Sacred Serenity (Lotus House Book 2)

by Audrey Carlan

  I sighed and pushed open the door to the only home I’ve ever known. My nana calls it a cottage, but I didn’t think a four-thousand-square-foot three-story home, in the heart of Berkeley, walking distance of the university, could be considered a cottage. We were surrounded by thick, luscious trees that had been alive longer than I had. My grandparents had built this house from the ground up back in the day when it didn’t cost an arm and a leg to live in the Bay Area. Now it was worth millions, but they’d never sell. They told me they planned on dying here and leaving me the home in their will. I, in turn, told Nana and Papa to sell it and live like kings in their golden years. They wouldn’t have it.

  To this day, my grandfather drove a school bus. That was fun when I was in kindergarten. Not so much when I was in high school. At least Papa was cool to the few friends I had. Mostly, I hung out with Genevieve, the girl next door. We’re only three years apart in age, and since I skipped a grade in elementary school, we had two solid years together in high school. Freshman and sophomore years were my best. After that I hit the books hard, making sure that I was valedictorian and the head of every club that mattered to the Berkeley board of admissions. It had paid off now that I’d been accepted to the joint program.

  The joint medical program between UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco allowed medical students to earn their doctorate after five years of hard-core schooling and on-site learning. I didn’t technically need to take the human sexuality course like I’d told Genevieve. To be perfectly honest, I wanted to take it. Choosing to remain a virgin didn’t mean I wasn’t curious. I’d never let a boy go beyond kissing in my teen years. When I turned twenty, my hormones were worse, almost as if I needed sexual intercourse or something close to take the edge off. That was when I went out and bought a small clitoral stimulator. A few seconds of that and I soared into the stratosphere on a blissful cloud. Now, though, at twenty-two, I wanted more than sexual satisfaction. I was aching for…companionship. A man I could love, who loved me back. A person who wanted to spend the rest of his life growing old with me and vice versa.

  And perhaps yes, like Dash suggested, to find my very own soul mate. Though I didn’t think I’d be finding such a person through a lusty crush on the Tantric yoga teacher. Just thinking about how many women he’s probably been with gave me the heebie-jeebies. He was a Tantric teacher. I imagined they had sex all the time. Probably every day. The woman in the café today seemed pretty familiar with him, and he said he’d “dated” her. Translation: he spent a lot of time under the sheets with her. Heck, Vivvie mentioned many times over the years how desired Dash was by the clientele and the other teachers at the studio. Who was I? A student and a virgin. I didn’t know jack crap about the spiritual Tantric world. I could do yoga with the best of them. Not in a teaching capacity, but wanting to hang out with Viv, I’d spent some free time in her classes. I learned a lot about the practice and the spiritual side. I funneled all that through the good Lord above. While I practiced my poses, I prayed. Worshiping silently in a room full of people has always been a beautiful meditative practice for me.

  I blew out a loud breath and dropped my yoga mat on the kitchen counter. My nana came into the room from the backyard, her gardening gloves still on her hands and a wide-brimmed, white thatch hat covering her head.

  “Hey, poppet. How was assisting that yoga class? Was Vivvie there?”

  “No, Nana. I’m helping out in a couples’ yoga class. The teacher is a friend of hers named Dash Alexander. Cool guy. Very nice.” The moment I felt my cheeks heat, I turned around, heading to the fridge for some water.

  My grandmother laughed and started to heat the kettle on the stove. “Is this Dash a handsome man?” she asked with nonchalance.

  Oh no. Nana was fishing, and she normally caught what she wanted.

  “Sure, he’s nice looking. A few years older than me. He’s really gifted at yoga and has a way of connecting with his clients. I think I’ll learn a lot from his class.” I grabbed a glass from the cabinet and filled it to the top from the pitcher.

  Nana hummed while preparing her afternoon tea. Teatime, a habit my grandparents picked up while living abroad. Even though the St. James clan came over from England long ago, my grandparents lived there while my grandfather served in the Air Force. During that time, Nana taught at the local church. To this day, she still taught Sunday school to the little ones at St. Joseph’s.

