As he slipped them on, she waited tensely. For the briefest of moments, she thought he stiffened, but when he didn’t immediately say anything, she asked, “And?”
“And what?”
“What do you see?”
“You.” His lips curved into a sexy grin. “And boy are you some damn, sexy woman. That’s all I can say. Knowing you don’t have any underwear on under that big t-shirt of yours, is making me think of dragging you back into bed.”
“You need to feed me first.” Kennedy cocked her head to one side. “But do you see anything strange?”
“Strange?”
“Yes, strange.” Maybe the glasses weren’t odd after all and she’d imagined everything. She hadn’t eaten all day, so she might have started seeing things that just weren’t there. No, another part of her argued. She wasn’t going cuckoo. Even light-headed with food wouldn’t have made her see rainbows coming from people.
His brow creased. “Now that you mention it. There was a flash across the lenses, almost like that from a camera. I thought it might just have been me and being hungry. But there’s another kind of strange thing. Everything’s in color but you.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You’re like a black and white movie. Actually more like various shades of gray.” He flipped them off. “Kind of interesting. Where did you get them?”
“A woman shoved them at me at the mall. I have no clue why.” Maybe because she wasn’t in color? The idea made her stomach knot. The whole thing was too bizarre. “She thought I might find them useful.”
“Strange glasses from a strange woman?” He shrugged a shoulder. “You get all kinds.” He glanced down at them, then offered them back to her. “They look pretty expensive.”
She took them from him and put the lenses on, too curious to wait to find out what color he was. “I might be an old movie, but you’re a whole lot of orange.”
His lips twitched. “Are you reading my aura?”
“Aura?”
“Yeah, the electromagnetic or energy field around a person or object. You’ve heard of them, right?”
“Yes, but they’ve never really come up in any conversations I’ve ever had. It sounds like you know something about them. It’s a little too new age for me I guess.”
“A know a bit, but nothing like my mother.” A wry smile lifted the corners of his lips. “Actually, she’s pretty into it. A lot of people get this misconception that an aura shows a person’s psychic abilities but it’s more about a person’s well-being. My mother told me at one point that she could tell if a person was about to die by the color of their aura. She actually had a web site on the subject. She’s really into astrology and all that new age stuff.”
“You never told me that.”
“You never asked.”
Kennedy snapped her mouth shut. He was right. She’d been so damn selfish, not wanting to know more about Luke. Because the more she learned about him, the more she would come to care for him. Something she never wanted.
“It would be far too weird if these things read a person’s aura.” She arched a brow. “You haven’t heard of anything that can do that, have you?”
“I know there’s some metaphysical shops out there with camera’s that read a person’s aura.”
“But have you heard of black or gray colors coming from a person?”
“Ah…” He glanced around, the humor suddenly draining from his face. “I need to order the pizza before the both of us end up starving. Ronnie’s Parlor can take a while to get here.”
Kennedy suspected he was avoiding her question, but she let it go. While Luke got on the phone for a delivery person, she walked over to the living room window, and peered outside with the glasses till perched on her nose. She didn’t have to wait long for someone to show up by the window.
A mother and child walked along the sidewalk. Yellows radiated from a girl of about three. Brunette curls bounced against her shoulders as she skipped and clung to her mother’s hand. Kennedy didn’t have to ask to know that yellow meant joy, freedom and innocence that only a child could have. What a beautiful little girl...
Sudden pain sliced into her chest, almost as if someone jabbed a sharp and serrated knife into her heart. She sucked in a lungful of air and shut her eyes against the sudden anguish and despair. She placed a hand against the window jam, and fought back the sudden nausea. She shook off the past with vicious intensity. Now wasn’t the time to cave into the memories. Maybe when she was alone, but not now.
She blinked and focused instead on a couple just stepping out from their car. The man radiated an aura she hadn’t seen before. “Luke. You have to look at this.”
“One second.” After hanging up, he joined her by the window. “What?”
