The Touch (Healer Series) (16 page)

  
He gathered his thoughts and walked into the
store with Rose. His heart was telling him to go with Isabelle, to be there for
the visit. He sought to lessen his anxiety by reminding himself that he didn’t
know the family well enough to take part in a moment as personal as a doctor
visit. In addition, he’d never been that close to a Grim before; especially not
one who was fulfilling a mission in life. To stand there as it happened and
watch was not something he was sure he could stomach. Painful would be an
understatement.

**************************************************

  
As they finished shopping, Rose tucked the
tiny pouch into her jeans pocket. It housed a beautiful rock pendant that the
shopkeeper said he had cut and shined himself. She had carefully scoured the
necklaces and decided that one was the prettiest. Rose was thoroughly impressed
and told him she was considering changing her future career from vet to rock
buffer, which made the old man’s day.

  
AJ had offered to make up the difference
since Rose had only brought two dollars. The crumpled bills were all the money
she had. The shopkeeper wouldn’t hear of it. The children in town were what
made his days worth living. Their smiles reminded him of his own children
growing up.

  
They were no sooner out the front door than a
familiar old pickup screeched to a halt. AJ only had to hear the vehicle to
know whose it was.

  
“What are you all doing here in town?” the memorable
voice barked out a rolled down window.

  
“Nothing!”
Rose
said, checking to be sure the pouch was deep in her pocket and invisible.

  
“Just taking a walk,” AJ said, walking
towards the truck. “Rose was showing off her sparkle shoes. I personally think
they’re some version of Morse code.”

  
“Sure you weren’t spying on me? Making sure
I’m not getting to close to this stranger?”

  
“No,” AJ said. He knew he’d never hear the
end of this particular line of questioning and felt it appropriate after the
encounter earlier in the afternoon. He couldn’t tell her the truth, so he’d
have to find other ways to play down what she thought was jealousy.

  
Except it was partly jealousy, too.

  
“Well hop in. It’s getting late and you need
to get cleaned up and to bed young lady.”

  
AJ helped Rose up, and put her in the middle
this time.

  
“You got a frog in your pocket again?” Addie
asked her daughter, a look of disgust on her face. “Why do you have your hand
so carefully placed in there?”

  
“Nothing!”
Rose said
again, taking her hand out guardedly.

  
Addie looked at AJ as he silently mouthed
that he would tell her later. He wouldn’t spoil Rose’s surprise but he’d let
Addie in on what they were doing in town. He didn’t want her to be mad at him
for anything else.

  
The ride was eerily silent. As the truck stopped
and the group descended from the cab, Addie patted Rose on the butt, telling
her to scoot her dirty little jeans up into the house and start a bath. When
Rose was out of earshot an agitated Addie leaned up against the dusty truck and
folded her arms across her chest.

  
“So why were you really in town? Are you
following me?”

  
“I swear it wasn’t anything like that Addie,”
he replied, mimicking the scout’s honor hand-in-the-air motion.

  
“Then what’s it like?”

  
Part of her wanted the handsome stranger to
be following her, to be spying on her. She felt like a fool for her heart
feeling the way it did about him. She swore he felt something, too. She was
somewhat hoping he was a little jealous so she’d feel a slightly better about
how foolish she’d been.

  
She bent one leg, kicking the foot up behind
her against the truck. AJ noticed her shoes weren’t much better than Rose’s. Living
in the city for so long he’d seen more shoes than he cared for. There, people
were so consumed with how they looked and what brand name they had. It was
quite a different world here. No one cared if your shirt was top of the line.
It was only who you were as a person that mattered.

  
“Rose wanted to get you a birthday present,” he
said. “Don’t you tell her I told
you.
She wants to
surprise you.”

  
Addie was a bit speechless – the first time
that had ever happened to her.
 
It was a
really sweet thing for her kid to do and for AJ to take her. She felt foolish
again for thinking AJ was an ass. She was letting the situation get the best of
her because he wasn’t giving her what he wanted. She knew he was being honest
and that he hadn’t done anything to wrong her. It still irritated her, though.

  
“That’s one good kid you got.”

  
“I know,” she replied softly, looking up
towards the bathroom window on the second floor. She knew she did. She looked
back at AJ and noticed he looked like he was out of it, maybe under the
weather. Before she could maintain her gruff exterior she opened her mouth.

  
“You feel okay tonight?”

  
The truth was he didn’t feel okay. His stomach
twisted in knots over Isabelle and what had happened or what was happening
right now. He could feel Devin’s closeness and after an entire day of the
anxious feeling in the pit of his stomach, he felt much less than his normal
self.

