Burning for You (Blackwater) (33 page)

Jack steps forward.  “Drew,
Eleanor, I didn’t know anything,” he tells them.  “I would have stopped it.”

“You couldn’t stop it, Jack,” Drew
says from behind Eleanor.  “No one is blaming you.” 

Jack nods, accepting what Drew
tells him but not looking any less ill at ease.  “Can we do anything for you
guys?” Theo asks.  “I know we can’t give you back what you want the most, but
if there’s anything at all.”

“Actually,” Eleanor starts, looking
questioningly at Drew.  She wipes her tears away from her cheeks with the back
of her hand.  He nods, encouraging her to say what’s on her mind.  “We’d just
appreciate some company right now.  I think we are sick to death of grieving.  I
wish you would all come in and have some dinner with us.  There’s plenty of
food.  We’ve been distracting ourselves any way we can, so we’ve been cooking.”

“I think we can do that,” I say
tentatively.  “Are you sure you want us here?”

“Absolutely,” Drew agrees.  “The
only visitor we have had lately is Renee, and while Renee is lovely, it’s nice
to talk to people who are-“

“Not my mother,” Eleanor finishes
for him.  She’s even smiling through her tears, making everyone relax.  The
mood is still somber, but it’s less stressed.  We all follow them into the
kitchen and see a ridiculous number of homemade ravioli set out on the counter
and a huge pot of boiling water.

“Um, were you guys expecting us?” I
want to know.  “Where are the other eighty people you’ve invited?”

“We’ve been going nuts and trying
to keep busy,” Drew replies.  “Homemade ravioli is not only time consuming, but
it’s also delicious.”

“What are they filled with?” Theo
wants to know.  I realize he’s probably as starving as I am at the moment. 

“Sausage, ricotta and spinach,”
Drew tells us. 

“Damn,” Theo says.  “That sounds
amazing.  I’m so sick of French food.”

“Theo, you can be in charge of the
sauce,” Eleanor instructs.  “Just stir it every so often, nothing complicated.  I’ve
never met a Lavanne who actually knew their way around a kitchen so you get the
easy job.  Jack, help Drew roll out more pasta.  There’s still more to make and
I’d just like to make it all and send everyone home with it.  Leah, can you
come with me and help me choose the wine?”

I follow her out of the kitchen and
toward a door, which opens revealing basement stairs.  “Why didn’t you let Theo
help with wine?” I ask her.  “His family is the one with the vineyard.”

She replies in a low voice,
“Because I want to hear all of the dirt.  I need gossip, Leah, and I need it
now.  I don’t want to talk about anything bad right now.”

“El, I need to tell you what
happened-“

“Eventually you will,” she cuts me
off.  “Right now what I want to hear is how you managed to go from one Lavanne
brother to another.  What happened to Ash?”

“He’s gone,” I tell her sadly.  I
tell her about the dinner at the Lavannes, the night I met Theo.  I give her
the abridged version, and fill in details that she wants to know more about, short
of getting too graphic. 

She gets the gist of it.  “At the
same time?!”

“Shhhh!” I hush her.  “You can’t be
blabbing this to everyone, okay?”

“Oh, I won’t,” she agrees.  “Well,
Drew will hear it.  I can’t lie to you about that.  I tell him everything.”

I nod, assuming she would.  “El,
you’re not jealous of me or anything, right?  I mean about Drew and me in the
past?”

She shakes her head.  “I’ve
accepted that it’s happened, and it’s in the past.  I suppose as long as we’re
confessing things, I should tell you that he and I-“

“Nope!” I exclaim, putting my
fingers in my ears.  “Don’t want to hear it!  La la la la la!”

We laugh, and grab two bottles of
whatever the hell is closest to us, without really thinking too much about what
would pair well with ravioli.  “Leah,” Eleanor says, stopping me on the
stairs.  “I’ve known you and Heidi for years-“

“El, whatever you’re about to say,”
I interrupt, “Whatever you end up doing about this, I will understand.”

She nods.  “I love you, Leah. 
You’ll always be my friend.  But when I find Gabe, I will kill him, and if
Heidi gets in my way....” she trails off, her eyes filling with tears.

“Hey,” I tell her, putting a hand
on her arm.  “I understand.  I would do the same if it were my baby.”  She nods
and smiles, wiping her eyes.  She turns and finishes walking up the stairs.  When
we charge upstairs, the kitchen is in complete shambles.  The three men have
flour dust all over them, including their hair.  Ravioli is on the floor, water
is spilling out of the pot, and sauce has exploded up onto the vent above the
stove. 

