Reviving Bloom (17 page)

“Pike, are you awake?” She asks
softly c
ausing me to open my eyes. I
sat down on the couch to sort
through my thoughts and I didn’t even realize
I’d closed them.

She crosses
the room and s
i
t
s
at the other
end
of the couch facing me with her legs pulled up against her.
Her hair’
s wet and braided down
her back and her perfect face i
s clean of all make-up. The gash that had been on her head,
from being hit with the gun, is already healed. She’s wearing her
favorite worn in jeans and a loose fitting white t-shirt. She
’s avoiding
eye contact with me by picking at her perfectly manicured toe nails.

Turning t
o mirror her position I demand
, “Darlin’, look at me.”

Her head snaps
up a
nd those brown-green eyes lock on mine and she sighs
, “Ok
ay
.”

“Bloom, tell me what you’re thinking
. Please.”

“Can’t you just pick
it out of my brain?” She snaps
back
.

“Yes, I could.” I sigh then say
, “But I don’t want to. I need
you
to tell me what you’re thinking; I need you to trust me. I promise to give you as much privacy as possible, but sometimes I won’t be able to. Until we
complete are mate bond and
learn to control our connection
,
your thoughts are going to be screaming at me. It’s a way for me to protect you. Eventually you’ll be able to block me when you need privacy. But until then I’ll try to give you some mental privacy.”

“Thank you
,
”
s
he says
chewing her lip.

“Darlin’, please tell me what’s g
oing through your mind?” I ask
softly.

“Will I be able
to read your mind?” she blurts out. The question mak
e
s me smile because it reassures me of how she feels
even though I kn
o
w she may no
t confess it just yet.

“I think so. You kind of already did.”

“What? When?” She asks
confused.

“Do you remember the night you found me in the woods?”

She nods
.

“Well, when you were trying to figure out what to call me. I was screaming my name over and over in my head hoping that you’d be able to hear me. I really didn’t want you to cal
l me Fido or Rover.
,
” I explain
.

“Your name just seemed to come to me that night.”

“Because you picked it up out of my thoughts and
I think that now that you realize you can you’ll be able to pick out my thoughts easier.”

“Can we try?”

“Try what?” I ask
confused.

“Me
reading your thoughts,” she says
all giddy.

“Of course, darlin’. I’ll think of something really hard and you try to focus on me. You should be
able to pick it up
,
” I suggest
.

“Alright, let’s
try this Tennessee.” She smiles at me before closing
her eyes to focus.

I start
with a simple word.

Mate.

I repeat
it over and over in my head. When he
r
eyes flew open and she has
a smile
stretching across her face I kno
w she
’s
heard it.

“Mate?” She asks
confidently.

Smiling back I nod a confirmation then say
, “Let’s try something harder. How about I replay a memory and you see if
you can pick it up and tell me about it.”

“O
k
ay
,”
s
he says
closing her eyes again.

This time I focus
on the day
I picked up her scent. I play
the memory out until I had arrived
at her house and then I repeat
the memory over and over. Fillin
g it with all of the emotions I’
d been feeling that day. On the fourth rotation of
the memory in my head she speaks
without
opening her eyes.

“
You we
re running so fast and you had such a need
,
”
s
he whispers
.

“I knew I’d found you, darlin’
,
” I state
.

“Ho
w can you be so sure?” she asks
opening her eyes and looking into mine.

“Sure that you’re my mate? Darlin’, we wouldn’t be able to
…”

Cutting me off she says
, “No. I understand that we
’
re mates. I can feel the pull to you.
In that memory you just shared I could feel how happy you were.
I want to know how you can be so sure I’ll make you happy.
We don’t even know each other, Pike.”