  
“I’ll be okay,” he said, looking away from
her and out towards the fields.

  
The sun was setting in red and orange,
melding with the bright greens of the fields. It was beautiful, like it had
come right out of a painting. If every day could look and feel like that
beautiful sunset, he knew he’d be a much happier person.

  
“What’s eating you?” she pried.

  
Something was telling her to pry, to keep
asking. It was almost as if she couldn’t shut her mouth. “You can talk to me,
you know. Is it the stranger? Nothing happened.”

  
Then for good measure, she added, “Not like
it should matter to you anyway.”

  
It hit AJ like a punch in the gut. If he was
telling her no, he didn’t want to be with her, than she was right – it
shouldn’t matter to him anyway. He looked at her and though he didn’t say
anything, she felt instant guilt. She wasn’t sure why he was so distant, why he
wouldn’t let someone in. She hadn’t really asked him much about his past or
taken the time to get to know him. She was just expecting him to pull her into
his arms and start something when, despite what she was feeling inside, they
didn’t really even have a friendship to build from.

  
“I’m sorry.”

  
“Really, it’s okay Addie. I deserve it.”

  
“No you don’t. You haven’t done anything
wrong AJ. It’s just me being who I am.”

  
“Same here.
I saw
Isabelle again today.”

  
She knew with that – at least she thought she
knew – why he was downtrodden.

  
“I know. Her parents mentioned it when I
dropped Devin off at their house. I actually went in for a bit, I couldn’t help
it. I’ve known them my whole life. And when I see Isabelle, I can’t help but
think of Rose. I can’t help but think, what if that was my little girl?”

  
AJ looked at Addie who now had tears filling
her eyes. She fought to keep them from spilling over. Addie seemed at all times
to be one big waterfall that just didn’t have the ability to overflow.

  
“Devin took a look at her, checked a few
things and said there was really nothing he could do. Said he was sorry, and
then he was ready to go.
Really heartbreaking.
I mean,
I know to be a doctor you have to be somewhat stark because you see death so
often. Especially oncologists, I’m sure. He just seemed so indifferent, so
cold. It was almost disgusting to me.
Poor Isabelle.”

  
“How’d Isabelle take it?” AJ asked, inching a
bit closer to Addie.

  
“She’s one tough girl,” Addie replied, a
little laugh escaping from her lips. “She smiled at him, thanked him for coming
by. She hugged her mom and dad – who were crying, by the way – and told them it
would be okay. She did the same with her brothers, while Devin was impatiently
waiting at the door for me. I couldn’t pull myself away.”

  
AJ’s heart ached for the beautiful woman in
front of him. He knew that feeling. He lived it often.

  
“I dropped him off at his car and that’s when
I saw you guys.”

  
He heard her sniffle, saw her wipe at her
eyes. She was trying her best to hold it in.

  
He stepped closer, raising his arm to squeeze
hers and silently say he was there for her.
 
She moved quickly to dodge his touch as if she had to get in the house.

  
“I’ll see you later, AJ.”

  
She couldn’t have walked any faster to get
away from him.

  
“Did he touch you, Addie?” he asked again
before he could stop the words from coming out of his mouth.

  
She looked back at him over her shoulder, the
tears now evident on her cheeks in the fading sunlight. She wanted to tell him
to go to hell. Or to tell him yes so he’d be jealous. Mostly, she wanted to
just make her life a little less complicated.

  
She shook her head no and stepped inside.

9
Soft Spoken

He
heard the soft tapping at his door, and somehow knew it was her. He’d been
sitting in the chair as if waiting for her to come over. No visions needed to
tell him she would; he simply needed his gut instinct.

  
He absorbed the sound of the knocks for a
moment. Every second that he saw her he found it harder to fight what he was
feeling. It wasn’t just being a Healer and wanting to keep her safe. He wanted
to touch her as a man would touch a woman. He wanted to kiss her the way he had
imagined multiple times since the moment he first set eyes on her.

  
“It’s open,” he said, trying his best to say
it quietly in the event Helen was asleep. He had noticed the bad feeling he’d
had in his stomach all day, combined with the bristling of every hair on his
body courtesy of Devin, had began to decline. Though he was new at reading
these feelings he took it to mean Devin was on his way out of town. He had been
replaying the story Addie told him about Devin’s visit with Isabelle in his
head for an hour now, imagining what it must have seemed like in person.

