Waking to the intense orgasm had me gasping and squirming in bed. I couldn’t help but smile as I continued to enjoy the pleasure of it, despite my heart racing to understand it. I sat up slowly as I came down from the amazing high of my orgasm. “What the hell?” I muttered under my breath.
Not that I was complaining. It really had been that good. It just brought on all the feelings of frustration because, even though I couldn’t be sure, my heart was. Despite Ryan being the obvious choice, since he had been the only man to touch me in years, my heart knew that was not him I’d been dreaming of.
As my heart skipped because of whom I was sure it might be, at least I could narrow it down to just two other people in the world that it might’ve been. I reached for my phone on my nightstand, smiling when I saw I had two texts from Nolan.
Yep I know exactly where that is.
My heart had already begun to speed up. Then I read the next one.
You and I had some good times on the pier. REAL good. ;)
I frowned. No wonder he’d be annoyed about my asking if I had feelings for his brother. He very well could have been the guy in my dream. Deciding to make up a little for upsetting him earlier and because I was curious, I texted him back.
I just had a dream about doing something . . . naughty and I think it was on that pier.
I didn’t mention that the guy I was doing it was faceless or that I was pretty sure it was the painting that elicited the dream. Nor did I dare mention my gut wasn’t sure it was him in my dream, despite him being the only one it could be. I was sure that would annoy him, especially now that he was back to being playful.
I walked out into the from room when, to my horror, Mama walked through the front door at the very same time my phone rang and his name popped onto the screen. I sent it to voicemail then texted him back, telling him I was at work and couldn’t talk. Why was I suddenly such a liar? I could’ve just told him the truth. He knew my mother didn’t know yet that I’d reconnected with him. But after his reaction today, when he nearly hung up on me, I was afraid of setting him off again. Like his brothers, he hadn’t even tried to hide his distaste for Mama.
My phone pinged with his response just as Mama hugged me hello. Trying not to show how nervous it made me to be texting Nolan right in front of her, I read the text casually.
Must be a resurfacing memory because we did some WILD things on that pier.
I locked my phone immediately and set it face down onto the kitchen table as I walked in there behind Mama. She told me about her annoying day at work today. They were doing their yearly audit, and as head accountant of the branch, that was always a royal pain in the ass.
My phone pinged twice as I walked around the kitchen, helping get a quick dinner ready. When it pinged again, Mama stopped and glanced at it then peered at me.
“Aren’t you gonna check that?”
“Nah.” I shrugged as I ambled to the fridge again. “That’s just my Twitter notification. I need to unfollow Dr. Oz. Ever since I started following him, my Twitter is constantly pinging.”
You filthy liar! Dr. Oz? Where the hell did that come from? Mama’s phone rang and she groaned. “This week is never going to end,” she answered her phone and walked out into the front room.
Trying not to be too obvious. I rushed to the table and checked my texts. There were four from Nolan and I felt like a total sneak now. Despite me not giving a rat’s ass if it upset Mama that I’d reconnected with him, the last thing I wanted was for her to catch wind of it. If she even thought to give me any attitude about it after all she’d apparently kept from me, things would get ugly. I wasn’t ready to go there. I still needed time to get more answers.
I wasn’t gonna ask, but to hell with it. What exactly was your dream about? I want details, the dirtier the better.
I scrolled through the next three quickly.
Come on you can’t just leave me hanging!
Alright just wait until next time YOU have a question.
My bad. I forgot you’re at work. But as soon as you can, I want details!
I deleted the conversation and decided I wouldn’t respond until Mama wasn’t home. I’d just call and tell him about it because I, too, had more questions for Nolan now.
Chapter 14
The recipe box and sweatshirt Nolan shipped arrived during the day when Mama was at work. Unlike anything I’d found at the storage units, neither jolted any triggers or flashes. Though, like the first time when I’d entered the theater back in Huntsville, I did sort of feel something slightly nostalgic about the recipe box. But like the theater, it could’ve easily been just because it had an antique feel to it. None of the recipes jarred any memories of me cooking or anything really.
