Harvest Moon (7 page)

A few silent minutes later, we pulled into a parking lot for a garage. “Takoda Harley Restorations?”

Jason nodded, focused on the sign over the door as he turned off the car. “Yeah, Sasha’s sister moved in with her…” He hesitated for a second. “Her boyfriend. He owns the place and has a studio apartment in the back.”

I got out and followed a pace or two behind Jason to the door. He rang the bell and a willowy raven-haired woman with familiar green eyes opened the door.

“Nadya?”

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Oh my God, Kilani?”

She and I closed the distance between us and embraced. I held her at arm’s length, taking in her grown features. “How long has it been?”

“More than fifteen years.”

Jason cleared his throat, reminding me we weren’t alone. “You two…know each other?”

Nadya grinned. “We went to Brightwood Academy together. Kilani was a few years older than me. She used to help me with my homework.”

Jason opened his mouth but closed it again without speaking. Instead he shook his head and smiled, but it looked forced. “Small world.”

“Sure is.” Nadya took my hand and pulled me inside. “I can’t wait for you to meet Sasha.”

“She’s your older sister. The one studying to be a police officer, right?”

“That was a long time ago. She’s a detective now.”

When we rounded the corner, another woman with the same fine Russian features as Nadya got up from the couch, and two dark-haired men stood at the bar of a modest kitchen.

I reached out to shake her hand. “You must be Sasha.”

She nodded with a firm grip. “And you are?”

Nadya answered for me. “This is Kilani. My friend from Brightwood Academy.”

Brightwood was a small boarding school for girls with psychic abilities. What were the chances we’d find each other in Reno of all places? Had Sebastian sent her here, too?

The other two men tensed at the mention of Brightwood, a similar reaction to Jason’s outside. And one of the men was…Adam? No, this guy had shorter hair. A twin brother?

I let my hand drop to my side. “Is there something wrong?”

Jason came around the corner and stopped behind me. The heat of his body teased me through the back of my shirt. Apparently he was very close but not quite touching. I forced myself to remain still. The air sucked out of the room for a moment until he came up beside me.

“Nero owns Brightwood Academy.”

I frowned, turning to Jason. “What? How could you possibly know anything about Brightwood?”

“Have a seat and we’ll fill you in.” Jason led me to the sofa.

Sasha remained standing. “She’s the one you called about? Sebastian sent her here?”

A big guy with his black hair pulled back in a ponytail and a tattoo around his chiseled biceps came around the corner. We stared at each other while I tried to place why he looked so familiar. Maybe he was doing the same thing. He took Nadya’s hand, his questioning gaze focused on Jason, and that’s when I figured it out.

“You’re the guy from the hospital that day. You came and found me to get the insulin and glucose.”

His dark eyes moved from me to Jason and back again before he nodded. “Yeah. That was me.”

Man of few words. He took Nadya’s hand and I realized he must be the boyfriend Jason mentioned. Wow. She coaxed a smile out of the big guy and I almost followed suit. I couldn’t get over seeing her all grown up. Seemed like just yesterday that we’d been kids at Brightwood.

And never in a million years would I have pictured her moving in with a biker. If what they were saying about Nero owning Brightwood was true, my vision all those years ago about Nadya’s parents may have saved me.

Nadya’s boyfriend tipped his head toward Jason. “What happened to your face?”

“I’m fine.” Jason gestured toward him. “Kilani, I don’t think you got properly introduced before. This is Gareth.”

He didn’t make a move to shake my hand. “How do you know Sebastian?”

Okay, so we’d skip the flowery
nice to meet you
. Worked for me. “My roommate was dating him.”

Sasha took up a spot beside her sister. “Jason told me a little. Why don’t you fill in the blanks?”

I told her about Grace and the night I discovered her body. My voice only cracked a few times. “I called the police and then Sebastian. He told me through clenched teeth that he wished I’d contacted him first. I didn’t understand why at the time.” I crossed my arms, wishing I could insulate myself from the fear. “Apparently his employer, Nero, put out a hit on Grace and didn’t realize she had a roommate. They’d wanted Sebastian to discover her body. Since I found her and then got the police involved, I became a loose end they want to tie up.”

