Blessed (Book 2, The Watchers Trilogy; Young Adult Paranormal Romance) (23 page)

“I want you to take this as a wedding present,” my grandmother said. “My mother made it for me when I married Amos. I always hoped to be able to give it to your mother when she married. Did she ever marry?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. I stood from my chair to take the quilt from her arms.

“Then I give it to you. I will pray that your marriage is long, and that you both have a wonderful life together.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, touched that she seemed to feel enough of a connection with me to pass down such a precious heirloom.

Since the house was so quiet and the walls thin, we could clearly hear the voice of a man saying “Whoa”, a horse neighing, and the rattle of a buggy as it came to a stop in front of the house near Brand’s car.

“That’ll be Amos,” my grandmother said, turning toward the sound. “Let me go out and tell him you’re here.”

She may have been outside, but they might as well have been inside the house. Brand and I could hear their conversation clearly.

When my grandmother explained my presence, I heard my grandfather say, “Since I have no daughter, I do not have a granddaughter. I will be in the barn until they leave.”

I could hear the crunching of his footsteps as he walked across the gravel from his buggy to the large red barn beside the house. My grandmother had warned me that this might be his reaction, but I was ill-prepared for it. I couldn’t help but feel like someone had just slapped me in the face. Brand came to stand beside me and put a comforting arm around my back.

When my grandmother came back in, I could tell the pleasure of seeing me had been tempered by my grandfather’s refusal to even be in the same room as me.

“He has some things to tend to before sunset,” she explained. I was sure she knew we had heard his words. She had probably lived in this house most of her life. She would know the walls weren’t thick enough to muffle their voices from the outside.

“We should probably be going,” I told her, not wanting to cause her any more trouble with my grandfather. “Can I write to you?” I asked, unsure if that would be permitted.

“Please do,” my grandmother replied as she walked up to me and placed a loving hand on top of the one I had resting on the quilt. “I want to know all about your wedding and your life. Are you still in school?”

“Yes, I’m in my first semester of college.”

“Oh, how wonderful. We don’t go to school past the eighth grade, but I always thought it would fun to learn more. Please try to keep in touch, and come see me again when you can. Perhaps your mother would join you. I desperately want to see her.”

“I’ll try to get her to come,” I said, “but I can’t promise you she will. I think she’s still hurt by what happened before.”

Even if my grandfather didn’t want to have anything to do with my mother or me, my grandmother did. What I had assumed earlier was true about my visit having one of two outcomes, except I had both of my hypotheses come to fruition.

“There’s one other thing,” Brand said, pulling out one of Allan’s DNA kits from his jacket pocket.

“Would it be all right if we took a DNA sample from you? We only want to compare it to Lilly’s.”

“What would I have to do?”

It only took a second for Brand to collect the DNA he needed from the inside of my grandmother’s cheek. I thanked her once again for her help, and hugged her before I left. I had no way of knowing if it would be the only time I ever saw her or not, so I kissed her gently on the cheek and told her goodbye.

When Brand and I stepped outside to get back into his car, I happened to glance toward the barn, wondering if I might catch a glimpse of my grandfather before I left.

He was standing at the door to the barn, leaning against its opening and watching us with hooded eyes. He stood tall in a plain black suit and white shirt, with a straw hat on his head. His jaw was covered with a mustache-less, long white beard. I couldn’t tell what the expression on his face was exactly from the distance between us. I assumed I was probably imagining the yearning I thought I saw in his eyes to come and speak with me. I didn’t know what else to do, so I nodded my head to him, curious to know if he would at least acknowledge my existence. After a few seconds, he nodded back.

I got into Brand’s car, and we drove back down the gravel driveway. As we left, I wondered if my grandfather would change his mind about meeting me one day. I made a note to myself to put it on my wish list of things to do in the time I had left.

As soon as we left my grandparents’ home and made it back onto the highway, Brand phased us to his house. He turned off the engine and we both just sat in the car, each silently contemplating the information we had just received.

“What do you think it all means?” I finally asked, turning to look at him.

“I’m not sure, but I think we need to tell the others what we found out. Maybe they can help us, especially Will. He’s been around Lucifer the most. He might have information he doesn’t even realize is important, and be able to piece things together.”

