Maria tapped her hand lightly on his arm in sympathy. Before they'd come to this meeting, she had said to him, “When you see her; the moment you touch her, you will feel it and you’ll know.” She wasn't talking about confirming the girl was Lora's twin. “One way or the other, if she is a potential mate you'll know. She will too, but she won’t understand it. As she is, her senses are not as strong as yours. But she will still feel something.”
People could put two and two together and predict that this twin might be a possible bonded mate for him, just because he'd wrongly believed Lora had been, but matters of the heart weren't always as black and white as that. He understood that now, more than most.
Breaking Nik from his torturous reverie, Arik turned to Erica asking, “How long do you believe you’ll need before she trusts you, Erica? She hasn’t got a lot of time left.”
“Give me a year max,” Erica replied confidently. “I am her real aunt after all.”
~Chapter 5 - Buzz~
Saturday May 7th, 2011, 10:34 a.m.
Barker residence
“You’ll call me when you get to the nearest petrol station?”
“Yes, mum,” Jaz said with a sigh as she handed her small suitcase to her Uncle Bo.
She’d only met him a few times but from what she had seen, she knew he was a very polite, kind man.
He was about an inch or so taller than her, making him shorter than average for a man. However, he was built like an ox under his bohemian tweed jacket, checkered shirt and velvet waistcoat. She only now observed the muscular shape of his arms beneath the colourful shirt as he took the suitcase from her.
She gazed at his smooth, youthful skin -apart from a few crow's feet caused by years of smiling (she liked that part about him the most)- before he turned away. His washed-out hair was thinning at the front and turning steely grey at the sides, making his age hard to guess.
He was a quiet but witty man who knew a lot about old-fashioned automobiles; in fact, anything with an engine always made his eyes light up. That was all he and her father seemed to talk about. Apart from these things, she didn’t know much else about him. But she found him easy to get on with and she figured that was all that really mattered.
His bright, kind, brown eyes and thin-lipped mouth always appeared amused and a little smug, as if he was laughing inwardly at his own private joke. Today, however, his jaw was wound tight and he seemed distracted.
He carried her luggage a few steps before the driver took it from him silently.
Jaz was too busy being strangled in a bear hug from her mother to notice. When she managed to escape the stranglehold, her dad took his wife's place, gently wrapping his arms around Jaz. Then his grip round her back tightened. Her heart skipped a beat. It felt like a goodbye hug. A real goodbye.
Why is he being so dramatic? she thought. Jaz looked him straight in the eye and said, “I’ll call you every day.”
“I know you will.” He smiled back gently but it didn't reach his eyes.
Jaz glanced down the driveway at the car she was to travel in. It was a shiny, black Mercedes but that was as far as her knowledge about cars could gather. Her aunt was saying something to her parents but she was distracted by the sound of the Mercedes boot being shut. It was then she locked eyes with the driver.
The driver removed his hand from the boot door when he saw Jaz watching him. He didn't shy away from her gaze, which he could see made her uncomfortable. He didn't care if she realized he'd been staring at her ever since she'd come out of the house. When she looked away from him he continued to study her.
He leant his hip against the car for support, overwhelmed by the feelings he experienced upon seeing her. Those feelings, that had been rushing through his head, his heart, even his blood and bones and nerve endings were so overpowering everything tingled as though they were alive. His skin was on fire but it was a good feeling. Like scratching an itch. A long awaited, irksome, exasperating itch.
So this is what it’s like, he mused.
Now he understood that the passionate feelings he had felt for Lora, Jaz's twin, were only a tear drop to the whole world’s oceans in comparison to what he felt for Jaz. At least, what he had the potential to feel for her.
At first, he'd found it ridiculously unfair and betraying: Lora had earned his love and affection, Jaz hadn’t even looked at him yet. But when she did, all those negative thoughts drained from his head; every thought disappeared and all he could do was study her with hungry eyes.
Everything about her was considerably darker and Delphian in comparison to her sister.
Lora's hair had been honey blonde, her face golden, glowing and always smiling, her eyes bright blue like the sky. He glanced upwards. Not a cloud in sight. It was the longest time he looked away from Jaz. He gazed back down at her.
The sun was out and made her fine, shoulder-length hair transform from dark brown to a deep brick-red. It brought out the natural pinkness of her fair cheeks. Her skin was ivory-pink and flawless; apart from the dark shadows under her eyes there were no blemishes. Her lips were smaller than Lora’s, not as full either, but they were a prettier shade of dark pink and were set in an amused curve that he liked immensely. She had kind, warm eyes that appeared to be olive green away from the sun, but a deep blue when she turned towards it. Those eyes were, for the second time, staring back at him.