Love Uncharted

by Berinn Rae

  At the time of the accident her brothers, ten and twelve years older than she, were already in college. So Lily was shuffled off to her mother’s sister in the Ohio corn belt. Aunt Dora, Uncle Ned, and her three cousins had done their best to accept her, a silent, dreamy child who didn’t fit in. And she’d been well loved. But also browbeat over her maddening habit of disappearing into books, her wild ideas, and her drawing. Despite knowing she’d never win their approval, Lily grew into an affectionate, cheerful girl. She still went home to Springfield at Christmas, loaded with gifts she’d learned over the years would please them.

  Now as Lily gathered rags and a bucket to clean up her unholy mess, she confronted the echoing silence inside her head and vowed to remake herself. It was high time she grew up, became a sensible, down-to-earth person who could stand on her own two feet. The kind of woman who remembered to match her socks before putting them on, someone who never forgot her keys, or when she’d last eaten, or run a comb through her hair. If she stayed Daniel’s hapless, incompetent neighbor, Lily knew he’d lose patience with her, and she would lose him. Especially if he guessed at this sudden physical awareness of him as not just best friend, but male. And, Gods help her, a very attractive, currently unattached male!

  Oh yeah, she would have to tread lightly around him from now on, maintain a casual distance, stay nonchalant. Because Daniel was one perceptive guy. Lily loved that about him … but now she had reason to fear his uncanny insight.

  Feeling stronger, perhaps even mature with a specific goal laid out in front of her flashing like a road sign, Lily grabbed the giant can of thinner from under the sink. On hands and knees she mopped up drying puddles of paint, all that remained of her perfect man.

  Chapter Five

  Lily slept restlessly, legs tangled in clammy sheets and her mind tormented by images of her painted man, the memory of his silky eyes, his lips parted with excitement … and the horror of his melting face. Finally, she got up to gulp down a sleeping pill. Within moments she was out cold.

  She woke with a heart-pounding gasp, her feet freezing and daylight streaming in through her bedroom window. Every muscle in her body ached from her struggle to keep out of the man’s grasp the night before. She longed to lose herself under a hot shower. Until she looked at the clock. Almost ten o’clock. Holy crows, Ellen was going to kill her! Even as the thought hit her, the phone rang.

  “Lily, tell me you’re all right!” Ellen’s shout was shrill enough to wake the building.

  “Sorry, yes. I overslept. I’m coming in right now. Sorry.” Lily snapped her sat-phone shut, crammed her sketchbook in the portfolio already bulging with loose drawings, grabbed up her satchel and raced out of the apartment. Halfway down the stairs, she slammed into a body coming up.

  “Whoa there, Lil. Where’s the fire?” Daniel grabbed her to keep her from falling.

  At his touch all breath left her. She stared into his eyes, only inches from her own … large, long-lashed eyes a melting chocolate brown. Keen, observant eyes disguised behind his glasses and now amused, she realized, at having her in his arms. A blush stained her cheeks, her skin quivered to warm life where he touched her. Her gaze slid to his mouth, full lipped with dimpled corners prone to smile. She found herself leaning into him, wondering what he tasted like —

  “Lily,” he said, his palm cupping her cheek. “Are you okay? Let me help you back up — ”

  “No,” she snapped alert, tried to wriggle from his grasp. “I overslept, I’m late for work.”

  “You’re going dressed like that?” He glanced down her body and grinned. “I like it, informal yet somehow commanding.”

  Lily looked down at herself and saw she was still wearing her nightgown. “Oh, Gods! I’m losing it, Daniel. That little grasp I have on reality? It is so circling the drain!”

  Daniel brushed tangled curls off her face and smiled. “Not true, Lily. You’re brilliant. A walking, talking work of art.”

  • • •

  Gently taking Lily’s elbow, Daniel steered her back upstairs, unlocked her door with his spare key, and led her inside. She stood in the middle of her apartment blinking in a kind of weary stupefaction. He watched her eyes fill with tears. She needed his arms around her, he could sense it, and wanted her breath mingled with his while he kissed this confusing present away. But instead of reaching for her, Daniel jammed his hands in his pockets. “Talk to me, Lil. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  She shook her head and backed away to dash into her bedroom, slamming the door shut between them. Snarling his frustration, Daniel paced the apartment. He wasn’t leaving until he saw her again, until he knew she wouldn’t fall apart under whatever emotional storm was tearing at her this time.

