by Devon Monk
The flame was not hot. It was an arctic wind, so cold, Lu quickly shifted her hold to the chain, suspending the watch away from her skin, even as prickles of goosebumps pebbled her chest.
“Brogan?” she asked, looking for me, waiting for me, for this, our shared sixty seconds.
I wrapped my hand around that watch, shocked as ice pumped through my veins, the endless cold of this magic.
Then…and then I was there, alive—nearly so, as close as I’d ever been able to be.
I saw the moment I became substantial in her eyes, saw the moment she could really see me.
And oh, how she smiled.
“I love you, Lula.” It was always the first thing I said. And I knew it would be the last whenever that day finally came.
“I love you, Brogan,” she replied.
Before she could say more I immediately bent and met her mouth with my own, hungry for her touch, aching to feel her in my arms, alive.
I straddled her legs as she stood up into me, pressing full body, as if we could become one person, as if we would never have a chance to feel each other again.
I locked one arm across her back, holding her slighter frame against the massive bulk of me, every curve and edge of her absolutely necessary for me to savor. Her free hand dug up the back of my neck, catching the curl of my hair and tugging hard enough it stung.
Yes.
The kiss grew deeper. I dragged my tongue across her lips gaining easy entrance as her lips parted hungrily for me. She pulled me in, her tongue stroking mine, setting off a fire that spread hot and wild across my chest, pouring like heated oil down my stomach to my groin.
I was on fire.
I groaned. She bit my lower lip and tugged until I growled.
She released my lip, then licked across it, soft nips and kisses soothing the pleasurable bruising she’d marked me with.
I wanted more. So much more. I wanted to carry every touch and bruise and nip. To remind me I was alive. To remind me she was mine, I was hers. Even if only for one spare minute.
“The truck,” I said, unable to stop kissing her, fitting my words between each taste.
“You like it. It’s silver,” she said.
“It’s a piece of junk.”
She pulled back, eyes wide. Her pupils were completely blown, the honey gold nearly eclipsed by the center of black. Her lips, wet and red and a little puffy, would carry the mark of our kiss, and I felt a deep satisfaction at that settle heavy in my stomach.
She was beautiful, wild, alive, and it took everything I had not to pick her up and lay her on this cool, moonlit ground and make her never forget she was mine.
“It’s silver—your favorite color—has almost no miles on it, and as soon as Calvin is done fixing it, it’s going to be amazing.”
“You can’t help but fall in love with lost causes, can you?”
“There’s only one thing I love in my life, and he’s not a lost cause. Not even close.”
“That thing better not be the truck,” I growled.
I shifted my hold and dragged my hand up her back, burying my fingers in her long, silky hair. I tugged gently, urging her to tip her head. She shivered.
“You like the truck,” she repeated, chin raised.
“Maybe I just like the woman who likes the truck.”
“That works too.”
“The hunter checked into the Super 8,” I said. “He has a gun. And explosives.”
“If he wanted to kill me, he has had his chance.”
“He wants something here,” I said.
“Dot?” she suggested.
It was a reasonable guess, since he’d tried to check into the B&B.
“There’s a journal under the junk pile in the backyard of the B&B. Stella led me to it, in exchange for a favor.”
“Stella?” She scowled and anger triggered flare-gun flashes in her eyes.
I tucked away that look of jealousy for later, when I could savor it, chuckle about it, add it to the ever-thinning lifeline of moments we shared. Still, my chest puffed up, even as I rubbed my thumbs gently below her eyes and bent so our gazes met.
“The ghost from the bedroom. Dot’s sister. Sits in the corner chair and knits. She wants to talk to Dot. Personally. Price for the journal. They used to dare each other to go in the shed. She was afraid of the spiders. Man at a fair tried to sell her the book. Oh, and she died in a car accident.”
The emotions raced across her face almost faster than I could catch. We’d gotten good at this, at saying so much more, at saying everything in seconds. Because that was all we had left to us, seconds of time on a watch wound with magic we could not understand nor tame.
“Fifteen seconds,” she said. She didn’t have to look at the watch to know. We could feel it, the darkness closing in at the corners of our vision, eating all light, eating the reality of the world around us.
And with it came pain. It began, even now, with cold shocks, like hailstones falling on every inch of our skin, hitting hard enough to leave welts. They’d turn to icicles soon, then knives, swords, until the pain was so harsh, so cruel, we’d both be left bleeding and broken.
We’d tried to wait it out the first time. Had held hands for exactly a minute and ten seconds. When I woke a day later, Lu was still unconscious, and it had taken her a week to walk. A month for all the bruises and swelling to fade.
I’d sworn never again. And even though it was the hardest thing in my life to resist, we had never done it again.
This…this was what was left to us. One minute at a time. And that only sparingly. Once a week we could endure. Better only once a month. But we’d found meeting in a graveyard made it easier, staying near the route helped, too, and if the moon was out, that was three pluses in our favor.
“I tried to reach the journal, and the magic blasted me on my rump. I blacked out. I’m fine, Lu, love, I’m fine.”
But she kissed me, nodding as she did so, telling me more, telling me everything as our seconds counted down.
