She laughed. “Static. From trying on all these clothes, I guess.”
“Oh, right, static. Sorry. Your tattoo keeps catching my eye, it’s gorgeous. What is it?”
She twisted her wrist so I could get a better look at the graceful bird rising in flight. Black outlined flames licked up at the finely detailed feathered wings and flowing tail. “A phoenix of course.”
Rising from the dead…my mind filled in. The thought had snuck up on me like a memory, before I realized it was simply a gap in knowledge being filled in from some other part of my brain. Not unlike how I knew the varying shades of Aimee’s hair color was called ombré.
She held her forearm out and I read the words, “Sky above me. Earth below me. Fire within me. That’s really beautiful.”
“It’s the motto we live by.”
“We?”
She stared at me for a minute, as if I should already know the answer. “All the Phoenixes.”
My heartbeat quickened as my face heated. There was so much information flooding my brain, and while most everyday tasks had come back to me to some degree, whatever she was talking about had not. Whether what she was saying was common knowledge or something she believed I should know, I wasn’t certain. “I’m Amish, remember? We don’t know this type of stuff.”
“Ha! Right.” Her smile didn’t look convincing, but she continued. “It’s all part of our enlightenment and empowerment organization. Spark is where everything starts. It’s an amazing leadership series for women. After completing the Spark online workshops, Ignite events, and Blaze conference series you can start working toward becoming a Phoenix. It’s more than an intellectual level, though. You also must be in the right spiritual place in your life. When you’re ready to become not just fully enveloped, but engulfed, you’re invited to live inside the Ring. The Ring of Fire is the mountain campus where we all live. There you renounce material things and your past while you work toward rising and becoming one of the Six. I’ve only recently risen, which is why I’m wearing my former sister’s clothes.” Her fingers stroked the fabric of the shirt just above her heart. Realizing I was watching her, she quickly shifted to smooth the tip of her loose red ponytail. “I only just got my hair colored yesterday. It symbolically marks the fire we endured to be reborn.”
“It’s beautiful. You said former sister? Do you mean she left the Ring?”
Her expression, which had been bright with enthusiasm as she’d told me about the whole organization, dropped. “Oh no… She would’ve never left. She was… She’s…”
I realized she was going to say dead and my heart fisted. “I’m so sorry,” I rushed to say. All the while my mind reeled with devastation, as if I’d felt the loss of my sister as well. But I hadn’t any memories to go along with my body’s reaction. Not knowing what to make of the sudden emotion, I forced my focus to her tattoo and reached out to touch it again.
Aimee’s hardened face relaxed as she seemed to shake off whatever thoughts she’d been having. “Once I get my tattoo colored in, I’ll match the others in the Six.”
“Six, huh? I guess you’ll have lots of people to shop with now.”
“The sisterhood is the best thing to happen to me, Thea. I really think you’ll love it, too.” She fished into her bag, pulling out a slim card. After asking the clerk to borrow a pen, she scribbled out some numbers and handed it to me.
“My phone number is on the back.” She pulled out a paper from her bag. “Here, let me get your number, too.”
Shit. The only phone I had was an untraceable disposable one in my stolen purse, and I didn’t even know the number to it. “Um, I’ll text it to you, later.”
Unfazed by the return of my severe awkwardness, she pulled a small bottle from her bag. “We also sell essential oils. I think you’d love this one, so relaxing. You’ll be amazed at how much better you feel, how much energy you have. Here, take it—free sample.”
As the cashier finished bagging up my purchases, I rolled the decorative vial between my fingers. The brand name, Ardent Oils, was accompanied by dark orangish-red flowers painted on the label. The artwork was beautiful, but I didn’t know what to do with the contents. “The flowers are pretty. What are they?”
“Poppies, but don’t worry, it’s not like opium or anything. It’s a blend of several oils. Just do like this.” Aimee retrieved another bottle and dabbed a couple of drops under her nose.
