Traveller (2 page)

“Your voice is deeper than I expected.”

If I ever decided to make a list of the top ten most idiotic things I’d ever said, that would be on it. It might even rank in the top five. I considered giving up completely, leaving the teashop, and taking a vow of silence. There must be a group of nuns or monks somewhere eager to take in and rehabilitate a former Junior Miss Kentucky.

Michael put an abrupt end to my fantasy of running away to Tibet by speaking to me again. “Yours as well. And you’re American.”

My eyes widened in surprise. “Yes, I am. You thought about how my voice might sound?”

He scowled. “I thought you must have one of those high Minnie Mouse voices. Squeaky and annoying.”

“I’m
not
squeaky and annoying?” The idea made a huge grin spread across my face.

His lips twitched, almost like he was about to smile himself. “Your voice isn’t, at least.”

“Well, someone once told me I had a Jack Daniel’s voice, smooth and rich like a good Kentucky bourbon, but Grandma Sugar insists it’s just deep and husky due to overuse.”

Michael looked completely perplexed. “Who are you and what do you want from me?”

I took a deep breath. It probably wouldn’t be a good start to tell him he occupied my every waking thought and most of my dreams, too. I decided to go with a more conventional approach.

“You’re here every morning, and I thought I’d say hello.” I stuck out my hand. “Emerson Jane Shaw.”

Michael stared at me like I’d just whipped off all of my clothing and danced on the table in my bra and undies. Not in a good way. In a “Jeepers, this gal is crazy, get me away from her” kind of way. It almost made me feel bad for him. Yes, he had been extremely rude, but it was also adorable how he nibbled on the small silver hoop that pierced his lower lip as he watched me. I’d seen him do it while studying, and had grown a bit obsessed with nibbling on that hoop myself.

He surprised me by reaching for my extended hand and holding it firmly. His hand, large, warm and rough, had cuts and bruises all over the knuckles. He had faint bruises on his face, too, and some small wounds still in the process of healing. He’d been in some kind of fight recently.

It didn’t surprise me. He had the look of a warrior about him, the lean strength and watchful eyes of a predator, and he was lethal. Sun Tzu would have seen it, too. He would have recruited him without a moment’s hesitation.

“Michael Nightingale.” He stared at me with those hypnotic eyes as he continued to hold my hand, using it to pull me nearer to him.

“I know. Mrs. Burke told me.” I couldn’t focus on what I was saying while he touched me, not that I’d done such a great job up until now with my witty repartee.

He tilted his head to one side, studying me the way a lion studies a gazelle before he eats it. His face was only inches away from mine.

“Do you like to flirt with danger, Emerson Jane Shaw?”

“Not usually, but today I can make an exception.”

The touch of his hand sent an electric current through my body that made my heart speed up and my brain slow down. He was intoxicating.
I almost had to fan myself.

Abruptly, Michael let go of me and stood up, shoving his books into his backpack. I stood up, too.

“What’s wrong?”

Michael glared at me, threw some bills on the table and stomped out of the shop. Like an idiot, I grabbed my backpack and followed him.

He walked quickly through The Shambles, dodging pedestrians and umbrellas with ease. I wasn’t quite as lucky. The rain poured down, filling the street with puddles. Michael wore combat boots and jeans. I had on a useless pair of flats and no jacket. It only took seconds for me to be soaked to the skin and miserable. In minutes, I looked like a little blonde drowned rat.

I’m pretty fast, even in slippery shoes, and I was motivated. I kept him in my sights until he reached a side street at the end of The Shambles that led down a narrow lane. I was only half a block away when he turned and looked at me, his eyes locking with mine, and disappeared.

He hadn’t walked away. He hadn’t moved. He’d been there one second, and gone the next. Running as fast as I could, I reached the spot where I’d last seen him and looked down the lane and on either side of the street. My ribbon flew out of my hair, blowing away in the wind as I slid on the wet cobblestones and nearly fell. I skidded to a halt, realizing I hadn’t been fast enough. It was a dead end, and he was gone.

Chapter Two

You better give your heart to Jesus because your butt is mine.

~Grandma Sugar

“What happened to you?” My roommate Lucinda greeted me at the door to our flat with a shocked expression.

“C…c..c..c..c..c..cold.”

