Curses, Fates & Soul Mates

by et al Kristie Cook

  I dropped my bags in the back seat of the rental car with her still on my mind as I wondered where she had gone. She’d demanded an explanation from me, which wasn’t unreasonable, but she’d never explained what she was doing here at this hotel. Didn’t she say she lived near Atlanta? So why, after being overseas for so long, was she at a hotel and not at home?

  Wanting a real breakfast before hitting the road, I skipped the hotel’s continental crap and drove down the street to a Denny’s. I hated eating alone and hoped another peach of a waitress might keep me company—and distract me—but when I walked inside, I forgot why I was even here.

  Leni sat in a booth on the far side from the door with a coffee cup and a book on the table in front of her, though she ignored both. She stared out the window instead, but I knew she didn’t really see what was outside. Her mind had gone somewhere else. She felt sad or hurt. I didn’t know how I knew this. Her eyes weren’t teary or red and swollen or anything. I just knew.

  I pushed past the hostess and made my way down the aisle to Leni’s booth, the hostess trying to stop me with a hand on my arm that I easily shrugged off. Leni’s head snapped toward us, and then she shook it as I slid into the seat across from her. She waved off the hostess, and I let out the breath I’d been holding.

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, going right to the point.

  She ran her thumbs under her eyes, as though wiping away non-existent tears. She was holding them back. “I asked you first.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  Her lips twitched, but for a smile or a frown, I wasn’t sure. “I’m . . . lost.”

  Her chest hitched as it rose, as though her breath stuttered, but then she plastered on her extra-sweet smile I knew now to be fake.

  “You’re at a Denny’s in BFE Georgia. Does that help?”

  She laughed, but the lingering smile still didn’t reach her eyes.

  “That’s not what you meant, is it?” I asked. She shook her head, and I leaned forward over the table. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  She watched me for a moment, her eyes glancing up at my brow-ring and then down, traveling over my arms. When they reached my wrist, she frowned and quickly looked up at me, something flickering in her eyes. Had she noticed the flame tattoo or whatever it was? The thing had shown up all on its own, driving me crazy and pissing me off at the same time. Yeah, I had ink, but every single tat meant something to me, and here appears this mark out of nowhere with no meaning whatsoever. But had Leni been observant enough to notice it was new? It was bright as ever now, the edges raised, so she probably had. But why did she have that bewildered look on her face?

  I was about to ask when she slid the book to sit between us. The brown leather cover had some kind of design embossed into it, and a metal clasp locked it shut.

  “I can’t open this,” Leni signed.

  My brows pulled together. That’s what had her upset? I pulled my pocketknife out, and when she didn’t stop me, I put the blade’s edge to where the clasp met the leather and tried to saw through. I couldn’t even make a notch into the leather. I swiped my thumb over my blade, and it was as sharp as always.

  A waitress came by to refill Leni’s coffee cup and took my order, too.

  “I already tried cutting it,” Leni’s hands told me when the waitress had left. “I’ve tried everything.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. The guy who gave it to me said he couldn’t open it either.”

  “Why did he give it to you?”

  She looked up at my face and then away. Her shoulders sagged, and she bit her lip, then finally returned her gaze to me.

  “Never mind,” she said. “It’s nothing. So are you taking off?”

  I didn’t like how she changed the subject. Something about the book had upset her, but now she was trying to blow it off? No, more likely, trying to tell me it was none of my business.

  “Just needed some fuel first,” I said, and right on cue, the waitress slid a plate in front of me, overflowing with eggs, bacon, sausage and pancakes loaded with strawberries and whipped cream. I stabbed a strawberry covered in cream and held it out to Leni.

  The smile she gave me was a little more real this time, but she shook her head. “No, thanks. I’m allergic to them.”

  I shoved it into my mouth. She watched me eat for a while, rejecting everything I offered to share with her.

  “So where are you off to?” I asked after cleaning my plate. “Home?”

