He stood and walked to the credenza along the far wall where a bottle of scotch sat alongside two glasses. He poured a generous amount of the amber colored liquid into one of the tumblers and sipped slowly, looking up at Caitlin as she approached him. “Please, Caitlin. You must trust me on this. These people mean business and if they don’t get what they want, they might come after you, too. They won’t hesitate to hurt either of you girls and I can’t allow that.”
“Then don’t leave me here!”
“I’m not going to. You’re going to Nashville. You’ll stay with your aunt until your mother comes home or until this is over.”
“What? No! I won’t go. Please, Dad, you can’t send me away.”
“It’s for your own safety.”
“I won’t go and you can’t make me. I’m twenty-eight years old and an adult. I’m not going to Nashville. Aunt Jenn is great, but Dad, you can’t expect me to just sit back and wait while my sister is being held captive in God-only-knows-where. Have you even told Mom yet?”
Her father only sighed and took another sip of the scotch. Caitlin turned to hurry out of the room.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To pack.”
Chapter 21
Addie drove toward home. She had no idea where Cael would be, but she couldn’t drive around all day. With his ability, he could be anywhere. Crap, he could be back in Bora Bora for all she knew. Why did Aiden have to tell him? Everything was going so well. She had the feeling that Cael was beginning to fall in love with her again. All the signs were there. She just needed him to say it, and then she was going to tell him. Once she knew for sure how he felt, she would tell him how they met. God, she’d been looking forward to being able to share all their secrets and all the little things they’d done together, including their own trip to Bora Bora. Tears dripped down her cheeks as she remembered the first time they’d gone there, when he first declared his love for her and she for him. How they’d made love on the beach and the old couple discovered them. God, she’d been so embarrassed and they’d laughed the entire time they’d been in the shower back at home.
Driving around was senseless. Addie turned down the little street toward the beach house. Trees shading the black asphalt allowed quick streams of sunshine to filter through patches on the road giving the illusion of a strobe light. Pain shot through the back of Aidie’s eye with the beginnings of a migraine. The stress of everything, the missing crystal, Cael’s loss of memory and now his knowledge of what she’d been keeping from him rushed to her head like a tsunami. Keeping her head straight—the less movement the better—she turned in the driveway to Cael’s beach house. His home. The home he didn’t know he owned, or maybe he’d figured that out by now. Why was all this happening? Demons like Eidolon were almost more welcome than the thought of losing Cael. Again.
Putting the truck in park, she grabbed her jacket, eased her way out of the cab and closed the door as nausea swept through her stomach. When Addie got to the door, she searched inside her purse for her keys when she remembered they were in her other hand along with her jacket. “Jeez, I’m a mess.”
The living room was dark. Good, just what her head needed she thought, as she made her way to the bathroom. Her stomach reeled as another sickening wave of nausea made her head swirl and she lost the breakfast Cael had insisted she eat more of that morning. Unable to stay on her feet she practically crawled to the sofa and stretched out on it. Resting her head flat with a pillow over her eyes, she willed the pain to go away, praying the entire time that Cael would walk in. Finally, she slowly drifted off to sleep.
***
Addie unconsciously smiled at the intoxicating aroma swirling around the room. Thank God, her headache subsided during her impromptu nap. Her eyes blinked open to see a small cherry vanilla scented candle lit on the coffee table in front of the sofa. Without moving a muscle, she made a quick scan of the room as far as her eyes would let her and there, sitting across from her in the chair was Cael, quiet, with elbows on his knees and head in his hands. Relieved he was there, but afraid to speak, she didn’t say anything. She had no idea what was about to happen. As though he sensed her staring, he slowly took his hands away and looked at her, his sapphire eyes piercing her with distrust and possibly a little bit of hate. Okay, maybe a lot of hate. Oh God, please don’t let him hate me. “Cael. You’re here.”
He didn’t speak, just stared at her.
“Are you okay?” she asked, not sure what to say. At this point, she had no idea what he thought, how much he knew or even if she should tell him more.
