Miracle Pie
Page 21
“Why do you think that?” he finally said.
Nia’s arms prickled. She was sensitive to sound – as if to compensate her for losing twenty-five years of memories – and his resonating baritone made her skin itch from the inside out.
“Because I understand what she’s saying,” she said.
He nodded, his expression serious.
Better than she’d expected when the words tumbled out of her mouth. Any other person would frown, a conviction of her insanity stamped on their disbelieving face, and step back, as if fearful that crazy was catching.
She always wanted to tell them it was catching only if someone was trying to run them over in a car.
And to make sure it worked, that someone would back up and run them over again.
But instead of giving her the loco look, this man stared at her steadily. His full lips closed and pressed into thinness, his eyes steady on her face. Mournful brown eyes that matched his nut-brown hair.
He made her think of a tree. Solid but not broad. One that would bend but not break. And his face... Like his body, his face was long and lean. Deep lines of pain scored each side of his mouth, though she guessed he wasn’t more than thirty. He couldn’t be much older. Not with his skin clinging tightly to his bones. His nose was blade-like, half a triangle. His jaw resolute. His eyebrows and hair thick.
He was a man’s man, making up for his few words with an excess of testosterone.
Pheromones shot straight at her. She could smell them. They twirled around her like invisible dust motes, capturing and captivating her, putting a magical spell on her, bringing to life senses that had been sleeping since she woke up in the hospital bed, the world fuzzy, her mouth dry, and no thoughts in her mind.
But her mind hadn’t been silent, not with a scream shrieking through it that no one could hear but her.
Later, she recognized the scream must have been her own voice. Even later, she realized that must have been the last sound she made as the car ran over her.
She shivered, the memories upsetting, but not as upsetting as the way he made her feel.
This was not the kind of help she’d hoped for when she’d called the constable’s number.
Maybe this was the trouble her cat had been warning her about.
If only Bast had been more specific.
This cat and human communication was new to both of them. They’d been living together for only three weeks. She’d just started to understand Bast’s yowls and meows and mrows and an entire orchestra of sounds yesterday. Like the first few pieces of a thousand-piece puzzle coming together.
Maybe they would get better with time.
She shifted her feet, the silence pressing down on her. Early on in her recovery, she discovered other people hated silence. The need to fill the wordless void compelled them to speak. To say things they later wished were unsaid. To say the truth.
Apparently he’d reached the same conclusion, since he kept his gaze on her, not moving a muscle. As if the loser would be whoever spoke first.
The silence was like a chewed piece of gum...growing longer and longer and longer...
“What’s the prize?” she asked.
“Prize for what?”
“For talking last.”
His lips stretched slowly then kicked up at the edges. “You talked first. You tell me what my prize should be.”
She glanced down at his shoes. She’d amused him. Maybe there was a prize for making him smile.
Maybe there were no prizes in life.
“Something’s crawling on your shoe.”
He glanced down, not twitching. The most unmoving man she could remember. Since her memory went back only eighteen months, she supposed there might have been others.
“Caterpillar,” he said. “A monarch.”
She peered down at the yellow, black and white stripes on the fuzzy thing. “How do you know?”
“By the colors.”
She nodded. That made sense. Every day she found out something new. “I’ll look it up on my computer.”
“When you called, you said someone was trying to kill you.”
Her head came up. “I called the constable, but you’re not him.”
His stillness became different. More than just holding his breath. As if his blood stopped pulsing through his veins and his heart stopped beating and even his soul closed up, hiding itself.
Then a shudder shivered through him. Like a car that wouldn’t start, coming to life. He blinked and his lips parted. “Jerry and I are twins. Identical. How did you know?”
She’d learned about twins. Her therapist had advised her to watch TV to learn about life. And she did learn. One twin could be evil. The other could be good. But by now she knew not everything on TV was true, and she guessed most twins were neither good nor evil, but just people trying to get through life without being killed and not wanting to kill anyone else. People like her.
“You aren’t identical. You have deeper lines on your face.”
He frowned, as if the thought displeased him. She looked him straight in the eye and didn’t take it back. Pretending to be what she wasn’t was too complicated. Life – with all its strange scents and flashing colors and loud sounds – was already too complex.
“You’re thinner than he is,” she said.
His frown didn’t smooth. “Anything else?”
“Your voice is deeper.”
“No one’s said that before.”
“My hearing is very sharp.”
He looked at her oddly. A look she got often. One that said what are you?