We went inside the house and Brand made a few phone calls. Malcolm came right over, and Will picked up Tara and Malik on the way. We all sat around the dining room table. Brand and I gave them the information we had gathered from my grandmother. Will and Malcolm were as surprised as Brand had been that Lilith was able to hide her child with Adam so completely.

“Well, He must have known,” Malcolm said, sitting back in his chair. “But why would He hide it from us?”

“He, who?” Tara asked. “God?”

“Yes,” Malcolm answered.

“He must have had His reasons,” Will said. “But He allowed her other children to be killed, the ones she had with my kind.” Will sat back in his chair with a heavy sigh. “I guess I should have suspected Lilith’s connection before now. It just didn’t occur to me that she would have had a child who actually survived.”

“Don’t beat yourself up too much about it,” Malcolm said. “None of us thought of it.”

“So you think Lilly has inherited the ability to enter Heaven, like Lilith?” Malik asked.

“It seems like a logical conclusion,” Brand answered. “But we still don’t understand why Lucifer would want to use her to go back.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Malcolm agreed. “Even if he did manage to go there, he would just be kicked out again. Where’s the logic in that?”

“Do you have any ideas, Will?” Brand asked.

Will shook his head. “No, I don’t know what the purpose would be either. We’re still missing something important.”

Brand sighed. I knew he’d hoped Will might have insight the rest of us lacked, but it looked like Will was as clueless as we were.

“I have a question,” I said. “If Lilith’s children with Will’s kind were all killed, why let me live for so long?”

“Good question, dearest,” Malcolm sat back in his chair, with his arms crossed over his chest. “A few of the angels were ordered to destroy her children almost as soon as they were born. It does seem odd that you would be allowed to live, when they were not.”

“It must mean God has a plan for you,” Brand said to me. I felt like he was grasping for some sign, to give me hope. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.”

I wasn’t exactly reassured by his statement. We knew someone powerful wanted me dead, at least powerful enough to enlist the help of a group of fallen angels and a jinn. Could it be God? That didn’t seem likely. He could probably destroy me without having to use a go-between to get the job done. But if it wasn’t Him, then who was it?

“Where do we go from here?” I asked, not seeing any way for us to find out the information we needed to know.

Brand slid his hand across the table and cupped it over mine.

“We concentrate on our lives. We plan the wedding of your dreams, and keep an eye out for other clues. Something else is bound to happen, to show us where we need to look next.”

Brand was so sure God had brought us together for a reason, but what if the reason wasn’t the idyllic ‘love conquers all’ scenario we both wanted it to be?

“Well,” Tara said, standing from her chair, “I don’t know about y’all, but all this talk has made me hungry. Why don’t you show me how to make them cookies you made for me the other night, Prince Charming?”

Brand tried to put on a happy front for me. “Sure, I can do that.”

“Prince Charming?” Malik asked, standing from his chair.

“Yeah,” Tara answered, following Brand into the kitchen. “Lilly got Prince Charming, and I always end up with the toads.”

“Hmm,” Malik said, following them to the kitchen. “Maybe you’re just looking in the wrong places. You need a man, not a boy.”

Tara laughed. “Well, if you see one who fits the bill, you let me know.”

I saw Malik raise an eyebrow at her, but he didn’t say anything else on the matter.

“You know how to play chess?” I heard Malcolm ask Will.

“Of course,” Will answered, which was the wrong answer if he intended to leave early. Malcolm quickly had him talked into playing a game. He phased to his house and retrieved his own chessboard and pieces, even though Brand told him he had one stored in the hall closet. I had a feeling Malcolm felt like he held an advantage by using his own set.

As I sat on a stool at the kitchen counter, watching Malik, Tara, and Brand as they made cookies and tried not to get cookie dough everywhere, intentionally or unintentionally, I looked over my shoulder at Malcolm and Will playing chess. Malcolm must have felt me watching them, because he looked up at me and winked as his lips stretched into a contented smile. I smiled back. I was most definitely home.

“Hey,” Tara said while she and Malik were spooning the dough onto a cookie sheet. Brand came around the kitchen counter and stood behind me, putting his arms around me, kissing me lightly on the cheek. “Are y’all going to the Halloween Dance?”

“What Halloween Dance?” I asked.

“The one they’re having at the school. Ain’t you seen the posters up all over campus?”

“No. I guess I’ve had too much on my mind to pay attention.”

“It’s Halloween night, at the indoor stadium. Y’all should go.”

“Are you going?”