  The covered easel caught his eye. He never looked at her work unless she offered, never pried into anything she took pains to hide. Maybe it was time he did. As he stepped forward, the sole of his shoe lifted off something sticky on the ground cloth. Glancing down, he saw where she’d cleaned up spilled paint … a lot of spilled paint. Dropping to a crouch, he touched a finger to the smear, felt a taut chill creep up his arm and become a stirring fire in his blood.

  Jerking his hand back, he cursed under his breath. The paint felt as tacky as drying blood. A cold fear swept over him. Pressing his open palm down on the smear, he opened his senses and felt a quick rush of heat. Lust tightened his belly with a mindless hunger, his mind filled with an alien curiosity and fierce excitement. Then he was tumbling into Lily’s panic, a growing fear, explosive anger, and, at the last, a sense of deep terror. Daniel cursed again. What the hell had happened here?

  Behind him, he heard her bedroom door opening and quickly stepped away from the easel. A defensive fury rose inside him. He rarely allowed himself to Read when he touched objects or people. Absorbing the thoughts and emotions of others had always been disorienting and painful. Not a power he particularly treasured. His grandmother, a strong Reader as well, had discovered his magic when he was a child. She taught him how to survive it by building mental barriers that allowed him a protective emotional distance.

  He’d been living behind those barriers ever since, ignoring, for the most part, his magical gifts. When he’d caught Lily barreling down the stairs, the careful wall he kept erected between them fell apart. Never in his life had he let another’s feelings rush him with such ferocity.

  Standing near the couch, he watched Lily cross the room. His heart quickened. He flexed hands that ached to touch her and fought down a longing he didn’t dare let her see. His feelings would only confuse her. Get a grip, he commanded himself and forced a smile. Not difficult when he realized he was seeing Lily at her rarest, her hair brushed and gleaming like sun-touched silk, her dark stockings straight, skirt and lavender sweater tidy with each button in its proper hole.

  She looked composed, quietly sensible … and achingly fragile. Gods, he wanted her now. On the couch, on the floor, his hands sliding under that flirty skirt to drag off her stockings, his fingers skimming her naked thigh —

  Lily stepped close, snapping his attention back to her as she looked up. Her chin barely reached his chest. In the depths of her china-blue eyes he saw defiance. And determination.

  “Daniel,” she spoke in a voice rough and unsteady. “Last night I made a promise to myself, a promise to change, to pull my head out of the clouds. Plant myself solidly in reality. I … I’ve become way too dependent on you. And rather than wreck our friendship, I’m going to stop.”

  Daniel found he couldn’t breathe. “Stop what?”

  “Stop needing you.”

  “Lily,” he swallowed the cry in his throat. “Don’t change. Please. You’re amazing and — ”

  Lily shook her head, “It’s high time I grew out of my childish ways.” She looked down at their feet and rocked forward until the toes of her shoes rested on top of his. “I’ll be thirty in ten months, do you realize that? Thirty years old. And I want so many things that aren’t possible if I stay this unreliable,
muddleheaded person living helter-skelter.” She darted a glance at the covered easel across the room.

  Daniel grabbed her shoulders, purposely brushing a finger over the bare skin at her neck and braced himself against the spill of her emotions into him: confusion, loneliness, fear … and guilt. Never in the two years he’d known her had he ever sensed guilt in her. Confusion, yes, and sadness, boundless joy, eager awareness. But never guilt. His hands on her shoulders tightened. “What happened here last night? Did someone hurt you?”

  “No.” She shook her head, met his fierce gaze with reluctance. “I hurt myself, Daniel, like I always do. I believed in something stupid and then watched it melt into nothing. One day I’ll follow some bizarre impulse that ends up hurting you. It’s what I do. I’ll presume or forget something important and … let’s be realistic, shall we? I know you won’t be around forever to let me in when I forget my key, or remind me to feed the fish, or stop me running off to work in my nightgown. You’re the most generous, considerate man I’ve ever known, and you’ve got better things to do than douse every little fire in my life.”

