Dark Masterpiece (Serendipity Series 3) (13 page)

She smiled at the thought that he actually
wanted to take her along on something that he was used to doing
alone. The knowledge that he had even thought of her made her feel
like he actually considered her worthy of being his apprentice.
“When are we going?” she asked.

He smiled. “Wednesday. Three days from
now.”

She nodded. “All right, it’s a date!”

His smile faded and he paled
considerably.

Her cheeks burned. “Well, not a date like a
date…obviously.” She swallowed and looked down. “I just meant…” She
shook her head. “Yes, Wednesday sounds good.” She plastered a smile
on her lips.

His smile seemed slightly pained, but he
nodded. “All right. I will leave you in peace. Take it easy today.
Rest.”

She nodded. “Thanks again for breakfast.” He
gave a little bow, which made her giggle. Then, he turned and
left.

Evie spent the rest of the day lounging,
watching television, and taking it easy, just like Traevyn had
said. She figured she had earned it. She didn’t make dinner either,
much to Seth’s dismay. In an attempt to be nice, he had made
pancakes, but they had come out burnt on the outside and goopy in
the middle. Traevyn actually managed to down two of them, which
made Evie think he was either really hungry or a lot nicer than she
gave him credit for.

The next two days went by fairly normal and
Tuesday night found Evie and Seth in the living room as they
watched a terrible martial arts movie. Seth burst out laughing at a
cheesy part and Evie grinned. She knew she should go to bed. She
and Traevyn had to get up early to leave the next morning, but she
wasn’t tired. Besides, she could always sleep in the car.

“Oh my gosh!” Seth cried. “Did you see the
way that guy just punched? That looked so gay!”

Evie smirked. “Like you could do better,” she
teased.

Seth frowned, then
delivered a mean punch right into her shoulder. Her eyes bulged and
she grasped at her now dead arm. “Oh my gosh!” she cried. “That
hurt
so
bad
!” She turned to her brother to
retaliate, but he was quickly retreating. “Come back here!” she
shouted, jumping up after him.

Seth laughed as he continued to evade her,
but he wasn’t fast enough and Evie shoved him. He stumbled
backwards into a book case that was against one of the walls. It
sent a vase wobbling on top and two large photo albums tumbled to
the floor. One of them landed open. The other one had a wedding
picture of Traevyn and his wife on the front. Evie blinked in
surprise and stared down at the picture. He looked so happy,
blissful even. She knelt down and picked the album up, running her
fingers across the front. “Traevyn’s wedding album,” she
murmured.

Without even thinking, she opened it up and
began to look through it. There were so many pictures of him
laughing, pictures with his brothers and his friends. His wife was
beautiful with alabaster skin and golden hair. What a stunning
couple they had made. In all of the pictures he was staring at her
with such adoration. It was plain to see how much he had loved
her.

“Look, Evie,” Seth said. He handed her the
other album.

She glanced at the front. It was a baby
book. “Leanna Alison Whitelaw,” she read softly. She opened it and
stopped when she saw a black and white photo taken of Traevyn
holding his baby girl. He was asleep and she was sleeping on his
chest. She reached out to touch it. It was the most beautiful thing
she had ever seen.

“What are you doing?” Traevyn’s voice
came.

Evie jumped and snapped the book shut. “Oh.”
She stood and put the albums back in the shelf. “Seth and I were
messing around and he accidentally knocked them down.” She frowned
as she realized that Seth seemed to have taken a convenient leave
of absence.

Traevyn‘s scowl was fierce. “So you decided
to take a guided tour?” His voice was a snarling hiss.

She shook her head. “Oh no! I was just
curious—”

“I did not give you permission to look at
those!”

Evie was taken aback. She knew she shouldn’t
have been snooping, but he really didn’t have to yell at her like
that. “I—I’m sorry…I just—”

“Keep out of my things!” he exclaimed. “You
take enough liberties as it is!”

