Take Me Slowly, part 2 (Aurora Hollow duet #2)

Chapter 1

LEAH

Thoughts tumbled through my brain, fighting to be heard. None of them made any sense. A smattering of images might have been memories. Unless I imagined them.

Maybe none of it was true and I was losing my mind.

It couldn't be true.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Try to slow my panicked, racing heart.

Think.

Logically, what could be true?

What was real? I forced my mind back to the present. Right here, right now. That was real.

A cold breeze wound around me and ruffled my hair. The ground was hard under my knees. A sharp piece of gravel dug into my right kneecap. The air was heavy with the smell of trees and fallen leaves.

The creek…

The creek wandered past a couple of small cottages before disappearing into the thick of the forest. The creek they said Coral Clarke fell into.

She fell in and was never seen again. That was what they believed for twenty years.

That had to be the truth. Right? My imagination had to be filling in the blanks.

Making me think things that weren't true.

I lowered my hands from my face.

Josiah Lachance looked at me, his hands raised in front of him like he wasn't sure if he should try to touch me or not.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" He took a step closer, gravel crunching under his worn black boots.

My brow creased. What was I doing here? I struggled to remember as I climbed back to my feet.

"Nails," I said finally. "You left a bag of nails in town. I drove up here to give them to you." I don't know why that seemed important. At the time it had. Now? It seemed inconsequential.

"I would have gone and got them." He crossed his arms over his muscular chest, his defensive walls right back up in place. "You didn't need to bother."

I ignored him and looked around. "You live here? Is it just you?" I hadn't seen anyone else since I arrived. No one appeared from the cottages to ask what was going on.

The muscles in his jaw tightened. "I told you not to give a shit about me. I'm not worth it."

"I get to decide that," I said, barely glancing at him. I nodded toward one of the cottages. "You live there. Gavin Clarke lived in that one with his daughter." I gestured towards the house closer to the creek.

Josiah's eye twitched. "That's right. So what?"

"Does anyone live there now?" I started toward the Clarke house.

"What the fuck?" Footsteps muffled by the grass underfoot, he caught up to me. "You shouldn't be here."

"Shouldn't I?" I glanced over at him. "If no one lives there, then why do you care?"

"I'm the caretaker here," he said. "It's my job to give a shit."

"Why did Gavin Clarke live here?" The closer I got to the cottage, the harder it was to breathe.

"Fuck." Josiah ran a hand over his dark hair. "Because he was the caretaker. He and my dad used to run the resort. My mother was the cook."

A memory popped into my head, of a summer evening spent grilling, eating and laughing beside the creek.

Imagination, I told myself. It had to be.

"What happened to your parents?" I asked gently.

"They retired a couple of years ago." He frowned, his eyes fixed on me. "You have a lot of questions, city girl."

Yes, I did, and they were increasing by the minute.

"Are you some sort of undercover journalist? Is that why you're here? Those nails were a convenient excuse to come up here and stick your nose in where it doesn't belong?"

"Definitely not," I scoffed. "I don't know why I needed to come up here, I just did."

"What the fuck happened?" We reached the Clarke cottage and he stepped around me to lean against the wall beside the door. As if he was on guard against me trying to break in.

He lifted his chin and looked down at me, his eyes narrowed. "When you got out of your car, you looked like you saw a ghost. Or are you that eager to get on your knees for me?" His cheek twitched slightly, like a smile threatened before he shoved it back.

My lips parted. I wanted to explain what happened, but I didn't know myself.

I was certain I'd been here before, but the more I thought about it, the less it seemed possible.

I might have seen the place on TV or in a movie.

Read about it in a book. Maybe someone painted it and I saw their work.

It was beautiful up here, and quiet. The wind like a whisper, like it didn't want to disturb the tranquility.

Coral Clarke was dead.

I couldn't be her. Could I?

"I don't know," I said finally, aware of his scrutiny. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

From the expression on his face, we could agree on that.

"You should get back in your car and go back to Aurora Hollow, before you do something you'll regret." His eyes were dark and certain. Convinced I should walk away while I could. Sure I should run and never look back.

"Can I look inside?" I nodded toward the cottage.

Just when I thought he couldn't get more rigid, his entire body stiffened. "Why would you want to do that?"

I couldn't explain why; I needed to. If only to assure myself I'd never stepped foot in there before.

"No one lives there," I said easily. "The lease on the cottage I'm renting will be up soon. I might need somewhere else to live." It was as good an excuse as any, but predictably, he didn't buy a word.

"You're not living up here," he said. "For one thing, your boyfriends wouldn't allow it."

"They don't get to decide where I live," I said tersely. But he was right. Connor and Riley would lose their shit if I lived near Josiah. So would the rest of Aurora Hollow.

They welcomed me, but how welcoming would they be if I lived up here?

"This place would make a perfect art gallery," I said lamely.

That was a more plausible story. It was quieter up here than it was in town.

