Chapter Sixteen #2
“I know what you meant,” she says, defeated. She reaches through the crack in the door, her hand fisting in the front of my shirt. She tugs me into the minuscule room and then swiftly shuts the door behind me. She turns, offering me her back, her shoulder shrugged up to her ears.
One of the straps is twisted. Caught in the zipper that’s halfway down her back.
Her bare back, without an undergarment in sight.
I stare at the collection of freckles at the base of her neck and release a breath from the depths of my soul.
She shimmies her shoulders. “Help, please.”
I think I’m the one that requires help. I’m struck speechless by the bare expanse of her back. The gentle curve of it and the two dimples at the base of her spine teasing me from in between folds of rich fabric.
I want to grab both sides of the dress and pull. I want to drop to my knees and see what those indentations taste like.
“Nolan,” Harriet snaps. “Fix the zipper.” The zipper. The zipper. I don’t see a zipper.
“I’m—what are you—that is to say—” My jaw pops and I snap my mouth shut. I need to collect myself, but I don’t know where to start. “I cannot locate the zipper,” I grind out.
She peers at me over her shoulder. I drowned in the ocean once and I think I could just as easily drown in Harriet. Sink down into her and lose myself for days.
Perhaps coming into this tiny room with a half-clothed Harriet after a series of illicit dreams about her was not the best of ideas.
I underestimated the dress.
I underestimated Harriet.
“You said you’d help,” Harriet whisper-yells, her shoulders inching up higher. One of the straps falls down the curve of her arm and I unthinkingly guide it back up.
“I’m trying to help.”
“By doing … what, exactly? Standing there? Grunting occasionally?”
I answer with another deep sound from somewhere in the middle of my chest. “I’m strategizing.”
“Strategizing,” she repeats, her voice dry. “Yes. I’m trying to figure out where to begin.”
“Begin with the zipper,” she snaps. “And go from there.” I hesitate. “Are you sure?”
“Nolan, I swear to—”
“All right, all right.” I find the zipper at the very small of her back, twisted in the fabric.
She shivers when I grasp it, my knuckles brushing against her skin as I carefully tug at the caught material.
I ease one finger in between the dress and her spine to get a better grip and grit my teeth when my touch drifts over the curve of her ass.
“Another moment,” I urge, my hand at her hip, fingers fanned wide to hold her steady. All this warm skin. The way her body bends to meet mine. I feel like I’m having a heart attack. “Almost got it.”
I free the zipper with another gentle tug and it glides up smoothly, the sides of the dress coming together.
It’s a perfect fit, once the material is no longer twisted.
“There,” I say, letting my hands drop. I look over her shoulder at our reflection in the mirror. “Fixed.”
“Thank you.” She sighs, relieved.
“Not a problem,” I say, distracted, letting my gaze drop to the dress and the way the deep purple material clings to her curves.
The bodice is tight, the soft swells of her breasts pushed up.
The skirt spills over her hips like water, gathered at one hip.
She shifts on her feet and one pale thigh appears through the high slit on the side.
Christ. She looks like something carved out of marble. Like something that deserves to be worshipped.
“You’re staring,” she whispers.
“Can’t help it,” I whisper back.
Her hands flutter in front of her before she fists them in the material of the skirt.
“Is it—does it look bad?”
“Bad?” I snap my eyes back to hers. “Harriet. You’re lovely.”
Her hands smooth over the skirt again. “It’s quite the dress,” she says.
“I’m not talking about the dress.”
Her head drops to the side and it takes every inch of my willpower not to gather up all her hair and expose that delicate bone at the top of her spine.
The place my fingers always itch to touch.
Tension leaves her body with a gentle sigh, a pleased smile replacing the distance she’s been holding on to all morning.
“You didn’t even see the other dresses,” she says.
“I don’t have to.”
She ducks her head to hide the way her smile blooms, but I still see it.
“I’ll have to ask if they have it in blue.”
“You should stop indulging your mother.”
She twists back and forth slightly as she studies her reflection, watching the skirt swish around her ankles. “I’ve tried that before. It didn’t work out for me.”
“What happened?”
Harriet’s body goes still, her eyes clouding over. “It broke her heart,” she says faintly. “The least I can do now is wear whatever color she picks out for me.”
“Did stealing boats eventually lead to light vandalism? Perhaps a flirtation with pyromania?”
“No. Nothing as dramatic as that.”
I give in to temptation and let my fingers dance through the ends of her hair. “I find it hard to believe you’ve ever intentionally broken anyone’s heart. How’d you manage that?”
Her shoulders rise and fall, listless. Her eyes find mine in the reflection. “I followed mine.”
I reclaim the horrific gold chair while Harriet changes back into the tiny tweed skirt and knee-high boots she was wearing earlier, emerging with her hair twisted back in a hastily drawn braid. She avoids my eyes as she hands over the dresses she tried on, plum-colored silk on top.
“These didn’t work,” she says to the sales associate who has finally deigned to reappear, her fingers trailing over the material like she’s reluctant to let it go. “But thank you.”
We walk out the glass double doors at the front of the shop into the bright winter afternoon sunlight, Harriet’s hand shielding her eyes as she fumbles with her bag.
She’s only managed to get one arm of her jacket situated, the other half of her body flailing as she attempts to slip the rest of it on.
I watch her struggle for a moment, amused.
She looks a bit like a dog chasing her tail.
“Need help?”
“No.” She spins again, trying to catch the sleeve of her jacket. “I’ve got it handled, thank you.”
I gently grab her collar on her next rotation, guiding it around her shoulders. I reach through the sleeve and loop my fingers around her wrist, tugging until her hand pops free. Then I bend down and collect her dropped bag, and I wedge it under my arm.