“Be careful with the journal,” I said, knowing she’d find a way to retrieve it. “If the hunter’s smart, that might be what he’s after.”
“I’ll talk to Dot. Stella can talk to me.”
“She wants it personal.” I hated this, what I was asking her. To allow another person, another soul, to step into her body and exist there, under her skin, seeing her memories, her fears, her joys, and her shame.
Jealousy and hot anger burned steady inside me, but that would have to wait. I had had years and years to get used to being angry about this curse. Years to rail against every thing and person who could touch Lu, laugh with her, talk to her, know her.
Jealousy was an old friend.
“I can do it,” she said. “It’s fine. Just let me know what the trick is to get the journal. If it’s that strong, I can get half a year’s wages out of Headwaters.”
“Five,” I said. Five seconds. “I love you.”
“I love you.”
Then we kissed, soft and slow, need and desire, a promise. The same promise we always made. This wasn’t the last time. We would touch each other again. We would have each other again.
For more than a minute.
For a lifetime.
Until our last breaths.
The cold stabbed, ice cracking my skin, biting at my bones. But her lips were the sun, her body the world, and I held her until the final second fell away.
Lu’s thumb, my thumb over it, pressed down on the pocket watch’s stem.
Just like that, my arms were empty, even though Lu was still there, her arms around me, her breathing carefully steady, as if she were fighting not to scream. A single tear glinted on her cheek, diamond bright in the moonlight. I brushed it away, but my thumb was insubstantial, ghostly, nothing.
I forced myself to step backward, my hands dropping away from the woman I loved.
“I love you, Lula Gauge.”
“I love you,” she whispered, her eyes finding me, holding mine
with that fierce light. It was a promise, a threat. She wasn’t giving up on us. I wasn’t allowed to give up on us either.
As if I ever could.
Chapter Eleven
Sunshine’s shop was busier than I expected for a Saturday. He got rid of Doug’s car and sent Doug himself packing.
Doug was furious and said he’d never use Fisher’s Auto again. Sunshine told him that was the idea.
Four other vehicles arrived for a variety of maintenance and repair.
Sunshine was pleased with the business, though he kept glancing out the front windows as if he were expecting someone.
That someone was Jo. She’d left right before dawn to get the new modem and other equipment from the main office in Springfield. She hadn’t returned yet.
But it wasn’t Sunshine, his employees, or the stream of customers I was paying attention to.
It was Lu.
She hadn’t slept when she had returned to her room. She’d stretched out on one side of the bed, leaving the other open for me. I’d curled there, the bed almost too short for my height, my elbow bent and head propped on my fist, watching her.
She faced me and rubbed her palm slowly back and forth across the sheets that were expensive and therefore very soft.
All the while, her eyes searched for me.
I finally pressed my palm over the back of her hand. “Rest, Lu. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”
Her hand stalled, and she turned it over, palm up. “The truck’s going to be ready tomorrow.”
“I know,” I said, even though she couldn’t hear me.
“I’ll get the journal. I’ll call Headwaters.”
“Yeah.”
“There’s a good custom shop in Oklahoma,” she said.
“Ruck’s Trucks,” I agreed. “’Course there’s a good custom shop in every state.”
“I think I should head to the coast. Talk to Marty.”
“Marty tried to shoot you last time you showed up, Lu,” I said, wishing I could feel the heat of her hand. “He doesn’t like monsters like you and me.”
“He’s coming around, I think.”
I snorted. “Not likely.”
“He has information. I know he does.”
“Here we go again.”
“He knows where the gods vacation. Some place in Oregon, I think.”
“No. This is a road we promised we’d never walk. Tangling up with gods only gets you deeper into the mess of god egos and god trickery.”
“One of them might help us,” she said. “It’s been years since…since that other one.”
That other one was Mithra, a god of contracts who almost got us killed—permanently, violently, and painfully. I’d learned right then and there that gods were something to be avoided, even the minor ones like Mithra.
“We’re not going to ask gods for help, Lu. We tried that.”
“If we had leverage…something the god wanted…we could make it work.”
“No.”
“There might be something we’ve tucked away in the storage unit.”
“Oh, hell, no. We worked hard for that, Lu. For all of it. We’re not going to trade away a single book or scroll for the favors of a damn god.”
“Language, Brogan.” She grinned, and I laughed.
“We’ll talk about this later,” I said.
“I’m going to win this. Find the god’s vacation town. Find one who has answers for us,” she informed me.
“Well, you’re going to need your rest, because I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you fail. No gods. We don’t need that kind of trouble.”
She hmmmed, and I felt the warmth in my chest where my heart used to be, where my blood used to be.
“Go to sleep, love,” I murmured, wanting to see her rest. Wanting to see the lines across her forehead ease, the tightness at her eyes smooth out. I loved it when she slept. It seemed like the only time she wasn’t sad.
She shut her eyes, her hand still stretched out toward me, my palm over hers. From the rhythm of her breathing, I knew she didn’t sleep. Neither did I, but it was good. Good to be there with her.
Until Sunshine called, saying the truck would be up and road ready by the next evening.
