Chapter 7

Jarryd

I tracked down the sidewalk away from the Moondance General Store, grinding my heels into the grit. Trees lined the road, their roots cracking through tar and concrete alike, twisting out from thick, scarred trunks.

“Fuck,” I said and checked my cell. It was approaching noon. Rod Meller expected me to Skype him within the next five minutes, but there wasn’t a chance I’d be back at the hotel in that time—thanks, in part, to the dumbass who’d distracted me long enough for Aurora to slip away.

The meeting would have to wait. I certainly couldn’t pick up a Wi-Fi signal halfway across the town.

Moondance was small, but it wasn’t that small.

Fuck the meeting. Fuck it all. It might have started as a passion project, but Pride’s Death was bringing me nothing but pain. I was cloistered, forced into a corner, questioned by my investor, and it was all my own dumbass fault.

I’d sunk my own money into this project, and if it fell through, I’d lose cred in Hollywood and a lot of contacts. It might break my career.

So, why aren’t you walking back to the hotel then?

Freedom. I needed freedom from this. From the straight-laced business of creating something that wasn’t good enough to start with. “I shouldn’t have gone ahead with it until we’d gone over the problems in the script,” I said, to myself.

I stopped in front of a dirt entrance and looked up at the blue sky then the sign over the road. Moondance Camp.

Aurora was free. She was free as a fucking bird and, last night, I’d felt it, too. One taste of her wasn’t enough. I had to have more. I needed to know her mind like I needed to breathe. This isn’t normal. Ha, did she put a spell on me? Yeah, she’d love that insinuation. She’d slap me for thinking it.

I stuck my hands in the pockets of my suit pants and faced down the sign. She was in there. Not in the actual sign but in the damn camp. Yeah, in there and probably upset over Felicity’s bitchery.

My phone pinged, and I drew it out of my pocket, swiped my thumb across the screen. A text from Rod. “Fantastic.” I opened it and braced myself.

Where the fuck are you, Tombs? This isn’t how I like to conduct business. If you miss another meeting, I’m going to can this entire project. Understand?

I slipped the phone back into my pocket. I couldn’t bring myself to care that much. Guilt, yeah, but caring if the project was axed? Not as much.

The guilt was for treating Rod this way. He’d stuck with me from the start, but hey, my endeavors in the past had paid out handsomely. Perhaps he expected every movie to pad his pockets as the others had. I couldn’t blame him for that.

But the sign, the camp, and her.

I’d already missed the meeting, so what the hell. Perhaps seeing Aurora again would give me the clarity I needed.

I walked beneath the sign and down the dirt road that led into the camp. Five minutes later, I wended between plots and tents, toward her spot. Her RV and dark tent were still there, thank god.

I moved the flap back and entered. She’d already set everything out again—the velvet tablecloth, the cards, books, crystals, and candles—but Aurora was nowhere to be seen. Mistress the kitty meowed from the front step of the RV.

“Hey,” I said, and bent, scratching behind her ear. “Where is she?”

“She’s right behind you, wondering what the hell you’re doing.”

I straightened, slowly, excitement unfurling in my chest. She was here. She sounded angry, but she was here. “Aurora,” I said and faced her.

She’d tied her curly hair up in a messy bun atop her head and wore a camisole—no bra, good Christ—and the long skirt that swished with every step. Her lips parted, face free of makeup, so beautiful.

I grasped for words and found none.

“What do you want?” Aurora asked and folded her arms.

“You,” I replied.

She inhaled, sharply.

“A date. Let’s do something together. Now.”

Aurora pursed her lips and stood her ground, but she didn’t say yea or nay.

“Fine,” I said and reached into my pocket. I drew out my wallet, flipped it open, and extracted a couple bills.

Aurora’s eyebrows rose high. “What the hell do you think I am?”

I waggled the cash at her. Probably not the best way to make my point. “How much to have my palm read?”

Her guard lowered slowly. She dropped her arms to her sides. “You want your palm read. The proverbial skeptic.”

“Yeah. Humor me. The card reading was interesting. It would be fun to try palms. You do that, right?”

