Significance (7 page)

“Maggie-”

“And I’m terrified that the more you get to know me, you’ll realize it too.”

He put a tentative arm around my lower back and pulled my face up with a finger under my chin making me automatically lean towards him and his warmth. He smiled and it was gorgeous.

“Imprints don’t make mistakes, Maggie. All an imprint is, is our souls seeing what’s perfectly right for it in someone else. In here,” he palmed his chest “I saw something in you that I couldn’t live without. I chose you, inside of me, and you chose me. It’s not one sided, it only works when both people imprint on the other. You are perfect for me in every way. I don’t want to scare you with it all. I mean, you’re so young and you don’t know me. Yet. But...we will always be drawn together. We’ll always crave each other. We’ll always be in tune with each other, physically and mentally. There is nothing that can change or break that. And even if there was, I wouldn’t want to. Not for the world.” His hand moved to my cheek and he caressed it with his thumb. “I’ve seen you. You can’t fake or glimmer what’s inside you’re mind. And you are sweet and caring and absolutely lovable in that head of yours. I promise you my family will love you. In fact, I’m sure they already do. You’re one of us now and they can sense how I feel about you.”

“How you feel about me,” I repeated and nodded.

“Yes. They all know how it is. How we feel...about each other isn’t uncommon. It’s normal for you to feel so pulled and drawn to me even though you don’t know me, just like I am to you, but worse. It gets better and with all our connections and abilities we’ll grow to know each other very quickly.”

I couldn’t deny that and I definitely felt something for him. Especially right now with his arm around me, tentative, fighting with himself because he wants to touch me more but also wants to make sure I’m ok with it too. His concern for me was extremely endearing.

“This is all so strange,” I said breathlessly.

“Just wait,” he leaned in to whisper in my ear. “It’ll only get stranger.” He chuckled and the vibrations gave me goose bumps. “Come on,” he pulled back to look at me. “If you’re ready, let’s go on in so everyone will stop staring out the window.”

I didn’t dare turn to look but I shifted my eyes that way and sure enough, there were more faces than I could count, all packed in and peeking out of the curtains. I felt my cheeks blaze red as I groaned and he chuckled again.

“Don’t worry about them. I promise. Look at me.” I did but slowly. “They will love you. Don’t let them overwhelm you, ok? Everything will be fine. Ready?”

“No.” I did turn then. I looked at them. They were all smiling, watching us. A little girl waved frantically to me. I waved back and she jumped up and down and even though I couldn’t hear her I could tell she was squealing. I took a deep breath and smiled. “Let’s go but, be prepared to answer about a million questions.”

“I’m counting on it.”

We made our way to the door and before he could even reach the handle the door was snatched open and I was enveloped in a hug by a large woman with gray and brown hair who smelled like Freesia. She swayed me side to side and all I could do was let her.

I heard Caleb behind me, along with a lot of other chatter.

“Gran, come on. She’s freaked out enough as it is.”

“Oh, hush, Caleb. Let me have my fun.” She pulled back to look at me. “My, my, you are a pretty little thing, aren’t you?”

“Am I?” I asked lamely and everyone giggled and cackled.

“Well course you are! Look at those freckles. And these cheek bones,” she mused and ran a cool finger down one to accentuate.

“Thanks,” I said, double lame.

“Gran, please,” Caleb pulled my arm to make her release me and she did. I couldn’t help but latch onto his arm and try to keep my eyes up to look around the room with confidence instead of looking like a trapped rabbit. I didn’t want them to feel like they were bothering me. I could do this but…there were at least twenty people in there. “Alright, can you all give her some breathing room, please? Jeez, guys.”

“Why don’t you bring her in the living room, Caleb,” a pretty petite woman with brown hair that matched Caleb’s said. She was very well dressed in gray slacks and a white button blouse. She walked right up to me and smiled. “Hello, Maggie. I’m Caleb’s mother, Rachel, and you must call me that. None of that Mrs. Jacobson stuff.”

