Cheating Heart, A Lost Souls Novel: A Lost Souls Novel (9 page)

Chapter 7

Vienna was thankful that they made it through dinner without Jack showing up.  The entire evening her mind kept running over fibs she could use to explain Jack’s appearance.  But so far, she hadn’t had to use any of them, which was a good thing, since she was a horrible liar.  And she knew there was no way possible that James would believe Jack just happened to live in Oceanside. 

James put his arm around Vienna to help shield her from the chilly wind.  It was now completely dark outside except for the lights that lined the pier.  Even though she was cold, and confused as heck about men, she couldn’t help but feel the romance in the air.
  Kim and Steve were walking hand in hand in front of them.

“Thanks for dinner,”
she said.

“No problem,”
James said, pulling her closer to him.  “I’m glad you came out.”

“Yeah, me too. 
It’s been really nice.  And again, I’m sorry about earlier.  It’s just…well…hard.”  She’d decided to tell James the truth of what happened last night at the club.  Well, the partial truth.  She left Jack out of the story.  She told James about running into her ex-boyfriend and how they’d dated for a few years.  And within that time, Brandon had managed to break her heart several times over.  Now he was trying to get back in touch with her and she wasn’t quite sure how she felt about it.  She decided it was best to be honest with James about her feelings to maintain their friendship.

“No need to apologize,” he said soothingly, leading her over to the railing.  They looked out at the twinkling stars over the ocean.  The chilly winds that kicked in had blown
away the fog that had been rolling in earlier.

“Thanks,” Vienna said, softly.

James turned to smile at her.  Their eyes locked.  Vienna could sense a gentleness behind his adoring gaze.  Without thinking, her lips grazed his in a light kiss catching him off guard.  He chuckled.  “I didn’t expect that.”

Vienna smiled
, suddenly feeling embarrassed by her initiating a kiss.  “Me neither.  I’m sorry.  I don’t know why I did that.” 

“Don’t be sorry.”  He leaned in and his warm soft lips caressed hers.  She wasn’t sure of her fee
lings or why she was doing this, but at the same time she didn’t care. She kissed him back.  It felt nice, wonderful and comforting.  Then James tenderly ran a finger down her cheek while staring intently in her eyes. 

Vienna shivered as another cold breeze
skimmed across the ocean and blasted them on the pier.  James pulled her closer to his chest and they both gazed out into the night.  Suddenly the sound of the waves rolling in one after the other reminded Vienna of the nightmare she’d had.  She could almost feel the blood dripping from her hands and see the waves change to crimson before her eyes.  Vienna gripped the railing in front of her.  She blinked hard a few times and then kept her eyes on the rolling waves waiting for them to change color.  To her relief they didn’t.  They were dark, normal waves with the moonlight reflecting silver off of the rising and falling crests. 

No blood,
she thought,
get a grip on yourself.  It was a dream.
  

James put his arms around
Vienna’s waist and pressed his body against hers.  His breath tickled her neck as he gently caressed her skin with affectionate kisses.  The warmness of his chest against her back was calming against the deep chills.  Whether the chills were brought on from the night’s air or the remembrance of that awful dream, she wasn’t sure. 

Vienna closed her eyes, pushing the nightmare from her mind
.  She tried to focus on being in the moment with James.  It wasn’t working. 

Crimson.
 

She was
seeing
crimson! 

Everything was blood red with her eyes closed.  Vienna opened her eyes and stared out at the
velvet sky.  Her hands were still resting on the railing in front of her. 
Oh no,
she thought.  Her palms felt sticky. 

James’ lips moved to her earlobe.  Vienna lifted her hands
to assure herself that there was no blood.  She blinked hard, not believing her eyes.  She had to be imagining things.  The palms,
her
palms, were red.

“Oh my God!” she shrieked
, jerking her head back whacking James in the face. 

“Ough!”  James jumped backwards
, grabbing his nose and groaning.  “What the…?”

“My hands are covered in blood!”
Vienna screamed.  “Look!”

James peered at her over his hands that were still clutching his
throbbing nose.  “What happened?”

“I, uh, I don’t know…”  Vienna stood there
in shock, staring at her bloody hands.

Kim and Steve
had been sitting on a bench at a lookout point where several pay binoculars were posted on poles, a little ways down from them.  Hearing Vienna’s scream, Kim hopped up and ran toward them.  Her eyes grew large as she noticed the sticky red blood.  “Oh my God!  Vienna, what happened?  James, are you okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” James said, pinching the bridge of his nose with his hand.
  “I don’t think it’s broken.”

“Dude,” Steve said, coming up behind them.  He slapped James on the back.  “She beat you up again
, huh?”

“
Ha! Very funny,” James said giving Steve the evil eye.  He’d told Steve in confidence about when he tried to kiss Vienna in Las Vegas and their noses collided. 

“I don’t know what happened.”  Vienna held her hands out to them.
  “Look!  I was just leaning here and looking at the ocean…and…”

“Oh,” Steve said.  “Fish guts!”

“What?” Vienna gasped, both relieved and horrified at the same time.  She studied her gooey palms. 

Kim
pulled a face and grabbed Vienna’s hands.  She sniffed at them and wrinkled her nose.  “Ewww… yuck!  Most definitely fish guts!”

“People fish off the pier all
of the time,” Steve said.  “I see them gutting fish and wiping their blades on the railing.”

“That’s disgusting!” Kim
cried.

Vienna looked over and noticed Jack
was there with them.  He was casually leaning against the railing across from her.  His arms were crossed over his chest.  Her eyes met his sparkling blue gaze.  He grinned at her with amusement.

“Sometimes they even slice up their bait there
, too.”  Steve shrugged.  “Probably been there for awhile and the humidity kept it moist.”

