Chapter TWENTY-FIVE
Jamison had never watched darkness fall so beautifully.
The Western horizon was a bright line of mustard that faded up into pink, and then to purple. The distant clouds smeared the colors together and stretched them north to south. The highway took Jamison and Skye straight west, keeping the light from getting out of reach.
The air changed. His ears popped.
The small distraction finally brought him out of his own world and he became aware of another change. It was Skye. That meeting with Lanny had changed her. She wasn't the girl, or the spirit she'd been on the way up the canyon. Something was missing, and he knew it was silly, but he wanted to go back up the canyon and get it, if he needed to.
He finally gave up chasing the setting sun and pulled into a wide turn out, a rest stop of sorts, a swath of gravel next to a creek. There were plenty of boulders to sit on and a small trail that started with a bridge and wound its way into the trees. Twenty feet away the hillside rose abruptly.
Skye got out when he did.
“You need a bathroom again?” She leaned back against the car, unimpressed with the scenery.
He walked around the car to stand in front of her.
“No, I need to talk to Skye again. The Skye I left Flat Springs with. The Skye from my English class. Not the version they gave back to me at the ranch.”
She looked away.
Guilty!
He'd only been exaggerating, but maybe he'd hit on something. Had they given him a replacement?
Only one way to tell, as far as he could see, but then again, he didn't want to look very hard for a better idea.
He kissed her. She felt the same in his arms, moved her lips the same...then stopped and straightened away from him. He didn't want to let her walk away, but he did; he'd held her against her will enough lately. He had no right to even touch her now.
When he finally had himself under control, at least to the point where he wouldn't chase her up the hill and grab her, he turned.
She was seated on a boulder with her feet pulled up, as if the crack in the rock was designed with her in mind. A mermaid draped in white, she stared into the bubbling water as if it were speaking to her. A mermaid. Painfully beautiful. Untouchable. Destined to get away.
And selfish jerk that he was, he didn't want to let her.
***
Skye perched on the large rock and tried to absorb its chill into her. She had to be cold, distant. She had to be the nothingness she'd been before Jamison came to town. She'd keep just a little acorn of warmth in her heart, for Kenneth. He deserved her comfort and he only needed it a short while longer.
But she had to remain cold for Jamison. It would be easier for him that way. He and his mother would have each other for comfort. He didn't need Skye. He would need a real girlfriend soon, and it couldn't be her. No matter what her options, it could never be her.
If Jamison came with one of those choices, it would be so easy!
Pulling away from his kiss had been anything but, since her sensations seemed to mature every hour they spent together. But Lanny’s explanation for those sensations gave her the strength to resist them.
If she hadn’t come to Lanny when she had, she might have ended up just another Gabriella Somerled—wicked, damned, and the only danger to Somerleds on Earth.
She had no idea what she’d tell Lucas and Jonathan when she got home. For now, she just had to change back to the old Skye—not the one Jamison was asking for, but the one before that. There was a reason people didn't want to leave their comfort zones. She'd left hers, somehow, without intending to, but now she was back.
Just as long as he didn't kiss her anymore.
And even if he did, if she couldn't stop him, she could at least refrain from kissing him in return. It seemed to work. No one enjoyed kissing a cold fish, of course. She just needed to be the fish.
When she thought he'd had sufficient time to cool down, she climbed back off the boulder and turned right into him. His hands clenched around her arms, to steady her, then he let go.
She had to remind herself it was a good thing, ignore the tingling in his touch.
“I’m sorry. I’ll try not to kiss you.” He grinned, his teeth glowing white in the dying light. “But I can’t promise of course. I have a...a project I’m working on and kissing you might be necessary.”
She couldn’t help but smile at her own words being thrown back at her.
“I can promise, however,” he said, picking up her hands and kissing the backs of them between words, “that if you ask nicely, I’ll still kiss you against my will.”
She looked at her hands, looking for a difference in the places his lips had touched. She tried not to feel that difference in the bite size areas—
No! Cold fish! She needed to be cold, distant. There was nothing to feel!
She pulled out of his grasp and backed away. He smiled and kept coming.
“Jamison, stop. I don’t want you to kiss me anymore. You’ve already done enough damage.”
He stopped, bending a little at the waist. His mouth dropped open.
She shouldn’t have said that. It wasn’t his fault, truly. It was no one’s fault that she faced the choices she now faced. Like she’d told him before, it really had been Fate, or Providence that had taken her to Lanny, not Jamison.
“What have I done, Skye? Tell me. Are you in some kind of trouble because of me? Is it because I kept you up in the tree house?” He walked toward her, his arms out, his palms open as if he needed to convince her he wouldn’t harm her. He knelt at her feet. “Tell me. What is it? Who can I talk to? None of it was your fault!”
She wanted to reach into his hair and pull him toward her, hold him close and take his worries away. But would that be best? Wouldn’t they both be better off if he did believe he had crossed some line, that if he didn’t back away, she’d be punished for it?
She swallowed back the denial wanting to jump from her lips.
“There is nothing you can do now, Jamison. What’s done is done. No one’s fault. Only it has to end. Now.”
Tears lined up in his eyes when he looked at her, and she nearly took it all back and told him the truth. But like many times in the lives of mortals, it was best to get the pain over with so the healing could begin.
“I’ve broken some rules. I can’t break them again.” It could be true. Kind of.
“But if it was my fault—”
“Jamison, you are mortal. You were born to make mistakes.” She took a haughty step back from him. “I was not.”
He stood and searched her face for some emotion. There was none to find.
“I’m sorry just the same.” After a minute, he cleared his throat. “You’ll let me know if there is something I could do, to help?”
The chill in his voice matched her own. She should be relieved, not feeling the urge to bend forward and catch a breath she’d never need, maybe wait for tears that would never come.
“Yes, I’ll let you know. But there won’t be.”
He nodded and started back to the car. He opened her door and left it. He wasted no time climbing in and starting the engine, then just stared forward until she was inside.
He drove fast, but not too fast. She left his memories alone, suggested nothing. That last hour to Flat Springs dragged like two. He never looked her way. She kept her hands in her lap. It was dark when they neared the first Flat Springs exit.
“Home or the hospital?”
She jumped. He’d surprised her, finally speaking.
“Hospital.” Cool and aloof. No apologies. It was her duty to see to Kenneth, she didn’t need to explain herself.
Jamison turned north. When he parked the car there was the tiniest of hesitations, as if he wanted so much to say something before their road trip ended. But before he could, she grabbed the handle and opened her door. He did the same.
She walked quickly to the doors. He fell behind.
He still hadn’t caught up when the elevator doors closed.
A few seconds later, she hit the stop button and backed against the mirrored wall. Deep in the core of her, a shudder began, built, and rolled through her soul. If she were mortal, she’d be howling in pain. Her chest would contract over and over again as she sobbed the air from her lungs and tried to suck it in again.
But she wasn’t mortal.
She stood perfectly still, watching her own reflection, seeing nothing redeeming to speak of, except for a flicker behind her eyes. Maybe, she thought, it was someone waving, pounding, begging for help.
Maybe, she’d make sure the girl inside got what she wanted.
Someday.