  I must have said something wrong because tears filled Leni’s eyes. She blinked them away, though.

  “It’s time for you to go,” she said.

  “I’m worried about you,” I countered. The disbelieving look on her face stabbed me in the heart. “You don’t think I can worry about anyone except myself, do you?”

  She shrugged.

  “Three days ago, I might have agreed with you,” I admitted.

  “And something’s changed?”

  I nodded. “I have.”

  Her eyebrows arched. “And what has changed you, Mr. Winters?”

  I leaned over the table again, closer to her, and mouthed, “You did.”

  Her eyes widened briefly, then tightened and became hard. “Forget it. Like I said. It’s time for you to go.”

  “Like I said, I’m worried about you. I can’t go.”

  “You have to.”

  “No.”

  “Please.” Her eyes pleaded with me. “I can’t do this now. There’s too much going on . . . family issues . . . .”

  “I have lots of those myself. I can probably help.”

  “No. I can’t do this. You can’t help, trust me. And I don’t need it anyway. I don’t need . . . this.”

  “You don’t need a friend?” I pressed.

  Her hands moved with dramatic flair. “I don’t need you! Now please, just go.”

  Like last night, her hard expression told me she was done arguing. She may have affected me like no other woman had before, but I wasn’t about to beg. She probably had no clue what real family issues were anyway. Not like I did. But she was right. It was time for me to go. Even if I could help her through this, in the end, all I could bring her was more grief. This was probably some passing phase with me, and I’d soon be breaking her heart.

  I gave her a short nod, stood and pulled some money out of my wallet, and threw it on the table. Without anything to lose, I bent over and almost touched my lips to Leni’s forehead, but then I remembered that crazy-good feeling she gave me when we simply touched. I didn’t need that now when I was preparing to leave her. So I simply tugged on a curl as she looked up at me with silver-green eyes full of despair, no matter how hard she tried to blink it away. Then I turned and strode off before I changed my mind.

  After pulling out of the parking spot, I couldn’t help a last glance over my shoulder to our table at the window. Leni was already gone.

  Eyes forward. Focus forward. Time to move on.

  I rolled my neck and shoulders and blew out a breath as if I could blow Leni out of my system. But the harder I tried to not think about her, the more I did. Something had happened to her last night. I felt it in my bones. And if they—it, whatever had been in the bushes—returned and harmed a single curl on her head, I’d never forgive myself.

  My foot jumped from the gas pedal with the thought of leaving her alone and vulnerable. When the car didn’t seem to respond, I glanced at the speedometer and realized I’d only been going twenty miles an hour anyway, as if my subconscious was telling me not to leave. Maybe I should stick around to be sure she’s okay. I pulled to the side of the road to consider this idea. My mind ran away with itself, lost in forming a plan until a truck blasted past me so fast it shook the car and jolted me back to reality. I knew better than to sit on the side of the road. Shit, Winters, what the fuck is wrong with you?

  I was not a stalker type. I wasn’t even an up-front-in-your-fa
ce-I-want-to-be-your-boyfriend type. I was losing my mind, and the best thing I could do for me and for Leni was to leave town. As I stepped on the gas pedal and merged onto the road, my decision made, the pull inside me protested. It screamed louder and louder the faster the car went and the farther away from Leni I drove. I tried to ignore the ache, using every bit of my self-control to keep my foot on the pedal and my mind focused forward.

  She’s just a girl, no different than any other chick. And with a lot of baggage. You really don’t want to get involved with all that.

  True. Girls with baggage—I’d dealt with enough of that. Nobody seemed to have more baggage than models and strippers, and I’d had my fill of both. My own bags were enough for one person to carry. I didn’t need to take on Leni’s, too.

  Giving myself a mental pat on the ass for doing the right thing, I turned up the radio until the beat pounded through me and guided the car toward the ramp for the interstate. But although I pressed harder on the gas, the car refused to accelerate. Then it lurched. Sputtered. And died.