“Yeah, I already got asked out. I’m sure Prince Charming over there would take you.”

“Who asked you out? I thought I made it clear I was going to get to interrogate the next person you dated. We don’t need another Leroy incident.”

“Girl, you let me handle my own love life. You got enough to worry about as it is.”

“I’m going to it,” Malik announced, surprising us all.

Tara stopped spooning the dough and looked up at him. “With
who
?”

“Your friend, Cheryl, from the library asked me to go with her.”

“Cheryl?” Tara asked, putting the hand with the spoon on her cocked hip. “When did she do that?”

“She asked me for my phone number when you went to the bathroom the day you showed me around the library.”

I could tell Tara wasn’t exactly pleased with this revelation, but she didn’t say anything else. She just continued placing the dough onto the cookie sheet.

“Can I come?” Malcolm called from the table, waiting for Will to make his next move. “It sounds like fun.”

“You have to come with a student,” Tara told him.

“Will can take me then,” Malcolm said matter-of-factly.

“How do you know I don’t already have a date?” Will questioned, a bit miffed.

“Because I know you. I’m sure you’re still pining away for Lilly, hoping she’ll come to her senses and leave Brand for you. I think it’s time you gave up that particular fantasy. They’ll be married soon enough. Besides, maybe we can find a couple of unattached females at the party. With me as your wing man, you’ll have as many women to choose from as you want.”

I looked over at Malcolm, worried by his plans. I didn’t like the idea of him in a stadium filled with attractive, scantily-clad females all looking for a good time. It was bad enough Malcolm looked the way he did, but with the added benefit of his intoxicating pheromone, I couldn’t imagine anything but trouble coming from the combination of the two. However,, it definitely helped me make up my mind.

“So do you want to go to a dance with me?” I asked Brand, turning around on the stool and into his arms.

He leaned down and kissed me chastely on the lips. I could only assume it was because of our houseful of company.

“You know I’ll do anything you want,” he murmured.

“Cool,” Tara said. “We can go costume-shopping together.”

I hadn’t thought about buying a costume. We would definitely have to go look for some when Tara and I went ring-shopping. I told her as much and we made plans to go that Thursday, since we both got off work early. Halloween was the following Wednesday, so there wasn’t time to waste.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

That Thursday afternoon, Tara and I went to Clive Jewelers, the best jewelry store Lakewood had to offer. We had an afternoon of shopping planned, between picking out Brand’s wedding ring and shopping for costumes for the Halloween dance. Brand didn’t seem to care what he wore, so he told me to pick out a costume for him that matched whatever I chose to wear. Tara told me she and her date, a boy named Aaron, from her chemistry class, had already decided to go as a hippie couple from the ‘60s. I had no idea what I wanted to dress up as, and hoped something would jump out at me when we went to the store.

The jewelry store was empty, with the exception of a blond-haired man dressed in a well-tailored blue suit, browsing at the merchandise when we arrived. After only a few minutes, I could tell Tara was in a bind by the way she kept switching back and forth on her feet.

“Why don’t you go to the bathroom,” I finally whispered to her, “before you have an accident?”

“Well, I didn’t want to leave you alone,” she said. “You know you’re no good at bargaining. You’ll just take the first deal they give you.”

“I promise not to buy anything until you get back,” I told her.

“Ok, I won’t be but a minute.” She quickly went out the door to find the public restrooms in the small strip mall.

I had no idea what type of ring to get Brand. Would he want something flashy? No, that didn’t seem like him. He would want something sentimental, but how do you buy a piece of metal that has sentiment to it?

“Looking for a ring?”

I looked to my right and saw the other customer I had noticed when first entering the store. He was a handsome man around my mother’s age, with wavy dark blond hair and an easy, disarming smile that instantly made me feel like I had met him before. The fine laugh lines at the corners of his eyes gave his face a boyish charm, and the way his shoulders were slightly slouched, and his open stance, gave him the appearance of someone completely nonjudgmental and friendly. I felt inexplicably drawn to him. His soft, light-blue eyes studied my face for a moment, as if he was watching my reaction to him. After a while, he turned his attention back to the glass counter of wedding bands I had been looking at.

“I’m trying to find one for my fiancé,” I answered, not quite sure why I felt so comfortable telling a stranger what I was doing.

