Silver Hollow (4 page)

Amie used to think
it
was a twin thing to speak without words. Now she was convinced it was a Jo and Faye thing. Turning to a bemused James, Amie said, “I don’t see what the big deal is
.
”

Or why it’s anybody else’s business, thank you very much
.

James chuckled as if to say,
Better you than me
. Both of them knew once an idea got into the girls’ heads, nearly nothing could turn their minds off it.

Growing up, she’d noticed their parents, the McSpaddens, tended to lean on the conspiracy theory side of thinking. No one was ever safe, might have been their motto. Even though the
y
allowed their daughters to attend public school, they never told anyone their profession. When
Amie’s
parents
decided to move and introduce his daughter to high society, the McSpaddens moved with them. Yet instead of joining in, they had grown reclusive and
,
after their friends’ deaths, moved back to Kansas. The twins made themselves her unofficial bodyguards, and Amie had forgotten to think of their behavior as odd.

Fortunately
, the one thing that could have successfully divided the twins’ attention at a moment like this walked in the door.

“Hey, isn’t that Dr. Gomora?”

Faye whipped around so fast her dark hair rushed into her eyes when she faced Amie. “What? O-M-G, are you serious? What’s he doing here? Amie
,
you called him, didn’t you? I can’t believe you invited Ben!”

“Wish I could claim credit,” Amie denied, just thankful the heat was off of her again. She now remembered why she kept the twins out of her love life. It was much easier to vicariously enjoy theirs.

The infamous Ben was standing not so far away now, dark hair perfectly groomed and hanging over his blue eyes. The esteemed doctor had the look of both danger and mystery, the perfect combination Faye couldn’t resist. Faye and Ben had been friends for about a year, ever since working together at a relief camp in Haiti. Judging by the knowing look behind James’ guarded eyes Amie had a fair idea of who had orchestrated this number. The soldier had more contacts than most people suspected.

Faye followed Amie’s gaze with a not
-
too
-
casual glance over her shoulder before facing them with a little jump of excitement. As long as
Amie
had known her, Faye
preferred
diving headfirst while her twin preferred to think things through. Already her impulsive nature was at work as she shifted her cleavage inside her tight dress and checked her teeth. “Hope you’ll all still love me if I go talk to him. Won’t you?” she asked.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Jo said before shaking her head. “Oh
,
beans
…never mind.”

“Yeah, go ahead. Just remember I can always kill off your character if you make me mad enough,” Amie teased. Faye gave several mock protests before hugging them all again and returning to her party.

Jo’s eyes met Amie’s. The small blonde spoke first
.
“I think I’ll stay back here with y’all.”

Amie
could only hope the shrewder of the two sisters was planning on dropping the subject of tall, dark and handsome strangers at the present.

…

Hours later found the center of the old barn turned into a makeshift dance floor where a few lingering guests swayed to the music. Jo looked tiny wrapped securely in James’ arms and together, beneath the dim golden lantern light
,
they
appeared as though they
had
stepped from the pages of Amie’s imagination.

Comfortable once more behind the dessert table, Amie had struggled through rounds of hellos with Faye’s guests. She smiled through tired eyes as Faye, beneath the brightest lantern at the center of the floor, leaned her chin upon Ben’s shoulder. The air could have crackled with the chemistry those two sparked.

Brad Paisley crooned over the stereo. She thought she might throw up. Country music had never been her forte, or relationships for that matter. For once she felt forgiving of the
S
outhern twang but not the sting of seeming to be the only single gal in the crowd. She didn’t ponder the mystery behind her lack of true love. Nor did she ask herself how she’d managed to avoid men in general the last three years, because it was then Amie caught sight of a familiar face among a dwindling sea of strangers. And this time she had the patience to actually look at him.

He must have spent the evening hidden in the shadows, for had he been a part of the party he would have certainly been noticed. His hair was cut short though unkempt, surrounding a square and unreadable
,
unremarkable face, though he stood easily a head above most of the gathering. It was his eyes, she decided, black as his hair and now trained upon
her,
which
refused to be ignored. So different were they now than on the street before, with fresh intensity and sorrow. There was something
almost familiar about this strange man’s face, veiled to her memories
.

The Brit on the street…

How could she not have seen it sooner? Such a blend of indignation and surprise stole her ability to move. A good angry part of her would have liked nothing better than to stalk up to the man and give him a piece of her mind. Yet the longer she stared the more she found herself thinking of things she
would
rather not…of her dead parents, of mysterious letters and interweaving Celtic knots. She felt the pain of past wounds she had struggled so long to quench and patch over with stories and success.

Black orbs trained upon her, his expression never wavered but drew her in
,
moth to flame.

She jumped when a pair of excited hands grasped her shoulders mid-step.

“Amie! Did you
see that?
Please
tell me you saw that!”

In one instant she felt the world shift, then time rush to catch up. The song had ended and people were making their way to their amassed vehicles. Faye’s golden face was smiling before her and the bold familiar eyes had disappeared.

“What?” Amie struggled to focus.

