More Than an Echo (Echo Branson Series)

by Silva, Linda Kay

  She took my hands in hers and kissed the backs of them. “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”

  Looking into her eyes I suddenly felt all of the emotions she had so carefully hidden from me rush like the tide over the sand. She really did love me.

  “It doesn’t have to be scary, Echo. Let’s just do as you say and let the chips fall where they may.”

  It was at that moment I realized I could love her back.

  Tip and I didn’t wind up in bed together that first night or even the second. She stayed for ten days and we spent the first three getting to know one another. We stayed out that first night in her hotel room laughing about all the things that happened in the Bayou. We hung out in Jack London Square eating, walking, laughing and reliving the good old days. Once in awhile, I’d slip my arm through hers, but other than that, she made no move that might be construed as overtly sexual or even intimate.

  As an empath, I had one of two choices during a romantic interlude: I could keep my shields up and not experience any emotional exchange or I could lower them completely and feel every single emotional truth. I used to be afraid of Tip’s truth. Maybe I was even afraid of my own. It was one thing to be in the closet as an empath, but I wasn’t about to be placed in another one because of who I chose to love. No way.

  At least sex with another super who could block would mean I could have a semi-normal sex life, and that option was quickly becoming a reality the longer we spent time getting to know each other. I was having the time of my life…and I was beginning to feel very deeply for this woman who had been my savior, my hero and the bane of my existence all rolled into one.

  Funny thing was I wasn’t the least bit fazed by the fact that I was falling in love with a woman. It was perfectly natural to me.

  We were taking a walk around the lake one day when Tip took my hands in hers. “I think now is the time to be brave. Now is the time to let go of any fear and really live life on the edge. And you know why? Because you are amazing. You are bright, confident, funny and caring. You’re the complete package, Echo with so much to offer.. Maybe now is the time for you to finally let someone in.”

  “That someone being you?” I said, smiling.

  “I just want you to be happy. If that happiness includes me… well… then I’m a really lucky woman.”

  A really lucky woman? Did I even know this woman? So much about how she had been toward me since she arrived had surprised the hell out of me. She was no longer the distant, brooding Indian I had never understood or much liked. This woman was displaying a gentleness and an insightfulness that shocked me.

  “The day I followed you and Zack into town, I was in love with you. I couldn’t stand the thought of you being vulnerable out there. I had to follow you. I begged Mel to let me come.”

  “I thought it was standard operating procedure.”

  “It was, but she wanted to send Jacob. I talked her out of it.”

  “Because you were worried?”

  She nodded. “Hell yes. I know how hard that first city trip is for newbies. I had to promise her to stay far away. Melika threatened me within an inch of my life. She would have strung me up if I so much as made a move. I may be powerful, but Mel…” She shook her head… “You have no idea.”

  “Is she why you don’t have a woman? I mean, does she forbid it?”

  “Hell no. I don’t have a girlfriend because I love living in the Bayou. I love helping Melika with the newbies. It’s what I do best. I can’t imagine giving it up…even for love.”

  I leaned into her. “Love, eh?”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not asking for a commitment or rose petals or anything lasting. I just want you to know how important you are to me. I didn’t…I don’t want you going out into the world not knowing how much you are loved. And I do love you.”

  She said it. She actually said it. If the emotion reached me, I didn’t feel it. I was too busy blocking, bobbing and weaving to feel anything.

  But I wanted to feel it.

  We walked a little more in silence and I realized that this woman…this woman who had traveled all this way to reveal feelings she had kept under lock and key for over five years was probably the one person who understood me the most. That revelation surprised the hell out of me. I thought Danica was the only one who really got me; but I was wrong. She was my best friend, of course, but she wasn’t a super. She couldn’t relate to much of what I had experienced.

  But Tip could.

  And did.

  And this changed everything.