When she realized I couldn’t answer because my teeth were chattering, she ran to the bathroom, got an armful of fluffy white towels, and began drying me off, berating me the entire time for my lack of common sense. I’d been hearing that a lot lately. I stood in the doorway, a cold, shivering mess, and let her take care of me.

“It’s colder than a penguin’s balls out there.” I still shook from head to toe, but managed to get a sentence out.

“You poor thing.” Lucinda bit her lip to keep from laughing. I was pretty ridiculous.

“It’s colder than a well digger’s butt in January.”

Lucinda pursed her lips. “I think we’ve established it is cold. Now to get you warmed up. It’s off to the bath for you, young lady.”

She gave me a little push in the direction of the bathroom. I closed the door, peeled off my wet clothing, and hopped straight into the shower. My hair hung in heavy, frigid clumps around my face, making me shiver even more. I still hadn’t gotten used to the cold in England. It went directly to a point somewhere deep inside my bones and made them ache.

My hands were white, and my fingertips almost blue. It took a long time standing under the steaming rain of the shower for the color to come back and for me to feel normal again. By the time I’d dried my hair and dressed in a warm sweater, yoga pants, and thick socks, Lucinda had made a pot of tea and sat on the couch waiting for me. She patted the spot next to her, wrapped me in a warm blanket, and shoved a steaming cup of tea into my hands.

“Something tells me this has to do with the mysterious Michael Nightingale.”

Lucinda and I had met after I’d been assigned a place in the dorms with an American girl named Brooke, who’d despised me on sight. I tried awfully hard to be nice to her, but concluded Brooke either hated all people from Kentucky, or she was Satan’s mistress. Either way, staying with her was not an option.

I’d showed up at Lucinda’s apartment with a note from the student center tucked into the pocket of my cardigan and suitcases in each of my hands. Lucinda had met me at the door in a red satin robe and feathered mules. She’d given me an assessing look, from the top of my curly blonde head to the bottom of my loafer-clad feet.

“I plan to shag someone from each of the seven continents this year as part of my thesis.”

Lucinda, pursuing her Master’s degree in sexual psychology, took a very hands-on approach to research. She’d watched me closely after giving her little speech, waiting for my reaction.

“Antarctica is going to be mighty tricky.”

She smiled, and I knew we’d be friends. “You’re right. Nothing but a bunch of bloody penguins.”

We’d lived together more than a month, and Lucinda’s shagging project hadn’t inconvenienced me much at all. There had been the occasional stray, half naked male in the kitchen some mornings, but I’d solved that problem by going to the teashop for breakfast. Now I went there like clockwork just to catch a glimpse of Michael.

Lucinda patted my hand. “Poor little Em. This obsession of yours is worrisome. It could almost be a case study.
Wholesome, virginal foreign exchange student from the deep-south becomes fixated on a tattooed, pierced English bad boy.
” Lucinda got a sudden, hopeful gleam in her eye. I quashed it.

“No, you cannot use me as a case study.” She stuck out her bottom lip in an adorable pout, a look that had worked on many a man. It had probably worked on quite a few women, too.

Lucinda was what Grandma Sugar called sex on two legs. She had flowing black hair, flashing dark eyes, and a voluptuous body usually encased in something tight and red. Today, it was a pair of pants that looked like they’d been painted on.

“Lucinda, those pants are so tight I can see Christmas,” I said, trying to change the subject.

Lucinda’s bright red lips curved into a smile. “Ho, ho, ho. Now back to Michael Nightingale…”

The doorbell rang, granting me a momentary reprieve. I hoped for one of Lucinda’s boyfriends who might distract her from her line of questioning, but no luck. It was Poppy, my best friend. I’d met her my first day at the University of York, and we’d been inseparable ever since.

“What happened?” Poppy kicked off her shoes, making her about six inches shorter without the giant black wedge heels.

“Michael Nightingale happened.”

Lucinda sat back down on the couch, her legs curled up beneath her. Poppy took the chair opposite us. She wore an electric blue t-shirt with a Japanese manga character on it, and a mini-skirt. Her hair had been pulled into two very short pigtails on top of her head, which made her look a bit like a punk rock Shih Tzu puppy.

“Cute skirt,” I said.

“Thanks. I made it last week.” Poppy was a fashion design major and although her tastes ran eclectic from her dark spikey hair to her striped socks, she was adorable.

Lucinda handed her a cup of tea. “Our girl finally did it.”

