, oddly ominous sense. I paused at the foot of the steps, and for a moment, the wild thought that Marica could be here crossed my mind. But no. It didn’t feel like her. It felt like. . .I shook my head. Couldn’t be. It must have been talking about him that made me feel he might be close.
Shrugging, I left the house and began the drive back to campus, forgetting about the odd sensation and instead dreading my talk with Michael.
I was afraid that if I waited to talk with Michael, I might chicken out. Swallowing my nerves, I called him on the way back to campus and told him I would meet him in his room, crossing my fingers that Charlie wouldn’t be there.
Michael was sitting on the sofa, feet propped on the scarred coffee table and a textbook propped on his lap, when I opened the door. He smiled at me and dropped the book, stretching his arms.
“Hey, gorgeous. How did it go with Zoe? Did you figure out why I give you fever?”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “I take it Charlie is out?”
“Yeah, away game somewhere.” He dropped his feet to the floor and patted the cushion next to him. “Come sit down. Tell me all about your day.”
I leaned in to kiss him and fell onto the couch. “I did get to talk to Zoe, though not as long as I would’ve liked. Cathryn chased me out of the house.”
Michael frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, someone was visiting, and she freaked that I was there when she didn’t expect me.” I frowned. “I didn’t get to ask her about Mr. Cummings.”
“You can do it next time. So what did Zoe say?”
My heartbeat sped up, and my stomach clenched. “She thinks I have residual guilt, and that’s what keeps me from channeling the energy the right way.”
I felt Michael’s tension. It was a nearly tangible tightening around my throat. He was quiet for a moment, though I could hear him thinking.
Residual guilt? Over what?
“There’s nothing I haven’t told you,” I assured him. I reached for his hand and held it between both of my own. “Nothing as bad as what you imagined.”
“I thought we were over that. Beyond it.”
I twisted closer to him. “We are. . .moving beyond it. But Zoe thinks there is part of me that hasn’t resolved what happened, and that until I do, I can’t control the heat.”
“Zoe thinks that. And what do you think?”
I blew out a sigh. “I think you’ve been incredibly forgiving. But maybe my guilt is more about me not deserving your forgiveness. Or maybe it’s that you haven’t been hard enough on me. You never even hesitated, Michael. You just took me back like nothing had happened.”
His forehead furrowed, and random thoughts filtered into my head before he began to speak. “That’s not exactly true.”
I didn’t answer, because I was beginning to get the gist of what he meant before he w
ent on. “Last spring, after I got your email, I wanted to just jump in the car and drive to you right away. That was my knee-jerk reaction. I called my mom and told her what I planned to do, and she asked me to stop and think.”
“Marly? She didn’t want you to come back to me?” I was shocked, and not a little hurt. Marly had never shown me even the least difference in her feelings since our reconciliation.
Michael laid his hand on my arm. “Listen to me. It wasn’t like that. She told me that I needed to be sure I could truly, completely forgive you before I rushed back. She didn’t want either of us to be hurt again if it turned out I couldn’t handle—the past. What had happened.”
“Oh.” I took a minute to digest that.
“Yeah. So I did. I talked to her and my dad, and I. . .I even called Anne and asked her to tell me everything she had heard about you and Rafe. She didn’t want to do it. But I had to hear it all or I wouldn’t know if this—if you and I—could work again.”
I swallowed over a lump in my throat. “Okay.”
“I had a rough night, I won’t lie to you. Not that I could, of course.” He treated me to his smile, the one that was only ever for me. “What Anne told me was so out of character for you. All I could think was that Ms. Lacusta or Rafe had done something to alter your mind. When I said that to my parents, they said it might be a possibility, but that I had to be certain I could forgive you and go on even if they hadn’t done anything. Because we might never know for sure.”
This was what I had feared all along, that Michael was giving me a pass on something that had been totally my fault. More than anything else, it was what had fed my guilt over the past months.
“Why didn’t I know this? I hear every thought that goes through your mind when we’re together.”
Michael took my face in his hands, his fingers in my hair. “Because I don’t think about it. I went over everything those two days. I really tried to picture the two possible outcomes. One, I could ignore your email, or even just shoot you back something saying I couldn’t handle being with you again. I imagined what the rest of my life would look like. And that didn’t work. The idea of never seeing you again, of not being with you—that was really what I couldn’t handle. And then I thought about being with you again, this time for the rest of our lives. That worked. That felt right.
Endless Page 12
