“Did you miss me?” She eyed her finely manicured fingernails. “Didn’t think so, but no matter. At the moment, I couldn’t care less about your feelings. You didn’t care when you locked me at the bottom of that horrid pond. So, now it’s time to pay.”
Shelby and Kaitlyn exchanged frightened glances.
“Don’t worry. I never ask for more than a person can handle. Cole is used to sacrificing for that poor little stray. He’ll do what it takes to keep her safe, won’t you?” Grace shifted her gaze from the twins to me. Vile and evil maliciousness had never been so alive in her eyes.
I gently pushed Kaitlyn from arm’s reach and stepped nose to nose with Grace. “I have a proposition for you.”
“Ooh. I like propositions.” Grace’s smile was acid. “You’re even sexier when you’re backed into a corner.
Shelby jumped up. “No. Don’t you dare make a deal with her without discussing it with us first.”
Grace turned her burning glare toward Shelby.
I held up my hand and regarded Grace. “She’s not part of this. It’s you and me. Let me have what I want, and you get what you want.”
Kaitlyn held Shelby back. “No! You can’t do this.”
“It’s his decision.” Kaitlyn pulled her sister into her arms.
“I can tell by that I’m-going-to-be-a-martyr-for-everyone’s-sake look in his eyes that he’s going to do something I’m going to hate. I’ll never speak to you again, Cole Kinsley. You had better think your plan through before you open your stinking mouth.” Shelby pushed against her sister’s stronghold, but Kaitlyn held her firmly. “You’re the irritating but awesome big brother I never had. If you so much as do one thing to sacrifice yourself…”
“I want a week with her; then I will stay with you for the rest of this lifetime. Until Allie dies and the cycle begins all over. That’s my final offer.” A part of me wilted as I spoke the words, but I’d go to endless depths to ensure Allie and her loved ones’ safety. I turned a sorrowful gaze to Shelby. “This is for you too, sis.”
“Well, well, well. You’re just making friends everywhere you go. I guess I can handle that as long as you are right under my nose and don’t pull any tricky stuff.” With her eyes shining, she put her shoes back in the bag. “This gives me one week to wear out this body. I’ve done some testing on other bodies, and they lasted just over a week before the rotting skin fell off and the internal organs shut down.”
Shuddering, I said, “No. I want a week away from this place with her. I’ll come back. You can find me. You’ve always proven that. Let me have this one thing, and then you can have me.”
“Colby Kendall Kinsley,” Shelby cried. “Damn you!”
Insolence flashed from Grace’s eyes as she jerked up her bags. “That’s exactly what he’s doing.” Grace smiled back to me. “How do I know I can trust you?”
“You know me. I’d never allow another human to be put in harm’s way, even if I had to sacrifice myself to prevent it. I have no problem with that. I just need this one time. What more can I promise to make you agree?” I hated begging, but it had come to that.
“This is outrageous. Allie is going to be so pissed.” Shelby finally jerked free from Kaitlyn.
“That’s why you won’t tell her. She deserves one week of a normal life. She didn’t ask for any of this. I created her turmoil.”
“By existing? Is your destructive tunnel vision so blinding that you can’t see Allie’s just as much a part of it as you? She would never agree to this.” Shelby was in my face now.
My heart hammered at the thought of losing her any other way than by me leaving her. That would be least painful.
Grace stood back and watched with a triumphant grin.
“Vow that when you see her in the next life, you’ll run just as you always have. You’re a good man, and your word is as good as you are.” Grace took three steps closer.
Shelby shook her head. Shaking, she stepped away from the three of us. She burned a hole through the window with her incensed glare.
My chest tightened. “I vow.”
Grace didn’t know me as well as she thought she did.
In my first life, I may have been the most honorable man she’d ever known, but she didn’t know how deep my love for Annabeth ran. When it came to Allie, I would break any law, any bond, any neck. And Grace could only thank herself for compromising my decency.
