by Gigi Moore
She looked at him for a long moment. “I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I think this rough-and-rugged look you’ve adopted suits you.”
Ki raised his eyebrows. In New York, he’d always worn his hair longer than most “respectable” businessmen in his station had worn theirs. In the last few weeks since he had been there in Oklahoma Territory, however, his hair had grown at least an inch. He liked his hair on the long side and liked it even more since he had let it grow out. There was no doubting Lucy liked it. He remembered her running her hands through it, fisting handfuls of it when he had had his head between her legs, licking and sucking her pussy, and he got hard.
“Actually, I think Elk Creek suits you.”
Ki had been thinking the same thing lately. He hadn’t had the usual itch to flee for parts far and wide and engage in his usual death-defying activities, as his mother liked to call his pursuits. He had been waiting for the urge, but so far, it hadn’t been forthcoming. Ki didn’t know if this was a good or bad thing and he wasn’t sure how long his complacency would last.
He noticed his mother’s silence as she poured herself another cup of coffee then circled the table to retake her seat adjacent him. She looked both miserable and resigned.
“What is it, Mother?”
“I’m just thinking how much Noah will miss you at the firm.”
“Are you sure it’s not you who’ll be missing me at home?”
“Why would I miss a cheeky, impulsive, and stubborn offspring like you?”
Ki chuckled. “Exactly. Why would you, since I’m not going anywhere. This situation with Lucy is just a…” He couldn’t finish the statement, suddenly realized he didn’t know how to.
“Temporary situation” had been on the tip of his tongue, but he knew that to relegate his relationship to Lucy to that simple adjective and noun would be an insult to both Lucy and him.
He reminded himself that life in general was transient and nothing was permanent, which was why he tried to live his life to the fullest every day doing what made him happy. For now, being married to Lucy and living with her and Ethan made him happy. It was and wasn’t as simple as that.
His mother looked at him expectantly and smiled without saying anything. She didn’t have to say anything because her look said it all.
Ki didn’t know if it was his mother’s well-known, perceptive, and wise air or his suddenly feeling trapped that had the familiar teenage rebellion flooding through his veins. He just knew the quicker he settled things with Lucy and Ethan, the better he would feel.
Chapter 19
Short of being on an actual honeymoon, the last few days had been so idyllic and enjoyable with Ki, Lucy should have known a storm was a-brewing.
When Ki came through the door of Healing Magick later that morning, however, the bell overhead tinkling to announce his arrival, Lucy’s heart soared. Then she saw the somber look on his face and it just as quickly plummeted.
Had something happened between Ki and Prentice back at the house? Had Margaret changed her mind about Lucy being a good match for her son?
The former would have been a surprise, since aside from stilted exchanges at meal times, Ki and Prentice barely spoke. There had been a couple of incidents when Lucy had caught them fencing so vigorously in the rearranged parlor she would have worried about their safety were it not for the blunted tips and rounded blades of the implements they had been using. Even during these occasions, they had barely spoken, their heavy breathing the only sound punctuating their efforts to do bodily harm to each other.
She wondered why they bothered with it if they didn’t seem to be having any fun, but then men were weird that way in her experience, so competitive in games of skill and chance that sometimes it seemed their very lives depended on the outcome.
As to the latter possibility and Margaret having had a change of heart, Lucy couldn’t see where that was possible. She and Ki’s mother had been getting along so well the last few days Ki often wondered aloud what they were plotting against him. Margaret had even come to the shop and met Maia and Sabrina and gotten involved with the planning for Lily’s shower. She had insisted on volunteering her services in the form of cooking and decorating.
Lucy hid her reaction to the sight of Ki’s grim expression as well as she could, wiping her hands on her apron as she left her post at one of the display counters to meet him halfway in the center of the store.
Ki wound his way around the customers on the floor and greeted her with what felt like a distracted and perfunctory hug and a kiss on the lips—no tongue, no squeeze. Of course, they were at her place of business and she had always discouraged him from getting too randy here, not that that had ever stopped him before.
She wondered if he was a mite miffed about her leaving so early this morning before he had gotten up, and maybe this was why he looked so hard-faced. Lucy decided she would be lucky if her early departure was the only thing bothering him. She could easily smooth his ruffled feathers for that, but she had a feeling there was much more.
“Can we speak in private, the storeroom perhaps?”
Lucy swallowed and nodded, unable to respond further.
She managed to let Maia and Sabrina know she was taking a little break without giving away too much of her distress. They just smiled and waved her away, always pleased when Ki visited and more than happy to see her off with him somewhere “private.”
“You are a newlywed after all,” Maia was so fond of saying.
“I don’t know why you insist on coming to work anyway. Not that we don’t love your work ethic and the help, but we can do without you for a few weeks while you get acquainted with your husband,” Sabrina typically added with a big smile on her face.
To which Lucy responded she couldn’t rightly relax until Rance’s estate was out of probate and things settled down a little more at home.
What she habitually failed to mention was that things would never really settle down because she was always on edge worrying about her future with her husband—her impossible future with her provisional husband.
