Chapter 3
“The first thing I want you to understand is that every session will be completely different,” Amanda said.
“Even if it’s with the same client, their energy and their issues with it won’t necessarily be the same as they were the last time they saw you.
So you have to give yourself some time to feel things out, to take a look around if you will. ”
Kristy, who lay on the table in one of the rooms in Amanda’s office, snorted. “I know someone who wants to feel things out with you.”
“Hush,” Amanda urged her cousin. “You’re supposed to be the client. Your only job is to lie there.”
Kristy snickered again. “I’ll bet you wouldn’t just lie there if you were with Lars. Although judging by the way he was looking at you last night, he’d be more than happy to do all the work.”
“Who’s Lars?” Zoe asked.
“No one.” Amanda had been trying hard to keep Lars off her mind, and she’d been hoping that this training session with Zoe would be the perfect distraction.
“Now then, a lot about this job is simply noticing. Pay attention to how your client is breathing, how they’re lying on the table, and whether they look relaxed or not.
It takes some time to develop your senses and know what you’re looking for. ”
“And what am I looking for?” Zoe asked.
Amanda tipped her head back slightly as she tried to figure out an answer to that.
She’d been an energy healer for quite some time now, and her waiting list attested to the reputation she’d built for herself.
Amanda had come into this profession not for any kind of renown but because she had a natural talent.
That made it a bit harder to explain to someone else, even if that someone was also gifted at sensing and using energy.
“I know what Amanda’s looking for, and she’s already found it,” Kristy said from the table.
“All right, what are you two talking about?” Zoe was in her early twenties, far younger than her two coven sisters, but she put her fists on her hips and gave them a look like they were wayward teens.
“Amanda found a man,” Kristy said in a deep, sing-song voice.
“And you didn’t tell me?” Zoe asked, her mouth agape. “Wait, wait, wait. You said Lars. Isn’t that the guy who’s staying with the Alexanders?”
“Uh huh.” Instead of lying on her back with her hands at her sides, Kristy had rolled to her side and was propped up on one elbow. “He’s hot, too.”
“And?” Zoe flapped her hands, eager to know more.
“And they kissed.” The last word hissed out of Kristy’s mouth.
“Okay, guys. Geez. It’s not that big of a deal.” Amanda rolled her eyes, but her cheeks burned.
“Ha! Look at you!” Kristy snapped her fingers and pointed at Amanda.
“And look at you,” Amanda returned. “You’re supposed to be the client, which means you’re supposed to lie still and shut the hell up!”
“To be fair, it’s not as though I do either of those things well.” Kristy flexed her fingers. “You picked a terrible pretend client.”
“I’ll be sure to do better next time.” Amanda turned to Zoe, who was starting to look impatient again. “He’s just a nice guy that I kissed under the mistletoe. That’s really about it.”
Kristy waggled her eyebrows. “I think you should’ve let him give you that Viking feast the two of you were talking about. Sounded like he wanted to make sure you were satisfied. All. Night. Long.” She cackled with laughter.
“What?” Zoe’s head swiveled back and forth, looking at Amanda, then Kristy, and then back again.
Amanda sighed and explained the meal metaphor they’d been using in front of the kids and how it’d made Lars turn around. “It just kind of continued,” she said innocently.
Now Zoe was laughing, too, leaning on the table. “I wish I’d been there!”
“You should’ve seen her face when he plopped that big hunk of meat on her plate,” Kristy laughed. “I think we know exactly what he was implying with that!”
Their laughter was contagious, and Amanda wiped tears from her eyes. “If everyone else hadn’t been around, it would’ve worked, too!”
“It didn’t seem like either one of you was concerned with who might be around when it was time to say goodbye,” Kristy noted. “Was it a good appetizer?”
Amanda had relived that kiss dozens of times by now.
He’d pulled her so easily into his arms, and she’d felt as though she fit there.
Electricity had surged through her tongue and lips as soon as she thought there was even a possibility that he might kiss her.
Amanda had tried not to let herself get too caught up in the handsome stranger.
He was just a visitor, just someone new and different, but it was hard to fight the truth.
His lips against hers had been incredible, the stubble around his mouth leaving tiny scrapes in her skin. The scent of leather and some deep floral enveloped her along with his arms, and her breath had hitched when she felt the strength with which he was holding her against him.
“No.”
“No?” Kristy and Zoe echoed at the same time.
“Come on,” Kristy encouraged. “You just stood there for a solid ten seconds thinking about that kiss. How can you tell me it wasn’t a good appetizer?”
“Because appetizers are just potato skins or fried mushrooms, something you just gobble up without thinking about it, because you’re dying for the meal to arrive.
This kiss was like going to a fancy restaurant and getting an amuse-bouche, that fantastic single bite that tells you the chef knows exactly what he’s doing. ”
“Oooo!” the other two women cried out.
