“Really? Well, I think she has other ideas. You won’t take me with you, but you’ll take her. Why?” I demanded.
“Because I can’t trust her with you. It’s safer if she travels with me.” His brief explanation rushed through his lips.
His dimples dipped and I took a mental picture of his chiseled but soft features. I was upset with him, but it occurred to me that I didn’t know if I would ever see those dimples again. I bobbed my thumb into their creases and I smiled at him as if it were the last opportunity I might have. It was most certainly night now, but that didn’t stop his glow from exuding, framing his body ever so gently.
“You know best, I’m sure,” I said, unable to remove the sarcasm from my tone. One thing I had come to learn about myself was that I didn’t let things go easily. I certainly had no intention of changing now.
Gabriel inhaled deeply and pulled me in, despite my obvious reluctance. He smoothed my hair and squeezed me, pressing his warm hands to the small of my back. As he breathed in my fragrance, I stole a last opportunity to remember his smell of citrus fruits.
“Come on, Cessie! Time to go!” Jonah’s voice broke the silence.
Gabriel didn’t move, so I gently stepped back from him and acknowledged Jonah, who was standing behind us, several bags at his feet. I had to suppress a gasp as Jonah glistened against the moonlight hanging high above us.
A screech of burning rubber and Ruadhan was beside us in the Range Rover. Lowering down the passenger window, he joined in a little more politely. “Sweetheart, are you ready?” he asked.
“Erm … I think I’m going to go it alone from here, but thank you. Thanks to all of you. I can’t let you risk yourselves for me any longer.”
I shuffled uncomfortably; Brooke and Hanora had also appeared—though I didn’t actually mean what I said where Hanora was concerned. Gabriel’s body became rigid, ready to protest, but Ruadhan beat him to it. In a flash he was at my side, picking me up and placing me into the passenger seat.
“Ruadhan, I…”
“Little love, we haven’t got time to argue. You’re coming with me whether you want to or not.” He sounded like a father scolding his unruly daughter, as he hustled my backpack from my shoulders.
Hanora moved in next to Gabriel, taking his arm in her own—sending me a message, I was sure—and gazing longingly up to his face. Gabriel’s eyes never left mine. I hoped she saw that.
A hard wind of jealously hit me. “Fine, but not without Jonah,” I spat, and I watched Gabriel flinch.
“No problem with that!” Jonah said, throwing his bag in the trunk.
“Well then I’m coming, too!” Brooke shrieked, gesturing to Jonah to add her oversized suitcase into the trunk.
Obediently he chucked her belongings untidily into the space. Within seconds, they were in the back seats and I watched Ruadhan and Gabriel exchange unhappy glances. Any other time I think there may have been a debate over the traveling companions, but right now there was no time; every lost minute was an opportunity for Eligio to return.
As Ruadhan put the car into first, Gabriel tapped on my window. “Your cell.” He handed me the iPhone. I reached for it, skimming his skin, which made me wobble inside. “Keep it with you, call whenever you want.…”
His wide eyes made mine run like a watercolor painting caught in the rain.
Please don’t be angry with me, I will come back to you as soon as I can.
I didn’t have an opportunity to reply; Ruadhan was flooring the accelerator and we made off like bandits into the night.
As soon as he was out of sight, I regretted the things I’d said. I wanted to tell him that I loved him, that I was prepared to fight for him, for us; I wanted to tell him that I trusted him, but that wouldn’t have been entirely true. There were still things that he was keeping back and I was skeptical as to why he hadn’t shared them with me yet.
As that thought crossed my mind, I felt a twinge of guilt; I hadn’t exactly told him everything either. I hadn’t been forthcoming about the girl in shadow; I hadn’t informed him that she had been here tonight. I could have told him, I could have explained how she appeared in my time of trouble and that I had no idea who she was.
I remembered her long dark hair streaming down her back, which had brushed my cheek. But as always there was a gap, a hole in my memory. All I could recall was that she appeared, and then … nothing. Did I see her disappear when Gabriel’s light overflowed from the porch, or was I imagining that? Of course, Gabriel had hardly given me the chance to tell him, given how I had found him. Still, I knew I wouldn’t have been able to explain the girl to him. To add to that, there was a strange, unsettling feeling swelling in my subconscious as soon as I began to think of her.
A warning not to think too hard, I had decided.
Brooke interrupted my inner turmoil. “Erm, Cessie … I’m sorry about last night. I was just, well, trying to help you.… Anyway, no harm, no foul. You look fine.” Her apology was barely halfhearted, I could only assume it was given at Jonah’s insistence.
“It’s okay.…”
“Well anyway, by way of seeking your forgiveness…” she half chuckled, “I packed some of your clothes this morning. I figured you’d abandoned most of my hard work when I saw that tired-looking backpack of yours.… So don’t worry where we’re off to, at least you’ll be dressed in style.…” She trailed off as Ruadhan slammed the truck into a deep bend and zipped around the winding roads, heading for the motorway.
“Oh, thanks. Where are we going exactly?” I looked over my shoulder to anyone for an answer.
“Ah … Oui, oui! Carcassonne, South of France,” Ruadhan joked. His Irish-accented French was awkward, but I appreciated him trying to raise my spirits.
I looked at Jonah and he replied by stretching in my direction. “Don’t worry, Cessie, he’s gone. Frederic is dust. You said so yourself.”
I shivered at the mention of his name. I guess offering that tidbit in the cottage had given away where I had been at the time.
“Something I’m missing?” Ruadhan’s tone lowered to a murmur.
“No, no,” I said. “I just had a slightly bizarre experience with a Vampire in Nice a couple of years back is all.” I didn’t want to have to explain myself for a third time.