“Take a look at this couple.”
“What about them?”
“She’s blue and green with a touch of orange around her shoulders, but he’s a real muddy green. Very drab-like. What would you make of that?” She shoved the glasses at him. He had to see the same colors or she was going to start wondering if she had a screw loose inside her head.
Lips firming, he slipped them on and looked at the couple. “Yeah, I see what you mean. Maybe it’s a person’s mood. The guy looks disgruntled. Maybe envy or jealousy? I get a negative feeling from it. Her colors are more vibrant. But that doesn’t explain you. You’re never in a bad mood when I get you in the sheets.” He sent her a wicked grin. “Obviously there’s more to it.” He nodded to the couple outside “Do you know him?”
“No.” She twisted her lips. “Not sure if you remember mood rings? My older sister had one. The glasses are almost a sophisticated version of it.”
Still looking out the window, Luke murmured. “Her color seems to be fading a bit.”
“He’s probably leaching off her energy,” Kennedy mused darkly. “Maybe he’s an energy vampire.”
Luke’s brow arched above the sunglass lenses. “Or maybe the glasses are losing their power or whatever you want to call it.”
“Well, something’s strange about them.” Kennedy glanced over at her laptop on the sofa’s ottoman. “I bet if I do a quick search for auras, I’ll be able to find out the meanings of all the colors.”
“You can always talk to my mother.”
“Hmm…” She eyed him with a wry smile. “Not going to happen.”
“Why? Don’t feel like being in front of a firing squad and spilling all your secrets?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say a firing squad,” Kennedy tried to be diplomatic. In truth, of the three time’s she’d been in Melinda’s company, the woman had hit her with far too many personal questions, and if the questions hadn’t done Kennedy in, the woman’s inability to keep silent for more than a minute would have knocked her for a loop.
Kennedy plopped down on the sofa. Luke sank into the cushion beside her and set the glasses down by the laptop. It took less than a minute to connect to the internet and find a web site on auras. “There’s so many colors.” She slipped the glasses on her nose and peered at Luke. “You have green, a bit of blue, but there’s a whole lot of orange along your upper body and head.”
She scrolled down the screen “Orange is about virility, lots of energy and stamina.”
“Stamina, eh?”
“You can remove that smirk.” Laughing, she shook her head. “You wicked, wicked man. Okay, I can see why you’re orange. You have plenty of stamina.”
“I’ll have a little more stamina after the pizza arrives.”
“You don’t stop, do you?”
“Never.” Luke smiled back at her, his eyes flaring with a distinct devilish gleam. “I’ve got too much energy.”
She turned back to the screen. “I don’t see anything yet about gray or black. But there’s something here about muddy green though. We were pretty darn close. Muddy green means deceit, even jealousy. Glad I’m not the woman with that guy is all I can say. Maybe he’s been cheating on her. Hence, the deceit? Or
he’s jealous of her career or life?”
“You love trying to dig into a mystery when there isn’t one.”
“Hmm. Probably too many true-crime shows when I was a teenager.” She scrolled down further on the screen. “Here we are. Muddy gray, black. It says that it’s usually someone who suffers from depression or negative emotions. It might also be someone who is a drug addict, or has experienced great trauma or torture.” She didn’t like where this was going, but some compulsion had her clicking onto another web site. “Oh, on here it says death, evil, hatred.” She sank back against her chair. “Oh, great. I never considered myself evil or full of hate, so I’ve got only one other choice. Death. How nice.”
“Get that look off your face. You have no clue who wrote what you’re reading. That site could be from a fifteen-year-old or a complete wacko. Seriously, the topic is just crazy.”
Unease settled like an uncomfortable meal in her stomach. “How do you explain the glasses, then?”
“Maybe they’re some type of gag gift.”
“They look far too expensive for a gag gift.” She waved the glasses at him. “See for yourself.”
“I’ve already tried them.” His lips thinned.
“Try again.” When he looked about to argue, she softened her voice. “Please. I just want to make sure you saw what you saw.”
