Mother May I (Knight Games Book 4)
Mother May I: Knight Games Book 4
Mother May I
Genevieve Jack
Carpe Luna Publishing
Mother May I: Knight Games Book 4
Copyright © 2014 Carpe Luna Publishing
Published by Carpe Luna, Ltd., PO Box 5932, Bloomington, IL 61701
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.
FIRST EDITION: March 2015
eISBN: 978-1-940675-17-6
Cover design by Steven Novak
v1.0
BOOKS BY GENEVIEVE JACK
Knight Games Series
The Ghost and The Graveyard, Book 1
Chapter 1
Return to Me
T
rue wanting drains a soul. It’s a persistent squeaky wheel at the back of your brain. I’d survived twenty-two years without Rick; a temporary hiatus from him should have been simple. But it wasn’t. As I searched for him in the woods behind his cabin, following the metaphysical connection that lingered despite the loss of our emotional one, I ached with a need that bordered on obsession. He didn’t remember me—no recollection at all of our shared history. But I remembered him. And that memory was a barb under my skin, a constant reminder that an evil witch had torn our love from its mooring and left us ruined.
Amid calls of songbirds, I broke from the trees to see the bright spring sun reflected on serene waters. Rick’s silhouette was positioned on a fallen log near shore, broad shoulders hunched over a fishing pole in his hands. His caretaker powers meant he’d surely sensed me coming, and he turned to look at me
“I brought you something,” I said, waiting to approach as if he were a skittish dog. My gift hung from my shoulder in a bag with the store’s logo on the front. I kept it tucked under my elbow, nervous about how he’d perceive it.
Blessedly, Rick smiled and patted the section of the fallen log next to him. “Come.” He rested his fishing pole on the ground between his feet.
“Fishing again?” I asked, lowering myself to the log next to him. I was not surprised, actually. Since Rick lost his memory, he’d taken to living the life he had before he became the vessel for my immortal soul, my caretaker. That life consisted mostly of fishing, hunting, and gardening. Harmless enough but a distraction from my goal of reviving his lost memory.
“Shhh.” He held a finger to his lips. “You’ll scare dinner.”
“Wouldn’t want to do that,” I lied. In fact, I’d eaten more rabbit, venison, and freshwater fish of all kinds in the three weeks since he’d lost his memory than I had my entire life prior. The food wasn’t bad. Rick could cook. He just couldn’t enjoy it—not like I could, anyway. While Rick could eat, food wasn’t nourishing to his constitution, nor did it taste any better than cardboard. Caretakers thrived on a diet of blood, sex, and supernatural souls. Although, since he lost his memory, Rick existed solely on my blood, served up in a glass that required no physical contact whatsoever.
“I was hoping you would come,” he said. He leaned his elbows on his knees and turned toward me on the log. “You always loved fishing.”
“You mean Isabella always loved fishing,” I corrected. His gaze slipped from mine to a clump of moss near his feet. “If you’re asking, I
like
fishing. I do. I went with my dad a few times. The lake was peaceful, and then there was the excitement of reeling in the catch. It was okay.”
Rick turned his face toward me again, his eyes narrowing as if I were a puzzle to be solved. “What do you love, Grateful?”
The word
you
stuck in my throat. I rubbed my palms on my thighs. “I love taking care of people. That’s why I became a nurse. I used to have a dog when I was little, and I would wrap up his leg with bandages and pretend he’d broken it. I’d feed him his food on a spoon, one nugget at a time.”
He laughed. “Isabella also. She was a healer by nature. My father would go to her for peppermint elixir every time his stomach would ache. Everyone in town counted on her remedies.”
Until they burned her
, I wanted to finish for him. The wistful tone of his voice made a strange feeling come over me, and I stiffened. I was jealous. Jealous of myself in a previous life. This had to be a first.
“What did you bring?” he asked, gesturing toward the bag tucked protectively under my arm.
I maneuvered it onto my lap and pulled out the laptop computer I’d purchased for him. It was small and light, important features if, as I hoped, he’d bring it with him on excursions like this.
“What is it?”
I flipped the top open and logged in. “The password is hocus-pocus.” I chuckled, but Rick stared at me blankly. “I thought it would be funny because I’m a witch.”
He nodded but didn’t laugh. I cleared my throat. “You can use the personal hotspot on your cell when you’re out here.” I helped myself to the phone in his jacket pocket and changed the settings.
