The Tempting Touch Of Fire (Elemental Awakening, Book 1) (2 page)

"Stop that!" I reprimanded and watched in utter shock as the branch on the potted palm next to her swatted at Sonya's hand. She let out a choked, strangled sound, then reached forward to grasp the base of the pot as though she thought the movement meant it was about to fall off its stand. With two hands and a frown line marring her usually smooth forehead, she shoved the pot back a few centimetres, despite it not needing to be moved at all, and then dusted her palms off on her jeans.

I was so stunned that she hadn't realised that the plant had actually swatted her, that I stood up too quickly. And consequently made the chair tumble over backwards crashing into a tower of baking trays, which all clattered to the ground in a thundering crash.

Sonya yelped. I shushed her. Then we both started snapping at each other as adrenaline flowed.

A noise came from the front of shop interrupting our little sniping match, then pushing through the swinging kitchen doors, into the chaos and raised voices, stood Theo. Staring at Sonya who was still yelping and now swearing something unspeakable about bossy employers and even bossier best friends, and then his gaze turned to me, as I bent over trying frantically to right the baking trays with little success.

But at the sight of Theo Peters - made to measure suit, red silk tie and stunning hazel eyes - I promptly dropped the lot of them. The clang of metal on tile rang out and Sonya screamed in surprise. Then promptly stormed from the kitchen with a look of thunder on her face directed at me. I huffed out a breath at Sonya's inability to handle loud and disruptive situations at the best of times, and tried to ignore Theo's piercing gaze.

"Let me help you with that, Cassandra," he said in that deep, velvet voice of his
.

For some reason Theo always calls me Cassandra. I don't know why, but he does. And although I should be annoyed by it, I am endeared. My reaction makes no sense at all. Maybe it's his slight Greek accent; Cassandra rolling off those lush red lips not only sounds seductive, it somehow connects right to that hidden spot between my legs. Every time he calls me Cassandra, I threaten to pool in a puddle of longing and desire at his feet.

"Don't be silly," I chided. "You're a customer, you shouldn't even be back here."

I started stacking the trays haphazardly, tempting fate as they would surely topple again. Theo reached over my shoulder and straightened them, his proximity almost too much. I slipped out from under his arm and placed several steps between us. It was one thing to verbally spar with the man, but anything physical still made my legs turn to jelly.

I stared up at him for a moment, enjoying the fact that he wasn't watching me, but instead concentrating on his task. He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. He simply stole my breath. Thick black hair, cut a little too long for fashion, but somehow setting a trend of its own. Tall, at well over six feet, with broad shoulders and long legs. His clothing, whether dressed for work in his expensive suits, or just in casual weekend wear, was bespoke. Definitely from High Street, or Smith and Caughey's on Queen. If I could afford it, I'd shop there.

His eyes were a mesmerising hazel, hints of jade and amber in amongst a deeper brown. He had a strong, firm jawline, with cheeks that cut sharp lines across his face. His lashes swept down to meet them, and I often found myself just staring at their length. There was a hollow at the base of his neck, that when dressed in a suit and tie I couldn't see. But on weekends, when he'd bless my store with his presence, I saw it. I was staring at that hidden spot now, when his attention turned back to me.

"Where have you been,
Oraia
," he said softly, taking a step towards me. He'd called me that before too. I'd looked it up on-line. It was Greek for 'lovely'. An endearment he surely used on every girl in town.

"I had an accident," I admitted, reaching out to smooth a leaf on the potted palm that had just caused this ruckus. The branches seemed to sway towards me and for a moment all I could do was suck in air. It was calming to touch them, but to see them move in a way that was not possibly natural, made me hold my breath.

I glanced up at Theo to see if he'd witnessed the unnaturally moving palm, but his eyes were on me. I watched as his face slowly turned completely white. That was saying something; Theo, being of Greek descent, had an all-year-round tan. Those beautiful eyes also widened for a moment and then he sucked in his own breath of air, muttering something under his breath that decidedly sounded like a swear word. But I couldn't be sure; I think it was Greek.