“You guys can’t be left alone for
ten seconds?” Eleanor asks with a horrified expression.  “This is insane!”

“We’ll clean it up,” Drew replies. 
I notice that all of the men have grabbed beers for themselves, and despite all
of them having an awful day...or week in some cases, they are relaxing in each
other’s company.

Wine bottles are opened, ravioli is
served in an informal manner, and everyone settles down around the kitchen
table shoveling food in our mouths.  “This is fantastic,” Theo remarks.  “I’m
really sick of French food.”

“And butter,” I say.  “In the past
two weeks I’ve had more butter than I’d had the entire time I’ve lived in
Chicago.”

“What, no coffee with heavy cream?”
Drew asks.  “No truffle oil pommes frites?”

“No, I’m pretty sure they call them
French fries and they’re deep fried in Crisco,” I explain, laughing.  “How
ironic is it that they refer to them as French fries everywhere else but we
call them ‘pommes frites’?”

“Totally not the same thing,”
Eleanor replies.  She turns to Jack.  “What’s the matter, Jack, Heidi never
cooks so you can’t contribute to this discussion?”

I kick Eleanor under the table, and
the mood turns somber instantly at the mention of Heidi.  “I guess we should
eventually confront the elephant in the room,” Eleanor says.  “I’m sorry Jack.”

Jack shakes his head.  “Eleanor, I
should be the one that’s sorry.  I was so uninvolved in the whole supposed
adoption, I didn’t see what was right under my nose.”

I can’t resist.  “If Heidi were
here right now, she’d have a circle of ravioli on her plate and pretend to be
eating it.”

“Leah!” Eleanor exclaims, taking
her turn to kick me.  “Stop!  I just snorted wine out of my nose!”

“Gross!” I say, chancing a look at
Jack, who is shaking his head and smiling at me.  Theo squeezes my hand under
the table, sending a warm rush of relief through me.  Two more bottles of wine
are brought up and polished off quickly.  Jack stands up and tells everyone
it’s time for him to go home, before he gets too drunk to drive.  As my brother
in law, I feel it’s my civic duty to walk him out after he bids farewell to
everyone.  “Are you going to be okay to drive?”  I ask him at the door.  He
nods.  “Are you going to be okay in general?”

He shrugs.  “I’ve barely had time
to process anything, Leah.  I just figured it all out today.”  I nod and we
stand shivering in the cold just outside of his Land Rover for a few seconds. 
“I just keep thinking that if I hadn’t seen Heidi and Gabe together, how long
would I have been oblivious?”

“Jack,” I say softly.  “You can’t
think like that.”

He shrugs.  “Everything I’m
thinking right now is something I shouldn’t be thinking.”

“Promise me you won’t do anything
crazy,” I tell him.

He raises one eyebrow.  “Like
what?  Kill myself?”  He laughs sharply.  “It’s not worth it Leah.”

“Good,” I say nodding.  “That’s
what I needed to hear.”  I give him a quick hug.  “You’re a good guy, Jack. 
You’ll always be my brother in law, no matter what happens with Heidi.”

“That,” Jack says, “is the real
elephant in the room.  What happened to Heidi?”

*

Theo drives Betsey back to the
house after I’ve had a few too many glasses of wine.  Growing up in a vineyard
must keep his tolerance high, because he’s not even remotely tipsy.  I have no
idea where he’s driving, but it’s not Normandy or my house.  It’s dark and
still in Blackwater, considering it’s a Monday night and past everyone’s
bedtime.  When I see Theo turn on the path that heads toward the Gallows, I
begin to tremble.  “Cold?” Theo asks me.

“Why are you bringing me here?” I
ask him.  I take in the haunting trees on either side of us and shrink back in
my seat.  He doesn’t reply, he just keeps taking Betsey through the path in the
trees toward Blackwater River.  “Last time I was here, I was with Ash.”

“We’re going for a swim,” Theo
replies.  “I think we could use one.”

“Are you crazy?” I say.  “It’s
thirty degrees out.”

He smiles and glances over at me. 
“You have no idea what you’re capable of, do you?”

My brows lower.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he tells me, “you haven’t
really explored much of your abilities, have you?”

“You mean crafting?”  He nods. 
“Well today I broke a rocking chair.”