  “Oh, speaking of class. You received a call from a Professor Liam O’Brien’s office. Well, technically it was his teacher’s aide. Someone named Landen. Anyhoo, they’re doing a meet and greet of the new program residents Thursday at the lecture hall at UCSF. The information is on the notepad over there, darling.”

  “Thanks, Nana. This is so exciting. I can’t wait to meet the other fifteen students in the program.” I shook my head and shuffled my bare feet. My neon pink painted toes looked bright against my skin. “Do you think my mom would have been proud?”

  Nana put her arm around my shoulders and hugged me to her side. “Poppet, she would have cried until her tear ducts dried out. You’re doing everything your mother wanted to do. You know she was premed too when she got pregnant. And even though pregnant and only twenty years old, she told me she was going to make sure you had everything the world could offer. Sadly, the good Lord took my sweet angel and left us with another gift. When the nurse put you into my Kate’s arms, she looked down, kissed every inch of your pink face and said, ‘You are a gift from God, Amber, and I’ll love you even beyond this world.’ And well, you know the rest.” Nana sniffed and kissed my temple several times.

  I did know the rest. The placenta didn’t separate properly from the uterine wall and my mother hemorrhaged, losing more blood than the doctors could pump into her. She bled to death minutes after I was born, taking with her the secret of who my real father was.

  “Thanks, Nana. I wish I could have known her.”

  My grandmother pushed a lock of hair behind my ear and stared deeply into my eyes. “Just look in the mirror, poppet. I see her in you each and every day. In the way you walk, talk, and your beaming smile. The unbelievable intellect, your tenacity with your studies, and your humble faith in our Lord and Savior. Those are all gifts given to you by my Kate. She’s always with you, honey. I believe she’s your guardian angel, leading you through your life and watching over you. She’d be so very proud. As proud as your grandfather and I are.”

  I nodded and pushed back my hair and dabbed at my eyes. I may have attempted to put on a front with Dash when it came to my parents and never having known them, but my grandmother made sure I knew as much about my mother as possible. Pictures of her were all over the house, including a large eight-by-ten of her pregnant with me. We did look a lot alike.

  God, please tell my mother I love her and miss her. That I didn’t mean what I said to Dash before. He was right. You can miss something you’ve never had.

  I cleared my throat and waved at my wet eyes, trying to dry them. “Nana, you always get to me!”

  She chuckled sweetly as the back door opened and my grandfather entered.

  “Hi, Papa, did you have good day?” I asked.

  He came over to give me a hug, his rounded belly bumping me the same way Vivvie’s did, but his was all grandma’s cooking and too many late-night cookies. Nana always joked that he’d eat his weight in cookies if the stash was available. What she didn’t know was Papa bought his own stash and hid them. I found his hiding spot by accident one night when I was a kid. We’d made a promise that night that he’d always share with me if I didn’t tattle on him to grandma. I knew I’d struck gold, and ever since, we’d share cookies and milk in the wee hours of the morning—mostly when I was still up and studying for finals through college. During those times, he’d set a plate of cookies and a tall glass of milk on the table and pet my hair in passing on his way to his easy chair in his den.

  “Hey, pumpkin. I did. A rowdy bunch of teens today. Woo boy. They can be a handful.”

/>   Nana shook her head. “You need to retire, Harold. The house is paid off, the cars are paid, Amber’s school is on a full scholarship now. You’ve got your government and school pensions. Take a load off.”

  Papa groaned. “Woman, would you stop pestering an old man? I’ll quit when I’m dead. You see, pumpkin, an old man like me can’t just retire. That’s when you die.”

  “Oh pishposh! Such dramatics,” Nana tsk-tsked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know, Nana. I read a study recently that shows that blue-collar workers have a higher mortality rate. Basically, the study showed that for every year of early retirement, those people on average lost two months of life expectancy. I believe the end of the study gave some suggestions for retiring but still working in a smaller capacity.”

  Papa hooked me around the waist and hauled me over to his side and kissed my cheek. “Thanks, pumpkin. See, Sandy, even the doctor said so!”