“Ok, nice to meet you.”

“No, sweetie, it’s nice to meet you.” She squinted and leaned closer. “What happened to your head?”

“I did that, mom. Remember? I fell on her after she pulled me back,” Caleb explained and looked at me sideways, a little guiltily.

“Oh, yes, how stupid of me to have forgotten.” She hugged me too, tightly and I heard her voice straining to get her words out. “You saved my boy. It’s hard to think that if you hadn’t been
there,
my boy wouldn’t be
here
.”

“It was nothing, really. Just good timing,” I insisted into her shoulder.

“You don’t honestly believe that anymore do you? After what happened I would think you’d be a big believer in destiny.”

“Mom. Jeez,” Caleb breathed out in protest.

“Go ahead,” she waved us toward the living room. “I’ll bring you something to drink. Tea?”

“Sure. Thanks,” I answered and heard her high heels clicking on the tile as she scampered away through the throng of onlookers.

Caleb took my hand, smiled at me shyly and nodded for me to follow him into the living room, as instructed, as everyone stared but had warm smiles and parted the way for us. I felt like a specimen in a Petri dish, but a welcome one. Caleb hadn’t been exaggerating. They were all thrilled I was there and it was plainly written all over their faces.

He brought me to a plush brown couch in the middle of the room. The room was bright and yellow with pictures everywhere of brown haired people. I sat down and he sat close beside me but not touching. It was so quiet, like everyone was waiting for something to happen. I decided I’d show Caleb I wasn’t some shy silly girl. I could handle his family.

“I’ve always loved this house. From the outside anyway,” I said loud enough for most to hear and some chuckled.

“Well, I’m glad you like it,” a deep voice answered back. A tall dark haired man stepped forward and took the club chair in front of us. I saw him glance at the black handprint on my arm, frown, and then look back to my face. “This was my wife’s parents’ house.”

“You must be Mr. Jacobson,” I stated and jolted a little when everyone laughed.

“Sweetheart, we’re all Mr. Jacobson.”

I blushed and looked up at Caleb from under my lashes. He was smiling and shaking his head...and he was glowing with happiness. It took my breath away. I continued to look at him. He had a little dimple in one cheek that I hadn’t noticed before and it made me ache to look at it and not touch it.

He was wearing jeans and a yellow polo shirt today. It was a nice fit, hugging him and I bit my lip as my eyes met his and my heart jumped. He actually blushed, as he felt what I felt, which was pretty hilarious.

He rubbed his chin and smiled crookedly at me which made me smile. I turned back to see everyone else grinning at us, which made me blush again. I ducked my head and let my hair curtain my face.

“Ok. Here you go.” Rachel handed me and Caleb a glass of sweet tea and sat on the loveseat near us. “Now, Maggie,” she leaned forward on her knees with her elbows. “Tell us about yourself.”

“Mom, that’s not why I brought her here,” Caleb rescued me. “First, she needs to hear the history of our kind. She needs to understand what’s going on. Where’s dad?”

“He’ll be here shortly. He had an errand to run, but while we wait, I don’t see why it would hurt to ask Maggie some questions.”

“Mom, why don’t we let her talk to grandma instead?” He turned to me. “Grandma is the only other living member of our clan who was human.”

I gasped inwardly and looked up searching for her. I forgot he had mentioned that there were others. I felt desperate to talk to her. To find out if what my body was telling me was real.

I saw her, moving forward and she sat in the only empty chair left in front of us. She pulled a silver oval locket out of her dress, on a long chain around her neck, opened it and thrust it forward for me to see. She too glanced at my arm, the handprint, before settling her gaze on me.

I took the locket gently and saw the black and white picture of a man, a handsome man who looked shockingly like Caleb. I glanced between the two several times. Caleb’s grandma chuckled.

“Yes. Caleb does look an awful lot like my Raymond did. He is his grandfather and you can call me Gran, everyone does.”

