6. Aurora
6
AURORA
IF THE CLAWS FIT
T he incessant buzzing and tap-tap-tapping hadn’t stopped since I ordered Jack to leave. It had been hours, and the noise hadn’t let up once.
It was as if he was punishing me for wanting space.
Truth was, I wasn’t ready for people yet.
I certainly wasn’t ready for a well-meaning but overbearing firefighter with a face made for Hollywood and kind eyes that cut me to the quick every time they met mine.
I wondered what he saw in my eyes.
Did he see me the way my mom did? As the misunderstood girl who had grown into an incomprehensible woman? Did he see the broken author who couldn’t write another book and was destined for a life of obscurity and scraping by on dwindling royalties? Did he see the shattered pieces of my heart, still clinging to my chest like falling stars?
Great. Now I was just being dramatic.
I was fairly certain Jack was messing with the stairs, given the rumbling through the floor. He had directly disobeyed the explicit order to not work on them, but part of me was too tired to be bothered by it.
The other part of me wanted to pick a fight.
The front door was propped open in an attempt to air out the mustiness of the last twenty years. It was doing a mediocre job, thanks to the near-triple digits and salty sea humidity. The upside was that I could storm right out to the deck and give him a piece of my mind.
I dropped the rag I was using to scrub the fridge and stomped to the door. My temper made it further than my body did. The foam edge of my two-dollar flip-flops caught on a nail sticking out of the hardwood floor and sent me careening to the ground.
I shrieked as my palms smacked the floor, catching my fall. The electric saw outside cut off and heavy footsteps thundered up the, apparently structurally sound, stairs.
“Roar!” Jack shouted as he barreled inside and dropped to his knees. “ Shit . Are you alright?”
Strong hands manipulated my limbs until I was sitting on my ass. Blood trickled down from my knee, staining my calf crimson.
“What else is hurt?” he asked as he smoothed those hands over my arms and legs. I was so shocked by his instant concern and response that I forgot how to speak.
Jack leaned forward, cradling my head with his hands and smoothing his fingers over my forehead and skull.
The soft cotton of his t-shirt tickled my nose. He smelled like diesel, sawdust, and the sea. Jack’s chest brushed against my cheek as he smoothed his hand down the back of my head. The closeness nearly lulled me into a trance.
All too soon, he leaned back and took me in from a distance.
Suddenly, I couldn’t remember what I had been so up in arms about. I blamed the masculine pheromones. They had been working their evil on women for centuries, making them forget the wrongs and annoying habits of the male species.
“Do you have a first-aid kit?”
I blinked out of the primal haze. “ What ?”
Jack cupped the back of my knee, inspecting the gash. “ Antiseptic ? Bandages ? Anything ?” He turned and assessed the nail and splintering floorboard. “ You up to date on your tetanus shots?”
“Surprisingly, yes.”
Jack lifted a thick eyebrow as he fought off a smile. “ So you’re accident-prone, huh?”
I flipped him the bird.
He chuckled and stood. “ Sit tight. I’ll be right back.”
As soon as Jack jogged down the stairs, I let out a heaving breath, flopped back on the floor, and stared up at the ceiling.
What the hell had I gotten myself into?
When I opened my eyes again, Jack was kneeling beside me and opening a first-aid kit.
“That was fast,” I groaned as I elbowed my way up.
“I keep one in my truck,” he said as he pawed through its contents.
A snort slipped free. “ Who the hell are you?”
The smile that slipped across his mouth was sweet and devilish. “ I’m prepared.”
“You’re such a boy scout. Let me guess”— I hissed as he wiped the cut with antiseptic—“you’re also the beloved golden boy firefighter who rescues kittens from trees.”
“Last cat I saved out of a tree was this twenty-year-old asshole tomcat who clawed through my gloves and sliced up my hands.” Jack gently cupped my knee and smoothed a bandage over the cut. “ But Mittens was still a lot nicer than my new neighbor, who I’ve been desperately trying to get to know, but she’s about as prickly as he was when I pulled him out of that cedar tree.” He opened his palms and showed me the scratch scars. “ She just doesn’t leave marks.”