“Girl, what are you doing standing around here, then?” Kristy demanded. “Get your ass over to the clanhouse and get that Viking feast he promised you!”
But Amanda flapped her hand in the air dismissively. “Believe me, it sounds amazing. I could definitely stand to satiate my hunger for a little while, but then what? The guy’s got to go back to some remote island that might as well be at the end of the world.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy him while he’s here,” Zoe remarked.
“That’s not really my style.” Amanda checked her watch. “We should get back to this. I’ve got a lot of clients to see today.”
Kristy, however, didn’t lie back down on the table. She was sitting up with her heels on the edge of it and her arms resting on her knees. She twisted her face as she looked at Amanda.
“What?” Amanda asked.
“You tell me what.” Kristy pushed her face a little closer and squinted her eyes. “What’s really going on in there? I know you’re not the kind who goes running off with whatever hot guy you see, but there was real chemistry last night between the two of you.”
“Yeah,” Amanda said, her tone clipped. “Maybe a bit too much of it.”
Kristy sucked in her breath. “Oh, do you think he’s…”
Zoe caught on, and her eyes widened. “Really?”
“I don’t know.” Amanda put her hands in the air, and then she put them over her eyes. “I do know. I mean, I know it feels like it is. They say you know it when it happens, and I can honestly say I’ve never wanted to rip my clothes off at a family dinner before. But it doesn’t really matter.”
Kristy grabbed Amanda’s wrists and pulled her hands away from her face, looking into her eyes. “Why not?”
“Because,” Amanda said lamely. She gestured vaguely with her hands. “I just don’t want to do the long-distance thing again.”
“Oh.” Kristy’s shoulders slumped a bit. “Dale.”
“No. I mean, yeah. Kind of. Not him specifically.” Amanda pulled herself up on the table next to Kristy.
“Dale?” Zoe asked.
“Just this guy I was dating a few years ago.”
“Not ‘just a guy.’ You were pretty nuts about him,” Kristy corrected.
“Because I was an idiot.” Amanda sighed.
She didn’t want to relive that relationship, but it wasn’t fair not to clue Zoe in.
“We’d been dating for a while, and things were going great.
Then his job moved him out to Chicago. We decided we’d try to make it work, flying back and forth, calling every night, all that jazz.
I really missed him, and after a few months, I decided I’d fly out to surprise him.
I sure did surprise him, and I also surprised the woman who was in his bed. ”
Zoe sucked air between her teeth. “Ouch.”
“Big ouch,” Amanda confirmed. “It sucked, but I realized that I’m just not a long-distance-relationship type of person. We have to learn these things as we go through life, right?”
Kristy bobbed her head from side to side, considering. “Yeah, but just because Dale was like that doesn’t mean Lars will be.”
“I know. It’s not really about the guy. It’s about me. It’s about what I want, and I don’t want to torture myself or anyone else that way.”
“So you’re not going to spend any time with him while he’s here?” Kristy challenged. “Even with all that chemistry? Even if he might be—”
“Don’t say it,” Amanda interrupted. “If we don’t say it out loud, then I don’t have to figure it out right now.”
“Have it your way,” Kristy shrugged.
“Thank you. Now really, we should get back to this session.” Amanda hopped off the table.
Kristy obediently lay back, and Zoe came to stand next to Amanda.
“Start by just trying to feel where her energy is currently. Don’t think about how you’re going to adjust it yet. Just notice it.”
Zoe started at Kristy’s feet, hovering her hands about an inch over Kristy’s body. She closed her eyes and wrinkled her brow. After a few minutes, she moved up a little and then back down. “I’m not feeling much.”
“I think we all kind of ruined the mood with our laughing,” Amanda admitted. “Staying in the right headspace is one of the biggest challenges of this job.”
She lifted her own hands and put them just above Kristy’s feet, closing her eyes and waiting for that familiar sensation.
It was there, but it was weak. Amanda frowned and moved up toward Kristy’s knees.
Now her frown deepened. Kristy usually had a lot of really strong energy, which was what made her a good candidate for training someone else.
“Damn,” Amanda said after a few minutes, opening her eyes.
“Is something wrong with me?” Kristy asked, lifting her head slightly off the table.
Amanda pushed her back down. “Plenty, but not in that way. No, I think something’s wrong with me.”
She spread her fingers over Kristy’s stomach and took several meditative breaths. Amanda tried to let go of everything and let her training take over. A lot of this job was intuitive, and she was probably thinking about it too much.
Finally, she started to feel something, but it wasn’t within Kristy.
It was within herself. An energy healer didn’t give or take their own energy to help someone else.
They simply aligned what that other person already had.
The healers themselves, however, needed to also be aligned. Amanda definitely wasn’t.
After a minute, Amanda put her hands down. “I think we’ll just have to try this another time.”