  What we forget when we leave a place is that life still charges ahead there, and Danica’s was no exception. When she came to visit twice a year on the Bayou, it was just the two of us on my turf on my terms. Even though I mentally understood her life still went on, I never felt it in my heart until I saw her life in Oakland and Berkeley. Everyone knew her. Everyone liked her, and her social calendar was always full. Always. I wasn’t used to being fourth or fifth on the totem pole, but what did I expect? Of course her life went on while I was in the Bayou. Of course she was well-liked and popular; she was a great person. Still…to know this in the vacuum of the Bayou and to see it happening were two different things. A lot had happened in my absence. A whole lot.

  First off, Danica had shown an incredible aptitude in computer programming in her junior year in high school, and I was surprised to learn that she was allowed to take advanced courses in computer science at Cal. This, of course, opened social doors for her and gave her ins to social circles well out of reach of most high school students.

  Like Bishop had said, she was destined for great things. It was strange to see how she and her life had changed so drastically. She was no longer living on the island of misfit toys.

  Computer geeks are a breed apart from the rest of us. They speak a different language, they see the world through a different pair of glasses. Their world is a four foot-by-four foot space with a flat monitor in front of their faces. It couldn’t have been more different from my nature-driven world. While I craved fresh air, deep conversation and sunlight, Danica loved the solitude and isolation of a computer cubicle. We couldn’t have been in such diametrically opposed corners had we tried. Her world consisted of ones and zeros. Mine consisted of trying to fit back into a life I had left behind. And I was still feeling left behind.

  That was why seeing Tip had been so important to me. As much as I loved Danica, she had her own gig going. She had no time for anyone. She and some nerds were developing a computer game that was supposed to be revolutionary, and so she ate, slept and drank at the computer lab. Danica wasn’t interested in the guys, no matter how smart, unless they had computer skills better than hers…and that was a tough row to hoe.

  In the end, I was feeling left out, so having someone there who put me first was just what I needed. Maybe it just felt good to be held, to be comforted and to be understood. Maybe somewhere deep down inside, I returned her affections more than I let myself admit; and before I could stop myself, I let everything between us get out of hand and just like that, I was no longer a virgin and no longer alone.

  Making love with Tip was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. She was soft and gentle, always making sure I was comfortable. I have never felt safer in my life than lying in her arms, and I laid there every chance I got. She would kiss me like every kiss was the last. She had a mouth that could do miracles, and she ran her lips over my entire body over and over. I didn’t know what I loved more: her hands on my body or her mouth. We spent a great deal of time in bed, just exploring each other. Had I known how good love-filled sex could be, I’d have jumped all over her long ago. We spent in bed every moment I wasn’t in class or working. I devoured her like a starving person. She opened up a whole new world of sensations for me. I used to be afraid of what love would be like for me as an empath, but when Tip taught me how to read her just as she was climaxing, I was flooded with such intense emotions that I could experience an orgasm without ever being touched.
It was amazing. I was like a newborn addict, counting the minutes to my next fix. Our lovemaking was surreal, romantic and filled with a passion I never knew existed.

  For the moment.

  I think I was just too naive or just plain stupid to see where this was going. It was nobody’s fault, really. Tip and I were simply geographically incompatible, so I’m not sure what I was expecting; for her to stay in Oakland? Hadn’t she made it crystal clear the Bayou was her home? She would have been a fish out of water flopping around with its mouth opening and closing. Even with empathic powers, I had failed to actually hear her when she told me not even love could move her from her beloved Louisiana.

  “My powers know no distance, you know. We don’t even need a phone. How cool is that?”

  How cool is that? In the throes of new love, it was very cool, but I was a fool. In my need to reconnect with the Bayou, to be loved, I had made a huge mistake of hooking up with someone far more dangerous than any swamp alligator. Yes, Tip cared for me, and maybe she did really love me, but I wasn’t ready for the kind of relationship she was proposing. I didn’t want long distance. I didn’t want a phone relationship.

  It was the iceberg approaching the Titanic.