“Agreed. But we must shake on it.” She closed the gap between us.
Kaitlyn stepped back from us, a single tear trickling down her face. She crossed her arms and turned.
Grace took my hand for what I thought was a gesture to seal the deal, but when I placed my hand in her cold grip, a searing scorch bore through my skin.
“Now you’re marked. If after a week, you don’t return, I’ll find you and torture you beyond your most dreadful imaginings.” Grace took her hand back and spun on her heel toward the door. “Now, I think I might go shower or eat or do bodily injury to some poor unsuspecting victim. But I’ll probably just shower.”
With a cheery giggle, and a loud slam of the library door, Grace left the room.
I shuddered.
“How could you give up like that?” Shelby didn’t bother to shield the rest of the house from her loud voice.
“I didn’t give up. You have exactly a week to figure out how to get rid of her for good while I go make Allie truly happy for once.” I took Shelby’s hands and looked into her eyes. “I trust you to do this.”
I wouldn’t let Grace be what undid my reformation. I had a week to be the best husband Allie could ever ask for. And Shelby and Kaitlyn had a week to show us all just what they were made of.
“What are you guys arguing about? I just saw Sage in the hall. She cleans up nicely,” Allie said.
In the library doorway, Allie regarded me holding Shelby’s hands. A worried look washed her confusion away.
“We were just discussing wedding plans and alternatives for a honeymoon spot. Shelby was just voicing her displeasure in my choice of actions. As usual. She’s the best sister a guy could ever ask for. Both of you are.” I glanced at Kaitlyn.
She gave me a shaky smile.
“You two head to the airport. I already know where you want to go. I’ll have plane tickets waiting for you,” Kaitlyn said. “I’ll keep you informed of everything going on here.”
Shelby kept her gaze from Allie, but she didn’t keep quiet. “If you so much as do anything to ruin this, I’ll find you.”
“Like I said, I trust you, and I know you have our best interests at heart.” I gave her a big kiss on the cheek and took Allie’s hand. “Let’s go get me packed.”
Shelby let out a frustrated huff, but allowed us freedom from the room.
* * * *
After a five-hour plane ride to the airport in Washington State, we boarded a van and rode the rest of the way to the little boat quarry called Canoe Cove. Boats were parked in their little slots in their small aquatic parking garage. The wooden planks were weathered and creaked as we made our way to the same old, small, black boat. It seemed too compact to carry us, luggage, and another human.
The water was still just as clear as it had ever been. You could drop a quarter-sized pebble over the side of the boat and watch it hit the bottom 15 feet below.
Clear as a bell is what my aunt Dotie had always said.
After following the island caretaker to the boat dock, I helped Allie onto the boat. It was no easy task to do it herself as the small vessel rocked under us.
“You must be Allie?” Ricardo offered his hand to deliver her the rest of the way in. His hair had always been black, but a white streak had infiltrated his thick locks since he sent me off with my uncle years before.
Allie flashed an accusing smile at me. “Everywhere I go, people know my name, and I remain clueless.”
“Cole has spoken highly of you, is all.” Ricardo dipped his head and smiled at her. �
��My best marital advice to you is don’t let toilet seats and the non-use of clothes hampers get in the way of your happiness.”
I shoved our bags over to the side and pulled Allie down with me on a cushioned seat in the back of the boat. “I see you’re still philosophical.”
“I know. I should write a book of positive affirmations. The first line would be: You are strong and people like you. If they don’t, slap ‘em and move on.” Ricardo nodded approvingly. “I need to write that one down.”
Allie giggled.
“This thing is smaller than I remember it to be.” The small boat bobbed in the water.
“You are bigger than it remembers you to be too.” Ricardo smiled and handed out life jackets. “Safety first.”
“Pack your bags, Cole. You’re going on a guilt trip. I know. I’ve stayed away too long. How are Nelvi and the children?” I slipped on a life jacket to please Ricardo.