Frustration deepened his voice. “Kennedy, I don’t like how—”
“Please...” She leaned over and brushed her lips over his, kissing the corner of his mouth, then nibbling a path across his jaw to nip gently on his ear lobe. She drew back. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
He arched a brow. “You are such a tease.”
“Oh, but you love it.’
“Fine.” He lifted a hand, opened a palm and shook his head.
Smiling, she placed them in his hand.
He grunted. “If I’m not careful, people are going to call me whipped.”
“They can only say that if I go by a whip and try it out on you.”
“Funny.” Sighing, he slipped the sunglasses back on.
“You look pretty darn sexy in them.” Kennedy cocked her head to one side. The shades added a mysterious sex appeal to Luke’s blond, windswept hair, strong jaw, prominent cheekbones and sensual lips. The man was lethal, but she wasn’t going to keep telling him that. He had too much power over her as it was. “So what do you see?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean ‘nothing?’”
Luke shrugged and tossed them onto the ottoman beside her laptop. “They’re just a pair of sunglasses.”
Kennedy didn’t like how he didn’t meet her gaze. She stilled. Something wasn’t right. “I’m going to keep on asking you until you tell me what you saw. You know how stubborn I can be.”
“Just gray.”
“Gray? How do you mean?”
“Everything around—sofa, furniture—is in color but you. You were just different shades of gray.”
“Gray, eh?” Unease crept across her back. She did another search on the Internet and found a different site. “On this one, it says gray means death.”
“Stop it, Kennedy. You’re scaring yourself.” He clasped her wrist and pulled her hand away from the computer. “This is starting to feel like some horror movie. They’re just glasses. There’s bound to be some type of explanation of why they do what they do.”
“Still... It makes you wonder. There was this teenage girl I saw earlier. She was also all in gray. What if it does mean an untimely death? Just think of walking around and not knowing you only had a couple of days or weeks.” Her chest tightened with fear.
“I’d prefer not knowing.”
“I’m not sure I’d feel the same. If I knew, I’d make sure I did everything I needed to do. Prepare for it, so the people I leave behind aren’t left with a mess.” The ache in her chest expanded. She needed to stop talking like this before she started cracking. Forcing a smile, she apologized. “Sorry. I’m getting morbid on you. I’ll stop, promise.”
She glanced over at the glasses still resting on the ottoman. They looked innocent enough. But were they? Exactly why would the woman give them to her? Because she saw something radiating from Kennedy? Could she be dying and not know it?
Her stomach twisted and rolled. Maybe cancer was eating away at her insides? Or something far different? An accident? A violent death in the not so distant future?
The room darkened, and for a moment, Kennedy thought it was caused from her equally darkening mood, but then she realized a cloud had crawled across the sky and covered the sun.
A sign?
A sense of foreboding crawled across her flesh.
CHAPTER THREE
Kennedy slumped back in her kitchen chair and shoved a partially eaten piece of pizza into the middle of the table. “Now that I feel like I ate a horse, I think I killed a couple of brain cells from over eating.”
Luke half-smiled. “Speaking of brain cells, I’ve got to get home. I’ve got a report I need to finish up for work. There’s a meeting first thing in the morning, and the boss is riding my coattails.”
“Well, I think I’m going to have to go jogging to make up for all this calorie overload.”
“How about you hold off until tomorrow morning and I can join you?”
“I need to get my daily jog in, and I can still go tomorrow.” She didn’t want to tell him how she needed to get out there, burn some energy. Forget about the glasses, auras, death and the little girl in the parking lot—
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re shutting off.”
At his words, she tensed and didn’t try to keep the irritation out of her voice. “Luke, you said you wouldn’t go there.”
“The problem is I don’t know where is. There’s so many off topics that I’ve stopped counting.”
Her lips firmed. She felt that familiar panic welling up inside her. That and claustrophobia pressing down, suffocating her. She couldn’t take it.
