Picking up a container of dough, I pulled off the paper directions and popped open the canister, then pulled apart the dough.
“How’d it go?” Asher asked.
“I feel better,” I said.
He smiled, then bent across the island to give me a nuzzling kiss on the cheek.
I grinned at him.
The doorbell rang.
That had to be Isabel. Curious to see how she would respond to how Jack looked, I jumped up to answer the door.
Jack kept playing the piano. His back looked stiff.
One might think we’d arranged his marriage or something.
I opened the door. It was Isabel, and she’d put on contacts and straightened out her hair. The contrast to her frizzy look always struck me.
Next to her, however, was a girl our age with straight, shoulder length brown hair.
“Hello, sorry I’m late. I hope you don’t mind,” Isabel said. “I brought my cousin, Kiersten. Her family arrived an hour ago for the holiday. Earlier than expected, otherwise I would have asked sooner.”
Kiersten held out her hand. “You must be Tara.” She grinned.
“The more the merrier,” I said, and shook her hand, smiling. There went the odds. As our hands connected, I was aware that she had stored source. She was a pure alva. Curiosity shot through me. “Come in,” I said slowly.
She didn’t notice mine. Pure alvs didn’t though. So Isabel did have alv cousins.
“Ooh, I love this song!” Kiersten entered and headed toward the piano.
Pausing, Jack looked up at her, a puzzled look on his face. “You know it?”
“Isabel was telling me you play the piano in Jazz Band.” Kiersten sat down on the bench by him and played the right hand of the same song.
Jack was awestruck. I sighed. Too bad Kiersten didn’t live in town.
Isabel handed me two presents for the gift exchange. “I thought that might happen.”
My gaze was focused on how Jack was responding to Kiersten’s invasion. “Huh.” I looked at Isabel and closed the door. She was smiling.
“I found it!” Benny shouted from the computer.
“Oh my gosh! You were right,” Lydia squealed, clapping her hands together. “Tara,” she looked at me. “You’ve got to see this.”
“What?” I approached them.
“No-no-no-no-no!” Benny quickly minimized the video he’d been watching. “Not yet. You have to get Asher first.”
“Okay.” Puzzled, I hurried down the hallway. Coming into the kitchen, I found Daniel stirring up the whipping cream in the KitchenAid, and Jerrick cutting two large slices out of the pumpkin pie.
“Hey, I was supposed to make the cream,” I said.
“I’m taking a slice up to Mom,” Daniel said.
“He actually just couldn’t wait,” Jerrick added, which won him shifty eyes from Daniel.
I laughed, looking to Asher as he dumped the dry stuffing into boiling water.
“Asher, Benny has something to show us. Not sure what it is.”
“Okay, I need five—”
“I can stir that,” Jerrick quipped, taking the wooden spoon from Asher. “Go have fun.”
“This is fun,” Asher grumbled, then looked over at me with an eager expression. It had taken me the whole last month to realize that Asher’s anxiety rose in peer groups like the one I’d gathered tonight. Prepping dinner was his escape.
He stole whipping cream on his finger as Daniel was in between loading it onto pie and came around the island, which he sloppily held to my mouth to taste.
“It’s good,” I told Daniel, licking the excess from my lips.
Asher took my hand as we entered the hall. Partway down, out of eyesight from both directions, he pressed me to the wall. “You got a little bit of something there,” he teased, rubbing his nose to mine before kissing me.
“Yeah,” I said, momentarily interrupting him, “You put it there.”
“Tastes good,” he whispered in my ear, sending warm shivers through me.
Daniel entered the hall from the kitchen, and Asher quickly put distance between us.
“Careful with my daughter,” he said. “I do have a shotgun.”
“Dad!” I said.
“Playing my part,” he angled his way between us, separating us even more, and continued on his way toward the stairs.
“I like your stepfather,” Asher said, nodding sideways at him, repeating our conversation of more than a month ago.
“Yeah, me too,” I said loudly.
Daniel looked over his shoulder at me and winked.
Benny was calling for Daniel to wait and watch the video with us as Asher and I joined the group in the music room.
Standing behind me, Asher wrapped his arms around my waist, making me warm in his embrace. Jack, Isabel, and Kiersten clustered opposite us, while Lydia knelt next to Benny.
“Ready?” Benny asked, looking up at me with a smile.
I nodded.
“All right.” He pressed play.
