Ephemeral (The Countenance) Read online

  “Why would we need privacy, Wes?” I say it playful while crawling into his lap.

  His dimples invert as he settles a kiss on my lips.

  Wes gives a bashful half-smile as he pulls us farther into the lake with strong smooth strokes.

  For a second, my thoughts revert back to Jones and the very real possibility of him shoving me into the Flanders’s resort for the mentally lame.

  “You really think Jones won’t lock me away?” Why do I get the feeling I’ll be sporting a complete set of leather bracelets by morning—the kind you need a key to remove. I need more of Wesley’s kisses to release me from this grim line of thinking.

  “Nope. Besides, you’re getting better. You’re far more relaxed around everyone, I can tell.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m pretty convinced Jen or Carter aren’t going to morph into overgrown parasites anytime soon. And, believe me, I’m not following anyone into the forest ever again. Not willingly anyway. They can be on fire, and I could be holding the last bucket of water—still not going.”

  “Good.” His chest rumbles with a quiet laugh.

  The moon dusts over his features and blesses his smile with an iridescent glow. I’m shocked at how well he’s cultivated his charm, how his features have sharpened to perfection. It’s a miracle Kresley isn’t chasing me out of town with an ax.

  “So why didn’t you tell Jones we saw the Spectators at Charity Lake?” Apparently, Wes has his limits on what he’ll share with my newfound uncle. I can’t blame him, even if it was me who let the Spectator out of the bag. But let the record show, Wesley drove me to it. He was the one who was willing to sacrifice my questionable sanity in front of Jones in the name of my wellbeing. I think I deserve an answer.

  “Because I knew he’d be insane with worry.” The whites of his eyes glint out over the water. “The body shop called. The frame is cracked. Looks like it’s time for a new car.” He sinks into me with a penetrative stare. “I don’t want to talk about that stuff anymore,” he whispers.

  “What do you want to talk about?” Now that cars and the walking dead are off the table, I can’t imagine where the conversation will go.

  I hold his gaze and try to pretend it’s old Wesley, the one who didn’t have a car and loved me, then loved me the same when he took possession of his grandpa’s rundown truck after that.

  “I made something for you,” he says it low, secretive, as if not even the wind should be clued in on what was about to happen.

  “You did?” I squeal with delight over the thought. Wes could fashion a miracle with his bare hands.

  “Yup.” He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out something flat, round as his hand. It holds a waxy orange luster in this dull light. “Technically I didn’t make this for you, nature did. But, I embellished it to the best of my abilities.”

  He settles a leaf in the span between us, and everything in me enlivens.

  Old Wes. He’s still in there.

  “You mentioned”—he starts in slow as the fog expels from his mouth like a pool of white clouds—“that, in that dream, you used to write poetry for me on the back of leaves. I found this perfect maple, and I couldn’t help but think of you.” He takes a breath. “Truth is, ever since you’ve been at Ephemeral, there’s not a whole lot more I can think about.” Wes presses into me with an unwavering stare. There’s an earnestness hovering behind those emerald lenses that says so much more. He leans in and dusts my lips with a quick kiss. “I wrote something for you on the back.”

  I take the leaf and turn it over. It’s too dark to properly discern what it might say.

  “I cut myself collecting it.” Wes dots me with another kiss. “I didn’t set out to write it in blood. Anyway, if you see a drop or two, it’s from yours truly. You’re worth the pint I lost in the process.” A dry laugh hums through him. “I’d bleed for you every day, Laken.” He says it serious. “It’s stupid.” He shakes the idea away as if he were embarrassed by the sentiment, as if he didn’t fully comprehend how he could go there— feel so strongly all at once.

  “No, it’s beautiful.” I interlace our fingers and bring his hand to my lips. “What does it say?”

  “My love burns bright for you. It’s from a poem. I can’t remember which one, but, I didn’t think you’d mind.” He lets those last few words sink out slow.

  My love burns bright for you are the words he inscribed on the leathery leaf of a rubber tree—last one he gave me. My heart seizes with both pleasure and pain.