Luke was pushing too much. They were heading down the same direction they always did. She felt a fight coming on, and there wasn’t a thing that was going to stop it. Same argument, different day. She should never have let Luke back into her apartment.
“I like my privacy, and I want to keep it that way.”
“Privacy is fine, but a person can take it too far. To the point where it leads to a very lonely life.”
“I’m fine with that.” Better that than dealing with the pain of letting someone into her heart.
Tension radiated from Luke, and Kennedy didn’t do a thing to alleviate it. Maybe it was better this way. Have him angry at her. Anger was much better to deal with than pity.
He stood up, his posture and movements stiff. “It’s getting late. It’s time I left.”
She didn’t argue. She knew he wanted her stop him, but she wasn’t going to. Not now, and probably never. Fear kept her lips firmly shut. She knew something was wrong with her. She’d never gone to a psychologist. She didn’t need a diagnosis. But maybe if she’d let him stay, talk it out, and try to work things out...
She closed her eyes briefly, momentarily bereft of the possibility of never witnessing his quirky sense of humor, seeing his sexy half-smile or feeling his arms around her.
When he walked to the front door, she didn’t get up, didn’t look his way. The click of the door shutting sounded far too final. Kennedy fought back the pressure constricting her throat, the burn against the back of her eyes.
It was better this way.
Broken.
Alone.
Quiet permeated the apartment. No television, no ticking clock. She couldn’t even hear the hum of the refrigerator. The silence was deafening, hitting her from all sides.
Kennedy jumped to her feet. She needed to get out. Do something. Jogging. Yes. Probably the only thing that would help calm the restlessness boiling inside her.
She hurried into the bedroom, didn’t look at th
e messed up bed, the top covers no doubt trailing along the side of the bed to touch the carpet. She tried not to think of Luke stretched out and naked in that very bed with that half-smile of his and those lethal bedroom eyes.
After pulling off her over-sized shirt, she tossed it in the hamper, grabbed a pair of black workout shorts and a sleeveless workout shirt. With her feet in a pair of runners, headphones attached to her phone, she hurried back into the kitchen and grabbed a water bottle. On the way out, she eyed the sunglasses on the ottoman and decided to bring them along. What the heck. So she might be a little addicted to the things. Sliding them over the bridge of her nose, she locked up behind her.
She got in the car, took a deep breath and turned the car’s ignition with a quivering hand. As she guided the car from her parking space and drove through the apartment complex and to the main exit, she wrapped her hands tighter around the wheel to keep the shaking at bay. No matter how many times, she always struggled those first few minutes behind the wheel to get the trembling under control. Maybe one day that might change, but for now, she’d just have to deal with it.
She kept to the speed limit on the freeway and side streets, made sure she came to a complete halt at all stop signs and signaled at every turn. Twenty minutes later, she pulled into the parking lot of Thunderbird Parkway, a hiking trail that threaded through a couple of foothills on the fringes of Phoenix. Several points across the trail a person could see the city’s downtown skyscrapers against the horizon. She parked in the middle of the lot. Three other cars were also in the parking area. Usually in the morning, the place was packed with hikers, taking in cool winter weather. No one ventured out here in the summer, unless they hit the trail before the sun broke over the horizon.
The sun bounced off the hood. She adjusted her sunglasses. The idea of coming across other people and reading their auras was fascinating. So maybe her aura was gray. There could be viable reasons other than death.
She was healthy. She worked out on a regular basis.
Unless an accident waited for her....
A car running a red light and t-boning her....
She should have died four years ago. For some reason she was still walking among the living. But was she really living? Yes, she walked, talked, ate. Even so, she didn’t drink in everything life had to offer. She went from day to day, not caring about what happened to her. Death sounded like a blissful escape. In reality, she was a walking zombie. Or more like a jogging zombie. Maybe that might be the reason she was an ugly gray. Because she was only existing.
Deadly Shades (Shades Series) Page 2