  Nana sighed. “Amber, I really wish you wouldn’t back his neuroses with scientific studies.” She shook her head and placed her hands on her hips.

  “Sorry, Nana, but it’s true. There are a lot of statistics about it…” I tried to continue, but Papa put a hand over my mouth.

  “That’s enough. Let your nana pout in peace. Come on into the den and tell your grandpa about your day.”

  I followed Papa into his den, one of my favorite places in the entire world. Almost every inch of it was filled from floor to ceiling with dark mahogany bookcases, all loaded with books. My grandfather was a voracious reader and passed down the trait to me. He liked it all. Fiction, nonfiction, biographies, historicals, periodicals. You name it. If it was in the written word, he’d read it. He always said to me, “Knowledge is power, pumpkin. Be smarter than you need to be to get by, and you’ll do well in life.” I took it to heart, and it’s been sound advice.

  “So, I ran into Vivvie outside. She looked as pretty and as plump as can be.” He chuckled, sat in his recliner, and then propped the footrest up.

  I sat down on the squishy chaise opposite his and curled up into a ball. “Don’t tell her she’s plump. She’ll end up crying for days.”

  He nodded. “Pregnancy hormones. I remember those but would rather forget ’em, if you know what I mean.”

  I grinned. “Got you.”

  “Funny thing. She mentioned you’re helping the instructor for the Tantric yoga class. Gotta say, pumpkin, I was a bit surprised by that.” He furrowed his eyebrows, and two lines appeared between them, a sure sign of his tension regarding the subject.

  If there was a way to beam myself up into my room and away from this conversation, I would have. “Papa, it’s not what you think.”

  His hair had whitened long before he hit his late sixties but shone a startling white that looked distinguished on him. My grandmother, on the other hand, kept up her dark hair by way of bimonthly visits to Genevieve’s in-home salon.

  He opened his eyes wide, adjusted his glasses on his face, and with a quickness I didn’t expect, hooked the footrest back down and propelled up and out of his chair like a man on a mission. He went over to one of the bookshelves and skimmed the titles with a finger. “Ah, there it is.” He pulled out a book and started flipping through it. “Whelp, pumpkin, if you’re going to assist in this class, you should probably read up on it. A man who claimed to be a healer gave me this book when I was doing a tour in Asia. It was so long ago I don’t remember all the ins and outs, but Tantra is a very sacred practice and largely based on uniting with your partner. As you know, that’s not what we’ve taught you in this house or in the eyes of the Church, but you know what I always say…”

  “Knowledge is power…I know, I know. Don’t worry. I’m a big girl. I can handle myself.”

  “Now that trait you got from me.”

  Chapter Five

  The inner state of the sacral chakra is tears. If this is your chakra and it is well balanced, tears may come easy for you. It is likely you are an emotionally-driven person who searches out intimacy, connection, and a mate that matches your intense passionate desires in all things.

  AMBER

  The auditorium was huge for such a small number of people. At least two hundred chairs were available, yet the sixteen students in the program huddled in the center seats. Eager minds with a thirst for knowledge. The room smelled of old parchment paper, like walking through the aisles of the county library—a tad musty, yet intriguing. I made my way down the steps to the middle section and sat next to a dark-haired guy furiously tapping on a tablet. Trying not to bother Mr. Tappy, I laid my backpack on the floor and dug out a notepad. The boy glanced over, down at his gadget, and then back to me.

  “You’re going to take notes on that?” He grinned while looking at my standard issue yellow legal pad.

  I glanced around the room and shifted in my chair. “Uh, yeah. What’s the problem?”

  The guy sat up and held out his hand. “Landen, second year and the teacher’s aide. You are?”

  I shook his hand. “Amber St. James. First year.”

  “Top of your class, I assume?” He smirked and started tapping on his tablet again.

  “Yeah, so what’s the problem with my notepad?”

  His eyebrows rose as he smiled. “Nothing. Just a little old school.” He waved a hand around, indicating the other students. Some had laptops primed and ready on the long wooden beam that acted as the desks. Other students carried handheld devices, and here was little ol’ me with a notepad.