She sat up slowly to make sure the headache was really gone. It was, but she had a sinking feeling it was about to come back.
“How long have you been here?” she added when he didn’t answer her first question but he still wasn’t talking. She stood, walked to him, and reached out to touch his cheek, but he stood, ignoring her gesture of affection and turned his back on her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He twirled around almost immediately, his voice deep and louder than normal, almost a shout. “When Addison? When were you going to tell me? You’ve let me make a complete ass of myself over the past couple months. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m sorry. Everyone thought …”
“Everyone? Everyone knows? Of course. Of course they do.” He ran his hand through his dark thick waves. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Everyone thought it would be better if you didn’t feel pushed into a relationship.”
“Pushed? Pushed!? Well,” he laughed disgustedly, making the sound nasty, shaking his head, “now you can feel relieved about that. Because I don’t feel pushed. I feel betrayed. And that’s how you live your life, isn’t it? Letting others dictate what you should or shouldn’t do, always doing what other people tell you to do. Forgive me, but I thought you had a mind of your own. I thought you were a person of integrity, dedication and, and, and a person with a sense of loyalty. I thought … you loved me.”
“I do love you.” She hadn’t really told him nor had he told her, yet. But God, if he only knew how much.
“And this is how you show me? Not trusting in me? How could you let others decide what was best for us?”
“Please, Cael, you have no idea what I’ve been going through.”
“Excuse me? What you have been going through? I’m the one who has no memory of the last five years. No memory of things that everyone else knows about us except me. Things that apparently weren’t important enough for you to share with me. I am the victim here, Addison.”
He turned and stomped out the door, letting it slam behind him, which was weird. Why didn’t he just vanish?
Addison sank to the floor, her knees too weak to hold her up, her mind too stunned to chase after him. Even if she did, she had nothing to say to him in defense. There were no words she could say. She was wrong. He was right. She should have told him. As much as she’d love to blame it on everyone else for telling her not to say anything about the love they’d once shared, damn it, she should have trusted the man she knew he was. There was no excuse for not telling him or having enough faith that he would love her again.
***
Cael stood outside the beach house and walked to the edge of the cliff, not sure what to do or how to feel. He wanted to go and yell at his mother for keeping this from him. He wanted to shout at the only father figure he had left. It seemed everyone he knew and loved had betrayed him. What if he’d never gotten to know Addison again? Would they have told him then? What if he hadn’t fallen in love with her? Now that was a revelation because damn it, he did love her. But at this moment he hated that he did, hated that she lied to him. Telling him those clothes belonged to an ex-fiancé who’d disappeared. Well, she hadn’t exactly lied, but she kept the truth from him. How could he have been so stupid, so slow, that he didn’t put it all together? He had this remarkable talent for knowing what was going on inside other people’s heads, but for som
e reason, he couldn’t get past Addison’s eyes.
He shook his head, closed his eyes and dematerialized.
He reappeared inside Bart’s house. He decided he wouldn’t yell at his uncle or put any blame on him, but he wanted to know why he never told him about Addison.
“Uncle Bart? Are you here?” When there was no answer, Cael walked to the back of the house to his uncle’s bedroom. No sign of him there either. The house was quiet, so quiet Cael could hear the wind whistle through the window. Cael frowned. Uncle Bart needed to upgrade his windows to some with double panes. Someday, Cael would help him with that. Struggling to keep his anger in check, he went to the kitchen to get a beer only to find an empty fridge—empty of beer at any rate. He suddenly realized where Bart was and reluctantly teleported himself back to the Cliff Hanger Bar and Grill.
Cael appeared behind the back of the bar on the cliff side so no one would see him materialize. He’d noted some patrons coming out the front door right before his cells began to reform and quickly changed direction, a neat little trick that took years to master. He stepped closer to the tall sheet of Plexiglas that surrounded the back patio. It was empty. He supposed it was either too cold for people to sit outside or else not that many people were inside. He hoped it was the latter because he didn’t particularly want an audience for what he was about to do.