Clarisse was convinced that Nolan was who I’d been trying to remember all these years. I know to her it didn’t make a difference which brother it was since to her they were all equally panty-dropping sexy. But there was a huge difference between what I felt for Nolan and Nicolas. Even when I’d called Nolan to tell him about the dream, I’d been incredibly at ease talking to him and felt none of the intense emotions just thinking of Nicolas made me feel.
I did ask Nolan for the directions to the pier in case I ever went back. I was certain there’d be some clue to what I still felt was unresolved. So far, I knew that what I dreamed was accurate. There were only a few people who knew about the abandoned pier in one of the forks of the river. He warned me that the road to get out there wasn’t paved or kept. He and his brothers tried to keep it in shape enough so that they could ride in and out on their bikes, but unless someone else had since they’d left over six years ago, it was probably in bad shape now.
I’d since gone back to the storage unit a few more times, and each time found more random things that triggered the visuals. The triggers however were becoming less and less intense, and I wondered if that was because I now knew the truth about my past with Nolan. He’d even informed me that what I dreamed of had, in fact, occurred more than once on that pier.
Aside from the much calmer and faster-subsiding triggers I’d experienced in the storage unit, I’d since stopped having any of the more profound ones. Nolan could explain the memories that likely triggered the flashes. Most were just random things that seemed to be about Nolan, such as a seemingly irrelevant stuffed toy. A dreadlock-wearing stuffed banana I found had triggered flashes of what Nolan had explained was a trip we all took to the county fair months before the accident. It triggered flashes of Nicolas holding Madeline in his arms in a crowded festival-like scene. Her arms had been wrapped around his neck, her legs around his waist as they kissed deeply.
It’d been incredibly emotional, and again, I had no idea why. Then Nolan informed me we’d never told anyone about our secret fling. Again, he said I was far more reserved than Madeline, who obviously didn’t care if the whole world saw her with Nicolas when she knew good and well Mama didn’t approve. So, he and I had sneaked in a few kisses that day behind the stupid banana.
Mama didn’t know we’d gone to the fair with Nicolas and Nolan, so this explained why she’d held onto the giant stuffed banana. I’d yet to find a single M&M’s item. Those she evidently knew were all Nicolas’s things.
One thing I’d since concluded was that, while I did have an overtly endearing connection with Nolan, I was still feeling that damn void. My therapist reminded me that I’d never actually grieved the loss of my sister. Maybe Nicolas was a symbol of or reminder of how much my sister meant to me as well. If anyone else had hurt as deeply as I likely would’ve from losing my twin sister, it would be him. So, seeing the undeniable torment in his eyes awakened the deep-seated anguish that would forever fester unresolved somewhere inside me. I’d never get my sister back, and unless I was ever able to remember everything about my past, which my therapist said was highly unlikely, then it would forever feel like something was still missing. I just had to learn to let it go.
I had two more of the same nightmares in the past two weeks. I
now deemed them symbolic of me being torn from my sister—not Nicolas—even if the pain of being pulled away from him felt unbearable. I still refused to put too much weight on that.
It’d been a long day for Mama again, and we both headed for bed as soon as we finished dinner. I thought I might have trouble falling asleep, especially considering my now growing fear of the nightmares. My body fought it, and I prayed I wouldn’t be waking up in tears again until I finally gave into the exhaustion.
I walk toward her grave, and my heart expands when I see him. This time I know who he is. This time my heart thumps with excitement and an emotion I can’t contain. It’s just him and me. No Ryan. No Clarisse. No girl waiting for him by his bike. Just the two of us.
The moment he lifts his sunglasses and our eyes meet, I run to him and he catches me in his arms. “Nico!” I cry out as I cradle his face and feel those big arms around me, take in the familiar scent of him.