Sasha frowned. “And Sebastian told you to come to Reno?”

“He said I should go to Reno and find a new nursing position. When I got here, he had new IDs waiting for me. I got a job at the hospital, and he told me if I noticed anyone following me or asking questions, I should go to Whispering Pines and ask for Adam.”

Sasha looked at Jason. “And Adam thinks this is a set-up.”

Jason shrugged. “He wants us to make contact with Sebastian to determine his motives. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

Sasha turned my way. “What made you go look for Adam?”

“I got a text from Sebastian.” I pulled out my phone and clicked on the text. “Beware the Jabberwock.”

Sasha took my phone, staring at the message for a second. She handed it back to me, her gaze moving around the room. “That’s Sebastian’s signal not to contact him. His cell and email might be compromised, and Nero is on the way.”

“We need to find him.” Jason’s words were clipped, injected with urgency. “Adam won’t get the…family involved. Not until he knows Kilani isn’t a plant for Nero.”

“If she was a tool for Nero, Sebastian wouldn’t mention the Jabberwock. If they found out he’s used it before, to help me…” She shook her head. “It’d be deadly for him to make that kind of mistake.”

Gareth straightened to his full height. “The night I tangled with him up in Virginia City, he’d been drinking. He said his father killed someone he cared about. That was why he didn’t try to take Nadya in for Nero to study. He wanted to punish his father. If he was telling the truth, and he really did feel something for Kilani’s roommate, maybe he’s protecting her because she was Grace’s friend.”

Sasha pondered that for a minute before shrugging her shoulders. “That seems like a stretch unless he’s experienced huge amounts of personal growth over the past few months, but I guess anything is possible. We’ll go talk to Adam. Until we have a plan, you should stay close to Jason.”

I nodded, but inside, butterflies tickled my stomach. Maybe I could spend the night with Nadya instead. My attention landed on her boyfriend and I remembered this was a studio apartment. No sale.

I lifted my gaze to find Jason watching me. Did he have to be so freaking good-looking? Even with a cut on his eyebrow and some swelling at the corner of his mouth, he’d turn heads.

“Fine. But I’m working third shift tomorrow at the hospital.”

“We’ll figure something out.” Jason glanced at the others. “Thanks, Sasha. Sorry to intrude.”

Nadya wrapped me in another hug. When she stepped back, her smile seemed tentative, worried. She’d always been a strong empath. No doubt, my fear pummeled her mental shields. “We have lots of catching up to do.”

“Once this blows over, we’ll meet up.”

Everyone in the room nodded like this was a certainty, and we said our good-byes without ever acknowledging the huge elephant in the room.

There was a better than average chance, when this blew over, I’d be dead.

T
he suffocating silence in the car did nothing to ease the knot in my stomach. I pulled my hair back from my forehead and released a pent-up breath. “Are you sorry you offered to help me yet?”

Jason chuckled but kept his eyes on the road, bruised knuckles tight on the wheel. “You probably already know I’m not.”

“What?” I turned his way, frowning. “What’re you talking about?”

“You went to Brightwood Academy. You’re a psychic of some kind.”

Now I was connecting the dots. If they knew Nero owned Brightwood, and Nadya was part of their group, they had to know about the criteria you needed to meet in order to get accepted into the school. I shifted in my seat, watching the lights pass by the passenger window.

“I have a little twinkle.”

“A twinkle?” He waited, but I didn’t turn to look at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Look, I appreciate you helping me, but I hardly know you and I’m not ready to spill my guts to a total stranger. You have secrets, and I have a few, too.”

He groaned, guttural, almost like a growl. “Fine. Let’s get to know each other, then.”

“I just want Nero out of my life and then I’ll be out of yours. We don’t need to pretend we’re friends.”

He wound up a pine-tree-lined private road and finally into the driveway of a slate-gray single-story home with a stone entranceway. The garage door opened and he drove inside, closing the door behind him. He turned off the key before he looked my way.

“What is it with you? Are you always this stubborn, or is it just that I repulse you?”

His jaw tightened, clenching his teeth to keep from saying more. He still gripped the steering wheel with one hand, his muscles in his arm tight and distracting.

