Break the Sky (Spiral of Bliss Spin Off) (34 page)

My throat ached, even as his
I love you
and
you’re mine
swirled through me with all the youthful hope I never knew I had. I’d spent so many years trying to be tough, putting up walls, that I’d ignored the romantic dreams flourishing like flowers in my heart. A sweet, secret garden.

I pressed my hands to my face. Rain pounded on the roof of the car. I suddenly realized my wet clothes were cold and clammy, sticking to my skin.

I couldn’t ask him to stay again. Couldn’t stand the idea of trapping a storm even if the storm asked to be trapped.

I wanted to, of course. I wanted to fall to my knees and beg him to stay with me, to live my life and never leave, but I knew well the price of selfishness. I would never pay it again.

“I’ll call Dean to come and get me,” I said.

Archer tensed at the sound of his brother’s name, but he didn’t move to open the car door.

“Ask me to stay,” he said.

My heart broke right down the middle. “You can’t stay. You left home at seventeen, Archer. You’ve been on the road almost your whole life. You need freedom.”

“The hell I need freedom.” He grabbed my wrists, pulling my hands away from my face. His features were rigid, his eyes burning.

“I need you,” he snapped. “
You
are my freedom.”

I couldn’t speak. Love and despair battled inside me, hot and painful. I had never been needed by a man. Never needed one. Never
loved
one.

Archer released one of my wrists and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a quarter.

“Heads, I leave,” he said, his voice rough. “Tails, I stay.”

My heart crashed against my ribs. The edges of my vision darkened as he flipped the coin into the air. I grabbed it before it fell back into his palm.

Silence thickened the space between us. I heard the sound of his breath, sensed the desperation coiling through him.

Before I lost all courage, before the world could shatter me, I used the only weapon I had left. The one Archer had handed to me the day we met at the university.

“You need to go,” I repeated. I forced my voice to harden. I couldn’t look at him. “It was fun, but it’s over. You’d never fit into my life, Archer. We’re way too different. That’s exactly why it was just a good time. And why it’s time for you to leave.”

My words rang hollow, much as I tried to sound convincing. I clenched my fists, ready to fight again if I had to, but then the car door clicked open. It sounded like a bullet firing. Archer slid his hand beneath my chin, forcing me to look at him.

I searched his unwavering gaze, the pinpoints of light that I swore no one except me had ever noticed.

“I don’t for a second think you believe any of that,” he said, his eyes glittering. “We’re not so good together because we’re different, storm girl. We’re not night and day or sun and rain. We’re so damn good together because we’re the
same
. And you’ll never belong to anyone else. Ever. Neither will I.”

He released me and got out of the car. The door slammed shut.

I watched through the rain-splashed window as he walked back to his motorcycle. Then, like a cloud spinning into darkness, he was gone.

I looked at my fist and slowly uncurled my fingers. The quarter lay in my palm, flashing in the overhead light.

Tails.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

ARCHER

“PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICHES WITH STRAWBERRY JAM.”
Liv extended two paper bags, shifting Nicholas to her other arm. “And some treats from the Wonderland Café.”

“Thanks.” I took the bags and put them in the saddlebag of my bike. “I have plenty of chocolate milk in a thermos, too.”

Liv smiled, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes like it always did. I couldn’t tell if she was mad or sad or what, but then she reached out to hug me with her free arm.

“Have a safe trip,” she said. “I’m really glad you came, Archer. I hope you’ll visit us again soon.”

“Thanks.” I didn’t know what else to say to her.

I took Nicholas’s hand and gave it a little shake. He grabbed my forefinger. Tight, like he didn’t want to let go. I pulled my hand away and rubbed his hair.

“Later, alligator,” I said.

He blinked. Liv turned to where Dean stood slightly behind her. She touched his arm and started toward the Butterfly House with Nicholas. An awkward silence fell between Dean and me.

“Good luck, Archer,” he finally said. “I’m sorry about everything.”

