The Gathering Dark (17 page)

“Funny attitude for an orphan, you mean?” His eyebrow was cocked but there was only the gentlest teasing in the set of his mouth.

Keira nodded, staring intently at the book in her hands. A collection of Viennese waltzes. The illustrated lady on the front had been drawn with an impossibly tiny waist, as though a single wrong move on the dance floor would snap her in two. Keira knew how she felt.

She looked up at Walker. “You’re not talking about your parents when you say families suck, are you?”

He linked his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “Nope. See? I knew you’d understand.”

Keira slid the waltzes back onto the shelf.

“At least this time you’re leaving the music neat,” Walker observed.

“Very funny.” Keira remembered that first day she’d met Walker. She could still see the mess of music-covered pages on the floor, hovering at her feet like ghosts.

Walker leveled his gaze at her. It was like being caught in an unexpected spotlight. She suddenly felt completely visible, all of her flaws and secrets laid bare beneath the beam.

“I don’t want you to worry about my family.” Walker’s voice was even lower than usual—a rumble that made Keira shiver as it rattled through her chest. “They’re not worth it.”

Walker rubbed his forehead. His fingers left a smear of ink above the bridge of his nose.

“I’m not worried,” Keira insisted. “My whole family’s crazy, too, remember?” She smiled at him, reaching up to wipe away the smudge, but before her fingertips could touch it, the black stain sank into his skin and disappeared.

She froze, her hand inches from Walker’s face.

His eyebrows drew together. “You okay?”

Her own words echoed in her head.
My whole family’s crazy. My whole family’s crazy.

Keira swallowed hard and forced herself to nod. She pasted on a sheepish smile. “I thought you’d gotten some ink here.” She stroked a finger across his forehead and Walker’s eyelids flickered. “But I guess it was just a shadow.”

He reached up and caught her wrist before she could pull her hand away from his face.

Her heart thudded so frantically that Keira was dizzy with it. He had to be able to feel her pulse racing beneath his fingers—it was like her blood was leaping up to feel his touch.

She hadn’t realized she’d moved so close to him. She couldn’t look away from his fathomless gray eyes and she didn’t want to. There was nothing else worth seeing.

“I’m sure it was just a trick of the light,” Walker agreed, each word slow and thick as molasses. He slid his hand along her wrist, his fingers lingering against her palm before he let go. Her skin tingled where he’d touched her and she pressed her arm against her body, holding the feeling there.

“Saturday night,” he said, still pinning her in place with his eyes. “Will you have dinner with me? Somewhere with actual napkins and decent food?”

Keira smiled at him. The spell of the moment broke, but the cracked pieces still glittered with leftover magic. “Yes to dinner. But this is Sherwin. We might be able to find cloth napkins, but you’ve been here long enough to know that there
is
no decent food.”

Walker laughed. “Close enough. Now let’s find you some music. Might as well make one of our families happy today, right?”

The two of them walked back to the bins, but Keira struggled to pick some music. She was like a ship caught on
a roiling sea, pitching helplessly back and forth between the delicious heat of Walker’s touch, his invitation, and the cold horror of the fact that his family already didn’t approve of her.

And why should they, when she couldn’t even be counted on to have a simple conversation without hallucinating? She toyed with the idea of saying something—asking him why it was only when she was with him that she saw the bizarre darkness.

She thought about asking if Walker saw it too.

Her mouth opened barely wide enough to let the words slip through. The tip of her tongue traced her lower lip—

And then the clang of the door echoed through the store as an old woman minced into Take Note with a battered violin case under one arm.

Keira’s mouth snapped shut. Walker sauntered up to the counter, and Keira turned her attention back to the music. Fine. Maybe this wasn’t really the time to bring it up after all.

Chapter Twenty-Two

F
RIDAY SCRAPED BY SLOWLY
.
When Saturday came, time barely seemed to be moving at all. Susan was distant—it was like she could smell Keira’s disapproval. When they talked, Susan was vague, and when Keira asked if she wanted to hang out, Susan was “busy.” Keira’s parents went . . . wherever it was they went to escape.

