Stolen Skye (Book One, The Skye Trilogy) (21 page)

I placed the side of my face against the cool headrest of Finn’s car and shared my conversation with Ari.
“Look, before you get mad, I told Ari we were getting to know each other, but not in the biblical sense. I understand your intentions before, but it isn’t cool just to let people think we are… being intimate.”

“Ah, well, I figured the truth would come out.
I wanted him to start accepting you more. It was a way to do that and it worked. I’m sorry if it made you uncomfortable. I shouldn’t have left him to draw his own conclusions.” Finn smiled as he drove, like he was enjoying something.

“What?” I asked, smiling a little myself at his expression.

“Nothing, just wishful thinking.” He turned to look at me, but the glorious smile had faded to something more serious.

“Finn, thank you for taking me back to the hotel.
What time should I be ready in the morning?” I shifted back in my seat, keeping my eyes forward. My weakened state could not be trusted with a man like him.

“Not until 10
AM. I’ll be waiting for you out front. I already asked Augustus to get your bags for you.” I thanked him and stared out the window. London at night was even more magical than during the day. The city looked older and more mysterious in the glow of the lamplight. The main streets were just as busy with traffic lights and horns to detract from the ambiance, but the side streets with the stone buildings and gated courtyards gave one a feeling that strange things were lurking in the shadows. It was both beautiful and ominous. I would miss it all. I recognized Albemarle Street and knew we were back. Finn didn’t pull all the way to the front entrance, but found a space on the street several doors down and took it. I didn’t argue.

“Evelyn, before I go.”
Finn shifted the Mercedes into park and sat still in his seat while the engine hummed. “I’ll miss you, too. Having you back has been like a miracle.” He turned toward me and his raw, burning emotion was palpable, beating through him with every pulse of his heart.

I lunged for him, listening to all the primal urges that had been screaming at me for days.
Without stopping to see if I’d shocked him, I took his face into my hands and kissed him urgently, coaxing his lips apart to taste him again. It didn’t matter if I couldn’t recall years ago. I remembered the other night on the roof top and his kiss had been dizzying. Once he caught up to me, he took control of my onslaught, moving hard against my mouth and pulling me closer.

It was so good to be held by him.
Finn, I understood. His emotions were on display when it came to me. He wanted me and had cared for me once… cared for me still. I may not have been ready for all of it, but I knew what was coming. Had it not been for the awkward strain of trying to get close to him across the console, the kiss may have moved into something more, but on the eve of my departure I thought it was best to maintain some decorum. I settled back into a kneeling position and focused on his stunned, but pleased expression.

“Um, we need to order brandy more often.
Or was there another reason for your assault, not that I’m against it?” He grinned, keeping that potent look of desire on his amazing face.

“It’s the brandy, and all the kindness you’ve shown me, and our kiss the other night.
I wanted to make sure I remembered it right.”

“And, in comparison, how’d I do?”

“The reality far surpassed the memory.”

With an anxious smile, he turned off the engine and jumped out of the car.
I opened my door and he pulled me out, into his arms.

“I thought we’d try again without the emergency brake,” he sighed in my ear.

“Oh, is that what that was?” I smiled wickedly as he put my feet down on the ground, holding me firmly against him. He tilted my chin up, gazing at me with those stormy eyes, and we began again, slower, but with commitment. His warm hands found the edge of my sweater and curled round my waist and up my bare back, pressing me closer. His mouth urged my lips wider, probing deeper with his hot tongue. Just when the kissing almost became too much, he broke away and found the tender curve of my neck, using his soft mouth and teeth as he released his passion. I plunged my arms under his jacket and sweater, grasping at his solid, muscular back, letting him know I wanted more.

With a low moan, he turned me so that my back was against the SUV and pressed himself against the length of me
, finding my lips again. With one hand, he glided his fingers across my stomach while the other held me to him. My breathing escalated as his hand slid over and cupped my breast. There on a dark street, in the heart of London, I lost control as his coat shielded me from any interested passersby. I breathed heavily against him as his finger traced along the sensitive skin of my breasts at the edge of the lace.

I moved my lips to his neck and bit him teasingly.
He smelled like the burning wood from the fireplace with a hint of something sweeter. I felt all of him, hard against me. My own body was like liquid fire. He pulled back from me slightly, watching me as his hand drifted slowly down my stomach. I would have given anything in that moment for it to keep going, unbuttoning my jeans and exploring what he had awakened within me. But, he held there, tracing his fingers across my flaming skin, with a touch of a smile on his ruby lips.