“Yeah, me too.” I searched in my saddlebag and brought out the medieval King Arthur coin I’d been carrying around for weeks. “I found this in the box of stuff Mom sent me. I don’t know how it ended up there.”

Dean took the coin. “You gave this to me as a birthday present one year.”

“Yeah.”

“I’d always wondered what happened to it. It was a great present.”

I almost smiled. “For you, maybe. I’d have wanted Legos.”

“I know.” He looked at me. “Can I keep this?”

“I brought it for you.”

“Thanks.” Dean closed his fingers around the coin. “I’m sorry, Archer. I know I fucked things up by telling you. I wish to hell I’d never done that. It’s the biggest regret of my life.”

I shook my head, embarrassed by how things had gone down. “Forget it.”

“No, I made a mistake. I didn’t know how to fix it, either.”

“It wasn’t always your mistake to fix,” I admitted.

“I could have tried harder.” He stopped and cleared his throat. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but by assuming you’d be happy to take the money after working here… I was thinking like Dad.”

I didn’t get it. “Like Dad?”

“Yeah.” Dean shoved his hands into his pockets. “Whenever I earned something… a trophy or scholarship… he made such a big deal out of it. Bragged to all his friends. And when I wasn’t at the top, like if I got a B instead of an A on a test, he thought I’d failed. It was shitty, being a disappointment to Justice West because he expected so damned much from me. I learned that anything less was the same as failure. It was a tough standard to uphold.”

I guessed it was. I’d known early on that I’d never live up to the standard Dean had set. But I’d never thought he was struggling, too. That it wasn’t easy for him.

“I do know that people can work and do good things because they want to,” he continued. “Not because they expect a reward. And I’d never wanted to think like Dad or be like him.”

“You’re…” I swallowed. “You’re nothing like him, Dean. Even I can see that.”

“I’ve tried not to be.”

“You succeeded. You’ve always succeeded.” For the first time ever, the admission wasn’t followed by the pain of jealousy because I knew my brother’s success hadn’t come without a price.

And he’d been right. I’d had chances to turn my life around. I just hadn’t always taken them. I’d fixated on what I’d lost rather than what I’d been given.

Maybe, at the very least, it wasn’t too late to change that.

“Thanks for everything,” Dean said. “You did some impressive work, and you helped us out a lot. I really appreciate it.”

I looked past him to the house. Even now, I was still glad I’d stayed for a while.

Dean hesitated. “And look, think about the money, okay?” he asked. “Even if you don’t want it, our grandfather set it aside for you. And the reason he did was because you’re family.”

I nodded. I still had the lawyer’s papers. I didn’t want to be an ass about accepting a huge amount of money, but the truth was I’d lived my life the same way for twenty years. I didn’t want or need a house or anything big like that. I no longer had Kelsey to spend the money on. At most, I’d buy a new motorcycle and stick the rest of the money in a bank account.

I scratched my head. “Look, if I take the money, could you tell me what to do with it? You know, invest it or give some of it to charity or whatever. Put it in a college fund for Nicholas. I don’t know.”

Dean’s expression eased. “I’d be glad to help you. Thanks for asking.”

I turned toward my bike, not wanting to ask my next question. I hadn’t seen Kelsey in the two days since everything had gone to hell. “Do you know if Kelsey is still around?”

“She went to her mother’s place to finish taking care of stuff. Left yesterday.”

I reached back into my saddlebag for a thick, beige envelope. “Could you give this to her for me?”

Dean didn’t ask what it was. He just took the envelope and nodded. “Sure.”

“Okay. Well, see you.” I straddled the bike.

“Hey,” Dean said.

I looked back at him.

“You said you were bad off for a while,” he said. “That you didn’t know how to get help. So what made you go straight?”

“A girl.” I pulled on my helmet and fastened the strap. “Sarah.”

I expected him to ask more questions, but he didn’t. Instead, he nodded, like he knew all about how a girl could change your life for the better and lead you places you never knew existed.

“Maybe you’ll tell me about her one day,” he said.

