Nocte (The Nocte Trilogy #1)(12)
Author: Courtney Cole

She pauses, glancing back outside, hesitant now as she stares at the closed door of the Carriage House.

“Um… let’s have a raincheck, ok?”

I suck in a breath, startled that she would ditch me for this guy.  I should’ve known from the new look on her face.  The look of intoxication. But having it actually slap me in the face for the first time is still shocking.

She has an interest outside of me.  Something that came between us, even though the moment is small… even though it’s just a stupid drive to the beach.

Even though I want to be unselfish, I don’t know if I can handle it.

We were outsiders our whole childhoods and all the way through high school.  And while it sucked, it was also a hidden blessing, because since I was all Calla had, she focused solely on me.  We’ve always been everything to each other.

Bile rises up in my throat as I watch her descend the porch steps and walk across the lawns, her chin stuck out, and her hands buried in her hair as she arranges it over her shoulder.

I need her. I need things to stay the same.  But I can’t risk her.  I can’t suck her down.  I can’t let my craziness swallow her then spit her out.  But I need her.

My thoughts are contradicting and confusing and swirl around in my brain until I can barely focus.  I stagger to the window seat and stare down, my forehead pressed against the glass as I try to catch my breath.

Serva me, servabo te.

Save me, and I’ll save you.

As I remember the dark-haired guy’s confident stride, I have a feeling that he’s someone I won’t be able to save her from.

But the die has been cast.

I see that now.

7

SEPTUM

Calla

He came.

I think I’m in shock as I linger near the house, trying to seem like I’m casually sitting at the little table on the side porch, like I’m not waiting with bated breath for them to re-emerge.  

I can’t believe he’s here.

It’s been days since he took dad’s phone number, and I waited every day, but he didn’t call. I thought he wasn’t going to, that I’d imagined the chemistry, the connection.  Maybe even that I’d imagined him.

But he re-appeared in my dreams, again and again. Smiling at me, staring at me, being with me. My subconscious is definitely trying to urge me toward him, maybe even toward living again. I don’t know.

All I know is that he’s here, out of the blue today, with his dark eyes and British accent and on a motorcycle, no less.

Kismet prevails.

My lungs feel fluttery, along with my heart, my stomach and my ovaries.  All of it feels quivery, like a shaking ridiculous mess. It feels like it’s meant to happen, that I keep bumping into him, and dreaming about him, and now he’s here in my life.

It almost takes my breath away.

This feeling only grows more pronounced when the Carriage House door finally opens and my father and Dare step back out.  They shake hands and my father immediately heads back toward the house, a small smile on his lips.  Halfway across the lawns, he diverts his course and heads for me.

Stopping in front of me, he stares down.

“The last few weeks have been hard. Too hard. I’m not going to pretend to know what you’re going through, because our paths are different and we feel our loss in different ways.  All I’m going to say is this.  Be careful.  You’re naïve and innocent and your mother would know what to say right now, but I don’t.  This the first time you’ve seemed interested in something in weeks. So all I’m going to say is be careful.  Ok?”

I’m utterly speechless because my father’s expression is so knowing.  It’s like he looked inside my head and saw the connection I feel toward Dare, the interest, the intrigue.  He’s nervous for me, but yet he’s still willing to rent the Carriage House to Dare because he needs the money. And because he thinks Dare will distract me from my grief.

I nod. “Ok.”

He nods back, then walks into the house without another word.  From behind me, I swear I can feel Finn staring at me, his gaze beating between my shoulder blades from the windows, but I shake it off.  I’m not doing anything wrong.

Or am I?

Because as Dare looks up and meets my gaze, he smiles a mischievous smile that makes me think I am.

Dare me.

To do what?   That question makes me tingly.

Dare slowly walks across the yard, and motions to the chair across from me.  “Is that seat taken?”

I roll my eyes. This game again?

“No.”

He doesn’t ask, he just sits in it, stretching his long legs out and crossing them at the ankles and stares at me, like he belongs in that chair.  I raise an eyebrow, but he’s still silent.

“So, you have a British accent, but your last name is DuBray.  How does that work?” I finally ask, desperate to make him stop staring at me.  His mouth twitches.

“Is that your third question?”

Frustration bubbles up in me, regardless of how cute things sound coming out of his mouth.

“Do I have to count every single question I ask?  I’m only making polite conversation.”

He shakes his head, and smiles just a bit.  “Fine. I’ll give you this one in the name of polite conversation.  My father died when I was a baby and he was French.  My mother was British, so we moved there.  I’ve lived there my whole life, hence the accent.”

His beautiful, beautiful accent.  I nod.  “I’m sorry about your father.”

He shrugs.  “He was a good man, but it was a long time ago.”

I itch to ask him how old he is, but I resist the urge. I can’t use another question already.  Besides, I’d bet money that he’s twenty-one.  Or so.

“Can you speak French?” I ask hopefully, because Lord have mercy that would be hot.

“Oui, mademoiselle,” he answers smoothly.  “Un peu.  A little bit.”

Be still my freaking heart.  I stare at him, enthralled.

“So,” he finally says, changing the subject so very casually, as though he’s not the coolest, sexiest man alive.  “How do you survive living in a funeral home?  Have you ever seen a ghost?”

I ignore my pounding heart and raise an eyebrow.  “I’ll take this question to mean that you did, in fact, have the balls to rent the carriage house?”

He chuckles, a raspy, husky sound that vibrates right into my belly.