If they asked her, she would tell them she was like a book with most of the pages blank, the words wiped off.
“My sense of smell is sharp, too.” Smells could be awkward. And unpleasant. Except food. Most of the time, the smell of food cooking was wonderful. If there really were a heaven, she wanted it to smell like an Indian restaurant. Or Italian. Or pumpkin pie baking in an oven.
If it were heaven, the smells could alternate days. Every soul could walk around in its own cloud of scent.
This man’s scent wasn’t unpleasant. She wanted to lean in and give him a good sniff to identify the smell. To imprint it in her memory. But the thought of getting too close to him made her skin prickle again.
“Is that it?” he asked.
She scratched her head on the left side. The thinking hemisphere, Dr. Whitcomb called it, the reason her thoughts weren’t quite normal. As she scratched, she avoided the area where her head indented.
“I think I should wait for your brother to come. He’s the real constable.”
“My brother’s sick today.”
His deep voice snapped her gaze back to his face. Though he still looked into her eyes, she could tell he was lying. Maybe because he was staring too hard, watching to see if she believed him.
“If this was a TV show,” she said, “he would be with a woman.”
The shadows in his eyes lifted and the skin around his eyes crinkled, while the corners of his lips curled up. She warmed inside, an unusual feeling. She tried to figure out what it was so she could explain it to Dr. Whitcomb.
Happy. That’s what it was. An ice-cream-melting-on-her-tongue feeling. Only this melting happened inside her chest, warming her heart.
Maybe she wouldn’t tell Dr. Whitcomb after all.
She’d tell Bast instead.
Bast didn’t say, “Uh-huh, uh-huh,” after every sentence, as if she were analyzing her words like they were math problems. Instead, she had a way of saying mrrow. Meaning: That’s interesting. Go on.
“So you came instead,” she said.
“You said someone was trying to kill you.”
“I didn’t actually say that. I said someone had tried to kill me in the past. And someone was on my property last night.”
The crinkles around his eyes deepened, as did the creases on the sides of his face. “Did you see anyone?”
“Bast heard whoever it was first. And then I
did.”
“You didn’t call last night. You called this morning.”
“I heard them leave last night.” She paused. This was when the way he looked at her would change. But she had to say it because it was the truth. “I only called this morning because Bast told me trouble was on the way.” His expression didn’t change, but Nia didn’t allow herself to relax. There was more. “What if it was the person who tried to kill me?”
The sense of lightness coming from him turned suddenly dark. Though no clouds dimmed the sun above them, the air around Nia chilled as she looked at the hardness of his face, as if his outline from the chin up were carved on a sword hilt.
“I’ll protect you,” he said. “I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Now Nia relaxed. For this second, she thought she wouldn’t want to be the person he caught on her property. For this second, she was fiercely glad he seemed to be on her side.
OTHER BOOKS BY EDIE RAMER
Contemporary
MUST WORSHIP CATS (a Miracle Interrupted novella – before the miracles)
STARDUST MIRACLE (a Miracle Interrupted novel)
MIRACLE LANE (a Miracle Interrupted novel)
MIRACLE PIE (a Miracle Interrupted novel)
YOU’VE GOT MURDER co-written with Karin Tabke
Paranormal
CATTITUDE
DEAD PEOPLE
DEAD PEOPLE IN LOVE (short story)
DRAGON BLUES
THE SEVENTH DIMENSION (short story)
Science Fiction Romance
GALAXY GIRLS
MIXING IT UP (a Galaxy Girls novella)
Short Stories and Essays
The Fat Cat in ENTANGLED, A PARANORMAL ANTHOLOGY
(all proceeds go to Breast Cancer Research Foundation)
The Kiss in EVERY WITCH WAY BUT WICKED
(all proceeds go to Kids Need to Read)
Killing the Rat Bastard Disease in AUTHOR MOMENTS
Fighting Back in AUTHOR MOMENTS II
(all proceeds from both Author Moments books go to Cancer Research UK)
About Edie Ramer
Edie Ramer is funnier on the page than in real life. A multiple award-winning writer, she writes stories with heart, attitude, and magic. She lives in southeastern Wisconsin with her husband, two dogs, and one important cat.
In addition to her Miracle Interrupted series, she’s published in paranormal and sci fi romance, plus a humorous mystery. She co-edited ENTANGLED, A PARANORMAL ANTHOLOGY, with all the proceeds going to cancer research.
She’s happy to be able to do what she loves nearly every day. And it’s a pleasure to hear from readers who enjoy her books.
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