I kiss him over and over. He devours my mouth for a few seconds of unabashed requited passion. Then he pulls away, his brows furrowing, and he tries to let me down, but I hold on to him. “Maggie?” he asks, shaking his head. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t push me away,” I cry, the pain in my heart from his rejection unbearable.
“I can’t,” he says, the sorrow in his eyes a living thing. “I just can’t.”
I hang on for dear life, unwilling to let go. “Please,” I beg through my tears, not caring how pathetic he must think me. “Please, Nico.”
He shakes his head adamantly. “You were with my brother,” he says, attempting to push me away. “Maddie told me. I’ve known from day one. She told me everything. Otherwise, God damn, you’d be the next best thing. But I could never—”
“Please, Nico! I love you!”
Feeling the air violently sucked out of my chest, I sat up in my bed, jolted from my dream, gasping for air. Like some of the other times, Mama was there trying to calm me. Just like all the other times, she was beyond concerned. But unlike all the other times, this dream changed everything. I couldn’t ignore it anymore. As wrong as it seemed, I was in love with my dead sister’s boyfriend. There was no denying it now. I felt it to my very core.
As reserved and shy as I must’ve been back then, I should’ve known I’d tell Maddie about Nolan and me. Even if Nolan insisted I didn’t want anyone to know yet, I probably kept nothing from her. And of course, as close as she and Nicolas were, she’d told him. I probably even told her she could tell him if he promised not to tell anyone and she knew he’d never betray her trust. No wonder he wanted nothing to do with me. I looked exactly like the love of his life, but his brother had been my first everything. How was I in love with him? Why when I had Nolan? How had that happened?
After a few moments of clarity in the bathroom where I’d gone for some privacy after Mama woke me, I knew what I had to do. I’d found my first clue to my tortured heart back in the town I grew up in. As much as I wanted to convince myself Nolan had been the missing link, I knew now he wasn’t. I still had no idea what I was looking for; I just knew there was more to this. I had to go back and find the answers my heart had been begging me to for years. These dreams had to be my subconscious’s way of telling me I wasn’t done yet. It both scared me and excited me at the same time, but my mind was made up. I had to go back. And this time, I was on a mission.
Chapter 15
They say things happen for a reason—that sometimes the stars align in perfect unison. The week of my twenty-sixth birthday everything aligned just so. I probably wouldn’t have even remembered my birthday was coming up had it not been for Ryan texting me to ask if I’d had any plans. On instinct, I said I did, only because I knew, just as he had at least once a week in the past month, he’d be asking if we could at least get together for lunch.
This time he said he’d bought me something way back he planned on giving me for my birthday this year. He asked if he could please see me sometime during the week just to get it to me.
Once I’d been reminded of my birthday this weekend, my mind had instantly begun planning. There was no way I’d be in any mood to deal with seeing Ryan for the first time since I moved out of his place this week, but he was so insistent and almost pathetic, so I agreed to meet with him next week. We set up a breakfast date on a morning after I got off work. This way I’d have a good excuse to cut it short. I’d need to get home to sleep.
I’d already met Mama’s boyfriend, Don, a couple of times, and now he wanted to drive her out to Chandon, a few hours away to meet his daughter’s family. He’d just recently become a grandfather, and since he was itching to take a trip out to see them again, he’d invited Mama out for a few days starting the weekend just before my birthday.
Clarisse had invited me to take a real trip out for the weekend to Nashville with her and her cousin. My birthday was on Sunday, and I was hoping to celebrate my birthday in a different way. So, her plans worked out for me. I told her about wanting to go to Huntsville again for a few days but still didn’t want Mama to know anything, and she agreed to cover for me if she had to.
A few days before the weekend, because I didn’t want to give Mama enough time to be able to change her plans, I told her about my trip.
“I’m going away too,” I said casually after she’d brought her trip up again. “Only I’ll just be gone for the weekend. I’ll be back Monday.”
She glanced up at me as she finished lint rolling her skirt and eyed me curiously. “With who?”