  I sat in the driver’s seat, staring at the gray smoke pluming from under the hood. The music’s bass continued pounding out a beat, so the battery still worked. Smoke like that meant the radiator or engine, neither of them a quick fix. I banged my fist against the steering wheel. Why now? Now that I’d convinced myself to go, I wanted nothing more than to get far away from here.

  With a frustrated groan, I threw open the door. A body jumped out of the way. I looked up to find Leni standing in the middle of the road, staring at me.

  “You okay?” she signed, her eyes wide. “All the smoke. . .”

  “What are you doing? Trying to get yourself killed?” I jumped out of the car, grabbed her arm—ignoring the dizzying effect the touch had on me—and pulled her to the shoulder and into the grass. Far away from danger.

  Her eyes widened more. “Is it going to explode?”

  “I doubt it.” I turned and stalked over to the car.

  Leni followed me, which I didn’t realize until I stood at the front of the car and saw her reaching inside the passenger’s side. The pound of the music stopped.

  “Spanish rap?” she asked. “It was killing my ears. And just about all appreciation for music.”

  I shrugged. How was I supposed to know? “Will you get back now?”

  The girl was scaring the shit out of me. A ramp didn’t have nearly the same traffic as a highway—this one had none, actually—but still. She made me nervous.

  I pointed to the grass again before releasing the hood. More smoke billowed out, engulfing my face. I stepped back, coughing, waiting for it to clear. Through the smoke, I saw Leni’s old truck parked on the road behind me, hazard lights flashing. At least she still stood in the grass, with her hands on her hips as she watched me. A quick glance at the engine and I knew this was nothing I could fix.

  I jogged to the driver’s side, leaned in to put the car in neutral, then pushed it to the shoulder, doing my best to steer and jumping in to hit the brake when the car was a good ten feet in the grass. During that time, Leni had moved her truck, too.

  I shook my head at her as she came over to my passenger’s side, where I stood with the door open, nervous as hell.

  “Get back,” I ordered. She backed up several feet. Better.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  What the hell do you care? I wanted to say—actually I wanted to yell it, pissed that she actually cared right after sending me out the door. That she was here in the first place, risking her life. Why couldn’t she be like other girls who made leaving easy? Since I couldn’t yell at her, I ignored her and searched inside the center console for the rental company’s paperwork.

  “It’s their problem,” I finally signed after finding the pink and yellow papers. I strode farther off the shoulder until the grass began to slope into a ditch, pulled my cell phone out of my pocket to text them, sat down and set it on my lap so I could sign. “They’ll send a tow truck and another car for me. No need to worry. I’m sure you have things to do.”

  Leni glanced at her truck while biting her bottom lip, then looked back at me. Without warning, she snatched the papers and phone from my lap. I jumped up to retrieve them, but she held them behind her.

  “It’ll be easier if I talk to them,” she mouthed.

  Before I could protest, she already had my phone dialed and up to her ear. I watched her lips carefully to gather her side of the conversation. After giving my name and other info from the rental agreement, her brows drew together and her mouth tugged into a frown.

  “You’re sure?” her lips said. A pause followed. “No Jeric Winters in your system?” Another pause and then her eyes changed, her whole expression morphing into confusion then suspicion and then fear. “Please tell me you didn’t steal this car.”

  I jerked back. “Hell no!”

  “They don’t have a record of you renting a car,” she said, the phone still pressed to her ear. “He’s asking if it’s under a different name.”

  I jabbed my finger at the contract, where everything was spelled out. She studied it, then shook her head slowly. I pointed more specifically at the VIN and she nodded. Her mouth moved, reciting the numbers and letters to the person on the other end of the line. After a moment, she frowned again and dropped the phone from her ear. She pressed the End button before looking at me.

  “Not only do they have no record of you in their system,” she finally said as she shook the papers, “but they have no record of this car, either. They say it’s not theirs.”

