EPILOGUE
I LISTENED TO THE WOMAN with the dark hair hammer away on the keys of her laptop.
She was there every day, in the same seat, pounding away at something.
I’d started to believe I was imagining her because she almost never talked to anyone and rarely did more than type and stare off into space.
She seemed so wrapped up in her own little world I’d wondered if I’d created her from mine, but then the guy in the suit showed up and everything changed.
Her face lit up, softening. Focusing. He kissed her and they looked at each other with so much—it had to be love, nothing else was that big—I knew they were real.
I couldn’t make those feelings up. I didn’t have the frame of reference.
Besides, I hadn’t had a hallucination in years.
Or maybe I had. I couldn’t be sure. The city wore its crazy out on the surface for everyone to see.
It’s one of the reasons I’d chosen it. With the ghost tours, voodoo shops, and tourists abandoning normal society limits in favor of the excesses of Bourbon St. and the French Quarter, day-to-day life in New Orleans was weirder than anything my off-kilter brain made up.
Or maybe not, but it was close enough to make the city a comfortable fit for me.
“Can I get a macchiato, please? Whole milk, not skim.”
I heard the voice over the clacking of the keyboard and the ambient coffee shop noise.
Its lyrical melody played over the sound of the barista foaming milk and the couple two tables over arguing about whether they could afford a new sofa before someone’s “shrew of a mother” came for Thanksgiving.
It was as if I wore one of those hearing aids that isolated sounds, tuned to the specific frequency of that voice.
Careful not to knock my coffee onto my notes, I turned in the direction of the sound. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting but it wasn’t her.
She was perfect. Red hair with the barest dusting of freckles over her slender nose with a jawline strong enough for a Celtic princess.
She looked like she’d be at home in the Scottish Highlands or painted with woad and dancing with the Druids in the shadow of the standing stones.
She was tall and willowy, and everything I’d ever imagined in a woman. Perfect.
So perfect, in fact, I started to question if my brain had created her to ease an ache I hadn’t realized I felt.
I’d gotten so used to being alone; I stopped feeling lonely a long time ago.
Until I heard her voice and a cavern opened up inside me so deep I was scared to move for fear of being swallowed whole.
I froze in place, watching as she took her coffee, smiled at the barista and crossed the room to the dark-haired woman.
She brushed past my table, close enough that I had to clench my hands into fists to keep from reaching out to touch her.
I sucked in my breath and inhaled the sweet scent of toasted sugar and butter surrounding her like her own special perfume.
The women greeted each other like they’d been friends forever.
Breaking one of my own rules of behavior, I strained to listen to their conversation.
They talked about proposals, and agents and publishing contracts.
And then they talked about the man in the suit.
Erik—he had a name now; but I didn’t need to hear his name to know who they meant—the dark-haired woman loved him and he loved her.
He was the only person who fit. He’d given her a ring and they needed a cake from her friend.
Meredith.
She had a name, and I had a reason to turn away. To forget I’d ever seen her. To try to bury the loneliness before it ate away at the tenuous peace I’d built for myself. Because I was broken—a monster—and a woman who smelled like cookies didn’t belong with a wolf.