“Maybe.”

I knew Liv and Dean had had their own struggles. Maybe one day he’d tell me about them, too.

But I didn’t want to hear about them now. Dean had known from day one there would be a happy ending with Liv. Even I could see that.

Just as I had known from day one that a happy ending wasn’t in the cards for Kelsey and me. For her, sure, with someone else. Someone nice and successful. For us, it was temporary. A hell of a good time
while I was here.

My mistake for forgetting that.

“I have your number on my phone,” Dean said. “If it changes, let me know, okay? I’d like to know where you are.”

“Sure. Thanks. Take care of Nicholas. Don’t forget about his tree house.”

“I won’t.” He stepped forward. “Come back sometime, man. I know it’s been tough, but maybe… well, it’d be good to see you again.”

I didn’t have a response to that. The idea of coming back and knowing that Kelsey—

Dean and I extended our hands at the same time and shook.

“Take care,” I finally said.

“You, too. Stay on target.”

“I copy, Gold Leader.”

I caught his grin before flipping down the shield on my helmet. I revved the engine and went down the driveway, through Avalon Street, away from the Butterfly House, away from Mirror Lake, away from Kelsey.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

KELSEY

I WALKED THROUGH MY MOTHER’S EMPTY
house and stopped at the windows overlooking the back garden. Weeds had begun to encroach on the flower beds. I ran my hand over the dusty windowsill. I’d given all the furniture to a charity organization, and offered most of my mother’s belongings to her friends.

A single cardboard box sat by the front door, filled with the things I’d wanted to keep—family pictures, albums, an icon my mother had brought with her from Russia, my father’s old pipe, a few shawls, lacquer boxes, and
pysanky
that my mother had painted.

I neither needed nor wanted anything else. I folded the flaps of the box and carried it out to my car. I left the house key in a lockbox for the real-estate agent and headed back to Mirror Lake.

Everything was finished now. All I had to do was put myself back onto the narrow path I’d created so long ago.

When I got home, I left the box in the living room and went to my basement craft room. I took a box of eggs from the shelf along with a container of dye and
pysanky
supplies. Nestled among the eggs were the two eggs Archer and I had worked on.

I picked up his egg and took off my glasses to study the design. He’d used dark red and black with a pattern of gold. I looked at the uneven colors, the rough lines, the smudged paint where the wax had smeared. The pattern was bold, brilliant, and imperfect. Like him.

My hand trembled. I closed my fingers tightly around the egg. The shell popped and cracked in my palm. My heart crashed. I tightened my fingers, crushing the delicate shell into a broken, irreparable mess. I opened my hand and let the shell fall into the trash can.

Then I grabbed the egg I’d painted and did the same thing. Crushed the shell in my palm, ground it to bits, and threw the detritus away. My pulse raced. A strange feeling of satisfaction and relief filled me—not unlike the wicked pleasure of getting away with something risky.

I put another egg on the table and slammed my fist against it. I swept the broken eggshell into the trash and picked up another one, breaking it in my palm before throwing it away. Bits of shell covered the table. Another one. Another. I would break them all.

“Kelsey?”

I stopped. Liv’s voice penetrated my fogged mind. I grabbed my glasses and put them on as I climbed the stairs. Liv was in the entryway, holding a paper bag.

“Sorry for barging in, but I saw your car outside and your front door was unlocked,” she said. “I got a little worried when you didn’t answer your cell.” She looked at me and frowned. “Are you okay?”

I nodded, pressing my hands to my flushed face. My heart was still hammering. I wanted to break something else.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

She gestured to the bag. “I brought you dinner from the café. Ham and cheese quiche, salad, and cupcakes. I figured you’d be tired from your trip. Dean is on his way over from campus.”

Shit. I didn’t want Dean to notice how much I was hurting. How much I dreaded trying to put my life back together when my heart felt like a broken eggshell.

I took the bag from Liv and turned to go into the kitchen. I put the food in the refrigerator, hoping she wouldn’t wait for me to ask the question.