“Blo
om, you were made for me
. We have one person out there who was put here jus
t for us and you are mine and I’
m yours. That’s the way of our kind. We may not know everything about each other yet, but we will. And the more we learn the stronger
our bond will become.” I grab her hand and pull
her closer placing
it
over my heart and I tell her
, “The moment
I caught your scent I knew I’
d found you. This place in my chest
,
that
’s
felt incomplete for so
long, finally feels
whole again a
nd it’s because I
found my mate.”

She close
d her eyes at my words and I know she’s
taking in each beat of my heart under her finger tips. I s
et there for what feels
like hours with her hand pressed against my heart
until
she finally breaks
the silence.

“I was falling to pieces. I was trying so hard to get over losing my
Dad
, but I wasn’t succeeding. I had pushed Bonnie
and
Billy away. I wanted nothing but to cover my head and stay in the darkness that my life had become. Then I found you and the hole in my chest started to heal. After a year of crying over the loss of my father
,
I finally started feeling whole again.
You saved me twice th
is week, from Trace and from myself.”

Before the first tear can
br
eak through her eyelashes
,
I thro
w my arms around her and
press her tight
to my chest.

“We saved each other, darlin’. I was running from my past, from my future and you saved me. You gave me direction when I was running aimlessly.” Not wanting
to keep anything from her I send
her t
he
memory of taking out my
own father. I don
’
t want to scare her but I need
her to see how much pain I was
in
before I
found her.

Gripping me tighter she cries
for me and the hard choice I was forced to make and I cry
for the
loss of her father. A man I’ll
never me
e
t
, but love all the same because he
g
ave
me her.
 

When I kno
w she
’s cried her last tear I ask
, “
A
re
you going to be ok
ay
, darlin’?”

She looks
up into my face and smil
es
, “Yeah, I think we both will be just fine
,
Tennessee.”

I smile
at her nic
kname for me then offer to fix her lunch. She
slept through breakfast because of her inj
uries from last night, so I’m certain she’s hungry, but she declines my offer to cook and insists
on doing it herself. When she ge
t
s
up to go to the kitch
en I ask
to borrow her phone to contact the pack.

I dial Emily first and pray
that she
answer
s even though she won’t
recognize the number.

“Hello?” she asks
questioningly

“Em, it’s me.”

“Pike,
o
h my gosh
!
W
here are you?”

“Ohio.”

“You ran all the way to Ohio? What the heck were you thin
king big brother?” Emily scolds
me.

“It’s fine. Better than fine. I found her, Em.”

“Found who?”
She asks
confused.

“My mate.”
I have
to pull the phone b
ack from my ear when she starts
to whoop and holler.

When she settles down she starts
firing question
s
at me, “When are you coming home? Can I come there to meet her? What’s her name? What’s she like? Can I call her my sister?”

Chuckl
ing at her enthusiasm I answer
all her questions in order, “We’re still discussing it, but I think we’ll be heading home sometime this week. You don’t need to come here to meet her because we’re coming there. Her name is Bloom. She’s amazing. And you’ll have to ask her the last question.”

“I’m so happy for you, big brother. I can’t wait to meet her. Everyone is going to be so excited.”

“Em, you have to keep this secret for now.”

“Why? It’s great news.”

“I know it is, but there’s something going on that’s hard to explain over the phone. I’ll have to handle it when I get there, just promise
me
you won’t tell anyone where I am or about my mate. Please sis, I need this from you.”

“Of course, Pike. You can trust me, just hurry home. I want to meet my new sister.”

“We will. Love you, Em. Be careful. I have to call Tucker now and check in.”

“Love you too, brother. B
e careful yourself
,
”
s
he replies
before hanging up.

I quickly call Tucker and relay
the same information to him and
(
other than the girlie squeals
)
got the same reaction from him
that I got from Emily. He catches
me up on the pack and I
’m thankful to hear everything has been running smooth. Then I ask
him to
overnight me some items I need. I need
my own clothes and money. The hardest thing about shifting is not being able to carry my must
have items with me. He promises
to ship the stuff out
right away and then we both say
goodbye.