Which is why I was leaning on the wall in the garage, watching as Sunshine worked on the underbody of the truck he’d put on the lift, a clean rag hanging out of his back pocket, the short-sleeved, blue shirt with his name over the pocket tucked into a pair of worn, but clean jeans.
Lu was there, too, in the garage where a radio played a mix of rock and country, watching him work. “Jo left early this morning,” she said.
Sunshine ducked out from under the vehicle, his hand still stuck up in the guts of its underbelly. “Did you see her?”
“Yes.”
“Was she…Did it look like she was coming back?”
Lu tipped her head and studied him for a minute. Then every line of her softened, and I groaned.
“He is not adorable,” I said.
“I think that was the plan.” There was humor in Lu’s voice. And fondness.
“They can fall in love on their own, Lu,” I grumbled.
“Did she say anything?” He pulled out the rag, crumpled it in his free hand, then realized he didn’t need it and stuck it back in his pocket again.
“She said she was leaving early so she’d get back in time for lunch with you.”
He dropped the wrench. It gave a harsh ring as it hit the concrete floor.
I shook my head and stared at the sky. “Lost cause. Just can’t let it be, can you, babe?” I crossed my arms, then glanced at Lorde who was lying at my feet, her big fuzzy head resting on her outstretched front paws.
“Tell her to stop trying to get these two perfectly capable adults to fall in love.”
Lorde wagged her tail, but didn’t look up from her paws, didn’t open her eyes.
Lu glanced over, though, and flashed a small smile. A smile just for me.
“Lunch with me?” he repeated. “She said that?”
“She said in time for lunch. I assumed you’d want to join her.”
“I do. Yeah.” His hand drifted back to the cloth in his pocket, but instead he lifted his empty hand to rub the back of his neck. “You think she…Did she give you any indication that she, um, she might like me?”
The slashes of red across his tanned face were a dead giveaway of just how much he wanted Lu’s answer to be yes.
Lu walked over to him, bent, and picked up the dropped wrench. “I think it’s early, but yes. I think she might like you.”
She held out the wrench, and he grinned, a flash of white teeth and joy, then he reined it in, nodding and nodding. The red still stained his cheeks and washed down the back of his neck. I could sense his heartbeat and it was galloping a mile a minute.
“Easy, Romeo,” I said. “Just because she likes you doesn’t mean she’s staying. In this town?” I snorted.
And just like that, the smile fell off his face and his color went flat. “She’s never going to want to stay here. This town?”
Lu’s eyebrows went up at his sudden change of mood. She turned and glared in my general area.
I shrugged. “Not my fault he heard me.”
Lu gave me one slow, warning blink.
“Yeah, yeah,” I chuckled. “I’ll shut up, so you can meddle in other people’s lives. This truck cannot be finished quick enough for me. Right, Lorde?”
The dog gave a soft, sleepy woof of agreement.
“At least one of you are on my side.”
Lu was ignoring me completely now, her stance square. She was going to talk sense into this young man until he wised up and asked Jo out on a date. Or asked her to marry him, or live with him, or whatever plan she was set upon.
“I think you’re doing an awful lot of deciding things for her,” Lu said in a clear, reasonable tone. Like a school teacher who was a little disappointed a student hadn’t given his A+ effort on an assignment.<
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“And I think you should stop assuming things about her, and asking me things you should be asking her.”
Sunshine’s head shot up. He couldn’t have looked more surprised if a yeti had strolled into the shop looking for a snow mobile repair.
“Ask her if she’d like to go on a date,” Lu went on. “Ask her if you can try a long distance thing. Ask her if she’d consider staying in McLean for awhile as a home base for her road work. Ask her if she could come to like living in a small town. Ask her if you can visit her at her place. Ask her. All of that. Any of that.”
He was staring at his boots now, the rag in his hand along with the wrench, worry and hope wrestling his face into interesting expressions.
“Yeah,” he finally breathed. “I should. You’re right. I should. So…lunch?” He glanced up, a sparkle in his eyes.
“That’s what she said.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I’m not usually…”
“…stupid?” I asked.
“…so caught up about someone. I mean, I’ve dated, but when I saw her. Even from that first minute, it was like…” His voice faded out, his eyes got distant, and I knew he was seeing her, seeing that moment again, like it was water in a desert, gifts on Christmas, and puppies in bows all in one.
“All right, all right,” I grunted. “You win, Lu. He’s got feelings for her. Maybe not love at first sight, but it’s at least like at first fight.”
“Do you think someone can fall in love at first sight? Even if he’s been an awkward clod?” Sunshine asked.
She nodded. “Absolutely. Even awkward clods can be pretty charming. I know a few.”
Yeah, I knew that was for me. I chuckled. “Fine. Fine. I give up. You just stir this pot and mess with these poor people’s lives. I’m sure it won’t blow up in your face.”
Lorde gave another soft woof.
“Hey, Cal!” A man strode into the garage like he lived there. The other employees looked up from their work long enough to wave.
Sunshine nodded toward the newcomer.
Lu turned so her back wasn’t to the man, though I knew she would have heard him coming for some time now.