He laughs.  “Did you mean to?”  I
shake my head.  “Well that’s what I mean.  You need to learn how to control
your powers.  You have no idea how to do that, do you?”

“No,” I sigh.  “But can’t we just
go back to my house and do it there?  The Gallows freaks me out.”

“I want to try something,” Theo
says.  “And it involves a swim.”

We park Betsey at the end of the
path and step out into the frigid night air.  I shiver even harder at the idea
that Theo wants us to take our clothes off and plunge into the Blackwater River
in this kind of weather.  Even in the summer, I recall times where we would
swim in the river and it was still cold.  “Isn’t it dangerous to be swimming so
late at night with no one around?” I ask Theo.

He puts his arm around me, leading
me in the direction of the river.  “You forget that I’m a water elemental, and
you’re part water yourself.  We’ll be fine.”

“If you say so,” I reply, doubting
highly that this will be anything less than excruciating.  When we are
practically at the shore, I can hear the soft sweeping sounds of the river. 
It’s wide and black at night, no indication of how dark and red it is during
daylight hours.  The soft ripples make the white reflection of the moon dance
across the surface.  Theo begins to remove his shoes and socks and I follow his
lead with far less enthusiasm.  As he removes his shirt and pants, I touch a
toe in the water and let out a small shriek.  “You have got to be kidding me!”

He stands naked in the moonlight
and I catch a glimpse of him in his most natural state.  “You better hurry up,”
he tells me.  “I can’t do this without you.”

“What if I don’t want to?” I ask. 
The sand is even cold on my feet.  “Theo, seriously?  This is not what I want
to be doing tonight.  I’ve had a shitty day.  Can’t we end it somewhere under
some covers together where it’s warm?”

He walks up to me and begins to
pull my shirt up, showing me I don’t have a choice.  “We will be warm
together,” Theo says, “but we need to do this now.”

“Why?” I ask, succumbing to his
undressing me.  “Why do we need to do this at all?”

He tosses my shirt to the side and
starts on my pants.  “The next time you encounter Gabe or anything threat like
him, and there will be a next time,” he says in a warning tone.  “I want you to
be ready to fight back.”  His words sound final, and I nod, realizing why he
cares so much. 

“How do you know there’s a next
time?” I want to know, taking his hand and facing the river.  I’m trying to
ignore the cold, but it’s difficult to do that tonight.  Luckily, there’s not
much wind.

“There will be,” he assures me. 
“Now let’s go.  C’mon.”  We walk forward and the water surrounds my ankles,
making the cold crawl up my body.  “Keep going until we’re all the way in,”
Theo says with his teeth chattering.  I do as he says, gasping as the water
hits my thighs.  I recall my dad telling me when I was a kid and we used to go
swimming that cold water is like a Bandaid – you just have to go for it and
fully immerse yourself to get over the cold.  I surprise Theo when I recall
this advice by leaping forward and diving head first into the Blackwater River.

“Holy fuck!” I scream.  “It’s so
fucking cold in here!”

Theo dives under and swims up to me
and grabs me around the waist.  “M-m-make.  It.  W-w-warm.”  His teeth are
chattering so hard he can barely speak. 

“H-h-h-how?” I ask.  “D-d-d-do you
w-want me to p-p-pee?”  He laughs and shakes his head.  Suddenly, I realize
what he means.  “C-c-c-craft?”  He nods.  I’m at a loss, not even knowing where
to begin.  I lift my arms up in a shrug as if to say “sorry buddy, you’re
fucked” and feel the water roll off of me and the cold night air hit my skin to
make it even colder.  I quickly put my arm back down. 

I’m a good swimmer under normal
circumstances.  My dad taught me when I was very young.  I was afraid to put my
head under, but he was always saying “Cut through the water with your body. 
You have complete control of the water, and it will behave for you.  Don’t let
yourself get carried away by it, move it out of your way.”  I suddenly lower my
head under the surface and feel the air above me vanish, and then I
understand.  I focus on the water, reaching out with my mind over the entire
surface of the river, finding that the colder water lower down and the warmer
water toward the surface.  I push the colder water away from us and pull the
warm water closer.  When I feel the current change suddenly in the river I hold
Theo around the waist to keep him close.  The change sweeps over us, carrying
us along the current with it.  “Oh, that’s so much better,” I say, breaking the
surface and looking at Theo.  We are now immersed in a warm pocket of water,
not exactly bathtub warm, but much more comfortable than before.