  Tip stayed for three wonderful weeks; you know those first crazy days where you can’t get enough? The hot and sexy kind where you exist on nothing but the pure adrenaline of sex.

  At the end of three weeks Melika called her home. She didn’t want to go, but when Melika calls you go. It was time for Tip to go, and when she left, she took a piece of my heart with her.

  I finally began to acclimate to my new life and began enjoying myself. What had happened between me and Tip had settled me down and given me the confidence to go on and give my new life a real shot. Before she came to me, I had just gone through the motions; but after she left, I turned one hundred percent of my attention to making Oakland and Mills College my home again.

  After being a nomadic foster child and then a 24-7, 365-days-a-year student of the Bayou, I realized I had no idea who I was. Being an empath was about power and skill, not character and soul. I had been lost because I didn’t know anything about me. Once I started to learn who I was, my life at Mills caught fire. My grades improved, my social life opened up, and I was finally happy.

  And this threatened Tip. She had been used to me relying on her. Once I started being more independent, she started crowding me. Our mental connection was becoming more intrusive than supportive and I started resenting it. I started resenting her and her listening in on my life, and she resented me for being so happy without her I bolstered my shields and blocks to keep her from reading me and spying on my life, and she did what she always did: she went on a mission.

  It saddened me that this was how it ended up, but we hadn’t really given ourselves any other choice. She was there and I was here. Tip was pretty angry when I broke it off because she never saw it coming. She assumed I was completely open for her to read, but I had learned a lot more from Melika than she realized. I needed to learn to love myself before getting that deeply involved with anybody, least of all a telepath. I hoped she would understand.

  She didn’t.

  It took her almost four years to get over it, and almost two years before she would speak to me again. We managed to get beyond the hurt and pain, but it was pretty obvious to us both that she was really in love with me. So, we went our own ways; I dove into my studies and she dove into hers, which was what took her to places like Australia; she loved learning about other people’s powers. Tip became a student of the supernatural and I became a student of the truth. We existed under a tenuous truce and every now and then, she would pop in to checkup on me and my life. We settled into an uneasy friendship that was probably less fulfilling to her than it was to me. I loved her, after all, but not with the depth and intensity that she loved me. It was best we had broken up.

  I just wasn’t sure I completely believed that.

  At the age of twenty-eight, I was standing in the office of a man who had recently fired me asking myself the same question I’d asked after I bashed Todd’s head in. Was I crazy? What in the hell I was thinking? It’s not like me to give someone a second chance to bury yet another dagger between my shoulder blades. It wasn’t like me at all. So what was I doing here? Curiosity maybe? Wasn’t the road to Hell paved with the dead bodies of cats, or was I mixing my metaphors? I grinned to myself at the image. Okay…so I was a little curious as to why my old boss had summoned me.

  A week ago, my boss, Wes Bentley, who is as snooty as his name suggests, fired me from my lowly peon position as a stringer for the Police Beat section of the San Francisco Chronicle. I know…how hard can it be to report on the numerous criminal activities in a place like the City by the Bay? Well, I wasn’t fired for incompetence. I was fired for suggesting a well-known CEO who was being interviewed by our top investigative reporter was lying. Lying through his ten thousand dollar DaVinci veneers.

  Okay…so maybe I should have waited before blurting it out right in front of this prominent citizen, but I just couldn’t help it. A foster parent once told me my biggest problem was I lacked stoplights between my brains and my mouth. She was right about me not having stoplights, but wrong about it being my biggest problem. My greatest problem was also my biggest gift, and it was this double-edged sword I wielded daily. Unfortunately for me, on the day I called out liar, liar, pants on fire, it was a sword I stabbed myself with.

  I knew Mr. Bentley didn’t want to fire me that dark day, but his star reporter, Carter Ellsworth, had demanded my head on a rusty platter. Apparently, my pronouncement about his source’s lies had humiliated Carter in front of the scheming, embezzling CEO; and being shown up was one thing that Carter Ellsworth could not abide.