  I stared at her for a long moment, trying to understand. Then I grabbed the paper out of her hand and studied it, making sure it really was the contract for this particular car. Everything was correct, and the VIN engraved on the car matched the one on the papers.

  Leni tugged on my arm to grab my attention. “Sirens in the distance. The police or fire department’s coming. Probably both. We should get out of here.”

  I cocked my head. “Run from them?”

  “I don’t have time to explain. Come on!” She started jogging to her truck.

  With a glance at the smoking engine, I grabbed my bags out of the back seat and ran for Leni’s truck. She spun out, surprising me with the power of the old truck. I watched out the window and as we turned a corner, the fire truck came into view down the road. Leni made a few more turns, then parked on the side of the street. Before I could ask anything, her hands moved as quickly as she could manage.

  “I can’t believe I did that,” she said with a mischievous grin. “I actually ran from the cops!”

  I eyed her with a brow raised. “Have you ever done anything bad in your life?”

  She shook her head.

  “Never broken any laws at all? Ever?”

  Her shoulder lifted in a shrug. “I speed sometimes.”

  I laughed while shaking my head. “So why did you do it now?”

  She shrugged again. “Maybe you bring the worst out of me.”

  Ah. That could be true. Wouldn’t be the first time I corrupted a girl.

  “And you ran for the thrill?” I teased, but then her expression sobered as she shook her head.

  “There’s no record of you having legal possession of that car.” She paused and frowned. “There’s something really strange going on. With both of us, I think.” Her eyes flitted to my wrist again. “And I can’t help but think it’s connected.”

  Her gaze came up and locked onto mine again, and I saw in her eyes what I felt. What she didn’t say. That we’re connected.

  “Do you have any ideas? A plan?” I finally asked. She shook her head, then chewed on her bottom lip. “Where were you headed before you found me surrounded by smoke?”

  Her eyes broke from mine, and she looked out the windshield as her face flushed. “I don’t know. I had the overwhelming urge to go for a drive after you left . . . and I felt pulled in this direction.” She looked back at me with a sheepish grin. “Almost like I knew someth
ing was wrong. That you needed me. Weird, right?”

  Normally, yes. I’d be calling the police—or the asylum—to turn her in for stalking me. She sounded like a lunatic, but the revelation came as no surprise.

  “No weirder than how hard it was for me to leave this place. My car wouldn’t even let me go without you.”

  Her mouth pulled up into a real smile that made my breath catch. Man, did I want her. I wanted to feel her soft skin under my fingertips and those full lips against mine. I leaned forward, but she doubled over the steering wheel, her whole body shaking. I pulled back with a groan, thinking she was crying. But then she threw her head back. Her laughter shook the seat. A smile spread on my own face as I watched her until she finally calmed down enough to sign.

  “I’m sorry, but if I don’t laugh, I’ll lose my mind. What you said is so absurd, but . . . at this point, I could believe anything.” Her chest heaved with what I assumed to be a sigh, then all humor fell from her face and sadness filled it once again.

  “Leni—” I started.

  “Yeah. I’m crazy.”

  What? I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Then what was that sign? It looked like ‘crazy’ to me.”

  I thought back to what I’d just said. Ah. “Leni. That’s what I’d signed. How we deaf people say names—the first letter plus something characteristic for the person. So L plus—” I twirled my finger in a spiral near my cheek.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Looks like crazy to me. So I’m L plus crazy?”

  “Curls,” I corrected, and I showed her the difference between the horizontal crazy sign and the vertical swirl I made for her curls.

  “So what’s yours?” she asked.

  I grimaced. I hated the name they’d given me at the deaf school—J plus an index finger to the cheek for my dimples. “Why don’t you give me your own?”

  She eyed me for a moment, then made a J with her pinky and pointed to the end of her eyebrow for my piercing. A lot better than it could have been, considering our rough start last night. But she was too good to reference the used condom or to thrust her hips. Though I wouldn’t have minded seeing her do the latter. I’d have her signing my name all day long to watch that.