“What’s going on?” Lucy blurted as they made it to the storeroom and Ki closed the door behind them. She hadn’t been able to help herself. Her curiosity and fear were piqued by her husband’s uncharacteristic cool manner. She’d never seen him so unapproachable before.
“That’s what I need you to tell me, Lucy. What’s going on?”
She frowned and crossed her arms over her breasts as if this could protect her from Ki’s antagonistic manner. “Where is this accusatory tone coming from?”
“It’s not accusatory. I’d just like to know what you and Ethan are hiding from me.”
Oh God, back to that.
As Ki hadn’t brought up the issue again since his visit to the storeroom when Prentice had first introduced himself, Lucy had decided it was best to let sleeping dogs lie. She knew now that had probably been a big mistake. Ki’s curiosity had obviously been festering beneath the surface, waiting for an outlet.
“Were you and Ethan once lovers?” Now Ki crossed his arms over his chest, but he didn’t seem like he was protecting himself as much as he was shutting her out. It didn’t look like he would listen to anything Lucy had to say with an open heart and mind in his current state.
How could she tell him the truth without telling him the truth? She and Ethan had been lovers, but not while Ethan had been Ethan but when Ethan had been Prentice.
God, that sounded crazy and confusing and she imagined it would be even more so to Ki.
“I want an answer, Lucy, or are you stalling to think up a good lie.”
“I’m not a defendant on the stand and you have no right to indict me this way.”
“I can get quite tenacious when I’m searching for the truth, Lucy, so you haven’t experienced me indicting you yet.”
“It doesn’t matter whether we were lovers or not. Whatever happened between us happened before I met you.”
“So you admit som
ething happened.”
“Ki, you need to get off this path you’re following. I guarantee you’re not going to like where it leads.” Lucy tried to push by him, but Ki put out his arm to block her way.
“I already don’t like where it leads. However, I’m in this for the long haul. I need to know where I stand—where we all stand.”
Lucy’s heart did that little somersault of hope in her chest it did whenever she was around Ki or Prentice. Did Ki mean he wanted to stay married to her after their agreement expired?
“You need to sit down for this,” she murmured.
Ki frowned and followed her to the stepladder she used whenever she did inventory, but he didn’t take a seat, just stood with his arms folded across his chest in that strange intimidating way she was so unaccustomed to.
She couldn’t help thinking that if they got through the next several minutes they probably could get through anything.
Lucy started from the beginning, how she had first met Prentice when he used to visit Peyton’s and eventually how Rance had one day offered her to Prentice like he did with all his business associates, “for the gentleman’s pleasure.”
Ki unfolded his arms at this point, cringing before his face softened with compassion.
Lucy quickly moved on, didn’t want him apologizing out of duty or pity. She told Ki everything, how Prentice had led a mob that had tried to lynch Cade, Thayne, and Maia and how a bizarre miracle had spared her three friends but left Prentice to die in Cade’s place.
She watched the heap of emotions dance across his face—from confusion, to horror to outrage and disgust.
“Why? Why did he do that?”
Lucy shrugged as she truly didn’t know. No one around these parts knew for sure what Prentice’s motives had been. Everyone had just assumed that he had been acquainted with Cade, Thayne, and Maia from before they had all arrived in Elk Creek and that he had some blood feud against them that only the four of them were aware of.
“He killed Rance, too, and saved one of his young kidnap victims,” Lucy blurted. She had felt disloyal in not mentioning the good Prentice had done.
“Ethan is Prentice reincarnated?” Ki asked as if he already knew the answer but needed to hear the truth out loud—either from himself or her.
Lucy nodded and watched Ki’s shoulders slump. “But then you knew that, didn’t you?”
“I assumed that was why you were telling me all these things about Prentice.”
“I don’t know how or why he’s come back. I just know it’s really him in Ethan’s body.”
“Do you love him?”
“Ethan or Prentice?”
“Both, I suppose.”
He looked so defeated that Lucy felt bad for him. She knew what she had just told him was a lot for anyone to take in, much less someone like Ki who spent his life dealing in cold hard facts. At least she had had a few weeks to get used to the idea of life after death. “When we were kids, I had the biggest crush on Ethan, but it never went anywhere. And before he was killed, he had a thing going with Ginger McCall, the girl who was out at our house a few days ago.”
“I thought as much.” Ki nodded. “What about Prentice? Do you love him?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“I think you know and you’re just trying to spare my feelings.”
“Is it helping?”
Ki cupped her face with both hands, drew her close, and leaned forward to tenderly kiss her on the forehead. The effect was more powerful than had he given her one of his soul-searing kisses on the mouth. “No. Not really,” he said. “But I’ll survive.”
* * * *
A city boy who loved the energy and excitement of an urban landscape, Prentice was decidedly uncomfortable once he left the town limits and hit the outskirts of Elk Creek. He needed to get away, however, and didn’t know where else to go for the needed peace and solitude except away from the place that harbored all his recent stresses.
He told himself he was perfectly safe, but for good measure and since the incident with Tanner at the gazebo, he had taken to carrying a sidearm. He never wanted to be caught off-guard like that again, especially with Ethan’s killer out there still running free. He may have been an accomplished fencer but an épée, foil, or saber wouldn’t do him much good out here against an attacker who preferred guns to swords.