“Clarisse,” I said as casually as I could. “She and her cousin have an extra ticket to a Blake Shelton concert in Nashville Saturday night. Then they’re driving out to Dollywood Sunday, spending the day there. We’d be back Monday night.”
Clarisse said nothing about Blake Shelton or anything about Dollywood for that matter. I wasn’t even sure of the distance between Nashville and Dollywood. Good Lord, I was going to fry in hell for as good a liar as I was becoming. Or maybe stupid liar was more like it. How big of an idiot was I anyway? All Mama would have to do was look up Blake Shelton to know if he’d be in Nashville or not this weekend. Was Dollywood even still running?
I swallowed my jumpy nerves back, still annoyed that I had to lie to begin with as I waited for her to respond. “You’ll be gone all weekend?”
“Yeah, and since it’s my birthday Sunday it would—”
“Your birthday’s this Sunday?” her eyes went wide, and I saw the genuine regret in them. “Oh, honey, with all this talk of meeting Don’s daughter and this actually getting more serious than I anticipated, I completely forgot.”
“Don’t worry,” I said sweetly, feeling as conniving as my mother now. “It’s perfectly understandable. You’ve had a lot to deal with this month.”
She hugged me, apologizing profusely as I insisted there was no need to feel so bad. If I didn’t know how much she’d lied to me too, I might feel guilty about her feeling so bad. I told her we could always do something next week once she got back. Then I reminded her the closest I’d ever done to a girl trip anywhere, that I could remember anyway, was the two times I’d taken trips with Clarisse. “This will be my little gift to myself.”
As expected, she was still beside herself with guilt over having forgotten my birthday and assured me that, yes, we’d be doing something next week.
The following day I fact-checked my story. Dollywood was about four hours from Nashville and still running. Thank God. Keith Urban was playing in Nashville that Saturday, not Blake Shelton. So, I’d made sure to correct myself before the weekend rolled up, saying Clarisse’s cousin had bought the tickets and Clarisse had gotten it wrong—not me. I could’ve kicked myself for panicking and over padding my fake story with more lies that I’d now have to keep straight. I could’ve just said a road trip to Nashville and been done with it. She knows how much I love a good road trip.
Saturday rolled around, and Mama was out of the house before I was. Good thing too because I was a nervous wreck. I didn’t want h
er to notice. I had no idea what I’d be doing out in Huntsville or what I expected to find, but I’d made a list of things I’d start off with.
As usual, the trip there was gloriously relaxing. I didn’t even turn my radio on. I loved the hum of the car, getting lost in the scenery and my thoughts. When I arrived in Huntsville, a familiar scent lingered in the air. The ground was still wet from a recent summer rainfall, and the air was a little muggy. But the musky smell of wet dirt and pine trees in the air made me smile.
I went straight to the theater where I’d had my first trigger. I approached the photo booth cautiously. My heart sped up just seeing the damn thing, but there were no flashes. I waited for the three young giggling girls in it to finish taking their photos. Then, not wanting to look like a lonely loser, I waited for them to walk away so I could sit in the booth myself. My heart swelled, and I felt the familiar emotion, but it wasn’t overwhelming. Like the last few triggers I’d experienced at the storage unit, it was much less traumatic than some of the others. I glanced around, touching the knobs and buttons. Many initials and names were carved on the inner walls.
I did a double take when I saw it: the knot in my throat was instant. A heart near the top left corner of the booth. The letters M&N carved in them. I didn’t even have to think about it. I knew who’d carved them: Nicolas, not even Madeline. The visual flashed in my head. I was certain of it. But how? Why? Had she told me? Maybe I’d been there when it happened.
Pulling my phone out of my purse, I wiped at the tear that slid down my cheek. What the hell was the matter with me? I took a deep breath before taking several pictures of it. I’d be documenting anything I found or that had me feeling like this. Then I’d put it all together and show Nolan. Maybe he could make some sense of it. I was in there longer than I realized. There were two couples waiting to use the booth when I got out.
Girl In The Mirror (Looking Glass Book 1) Page 14