She stopped for minute and her apology died
on her lips. She felt anger well up inside of her. Liberties? What
the crap? “Excuse me?” she cried. “I take enough liberties as it
is? There is not one thing I’ve done in this house that I haven’t
cleared with you first, and I didn’t know that trying to be friends
with you was taking a liberty!”

He met her gaze, his eyes cold and flat. “I
never asked you to befriend me, Evie.”

She stared at him, unable to believe what he
had just said. Hurt washed over her. She had been so certain that
they‘d been growing closer, building a relationship that went
beyond the student/teacher role. Had he just been tolerating her
all this time, pretending to care when he really didn’t? “Oh okay,”
she said, her voice full of bitterness. “I guess that’s why, when I
asked you if it bothered you that I was trying to be friends with
you, you said no. You said you enjoyed my company.” She folded her
arms and looked away. Had that all just been a bunch of bull? Had
his compassion the night she’d been sick just been a temporary
lapse of sanity on his part?

He sighed. “Evie, those pictures,” he
indicated the albums she had replaced. “Those memories… They are
from another lifetime. They are the memories of a man I don’t even
know anymore. I don’t want to remember them.”

Evie watched as he drew in a shuddering
breath and hung his head. She felt her heart soften. “Traevyn,” she
said quietly as she approached him. “You can’t deny your own
memories. Embrace them, learn from them, grow…” She placed a hand
gently on his arm. “Become whole again.”

He whirled, anger and pain
burning in his eyes. “I will
never
be whole again!” he cried. “What could I possibly
have to learn from those memories that I haven’t already learned? I
learned that love is pain! It is a razor sharp blade! A scorching,
burning dagger that stabs and stabs again! And the wound never
stops bleeding!” Tears brimmed in his eyes and he shook with the
violent torrent of his emotions. In the brief second before Evie
had closed the book, he had seen. He had seen the picture of him
holding his daughter, and below it he had seen a picture of the
three of them in a park together. Amy, Leanna and him. His family.
The one he no longer had.

He looked down, feeling lost and hopeless.
He wanted to leave, to lock himself in his room and not emerge
until he got a grip on himself. But Evie… She was staring at him
with such compassion and concern. A very small remnant of his
shattered heart wanted to reach out to her, to cry within her
embrace. He didn’t know why, but her arms seemed the only place
that was safe at the moment. That horrified him more than anything.
That he would even have that desire meant trust. Trust meant
friendship. Friendship of any sort meant love. Love meant pain.

“Traevyn,” Evie murmured, stepping forward.
“Tell me what happened. Help me understand. If I understand, I can
help you.” She laid her hand on his arm again, a gesture of
comfort.

Everything inside of him tensed at her touch.
Too close. She was too close. She was asking him to trust her,
confide in her. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He pulled away from her
touch and met her eyes. “Stay away from me.” His voice was much
more sinister than he had ever heard it sound.

She couldn’t mask the hurt in her eyes. “I
only want to help you.”

“I’m broken!” he shouted.
“Something inside of me died! I can’t fix it! You
definitely
can’t fix it!
Who are you anyway? Nobody. Just a college student I’m supposed to
train for the summer. I’ll never see you again. You know those
memories you told me to learn from? You know what they taught me?
Let no one close enough to hurt you!
No
one!
And
that’s what I have done. No one but my brothers can get close to
me. Certainly not you. You are no one to me. Just my apprentice.
Not my psychiatrist, and definitely not my friend.”

Evie folded her arms as he turned and
started to walk away. Hurt at his words was replaced quickly with
her flaming temper. She snorted in disgust. “I guess that’s why you
went to the beach with Seth and me and laughed and played. I guess
that’s why you took care of my while I was sick. Or, here’s one in
case you forgot, I guess that’s why you poured your heart out to me
on the anniversary of your daughter’s death! You did all of those
things because I am nothing to you, right?”

He met her eyes with a dark glower. He said
nothing, but he had no problem dismissing her as he turned his back
to her again.

