Remembrance: (New Adult Paranormal Romance) (Heart Lines Series Book 1)

by Heather Hildenbrand

Indra’s brows rose. “Bernard was still hanging around?”

  “Just leaving Dave’s store as I came in. It’s fine,” I said, taking in her worried frown. God, she even frowned beautifully. It wasn’t fair. “He’s harmless. Seriously. It’s not an issue.”

  “I still don’t know how you don’t freak out around him,” she said, shaking her head and sort of gliding into the center of her circle. She set the bag down and crouched beside it, removing the various jars, candles, and dried flowers I’d brought her. “Every other male on the planet freaks you out. But not him. Yet, he gives me the creeps.”

  “Well, when you walk around looking like that,” I said, gesturing to her not-quite-spilling-out-cleavage, “you’re bound to get a different vibe from men than I do.”

  Indra looked up and smirked. “You don’t give yourself enough credit.”

  “Oh, I know what these jeans do for me,” I said on a laugh. “And it’s not the same thing that dress is doing for you.”

  “Strange.” Indra picked up one of the jars and peered at it closely. “I ordered this dead.”

  “The spider?” I said, stepping closer and spotting, sure enough, a very alive eight-legged spider moving around the closed jar. “I swear it was dead when I put it in the bag.”

  “Interesting.” Indra glanced up at me and then set the spider aside.

  “I can go back and get another one,” I said, fully aware of the resignation in my tone.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it,” she said and I cringed thinking about what that meant.

  Somewhere, an invisible clock began to chime the hour. I looked around but, just like the bell at the front door, couldn’t quite figure out which direction it was coming from. Granny slid around my ankles, mewling loudly over the sound of the chimes.

  When it fell silent, Indra rose, eyeing me. Like a switch had been flipped, her entire demeanor changed. She cleared her throat, her expression shuttering to a cold sort of blankness. Granny only mewled louder and butted against my leg even harder.

  “It’s time,” Indra said as if it were the answer to a question I’d just asked. Then she smiled, baring her teeth.

  “Uh.” I swallowed.

  She took a step forward, even her body language suddenly different. I shivered and took a step back.

  “Right. Time for me to head out,” I said cheerily—as if she hadn’t just become Nancy from The Craft.

  I turned and bolted without waiting for her answer, Granny close on my heels. Mirabelle’s friends were the weirdest people ever. Also, I needed a new job.

  Chapter Two

  Alex

  I slung my bag higher on my shoulder and re-read the address in the text message, comparing it to the house number I was currently parked in front of. I squinted against the dying daylight; sure as shit, the numbers matched. This was it. I cut the engine and left the keys in the visor. Terminal or not, my senses were still good, and something told me this old Victorian boasted a pretty safe—and completely human—neighborhood. My old truck would be fine.

  Aged but well kept, the house was two-story with a sharp slant on the roof that suggested more of a loft than a full second floor. The yard was mowed, the weeds trimmed, and the mailbox freshly painted. There was even an old rocking chair tucked into the alcove on the porch complete with what looked like a knitted cushion on the seat. If I didn’t know any better, I would have guessed some old retiree lived inside.

  But my intel was good. And the only person living here was more likely to stab something with a knitting needle than actually knit anything. Still, I was already impressed. This guy was clearly good at blending in. Even so, habits were ingrained. I took a big inhale just to be sure as I made my way to the front door to check for myself. Yep, no fur beasts on my radar. Good. One less thing to worry about. At least the house was secure.

  Hopefully, my new roomie would be solid. Or at the very least, anti-social and not interested in asking a lot of questions. That was my type. Always had been—even before I’d gotten sick and opted for not telling the powers-that-be about it.

  I climbed the two steps and knocked, listening for footsteps, but there was no sound from inside. I dropped my bag to the worn porch planks at my feet and blew out a breath, debating my next steps. I really needed this guy to be home so I could get into a room with a bed and crash out.

  Hopefully tonight, I’d be too tired to dream. I was getting pretty sick of the same recurring image: a strange woman in black who kept watching me and petting an angry looking hawk on her arm.

