15. Chapter 15
Rocco
Loralee lies against my chest as if she belongs there.
Her hair spills across my shoulder, threaded with vivid color that should look out of place against my skin.
It doesn’t. Neither does her leg tangled with mine or the hand resting over my heart as though she has every right to feel what she has done to it.
I stare into the darkness above us and listen to her breathing.
For the first time since I saw the vehicle in the security footage, I am not thinking about sight lines, access points, or the places a man could hide beyond the reach of the cabin lights. I’m not counting doors or measuring the time it would take to reach my weapon.
I am thinking about how Loralee looked beneath me. How she said my name. How thoroughly I lost the control I normally hold onto.
Her fingertips graze against my chest. “You’re thinking very loudly.”
I look down, but her eyes remain closed. “That isn’t possible.”
“With you, it is.”
“You said you don’t read minds.”
“I don’t. Your body is rigid, your heart hasn’t decided whether to race or stop altogether, and you’ve been staring at the ceiling for several minutes. Those are clues.”
I slide my hand slowly down her back. Her skin is warm beneath my palm, and something inside me tightens at the way she relaxes into the touch rather than pulling away from it.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
Her eyes open. “That sounds like another professional assessment.”
“It’s a question.”
“A very serious one.”
“Loralee.”
“I’m more than all right.” She lifts her head and gazes at me in the faint light coming through the bedroom doorway.
“Actually, I feel better than I have since the vision.”
The answer should satisfy me. Instead, my attention sharpens.
“Better how?”
“Clearer.” She presses her palm over the center of my chest. “Usually, intense contact with another person leaves me sorting through what belongs to me and what doesn’t. I need quiet afterward. Space.”
I know what she told me earlier. That solitude helps her restore whatever her work takes from her. I also know I’m lying in the middle of the place where she intended to be alone.
I loosen my arm around her. “I can give you that.”
Loralee’s hand closes on my side before I can move.
“I didn’t say I wanted you to leave.”
“If you need space?”
“I said this is different.” She inches closer, eliminating the small distance I tried to create. “I don’t feel crowded by you. I feel…” Her brow furrows as though the right word is hovering beyond her reach. “Contained, maybe. Not in a trapped way.”
“Maybe I’m the one who’s trapped, caught in your magical web.”
Her smile returns. “Maybe.”
She rests her cheek against me again. I should accept what she says. She understands her own needs better than I do, and I have no reason to question her merely because the answer isn’t what I expected.
Still, I need to be certain.
“You would tell me if you wanted me gone.”
“Yes.”
“Even now.”
“Especially now.” Her fingers move lightly across my ribs. “I invited you inside, Rocco. I pulled us toward this. I believe I was fairly clear about what I wanted.”
“You were.”
“And I’m being clear again. Stay.”
One word should not have the power to reach inside a man and close around something vital. This one does.
I tighten my arm around her and feel her soften against me. The reaction is immediate enough to quiet the argument still forming in my head.
For several minutes, neither of us speaks. Wind moves through the trees outside, brushing branches against the roof with a dry, restless scrape. The cabin gives an occasional creak as the heat runs, but every sound is ordinary.
I slide my hand into her hair and cup the back of her head. She turns her face into my palm, kissing the center of it, and the quiet intimacy of that single touch reaches deeper than anything that happened between us minutes ago.
My phone vibrates on the floor beside the bed. Loralee feels the change in me before I move.
“You have to answer it.”
It isn’t a question.
“No one calls me this late unless something is wrong.”
I ease out from beneath her and retrieve my briefs before crossing the room. The phone has stopped vibrating by the time I reach it, leaving a missed call from Grant and two messages beneath it.
FOUND SOMETHING ON THE EAST CAMERA.
CALL ME
I tap his number.
He answers before the first ring finishes. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. What did you find?”
“The motion alert came in eleven minutes ago. Someone entered the festival grounds from the east service road.”