  “I don’t mind. I absolutely love this.” I hold it to my chest before tucking it beneath a threadbare rope for safekeeping. “I’m going to keep it forever.” I wrap my arms around him tight.

  “I’m going to keep you forever.” His eyes glaze over with lust before he crashes his lips against mine.

  We fall into a season of achingly slow kisses. Wesley indulges in the warmth of my mouth, devouring me with all of his lingual affection.

  Wesley is the very best part of me. He makes me feel whole—familiar. I run my hands beneath his sweater and warm my fingers against his searing flesh. I love it like this with Wes, just the two of us—the pale eye of God watching from above.

  His oven-hot hands roam down the back of my jeans and cover my bottom while we exchange a powerhouse of kisses. The boat rocks slightly and it all feels like a dream, one bliss-filled night that I never want to end. I run my fingers down to the lip of his jeans and fiddle with the button—slip down over his boxers until I hit his warm thighs.

  Wes rides his hands up my sweater—cups me over the bra and lingers there a good long while. I can feel his affection for me growing against my thigh, his erratic breathing that tells me there is still so much more affection he’s able to give.

  I give his boxers a tug and Wes catches me at the wrist, dislodging my hands from his jeans in the process.

  “Not like this,” he whispers.

  “Yes, like this,” I counter. I might burst if I don’t have Wes. I need him to wash Tucker Donovan off my body. On a night like tonight, he could rid me from the residue of Cider Plains entirely, if he wanted.

  “You’re having trouble remembering. It’s not right.”

  “Wes.” I string his name out with an impossible laugh. “I love you.” I say each word like its own sentence. “I’ve always loved you. Isn’t that enough for me to know?”

  Wes takes in the scent of my hair at the base of my neck as though he were waiting to hear those words.

  “I love you, too.” His chest trembles with pleasure.

  “Then let’s forget about waiting for my memory. I already remember the most important thing—you.”

  “That may be so but your memory is misfiring,” he corrects, “you’re getting the details wrong. Besides, you killed me off with Fletcher in a lake.” His long dimples push in on either side, amused.

  “For your information, that’s how it happened to go down.” I want to add that it’s the truth but refrain. “And, trust me, no one was sorrier than me.” I secure my fingers just under his jeans and stay there in the event he changes his mind.

  “And, no one is happier than me that it was all a dream.” He huffs a quiet laugh.

  “Okay, how about this?” I sigh into the words. “Neither of us talk about my ‘dream.’”

  “Deal.” He flexes an apologetic smile.

  “Let’s focus on each other. On this moment.” I fall over him with a mouthwatering kiss and try to make him forget just about everything.

  He lifts our sweaters a few inches and presses the hot skin of his stomach over mine. A current goes off inside me, warms me from head to toe. It feels like magic—like a sizzling touch of his most intimate affection. I didn’t realize how thirsty every inch of me was for Wesley Parker.

  “I’m thirsty for you, Laken,” he whispers. “You don’t know how bad I want to drink you down.”

  Our lips collide, then our hungry tongues. Wes may want to wait, but his body is in full protest to the idea.


  Jen and Blaine shout for us in tandem, reverberating our names off the water in a series of echoes.

  “Looks like they called just in time.” Wes pierces me with a magnetic gaze. “I was just about to cave.”

  I pull him in by the chin and offer a kiss that lashes him to attention. “You’ll cave,” I say. “Sooner than later.” I’ll have Wes by Halloween.

  Wes squeezes my hand before beginning the task of rowing us back.

  “Who knows, I might cave before Halloween.” A dry laugh rumbles through him.

  My eyes dart over to his, and I take a quick breath.

  I might be thirsting for Wes Parker, but this strange version, is beginning to unnerve me with his newfound ability to read my mind.

  Makes me wonder if, in fact, this is Wesley Parker at all.