She nodded. “On occasion.”

“Do me.” In more ways than one, gorgeous.

Aurora considered me, a quick onceover then pointed to the chair I’d sat in the night before. “All right,” she said. “If you insist.”

“The money,” I replied.

“Keep it.”

“No. I don’t accept free stuff. Never have.” I walked to the money box she kept on the shelf, opened it, and slipped the cash inside. I returned to the table and took my place.

Aurora moved her chair around to my side of the table, and sat close. She held out her hand. “I’ll need your palm to do this.”

“Right.” I placed my hand in hers, dwarfing it. I’d never pictured myself with a petite woman, but Aurora broke every stereotype. She was off the charts, and I loved that.

“Here,” she said and traced a line down my palm, sensual, slow. “This is your love line. It’s strong, see? But it’s intercepted here and here. That equals heartbreak.”

“Oh.”

“Palmistry isn’t my strong suit,” she said and dropped my hand. “You should speak to Mama Kate. I’ll get your money –”

“No.” I took her hand and held it. “I want you to continue. It’s interesting.”

“All right,” she said, reluctance entering her tone. She turned my hand over again, this time looking at its side. “See here? These are your relationship lines. The stronger and deeper they are, the longer the relationships will last.”

“What do you see?” I studied her up close, her long eyelashes, and the intense concentration as she turned my hand flat again and marked out the lines in question.

“One shorter relationship, which ends sharply. Another long one. And that’s it. I—these intercepting the lines are supposed to be children. It looks like two—two children.” Aurora’s voice broke.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I need a drink of water.” She grabbed a glass from the other side of the table, dragged it close then glugged back some aqua. “There, see? Better.”

I didn’t buy it. The children or the relationships had spooked her. Had she seen something she didn’t want to? Not that I believe this shit. Science and hard fact, that’s all that matters. Apart from this feeling. Christ, this feeling.

It was a buzz between us. A tension I could touch or stroke, almost as I wanted to stroke her. “What else do you see?” I asked.

She smoothed fingers over my skin, felt the dips and markings. “You have a long life line. But, huh, it looks like you had a negative experience earlier in life. An accident? Were you in a hospital, in a coma, maybe?”

“That’s creepy. Yes, I was in the hospital when I was a kid. My, uh, my dad took me out on the ocean and I almost drowned. He wasn’t paying attention. I fell off the yacht.” I forced myself not to grind my teeth at the memory. I didn’t need memories of my father in my head now. Dickhead.

“That might be it,” she said then ran her fingers over a center line next. “Your intelligence or head line.”

“Is this the part where you tell me I’ve got a low IQ?”

“Funny,” she replied and put down my hand. “Is this your idea of a good time?”

“What?”

“This,” Aurora said, and gestured to the tent and then herself. “I get it. I’m a big joke to you and your friends and your—Felicity.”

“She’s not my Felicity. She hasn’t been for a while. And she’s an asshole.”

“You class two weeks as a while?”

Touché. “It’s not like that, Aurora. I’m not trying to mock you. I want to be around you.”

“Why? I’m not interested in being an actor’s rebound. I don’t need that drama in my life.” She rose from the table, walked over to her cash box, and brought back my money. She tossed it onto the velvet tablecloth. “I’m not anyone’s joke. I won’t be judged by you.”

“I’m not judging you, for Christ’s sake. Look, you’ve got this all wrong. I’m not the asshole here.”

“And I am?” Aurora’s nostrils flared. Even that was cute.

“No. You’re not an asshole, and I’m not judging you. I want to spend time with you.”

She tossed her head, and her bun wobbled. “Why? Why would you want that?”

“Oh, fuck, I don’t know, maybe because you’re gorgeous, mysterious, intelligent?” I got up and the chair toppled over behind me. I circled the table.

She walked the other way around it, keeping out of reach. “I don’t do flings. I might’ve given you the wrong impression last night, but that’s not who I am. If that’s what you’re after—”

“I’m not after anything.”

“Fine by me. Leave.”

“Not what I meant,” I replied.

“Then be clear for once.” She continued circling the table.