“How well do you know this guy?” Allie whispered.
There’s so much about me she still didn’t know. I latched her life jacket. “Nelvi has empty nest syndrome because the girls are away at college. She’ll be delighted to have you back home, though don’t be alarmed if she acts strangely. As of late, she seems to be concerned with auras and the other world. It’s a new hobby of hers.” Ricardo shook his head and stared off in the direction of the island.
“Hmm, you should listen to her. There is more to that stuff than you might think.” I grinned.
He never did like the superstitions that traveled through his Native American heritage.
“Not you too. This new age stuff is catching on way too fast.” Ricardo clucked with distaste.
My first trip to the island on the West Coast had been when I was eight years old. Nelvi and Ricardo had been the house and groundskeepers. My parents kept to themselves, for obvious reasons. They couldn’t have the whole world seeing their mutated son. So they’d sent me here for seclusion.
Ricardo turned the boat key and the engine roared to life. “If you’ve retained nothing I taught you as a child, you should remember my best saying. Deep thoughts get you into deep sh—”
“I remember.” I leaned my forehead against Allie’s hair as Ricardo put the boat in reverse. “I still think and worry too much. Allie gets aggravated with it too.”
With a nod, Ricardo jerked the gear into reverse, then back into forward a few times until the gears engaged.
That hadn’t been fixed yet. Going from reverse to forward had always had a lurch, but as the boat aged, the gears grew wrinkles too.
“Nothing much has changed. The only difference is now you won’t have to bathe in water that smells like diesel fuel, and the fish won’t be floating belly up in the fish tank under the walkway to the dining room. Do you remember that?” Ricardo chuckled.
Water fanned from the back of the boat as we gained speed.
“It was awful. I thought I killed them. They started dying shortly after I got here. I was the last one to feed them, and we didn’t know the diesel lines that fueled the generator had broken underground contaminating all the fresh water on the island. I hid for a full day thinking that the floating little bodies had been my fault. I was petrified of my aunt, whom I had just met for the first time. I thought she was going to lock me away in one of the secret passages throughout the main house or worse. They found me in the boat dock of the little pond that connects three of the smaller houses each named after a different holiday: Thanksgiving, Easter, and Pym Pond. I was in a corner covered in cobwebs with little white tracks running down my dirty cheeks. At the time, all I could remember was that she’d said those fish were worth an arm and a leg. All I could picture was her cutting off one of my arms and one of my legs for repayment. I was famous for taking everything literally when I was small.”
Allie turned to look at me. “So there was life before the Rollins Manor.”
“Not much of one. I didn’t begin living until Ava tricked me into finding you.” I kissed her nose.
Allie cuddled deeper into the crook of my arm.
Ricardo gave Allie a crooked grin. “Then Nelvi had to bathe him in the contaminated water. He looked better but the faint smell of the diesel was nauseating.”
“Ok, that’s enough making fun of me.”
“So not all of your childhood was miserable,” Allie said.
“There were some highlights.”
The cove shrank as we pulled away from it. In the distance, a small dot grew into what looked like a small wad of moss miles from us. I hadn’t been back to the island since my mother had sent me there to live permanently when I was fourteen. I’d stayed for a year.
It had been the family vacation spot until it became my prison.
Now it was the only place I could imagine I would be safe for a week.
Funny how things changed in eight years.
“So have you made any major landscaping changes?” I said as the island grew larger in the distance.
He gave vivid detail about recent alterations to the grounds, the foliage, the flowers that grew naturally on the island that we had to pay for and cultivate as if they were babies on the East Coast.
Allie smiled as she stared at the island. The little boat pressed through the clear water and bounced over the small waves.
Nausea stabbed at the pit of my stomach when Ricardo pulled up to the darkly stained wooden dock. I’d spent days beside the little tool shed situated at the end, waiting for my father to rescue me, but he always did just what my biological mother said. He left me there for months on end to be with her.