Evie reached down and pulled her shoe off.
It was just a flimsy, black flip flop. She hated the image of his
retreating form, of him walking away from her. She wasn’t finished
yet! He was going to listen to what she had to say whether he
wanted to or not. Stubborn, prideful, ridiculous man… She flung her
shoe at him and it hit him between the shoulder blades. He whirled,
looking half perplexed and half infuriated.

“I am
so
stupid
!”
she bellowed. “I am a stupid, stupid woman to think you could
be
anything
other
than the insensitive jerk you were when I met you! You know what,
Traevyn? You can tell yourself whatever you need to make you feel
better, but the real reason you won’t revisit your memories or let
me in has nothing to do with me. You just take it out on me because
I’m a good scapegoat and me being here to lash out at prevents you
from having to face the culprit in the mirror. The real reason is
because you’re a coward.”

He strode back to her, his green eyes
smoldering with anger. “I am no coward.”

“You
are
a coward! It’s easier for you to
lock out the world and miss out on everything beautiful in life
than it is to just take a chance and risk getting hurt again.” She
shook her head. “You’re pathetic.” The words flew out of her mouth
before she could stop them, heated words of anger that she never
would have said otherwise. She saw hurt flash across Traevyn’s
features, but she didn’t show weakness. After all, he had said
hurtful things and not cared.

They stared at one another for an agonizing
moment, then Traevyn stood to his full height and fixed her with an
icy scowl. “Go to bed. We’re leaving early in the morning.”

“Oh, you’re still taking me?” she said with
sarcasm.

He started out of the room and up the
staircase. “Not out of desire, out of obligation.”

“Oh! Well I’ll be sure not
to sit
too close
to you in the car!” He said nothing and she watched him
disappear up the stairs. She sat down on the couch, still fuming.
After a moment, her anger abated and she sighed. Instant regret
over what she had said set in and she pondered whether or not she
should apologize. She decided against it. After all, she had only
been trying to be supportive! He was the one that had gone off like
a loose cannon! If anything,
he
owed
her
an apology!

She grumbled to herself and made her way up
to her room. Seth better not even think of showing his face to her.
The little turncoat. If he’d stayed, Traevyn might not have lashed
out at her like he had. It had been just as much his fault as it
was hers anyway. He’d been the one trying to kung-fu her on the
couch.

She thought seriously about apologizing
several more times before she went to sleep, but she told herself
she was too pissed to give him that much. In her heart she knew the
real reason why she wouldn’t do it. Other than her own stubborn
pride, he had hurt her. She’d thought she was at least a friend to
him and he, more or less, said she meant nothing. That stung, stung
more than it should have, but she tried to ignore it and pawn it
off as anger. It was an easy emotion to hide behind.

Chapter Eleven

The ride to San Luis Obispo was a silent
one. Neither of them spoke a word the entire drive down and, when
they got there, all Evie got to do was stand around while Traevyn
talked to the art dealer for upwards of two hours. When she decided
she couldn’t take it anymore, she just left. She walked out of the
gallery and wandered the streets until she found a coffee shop that
caught her interest. San Luis Obispo reminded her of a coastal
Ashland so she felt very at home. She went inside and lodged
herself into a corner where she just drew. It was the only thing
that would make her feel better.

* * * *

Traevyn’s first reaction when he realized
that Evie was missing was great irritation, but as the hours went
by and he still couldn’t find her, his irritation grew to concern.
A cold lump of guilt sat in the bottom of his stomach as he
searched. He had driven her away. He couldn’t find her because she
didn’t want to be found. He wouldn’t either if someone had spoken
to him the way he’d spoken to her the night before. He hated how
cruel he had been to her and had thought seriously about
apologizing, but she had hurt him too and didn’t seem to show great
remorse for it.

Besides, she had pelted him with her
shoe.

Still, he couldn’t help but feel like her
hurtful words were more of a retaliation than an assault. He’d
absolutely lost it when he’d seen that picture. It had caused such
inner turmoil that all he’d wanted to do was shut it out and run.
Evie’s presence made it impossible to do that. So, because she
wouldn’t let him run, he’d attacked her. It was his defense. It was
what he was used to… And it made him feel terrible.