Keira spent the day at the piano. She played the things she was supposed to play, but after an afternoon of uninspired, technical practice, she found her fingers wandering over the keys. Not playing anything she knew, but playing
something
, nonetheless. She felt the music taking shape beneath her
hands, the same way she’d stumbled into the song she’d written for Walker.

This one was different. Staccato and choppy and repetitive, but suspenseful, too. She could hear—could
feel—
all the wanting trapped inside her, echoed in the spiraling measures and circling notes. The strangeness of hearing music,
making
music, without being able to see the notes on a page in front of her, quickened Keira’s breath. It was like driving with her eyes closed, trusting that she knew the road and the car well enough to avoid a crash. As thrilling as it was, though, it wasn’t going to get her into Juilliard.

With a sigh, she let the last chord fade into silence. Without bothering to transcribe what she’d just played, Keira picked up the music for the Beethoven sonata and positioned it on the music stand.

At least she could play again. It was still missing the spark that she felt with her own pieces, but she knew she’d get that back.

It would just take practice.

Lots and lots of practice.

•  •  •

That evening, Walker pulled into the driveway at five thirty. Keira was already dressed and ready to go, her stomach rumbling at the thought of dinner. She stretched her neck, easing out the kinks that had set in after the hours she’d crammed in at the piano before getting ready for her date.

Her date.
The words were cool and sweet as ice cream and Keira shivered pleasantly. She was going on a date with a guy she liked, and she wasn’t sacrificing her music to do it. She would have loved to call Susan and gloat, but she was pretty sure Susan was already out with Smith. That sort of interruption wasn’t going to win her any points at all.

The thump of Walker’s car door snapped Keira’s wandering thoughts back in line. She shrugged into her jacket and turned to yell good-bye to her mother.

“Where are you going?” Her mom stood in the kitchen doorway, her arms crossed in front of her.

“Um, out to dinner?”

“With Walker?” her mother prompted.

Keira nodded. She wasn’t trying to hide what she was doing. If her parents were too wrapped up in their own drama to notice what was going on in her life that wasn’t her fault.

“The therapist said it was healthy for me to spend time with my friends, remember?”

Her mother winced, then recovered. “But Walker’s more than a friend, isn’t he?”

Heat flooded Keira’s cheeks. The doorbell rang.

“Well?” her mother asked.

“Not yet,” Keira whispered, keenly aware of the thin walls and flimsy door. “Are you telling me I can’t go? Because Walker’s standing out in the cold and that’s rude.”

Her mother sighed and dropped her arms. “Fine. Be home by nine.”

“Nine? But it’s Saturday!” Keira protested.

Her mother gave her a don’t-push-me smile. “He’s welcome to stay for a while. But
you
are to be back in this house by nine p.m.” She stomped into the kitchen, muttering something about learning lessons the hard way.

Keira waited until her mother was gone, then opened the door. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to leave you waiting in the cold.”

Walker stood on the porch, his hands shoved into the pockets of a black wool peacoat. He shot her a grin that was wicked as the devil.

“Some things are worth waiting for.”

The cold air between them vanished. Keira smiled back and stepped out onto the porch. She closed the door behind her, shutting out her mother’s disapproval and her parents’ inevitable Saturday night fight. She shut out everything except Walker.

“Good to know,” she said, arching an eyebrow. “But if I have to wait much longer for dinner, I’m going to die of hunger.”

Walker laughed, a low, black-laced chuckle that went through Keira like a hot knife. “Then let’s go.”

He put a hand on the small of her back. The tips of his fingers pressed against the curve of her spine and his touch set her skin on fire. They climbed into the car and Walker tossed her a thin silver rectangle.

“Since you’re the expert—I thought you should get to pick the music. It plugs in right there,” he said, pointing to a spot on the dashboard.

While he drove, Keira scrolled through the albums. The eighties rock bands made her want to giggle, but she resisted. There was plenty else to choose from—lots of alternative stuff that didn’t make her want to scream, but didn’t feel quite right for the night. She settled on an old Van Morrison album, clicked play, and leaned back in her seat.

Walker looked over at her. “Nice choice,” he said. “And thanks.”

“For what?” she asked.

“Not laughing at my pathetic music selections,” he said seriously.

She didn’t laugh, but she couldn’t stop the smile that slid across her face. “Hey, no one’s perfect, right?”