His gaze ran over my entire body, but unlike before when heat had pooled deep down inside whenever he'd done that same move, a chill of dread followed the path where his gaze landed. And when his eyes came up to mine they flashed. Actually flashed a different colour. And not any colour I'd seen on
anyone
ever before. But gold. His hazel eyes flashed gold; pure, brilliant, shining yellow-gold.

He shook his head once, hands fisted at his sides, and then spun on his heel and stormed through the door to the front of the shop. I followed hurriedly behind him, wanting to ask him what was wrong. But by the time I made it to the footpath, he was gone.

And all that met me was a wash of heat across my body, as though a fire had flared and I'd stepped too close. I jumped back inside the doors to my deli, seeking refuge automatically amongst the plants.

Something had upset Theo and I had a sinking feeling it wasn't anything that I'd like.

"What do you mean he simply frowned and walked away? Didn't he say
anything
?" Sonya asked, grabbing another slice of pizza off the coffee table beside us.

After Theo left in such a hurry, the rest of the afternoon seemed to drag. Sonya kept staring at me with sad eyes, understanding the hurt I had felt at Theo's rejection, which even now I admitted I did not fully comprehend. Why had he been so angry? Because that's what I had felt, a boiling pit of anger bubbling up from deep down inside the man. What the hell had I said or done?

"I don't know," I admitted, trying to swallow the bite of pizza in my mouth. It tasted delicious, but for some reason my stomach churned at the thought of eating it. Finally I put the half eaten slice back in the box and leaned back on my side of the couch. My hand automatically sought out the plant at my side, fingers running softly over smooth leaves. "He didn't say a word."

"Maybe he had an appointment and he only just remembered it?" Sonya asked, shovelling another mouthful of Super Supreme in her mouth and chewing thoughtfully.

"Lame, Sonya, and you know it," I pointed out, then had a thought. "I don't suppose you saw his eyes?" Memory of that gold flash he'd displayed in the kitchen swamped me. A vibrant unnatural eye colour which hadn't dimmed when he walked back out the swing doors to the front of shop. Sonya had been watching us both intensely when we emerged. She had to have seen it too.

"What about them? Sexy, melty, delish?" she replied with a wink, then added, "or intriguing hazel with lengthy lashes that should
not
exist on a man?"

I stared at her for a long suspended moment. A strange sense of dread pooling in my gut.

"You must have missed it, but they changed colour. Flashed this unusual" - but alluring - "gold."

Sonya snorted into her cola. "Yeah, right. They looked angry when I saw him come out from your little convo. But they were definitely just brownish, greenish, you know,
hazel
."

I took in a deep breath and sank further into my seat, feeling slightly defeated and a whole lot stunned. They were
gold,
weren't they? Maybe I was wrong.

No. I know what I saw and Theo Peter's eyes flashed gold.

I shook my head.

"You're serious, aren't you?" Sonya asked softly. "You really think they flashed... gold?"

I nodded, worry making the pizza I had eaten sit like a lead brick at the bottom of my stomach.

"Trick of the light?" she offered, and I smiled despite my unease. Sonya trying to be supportive, trying to make sense of something that was rapidly sounding crazy.

"Had to have been," I said with a forced shrug of my shoulders. "Or I was seeing things from the bang to my head at the Rose Gardens."

"Have you got a lump anywhere?" Sonya asked, returning to her pizza and following it up with a loud guzzle of cola.

I reached up and ran my hand through my hair, but nothing hurt and no lumps appeared beneath my fingers.

"Nah, but why else would I have been out for two days?" I shivered at the thought of having been buried for two days and not remembering it. I felt violated, but I had no recollection of the initial act, simply the after effects.

The plant next to me caught my attention again, I have no idea how, but I found myself smoothing down its silky leaves. Feeling the panic, that had begun to rise at thinking of my entombment, subside.

"Are you going to call the police?" Sonya asked, eyeing me tentatively.

I felt my face flush red at the embarrassment that admitting to the police that I'd fallen into a pit on my early morning run, would cause. I shook my head and bit the side of my mouth.

"What about getting a check up at the hospital?" Sonya asked, this time concern casting a shadow across her face. "Even if you don't think you hurt your head, something made you lose two days. What if..." She paused, clearly unsure how to proceed.