“Evelyn, any more of this and I will take you right here, in front of the good people of London.”
His voice was hoarse from the strain of stopping.

“And that’
s probably a bad thing, right?” A part of me couldn’t have cared less where we were. However, I knew I was going to be on a plane in less than twelve hours. I also remembered all of my good reasons as to why moving quickly with Finn was a bad idea. Well, I couldn’t really recall them at the time, but I knew I had some. The one thing I did think of was I didn’t want to lose him by moving too quickly. I wasn’t sure I could manage a relationship with a thief who lives in another country, as much as I wanted to consummate it right there on the street.

He bent to me, languidly kissing my neck, and whispered in m
y ear, “Wrong perhaps, but in no way bad.” I felt his smile against my lips before he deepened our kiss. Before I lost the battle with myself, I gently pushed him away so I could speak… think.

“Finn, I have no memory of anything that could top that kiss.
It may bother you that I don’t remember the ones, years ago, but that one I will keep forever. I have to go before I try to make you outdo yourself again. I don’t think I could take it.” I pulled my sweater down gently after he withdrew his hands. He pulled me to him for a final, more appropriate hug. I felt his heart racing as fast as mine, and we stayed like that, leaning on each other, until both began to slow.

Before he left me at the entrance to the hotel, he kissed me again, swiftly on the cheek. “Good
night, Evelyn. I’ll see you in the morning. Sweet dreams.”  He took a few steps back, watching me with a wide grin before disappearing down the sidewalk. After throwing myself into packing, I lay on my bed and committed every bit of that last half hour to memory, reliving it so I wouldn’t forget. For the first time in my life, that I could remember, real passion coursed through me from the depths of my soul. I had remembered a flash of attraction to Ari in Paris, but Finn had shown me what it could feel like for two people to crave one another. When it came down to wanting that kind of wild desire in my current life, I had no use for the past.

Chapter
17. Back Home

Around noon on December 19
th, sitting in my extraordinarily quiet living room in Newport with Brutus, I decided it was time to pack up the BMW and head to Boston. It had been wonderful to come home and sleep in my own bed and microwave things in my own kitchen. I had gone to the Black Pearl with Jasper and Cecelia and given them their Christmas gifts from Harrods. We’d talked for hours about the couple of memories I had had about some old college friends. I kept the details out as much as I could. I didn’t know how much was okay to tell them, so I said my friends were former students, changed their names and edited out any criminal activity. They pressed to see if there had been any romance, then or now, and I declined. Telling them about my feelings for Finn would have sparked a whole new level of interest on their part. I did hint to the fact that I would be going back soon to visit again; I just hadn’t decided when quite yet.

Jasper did end up getting a promotion at the hotel after I left.
I was happy for him, genuinely, though he had a hard time talking about it like it was something he was proud of. I tried to convince him it didn’t bother me. I couldn’t remember being upset about losing my job. There were so many more interesting things to worry about; seeking employment was way down the list. In the midst of a holiday week and down one employee, he was incredibly busy at work. I remembered the feeling all too well. It made me look forward to a lazy Christmas at home with my mother and Steve all the more.

Cecelia and her family left for Florida shortly after I returned home.
It was great to catch up with her before she went. She had taken good care of Brutus in my absence, as expected. He seemed happy to be home, but he was happy anywhere as long as there was food in a dish and hands to stroke him. Real estate had really slowed over the holidays and it had been almost non-existent before. Cecelia was considering going back to school to finish her nursing degree now that her boys were older. Earle thought she was overreacting and assured her things would pick up. She wagered he didn’t want to take over the chores of motherhood while she was in school. They were going to discuss it while visiting her parents in Sarasota.

Their stories reminded me of our trip to the fortune
teller. Gypsy or not, she certainly had gotten some things right; Jasper’s promotion, though he hadn’t mentioned a dark man from his past yet, and Cecelia having some debate within her marriage over her career. It could be coincidence, but the partial accuracy was eerie. Something had indeed come to find me as well, but I wouldn’t let myself think about the other part of her warning.  

With Cecelia and Jasper out of the picture, there hadn’t been much to entertain me.
Finn had called a couple times to see how I was doing. He had made me keep the international cell phone, but I returned the British passport before the flight. I’m sure he could hear in my voice that I was lonely. Having a job really fills your days. Without one, I had no idea what I was supposed to do. Finn really wanted me to come to Paris, and more and more, I wanted to go. There were two things holding me back.