  32

  Trash Talk

  We head back to the Anderson estate, although the square footage alone qualifies it for a much more regal title, like castle or chateau. The lights are dim, and it’s apparent most everyone has gone to bed. I jet upstairs with Wes in tow, trying not to look the lunatic in the eye that is Jen. She went postal on the drive home just because Wes and I were on the lake for twenty freaking minutes. Imagine the carnage that would have ensued if she knew our abdomens fused together—that our kisses were enough to make any grandmother blush and recoil—and lastly, why this might prove to be the best Halloween ever.

  I twirl the leaf Wes gave me between my fingers, let the soft roll of the stem tickle my flesh. We pause just shy of my bedroom, and I lean into him, gazing back down at nature’s handprint. I’m so thrilled to have a small piece of Cider Plains, albeit a replica, but nonetheless. Wes loves me, and as soon as I can fake getting my memory back, I’ll have him completely. I reach under his shirt and run my hand over his smooth flesh, solid as iron.

  “So, where’s my parent’s room?” I whisper, as hurricane Jen darts down the hall, all hair and fury over the fact Wes is huddled near my door. Honest to God, even a nun would tell her to loosen up.

  “There.” Wes points at a set of double doors to my right with ornate carvings in the wood, shiny brass handles.

  “I think I’ll go in and say good night,” I whisper. “I’m pretty exhausted, so I’ll just head off to bed after.”

  “Got it.” He flexes his dimples with a twinge of disappointment. “If you change your mind, I’ll be watching a movie with Fletch.”

  “Okay—night.” I press in with a soft, meandering kiss. I soak in the scent of his cologne, the way his lips feel against mine and save it for my dreams. If I weren’t missing my sisters and mother from this psychotic equation, I’d think I had died and gone to heaven.

  I wait until Wes disappears out of sight before heading over to the faux ‘rents bedroom. There’s a dim alcove just outside their room, and I pause, reflecting on the fact I have no game plan, hell I don’t even know the floor plan. I open the door just enough to slip through and close it soft as cotton once I hit the other side.

  I can hear their measured breathing. The entire room vibrates with the essence of their beings. This will probably end with a heart attack on their part or a bullet to my brain if I startle them.

  An anemic spray of light emanates to my left, and I head over in hopes of finding the bathroom.

  I pass a closet on either side then the hall opens up into a giant expanse of stone flooring and glossy granite counters. My old bedroom could have fit easily into this space, twice.

  Two doors on the right remain closed. To my left is a counter full of neatly stored cosmetics and lotions lay sprawled out along the leopard-patterned granite. I pull out the small waste bin from underneath and fill my right pocket with what little tissues lie at the bottom. A gleam of light catches on a used piece of dental floss tinted with blood. I bundle it up in a crumpled tissue and carefully add it to the rest of the trash stuffed into my jeans.

  Note to self—next time I choose to dumpster dive for genetic DNA, accessorize with a purse.

  I go over and do the same from the other trashcan under what I assume to be my new father’s sink, although there’s considerably less waste to choose from.

  New father. Somehow Jones seems to fit this role a little better than the man snoring loudly in the very next room.

  The lights switch on.

  Shit!

  The peachy glow blinds me momentarily.

  “Laken?” The brunette parading around as my mother squints into me.

  “Hi!” I take an awkward step back as if I weren’t just riffling through the trash.

  “What’s going on?” She wraps an arm around my shoulder. It warms me, washes away all of the criticisms she managed to lob in my direction earlier.

  “I didn’t want to bother you,” I start, unsure of what kind of adventure my tongue plans on navigating. “I was all out of shampoo, and I thought maybe I could borrow yours.”

  “Sure.” She walks over to an enormous rectangular shower. There’s no door or wall to protect anyone from seeing inside, just a giant space with a spigot up above, a drain in the stone tile below.

  Who in their right mind takes a shower, right there, in the middle of a room that has no door?

  “This will put some shine back in that mane.” She scrunches her nose while handing me a bottle. “Although, for you it might take some time. I don’t know what you did—it’s nothing but straw,” she says, pinching my hair. “Stay away from horses,” she scolds. “And no showering this late. I don’t want you going to bed with wet hair and catching a cold. The last thing I need is one dead Laken.”