  
The door swung open just a small notch, and
Addie poked her head in.

  
“AJ?”

  
“Yeah, over here,” he said, leading her with
the sound of his voice. He was sprawled out in the chair, his hands reaching
further than the arms of it did.

  
She took a step in before stopping herself
from going further.

  
“Can I ask you another favor?”

  
“What’s up?” he asked, genuinely intrigued.
Addie wasn’t the type to ask for help so asking for a favor was new territory.

  
“Rose is asking for you. I tried to tell her
you were in for the night. She is dead-set on talking to you. If you’re busy, I
understand.”

  
“Why’s she asking for me?” he inquired,
leaning forward. He had no inkling as to why a little girl would want to speak
with him.

  
He clasped his hands together, his elbows on
his knees to support the weight of his upper half. She noticed the lines of his
shoulders and biceps before snapping herself back to the task at hand.

  
“She wants you to tuck her in. Read her a
story.”

  
AJ was a bit taken aback, having never been
asked to do anything like that before. It scared him to think about having to
make up a story. He hadn’t had any practice in his entire life.

  
Addie noticed his hesitation.

  
“Really, it’s okay. It was a silly idea. I’ll
just tell her you were sleeping.”

  
“No, no, I’ll do it,” he replied.

  
He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t want to lie
to Rose or to let her down. He felt protective of her, much like he did Addie.
While this new avenue was a bit out of his comfort zone, he was willing to try.

  
“No, really, it’s okay.
Seriously.
I just said I’d ask. I know it’s a bit weird. She really took to you today, I
think.”

  
“All we did was walk,” AJ responded.
 
His mind circled around and around,
attempting to make sense of such a request from the same little girl who, until
recently, had only muttered a word or two at a time in conversation.

  
“Well it was one hell of a walk because she’s
never asked for anyone other than me or Gram to tell her a bedtime story. I’m
as shocked as you are.”

  
AJ stood up and Addie stepped back into the
hallway, two steps ahead of him the entire time across the yard to her house.
He saw the light from Rose’s room on and followed Addie up the decaying porch stairs
and into the house.

  
Addie stopped down the hallway, letting AJ go
ahead of her toward Rose’s room. He stopped just outside the door, glancing in.
Why did a little girl terrify him so much? He looked back at Addie and saw her
shoulders rise in a shrug. Looking back in at Rose one more time, the
curly-haired cutie caught his glance.

  
“AJ!” she squealed. “You came!”

  
He took a breath, stepping forward into the
room. “Of course I did! You didn’t think I’d turn away a request from the most
beautiful little girl in town, did you?”

  
She smiled ear to ear, her legs crossed on
the bed and covered by bright pink pajama pants and a rock star t-shirt.

  
“A little bird tells me you want a story of
some sort.”

  
She nodded, moving over a bit so he could sit
on the edge of the bed. Feeling a little uncomfortable, he instead sat down
next to the bed, his back resting against the night stand.

  
“Do you have a book you want me to read
from?”

  
She shook her head no. “I want you to make
one up.
Just for me.”

  
This was going to be harder than he thought,
he said to himself.

  
“Oh, okay. Hmmm….you’re
gonna
have to give me a minute.”

  
All he knew were fairy tales and she wouldn’t
want one of those. She’d want something original, something magical.

  
He knew what story to regale her with.
A fairy tale about a special group of people that didn’t really
exist to others.

  
“Don’t tell it all to me tonight,” she
whispered, snuggling in under her blankets as her wild ponytail covered her
pillow. “Save some for later.”

  
One night of story-telling was scary enough.
AJ worried about multiple times.

  
“Okay. Let’s see…Once upon a time, there was
a very special, different group of people,” he began, wrapping his arms around
his knees. “These people had an exceptional task to perform. It was to protect
people and keep them safe.”

  
“Like guardian angels?” Rose asked.

  
“Yes, like guardian angels. These people
looked just like all the men and women on earth except for one very different
characteristic. They had a type of magic that could fix people.”

  
“Did they make things disappear?”

  
“Are you going to let me tell the story or
are you going to keep interrupting? Because you can make it up yourself,” he
teased, glancing up at her freckled face.

  
“Okay, okay!” she responded, snuggling deeper
into the covers.

  
Addie had inched her way towards Rose’s room
and was peeking –just out of their sight- around the door. It was a sight she
never thought she’d see in her lifetime: a decent guy tucking her daughter into
bed. Even if it was just as friends, she felt a moment of happiness at the
thought of someone like him maybe someday loving her daughter like she did.