Every part of me that softened in Loralee’s bed locks back into place.
“Do we have him contained?”
“No. He was already gone by the time Deputy Carver reached the row.”
“The grounds were cleared.”
“They were supposed to be.”
“What did he take?”
Grant is silent for half a second too long.
“Nothing we can identify,” he says. “He passed two food booths, the jewelry vendor, and the silent-auction tent without stopping. Went straight to the psychic’s booth.”
I turn toward the bed. Loralee has pulled the sheet around herself and is watching me. Her face is calm, but I see her fingers tighten in the fabric.
“How long was he inside?”
“Forty-three seconds.”
“What did he do?”
“We can’t see inside the booth from that camera. When Carver checked, the side panel had been opened.”
“Send me the recording.”
“Already did. There’s more.”
I wait.
“He left something on the table.”
Loralee rises from the bed.
“What?”
“A tarot card, I think. Carver hasn’t touched it. He says it shows a tower being struck by lightning.”
I don’t have to ask Loralee what it means. Her reaction tells me enough. The color leaves her face, but she doesn’t look frightened. She looks certain.
“Lock down the grounds,” I tell Grant. “No one enters without my authorization. Have Carver photograph the card where it is and check the ground around the booth before anyone moves closer. I want every camera from the east side pulled, including anything facing the county road.”
“Already working on it.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Loralee is out of bed before I end the call.
“No.”
She stops with one leg inside her leggings. “That word isn’t going to work.”
“You are not returning to the festival grounds in the middle of the night.”
“Someone broke into my booth and left one of my cards.”
“Which is exactly why you’re staying here.”
“I can tell you whether it came from my deck.”
“A photograph can tell us that.”
“It may not tell me everything.”
Her tone is steady, but she finishes dressing faster. The ease between us has vanished, replaced by the same current of awareness that moved through the cabin when she woke from the vision.
I pull on my jeans and reach for my shirt. “What does the card mean?”
“The Tower represents sudden upheaval. Destruction. A truth that tears down whatever was built on a false foundation.”
“Could it mean violence?”
“It can.”
“Then you’re not going near it.”
Her head comes up. “If someone wanted to steal from me, he had the chance. He left a message instead.”
“I understand that.”
“No, you understand security. I understand the cards.”
“And someone out there understands that you do.”
The words stop her. I cross the space between us and take her face in my hands. Her skin is still warm from my body, her lips swollen from my mouth. An hour ago, I believed the greatest threat in this cabin was how badly I wanted her.
I was wrong.
“This isn’t about the festival anymore,” I say. “Whoever entered that booth chose yours. He knew what to leave and where you would find it.”
Her eyes search mine. “That’s why I should come.”
“That’s why you’re going with me.”
Surprise flickers over her face. I retrieve my weapon from the holster attached to my discarded belt, check it, and secure it beneath my jacket.
“You stay beside me,” I tell her. “You don’t approach the booth until I clear it. If I tell you to get down, you do it. If I tell you to run, you don’t argue.”
“I don’t run very fast.”
“Tonight, you will.”
I zip her coat and let my hands remain at her waist for one second longer than necessary. I want her back in that bed, warm and rumpled. Instead, I open the cabin door and scan the darkness beyond it.
The wind has strengthened. Dead leaves race across the gravel, skittering beneath Loralee’s vehicle and disappearing into the trees. Nothing moves along the road, but the night no longer feels empty. It feels occupied.
Loralee steps beside me, close enough that her shoulder touches my arm.
“There’s something else,” she says.
I keep my eyes on the tree line. “What?”
“The Tower wasn’t in the vision.”
I look at her. Her face is pale in the porch light, but her voice is certain.
“It wasn’t a warning about what I already saw,” she says. “It’s a warning that something has changed.”
I guide her toward my vehicle with one hand at her back. Whatever waited for us at the festival has stopped following the path Loralee predicted. Now it is choosing one of its own.