  Her eyes give a cold steely look, but there’s laughter layered just beneath the surface. Like maybe she knows I’m dead to begin with.

  “I would hate to be dead,” I say, testing the necrotic waters. “You never know what waits for you on the other side.”

  “Maybe nothing waits for you. Wouldn’t that be something?” She holds my gaze like a challenge.

  “But we don’t believe that, right?”

  “That’s because we know better.” She steps into me like a threat. “We have so much to catch up on. I’ll take you and Jen shopping soon. It’ll be like old times.”

  “Yeah, old times.” I try to make a break for the door, but she secures her hand over mine.

  “How’d it go with Wesley? Was it awkward?”

  “No, why would it be awkward?”

  “Take things slow. We don’t want another incident on our hands.” She needles me with a sharp look. “Wes is a good boy, but he’s one of them. They’ll pluck your pants off if you’re not careful.” She makes Wes sound like a trouser hungry savage.

  “Right.” Not Wes. He’s opposed to the plucking of the pants until long after my memory restructures itself to suit his world. So, theoretically, the pants will stay on forever, unless, of course, I miraculously recall all things Anderson. I’m betting on a self-imposed “miracle.”

  “Good night,” I say.

  “Get straight to bed. Jones told me you wandered off last night in search of a mystery. I’ll have none of that.” She gives a soft kiss before propelling me into the hall.

  I text Cooper as soon as I hit my bedroom and ask him to meet me outside.

  I’ve got some questionable DNA burning a hole in my pocket, and it’s time to end a few of these so-called mysteries.

  I’m betting I’ll discover I’ve been “one dead Laken” all along.

  Sheets of damp fog envelop me as I set in on a serious hike across the front of the property through, of all things, a forest.

  To say I’m jittery or even a little on edge doesn’t begin to express the intense level of fright brewing inside me. All of this insanity just to deliver used tissue and bloodied dental floss. It hardly seems worth the trek over the river and through the haunted woods, which are rife with partially reanimated humans and shape-shifting “angels.”

  Who the hell cares if these people aren’t my real parents? I know full well they’re not. I know Jen isn’t m
y sibling and, that Fletch, unfortunately, is.

  I know Wes. I know him intimately, and I know whoever is messing with our lives, has probably screwed with Wes the most because not only is he living as some wealthy imposter, he’s garnered the ability to read minds—and that’s perhaps the scariest part of all. Why Wes? Can Fletch read minds? What if Jen’s somehow procured this superpower? Obviously, not Jen because if she could, she’d probably be clued in pretty quick to Blaine’s sexual misadventures. I bet he plays out those erotic stolen moments with Jax on a loop in his brain. I’m having a serious transference issue with him and Tucker. I’d gladly neuter him with a butter knife, given the opportunity, as homage to my own cheating ex-boyfriend.

  That kiss I shared with Coop blinks through my mind. That was different.

  A surge of guilt as wide as the ocean fills me.

  I can’t stand myself for wanting that—for secretly hoping that Cooper Flanders pines for me on some level.

  A rattle emits from inside the thicket.

  Shit. My body shrills to attention with fear.

  Be brave—be brave.

  I hold my breath as I listen for any other sound that might tip me off to the fact that I’m about to me mounted by a wicked lion woman or a wannabe corpse stuck in decomposition mode. And this time, I might not be so lucky to end up in Cooper Flanders’ arms.

  What am I saying? Lucky to be in Cooper Flanders’s arms? More like unlucky to have landed in the zombie depository—unlucky to have him place his lips over mine just in time to have it documented on an eight by ten glossy.

  God, what if it was Cooper who took the picture? What if he wants to blackmail me out of Wesley’s life and into his? Not that it’d ever work. Obviously it would take more than death to pry us apart, although if I end up breaking Wesley’s heart, that just might do the trick.

  I pick up pace and try not to over analyze the fact that the distinct crunch of footsteps is fast approaching from behind.