  Blowing out a slow breath, I straightened my spine and set my perfectly sharpened pencil to rest above my pad. “Yeah, well, I like to do things the old-fashioned way. The act of writing something down helps me remember more information.”

  “Kind of like the art of repetition.” He chuckled.

  I jerked my head side to side and cracked my neck. “I guess. So, how’s the teacher?”

  He grinned and looked at me askance. His eyes burned a sparkling green and his corresponding smile, while pleasant, seemed almost too big for his face. He had a dimple in his right cheek that I could swear winked when he spoke. I found dimples an attractive feature on a man. This guy was no exception.

  “He’s a piece of work for sure. I love him, though.” He shrugged and went back to multitasking on his device.

  Love. Hmm. Not often you hear a guy toss out the term love so casually, especially when referring to a teacher.

  “I’m excited about being here,” I said, chatting him up. The nervous bubbles in my belly popped and gurgled with anticipation of my first day.

  He laughed that time. “The first-year med students always are. See that dude over there?” He pointed to an Asian man who looked about our age, typing furiously into a laptop. He kept pulling on his hair and finally banged his head down on the desk in front of him. “That’s Hai. He’s a fifth year about to get his MD. See how stressed out he is? I am not looking forward to that!”

  I watched as Hai continued to pull at his hair, tug at his tie, and twist his fingers together. This program was unusual to say the least. Merging first years with fifth years for cross-training sounded like a great idea when I reviewed the course material. Seeing how wound up Hai was put an X in the con column for this untraditional format. When I chose it, I appreciated the severity in the differences between standard medical school and the joint program. The knowledge that students further along in their studies would be leading sections of the coursework alongside credentialed professionals, as well as the intense overlap in the training, would allow earlier advancement and more hands on support than the average program is what sold me on this course. Alas, seeing Hai, I no longer felt certain in my choice.

  “Yikes. I hope I’m not like that,” I whispered, feeling really bad for Hai.

  “Depends on what your specialty is. He’s going to be a brain surgeon. That comes with some serious emotional, mental, and physical pressure that a lot of us who just want to be GPs don’t have to suffer through.”

  Brain surgeon. Yeah
, that’s nowhere near where I want to go with my studies. “I’m focused primarily on pediatrics and gynecology. I figure I’ll determine which specialty I prefer once we start our residency.”

  Landen nodded. “Makes sense. I think I’m shooting for the general practitioner route. Maybe emergency medicine. Haven’t decided yet. What you’ll find in this program, though, is there are usually only a couple in each year of the program, except the newbies. There are two fifth, fourth, third, second, and the remaining eight are first-year students like you. It’s good to partner with someone further along in the program. Maybe we can pair up.”

  Landen set his hand on top of mine and squeezed. At first touch, I thought it was a simple gesture of solidarity, but the longer he held my hand and didn’t let it go, the more anxious I became. Was he interested in me? I smiled softly and tugged on my hand but not too hard. The last thing I wanted to do was upset him or put him off. I needed a partner, and Landen was not only a year ahead of me, but he was also the teacher’s assistant. That had to mean he was talented or the instructor wouldn’t have chosen him.

  I faced him. “That would be great, Landen. Thank you.”

  “Awesome. Ah, there’s the old man now.”

  In the center of the front of the class was a wooden desk and beside that, a podium with a mic. Since the class was small and we hadn’t spread out too much, the teacher likely wouldn’t need the mic. Professor O’Brien shuffled to the desk and dropped his shoulder bag on the solid oak surface with a heavy thud. Whatever he had inside must have been heavy because the noise echoed off the walls of the mostly empty room.

  My instructor was much younger than I expected. He couldn’t have been more than in his late forties, which was strange, since the information I’d found out on him stated he’d been teaching for over twenty years. Either he looked good for his age, or the timeline was off. He was very tall, easily a few inches over six feet, had a bit of weight around the middle but wore it well. His hair was curly, dark brown, shaggy around the sides in that cool, older gentleman way that attracted women of all ages. He had on a pair of silver-rimmed glasses that magnified his light eyes.