  Beneath his palms, her body burned an icy cold. He found himself rubbing warmth down her arms, felt her tremble. “Don’t do this to yourself, Lily. We’re a team, you and me. I’m here for you, always.”

  She straightened and stepped away, suddenly all business. “Well, you deserve better than me. And someone really special out there deserves you. Now, I’m so late Ellen will fire me. I already lost her a good client yesterday … see what I do to my friends?”

  She bent to pick up the satchel and portfolio where she’d dropped them on the floor.

  “Something happened here last night.” Frustrated, Daniel reached for her again. “Something that scared you. Tell me what it was.”

  She rose on tiptoe, her breath warm on his cheek before she kissed him. “My bad karma.”

  “I’m not giving up on you, you know.” He followed her out the door. “You need to talk, I’m your guy. You hear me?”

  “Right-o!” She waved back at him as she bumbled down the stairs, the portfolio banging at her knees, satchel already sliding off her shoulder. Daniel crossed the hall to lean over the railing. Lily could try on adulthood like some women try on sexy underwear … but dressing up a package rarely changes the essentials. Or so he hoped. She was a rare one, didn’t she know? Couldn’t she see how her irrepressible spirit enchanted those around her?

  Watching her from above, Daniel waited. Sure enough, she walked smack into the glass security door as always, forgetting it was there and had been for the last three months. The heavy portfolio fell to the floor, he heard her swear like a sailor as she bundled it back together. And he smiled, reassured. Stubborn will aside, her whimsical mind stayed true to form, already drifting off towards Never Never Land and her very own “second star on the right.”

  Before closing the door to her apartment, Daniel ducked inside to dribble food to the two goldfish. Miss Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy were Lily’s Christmas gift from the McCready sisters down the hall. She’d named them after the infamous lovers in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. The two fat fish rose to suck in flakes, lacy tails sweeping the fairy tale castle inside the glass bowl.

  Daniel would never forget the day shortly after Christmas when Lily had run to him with a dead Elizabeth in her hands.

  “She needs mouth to mouth and I must be doing it wrong!” she’d cried, placing the tiny fish face near her lips to blow tender puffs into the gaping mouth. In that moment Daniel’s well constructed world fell to pieces as he tumbled ass over tea kettle in love.

  He remembered her face streaked with tears, how outraged she’d been at herself. “I forgot to feed them. Yesterday, and probably the day before!”

  He’d taken the dead fish gently in his hands. “Miss Elizabeth wouldn’t die of starvation in that amount of time, Lil. She must have been sick. We’ll get another one.”

  “I’ll just kill her, too,” she’d wailed. “I’m horribly irresponsible, Daniel, you know that!”

  “So you’d condemn poor Mr. Darcy to a life without his Elizabeth?” he’d teased and they’d gone that afternoon to buy a new goldfish.

  Lily buried the first Elizabeth Bennett under a giant hastatum plant. Since that day, she never forgot to feed the fish and religiously cleaned their bowl every Saturday. Still for safety’s sake, and Lily’s, Daniel sometimes snuck them food.

  • • •

  Walking away from Daniel felt like ripping chewing gum from her hair. As Lily jumped an e-trolley heading downtown, she fought against a strange compulsion to run back to him. The sensation left her uneasy, as if she’d missed seeing a flitting but important image at the edge of her vision.

  The urgency faded the farther she got from home but the need still lingered, a teasing presence at the back of her mind. Leaving the e-trolley six blocks from work, Lily headed towards Madame Bagasha’s Magicke Shoppe.

  Questions for Nila, the witch girl, ran circles in her head. Questions like what the hell had gone wrong with her “bona-fide, certified” love potion? As Lily approached the pretty stone building that housed Carter and Bell’s, she slowed, stopped, and stared. No magic shop stood beside the dating service today. No arcane sign swung in the wind, no joyous voices sang. Madame Bagasha’s Magicke Shoppe had disappeared! In its place stood a dull gray building with a door that said Keenan Tax Accountants.

  Lily unfroze long enough to open the door into an office with a secretary at the front desk who looked up with a pleasant smile. Lily ducked back outside. She stared up the street and down. Her pulse began pounding in her ears. The magic shop stood here yesterday, she’d swear it! Or, and this seemed the more likely probability, she’d finally well and truly cracked. Her overly imaginative brain conjured up a shop to grant her deepest wish. And a shop full of witches to make it come true! Lily felt ill. Had her painted man been a delusion? No. She’d cleaned up paint for over an hour, for pity’s sake!