“Nice,”
Vienna said sarcastically as she broke eye contact with Jack.  Since Kim hadn’t said anything about Jack’s appearance, her guess was that at the moment he was only using enough energy to be visible to her.  She looked again at her sticky red palms.  She wasn’t so sure what the blood was from or whether it really was fish or if it was human.  All she knew and cared about was that she wanted it off of her as soon as possible.  The thought sickened her.  She looked over her shoulder at the restaurant back at the end of the pier.  They had wandered quite a ways from the restaurant and she wanted this off now.  And she sure as hell wasn’t going to wipe her hands off on her pants and be covered in blood and stink like rotten fish.  There was nowhere else to go.  She wished for a napkin, or paper towel, anything that could get the blood off.  

“There’s a
bathroom by the bait shack.” Steve nodded to the building not too far ahead of them where they’d seen Charlie the pelican earlier that evening.

“Thanks,” Vienna
said.  She started walking quickly toward the bait shack and away from the bloody railing and an amused Jack.  She didn’t find having bloody hands even remotely funny.  His smirk bugged the heck out of her.  She couldn’t help but wonder if he planned this just to ruin her date.  And if he did, then wouldn’t that make him jealous.  Vienna’s stomach lurched a little at the thought.  She wanted him to be jealous.  She wanted him to want her.  But at the same time, since they couldn’t be together, she wanted him to just go away.  Far away.  Maybe Kim was right.  Maybe she did have a cheating heart. 

“Hey!
” James said, catching up to her and breaking her from her thoughts.  “Wait up.  First you bash my nose in and now you run away?  I don’t get it.”

“I’m sorry,”
Vienna said, completely embarrassed.  She didn’t even want to look at him right now.  She was so completely horrified.  “I just got totally freaked out about the blood.  I’m sorry about your nose.  I really didn’t mean to…I feel awful…”

“It’ll be okay,” he said
, grinning.  “It’s feeling better already.  Besides, I’m sure you can find a way to make it up to me.”

That made her smile
.  She was so glad that he wasn’t upset with her.  She really had expected him to lose it.  “Hmmm, maybe I will,” she teased back.  “There’s got to be something I can do to make you feel better.”  She hoped that flirting would help smooth things over.  She knew that even though he was making light of the situation, his nose still had to be throbbing something fierce.  She whacked him pretty hard with the back of her head.  The thought was so humiliating.  Leave it up to her to do something so stupid.

“Make it up to him?
” Vienna heard Jack ask.  He was now right behind her.  In a flash, he’d caught up to her and James. “How are you supposed to do that?  What does he mean by that?”  He poked his head in between them and grinned.  “Hey, does this look familiar?  I believe we’ve done this once before.  Remember?”  She knew he was reminiscing about Las Vegas and him tagging along on her first date with James.  Jack had a horrible habit of ruining her love life.  Not like she needed any help in that department.  She could ruin her dates without his help.

Vienna turned and
glared at him, willing him to go away.  She tried again to throw up an invisible wall to block him out.  But Jack’s grin grew. 
Why is he grinning at me like that?
  She wondered if he knew she was trying to block him out.  He was really irritating the heck out of her. 

Go away!
she thought while throwing him the most wicked stare she could muster.

“Or not,” James said, catching her glare.  “I
-I, um, was only teasing…you don’t owe me anything.”

“Oh, no!” Vienna said when she re
membered that James couldn’t see Jack and realized that he thought she was glaring at him.  “I’m sorry.  I’m just still kind of freaked out about the blood.  You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Let the lady wash her hands!
” Jack growled, even though James couldn’t hear him.  “Can’t you see she’s been traumatized?”

Vienna was so tempted to roll her eyes, but refrained.  She was just grateful that Jack was keeping himself in Spirit Guide form right now and not full blown human body
so she didn’t have to try and make up some kind of lame excuse as to why he was there, following her.  “I want to make it up to you,” she said to James, hoping to get Jack all riled up.  As far as she was concerned, Jack deserved it. 

James beamed.  “
Really?”

“
Yes, really,” she said, stopping in front of the bathroom door.

“
I can’t wait…”  He flashed a gorgeous smile.

“I’ll be right back.”  Vienna
turned the knob of the small bathroom door. She was thankful to find it unlocked.  She felt for a light switch and a small dim light came on.  She closed the door to the small one stall restroom and turned on the sink.  There was no mirror.  She could only imagine how frightful she looked right now.  Her thick curly brown hair was probably one huge windblown knot.  She rubbed her hands beneath the water a lot longer than necessary, but kept picturing blood still on her now clean skin. 

“How are you going to make it up to him?”

Vienna spun around to see Jack standing behind her.  He had his head cocked to the side awaiting an answer.  She could have sworn that he sounded jealous in an overly protective sort of way.

“
What does it matter to you?” she whispered. “And what are you doing in here anyway?” The last thing she needed was James to think she was talking to herself in the bathroom.  She kept the water running, hoping it would drown out her voice.

“I’m protecting you,” he said, looking around the small
dingy bathroom.

“Well,” she said, “I’m fine.”

“No,” he said.  “You’re not.”

“It’s just fish guts,” she said.  Her
heart began to race.  She knew something was wrong, but she was trying to ignore it.  She was feeling too emotionally stressed out with her own life to deal with anything paranormal.  “I’ll be fine.”

“Be careful,” Jack warned.  “I’ll stay close by.”

“Wait,” Vienna said when he turned to leave.  “Who do I need to be protected from?  Is it James?”

“No,” Jack said, frowning.  “Not James.
  It’s something dark.  I haven’t been able to get a read on it yet.”

Vienna nodded, thankful to know that James wasn’t going to end up being some serial killer
planning to hack her up into bits and pieces.  With her luck with men, she could never be quite sure.  “Is it a man? You know, a ghost of a man?”