Yeah, he didn’t repulse me at all. That was part of the problem.

“What’s so hard to understand?” I popped my door open, dispersing the fresh, almost wild scent I was starting to associate with him. “From the day we met, you lied to me, just like every other doctor I’ve dated. Forgive me for learning from my past mistakes and protecting myself.”

“Okay, ask me something that doesn’t have anything to do with my family.”

“I won’t know if you’re lying.”

“I think you will.” His bright hazel eyes sparkled in the dim light of the garage.

“All right.” I had no clue what to ask, and then a vision flashed through my head. Jason in a ring. A boxing ring. Blood trickling from his nose. And then it was gone. My confidence in my visions was wavering. First our naked entwined bodies, and now a boxing ring? The last thing a doctor would get involved in was boxing. They made their living off their brains and their hands, and both took a beating in a boxing ring. Jason was smarter than that. I thought.

His bruised knuckles twisted on top of the steering wheel as he awaited my question. I swallowed the disbelief and opened my mouth. “How did you really get that cut on your face and the bruises on your hands?”

He hesitated and rubbed a palm down his face before meeting my eyes. “I’ve been boxing.”

My jaw threatened to drop wide open. “Why?”

He shook his head. “There’s not enough time to answer that now.”

He got out of the car and I followed him inside. His house wasn’t what I expected. There wasn’t opulence or a sense of supremacy in a bookcase lined with leather-bound first-edition books or polished ancient fossils. The décor embraced the grays of the stone fireplace in the center of the room. All the wood was natural pine, not some kind of rare walnut or cherry wood, and his walls weren’t covered in awards and accolades; instead there were black-framed charcoal sketches of wolves.

I wandered closer to the wall. The drawings were intricate. Each wolf had character, his spirit shining in his eyes. I turned to find Jason behind the bar in the kitchen. “These are amazing. Who’s the artist?”

He glanced my way as he brought two glasses out of the cupboard. “I used to sketch. It helped me focus my thoughts.”

“
You
drew these?” I leaned in closer to the frame like I might find his signature hidden inside. “You missed your calling.”

He let out a wry laugh as he dropped ice cubes into the glasses. “My family needed a doctor not an artist.”

Family. He’d given up on a dream for his, and I’d run out on mine. I didn’t even know if Grandma Nani had gotten my warning.

Who was I to judge this guy? Another brick in my emotional barrier wobbled.

Chapter Seven

J
ASON

S
he perused my wall, examining my artwork while I filled two glasses with ice water. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her, wondering what was going on in her head. Usually I had an easy rapport with women, but there was no pinning her down.

It didn’t help that since she’d touched my hand, the wolf inside of me was wide awake and eager to be near her. Coherent thought threatened to slip right through my bruised fingers.

Just like every other facet of my damned life, I had no control.

While she was distracted with the wall of wolves, my gaze wandered over her features, memorizing every curve of her face. Exotic and beautiful. And a complete mystery. Her blatant dismissal of doctors made it clear, she’d had her heart broken before, and as irrational and stupid as it was, I wanted to kick his ass for hurting her, for forcing my mate to build this impenetrable emotional barrier.

My mate. Insanity.

I came out from the kitchen. “Water?”

She took it with a hint of a smile. “Thank you.”

I took a swallow from my glass and noticed her bare feet. Her sandals sat next to the front door. Not that I was married to shoes, but unless I was in the shower, I usually had them on. Seeing her tanned feet and ruby red toenails seemed intimate in a way. And incredibly foreign to me.

“Does the turtle symbolize something?” The sound of my own voice shocked me. Jesus, I’d blurted the question out loud. What was it about this woman that made me lose my shit around her?

She looked puzzled, staring up at me for a second before realization dawned. Looking down at her ankle, she pulled her pant leg up a little higher to expose the entire tattoo. “He’s a
honu
. I’m from Hawaii. The sea turtle is my family’s
aumakua
, our protector.”

She’d shared something personal. Holy shit. I did my best to hide the shock. Playing it cool came naturally to me. Usually. With Kilani I couldn’t seem to find my footing.

“Is your family on the mainland now?”