He went to the bar to find his uncle, but also figured Aiden would still be hanging around getting ready for his nightly gig with the band. He figured correctly; when he walked in, he found Aiden over by the stage setting up some of the equipment. Cael glanced at the bar. His uncle was there talking with Gerry. No one noticed that he came in. Just as well. Aiden was busy with his back toward the wall fiddling with the microphone as Cael strolled toward the stage and stepped up the three short stairs to the platform. He took two steps toward the guy and Aiden turned his head as though he’d just heard him.
“Hey man, how’s it …”
Cael swung his fist, hitting Aiden smack in the jaw, sending him backward over the drum set as music stands, chime bars and cymbals went crashing to the floor. The cymbals circled on their rims for several seconds, making a God-awful whirling noise until they finally stopped moving. Out of the corner of his eye, Cael saw Gerry hop over the bar—which was rather impressive—while Bart jumped out of his seat. They were both by his side within seconds each one grabbing one of his arms.
“Hold on, Cael. I know you’re upset, but fighting isn’t going to solve anything,” Bart said.
“Maybe not, but it makes me feel better. This creep’s been putting the moves on my woman since the day I disappeared, hasn’t he?”
Aiden rubbed his jaw. “Your woman?” He laughed, pushing his long dark hair out of his eyes, and slowly got to his feet. “How could you call her your woman when you didn’t even know who she was? Let me tell you something. Yeah, I was, to use your eloquent phrase, ‘putting the moves’ on Addie, but that was back when you were missing, not since you’ve been back here. I know my place.”
“Oh yeah, your place. Was it your place to tell me about my relationship with her?”
“I don’t know, man. Somebody should have told you.”
“Yeah, I agree.” Cael glared at Bart and Gerry. “Maybe it’s you two that I should have decked.”
Bart and Gerry both held up their hands in protest. “Let’s not get all riled up here. Let’s go sit, have a drink and talk about it,” Gerry said.
“Yeah, come on, son.”
“Drinks on me.” Gerry added.
Cael didn’t budge. He wasn’t finished. He didn’t feel like having a drink just yet. He wanted to beat the holy snot out of somebody. Aiden just happened to be the one who’d reaped the benefits of his wrath. “I don’t want a drink. I want to know why you,” he pointed at Aiden, “knowing Addison and I were engaged to be married, pursued her anyway.”
“She’s beautiful,” Aiden stated simply and Cael couldn’t argue with that. “She was distraught. At first, I’d go see her just to be a shoulder. You know, a friend. We were all worried about her the way she moped around the house wearing your old underwear …”
Cael’s eyes shot up. “What? You saw her in her underwear?”
“No!” Aiden stepped back, put his hands out in front of him, fingers splayed upward. “No. No way. Never. I said, ‘your underwear.’ I’d go over there to see if I could cheer her up, get her to come out, but she wouldn’t leave the house. She wore nothing but your boxer shorts and shirts for weeks. She said they smelled like you and she wouldn’t wear anything else. I’ll admit, I care about her and yeah, I’d love nothing more than for her to drop your sorry ass like a moldy piece of chicken covered with maggots.”
Now Cael was really ready to strike, but also taken aback by Aiden’s boldness. Damn it, the guy had a way with words that almost made him like him. When Aiden continued, Cael could do nothing more than simply stand and listen. “But holy hell, man, you know the woman loves you. And the thing is, if you're so pissed off that nobody told you that you were supposed to love her, let me ask you something. Have you fallen in love with her again?”
Cael swallowed. He was almost certain he had, but he wasn’t about to give Aiden the answer when, until just today, he hadn’t been able to admit it himself.
