Endless (18 page)

I tried to get up, but the room was spinning
around me. Clutching the side of the couch, I dropped my head down
onto my knees. I was dimly aware of Michel going into the kitchen,
and a moment later I felt the cold washcloth on the back of my
neck.

“Take it easy,” he murmured. “Let’s get you
steady, then we’ll cool you down.” He replaced the washcloth
several times, patting it gently on my face and murmuring
comfortingly. When I began to shake as the fever broke, he wrapped
a light blanket around me and held me tight.

“What am I going to do with you?” he
whispered, kissing the top of my head.

I lifted my eyes just enough to see him.
“Move to Alaska?” I suggested. “We could live in an igloo.”

Michael laughed softly. “And have you melt
the house every time I kiss you? No, thanks. I think we need to
come up with another solution. I’m not willing to give up kissing
you, but I can’t have you burning up, either.”

I snuggled closer and shut my eyes, drifting
off to sleep.

“Okay, Zoe,” I said as I marched into the
upstairs conference room where we always worked. “No more messing
around. We need to get serious about figuring out this fire thing.”
I lifted up my shirt to show the fading but still visible blisters.
“This came from Friday night.”

“Good heavens.” Zoe peered at my stomach.
“What on earth were you doing?”

“I. . .I was with Michael.” I tried not to
sound flustered, but I knew my face was red. “You know.
Kissing.”

“Kissing?” Zoe arched her eyebrows.

“Yes, kissing! It was Friday night, I was
spending some time with my boyfriend. My
long-term,
committed
boyfriend,” I added, just to remind Zoe that I wasn’t
a floozy.

“Hmmm.” Zoe cocked her head, looking at me
speculatively. “Must have been quite a kiss.”

I sighed my impatience. “Zoe. . .really.”

“All right, all right.” Still staring at me,
she pursed her lips and tapped a finger to her chin. “Sit
down.”

I sank into a chair across the table while
Zoe continued to stare and tap. I had grown used to her odd habits,
and I knew in this mood, she could not be rushed.

“So what we know is that your fire power is
linked to your more. . .” She waved her hand, making a circular
gesture. “. . .amorous emotions. Am I right?”

“Yes.” This was mortifying. “They always
were. I found it was easier to cast fire if I had, umm, you know.
Kissed someone.”

“And you never had a problem then? When you
were first learning to cast fire, and kissing Michael to make it
easier?”

I squirmed. “Actually, it wasn’t Michael. We
had broken up for a while, and it was--” Why on earth was I
explaining this again? “No, it was someone else.”

“Ah.” Zoe nodded. “I see now. And how do you
feel about those early experiences? Any guilt? Shame?”

“What are you now, my shrink?” I jumped up
out of my chair, and across the room, a coffee mug flew threw the
air, crashing into the opposite wall.

“Not your shrink, no, but I do need to
understand. Do you see how you’re losing control here? After months
of keeping your powers in check?” Around the table, the chairs slid
in and out. The portraits on the wall began to tremble.

I closed my eyes and focused on using every
trick Zoe had taught me, channeling the energy and pulling it in. I
practiced my careful breathing. Going deep within, my mind opened;
I sensed Zoe’s emotions and picked up a sense of others nearby. All
the people who worked at Carruthers were educated to guard their
thoughts, but I could usually still discern feelings and moods.
Everyone had his or her own stamp, almost a personal scent. Fee was
in the house, I realized. I sensed the secretaries, the house staff
and. . .I frowned. Someone else. Not anyone I knew, which wasn’t
surprising; I hadn’t met all the operatives yet. But there was
something about this presence that was almost familiar and yet made
me uneasy. I drew back my mind and opened my eyes.

“Better now?” Zoe hadn’t moved, but she was
watching me closely.

“Yes.” I sat down again. “And. . .yes. I feel
guilty about what happened with Rafe. Because of what I did to Rafe
and because I was unfaithful to Michael.”

“That explains quite a bit.” Zoe clapped her
hands once, and all of the tension in the room vanished. Whether it
was some spell she cast or simply my relief at sharing some of my
feelings, I relaxed back into my seat.

“I believe your residual guilt is feeding the
fire, as it were. It was all right when you could cast the fire
outward, but now that you are re-channeling that energy, it just
festers. . .or perhaps more accurately, smolders. I don’t think we
can solve this problem until you’ve come to terms with those
feelings.”

“But I have!” I protested. “I talked to
Aline—she’s my therapist—about the whole thing. And I told
you.”

“What about Michael?” Zoe’s face was full of
compassion, but I knew she wasn’t going to let me duck this
question.

“Of course he knows. I told him.”

“You told him, but have you resolved it? Are
you both at peace?”

I bit my lip. “I guess maybe not. Michael
just wanted us to forget all that, but I know it still bothers
him.” I thought of his dream and shook my head. “No. We’re not at
peace about it.”

“That’s it then.” Zoe stood. “Go make this
right, and then we’ll see what we can do. But I imagine that once
you ease the guilt, you’ll find the heat is no longer a problem.”
She winked at me and smiled. “At least the heat that blisters, that
is!”

I blushed again. “All right, I’ll do that.
Thanks, Zoe, and I’m--”

“Tasmyn!” I turned, startled at the tone of
Cathryn’s voice. “What are you doing here?”

I shrugged. “I guess ‘I work here’ isn’t the
answer you’re looking for?”