His gaze swept over her hair and lingered for a moment on her mouth before he turned his attention back to the road. “I’m not so sure about that,” he said quietly.

With his words still ringing in the air between them, Keira’s cell phone started to vibrate. She thought about letting it go to voice mail, but if it was Susan . . .

She slid the phone out of her pocket, glanced at the strange number, and hit ignore.

“Not important?” Walker asked.

“Nope,” she said. “I thought it might be Susan, but it wasn’t.”

“Everything okay?”

Keira cleared her throat. “I think she’s busy right now,” she said. “And I kind of told her that I wasn’t sure Smith was a good choice for a rebound guy. She doesn’t want to hear that. It’s hard. I mean, not everyone’s jumping up and down about you and me, either.”

“Ah. So your mom doesn’t like me,” Walker guessed. “She thinks I’m the Big Bad Wolf, coming to steal you away from the path of your True Calling.”

“How did you know?” she asked.

Walker shrugged. “I get that reaction a lot,” he said. He pulled into the parking lot of a tiny restaurant.

“I mean . . . it’s not exactly like that,” Keira stammered as he shut off the car and turned to face her.

He watched her fumbling for the right words, his eyes sparkling with mirth.

She covered her eyes with her hand, needing to hide before she could admit the truth. “Yeah. That’s pretty much how it is.”

His skin was warm against hers as he gently tugged her fingers away from her face. Their hands lay linked on the console between them.

“So, then, the question is . . . is it worth it? Am I worth it?” His voice was soft.

In the silence that followed, she could hear her heart thrumming double-time. The words caught in her throat, and she had to swallow before she could answer.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I want you to be.”

His eyes widened. Narrowed. “I guess that means I haven’t totally swept you off your feet, then. I’ll have to work harder.”

Keira tightened her grip on his fingers, matched his gaze. “I’m not trying to hurt your feelings. I like you.” Saying it out loud was like taking off a pair of shoes that were too tight—she felt freer and more naked, all at once. “But I know what it means to do something that shuts other people out. I’ve dedicated my whole life to music—picked that over everything else. I don’t know if there’s room for you and the piano. I can’t say yes—not just because I want to. I
do
want to. But I have to be
sure.
”

Slowly, Walker nodded. He ran his thumb across the back of her hand. “Then I’ll have to find a way to make you sure,” he said.

“You’re not mad?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know if you’ll believe me, but that answer was better than a simple ‘yes’ could ever have been.” He slid his hand out of hers and opened the car door. “Now, dinner. Before you starve.”

Keira watched him slide out of the car and flip his collar up against the wind that tugged at his curls.

He turned toward the car with a smile, waiting for her in every sense of the word.

Chapter Twenty-Three

D
INNER WAS INEVITABLY TERRIBLE
.
There were only three kinds of restaurants in Sherwin—fast food, “family friendly,” and a few independent holes-in-the-wall that hadn’t changed their menus since 1963.

Keira watched Walker poking at his pot roast suspiciously.

“How is it?” she asked.

“Murdered,” he answered. “In more ways than one.”

Keira laughed. “Sherwin’s not exactly the Restaurant Capital of Maine,” she agreed, gesturing to her own dinner, which was more soggy breading and lemon sauce than chicken.

“It’s a good thing I’m not that into food. Otherwise, I guess I’d have to learn to cook.”

Keira shrugged. “I couldn’t help you with that. I can make tea and peanut butter sandwiches, but that’s about it.”

“Too absorbed in your art to bother with the real world?”

It sounded so ridiculous, so
pompous
when he said it like that. She frowned. “It’s not that. Not the way you meant it, anyway. I just don’t care. If I have an extra hour, I’d rather spend it in front of the piano than hovering over some pots and pans.”

Walker opened his mouth to respond, then he hesitated. His gaze flicked away from her face, looking somewhere behind Keira. Automatically, she turned to see what had distracted him. She should have seen a couple of empty tables and the fern-laced paper that lined the restaurant’s walls. Instead, spread out behind her was a thicket of reddish black undergrowth. The leaves were round and dull, which only highlighted the thorns that stood out between them like needle-pointed fingers.