Chapter Twenty-Four #2
“Do you think…” I paused, chewed on my lower lip. “What if everything happening at the Crossroads has something to do with him?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
I leaned back against the seat as he drove. “I need to find out.”
“How?”
I huffed out a breath. “No idea.”
“We can figure it out together,” he said.
He sounded so sure, so confident that it made my heart squeeze. And yet that old armor snapped back into place. The one that was headstrong and determined to do things on my own without asking for help from anyone.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to.” Absolute determination edged his tone.
I glanced his way. He was still gripping the steering wheel, focused on the road ahead. I couldn’t stop myself. I reached for him, placed my hand on his thigh. His head snapped toward me, surprise then delight in his eyes.
“Then I want you to.”
He gave me that smile that always made me melt.
We arrived at Mrs. Rollins house. I got out, clutching the grimoire to my chest feeling a little nervous. It warmed against me. I didn’t know why. Owen looked calm and controlled. Like he was visiting an old friend to catch up, not asking our former English teacher to translate a magical book.
We climbed the steps together of the old red-brick house. He rang the bell. A few minutes later, the door opened and there was Mrs. Rollins on the other side of the door.
She looked exactly the same—well, maybe with a few more wrinkles—as she did our senior year. Tall with a wild mess of black curls around her oval face, big brown eyes behind thick glasses, straight pert nose, and thin lips. Her face broke into a brilliant megawatt smile the second she saw us.
“Well, bless my soul,” she said with a wide smile. “Get in here, you two.”
She waved us inside the small living room that smelled like antiques, old people, and lemon oil. The hardwood floors creaked as walked inside and she waved us to the worn sofa along the wall. We sat together. Owen’s leg brushed against mine.
It was hard not to notice and it felt deliberate.
“Thanks for seeing us, Mrs. Rollins,” Owen said.
“Of course.” Then her gaze swung to me. “Piper, I heard you were back in town. It’s good to see you.”
“Thanks. I’m glad to be back,” I said and meant it.
“And I was sure sorry to hear about Alice. What a dear of a lady.”
I nodded agreement and clamped down on words that wanted to burst forth. Like she was my mother and I never knew it. “She was.”
She looked at Owen then. “You said you had a book you wanted me to look at?”
“Yes and thanks for seeing us on a Saturday afternoon,” he said.
I handed the book over as he spoke. She took it, held it in her hands for a long minute as she looked down at the cover. She ran her hand over it with a swish.
“Where did you find this?”
I glanced at Owen. We hadn’t talked about that beforehand and I didn’t know what our story was. But he was unflappable.
“In the town archives,” he said simply. “It’s on loan.”
Slowly, she opened the cover. It cracked with its age. “It’s old.”
We both nodded. And my heart climbed to my throat in the hopes that I was going to finally—finally—get some real answers.
Her black-rimmed glasses perched on the end of her nose as she turned the pages with gentle care. Her gaze went over the strange words on the pages. The weird drawings. I watched intently as she turned the pages.
Owen sat stiff next to me.
Finally, Mrs. Rollins shook her head. “I’m sorry, dear,” she said. “This isn’t any language I recognize.”
“It’s not?” My voice was weak.
“No. Not Old English. Not Latin. Not even Gaelic,” she said.
“I can read a fair amount of Old English and Latin and I know Gaelic when I see it, but this…” She shook her head again.
“This I don’t know. It’s something older.
Something… specific. Whoever wrote it used an archaic language I’ve never seen.
It reminds me of a mixture of cuneiform and ogham. ”
“Ogham?”
“You know. What the old Celts used. The Druids.”
We both stared at her in silence. My heart climbed it’s way back to my throat. Owen’s whole body went still beside me—like she’d called him out. He coughed into his hand like he had a sudden allergy attack.
I finally got my brain back on track and asked, “So, you can’t read it?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
All the air went out of my lungs along with the hope I’d been hanging onto like a lifeline. Next to me, Owen’s hand brushed the back of mine. Like he was silently telling me everything was going to be okay.
She handed the book back to me. I laid it in my lap and glared down at it like it was nothing but a foreign object I’d never seen.
“Well, thanks for giving it a try,” Owen said. “We appreciate it.”
“I wish I could help,” she said, then tilted her head with a soft smile. “You know, I used to watch you two compete in my class. All that energy between you—I knew it would turn into something eventually.”
It seemed everyone in town had decided Owen and I should be a couple.
Heat crawled up my throat and settled in my cheeks.
But Owen took it all in stride as he got to his feet. “We appreciate the vote of confidence, Mrs. Rollins,” he said with his easy charm and a flirty smile.
God, why was he so charming?
She walked us to the door. “If you do find someone who can read it, let me know. Scholarly curiosity, you know.”
“We will,” he said. “Thanks again.”
And then we were back out in the afternoon heat walking to his truck. But I couldn’t help but feel defeated.
“Don’t give up yet,” he said as he opened the car door for me.
“Who says I’m giving up?”
“I do because I can read the look on your face.”
I frowned as I climbed into the truck. “You can?”
“Yes, and it’s adorable.” He closed the door and then rounded the back. A second later, he was getting in behind the wheel. “How about dinner?”
“Dinner?” I asked.
“Yes, Piper. You know. Food?”
“Oh.” A breath escaped me. Like my body didn’t know which feeling to feel first. The exhilaration of him asking me to dinner or the disappointment of not knowing what the book said.
“I’ll cook for you,” he said. “At my house.”
That seemed awfully forward. Then he reached for my hand and pressed his lips against my fingers. “Bring your toothbrush.”
Warmth spread through me the second he said the words. My throat went dry.
“I… I’m not sure I should leave the Red Queen and Tani alone together. Might be disastrous. And then there’s the tree thing.”
“You’re making excuses,” he said good-naturedly. “Then come for dinner. Or I’ll cook at your place.”
“Owen—”
“I’m moving too fast for you, aren’t I?”
“No.” I stared down at the grimoire like it might have the answer. Then, quietly, “Maybe a little.”
The truth was, he was moving too fast and I wasn’t ready for all that… togetherness. I’d already agreed to dinner at his parents tomorrow.
His hand never released mine. “I’m sorry. I’ll slow down.” He kissed my fingertips again, his mouth soft and warm against my skin. “I guess I’m making up for lost time.”
Oh, he was killing me.
“Maybe I am making excuses,” I said quickly, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with you.”
His expression softened as he continued to hold my hand.
“I think you should know I had a someone in New York and… well, it didn’t end well.”
And that was all I wanted to say about that. There was no need to rehash that past or that he was a lying, cheating wretch.
“Oh,” he said quietly. “You don’t want to get hurt again.”
I wanted to look away from him, but I didn’t. I watched his profile as he kept his gaze on the road ahead. His expression was careful, thoughtful.
“Piper.” He said my name so many different ways, but this one sounded reverent. “I will never hurt you.”
Something deep in my chest twisted. I squeezed his hand.