Neither of them could compare to my first mother and father. Mama and Pop would never have disowned me the way the current egg and sperm donor had.
They would always be my real parents.
I fully believed that if my first mother had seen me shift, she would have waited—praying the whole while—until I’d shifted back to human form and hugged me until my fears and insecurities had abated. She’d have never been ashamed of me. If she’d hidden me, it would have been for my safety, not due to her embarrassment.
Unconditional love.
White sand on the beaches radiated warmth the way it never had when I’d been forced to live here. Sure, I’d had all a boy of fourteen would ever need or want during that stay, but loneliness I never thought I could fill ate my insides down to almost nothing when my Uncle Thomas had rescued me.
Thank God, he’d visited when his wife, Ethel had passed away.
He’d taken me in as if I were his own and gave me the means to travel anywhere I wanted.
As soon as I remembered that I belonged at the manor, we showed up on the doorstep and were both accepted in as if we’d always lived there. Mostly.
It took some convincing to get Ava to hire him, but that was a story for another day.
The walk to the main house wound up the other side of the beach. Between us was a line of newly planted bushes. The wooden siding on the mansion gave it the illusion of being much smaller than it was. It looked as if it belonged in the woods somewhere in Nebraska, but my parents had been eccentric. They liked to place things out of their natural habitat just to be different.
Ricardo led Allie and me to the golf cart and carried us to Pym Point. It was the name of the house and also the highest point on the island.
In front of the house was the cliff I had almost fallen from when I was a boy. I’d been raking leaves backward toward the cliff to watch them fall. On the beach that early in the morning the seals were at play. They always came in to sun and snort at each other as they splashed in the water.
Just as I had turned to watch the leaves fall, I realized if I had taken one more step, I would have fallen to my death. At the time, the prospect was scary. My shapeshifting had begun, but full recollection of my past hadn’t come to me yet, so I didn’t understand that I wouldn’t have come to an untimely end, as such. I would have started over.
This evening the seals
were back on the beach. I knew Allie would get a kick out of them.
And I was right.
Allie’s delighted face stole my heart as she pointed at the seals as they flopped on rocks, slapped at each other, and snorted their happiness at their audience.
“This place certainly tops Rolling Hills Manor. And your family owns this?” Allie said. We bounced over the pebble-covered walkways toward our cottage.
“Yeah. I don’t have the best memories of them. The house is nice, though.”
“If you have means to live better than a farmhand, why would you slave at that house?”
“It kept me close to you.”
Allie looked back over the tennis courts, small golf course, and the pond on the lower end of the island where three of the five small houses sat.
“Now that you’ll be part owner of the island, if you ever get mad at me, I’ll know where to look.” I wasn’t ready to talk about my parents just yet. At least not in front of Ricardo. I’d never informed him of my aversion to my real parents or of their revulsion to me. Or that I’d ultimately seen this island as a prison instead of a heavenly getaway.
He loved it, being the caretaker and all, so that revelation would have hurt his feelings.
“If there’s need to hide, you won’t find me,” she joked.
I nudged her and gave her a warning look, for a moment forgetting that after a week, she may not have to worry about our future. I might have to go through with the deal I’d made with Grace. I’d only put Shelby and Kaitlyn on the task so that Shelby would get off my back.
I think by the look on Kaitlyn’s face, she’d have been at peace with whatever I decided to do.
Trying to conceal my dismal mood, I helped Ricardo haul our bags in. He went back in to see to some last minute final touches.
I stood with my hands in my pants pockets. Mount Hood’s majestic snowcapped mountain top towered in the distance. Here the air was much cooler in the summer time. It could have been early spring.
With her arms wrapped around her to ward off the chill, Allie stared in wonder over the Northeastern Seaboard. For traveling, she’d changed into a cream-colored pants suit that clung to every graceful curve of her body.
Ever Tempted Page 7