First, lying to everyone about my new friends had bothered me.
I felt like any minute I was going to stumble over some fib I had told and have to tell three others to make the story make sense, or I would simply blurt out something real and wind up getting us all put in jail. I knew logically that I wasn’t going to do either of those things, but I hated not being able to tell the truth about my experience and share the details with the people I cared about. My time in London, and the couple of things I had remembered, were important to me. I was close to remembering more and that excited me, but I had to downplay all of it for everyone’s good. Another trip would mean more lies.

Second, I had learned something that troubled me.
The flight home started out as uneventful. After Finn kissed me goodbye, I had boarded the plane, a little embarrassed by how brazen I had been the night before. I spent the early part of the flight feeling like I may have let my passion for Finn burn a little too bright, too quickly. Maybe it was smart to stay where we were on the intimacy scale. It was easier to feel like that was possible now that he was going to be thousands of miles away. Already, I had felt myself missing him and it disturbed me almost as much as it pleased me.

A couple hours into the flight, Captain Kelly came out of the cockpit and chatted in the galley with Sara for a while, poured himself some coffee
, and then came to sit beside me. He was a large, older man, fit and solid like a former football player. He straightened his tie after he sat. As we made pleasant conversation, I remembered a comment that Finn had made about him and his relationship with Ari.

“I hear you knew Ari’s father in Scotland,” I said.

“Yes, I used to fly for him back in the day even. We went to school together. He was older than me, but we always got along. My children and Ari went to the same school. Did he tell you that?”

“No, Finn just told me you would do anything for Ari.”
I fished to understand the relationship better. Ari was a compelling guy, but there had to be more than charisma at work.

“Yes, I would.
My sons may have had it much worse if it weren’t for him. As much good parenting as I like to believe my wife and I gave them, rest her soul, I think Ari may have matured them better than I ever could have.” He watched the clouds pass by out the tiny window as he drank his coffee.

“What happened?”

“The same year Ari’s father passed away, my boys beat Ari up badly. It’s hard to understand now, more than fifteen years later, but at the time, Ari was very poorly treated at school. He wasn’t like the other boys there and, well, they didn’t like different. In the beginning, Ari took it from the kids, the name calling and teasing that can come with being born outside of wedlock without a proper education. His story was common knowledge by the time school started for him. His father pulled major strings to even get him into the boys’ private school. I didn’t know him well. A good looking kid, but he hardly ever spoke.

“He started boxing for the team and was getting quite good.
My boys are boxers as well. There are specific rules with teammates. You have a protocol you follow, and you aren’t ever supposed to take it outside the ring. One day after Ari fought a good fight and won, my boys waited for him behind the school and beat him, threatening him if he didn’t quit the team. Ari made it to the administrative office and they took him to the doctor. He was okay, but it took a couple days home with his father before he came back to school. He wouldn’t tell anyone who had done it to him.

“The school threatened that the students responsible would be expelled and then the police got involved to file a report.
Ari wouldn’t talk to anyone. Shortly after that, it became known his father was dying. My boys eventually told me what they’d done. We’d just lost their mother, and it isn’t an excuse, but they weren’t coping well. They saw Ari going through the same thing and felt real bad about taking it out on him. We invited Ari over to the house and I made them sit down with him and tell him why they’d done it. I told Ari I would support his decision if he turned them in. He wouldn’t. He told them he was sorry about their mother — that he knew how hard it could be. My sons are big brutes, even for Scottish men, but they cried like babies. They weren’t the same after that. At Ari’s father’s funeral, the three of us were pallbearers. Ari didn’t have any other family there.”

“Where are your sons now?”
I was almost in tears thinking about Ari so alone and hurt. He wasn’t someone you pictured as vulnerable.

“One is in Connecticut and one is in upstate New York.
After we drop you off, I’m going to be with them and their families for Christmas.” Kelly brightened at the thought.

“I’m sure it will be good to see them.”

“Yes, it will. My boys are still fighters. I am sure they will come to blows with each other, all in good fun, of course,” he laughed.

I shook my head and said, “I’m not a fan of boxing, it’s hard to watch.
Ari just fought in a boxing match at a party the other night. I was covering my eyes the whole time.”