“You weren’t scheduled to be at the house
today.”

Bewildered, I shook my head. “I know. I
needed to see Zoe.”

Cathryn turned to the other woman. “I wish
you had told me Tasmyn was coming up.”

“Cathryn, what’s wrong? Why are you freaking
out?”

She set her mouth in firm line. “I’m hardly
freaking out. I’m just surprised to see you, and you know I don’t
like surprises. And we have some guests in the house who—it’s a
sensitive situation. We don’t want people wandering around and
running into them.”

“Fine. I won’t wander. I’ll stay right up
here with Zoe.”

“We need Zoe right now. I’m afraid you’ll
have to finish your session later. And Tasmyn?” Cathryn fastened
her eyes on my face. “Please make sure you go down the back stairs
and out the side door. And--”

“Yes, I know. Don’t wander. I promise, I’ll
go directly to my car and won’t even pass go. Thanks, Cathryn. Your
welcome is always so warm.”

“Don’t make more of this than it is, Tasmyn.
We’ll see you later in the week.”

“Are you sure you want me to come up
then?”

Zoe stepped between us. “Tasmyn, why don’t
you work on what we discussed? We’ll talk again on Wednesday. If
you need me before then, you have my number.”

I slipped past Cathryn in the doorway and
made my way to the stairs. As I stomped down, fuming at being sent
home like a naughty child, I picked up that same oddly-familiar,
oddly ominous sense. I paused at the foot of the steps, and for a
moment, the wild thought that Marica could be here crossed my mind.
But no. It didn’t feel like her. It felt like. . .I shook my head.
Couldn’t be. It must have been talking about him that made me feel
he might be close.

Shrugging, I left the house and began the
drive back to campus, forgetting about the odd sensation and
instead dreading my talk with Michael.

I was afraid that if I waited to talk with
Michael, I might chicken out. Swallowing my nerves, I called him on
the way back to campus and told him I would meet him in his room,
crossing my fingers that Charlie wouldn’t be there.

Michael was sitting on the sofa, feet propped
on the scarred coffee table and a textbook propped on his lap, when
I opened the door. He smiled at me and dropped the book, stretching
his arms.

“Hey, gorgeous. How did it go with Zoe? Did
you figure out why I give you fever?”

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “I take
it Charlie is out?”

“Yeah, away game somewhere.” He dropped his
feet to the floor and patted the cushion next to him. “Come sit
down. Tell me all about your day.”

I leaned in to kiss him and fell onto the
couch. “I did get to talk to Zoe, though not as long as I would’ve
liked. Cathryn chased me out of the house.”

Michael frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, someone was visiting, and she
freaked that I was there when she didn’t expect me.” I frowned. “I
didn’t get to ask her about Mr. Cummings.”

“You can do it next time. So what did Zoe
say?”

My heartbeat sped up, and my stomach
clenched. “She thinks I have residual guilt, and that’s what keeps
me from channeling the energy the right way.”

I felt Michael’s tension. It was a nearly
tangible tightening around my throat. He was quiet for a moment,
though I could hear him thinking.

Residual guilt? Over what?

“There’s nothing I haven’t told you,” I
assured him. I reached for his hand and held it between both of my
own. “Nothing as bad as what you imagined.”

“I thought we were over that. Beyond it.”

I twisted closer to him. “We are. . .moving
beyond it. But Zoe thinks there is part of me that hasn’t resolved
what happened, and that until I do, I can’t control the heat.”

“Zoe thinks that. And what do you think?”

I blew out a sigh. “I think you’ve been
incredibly forgiving. But maybe my guilt is more about me not
deserving your forgiveness. Or maybe it’s that you haven’t been
hard enough on me. You never even hesitated, Michael. You just took
me back like nothing had happened.”

His forehead furrowed, and random thoughts
filtered into my head before he began to speak. “That’s not exactly
true.”

I didn’t answer, because I was beginning to
get the gist of what he meant before he went on. “Last spring,
after I got your email, I wanted to just jump in the car and drive
to you right away. That was my knee-jerk reaction. I called my mom
and told her what I planned to do, and she asked me to stop and
think.”

“Marly? She didn’t want you to come back to
me?” I was shocked, and not a little hurt. Marly had never shown me
even the least difference in her feelings since our
reconciliation.

Michael laid his hand on my arm. “Listen to
me. It wasn’t like that. She told me that I needed to be sure I
could truly, completely forgive you before I rushed back. She
didn’t want either of us to be hurt again if it turned out I
couldn’t handle—the past. What had happened.”

“Oh.” I took a minute to digest that.

“Yeah. So I did. I talked to her and my dad,
and I. . .I even called Anne and asked her to tell me everything
she had heard about you and Rafe. She didn’t want to do it. But I
had to hear it all or I wouldn’t know if this—if you and I—could
work again.”

I swallowed over a lump in my throat.
“Okay.”

“I had a rough night, I won’t lie to you. Not
that I could, of course.” He treated me to his smile, the one that
was only ever for me. “What Anne told me was so out of character
for you. All I could think was that Ms. Lacusta or Rafe had done
something to alter your mind. When I said that to my parents, they
said it might be a possibility, but that I had to be certain I
could forgive you and go on even if they hadn’t done anything.
Because we might never know for sure.”

This was what I had feared all along, that
Michael was giving me a pass on something that had been totally my
fault. More than anything else, it was what had fed my guilt over
the past months.