  
“This magic was something handed down from
generation to generation. Not everyone got it though; whoever had this special
magic had to have a very good heart. Maybe a heart just like yours,” he said.
She smiled at the thought. “There was one very special girl named Rose.”

  
“Really?”
Rose asked
in deliberation of his story.

  
“Yep.
Her name was
Rose just like you. Only she had red hair. She was the most special of the
whole group, because she could use her magic on anyone at any time and she was
the strongest of the entire group.”

  
Rose’s eyes widened and she waited for more.

  
“Well, Rose had a very important job one day.
She was charged with stopping a bad guy, someone who had been very mean to a
lot of people. And Rose, even though she was scared, was ready to stand up to
the bully and make him stop being
mean
to people.
 
When he came back to town, Rose used her
magic to take away all of his powers. Then she banished him for all eternity to
another world, to keep everyone safe from his evil ways. She was a hero and
everyone was so happy that they threw her a party and she got tons of chocolate
cake.”

  
Rose giggled, her nose crinkling up and her
eyes as bright as the full moon in summer. She was a good kid and for a moment,
AJ wondered what it would be like to have something like that someday – a
family and a child. Would he ever have the opportunity to build a life and read
his baby bedtime stories?

He
dismissed the thought as quickly as it came. He always felt as though it was an
awfully selfish wish. He knew what he’d have to do to have such a life. What
kind of father would that make him?

  
“Night Rose,” he whispered, standing up and
reaching over to turn off her light.

  
“Thanks AJ,” she replied, pulling the covers
up under her chin.

  
He didn’t quite understand why he did what he
did next, and he couldn’t say he regretted it. He leaned in and, as close to her
ear as possible and whispered.

 
“You’re welcome. I’ll always protect you,
kiddo.”

  
She smiled and settled into bed. He walked
towards the door and Addie jogged as quickly and quietly as possible down the
hall, so that she didn’t appear to be eavesdropping. She made it into the
kitchen and the teapot had just started whistling. She reached for it to look
as if she were busy.

  
AJ rounded the corner and saw her standing at
the counter.

  
“Tea?”

  
“Sounds good,” he said, pulling up a stool at
the island.

  
“How’d it go?” she asked gently.

  
“Scary. But fine. Kids are like a foreign
language to me.
Intimidating and frightening.”

  
“She likes you.”

  
“I gather. Don’t know why. I’m just like any
other guy.”

  
“You’re not. That’s why she likes you,” Addie
replied.

  
She poured hot water into the cup as AJ took
out the tea packet. He hated tea and realized he was drinking it without a
second thought because she made it for him.

  
“Are you planning on sticking around?” Addie
asked, the hot water swirling in the cup as it poured from the funnel.

  
“Tonight?”

  
“In town.
In general.”
She smirked in his direction.

  
“I plan on it.”

  
He meant he wanted to. He wasn’t 100 percent
sure he’d be able to endure hiding the feelings he had. Or what it might be
like to watch Addie carry on with her life with another guy.

  
“Nothing’s ever for sure, but I plan on it.”

  
Addie leaned on the counter, the tea cup in
both her hands as her elbows rested on the cool countertop. Her face was inches
from him and she took a sip of tea before locking her eyes with his.

  
“One thing’s for sure: when it comes to my
daughter you better make sure that you decide what you’re
gonna
do. She likes you and she’s never asked for a guy we’ve known to do anything
for her, especially something as special as a bedtime story. If you hurt her,
I’ll kill you.”

  
“I won’t hurt her,” AJ replied. “You know how
alike you and your Gram are?
Geez.
I don’t know what
you’re asking of me here. I’ll do the best I can. I care about you gals, I want
to protect you. It just has to be-”

  
“As a friend,” she said, cutting him off. “I
know. I explained that to Rose and she understands. She likes you, she trusts
you, and if she’s willing to reach out and trust somebody, then I don’t want to
stop her from doing that. If I do, she’ll end up like me and she should learn
from my mistakes – not make the same ones herself.”

  
“Tell me why,” AJ said, genuinely interested
in what made Addie the woman in front of him.

  
“What?”

  
“Tell me why you don’t trust people. Why you
keep such a private life?”

  
She looked at him with one eyebrow raised as
if he were asking her the most personal question possible.

  
“Addie, you said you wanted to be friends. We
don’t know each other. I’m trying to get to know you, so tell me. Why are you
who you are?”

  
“How much time do you have?” she asked with a
laugh. “Come outside with me a second.”