“Huh, I thought you were one of those lady boxers?
You had a good size shiner when I flew you to Boston last time. You told me you got it from Raven in the ring. That one I can see throwing a punch.” Kelly laughed again as he started gathering up his paper and coffee.

“You flew me that day and I had a black eye?”
I hadn’t thought about how I may have gotten home and just assumed I flew commercial. Why would I have had a black eye?

“Yes, it was a bumpy flight all the way due to some storm systems passing.
You stayed glued to your seat for most of it. You were pretty shaken up from all the turbulence, I figured. Anyway, Finn told me what happened to you. I’m real sorry about the accident. I best be getting back and make sure Vince is still awake.” Kelly gently slapped my knee with his newspaper and went back to the front of the plane.

Brutus jumped down from his perch and skidded out the cat door toward a grouping of birds.
Wishful thinking on his part. All alone in my house, I considered the facts. Someone had hit me. A part of me could see Raven challenging me in the ring and punching me in the eye, hell, I had seen her handiwork on Luca. However, they had told me everyone was off on their own covers and not in London. According to my friends, the last one of them I saw was Ari, who had given me roughly $250,000 in Edinburgh.

Why would I have told the pilot that Raven hit me if someone else had?
Any injuries I had after the accident were explained by being thrown from a car. Whatever happened, I had no memory of any of it. I hadn’t told Finn about the black eye yet. I wanted to trust each one of them, but I was scared of setting something in motion accidentally. I definitely had a feeling that something wasn’t right. I was going to need their help to figure it out, but I needed a plan for myself first, and a decision on which one of them I was going to confide in. As Brutus sauntered back into the house, I decided it was time for a change in scenery.

The drive north wasn’t a very far one, but the traffic was steady and the sleet didn’t help.
It took much longer than it should have to get to Chestnut Hill and my old house. It had been close to a year since my last visit, but it stood waiting for me, never changing. The sky had already turned dark and the festive white lights covered the boxwoods that lined the flagstone path to the door. Garlands and red bows adorned the light post out front, the arch over the door, and the white mailbox by the street. You could see the lights of the enormous Christmas tree in the living room, shining through the window. My mother had decorated for Christmas the same way every year. Though I had longed for adventure and a new life in my youth, I was always glad some things stayed the same.

I gathered Brutus’s travel box and walked up the path to the door. Before I could ring the bell, Steve threw it open and Jackson raced out to greet us.
Despite Steve commanding him to stay, he was all over me and sniffing wildly at Brutus. Brutus eyed him indifferently and went back to cleaning himself, secure in his domed home. Jackson was a mutt of a dog resembling a Golden Retriever in coloring and height, but with the build of a Rottweiler and the coat of a German Shepherd. He was so loving, you forgave the red hair that coated everything you owned once he made your acquaintance.

My mother came rushing out of the kitchen, delighted to see me.
“Evelyn, dear, welcome home. You look wonderful.” She took me in from head to toe and hugged me twice. I realized I had stayed away too long, though she had visited Newport earlier in the year.

“Mom, you look good, too.
Sorry I’m later than I thought, the traffic was pretty horrific.” I started taking off my coat and went to the hall closet to hang up my things. Short little coats of mine from primary school still hung off to the side. One jacket even had a lift pass on the zipper from the ski trip I went on in sixth grade. Escaping the past in that house was impossible.

“No matter, Steve made his chili tonight
, so it has just been sitting on the stove, waiting for you. Come look at the tree, we decorated it last week.” I followed her into the living room and marveled at the transformation. The fireplace was lit with garland hanging from the mantle. The huge tree was decorated with gold and red accents and the same ornaments were there, front and center. The cardboard wreath I made in third grade with glued on nuts and berries, some of which were missing. The glass Santa Claus on the top of the tree which surprised us every year when it didn’t break. The photos of me at different ages in hanging frames. Steve’s children, Gary and Bridget, were represented as well. I was happy to have some other faces to share the spotlight.

“I think it is the prettiest tree ever,” I told her, really believing it, but it was also a tradition to say it.
She looked very pleased and went off to check on Steve’s corn bread in the oven.

“I’ll just take these up to your room.
What happened to your back seat?” Steve had already gone out and gotten my luggage.

“Oh, just moving stuff for a friend and something sharp took hold.
I’ll get it fixed someday. You didn’t have to get those, but thank you. The tree looks great, by the way.” I really did care about Steve. I wanted him to know it, but I had a harder time than I probably should have being close to him.