She didn’t.

“Archer left a couple of days ago,” she said. “Have you heard from him?”

I shook my head. Liv watched me with perception.

“You fell in love with him, didn’t you?” she asked.

I nodded, though the phrase
fell in love
sounded much too simplistic to describe everything I felt for Archer.

I hadn’t just fallen in love with him. I’d fallen in need, in lust, in hope, in dream with him. I’d fallen crazily, head-spinningly, recklessly
into
him.

I loved his determination, his energy, his humor, his scars, and his desire for control. I loved the way he’d known from the beginning exactly what I needed. I loved that he was the only person in the world who could give it to me.

Liv started to speak again when the doorbell rang. I went to answer it, my heart stuttering at the sight of a big, male silhouette behind the beveled glass even though I knew it was only Dean.

I pulled open the door.

“You okay?” He looked wary.

“Yes.” I moved aside to let him in. “Don’t worry. I’m not moping or crying or having a fit of the vapors.”

“That wasn’t what I was worried about,” he said.

“I know.”

I had a brief flashback of Dean and me fifteen years ago. I’d been a reckless girl hell-bent on punishing myself, and Dean had been… a younger version of the man he was now.

A smile tugged at my mouth. I gave his hand a quick squeeze. “Come in. Liv’s in the kitchen.”

Some of the tension eased as Liv and Dean had a brief discussion of the rest of the day’s plans and the process of moving into the Butterfly House.

“What’s that?” Liv indicated a package tucked under Dean’s arm.

“I came to drop it off.” He held a thick envelope out to me. “Archer asked me to give it to you.”

The second my fingers closed around the envelope, I knew what was inside. My stomach twisted. I put the envelope on the counter.

“So, uh, how did everything end with you two?” I asked Dean.

“As well as it could,” he said. “And none of it had anything to do with you. Archer and I have issues that go back thirty years. For now, we’ve figured them out the best way we can.”

Beside him, Liv nodded at me. Relief eased some of my despair.

“Hey, you want to go for a run this afternoon?” Dean asked. “Maybe down by the lake. It’s a nice day to be outside.”

Good. Yes. Back to normal.

“Okay,” I agreed.

Liv tugged at Dean’s sleeve. “Let’s go.”

He didn’t move for a second, his gaze on me.

“What?” I asked.

“I don’t really get all this romantic stuff,” he said.

I glanced at Liv. She rolled her eyes as if to say,
“Sure he doesn’t.”
I almost smiled.

“And I guess I never knew Archer that well,” Dean continued. “But for what it’s worth, he does really seem to care about you.”

My heart clenched. “I know he does. It could just never work.”

Dean scratched his head, as if my statement made no sense. Liv tugged on his sleeve again.

“Come on, professor. Kelsey needs to be alone.”

“Okay.” Dean looked at me again. “You know where we are.”

“Yes. Thanks.”

The pain in my heart eased a little as I watched them leave. I loved the crap out of those two.

After they were gone, I picked up the envelope and went to sit on the sofa. My hands trembled as I opened it and pulled out Archer’s worn notebook. I turned to the first page.

In blue ink, he’d drawn a number of square panels containing intricate drawings and speech balloons. I leafed through the pages, all of which were full of the same thing.

A comic book. All this time, he’d been working on a comic book.

I looked at the title, the sharp-edged illustration of storm clouds and lightning bolts containing the word
Blue
.

In the center of a starburst was a woman clad in a skintight, blue uniform with a lightning bolt emblazoned across her chest. She had both hands extended, and two tornados twisted upward from her outstretched palms. Her shoulder-length blonde hair, embellished with a single streak of blue, was a windblown tousle around her head.

“Sonuvabitch,” I whispered.

I curled up on the sofa and started to read the story of the superhero Blue, a woman who got her energy from the weather and used storms and tornados to protect the earth from a cadre of villains out to overtake and destroy it. Blue was strong, fierce, determined, and volatile. She could kick ass because of her martial arts training or with her use of weather.