"What if what?" I asked, wanting her to say it and not me.

"Well, what if you
were
attacked and the attacker drugged you or something so you can't remember. They can do toxicology tests to see what drug was used. At least then you'd know you're not losing your mind."

I grimaced at her choice of words, because I had begun to wonder what the hell was up with me. No one loses two days like that without a reason. And yet I could find nothing wrong with my head, making a head injury an unlikely cause. So that logically left a drug, which would prove someone had done this to me. The alternative to those options was a brain tumour. In any case, there were tests I could take, and sitting around brooding and fearing the answer was not going to change a damn thing. I needed to know.

"OK, will you come with?" I sounded pathetic and I knew it, but Sonya had been my friend for over ten years now. She just nodded her head and grabbed the keys to her car off the coffee table.

The waiting time at the hospital was atrocious. Two and a half hours after arriving, several games of Snap! and countless comments about whining patients later, we were finally escorted into a cubicle. My mood didn't improve when I realised the palms from out in the waiting room hadn't made it in here.

Sonya settled into a blue vinyl chair humming a tuneless sound and flicking through a magazine she'd pilfered from the waiting room, while I perched on the edge of the over height bed.

Minutes ticked by painfully slowly.

I couldn't stand the tension in my shoulders any longer, so forced myself to lie out on the bed and tried to relax. The light above flickered hypnotically, and with a concerted effort to release the stress in my frame, I eventually found myself sinking into the starchy covers on the mattress, and staring mesmerised at the dancing light show overhead.

There was so much for my mind to get hung up on. So many questions, so many fears. But surprisingly that's not where my mind wandered to. And a part of me wasn't entirely too surprised to see the memory form behind my drooping eyelids.

"I was thinking the opera, or would you prefer a ballet? The Royal New Zealand Ballet are performing Swan Lake at The Civic Theatre. I've always liked Tchaikovsky. What do you say?"

This memory was my favourite, and only a week old. Of all the times Theo and I had conversed over the past twelve months, this one held the most promise.

Of course my mouth went so dry I couldn't even offer a reply.

"No? Oh well, maybe you would prefer something a little less formal, Oraia. Perhaps dinner would be better. Kermadec on Viaduct Quay? Do you like seafood?"

"I..." I licked my lips, trying to moisten my dry throat.

Theo inviting me out on a date. A date!

"Cassandra," Theo murmured, moving closer. So close I could feel the heat through his suit jacket. So close I could see the weave in the luxe cashmere wool.

The deli disappeared. The noise of the afternoon crowd vanished. I didn't think of Sonya and Alice watching this exchange from the counter. Nothing else registered but the determined and slightly hungry look in Theo's eyes. I blinked up at him, swaying slightly and sucked in a shaky breath of air.

"I'd like to get to know you better," he whispered in that deep, silky voice of his. "Take the chance, say yes."

And, much to my surprise, I did. We'd been about to embark on the next stage of our relationship. Flirting had finally progressed to the promise of much more.

My breath left me in a rush, making Sonya glance up from her magazine with a concerned look on her face.

"It won't be much longer, Case," she offered. "They're just busy."

"I guess the date's not going to happen now, is it?"

Sonya sucked in a long breath of air, but clearly kept up with my train of thought. "What makes you say that? He's obviously keen on you. I mean, hell Casey, the man's been flirting with you for a year. I saw how delighted he was when you finally accepted his invitation to dinner. That's not going to change because of some strange loss of memory and pit full of dirt episode. If anything, he'll be even more determined to look out for you. That man has been crazy about you since the second he walked through the deli door. No," she said with a determined air, "he'll come around. Mark my words, Casey Eden; Theo Peters is besotted with you. The date will still be on."

I wanted to believe her.
God I did.
But Theo's behaviour today left a dark pall over what had been an exciting change of dynamics in our relationship.

My head hurt. My heart hurt. And the world I knew wasn't the same anymore.

I felt set adrift, lost at sea, and prayed the answers to some of my troubles could be found at the end of a doctor's needle, or behind the mechanics of an x-ray machine.