“Soothing to the smell, see?” She thrust her finger out and I noted hints of citrus and mint, similar to the iced tea at the diner.
“Smells great,” I muttered in agreement as I glanced over at the shoe department. Nik still hadn’t returned.
“I’m sure your friend will be right back. Go ahead, give it a try.”
She’d called him my fiancé before. Maybe she’d realized I didn’t have a ring. I unscrewed the cap on the bottle she’d given me. It didn’t have the same smell of citrus and mint. But I couldn’t focus with Nik gone. A sudden wave of fatigue was also setting in and I yawned.
The cashier gave me my total, snapping me out of my haze. I recapped the bottle so I wouldn’t knock it over as I pulled some money out of the red wallet.
“Ooh, crocodile. Is that… Is it Hermès? Where’d you get it? Not from Amish country, I bet.”
I slammed the wallet closed, hoping she hadn’t seen Seraphina Westin’s ID. Thrusting it and the vial into my purse, I cursed myself for cleaning the black bag up to bring and not at least leaving the fake ID at Nik’s.
“I’m sorry, I really should go. I’ll try the oil, promise.” I jammed my change and receipt into the purse and snatched my shopping bag from the counter. With a polite nod to the retail clerk, I thanked her before turning on my heel, eager to find Nik. He wouldn’t have left me. Something had to be wrong.
Aimee scrambled after me as I made my way toward the shoe salesman. “Thea, wait! I forgot to give you the link we talked about.”
“I’ll call you and get it. Thanks again for all your help.”
“No, stop!” Aimee grasped my wrist, jerking me to a halt. Her flesh burned as it wrapped mine. Biting back my fear, I struggled to remain calm and not act like a guilty fugitive. Maybe she hadn’t seen the ID. But what if she had? Where was Nik? I needed him here.
Breathe, a voice calmly whispered as if inside my brain. I visualized reciprocating the grip she had on my wrist, twisting her elbow as I turned my body to bring her in closer, slamming my shoulder into hers. The momentum would dislodge her weight to her heels and if I shook her grip free, I could easily shove her off balance, giving me space and time to get away.
Aimee released my wrist and casually pointed in the opposite direction of where I’d been heading. “Isn’t that your friend?”
I turned to see Nik approaching the dressing room where we’d tried on jeans. A rush of relief spread through me, followed by a flood of embarrassment for having just envisioned assaulting her. Flashing the fakest smile in history, I thanked her again, then I got the hell out of there.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“I’m really needing steak and beer—man shit, you know?” Nik said as he finished loading the car with my shopping bags. “Get my testosterone levels back to normal.”
I turned from supervising Titan’s potty break to look at him. Between the military-style pants and a T-shirt that could’ve been poured over his broad shoulders and muscled arms, he screamed manly man. Never mind the chiseled jaw perfectly shadowed in stubble and the intense, panty-melting eyes. And let’s talk about those hands… So strong they could crush almost anything, yet with gentle ease were capable of delivering exquisite pleasure. My body thrummed with a vivid replay of how deft those fingers of his were. “It’ll take a helluva lot more than a couple of hours of shopping to put a dent in your testosterone levels.”
“Couple of hours? That all? Damn, time moves faster in the Hindu Kush than at the Boulder Mall.”
“I don’t know what any of that means, but thank you for helping me even i
f it wasn’t fun for you. For what it’s worth, I’m glad you didn’t impale your eyeball with that lip pencil in the cosmetics department. Looked like you were giving it some serious thought.”
“I would’ve, but the color didn’t go well with my pretty green eyes,” he replied flatly.
“I’m sure the makeup consultant would’ve helped you find a more flattering shade to gouge them out with, if you had been nicer to her.” Earlier he’d puffed his chest at the lady, nearly making her cry. I’d had to shoo him all the way to the men’s watch counter to keep her hand from shaking or my own eye would’ve been poked out.
“She was trying to sell you stuff you don’t need.”
“Women wear makeup, don’t they?”