I nodded and she went on, pulling the locket from my grasp and looking at it longingly before replacing it.

“So, I met Raymond at a buffet.” She cackled. “I was with my parents, eating on a Saturday night out at our first buffet in town. We never ate out and it was such a treat. We both reached for a roll at the same time. Our fingers touched and that was it,” she said and smiled sadly.

“So, it’s the touch that triggers this...whatever it is?”

“Imprinting, yes, touch is what triggers it. Now granted, I felt some attraction to Raymond before that, as I’m sure you did, but after that it was impossible to stay away. I was human too, so it made it doubly worse. Humans aren’t prepared for the changes that occur. We aren’t knowledgeable and understanding of what’s going on. We have a most difficult time. His parents of course knew but my human parents did not. We were both twenty two. I was in college and so was he, in another city. My parents thought I was smitten and silly and made us leave right then, forbidding us to ever see each other. We were separated for a week before he was able to find me, get to me and sneak past my parents to make it back to me.”

I remembered this morning. The strange flu like feelings and aches I had and how Caleb took them all away with one touch this morning. I looked up curiously and she nodded.

“
Yeah, think about what you went through this morning but everyday, all day, non stop for a week.” I hugged myself while she shook her head. “My parents thought I was crazy, that I’d have some kind of breakdown and were thinking about having me put into an institution.”

“Wow.”

“So, you see why we are all so concerned for you two, especially you, dear. You are human. You have human parents who will not understand your need to be with Caleb, among other things. Plus you are so very young and not yet legal, the youngest I’ve ever heard of being imprinted in all the clans. I am worried about causing problems between you and your family.”

“Well,” I started. “I graduated already.”

“Yes. Kyle told us. Skipped a grade?”

“Yes, ma’am, but even if I hadn’t, my parents won’t cause any problems, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

“What do you mean, child?” she said with a scowl.

I felt so uncomfortable. I did not want to hash out my sad sob story in front of these twenty or so people, all with their waiting eyes. Them, wanting the dirt and story of the life of the strange girl who had been thrust into their lives. I did not want their sympathy. I licked my lips nervously.

Then I felt a hand on mine and it all went away, like wind blowing fog to clear the air. I only felt calm and warm when I looked up into those blue eyes. He was rescuing me again, with a little encouraging smile to boot. So I told her.

“My mom left last summer. It’s just been me and my dad and he’s depressed and a little...bitter. I barely see him. I don’t have any other family except one adopted brother who lives in New York. No grandparents. No uncles or aunts. No cousins. Just us.”

I waited for the onslaught of ‘ahhs’ and ‘you poor things’ but they didn’t come. His grandmother just nodded.

“That’s hard. But if nothing else it’ll make this a lot easier on you. Do you have a plan for college or anything yet?”

“Um, no. No yet,” I said and picked at the fabric of my jeans.

“Well, we’ll talk about that later.” She glanced meaningfully at Rachel and Mr. Jacobson, the one I’d talked to, and then back to me.

“Um, what do you mean it’ll make it easier on me?”

“Well, honey, to be blunt, you can’t live without Caleb!”

“Gran!” Caleb’s hand released mine as his hands flew in the air. “This is not the way I wanted to explain things,” Caleb said and I could feel how exasperated he was.

“It’s gotta be done. It’ll be worse on her if we don’t get it all out in the open. We all know it. She’s human. The deed is done. Nothing can be changed now. We can pretend all we want to that there’s another choice but the girl will have to be with you.”

“I have to be with him,” I repeated before Caleb could say anything else. “You mean with him physically around, like all the time, or I’ll get sick like I did this morning?”

“Yes. It’s worse in the beginning but it fades some. You will always need each other. After you ascend, things will be even more different than now, in a good way. I know it’s scary right now-”

I cut her off. I wasn’t scared. I was feeling an eclectic rainbow of emotions but scared wasn’t one of them.