  I had a feeling my current level of exhaustion was going to win out. That red-eye from my layover in Mexico City was seriously catching up to me right about now. Either that or the venom was doing its dirtiest. I’d been more and more fatigued lately.

  Without warning, the front door opened and an olive-skinned guy with dark dreads smiled at me. “Bro, you’re Alex Channing,” he said as if he’d just cracked the code to an important secret. His feet were bare and apparently he had experience with stealth because I hadn’t sensed him coming at all. I blinked and he added, “Your reputation precedes you.”

  “Right. You must be RJ.” I offered my hand, studying him, sizing him up.

  “Raymond Duluth,” he confirmed. “Everyone calls me RJ.” He shook my hand and then used it to pull me inside before letting go again. “Come on in, man. Glad you made it.”

  I doubled back, grabbed my bag, and followed him in, unsure if I’d done the right thing in letting Edie call in this favor. But I’d needed a place off CHAS’s record and supposedly RJ hadn’t minded taking in a stray while he was undercover. His email had said he was gone a lot. Which worked well for me since I didn’t want to share too much about why I’d come. I wasn’t looking for a bud.

  But now here he was, all friendly and smiling and obviously hoping we’d be friends. I trusted Edie Godfrey. But I didn’t know this guy. And I didn’t want to.

  “So, I rented the place from a holding company. I mean, CHAS put it together but I’ve never done business with the owner. All digital, you know,” he explained, gesturing to the open living room separated from the kitchen and eat-in dining area by a narrow foyer that led upstairs. “But it’s pretty straight up. Good repair, nothing really broken. The floor and stairs creak a little, but otherwise she’s solid.” He rapped his knuckles on the wall and turned to me, eyes wide as if looking for some sort of approval. “What do you think?”

  “Where’s my room?” I asked.

  “Sure, man, this way.” If I offended him, he was a pro at hiding it. But I had to let him know we were not here for sleepovers and pillow fights. It was better this way—for everyone. I mean, I didn’t even know if I’d wake up tomorrow. These days, keeping the circle of friends to a minimum was best for all parties. Whether they knew why or not.

  I followed him up the creaking stairs and found I’d guessed right. It was split in half with two bedrooms taking up the entire floor. I spotted a surf board leaning against the wall beside the room on the right. RJ led me to the left.

  Loft-style, low ceilings slanted downward, creating a cozy and dimly lit space. I could sleep anywhere—and I had. This would be one of my nicer setups. And for that, I mustered what was left of my manners and gratitude.

  I tossed my bag onto the chair by the door and took in the stained cherry floors and the antique, high-gloss dresser and nightstand. The bed was a simple frame but it came already made so I was happy.

  “Thanks, man, this looks great,” I said, meaning it.

  RJ rubbed his hands together. “Sweet. Kitchen downstairs is stocked. Coffee with the works. Cereal. I don’t cook much except breakfast food, but you’re welcome to whatever I’ve got. CHAS is footing the bill on utilities so we’re all good there. Towels are in the closet.” He turned back to point at a narrow door at the top of the stairs. “Any idea how long you’re here for?”

  “As long as it takes,” I said. Cryptic, I knew, but I just couldn’t with this guy. He was to
o damned friendly.

  “Of course. The place is yours as long as you need, man. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”

  “Thanks. I’m coming off a thirty-six hour trip so I’m going to crash out.”

  “I’ll let you get to it then.” He started out and then stopped, hand on the knob. “Listen, I’m not trying to fangirl you or anything, but you’re a legend. That cleanup you did down in St. Pete last year with the hostage situation… not too shabby.”

  “Thanks, man. Edie says you made team leader your second year out of Portland Academy. And I hear you’re running a single man undercover job. Not bad yourself,” I said. Partly because I meant it and partly because reciprocation seemed like the best way to cut this off and let me get some sleep.

  “Thanks. Yeah, I do okay. Listen, if you need anything, I have a full armory here.” He stomped his bare foot lightly and it took me a moment to fully comprehend.