“She wasn’t showing you makeup. She was trying to make you look different with all that highlighting and shadowing bullshit,” he said with enough irritation you’d have thought the makeup lady had assaulted me.
Truthfully, I couldn’t see ever putting more than a little bit of blush, gloss, and maybe mascara on—like what Aimee wore. Maybe I could call her and ask what she used? If she’d even talk to me after how rude I’d been running out on her.
“Besides, she wanted to cover up your freckles,” he continued.
More than my freckles, she’d been trying to hide the remnants of bruising. The small lacerations in my hairline had made her clutch her necklace and go straight for the heavy cover-up, all while fretting the wounds would leave a “nasty scar”.
My hand had gone up, covering my face as my finger felt for the most noticeable cut, when Nik stopped me. “I like looking at your freckles. At you.”
“Even bruised and scarred?”
“I hate that you were hurt, but surviving only makes you more beautiful.” He thrust out a pack of wet wipes from his medical kit.
I stifled a laugh at his audacity, but plucked out a few towelettes. I couldn’t wait to take the heavy makeup off and started swabbing my face immediately. “Well, since I tortured you with shopping, I guess I’ll let you see my freckles again.”
“Better.” With a small smile he dropped a soft kiss to the healing cut at my hairline, before running a finger down the bridge of my nose. “You look like you again.”
Me. I’d thought I was figuring out who I was until I’d nearly assaulted my first potential girlfriend. Where had those visions come from? Were they memories or intuition? And more importantly, what had I even been thinking, trying to make be friends with her when I couldn’t even be honest about who I was?
Nik’s finger coiled in my hair. “It wasn’t all torture. There were a few parts I mildly enjoyed.”
I vividly recalled the lingerie department and the look in his eyes he demanded I see. “Mildly enjoyed, my ass.”
“I greatly enjoy your ass. Remind me to send a thank you note to your friend for helping you show it off perfectly in those jeans.”
“Wait until you see it in these yoga legging things she turned me onto.”
Nik rumbled in appreciation. “Yoga pants are proof God still loves me despite all my evil deeds.”
Most of what I’d bought I’d picked for comfort and necessity. But if I’d caught Nik’s eyes darkening or if his teeth had raked his bottom lip or if my good friend the jaw flex had popped out, I’d made sure those items made it to the register too. If it had made him walk funny, I got it in multiple colors. Turned out he was much more helpful at picking out women’s clothes than he realized.
I held the door for Titan to jump into the backseat, closed it, and turned back to Nik. “I guess I’ll give steak and beer a chance, if I can get mine with French fries.”
“One-track mind,” he grumbled.
Stepping up nearly flush with him, I ran my hand over the front of his pants, feeling the jump of his cock against my palm and the responding flash of warmth through my own pelvic region. “Not even close to one.”
His grip flashed to my wrist. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Trying to make you feel as good as you made me.”
“Not in the damn mall parking lot,” he hissed, practically catapulting me into the Jeep.
As he got into the driver’s seat, beads of sweat glinted along his hairline and he seemed to have incredible discomfort sitting.
“If not the mall parking lot, then where?”
His eyes widened incredulously at me. Was he mad? Shocked?
“You’re serious?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not shy, are you?”
“I don’t know what I am.” I looked down. The hardest part of my memory loss wasn’t about memories at all, it was not knowing if I was saying or doing the right thing. “Should I be shy?”
“No,” he snapped. In a softer tone, he added, “Not with me. Never with me. I shouldn’t have said that. You just surprise me, too.”
“But you don’t want me to touch you?”
“Hell, yes, I do.”
I was so confused.
He opened his hand, holding it over the console until I laced my fingers with his. “When we get home, I’ll let you do whatever you want to me, promise. My body can be your wonderland. But right now, I need to pay attention.”
His serious demeanor had me sitting back a bit. “Is everything okay?”
“Let’s go eat, see if anyone wants to join us.”
