The Gathering Dark (10 page)

“That’s how I feel when I try to do pretty much anything besides playing the piano,” she admitted.

“This is the whole ‘I draw like a three-year-old’ thing, isn’t it?” he asked. The teasing was gentle.

Keira laughed. “Yeah. But that’s not the only thing. I had a seriously bad incident involving juggling in the eighth grade. I gave the gym teacher a black eye.”

Walker turned the car onto the highway. “Your laugh is gorgeous,” he said.

The compliment blazed across the skin of her neck, making her insides molten.

“Um—thanks,” she stammered, staring out at the highway markers that flew past her window. “Where are we going, anyway?”

Walker glanced over at her. “We could go get coffee. Or . . . there’s this other place. I love to go there when it’s foggy like it is today. But it’s all the way down by the coast. And it’s up a pretty decent climb. I don’t know if you’d be up for it.”

The challenge in his words made the idea irresistible to Keira. A little voice in the back of her head said that Walker had known it would do exactly that.

“I don’t think my parents are going to care if I’m gone for a while.” Her voice was bitter. It was the closest she’d come to mentioning the death spiral of her parents’ marriage. It was the closest she thought she
could
come to mentioning it.

Without taking his eyes off the road, Walker nodded. “I know what you mean.”

His parents were gone—she couldn’t even imagine how
much worse that would be than having parents who didn’t love each other. Part of her wanted to say something, to cluck and sympathize, the way the other girls at school would have. But she knew that if she did, the wall he’d been taking down, brick by brick, would go flying up again in an instant. It was exactly what Keira would do, in the same situation. So she kept her hands folded in her lap and stared down at her feet.

“Well, I’m glad I wore my boots,” she said.

Walker turned to look at her, his face lit with a deadly sexy grin.

“Me too.” Hitting the accelerator, he slung an arm around the back of her seat, not touching Keira, but close enough that she could feel the heat of him against her neck.

She still wondered what the hell she was getting herself into, but the reproach was gone. The only thing left in its place was a tingling excitement.

Chapter Thirteen

K
EIRA STARED OUT AT
the jagged pile of rocks. The muddy green-gray of the waves crashed against the spit of land like they wanted to pull the rocks down into the sea. The thin, empty-sounding cry of the seabirds wheeling overhead made her quiver. She didn’t like seagulls. When she was five, one had dive-bombed a sandcastle she was building, spraying sand in her face. Her dad said it was only trying to get the mussel she’d used as a flag, but that hadn’t made the sand in her eyes sting any less.

“That’s not good.” Walker frowned at her, and Keira felt her stomach drop.

“What?” She wrapped her arms around herself. The wind coming off the ocean cut straight through her sweater. The sooner they started climbing the rocks, the sooner she’d warm up a little.

“You’re not wearing a coat,” he said. “It’s cold out here.”

She shrugged. “I’ll be fine as soon as we start moving.”

Before she could even finish the sentence, Walker had shrugged off his jacket. He stepped close to Keira and wrapped it around her. The fleece was butter soft and it was still warm. Plus, it smelled like him.

Reluctantly, she slid her arms into the fleece. The cuffs flapped at her fingertips. “But now you’ll be cold.”

He shook his head, plucking at his thick, charcoal-gray thermal. It clung to his chest in a way that made Keira’s heartbeat leap in response.

“This is super warm,” he said. “I’ll be fine. And either you’re wearing the jacket or we’re leaving.”

Frowning, Keira looked up at the rocks. She wanted to know what the view looked like from the top.

She relented, heading toward the end of the point. “Okay, fine. But if you get sick or something—”

He interrupted. “If I get sick it’ll have been worth it.” He gestured at the stones. “Ladies first. Unless you want me to show you the way up.”

She shook her head and scrambled up the rocks. She’d been climbing around the Maine coast since she was a kid—her dad
used to bring her down for lobster rolls and tide-pool watching on Saturdays. The memory made her eyes sting. She blinked hard, focusing on the salty sting of the cold rocks beneath her hands and the smell of flint and peat smoke that drifted up from Walker’s jacket.