“Would you have been instantly in love with her if you had been told?” Aiden pressed on. “Think about it. How would you have felt if everyone, including Addison, expected you to have feelings for her and you didn’t? Don't you think it was better that you fell in love on your own rather than someone telling you that’s the way it was supposed to be? I would think the pressure of that would have been too much for anyone to deal with. What if you hadn't fallen back in love? You’d be feeling pretty awkward about things, I would think. That girl is so fucking in love with you, and you’ve been blind to it. Look, I know it's probably a bit unnerving having everyone else know things about you that you can't remember.”
“Look, Cael, Aiden’s right,” Bart proclaimed. “We all thought it best not to force a relationship on you. We did some talking, even spoke to Red about it. He agreed the best way for you to cope with your memory loss was to learn things gradually on your own. Loving someone is tricky business. Not everybody finds that special one. What you and Addie had was special.” Bart placed his hand on Cael’s shoulder, comforting him the way he always did. “But listen, son, do you think you would have been open and accepting of a relationship without the feelings to go with it or the knowledge of its existence if we’d told you? It’s been five years for you. Last thing you remember you were only twenty-five and you know you weren’t ready to settle down then. I know you weren’t.”
Bart had a point. Hell, so did Aiden. Cael glanced at Gerry. “What do you have to say about it?”
Gerry shook his head. “I don’t know. I do know that Addie is family and I love her. I know you and she were happy—giddy most of the time to the point of being sickening. But I know you loved her. The question now is; what are you going to do about it?”
Cael nodded slowly, biting his lower lip, not sure what to say.
“Come on, let’s have that drink.” The four men strolled to the bar and Gerry poured the shots. Cael did some heavy thinking. He had been falling in love with Addison. Why was this so hard to accept? He lifted his glass along with the other three men. “Here’s to women,” Gerry said, grinning. “It’d be hell if we didn’t have them.”
“It must have been very difficult for her, keeping up the ruse,” Cael muttered after setting his glass down, which Gerry promptly filled again.
“It’s been hell on all of us, but yeah, Addie’s taken the brunt of it,” Bart confirmed.
“I should go talk to her. I sort of left her rather abruptly.”
“What else is new with you?” Gerry laughed.
Cael stared at the guy. “No. I mean I walked out, officially, slamming the door on my way.”
Chapter 22
Addie struggled to stand. Sh
e’d been on the floor moaning, curled in the fetal position unable to stop the pain. Stabbing bursts shot down from the top of her skull, piercing into her temples. She steadied herself with the armrest of the sofa as another violent pain ran through her head. This was no ordinary migraine. Her head was hot, her fingers tingled as flames ignited in her palms and traveled up her arms. She hadn’t commanded the fire and the flames ignored her mental instructions to fizzle out. Overcome with panic, she tried to breathe, realizing this must be her own variety of an anxiety attack. “Oh great. What else is going to go wrong? Okay. Okay. Breathe,” she told herself. Closing her eyes, she stood with her arms stretched out as far as they could go, and concentrated on her breathing. She opened her eyes, peeked at her arms—still flaming. She couldn’t feel the heat but definitely saw the flames and she couldn’t turn them off.
Was she on fire or was this all part of the anxiety? Whatever was going on, it was a little frightening. She turned around, not sure what to do. If she touched anything, it would no doubt go up in flames and burn the house down, most likely with her inside it. She walked toward the kitchen, tears streaming down her cheeks, but she couldn’t do anything about them with her hands on fire. When she approached the sink to turn on the water, her hand brushed against a dishrag. As the fire crept its way up the rag, the burning cloth fell to the floor. Addie screamed, stomping on the rag like a mad woman.
She managing to put out the flames on the floor but she was still on fire. Unable to move, she sighed and sucked back the sobs. They were only fueling her anxiety.
***
After a couple of shots of whiskey, the tension behind Cael’s eyes dissipated as well as the stiffness in his shoulders. He needed to talk to Addison. He couldn’t remember what they’d had before but it must have been miraculous if he’d asked her to marry him. He still didn’t like the idea that she withheld all their past from him, though, and he had to wonder what else she might be capable of keeping from him.
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