She was also involved in a rather intense relationship with Stone Hunter, a Harley-riding inventor who wanted to harness her powers for energy use.

Blue, however, did not want to be harnessed. Except for when she did, a change of heart that often happened when Stone was involved.

He was hot, too, Stone Hunter. Big and muscular with dark hair and a devilish grin.

I’d half expected to be crying by the time I finished the book and read about Blue and Stone’s victory over the evil Legion League. But instead I was a weird combination of exhilarated and worn out, almost as if I’d fought the battle myself.

I pulled up the sleeve of my T-shirt and looked at the Storm Girl tattoo that was now a permanent part of me. I’d fought the battle, all right. With Archer, with the Meteorology department, with the Spiral Project, with myself.

Unlike Blue, however, I had lost.

You are so smart, Kseniya. So strong. But you are so afraid to be happy.

Nothing ever changes if you don’t take risks.

I don’t want you to get hurt.

You’re the first real risk I’ve taken in a very long time.

You can do anything, Kseniya. Anything.

Come on, storm girl. Show me how not scared you really are.

I pushed to my feet. I wasn’t a self-pitying, pathetic waif. I’d learned the hard way how to get shit done. And I’d been surrounded by heroes.

My parents had braved an uncertain new life as immigrants and shown me exactly what strength and tenacity were. My mother had been the epitome of
courage
. Liv had pulled herself out of a shitty childhood when she was thirteen years old. Archer had beaten drug addiction and the stigma of his paternity. He had survived his rough, heartbreaking past. Dean had fought for everything he wanted and everyone he loved.

And so, goddammit, would I.

Instead of destroying painted eggs in my basement, I was going to do what people around me had proven
could
be done.

I was going to change the direction of the storm.

I was so nervous I was shaking. Fortunately, I’d had years of practice looking cool and professional even if I felt like I was about to throw up. Or worse.

I finished passing thick binders around the boardroom table at the Edison Power corporate office. I took a drink of water and tried to steady my nerves. I couldn’t help thinking of the night I’d first met Archer, when I hadn’t wanted to be
Professor March
.

But he’d wanted me. As a mysterious stranger in a bar. As Kelsey. As Professor March. As a woman, a risk-taking girl, a storm chaser, a scientist, an artist, even a loner. He’d wanted me whether I was cranky, happy, riddled with grief, tired, sharp, frumpy, irritated, angry, sexy, or exhilarated. Archer had accepted and loved everything I was.

A man who chases you because he is not afraid of the storm inside you. Who loves that part of you.

The thought calmed me like nothing else could.

Conversation hummed through the room. Stan Baxter sat at the table along with three Edison Power executives, David Peterson of the Explorer Channel, Chancellor Radcliffe, and two members of the King’s board of trustees.

Harold Clement of Edison Power was seated near the head of the table, wearing a tie patterned with electrical outlets and plugs. In an unspoken solidarity, I wore a pinstriped suit and a silk shirt embellished with embroidered lightning bolts.

“Nice tie,” I told Harold as I sat beside him.

He smiled. “Nice shirt. Good luck.”

I nodded. Though he was on my side, we both knew this was my show. All we needed to do was convince the King’s board of trustees and the Edison Power board of directors that our plan was a good one. And ask them for their money and approval.

“Gentlemen, thank you for coming today.” I stood up to address the meeting attendees. “I have a proposal for you. You all know about the Spiral Project. You all know about the Explorer Channel’s interest in creating a documentary program. And you all know that I’ve struggled for three years with funding for the project.”

My little speech was met with silence.

Don’t be scared, storm girl.

Archer’s deep voice echoed in my head. I took a breath and kept going.

“The Edison Power board of trustees has declined to fund the project on the grounds that it doesn’t allow for enough community outreach,” I said. “But Mr. Clement and I have been corresponding for the past week, and we’ve come up with a viable solution for all parties. First, I’d like to let Mr. Peterson tell you about the Explorer Channel’s interest in the Spiral Project.”