AllFreeNovel
Share Us
How does someone just forget that?
Because it never happened.
When I looked back at him, he was staring at me, his expression beyond my comprehension.
“You’re a strange lady, Tallulah.”
“You have no idea.” I pulled my hand away, not willing to risk any of the remaining convention staff coming across us like that. A little pang of anxiety clawed at my chest. “When am I going to see you again?” Now that the mandatory parts of the convention were done, we were both free to be moved onto more pressing work.
I’d never asked him that question before. We usually went with the flow and saw each other when it happened to work out that way. I wasn’t content to just wait anymore, though. I didn’t want it to be another two months. That was too long, and the features of his face got worn from my memory every day I didn’t look at him.
He smiled in a mysterious way that could have meant anything, then bumped me with his shoulder. “There’s always a need for some bad luck in the Pacific Northwest.”
“You should come see me,” I announced. Maybe it was too much, too pushy, too…wrong. I couldn’t take it back once the words were out, though. Instead I tried my hand at a flirtatious grin and added, “Even someone as unlucky as you might get lucky someday.”
I left him like that, with a send off just coy enough to be cute, just bold enough to be sexy.
We’d lost our chance once, but that didn’t change how I felt. It didn’t undo the potential that existed between us.
I had worried that by giving up our night together that meant I had to give up Cade entirely. But we were more than one night. He was more than a heat-of-the-moment fling.
If we were meant to be, he’d find his way back to me eventually.
I’d waited this long.
I could wait longer.
Chapter Forty-Five
Leo and I dropped Sawyer back in Lovelock a few days later.
Yvonne had probably been hoping the girl would come back to her with hopes dashed and a general distaste for all things cleric related. Sawyer was more somber on her return than I expected, but with Leo and me by her side she explained what she’d learned in her absence.
She was a cleric to Pele, and that meant she had to go to Pele’s temple.
That temple happened to be in Maui. Rough life, kid.
I hadn’t made contact with Sawyer’s new priestesses yet. Ultimately it wasn’t my job to deliver her to them, and a small part of me hoped she might change her mind and pretend she hadn’t learned the truth.
The decision would be Sawyer’s in the end. I left her and Yvonne with the toll-free number to report cleric initiates. I also didn’t mention anything about Sawyer’s part in starting the wildfire. She hadn’t done it intentionally. She admitted on the way home the whole thing had happened when she’d gone for a drive with a boy from her class, but she hadn’t explained it more beyond that. Any heightened emotion could trigger an onset of her powers. Could have been good, or bad, but she chose not to tell us. I chose not to tell Yvonne. There was no sense in making her an outcast in her own home.
It was hard to tell how Yvonne took the news. I knew she cared about Sawyer, but the kid would have her future set if she joined Pele’s temple. She’d never need to worry about money or having a roof over her head again. It was the kind of sure thing Yvonne couldn’t promise her.
Maybe Sawyer would choose the quiet life, but I doubted it.
I had a feeling when I got to Las Vegas next year there’d be a lot of gossip about the new Pele initiate.
My phone vibrated as we were pulling out of town, and Leo put it on speaker for me. The sound of a familiar voice on the line made Fen pip noisily in the backseat.
“Hey, Lula-Belle,” Sunny said.
“Hi, Sunshine Marie.”
Sunny paused. “Hello, Leo Marquette. Don’t think I can’t hear you snickering.”
“Hi, Sunny.” He covered his hand with his mouth like he could hide his smile from her. Gods, he was over-the-moon crazy about her. What a disaster.
“I didn’t get a chance to see you before you left this morning. I had to head back to Arizona so early, I’m sorry.”