The footage was taken in Benny’s old backyard looking over the pool. Balloons decorated the surrounding fence. All our moms, Jack’s, Lydia’s, mine, and Benny’s, lounged in chairs. Jack’s siblings filled the pool, playing basketball on the shallow end while Jack and Lydia swam in the deep end and I stood on the edge. They were trying to coax me into the water.
This is the last birthday party I went to for Jack. He must have been turning eleven.
Jack’s birthday was the start of September, often happening over Labor Day weekend. Benny’s family used to leave the pool open until then for one last party that weekend.
It had not been warm out that day.
“Come in!” Jack’s voice carried on the wind. “It feels great.”
“I dare you,” Benny said off stage, the one recording, sounding a lot younger than he did now, “To push her in.”
“I don’t think so,” a youthful boy’s voice responded.
Asher’s grip on me tightened. “No…” he whispered. “That’s not…”
“Go on and do it!” a girl out of sight said with a laugh. “If you don’t, I will. Right now.”
“Emma, no.” A boy hurried forward to stand by me. He wore a baseball cap turned backward, basketball shorts, t-shirt, and sneakers, obviously not there to swim.
The memory stirred in my mind. This was the boy who’d come with Jack’s cousins for the party.
Wait a minute…
In the video, I looked up at him. Based on our body language, I could tell he was saying hello. We talked for a second. If I remembered right, he was encouraging me to jump in.
That couldn’t be Asher.
He was so tall already. I’d thought he was an upper middle-schooler.
Jack swam closer and splashed him with water. As the older boy dodged, I gave him a playful shove toward the water. It had only been a tease, I recalled that now watching. In revenge, he gave me a nudge, that I dodged, then he playfully grabbed my arm, threatening to swing me out into the water.
“Throw her in!” Jack chanted.
“Throw her in!” Lydia joined on the second.
He hefted me off the ground. Though I squealed in protest, I grinned widely. Watching this now, the feeling of excitement that an older boy was paying attention to me flurried through my stomach all over again. How I’d loved the playful interaction even as he tossed me into the water.
“Hey!” Dad’s voice shouted off screen, sending a wave of wanting him over me. “Keep your hands off my daughter!”
In the present, behind me, Asher’s hands flew straight up, and he stepped from me.
Quite a few caught the action and laughed.
In the movie, Dad strode straight up to the kid with the baseball cap, grabbed him under the arms, and held him, feet kicking over the water. “Don’t you ever touch her again.” He released, and the boy plummeted into the water.
Laughter spread around the room.
My heart felt so full both
of warmth and ache. Tears burned in my eyes. I reached for Asher’s arms and pulled them around me, wanting their comfort even as the irony hit me the only thing Dad had ever said to Asher was to never touch me.
The video ended.
“That was you,” Benny looked at Asher. “Wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Asher said. “I’d forgotten that even happened.”
“I think that was your first time ever over at my place,” Jack said.
“My place, you mean,” Benny said.
“Well, right,” Jack said. “You know what I mean. We lived next door to each other.”
“It was my last,” I said. At Benny’s. A few days later, Dad was killed, and Mom moved us.
“Oh—I’m sorry, Tara—I didn’t even—” Benny stumbled through his apology.
“Benny,” I interrupted, smiling, “I loved seeing that. Make sure you get me a copy.”
We ate dinner, played the white elephant game where most of the gifts were jokes, as intended, and Asher’s present, which I somehow ended up with, was a huge pink bow meant for a young girl. Oops would love it. Asher forced me to wear it.
While Jack played piano, and I sat on Asher’s lap to make way for everyone to have a spot to sit, we sang through Christmas songs and carols.
Then we played several games together, and right around nine, bit by bit, the group dispersed. Isabel and Kiersten headed home first. Benny went out with Lydia to a movie. Livie went over to Jerrick’s because he wanted to show her something—he made sure to get permission from me first.
As Jack and I lingered on the porch talking, Asher retreated to clean up the kitchen.
“Well,” I said. “You and Isabel can at least be friends. Right?”
He laughed.
“What did you think about her cousin?”
“She doesn’t live nearby.”
“So? We live in a world with instant communication. Benny and Lydia video chat all the time.”
“Yeah. But I hardly know her.” Jack smiled. “And yes, Isabel and I can at least be friends. I already arranged to go bowling with her next week once her extended family leaves town.”
“That’s good.”
He pulled me to him in a side hug. “Merry Christmas, Tara. Watch out for demons, all right?”
“I haven’t seen one since October.”
A couple of snowflakes drifted to the ground.
“Maybe we’ll get a white Christmas,” Jack said.
Uncle Alexander arrived to pick up Livie, and Jack left a minute after they did.