It was the weirdest game of cat and mouse I’d ever played. I didn’t play games at all, usually. I stopped dead in my tracks, and she did, too. “Stop avoiding me.”

“It’s not about avoiding you, it’s about avoiding complications.”

“Complications,” I replied and raised an eyebrow. “I’m more than a complication, Aurora.”

She blushed and scratched the back of her neck. “We don’t need to talk about that.”

I gripped the edge of the table and shifted it aside. Her glass of water toppled and splashed to the grass.

“What the hell are you doing?”

I crossed the distance between us and pressed my chest against hers, but my hands didn’t touch her. Just looked down into her eyes, wide and hazel, with a greenish bloom in her left iris—beautiful.

“Why am I a complication?” I asked.

She quivered against me, rubbed her arms and they brushed against my abs. “You’re not part of the plan.”

“Life doesn’t care about your plans.”

Aurora paled.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing. Just something I heard already today. It’s nothing,” she whispered.

My mouth dried up.

Aurora was freedom made flesh, and all I could do was enjoy the experience.

“I want to see you again,” I said.

“You’re seeing me right now. You don’t understand, Jarryd,” she said. “Mr. Tombs, I mean.”

“Fuck, don’t call me that.”

“Fine, Jarryd. You don’t understand. I’ve spent my life working myself up to this time, this opportunity, and I can’t let it slip away. I have other concerns. I need to find a stable job. I have to figure out a proper savings plan. There are so many things you don’t know.”

A job? A savings plan? It might’ve seemed trivial to me, but I’d been in her position before.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Aurora said. “You’re you, and I’m me. You wouldn’t understand.”

I closed in again, and this time, I took her hands in mine and brushed my thumbs over her skin. The connection made her sway. I held back my reaction, kept control. “Help me understand. That’s all I ask.”

“I—”

“There’s something going on here, whether you want to admit it or not. I know I sound fucking crazy. We met yesterday, but we’ve got a connection, and I’d like to explore that. If it’s too much for you, too complicated, say the word and I’ll back off. I won’t approach you again.”

Aurora’s lips parted.

Don’t say the word. Christ, don’t say the fucking word.

“You want me to help you understand?” Aurora asked. “Why it’s complicated?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“OK,” she said. “OK, that’s reasonable. I can do that. I—uh, it will be difficult to explain here, now. Tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll meet up and I’ll take you there.”

“Where?”

She smiled, a soft one that damn near melted the steel wall I’d built around my heart. “You’ll see. Meet me at the entrance to the park at 7:30 a.m. Bring shoes you can walk in, and some water to drink. We’ll go through the forest. It’s not too far from here.”

“I’ll be there,” I said.

Aurora nodded then looked away, toward the tent’s flap, now guttering in the breeze. “OK.”

I cupped her chin, tilted her face back to mine then gave her one sweet kiss—the merest brush of my lips against hers. “Tomorrow.” I took two steps back, turned, shifted the table to the spot it’d been before then picked up the glass that had thunked to the grass.

“Leave it. I can clean it.”

“I made the mess,” I replied and placed the tumbler on the table cloth. The tarot cards were there. The Lovers. Choices, romance to come. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I left the tent.

Mistress followed me out, purring and half-tripping me. I scratched her behind the ears again then set off.

Aurora needed time, and I wouldn’t pressure her with my presence. As long as she’s honest with you. Not like the last one. I tried blocking the doubts out, instead of feeding into them.

Before Felicity’s extracurricular activities with her pool boy—how fucking cliché—I’d been trusting and totally unconcerned. I’d never imagined she’d cheat or that anyone else was capable for that matter. All that had changed.

I walked the long track out of the RV park, and the skin on the back of my neck prickled. I stalled, looked around. “Weird,” I muttered. Nothing moved beneath the trees, but I couldn’t shake the sense that something, or someone, was out there, watching.

It had to be paranoia—I didn’t have time for it. I marched beneath the sign to the RV park and turned in the direction of the hotel, thoughts on Aurora, on what’d she’d meant and the things I’d do to her given the chance.