It only took a few minutes of hard climbing before Keira found herself up at the top, standing on a broad, flat rock. The fog was thicker up here, obscuring the ocean that crashed below.

Walker pulled himself up behind her, his cheeks flushed pink with the cold air and the effort of the climb.

“What do you think?” he asked.

Keira looked at the fog swirling around them like tattered gauze. She couldn’t even see where the point joined the mainland. The keening birds were lost in the white overhead, and the dark, seething ocean was barely visible below. It was like being on the inside of an egg. She could hear everything that happened outside the thin, cream-colored shell of the fog, but the only thing she could see were the gray rocks beneath them.

And Walker.

A violent wave crashed against the point, and the rush of noise thrilled Keira.

“It’s like the ocean’s sneaking up on us,” she said.

Walker’s face lit up. “I love that. I think it feels like playing hide-and-seek with the universe.” He stared out at the invisible horizon. “When I discovered it, I felt like I’d found the perfect hiding place.”

She’d never seen him look so relaxed. The corners of his eyes even crinkled up when he smiled. She took a step closer to the edge of the rock. The wind caught her hair. It whipped around her face, stinging her eyes and pasting itself across her mouth.

“Don’t get too close to the edge,” Walker warned. “The spray makes it slippery.”

Just then, another wave bashed against the rocks and the ocean spat square in her face.

“Ugh!” She spun away from the spray, putting her arm across her eyes. She wiped at the salty mess, but the dangling jacket sleeves made it hard to get the hair and salt water off her face.

“Let me help.” She felt the brush of fabric against her face, as he used his sleeve to wipe her forehead and cheeks.

Keira looked up at him, filled with an electric flood, like she’d touched a live wire.

With his gaze locked on hers, he smoothed her ponytail and tucked it into the jacket collar. Keira’s knees felt uncertain beneath her.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Sure.”

Keira swallowed hard, acutely aware of the blood coursing through her veins. Walker moved a degree closer, his arms sliding around her shoulders.

Behind him, Keira saw a dark wall of round bricks spring
up. A hook-studded ladder leaned against it. A strangled cry leapt out of Keira’s mouth.

Walker pulled her away from the edge of the rocks, and the red-sheened hallucination faded in front of Keira’s eyes. Walker followed her gaze into the swirling fog, not letting go of Keira.

“What happened?” he asked.

For one second, she let her head dip against his chest, shaking off the vision.

I am not losing my mind. I am not. I. Am. Not.

Walker kept his arm around her shoulders, a furrow of concern between his eyebrows.

Keira shoved her hands into her pockets. “It was a gull,” she lied. Her voice wobbled like a buoy in an uncertain sea. “It flew out of the fog right behind you.” She forced a little laugh. “It scared the crap out of me. Obviously.”

Walker stared at her uncertainly. “A gull? I’m surprised I didn’t hear it crying.”

Keira nodded. “Sorry. I swear I’m not usually that girly. I kill my own spiders and everything.”

Walker threw back his head and laughed. “I’ll remember that. Maybe I’ll have you kill
my
spiders. I’ll deal with the gulls and you can handle the eight-legged things.”

“That sounds fair.” Keira relaxed. The point had gone back to being another jutting bit of the Maine coast, without any unexplainable walls or mysterious ladders. It was easier to
believe she was still sane when everything looked normal.

“I think I’d better take you home,” Walker said.

Disappointment swept through Keira, but it washed away when Walker reached down and took her hand. His warm fingers curled around her cold ones.

“I have to work tomorrow, but I want to see you again. Soon. Preferably in a seagull-free environment.” A wicked smile crept across his mouth.

The wind had tugged Keira’s hair free of her collar, and it danced around her face. She let it slide across her neck and stream past her cheeks. It made her feel stronger—more free.

Like she could say yes.

“I’d like that,” she said, her words half-lost in the wind.

Walker’s eyes narrowed, the gray in them darkening like a wet stone. “You do know that I’m asking you on a date, right?”

“I know. What part of ‘yes’ are you not getting?” she shot back at him.

He shook his head, but the smile on his face was genuine. “You confuse the hell out of me, Keira Brannon. I like that.”

“You’re not exactly a typical guy.”