My mouth popped open. “ Did you just compare me to a geriatric cat with a fear of heights?”
Jack stood and offered his hand. “ If the claws fit, pretty girl.”
My cheeks were scorching as he pulled me up to my feet. Jack rambled on about checking the rest of the floor for nails that may have popped up with temperature shifts from the house sitting vacant, but that wasn’t what grabbed my attention.
“That’s weird,” I mumbled as I looked at the floorboard where the nail poked through. The wood slat was burned at the corner, but only in one spot. I glanced around and inspected the rest of the floor but, apart from age, most of the pieces were unharmed.
It couldn’t have actually been from a house fire. What kind of fire only burns the corner of one piece of wood in the middle of the floor?
“What’s weird?” Jack asked as he closed the first-aid kit and sidled up to me.
“The floorboard I tripped over . . .” I cocked my head to get a better look at it. “ You’re the fire expert. Why would it only be burned at the corner? And it’s not on the edge of the floor against the wall.”
“Huh.” Jack assumed the same stance I was in. “ I never would have noticed that. But you’re right.”
“Maybe someone dropped a cigarette or something?” I guessed.
Jack knelt by the floorboard and smoothed his hand over it. “ Close , but not quite. It’s not a burn. It’s a brand.”
I let out a groan as I joined him back on the floor. Sure enough, it wasn’t a natural char mark. A circle with a curly letter A was seared into the corner of the floorboard. The design was scuffed and blurred, but the closer I looked, the clearer it became.
“You got a hammer up here?” Jack asked as he gave the nail poking out of the board a test wiggle to see if it was loose enough to pull out by hand. It wasn’t.
“Tool bag’s in the kitchen,” I said as I smoothed my finger over the ridges of the brand.
Jack returned with a hammer and a displeased look. “ Pretty sure Fisher - Price makes sturdier tools,” he said as he wielded the purple-handled hammer and used the claw to pull the nail out.
“If you’re judging my tools, you can leave,” I clipped. “ It gets the job done.”
He lifted the purple hammer that was smaller than my hand. “ You’re planning on renovating an entire house with this?” He just shook his head. “ I’ve got shit you can use over at my place. I’ll show you where it is when you have time. Just put it back when you’re done with it.”
Jack pressed down on the floor to replace the nail with a new one. But before he could tack the board down, it slid. He gave me a quick glance, asking for permission before lifting it easily.
“What the hell?” was quickly becoming my new catchphrase.
“You know, you always hear about people storing things in loose floorboards in movies and books, but I never thought it was actually a thing,” Jack said as we peered into the small cubby.
“I don’t think it’s supposed to be a thing. Where’s the subfloor?” I glanced around. “ Am I going to fall through the house just by walking around?”
Jack cracked a smile. “ You just found a hidden compartment in the floor of your deceased great-aunt's house, and you’re worried about falling through the floor?”
I blinked. “ One thing is a surprise. The other is a concern. We tackle concerns before surprises.”
He reached into the cubby and pulled out a folded piece of paper that was weathered and yellowed with age. “ How about two surprises?”
“What is that?”
“Your house. Your super mysterious note stuffed in the floor to open,” Jack said as he handed it over.
Well, there was no time like the present.
Carefully, I peeled open the note. My breath caught as my eyes fell on flawless swooping script dotted with drippings of ink.
He never came for me.
I waited and waited, pacing the shore and cursing the rocks as the tides came and went like a perfectly timed waltz.
But he never showed.
The rain spat curses at me, mocking me for holding on to hope that things could be different. That Elias would appear and whisk me away on his boat to a life far, far away from this madness. That he would take me away from the fate that had been written in the stars since before I had arrived in New Bern to the sound of wedding bells.
But Tryon Palace is no castle. It’s a prison. The marriage ceremony to the man I’ve only met a few times is my execution.