  “In the floor?”

  “Second step from the top. Metal, wood, you name it. Everything’s there,” he said with a half-grin. “Anyway, I’ll let you get some shut-eye.” He swung the door shut, and I heard a final, “later,” before I was left alone, still trying to wrap my head around the fact that this unassuming surfer-kid had installed a full armory underneath the second floor of his rental house.

  I’d definitely have to check it out later. For now, sleep was calling me and there wasn’t much left I could do to resist. In fact, my insides were starting to ache and burn from the venom and my own inability to rest when I should. It only ever got this bad when I pushed too hard. Time to fix that—for now.

  I pulled my shirt off and rubbed at the sore spot on my shoulder that was still healing from the incision I’d allowed in Peru. My last stop before eating that Belladonna had involved a bit more blood than Griska’s method. And just as much failure. Maybe more.

  It had taken me almost nine days to heal enough to walk out of the ruins where the shaman had cut me up and let me bleed out in the sun for a day. He’d chanted and sung in some weird-ass language, praying to the jungle gods for my soul, but none of it had mattered.

  I was still sick. Still dying. And still lying to my chain of command about it. So was Edie for that matter. I needed answers soon. Or I’d have to tell them the truth. And I’d rather cut myself and bleed out all over again than admit I could no longer do my job.

  I ruffled through my bag and found what I was looking for, grabbing the dropper of herbs and stuffing it inside the pillowcase before tossing everything else onto the floor and kicking out of my boots. My phone had just enough battery life to send a quick text:

  Made it to RJ’s. More news after I sleep.

  With the message sent, I grabbed the single wooden stake I kept in my boot and tucked that under my pillow before stripping off my pants, right down to my bare ass. I didn’t have the luxury of clean underwear after six weeks of globe-trotting. And I just didn’t have it in me to wait for a shower.

  I slid underneath the blankets, melting against the sheets in gratitude to whatever foreign entity had constructed such smooth fabric. My aching muscles and mottled flesh sighed in relief. Half Moon Bay was the last stop on my supernatural wish list but it didn’t have to be all bad. No matter what happened next, I was done sleeping on the damned ground for a while and that felt good.

  I was here for answers. For some cure or magical solution to the fact that I was slowly dying of a condition that had been incurable since the beginning of time. A small voice in the back of my head whispered it was no use. Nothing else had worked and this wouldn’t either. Screw that, I thought as I drifted off. I wasn’t dead yet. And I wasn’t going down without a fight.

  Chapter Three

  Sam

  Seventeen cats stared up at me from the hemp rug and it was all I could do not to sob down at them. Even accounting for PMS and the strange PTSD-like life I was living, I still couldn’t explain my current urge to wail over the small army of yellow-eyed felines in this particular moment.

  Or why there was so damn many of them.

  They hadn’t been here yesterday. And I could only hope they wouldn’t be here tomorrow either. Oracle Herbs & Crystals was not zoned for this. And caring for what amounted to—in cat speak—approximately five hundred lives was not in my job description as sales associate.

  Sales associate. Hah. I was a lot more than that and Mirabelle knew it. She’d even offered me the official title of manager after my strange run-in with Indra during the new moon two days ago. I’d turned her down—too afraid of screwing it up with my crying jags and random freak-outs to accept the responsibility.

  All I needed was to lose my shit in front of one of the regulars and I’d never be able to show face here again, which was saying something when your regulars were the town peculiars. In reality, they were witches, Wiccans, shamans, and medicine women who, during the day, ran perfectly respectable businesses like Christmas stores and pet shops in Creeper Alley—but peculiars sounded way more fun.

  Just thinking about how normal I was compared to Oracle’s clients dried my unshed tears and the moment of odd emotional overwhelm passed. It always did. And it always came back again. I was a walking basket case these days. Which was exactly why I’d chosen to live on the very opposite coast from my friends and family, and on top of that, to work at a store like this one. No one expected you to be normal when you worked for a psychic shaman lady.