Faye sighed from struggling to rein her excitement in
.
“Ah, the
hotter
-
than
-
hot guy who just asked me out on a date tomorrow night?”

Amie grinned and found herself beginning to forget the dark eyes and the unpleasant memories they had stirred. “I always told you you’d end up with a doctor.”

“O-M-G! Amie, don’t joke at a time like this!”

“Are y’all talking about that terrorist again?” James’ tall figure interrupted their feminine babble.

“Shut up
,
James!” Faye practically roared in her frustration. “He is not a terrorist! He’s English!”

“
It
’s where the best of them hide out
,
you know.”

“You better watch yourself when you’re talking about my future husband!”

Amie shook her head, knowing where this old argument was headed. Jo, Amie noted, was already rushing about the old barn to get a head
-
start on cleanup.

James loved it. “Bring it on
,
string bean!” Faye began to play-punch the much bigger cowboy between them. James chuckled while holding off Faye’s assault.

Amie watched until her friends started attracting curious eyes. Faye m
ight
not mind so much now, but she would later. “Okay
,
guys, you can fight later,” Amie interrupted
.
“We should go help Jo.”

Even though Amie was able to keep the rest of their night focused on Faye’s stories of Darfur and other travels, she knew they hadn’t forgotten about the key in her pocket or the stranger. At least, for now, she could pretend she wasn’t the chick whose parents were killed by a mysterious car crash.
She could forget
the fact her father had owed some serious debts at the time of their deaths. And she cou
ld almost pretend life was
as simple as it had been when they were little girls and the world seemed full of magic.

Odd Tidings

The hour
before dawn found Amie pulling her car round the back alley. Through the gloom and decades
-
buried waste behind
Pat’s Delights
was a narrow strip
leading
to the back staircase leading up to her flat.

The stranger’s face came unbidden to her as she gathered her things and moved her weary legs. Black eyes set deeply in a shadow-drenched face haunted her, eyes
which
seemed to accuse and praise, sift and wonder. Now that she knew, she realized she must have seen him before today, maybe even in the past she had tried to forget
.

The faded yellowing parchment marked with heavy black ink, with words too absurd to be true, flashed in her mind. Clutching the key hidden in her jeans pockets while digging through her purse for her keys, she remembered Uncle Henry’s letter. Mulling over the words
,
she once again recalled how angry she had been ten years ago after reading his first note. So what the cops were uncertain how the accident had happened. So what her father had known some powerful people. Amie had been primped and pushed into
the
upper
-
class social sphere through her teens and knew how to handle that sort. She could take care of herself just like she always had. She would tear up the letters and the tickets tonight. The twins and James were her family now.

As she placed her shoe upon the first rickety metal step, two thick and powerful hands grabbed her in the same moment.

It happened so quickly she forgot to scream. Dropping her purse she struggled, kicked and bucked against the
crazy person
lifting her and pulling her deeper into the shadows of the alley. And the harder she struggled the tighter his choking embrace became against her chest.

She thought at last to cry out, only to feel her face being smashed against a brick wall. She gasped as the figure suddenly pushed her aside, out of his embrace.
Amie stumbled back and
nearly tripping over a metal pipe
.
S
he righted herself only to come face-to-face with the black-masked figure. His brilliant blue eyes blazed into hers, now filled with unmistakable purpose. Too late she realized his intentions as a sickeningly cool object was plunged into her chest and pulled quickly out again.

Her vision swam, then blurred as she slumped against the trash
-
littered concrete. Her mind began to fade into an ever-deepening sleep though her eyes watched on. The black-garbed man was fighting someone else. Unmasked, this guy was taller, broader in the shoulders than her murderer and wrought by fury.

Pain…she had not known the meaning of the word before now and even this too was fading into the deep sleep. The further she fell the less sense the scene before her made. Her mind didn’t believe
that
the tall man
had
really tossed her attacker five feet into the air over his shoulder and into the brick, or a strange light and energy crackled in the suddenly luminous alley.

She was too afraid to hope when a pair of warm hands cradled her in a firm embrace
. He
pulled her from the muck and fixed his dark eyes on her. Obsidian
-
cut eyes, familiar eyes, pierced through her gaze and reached deeper. His face, once so indiscernible it could be called plain, was now twisted as though in agony. Even though she was slipping, falling into a calm quiet darkness, he refused to let her go. His hand moved from her neck to her cheek with the faintest touch. He pushed past and clasped hold of something tearing deep inside of her then. The black of his irises gave way to a strange mix of blue and green flecks
gleaming
in their depths. She saw…

Fields of brilliant emerald grass and a sun filled with mo
re colors than she knew to name.

Darkness and a dirty cell
, where
heavy fists punctuated his pain.

Time beyond count
ing
became a lifetime lost.

A green
-
eyed dark
-
haired beauty bathed in sunligh
t stretched out her hand to him.

Someone was screaming. Amie frowned as the woman’s cries grew louder. Pain spiked up in her chest as her lungs constricted and her heart was ripped apart then reformed. The woman’s screams died when she took a breath and realized the voice was hers.