“You have no idea how atypical I am,” he said, looking down at her.

The rocks under Keira’s hands suddenly felt colder, but the heat in his gaze made the biting chill feel almost pleasant against her fingers.

“Well,” she said with more confidence than she felt, “I look
forward to finding out. Now quit distracting me or I’m gonna fall and break my wrist and then I’ll be screwed.”

“And you can’t play the piano with a broken wrist,” Walker said.

“Yep,” Keira agreed. “Now shut up!”

Walker laughed and then obediently closed his mouth. The only sounds she heard as they picked their way down the rocks were the rush of the ocean and the call of the seabirds overhead.

Chapter Fourteen

T
HAT NIGHT
, K
EIRA SAT
in her silent house and stared at her cell phone. Her parents had “gone out to dinner,” though if she had to guess, they’d hit a drive-thru and were continuing their screaming match in the car. There was no way she could have Susan over tomorrow, not with her parents locked in their own private war.

Keira called Susan to cancel their plans, but she got dumped into voice mail.

Keira was ready to cut off the call without leaving a message, but she couldn’t do it. She put the phone back up to her ear.

“Hey, Suz—it’s me. Listen, about tomorrow—something’s happened. My parents are fighting again. It’s pretty bad. Can we reschedule for sometime when they won’t be home? I know you’re working Monday—maybe Tuesday afternoon? Anyway. I’m sorry.” She hesitated, wondering if she should say something else, but the words caught in her throat. She ended the call before she started to cry.

Keira wandered over to the piano and sat down. Keira hated bailing on plans—plans she’d been looking forward to—on account of her parents’ drama.

Speaking of unresolved . . .

Her miserable practice session that morning loomed over her like a storm cloud. On the floor around the piano, her music lay scattered like the last, stubborn patches of snow in the spring. She didn’t want to pick them up. She didn’t want to play any of them.

But she did want to play.

Keira put her hands on the keys. She thought about Walker, and the dark, salt-rimed rocks on the coast. The memory tugged at her fingers, and a simple, eerie melody sprang from the keys. Surprised, Keira played it again, stretching her pinkie up to reach a high note that echoed the sound of the seabirds. The resulting harmony made her catch her breath.

She snatched a piece of scrap paper off the coffee table and scribbled down the notes. With the pencil tucked behind her ear, she positioned herself at the keyboard and waited. She
didn’t know how to turn those haunting sixteen bars into a song. She’d never composed her own music before. It hadn’t held any appeal, not when there were already thousands of gorgeous pieces waiting to be played.

But she wanted to remember the way she’d felt this afternoon, for that split second before her strange vision had ruined the mood. If she could catch that moment in a song, then she could have that feeling back anytime she wanted.

She played through the short little snippet again and again, thinking of the way the ocean had sounded. How the wind had felt when it caught at her hair, and the heat of Walker’s hands as he’d swept the salt water off her face.

Her fingers struck a different set of keys. A yearning tone crept under the eerie melody, lifting the song up into something hot and light. Keira grabbed the pencil and scratched the next notes onto the paper. She barely noticed that the room had grown dark. All that mattered was getting the music down on the page, because finally—
finally—
her hands felt right on the keys again.

She ran through the piece again, letting her memories drift across her mind’s eye. When she thought of the bizarrely dark wall that sprang up behind Walker, she stiffened. The music pouring from her fingers became discordant. Keira slid her hands off the gleaming keys. She didn’t want to write the last bit down. It didn’t sound the way she wanted to—it didn’t sound
right.

But maybe, if I hadn’t had a stupid hallucination . . .

Tentatively, she played the first bit of the song again, remembering how Walker had leaned in close to her. If she hadn’t imagined that wall, she would have swayed toward him, until there was no space left between them. Until . . .

The music soared, so graceful that Keira’s foot quivered on the pedal.

The notes came so easily when she imagined kissing him. She hadn’t played like that . . . well, ever, actually.

Keira scribbled the last few measures onto the scrap paper and looked at the song that had taken shape. The evidence of her feelings for Walker lay in front of her, separated into notes and bars and rests. It was like the universe was giving her a sign that it was okay to date him. Like the music itself wanted them to be together.