  My only family nearby was my aunt Kiwi. When she wasn’t visiting her second home in Guam, she was just as weird as Mirabelle. The upside was that her weird could handle mine. I’d moved in with her the moment I’d graduated high school. By the end of that first summer, I’d ended up enrolled at CCU and six months later, I’d moved out and begun working at Oracle through her prodding that I attempt some sort of life for myself.

  It didn’t matter that I was weird or different or a shell of my former self. In fact, Kiwi seemed fascinated by it and determined to help. She’d even taken me to a hypnotherapist who regressed me and pronounced my memory “broken.” According to her, I’d forgotten something important and apparently repressed it so deeply, it was even gone from my subconscious. Kiwi had only become more determined after that, but I never went back.

  Actually, she wanted me to dabble in what she referred to tongue-in-cheek as magic. But magic, along with everything else under the sun, scared the shit out of me. I was perfectly content with selling moonstone and lavender essential oils to hippie tourists.

  “Mirabelle! The freaking cats are multiplying again,” I yelled, doing a two-step and then a long-jump to clear the last of the mewling kitties.

  I stumbled on the edge of the rug and barely caught myself from falling, leaning heavily against the doorframe of the back office. A strand of the beaded curtain smacked me in the eyelash. I winced and eyed Mirabelle, my boss, the shaman lady herself.

  “The cats—” I began again but Mirabelle just waved a weathered hand in dismissal.

  “They’re getting picked up tonight. Don’t worry about it,” she said, her brown hair streaked with gray blowing in the breeze from the fan mounted on her worktable. Even in the chilly winter months of Half Moon Bay, California, Mirabelle still ran her desktop fan. She claimed the white noise drowned out the spirits. I suspected a bad case of menopause.

  Today, Mirabelle wore half a dozen sets of beads around her neck and both wrists. They somehow matched without matching the dark blue and green tie-dye slip dress that clung tight to her rounded hips. Although not as tight as the pink leggings underneath.

  Never married. No children of her own. She was the cliché psychic Madame from the movies. A train wreck when it came to fashion and pop culture. The most hair-brained person I’d ever met. Overwhelmingly compassionate. Annoyingly insightful. And she was also my boss.

  “Well, in the meantime, they seem hungry,” I pointed out over the sound of the mewling coming from the short hallway behind me.

  Mirabelle frowned like she hadn’t ever
considered the possibility of living things needing sustenance.

  “Hmm. Do we have anything in the break room fridge?” she asked.

  “Just an expired bowl of tahini which I threw away.” I gave her a look that dared her to ask me to feed expired tahini to felines. She frowned deeper.

  Homemade tinctures. It was one of her specialties and although it had taken me a few months to admit, they worked. Eleuthero was my favorite. I was practically drinking it like water these days. Mirabelle kept crediting it for the decrease in the number of panic attacks I’d had in the past few months. I credited that more to the decrease in the number of male clients I was forced to interact with when my last panic attack had been public during a delivery. But the herbal tincture did make me feel more relaxed and focused. Unfortunately, none of that added up to answers—the other thing Mirabelle had promised to help with and the main reason I stuck with this weird-ass job.

  In her other life, Mirabelle had been a therapist.

  “Well … order a pizza then,” she said and waved a hand as if that settled it before returning to the tiny bottles littering her work space.

  Mirabelle squinted at the labels and began making notes in her ledger and I knew she’d already moved on from this conversation.

  I shook my head and headed back to the waiting cats. I found them huddled by the register, most of them still on the woven rug. I eyed them, still a little weirded out that they weren’t even trying to move away from each other or explore. Mirabelle loved fostering animals for the shelter her friend owned but she always got the weirdest animals. Cats weren’t supposed to like each other this much.

  I stepped around them and back to the counter, hopping back up on my stool and scrolling through my phone contacts for Roccio’s, the nearest pizza delivery place. Something red and white caught my eye and I darted a glance to the window, expecting some brightly colored calico that had broken off from the pack. There was nothing there.