It was with that daunting thought that a doctor arrived. Tall, thick black long hair, curvy figure and perfectly tanned skin, she looked like a supermodel.

"Hello," she said, in an accent I couldn't quite pin down. "I'm Doctor Peters. How can I help today?"

Sonya's eyebrows swept up at the doctor's name, a question on the tip of her tongue. I shook my head minutely. Even if the good doctor had the same tanned skin and dark haired features, she didn't look a bit like Theo. And Peters was a common enough name.

I hedged a little in my story telling, receiving more raised eyebrows from Sonya behind the doctor's back. But admitting I'd fallen into a pit on my run just sounded stupid, so I told her I'd lost my memory from the past two days and had woken this morning thinking it was Tuesday, not Thursday. I also mentioned I might have knocked my head in a fall, because I woke on the floor, not in bed. It was as close as I was going to get to the truth, but I felt it was enough for the doctor to carry out the appropriate examination.

She was, of course, suitably worried on my behalf and ran a battery of tests. Six hours later, though, I was none the wiser.

No injuries evident. No miscellaneous and unaccounted for drugs in my blood. Nothing on the MRI to indicate a brain tumour. In other words, the doctor was as stumped as us. I bit the inside of my mouth in a mixture of anger and fear. Why did this have to happen to me? And more importantly, who did it? Because there was no way I could accept I had simply fallen in that pit and gone to sleep. I was uninjured, even to the point that the thorns which had maliciously torn my skin, left not a single mark.

No knock to the head. No evidence of foul play. But I couldn't get past the feeling that something bad had happened. Something I had no part of other than being the victim in the end. And the way Theo had reacted, none of it made any sense.

I felt so very alone in that thought. Even though Sonya was with me and had stayed by my side the entire time, and the doctor was still in the cubicle giving soothing, yet useless platitudes to ease our minds. I was all alone. Because neither of them could possibly understand what I was feeling. I wasn't bruised, but I felt battered inside. Scared and lonely. I would never run through that Rose Garden again. And that just made me mad.

I clenched my fists in my lap and tasted blood on my tongue when my teeth broke the tender flesh on the inside of my mouth. It was salty and disgusting, but right then I didn't care. I was done with this place and I desperately wanted to just go home and curl up in bed.

I slipped off my perch and did up my jacket. As I turned to the doctor to thank her for her efforts, I was met with my second white face that day - from someone who was normally naturally tanned. Dr Peters looked shocked and a little frightened, if truth be told. She backed away from me as though I was a leper, but being a doctor I thought that analogy was all wrong. Hell, everything was all wrong right now. Nothing made sense and the woman before me trying frantically to get out of the tangle of curtains behind her, while keeping me in her sights, was currently the most wrong thing in my world right then.

Including the flash of gold that threaded through her eyes.

I blinked back at her in shock, watched as she battled her unseen demons and tore from the cubicle in a rush. The curtains smoking slightly, leaving a burnt material smell on the air that threatened to choke.

"What the fuck was that?" Sonya demanded, but all I could do was gape like a fish out of water, struggling to breathe. I shook my head, feeling my knees crumble slightly beneath me. My heart pounded painfully in my chest and I noticed my limbs were shaking. I'd just had a clean bill of health from a medical professional, yet I hadn't felt this ill in a very long time.

I swallowed down my visceral reaction and decided it was best to get away from Doctor Peters as fast as I could. She'd looked frightened when I first saw her pale, but when she parted those curtains and finally ran from the room, the feeling I got was no longer fear, but something else.

It didn't make any sense.

More questions than answers, that's what I had. And now it was close to one in the morning, I was simply exhausted, faintly ill, and totally confused and at a loss. What did I do now? Forget it all happened?

Impossible, I was thinking, but getting out of here was a good place to start.

Sonya dropped me off at my apartment and after a five minute conversation where I finally convinced her I'd be OK, I watched her drive off down Gladstone Road. As I turned from the road and started up my drive I smelled him. I hadn't realised that Theo had smelt like early morning sunshine and rosebuds in Spring. Underlying that scent was all man; spicy, alluring, sending a jolt of awareness straight to my core.