“Ahh, a hard decision,” he said, with an understanding nod. His voice was as comforting as the accompanying smile. “It’s usually best if you pick something you like. As long as you like it, he’ll like it. Men aren’t that fussy when it comes to jewelry for themselves. I’ll bet your fiancé doesn’t even wear any, does he?”

“Well, now that you mention it, no,” I hadn’t thought about that. Great, what do you get a man who doesn’t really even like to wear jewelry?

“I’d go for something simple and classic,” the man said, unintentionally answering my question, “probably just a simple band of some sort without any fancy embellishments.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” That certainly narrowed down the choices presented to me in the glass case, not that I could afford anything with a load of diamonds on it anyway.

“He won’t care how much you spend on it either. He’ll be more interested in knowing you took the time to consider what he would want.”

The stranger’s words made sense. It would mean more to Brand if I picked out something I thought suited him. Maybe I could even get it engraved to make it more sentimental.

“I just bought something for my girlfriend,” the stranger told me. “They’re engraving it for me now. You might want to think about doing something like that.”

Ok, this was weird. I looked up at the man. How did he seem to know what I was thinking? His last few statements seemed to connect with what I was saying to myself at the time, almost like he was answering the unvoiced commentary in my head.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Oh, excuse me for forgetting my manners,” he held his hand out to me. “I’m Dr. Lucas Hunter.”

I shook his hand. The moment my hand touched his, I felt a tingling sensation travel from his hand to mine, up my arm and shoulders to my head, making me feel like I was about to faint. I felt him put his arm around my waist to prevent my fall.

“Are you all right?” he asked me, making sure I was steady on my own two feet before relinquishing his hold on me.

“Yes,” I answered, trying to shake off the effects of his touch.

Who was he? There was definitely something going on with him that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Was he a Watcher? Could he have been sent by Robert to spy on me?

“Here is your item, Dr. Hunter,” a saleswoman behind the counter handed Lucas a shopping bag with a small box inside.

He took the bag from the woman and thanked her for being so fast with his purchase.

He turned to me. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Lilly. I’m sure your fiancé will like whatever you choose. Good luck to you.”

Before I knew it, he was out the door.

How had he known my name?

When Tara finally came back into the store, I took her aside and told her what had happened.

“Who do you think he was?” she asked.

I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know.”

“But he didn’t seem dangerous?”

“No, the complete opposite, I felt really comfortable with him.”

“Well, we’ll need to tell the others later. There ain’t much we can do about it now. We’ll just have to keep an eye out. You find a ring yet?”

Tara and I spent a good thirty minutes trying to decide on a ring. Luckily, when I told the woman behind the counter my description of the perfect ring, she told me they had just received a shipment that day, and that it might contain what I was looking for. When she brought it out, I knew it was the perfect one for Brand.

It was a grey and gold band that split into three individual bands connected by an invisible hinge design. When put together, the ring was concave in shape, with two grooves in the middle where the ring split. If you didn’t know the ring could come apart, you wouldn’t think it should. The woman said I could put a hidden inscription inside the band of rings. She gave me a book of inscriptions to help give me some ideas. I already knew of one thing I wanted to inscribe in the ring, and it didn’t take me long to find another inscription I wanted to put in it.

On the first inner ring, I had them inscribe something simple and from my heart. On the second ring, I had them inscribe something I knew would mean a lot to Brand:

To the love of my life, forever and always.

Deus Nos Iunxit 11-17-2012

“What’s that second one mean?” Tara asked, looking over my shoulder as I wrote down my selections on the order form.

“It’s Latin,” I answered. “It means ‘God joined us’.”

“Oh yeah, Brand will like that.”

The saleslady said it would take a couple of days to have the ring ready, since the engraving on this particular ring would need to be sent out to be done. I assured her that there wasn’t a rush.

Tara and I went straight from the jewelry store to the costume store, which was located on the other side of town. Tara doubled over in mirth when we stepped inside.

“Ok, that’s what you have to buy Brand,” she said, pointing to the display of costumes.

I just shook my head at her. “Are you seriously going to make me dress him up as Prince Charming?”

“Yep, and that means you have to go as Cinderella.”

Well, at least I didn’t have to spend a lot of time figuring out what it was I wanted to go as. Tara quickly found a pink thigh-high dress with a flower design in gold and lavender, with pink gauzy sleeves. There was also a pair of pink knee-high boots with a flower cut out on the sides and a pink headband that finished her ‘60s- themed outfit.