  I had just returned from the police station and was walking by my favorite fountain out in front of our building. I have a thing for running water because it often blocks out extraneous emotions. That’s why I wandered over there in the first place. I couldn’t have cared less who he was interviewing or what he was doing because my focus was on the fountain. I hadn’t realized Carter was conducting his interview on the other side of it. As I started by them, I was slammed with a huge wave of deceit, dishonesty and dissembling. Normally, I have mental shields up to protect myself from inadvertent reading. Dealing with everyone else’s emotions is an exhausting endeavor.

  On that day, I felt them like a baseball bat to the back of my legs. The darkness of the CEO’s emotions hit me with such force I could not stop myself from blurting out, “What a crock of shit,” as I strolled by. Jumped right out of my potty mouth and landed on a pink slip with my name on it. It didn’t matter I was right, because as an empath, I was in the closet. Out as a lesbian, in as an empath.

  Anyway, Carter got what he wanted, and I was let go.

  So, why was I here?

  When Wes walked in, I did a quick read and decided against raising my shields. Raising and lowering psychic energy forces is a little like the regular Joe putting his hands over his ears to keep from hearing someone. The only thing missing was the “Lalalalala,” and believe me, there were days when I wanted to add that as well.

  “Thank you so much for coming in, Branson. I wasn’t sure…well…never mind. It was good of you to come.” Wes Bentley stood in front of me and extended his well-manicured hand. Wes always wore a tanning booth glow; a little too much George Hamilton meets Bob Barker. I shook his hand and took note of his new Christian Dior suit and thousand dollar hand-painted tie. Wes was one of the best dressed men in the city and commanded attention wherever he went. At this moment, however, all pretense of command had been replaced by something I had never seen or felt from him in the seven months I’d been at the paper; contriteness. Yes, the man who cut me loose with the weak explanation, “If Carter wants you gone, you’re gone,” was standing there with his hat in his hand.

  Now wasn’t this an interesting turn of events?

  Carter Ellsworth wielded that sort of
power because he had won a Pulitzer for a series of reports he did during the Iraq War and that pretty much gave him carte blanche to destroy the nobodies of the world like me. Pulitzer winners are a rare breed, and the majority of them, from what I gather, prefer to keep their fame and fortune on the East Coast, preferably New York. For whatever reason, Carter preferred foggy San Francisco.

  “I’m here mostly out of curiosity, Wes.”

  Wes moved around to the other side of his desk. “Well, I do appreciate your time, so let me get down to brass tacks. Have you found another job yet?”

  Oh, how I wanted to lie; to say, yeah, the New Yorker picked me up and offered me my own column and I’m moving there tomorrow. But the sad truth was, I couldn’t even get an interview with any of the smaller papers in the area and was working part-time at Luigi’s Bakery, the bakery directly below my tiny apartment.

  “I’m still looking for something in my field, yes.” I read a sense of relief from him. He wanted something from me. This was getting more interesting every second.

  “I see.” Wes folded his leather-tanned hands on the desk and leaned forward. “I’m going to be straight up with you, Branson. Tomorrow, you’re going to be reading Carter’s retraction of the story about Glasco’s embezzlement.” He eyed me carefully as if trying to read me.

  Wes could look all he wanted, he would never know how I was feeling. Looking into his light blue eyes, I understood he was trolling; feeling me out before laying the rest of his cards out on the table. There really was no need to since I saw what was coming next. A retraction for the editor-in-chief of a big newspaper is a little bit like having your pants pulled down in public without any underwear to hide the family jewels. What it means is you didn’t fully do your job. Whenever a story suffers a retraction, everybody looks bad, and worse…amateurish. Well, the only amateur who had been fired over this story was me. Apparently, the truth had come out somewhere and now both Carter and Wes were eating crow.

  I wondered what crow tasted like and if you served it with white wine.