She scowls at me. “I can carry that.”
“I know you can. So can I.” I fix her with a look. “Why are you fighting me today?”
“I’m not fighting you.”
“She says, as she’s fighting me.”
“I’m not. I’m—” She flutters her free hand in front of her in a vague explanation, still digging around her pockets with the other. “I think I’m just tired. I’ve been having these weird dreams and I can’t—”
She cuts herself off, fighting with her pockets now, instead of me. “What are you looking for?” I ask. She’s digging around in her coat like she’ll find salvation in there. It’s a good thing she’s not wearing the mittens today.
“A candy cane,” she whines. “I thought I put one in here earlier, but it’s not—oh. Where did that come from?”
I unwrap the end of a candy cane and pop it between her lips. “I figured you’d need a fix.”
She pushes it to the side of her mouth with her tongue. “Have you been carrying this around in your pocket the whole morning?”
I have six in my pocket, actually, which is ridiculous because I can summon them at will with my magic.
“Got it for free from that man dressed like Santa on the corner,” I lie. “Been holding on to it.”
Harriet beams at me, the end of her braid swinging over her shoulder. “Thank you.”
“Don’t be worrying yourself,” I answer, still studying the lamppost so I don’t have to watch the way her cheeks hollow as she enjoys her candy. I’m slowly deteriorating into the worst version of myself. Perhaps this is hell, and my punishment is wanting a woman I cannot possibly have.
“We should look for clues today,” I say, reluctant, “when we travel.
Anything that sticks out or seems unusual.”
“You mean, apart from all the jam.” She smiles at me, her bad mood temporarily soothed by sugar. She considers me. “You think there are clues in the memories?”
I shrug. “I don’t know why else we’d be watching you cut down a tree unless it was a metaphor or a hint at something bigger.”
I hold out my elbow for Harriet to take. She does so without hesitation, her fingers twisting in the material of my jacket. We wander down the crooked street, red bows on the streetlights, heavy strands of garland strung between.
“There was the fancy lobby at my parent’s firm, the jam making—” She holds up a finger for each of the memories we’ve visited.
“Your tree massacre,” I add.
She laughs. “Yeah, my tree massacre. Then we somehow went to your past.” She sneaks a look at me from the corner of her eye. “The day at the beach,” she says carefully, like she’s afraid of my reaction.
I pull in a deep breath and let it out again slowly. Now that the shock of it has worn off, it’s easier to think about. Easier to bear. If I treat it like a clue instead of a crucial piece of my heart I’ve forgotten, it’s manageable.
“I don’t see a connection off the top of my head. Not besides the obvious.”
“The obvious?” Harriet asks.
I nudge her shoulder with mine, turning on the street that leads to the Crow’s Nest. It sits at the bottom of the cobblestone like a beacon—like one of the gingerbread houses Harriet loves so much— the windows glowing gold against the sun dipping in the sky.
“You stole a boat when we were in that fancy lobby,” I tell her. “I was once a fisherman.”
A laugh bursts out of Harriet. “That’s the connection you’ve come up with?”
“I don’t see you connecting any dots.”
She shifts her candy cane to the other side of her mouth, thoughtful.
“I don’t think it has anything to do with my memories at all.
I think—I think it might have something to do with me, and the shop, and the collection of odds and ends we have there.
The memories are just your magic doing what your magic does. ”
She mentioned this before. “You believe there’s something in your possession at the shop that’s holding me here.”
“More or less. I think it’s possible there are clues in the past, but—” She rolls her lips together, thinking. “But I’m a collector of very old things. And you’re—”
“A very old thing.” I laugh, finishing her thought. “Clever.”
She squeezes my arm through my jacket. “That’s not what I was going to say.”
I pat her hand and continue guiding her down the street. “And yet, it’s true.”
“It’s just—who knows what’s in my shop? We keep an inventory, sure, but I’m always finding nooks and crannies where my aunt Matilda shoved things. There could be something hidden in there that’s connected to you. It’s like an interdimensional scavenger hunt.”
I consider it. “Is interdimensional the correct word?”
“Transtemporal?”
“Possibly.”
It seems like too obvious an answer, but I suppose it’s worth investigating. A hope to cling to, when I’ve had so few.
“I don’t think I owned anything that I was passionate about. Certainly nothing that would keep me floating in a state of purgatory, waiting for its eventual return.”
“Your boat?” she asks.
I arch an eyebrow. “Do you have a boat at the shop?”
She smiles. “No. Though it’s an idea to consider.” We continue walking down the street, bells ringing from the Santa on the corner with the fake white beard. It’s hanging crooked today, the end of it discolored by what must have been a rogue jelly doughnut.
“Maybe you don’t remember what it is. You’ve forgotten things before,” Harriet offers as I toss a coin in his shiny red bucket.
“Aye. I have.”
She eases closer. “Maybe something will jog your memory, then. Maybe these trips to the past are exactly that. We just have to keep our eyes and ears open.”
Easier said than done, when my eyes and ears seem to be fixed solely on Harriet. “An adventure.”
Harriet smiles at me. “I like the sound of that.” We slow to a stop at the entrance of the Crow’s Nest, light from the trees in the window bathing everything in a warm glow. The sun melts into the water over the harbor, the sky cotton-candy pink.
These are the nights I loved best when I was out on the water. When the whole world seems to hush, waiting for that last bit of sunlight.
Harriet reaches for the door handle. An ornate, gold thing, shaped like a lion’s paw.
“And for the record,” she says, her smile edging into something sly. “I happen to like very old things.”