We were in high spirits when we stepped out of the store, at least until I saw who was standing across the street from us.

Robert stood on the sidewalk, dressed in a simple white shirt and black suit. He tapped the black leather watch on his wrist and grinned as if he knew something that I didn’t before phasing.

“What’s wrong?” Tara asked, immediately following my eyes to the empty spot where Robert had been.

“We need to go.”

As soon as we got back into my car, I phased us to Brand’s house.

Brand was clearly troubled to hear I had seen Robert again, but he was glad that I had taken his advice and come straight to him before Robert had a chance to do anything else.

“I got the feeling he was telling me time was running out,” I told Brand and Tara.

“He’s playing with you, Lilly. He wants to scare you as much as he can.” Brand couldn’t hide the worry in his voice. We knew Robert was up to something, but what that something was completely eluded us.

“Oh, hey, don’t forget to tell him about that guy in the jewelry store, too,” Tara reminded me.

I told Brand everything I could remember about my encounter with the man who called himself Dr. Lucas Hunter.

“And you’re sure you’ve never met him before?” Brand asked.

“No, I’ve never seen him in my life.”

Brand stood, went to the kitchen, and pulled a phonebook out of the drawer. He came and sat back down with me, flipping through the yellow pages in the physician section.

“I don’t see him,” Brand said, closing the book.

“He might be on the Internet,” I suggested.

“Come on,” Brand took my hand and we stood up to go to his computer located in the spare bedroom upstairs.

“Hey, could y’all take me home and tell me what you find out later?” Tara asked. “I need to go finish my report for my Biology class.”

We phased Tara home and went straight back to Brand’s spare bedroom.

Our search for Lucas Hunter didn’t take long. He was a doctor of pediatric oncology with a well-established practice in Jackson. He had been there at least ten years. From what we could tell, he was highly-respected in his field for advancements in curing his pediatric patients of cancer.

There was a picture of him on his practice’s website. It was definitely the same man I met in the jewelry store.

“So he’s not a Watcher, right?” I asked Brand. “You don’t seem to recognize him.”

Brand shook his head. “No, I don’t know who he is. It could be one of Will’s kind. He might know.”

Brand took out his phone and found Will’s number on his contact list. “Hey, could you come over to my house? Lilly and I have a question for you.” There was a pause. “We’re on the second floor in the spare bedroom.”

“I’m here,” I heard Will say in the hallway a second later.

I called out to him so he knew which room we were in. When he came in, Brand pointed to the computer screen.

“One of yours?”

Will studied the picture on the screen. “It’s hard to tell from just a picture, but I don’t recognize him. I would need to get close to him to tell. Why?”

I told Will what I’d told Brand about my encounter with the man.

“Give me the address to his offices in Jackson,” Will said. “I’ll try to get up there as soon as I can to check him out.”

“Is it possible Lucifer has sent someone else to look after Lilly?” Brand asked while writing the address down on a scrap piece of paper and handing it to Will.

Will shrugged, reading the address before putting the paper in his back pocket.

“Anything is possible with him, but he hasn’t told me anything about it. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

“Thanks, Will,” I said.

Will looked at me and nodded. He tried to give me a reassuring smile before he disappeared, but I could tell he was worried about this new development.

Brand stood from the chair at the computer and took me into his arms.

“I think we need to stop thinking about things for a while,” he announced before kissing me until all I could think about was him.

When he finally pulled away, I heard a low moan escape his lips.

“It gets harder and harder to pull away from you,” he sighed, kissing my forehead first and then my cheeks before he returned to my lips.

I understood his torment. It was getting harder for me, too.

“Three more weeks,” I said, forcing my lips away from his for a deep breath. “Besides, I still need to go see a doctor for birth control. I think they say you need to be on it for a little while anyway.”

With the reminder of the repercussions our lovemaking could have, I felt Brand’s arms loosen around my waist.

“I spoke to someone about that,” he confided. “We’ll need to have you on birth control, and I’ll need to use something also, just to be sure we don’t have any accidents. Birth control is only 99.9% effective, from what I’ve read.”

“Who did you ask that sort of question?” I was curious to know who Brand would go to for such knowledge.

“Do I have to tell you?” he asked with a lopsided grin, obviously embarrassed.

“Well, no, you don’t
have
to do anything you don’t want to, but I would like to know.”