This would be a perfect place to paint and create.

The cottage looked big enough to host retreats for other artists.

I could picture them already, glass of wine in one hand, paintbrush in the other, sharing methods and tales in the shade of the trees.

"You can't rent it anyway," Josiah said, bursting my pretty bubble. "Gavin Clarke owns the place and he hasn't rented it out since Coral left." A haunted look passed through his eyes before he forced his cold mask back into place.

"Has anyone else been inside?" I asked. My eyes lingered on him for a moment before I peered in through the window beside the door. The curtains were open, giving a view of the living room. "You have, haven't you? You look after this place as well. You must have a key."

His lips tightened, but he shrugged. "Someone has to keep the place from falling down."

There was more to it, but I decided not to push yet.

"This is going to sound weird, but I feel like I've been here before," I said softly. "This place. This house. It's… I don't know. Familiar."

"Don't," he said firmly. "Don't start making up bullshit because you're nosy. What is it with city folk, anyway? Always thinking they can poke their noses in other people's business. How about you go find someone else to piss off? I have better things to do." He pushed past me and stomped away.

"Coral's bedroom was purple," I blurted out. "Light purple, with dark purple curtains. And… Unicorns. There were unicorns."

He stopped a few metres from me, his back turned. "How do you know that?" Without looking around, he shook his head. "You're guessing. Tons of little girls like purple and unicorns."

"She had a rainbow-coloured teddy bear with a pink and purple dress," I said, the words coming to me without me thinking.

"She had a star on her chest, in glitter or sequins.

Like a pop star. She used to think her bear would have concerts when she wasn't there.

Sometimes, she'd line up her toys and put on her own concert. "

I blinked a couple of times, trying to understand where all of that came from.

Josiah turned around slowly. "Isn't that something all kids do?" But his face was a shade or two paler.

I wasn't sure how to answer that. "My mother said plush toys were a waste of time. That I should forget about them." I'd cried myself to sleep in a room full of practical things. Books I loved, but the room lacked warmth until I placed some of my own art around the space.

"Coral had so many of them you had to push them aside to sit anywhere," Josiah said absently. "Her favourite one was Ms—"

"Ms Sparkles," we both finished together.

He gaped at me. "Who the hell are you?"

I shook my head slowly. "I don't know. I thought I knew, but now…"

"You must have come here as a kid," he said. He paused and his tone changed, became colder. "You've come up here before. What did you do, break in? That's how you know what her room looks like." He took a step toward me, his expression menacing.

I managed to stand my ground. He was intimidating, but I wasn't scared of him. Underneath all of that bravado, he was a man ostracised by his entire community. Ten years my senior, but somehow still little more than a scared boy. One who needed someone to listen, although no doubt he'd deny that.

"I haven't been up here since I arrived in town. I sure as hell didn't break in anywhere." I glanced back toward the living room. It was too dark inside to make out much. "Is the place the same as it was when she left?"

"Gavin didn't touch it," Josiah said after a few moments hesitation. "I haven't either."

"Coral's mother?" I ventured. I remembered someone saying she'd left around the same time Coral did, but I didn't know anything more than that.

"Has nothing to do with the place," Josiah said. "I never saw her after Coral left." He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. "Or before. I don't know, it was a long time ago."

Yes, it was. He lived with the shadow of this for twenty years.

Beating himself up about it on a daily basis.

I only had to look around at how well looked after everything was to know he'd put everything of himself into this place.

He maintained it, kept the place from falling apart.

As if somehow that would assuage some of the guilt he still felt.

As if somehow it would stop him from being eaten alive by the past.

"Can I please have a look inside?" I asked softly.

"Maybe I'm imagining everything. Projecting the childhood I wish I had.

" There were worse places to grow up than a tight-knit community like Aurora Hollow.

"Ms Sparkle has to be a common name for a teddy bear, right?

" If I googled, I'd probably find they were a hot trend twenty years ago.

Millions of kids all over the country could have had one.

Yet, I knew that wasn't the case. Whatever the teddy bear trend was twenty years ago, it wasn't for bears named Ms Sparkle.

Josiah sighed. "If I don't let you in, you're going to break in, aren't you?"

"Absolutely," I agreed. Breaking in wasn't on my agenda until he mentioned it, but I needed to see inside. Whatever that took, I’d do it. Even if it meant breaking the law.

"Don't make me regret this." He shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys.

Stepping past me, he slid one into the lock and pushed the door open.

He was close enough to smell leather and pine.

Earthy and honest. Heat radiated off him, along with a healthy dose of second thought.

Wondering if he should herd me back to my car and away from here.

But I was here now and I wasn't going to change my mind. Wasn't going to back down. More than anything else, I needed to see inside this cottage. If only to reassure myself I had a healthy imagination.

I half-expected the door to creak, but it didn't. It opened without any effort at all, sliding over worn hardwood floors and letting in more of the light from outside.

I sucked in a breath, moved past him and into the house.