  Shocked and dizzy, Lily lowered her head between her knees. Hyperventilating in the middle of the sidewalk was not an option, she told herself, breathing in slow drafts of morning air. She remembered Nila saying people who didn’t believe in magic never found the shop. Straightening, she turned to shout at the gray door, “But I do believe, damn it!”

  Two nearby pedestrians swiveled to stare. A few others cast her a wary glance and crossed the street away from her. And still the little shop did not materialize. Chilled now, Lily wrapped her coat tighter against the wind. She’d wait, she decided. But after ten long minutes, she gave up and stormed away. In her gut she knew the shop had been real. And she wasn’t nuts.

  She was, however, more than a little stupid. Guzzling a love potion knowing something as unpredictable as magic existed in the universe? Idiotic! Lily knew she’d stumbled into more than a little cauldron bubbling with trouble. Messing in magic powerful enough to vanish an entire building, or bring a painting to life, meant the number of disasters still out there waiting to happen were, well, inconceivable!

  Chapter Six

  Daniel spent the morning doing odd jobs around the apartment building, angry at Lily for pushing him away and even more angry at himself for stepping back. Like he always did. Lack of action in personal matters was his stock in trade. As long as he didn’t Read what other people felt, he didn’t have to get involved. He could stay aloof, a casual observer with no obligation to respond to them, their emotions, their wants, their needs. Or take much responsibility for his own. In the whole of his life, he’d never committed himself to another human being beyond the act of friendship. Until Lily. And now she’d sidestepped him, determined to stand on her own.

  She was wise to retreat, he told himself as he replaced Lectro-bulbs in the Lennox stairwells. She deserved better than a man who possessed an extra-sensory perception and refused to use it for altruistic purposes. As the morning progressed, Daniel’s mood darkened until the moment came, as it always did, when his thinking wandered full c
ircle and he found himself laughing at how skewed and self-important he could make his so-called “gifts.”

  After all, he had no more control over other people and what they felt than he did over the weather! His only real power lay in the truth of his own heart and the common sense to accept what he was — a Witch, a Sensitive, a Telepath, a Reader … a man who could know all, but for the sake of his own sanity and morals, did little more than tend to his own business.

  Take his parents, for example. If he had the power to affect change by using his magic he’d have made marriage to his dictatorial father easier on his mother. Almeida Harris’s magic was in her cooking. She could, by simply preparing a meal, fill any heart with a sense of homey support, soothe, encourage, bolster hope, provide protection, and help enhance anything her husband, two sons, and daughter wished for in their daily lives. Daniel’s father, a fireman in Little Belfast all of his adult life and now district fire chief, ate his wife’s meals every day and so escaped hundreds of close calls on the job.

  She’d used her simple kitchen magic to keep him safe. She was the reason he’d risen so fast to the position of Battalion Chief. Yet in more than thirty years of marriage, his father never once acknowledged her magical skill. In fact, the man refused to acknowledge magic of any kind. He’d never believed in his youngest son either.

  No, Daniel felt his Gift as more curse than blessing and, defying his own grandmother, had vowed never to become a member of the New Chicago Cohort. Opening himself to Read Lily that morning hadn’t been the smartest of moves if he wanted to keep their relationship companionable and casual.

  Lily remained a preoccupation throughout the morning. While he repaired a lamp cord for the McCready sisters he remembered her body, naked under the thin nightgown, pressed against his on the stairs. Could still feel the silky warmth of her tangled hair around his fingers. Driving the week’s accumulation of paper, glass, and plastic to the recycling center, his heart raced as he thought of her trembling sweetly beneath his hands as if his touch had flipped some switch on inside her. By the time he tackled soldering a leaky pipe in the basement, he was so distracted he had to stop and grip the ladder when a tremor shook him remembering the way she’d stared into his eyes like she wanted to dive in. He should have kissed her. He’d wanted to … Gods on fire, he’d wanted to! Instead he’d stepped back. Like a good friend, he told himself. And laughed at his own delusions.