They tell me it’s for the best, but whose best? It’s certainly not best for me to marry a man I don’t love—one who most certainly doesn’t love me—when the one I do is somewhere out there in the blue beyond.
I’d rather face the hangman than accept the golden noose decorated with diamonds that was tightening around my finger.
What if Elias was still coming for me, just as he promised?
I can feel the sands of time slipping away like the grains that float through my fingers as I pace on the beach, waiting for my beloved.
Trading a life of opulence with a lieutenant governor for years of struggle with a simple fisherman is unthinkable. But he loved the sea, and promised that the sea would love me, too.
How am I supposed to choose between what is proper and what is right? As I’m being prepared for this wedding like a lamb for the slaughter, I’m learning there’s a vast difference between the two.
I fear the time is coming soon that I must choose my fate.
Death to love, or death to me.
“Holy shit,” Jack muttered under his breath when he finished reading over my shoulder.
The same cursive A that had been branded into the wood was lightly seared into the top of the paper like a letterhead.
“So, my mysterious dead Great - Aunt was secretly in a love triangle between a fisherman and the lieutenant governor. Cool , cool, cool. That’s not weird at all,” I said as I raked my eyes over the words once more.
“No,” Jack said as he pointed at one particular line. His chest pressed into my back, enveloping me in his warmth. “ It couldn’t have been Juniper Whitlock . Not unless she was born in the 1700s.”
I wrinkled my nose. “ How are you so sure?”
“Well, for one, Tryon Palace burned down in 1798 and took thirty years to rebuild. The governor’s mansion had already moved to Raleigh right before the fire.”
I glanced over my shoulder. My temple brushed against his stubbled jaw. “ And you just happen to know that fun fact off the top of your head?”
“Touring Tryon Palace is a rite of passage for every coastal public school student. I’ve been so many times I can probably give the tour myself.”
“Then what the hell is this?”
He let out a sharp breath. “ Your guess is as good as mine, Roar .”
It had been a long time since I allowed myself to be close to another human being like this.
I wasn’t what some people would describe as “touchy-feely.” I needed my personal bubble to be respected.
Sure, I could give friendly hugs, but I didn’t like lingering closeness.
And Jack was lingering.
I tilted my chin ever so slightly. Our lips were only a breath apart, his square and sure. Jack’s eyes lowered to my mouth, his thick lashes shading the endless pools of amber. He sucked in a quick breath, those lips parting as the tip of his tongue darted out to wet them.
“You called me Roar ,” I whispered, thinking it would break the spell and he’d pull back.
But he didn’t move. He didn’t even breathe. “ You said you didn’t like ‘ Aurora .’”
“It’s too stuffy,” I whispered. “ I hate being named after a cartoon princess.”
His thick brows twitched, furrowing together. “ That’s not what I think of.” I was about to ask Jack what he meant, when he cut in again. “ Is ‘ Roar ’ alright?”
“It’s not awful,” I admitted.
He never moved closer, and a very deeply repressed part of me was disappointed with that.
“What do your friends call you?” Jack asked as he peeled away and grabbed the loose floorboard, debating whether to tack it back down or replace it with a new one.
“Um . . . Wander .”
Jack paused and looked up with a perplexed smile. “ Wander ?”
How did I explain this to him? This conversation always went one of two ways. Either people were judgmental about my line of work— former line of work—or they immediately launched into a long list of their attempts to write a book and all the people they knew who had.
“It’s my pen name. I use it for everything except my driver’s license and passport.”
The mystified look morphed into surprise. “ You’re a writer.”
“Author,” I clarified. “ Novelist . Whatever you want to call it.”
“What kind of books do you write?” he asked casually as he tacked the floorboard back in place and swept away the specks of wood dust with his hand. “ Any I might have heard of?”
“Probably not unless you’re an avid romance fan. But it doesn’t matter. I’m retired. Moved on to greener pastures.”
“Like unqualified home renovations?” he teased with a smile.
I found a discarded cleaning rag and chucked it at him, smacking him in the back as he jogged down the staircase to finish the steps.