The forlorn look on his face was a red flag of warning. Even with his memory intact, Rick never loved technology. Time to pull out the big guns. I placed the computer in his lap and moved to stand behind him. With some hesitation, I leaned over his shoulder and placed my hand on his. The chemical reaction from my touch was undeniable, his sharp inhale echoing mine. Where our skin touched felt hot, the starting point of a trail of electricity that meandered straight to my core. My cheek grazed his and I thought I might come undone.
Swallowing hard, I composed myself and helped him select the Internet icon. I clicked on the folder I’d made for this occasion and selected a video from the top of the list. My secret weapon: cat videos. The screen darkened for a moment. The clip started and a fluffball of a kitten pawed a roll of toilet paper, unraveling it faster and faster until it was up to its calico ears in a mound of quilted sheets.
Rick laughed under his breath.
I clicked another one. This video showed a kitten lying on its back in its owner’s lap. The woman tickled its tummy and the cat curled into a ball, only to spread its paws wide when she stopped.
This time Rick laughed harder.
“It’s not just for funny videos,” I said softly into his ear as my chest brushed the back of his shoulder. “You can look up things on this, things about the world.” I navigated to my favorite search engine. “Type what you want to know about, and it will show you a list of results.”
I demonstrated by typing in
United States map
and clicking on the first result, which was an interactive atlas meant for elementary schoolers.
“This contraption has answers to everything?” he asked.
“Almost everything.” I moved to click on New Hampshire.
The whir of the fishing reel sent Rick bounding off the log to lift the rod from its holder. Luckily, I caught the laptop as it slid from his lap. The absence of his body in front of me left me shivering in the cool spring air.
For Rick’s part, he didn’t seem to notice our disconnected bodies. He reeled and pulled back on the pole, which bent and wobbled from the force of the catch. When the fish was close enough, he waded into the water and scooped two fingers under the gills, lifting it from the lake.
“Bass,” he said, proudly holding it so I could appreciate the magnificence of his catch.
“Way to go.” Privately, I wondered where he’d store this latest catch. The freezer in his stone cottage was overflowing with wild game he would never eat.
“I imagine you are right. I have kept too many.” He wrestled the hook from the fish’s mouth and tossed his catch back into the water where it swam away in a flash.
“Rick… could you hear my thoughts just now?” Since his loss of memory, we still had our connection. At least, I could pick up on his thoughts. But it was oddly a one-way street. So far, he’d seemed oblivious to mine.
He looked at me for a second and shook his head. “Your face is a book easily read.”
“I’m sorry. I just… I don’t want it to go to waste.” For a moment, the space between us seemed to grow even though neither of us took a step.
“You’re right.” He secured the line to his fishing pole and without another word, headed in the direction of his home, leaving the laptop and me behind.
Rattled, I plunged the computer back into its bag, slung it over my shoulder, and jogged to catch up with him. “Rick. You can still fish. You can put it in my freezer if you want.” I didn’t understand why he was so upset. Unless… Maybe he could hear my thoughts and just didn’t want to admit it. Was he upset about the fish or that he had experienced more evidence of our connection?
“It’s okay to be what you are,” I called.
He stopped abruptly. “What exactly am I?”
“You’re my caretaker.” My voice cracked as I said it.
The desperate look he flashed broke my heart. “What, exactly, is the purpose of a caretaker?”
I hesitated. We’d talked about this before, but most of the time he rejected whatever I said. It was simply too much for his brain to absorb. Was he ready for more? “You take care of me.”
“By feeding you my blood and protecting you when you’re in danger,” he said.
“Yes.”
“In three weeks, I have not fed you my blood nor protected you from anything. If I am your caretaker, I am a failure. You seem to be doing quite well on your own.” He turned on his heel and strode toward his stone cottage.
I picked up the pace, stomach tight. “Not as well as you might think.”
He kept walking. Our connection was fuzzy, as if Rick was trying to block me but wasn’t very good at it. He was upset; that much was obvious. The confusing part was why. Rick had always been an alpha male. To feel comfortable in his skin, he needed to play that role. Had I treated him too much like a patient and not enough like the man I knew he was? If so, to win him over, I needed to help him help me.
By the time we reached his place, the sun was already dipping on the horizon. “I need your help with something,” I said desperately. “Tonight. As soon as the sun sets. It can’t wait.”
He opened the door for me. “What kind of help?”
“The magic mirror that shows me my night’s work is stronger when both of us use it. My readings have been difficult since you lost your memory. Could you try tonight?”
He straightened slightly before answering. “Tell me what to do.”
I placed the laptop bag on the kitchen counter and gestured toward the bedroom. He joined me as I pulled the stretch of silver that I used to see the future from his closet. I laid it on the wood floor between us.