Going inside, the house was quiet.
Enroute to the kitchen, I stopped at the bathroom and opened the door.
Asher’s back reflected in the mirror.
Embarrassed, I pulled the door shut and backed up against the wall.
He came out a second later, laughing, holding a cleaning bottle and rag. “You look about how you did the first time we met in the bathroom.”
“You were cleaning,” I said, relief falling on me. Ever since Daniel’s heart attack, he’d been helping around the house. More so recently, I realized, since Mom was often sick. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Usually, I lock the door.” He set the bottle and rag down inside the bathroom and washed his hands.
By the time he came out again, my heart was beating normal. It picked up again as he towered close, tilting my chin toward him. “Are we actually alone?”
“I wouldn't count on it,” I whispered.
As if on cue, the front door opened, and Holden entered carrying a sleeping Oops with Nathaniel close behind him. “Sorry,” he whispered in our direction before the cluster of them headed upstairs.
Stepping up on my toes, I wrapped my arms around Asher's neck. “You were saying?”
He kissed me slowly, then more aggressively as I shared the positive source I’d built up all night with him.
“Breathe,” he whispered to me.
I looked at him grinning. “Want to play a round of horse?”
He laughed. “You know I do.”
We bundled up and headed out to the half-basketball court. He snatched up the basketball sitting by the sliding door.
It was definitely too cold for this.
Asher passed me the ball, and I stepped into my safe spot.
“Are you always going to start there?” he asked.
I bounced the ball several times, aimed, and shot. The ball hit the backboard and fell through the basket. “The way I see it, the best place to start taking risks is from a safe spot.”
He retrieved the ball then stood alongside me, bumping me aside with his hip. He aimed and shot but missed. The ball haphazardly bounced off the back.
“Did you do that on purpose?” I asked.
Not answering, he reached into his jean pocket and pulled out a small box.
My heart pounded. I was too young for that. “No—Asher—”
“Relax,” he said, though I could tell he was nervous. “It is a ring, but it’s not that kind. Merry Christmas early. It arrived yesterday. Daniel helped me with it, and I’m too impatient to wait until I return from my sister’s.” He handed it to me.
Curious, I received the ring box from him and opened it. Inside was a simple silver band with an inscription on it. Taking care, I pulled it up from the insert and held it up to the porch light, but that still wasn’t enough to read it.
“What does it say?”
Smiling a little, he took it from me and slipped it onto my right ring finger. It fit perfectly. He massaged my hand for a minute before meeting my gaze. His green eyes radiated, giving me a breathless feeling.
“It goes back to your memory of Daniel on the beach. A ring.” He gently kissed my cheek, then turned me around, so one arm was wrapped around my waist, and I was held with my back to his chest. “And it says,” he picked up my right hand and brought the ring into focus for both of us to see, “our love is forever.”
Excerpt from Chapter One of
The Water Sprite’s Mountain Rescue
The last and first person in the world I wanted to see waited at the end of my driveway: Jack Sherlock Spalding.
I both hated and loved the way my knees grew weak around him. The sweaty anticipation of my hands. The golden burning in my chest.
Effortlessly stylish, Jack wore faded jeans and an unbuttoned black shirt over a white tank that accented his lean muscular frame. His gorgeous red hair was long on top, styled back, with a delineated short undercut. At this distance, I was saved from his eyes, which were an amazing chestnut with bronze circling. Truthfully, I couldn’t get enough of him.
My heart skittered every time I encountered Jack, as if it remembered how natural and easy it was to be around him. As if to reprimand me for possibly missing out on the best relationship I might ever experience.
But I’d sworn off all natural humans. My forever after was going to be a pure alv, and Jack, well, he didn’t fit into that goal.
Still, the rush of warmth and butterfly anticipation flitted through me stronger than it had with any guy. My heartbeat angrily, because it was pretty sure Jack would align with all my other goals.
Jack turned, and when our eyes met, his filled with fuzzy, cloud nine distraction. A defeated crooked grin lifted his left cheek. “Kiersten.”
Hearing my name on his lips, spoken so carefully, my resolve to keep my heart guarded from him cracked. We were eighteen. Our young adult lives only beginning.
I closed the gap between us. “Jack, to what do I owe this pleasure?” I smiled, nervously shrugging my right shoulder.
He stared for a moment, head cocked sideways, then he sobered. “I need your help. Tara may be in trouble.”
Coming Soon!
iends
The Changeling's Source (Evedon Legacy Book 1) Page 43