Poppy turned to me, her blue eyes huge. “You spoke with Michael?”

“I sort of ambushed him. He ran away. He was terrified.”

“Bloody hell.”

Poppy, from a little town on the North Sea coast called Red Car, grew up in a small bed and breakfast that catered mostly to truckers and mill workers. Their vocabulary had rubbed off on her.

“He ran away from you?” Lucinda raised a dark eyebrow at me. “Because you are so intimidating?”

Poppy laughed until she snorted. I guess it did sound kind of funny. I was about as scary as a kitten, and Michael looked like a wanted felon.

“Did you catch him?” asked Poppy as soon as she managed to stop giggling.

He disappeared right in front of my eyes. In a second, Michael was gone.

I couldn’t tell them the truth. They would think I was crazy, or at least crazier than usual.

“I chased him through The Shambles, in the rain, for miles.”

Lucinda patted my hand. “Poor little Em.”

I sighed. “It was pathetic.”

“And a little creepy,” chimed in Poppy.

“That, too.”

I reached into my backpack and pulled out my journal. The leather was soft and smooth, a richly distressed brown. My father had given it to me as a going away present, hoping I’d record all my thoughts and memories about England. Instead, I wrote about Michael Nightingale. I
was
a little creepy.

“What did you say to him?” asked Poppy.

I cringed. “Something about organic chemistry being hard.”

“Definite penile reference.” Lucinda chuckled, and I glared at her.

“I’ve never seen a boy act like that before. We talked. He asked if I liked to flirt with danger. Then he had a dying duck fit and ran away.”

“A dying duck fit?” Poppy asked.

“One step above a hissy fit is a duck fit. One step above that is a
dying
duck fit.”

“So, in other words, he was upset?” Lucinda asked, taking a sip of her tea.

“And meaner than a wet pole cat.”

“I’m sure he’s just a little overwhelmed because you are so adorable,” said Poppy. She sat next to me on the arm of the sofa, and gave me a squeeze.

“He ran away because I’m adorable?” I covered my face with my hands. “I can’t believe I chased him.”

“Can we do anything to help?” asked Poppy.

I shook my head, my words muffled by the pillow. “I just need to wallow a bit in my sorrow.”

“Well, I guess you won’t want to study with me at the library then,” said Poppy.

I glanced out at the pouring rain, and shivered. I had no desire to go outside again right now.

Poppy kissed the top of my head, stepped back into her shoes, and grabbed her umbrella. “Stay home, stay warm, and stay away from Michael Nightingale. He isn’t worth your time.”

“Will do,” I said with a sad little smile. “I couldn’t catch him anyway.”

Lucinda pulled on her coat. “I have to leave, too. Will you be okay?”

I nodded. “I’ll be busy wallowing.”

As soon as they left, I curled up in a chair by the window. The rain still fell heavily, and the sky remained gray and dark. I wrapped the blanket closer around my shoulders and watched the people hurrying up and down the street with their umbrellas.

Sun Tzu said “
He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious.
” Sun Tzu would have slapped me upside the head right now. I wasn’t being prudent. I was being the opposite of prudent.

I opened my journal and paused when I saw the faded photo of my mother I kept tucked between the pages. Her red hair curled softly over her shoulders, and her smile was hesitant, as if the photographer had caught her by surprise. I had her curls, but there the similarities ended.

She’d died when I was a toddler, and had done it in such a spectacular way that I’d grown up as the daughter of “that lady who done killed herself.” We’d never known for sure exactly what happened, but it hung over me my whole life like a dark cloud.

Her death had nearly destroyed my father, and given him demons of his own to battle. In the dark days, right after she died, he could barely speak and spent hours alone in his study. I couldn’t remember much of it, but when he emerged, he was a different man. I knew the truth. I saw it in his eyes. He couldn’t forgive her for what she’d done. She was a deserter, plain and simple, and the worst kind of coward.

I didn’t say a word about her to my father. I never mentioned her name or let him know I carried her picture around wherever I went. Sometimes, I’m sorry to say, I really missed her. I’d catch a whiff of perfume, or hear a song on the radio, and the faintest hint of a memory would form in my mind. It was usually gone before I could understand it completely, but those moments felt like a gift, a ghostly kiss from my dead mother. I longed to know more about her, something I doubted my proud, stern father ever realized.