His hand eased out of mine to put his sunglasses on. Even so, I noted his eyes flicking every so often to the side mirrors as he pulled out of the parking lot.
“Wait, what is going on?” I craned my head around to look out of the back window as he maneuvered onto the main road. “Who would be joining us?”
“Keep your eyes forward.”
I reluctantly complied. “Did you see someone? What aren’t you telling me?”
“Probably nothing.” He scrubbed the back of his neck. “Just a feeling I get when things are about to go sideways.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
I blinked entering the darkened steakhouse. Heavy curtains hid the windows, which Nik grumbled about. It took a minute for him to convince the hostess to seat us at the table he preferred. After she’d handed us our menus and returned to the hostess stand, he grumbled, “Must be her first day. The place is almost empty and she wanted to stick us in a sucky booth by the bathrooms. Besides, I need a sightline to the door and access to a quick route out.”
A quick route out?
“If you’re worried, maybe we should go somewhere else?”
Or get back home.
“Oh no, we’re doing this,” he said in a tone more serious than any I’d ever heard from him. “It’s bone-in ribeye day.”
Bone-in ribeye day? As if that made getting hauled off to prison or worse all okay.
“And I’m not worried. I’m being proactive. There’s a difference.”
Between the conversation in the car and this, my appetite had been replaced with anger at her for putting us in this position. Why couldn’t we have a meal without needing an escape plan?
A leggy girl with a gorgeous mane of dark brown hair showed up in tiny, white shorts and an equally undersized black tank top that read ‘Bone Me!’ She informed us that her name was Kinley. Nik questioned her about beers on tap then ordered us two pale ales from a local brewery and two specials—his with steamed vegetables, mine with fries. “How do you want yours cooked, ma’am?”
“Medium?” It’d been a safe way to start with clothing. I glanced at Nik.
“If you enjoy eating boot leather, sure.”
Kinley laughed. Not outright. More through her nose, like a snort. Another reminder I was the only one here who didn’t know how to order a steak.
“Start with medium rare,” Nik suggested.
“Medium rare it is.”
“And dressing?”
“For my steak?” Doesn’t dressing go with turkey?
Kinley made a show of cocking her hip as she peeled her gaze from Nik to me. “For your salad.”
“Oh, of course.
I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it came with a salad.” I beamed at her, smiling wide. Probably a little too wide. I didn’t care. I knew this! Clapping my hands, I announced, “Ranch! I want ranch dressing on mine.”
She smirked down at me like a mother at the mall had to her toddler. I half-expected Kinley to shove a tissue under my nose and command me to blow. Perhaps give me a little pat on my head if I got enough snot out. Instead, she reached in for my menu and hugged it in front of her. She turned to Nik, her cleavage suddenly resembling a baby’s butt shimmying down her shirt. “And for you, sir?”
“Rare and honey mustard.” Oblivious to Kinley’s cleavage mooning him, Nik studied me as he swiped his thumb across his lower lip. “And an extra-large side of ranch for her to dip her fries in, please.”
My smile went so wide I could feel the overhead fan blowing on my gums. How did I manage to get swooped up in a tornado and land in the most capable arms of the most gorgeous and brilliant man on earth? Then, as if brilliance transferred via lightning bolt from him to me, “What about bacon dipped in ranch dressing?”
“If it makes you smile at me like that again, you can dip anything you want in it. Preferably me.”
With a slight huff, Kinley announced, “The ranch will cost extra.”
“Not a problem. I’ll double your tip if she never runs out.”
“Right. Anything else I can get for you?”
Leaning back in his chair, Nik flashed the shy dimple on his right cheek. Oh, the dangerous things it did to my panty region.
His gaze stuttered, like he was thinking about my panty region, too. Then he remembered Kinley was still standing there waiting on a response. “That should do us. Thanks.”
She snagged Nik’s menu and headed to the back as his attention returned to his phone to type something in. “Making a note to buy stock in Kraft,” he explained with a smile.
Twist My Heart Page 15