The sun was bright and warm and Prentice found a spot near a large shaded oak tree and a nearby stream an hour from town where he stopped to water his horse and sit for a while.
It didn’t escape him that one of the first thoughts on his mind as he sat down and stretched his legs out in front of him, was how nice a setting this would be for a picnic or romantic interlude with Lucy and Ki—epic winning.
He could just picture the both of them here with him, his head in Ki’s lap as Ki relaxed back against the tree trunk and Lucy resting her head in his lap while he rested on Ki’s.
God, when had he gotten so…mushy and trite?
Prentice had never been one for entertaining stupid fantasies or wishing for the impossible. What was different now? Was it because he had been in this Podunk little town for so long that the old-fashioned values and quixotic notions of the inhabitants had rubbed off on him or had his second chance given him a new perspective?
Whatever the reason, Prentice couldn’t get the picture out of his head so just went with it, expanding on the scenario, his cock getting harder as his imagination worked.
Prentice crossed his legs at the ankles and pushed his Stetson down over his eyes to block out the sun that the leaves didn’t. He didn’t quite doze and he made sure he kept his ears perked for any undue noise. The surrounding area was mostly low-lying, so there weren’t too many places for a stalker to hide behind and lie in wait. This and he had been extra careful during his ride out. He, however, knew that he could have missed something, especially since he wasn’t a native, at least not yet.
The idea that he should move out of Lucy and Ki’s house and leave the couple in peace was never far away, but until recently he had always tried to ignore it. With Ki evidently upset with him for not coming clean about his past and barely speaking to him the last few days, now might be a good time to be on his way.
The thought of not seeing Lucy or Ki every morning, not sharing breakfast and dinner with them as had become a charming custom he hadn’t realized he looked forward to so much until now, left him cold inside. He hadn’t felt so bereft since he’d been a latchkey kid, pretty much raising himself during his parents’ frequent business trips. Lucky for them, he had always been a self-sufficient soul and didn’t mind being alone for extended periods of time.
Prentice tried to remember now which had come first. Had he become such an independent loner because he didn’t have the adult supervision he needed at home, or had his parents stayed away from him and given him so much space because he was so independent and self-reliant?
No matter. Things were what they were and he had grown up to become a cool-headed and hard-hearted man who refused to let anyone in, who had been afraid to let anyone in.
He wasn’t afraid anymore. He knew this now and the realization stunned him as much as his proposition to become Thayne’s assistant had. Stunned or not, however, he knew now that making his offer had been the right thing to do.
Prentice had yet to hear back from Maia, though, and he wondered if she had had a change of heart at his suggestion. Did she question his seriousness in wanting to help and decided not to bother Thayne with what she saw as youthful folly? He hoped the latter wasn’t the case. Either way, he wouldn’t let it go. He couldn’t if he tried.
For probably the first time in his life, he wanted to make a positive difference and use whatever gifts Goddess provided him the same way that Thayne, Cade and Maia used theirs—to lend a hand in whatever way he could.
Had anyone told him months or a year ago that he would willingly seek to volunteer his skills in the service of man, Prentice was sure he would have called hi
m or her insane. The old Prentice didn’t do anything for anyone if it didn’t advance his objectives. The old Prentice didn’t do anything that made him seem weak and showing compassion and kindness had fallen into the “weak” category for him.
He wasn’t the same person now that he had been back in the twenty-first century though. He wasn’t even the same person he had been a few months ago. Being around people like Lucy and Ki and their friends and family, he understood that kindness wasn’t weakness. He understood the meaning of sacrifice and what it meant to love someone so much he was willing to do anything to protect them—even if “anything” meant to give them up or die for them the way Aura had died protecting her nephews.
Prentice wished he could talk to her, tell her how much he regretted hurting her and that he understood now how he had dishonored his gifts by using them the way he had in the past.
Was Aura watching him now, maybe the way Brielle and Caith watched over him, but just wasn’t saying anything? Did she know what was in his heart the way Brielle had told him Goddess did?
Prentice sat up straight and pushed his hat back on his head when he tasted salt on his tongue. A second later he noticed the wet warmth on his cheeks.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had cried. He’d been so emotionally closed off in his former life he hadn’t allowed himself the catharsis. In the twenty-first century there had been so many distractions to keep one at odds with the ultimate goals of life—to do no harm and to help one’s neighbors. Unlike here in the Old West where he had plenty of opportunities and time to get in touch with his true nature and capacity for goodness and the things that really mattered in life. Once he indulged the tears, however, Prentice found it hard to stop and soon he was sobbing.
He covered his face with both hands, visions of Aura—her bravery and defiance in the face of his cruelty—flying by his mind’s eye in perfect clarity.
He remembered his parents and how they had provided for Thayne and Cade after they’d allowed their powers to get the best of them and had killed the boys’ parents. He wished now that he had not judged them so harshly for what he saw as their useless pursuit of redemption. He wished he had taken a page from their book much sooner and had forgiven them.
