Stone of Thieves (Robbin' Hearts Series Book 2) (8 page)

“How much farther?” I ask, panting but trying to make my voice sound grateful.

He stops and points at the sun, drawing down his arm level with the horizon before he pauses. “You will know.”

The way he looks into my eyes sends tingles down my spine.

It isn’t worry.

And it isn’t even fatigue.

It’s . . . reverence?

To my astonishment, he takes my hand and gives it a kiss, then holds it tenderly to his cheek as though I’m his very own daughter. His skin is warm, and his touch makes the stone tremble in my pocket.

“Benedizioni, Thagarni
,” he says with a wistful smile.

And turns around to leave.

Creek wraps his arm around my shoulder and holds me still.

“Let him go,” he urges, sensing my nerves about proceeding without a guide. It makes me feel like we’re lost without a compass, in search of a strange gypsy band we don’t even know. Will they really offer us protection—can I believe the promise of a creepy ghost who looked eerily like some guy in my vision? I never mentioned it to a soul, not even to Creek. But the gondolier seems to think so, because his plan was to walk us halfway to what he called the
cherchie zingari
, a caravan of gypsies who are known to harbor fugitives.

“That man’s done enough for us already,” Creek points out, giving me a squeeze. “He wouldn’t have brought us this far if he didn’t think we’d make it okay.”

I nod, knowing it’s true. But when I glance back, just to call out a
grazie
to the guy before he disappears into the thicket, I realize there’s no one there.

Nothing but a gold gypsy earring that lies on a bed of leaves on our path, sparkling in a patch of sun.

Had it been there before, and I simply didn’t notice?

Just then, a warm breeze caresses my cheek and gently swirls around me like a protective spirit. As it fades away, I spot a blue-gray bird that alights upon an old, rotting fence post nearby.

You will know
, I hear a low voice hover between us like a mist.

The blue bird leans back its head and releases a raspy cry. Then it lifts its wide wings and takes flight, heading north and vanishing from our sight.

“Creek,” I manage to sputter, breathless, “am I going nuts, or are we being haunted?”

We’ve managed to climb a steep hill and it’s nearly dark, but ever since we left the gondolier my mind’s been a swirl. It doesn’t help matters that all around us the trees have started to look black and gothic like something from an old horror movie. Any second, I expect one to reach out and grab us. But like usual, Creek is totally in his element in nature, calm and cool as the granite boulders that have begun to crop up on the hillsides. Near as I can tell, we’ve reached a rolling stretch of vineyards that back up against the blue outline of a mountain range at dusk. Every once in a while, I pluck a few raisins leftover from last year’s grape harvest that didn’t make the cut. They taste insanely sweet on my tongue—a sure sign that I’m exhausted and we haven’t eaten for hours.

Creek stops for a moment and gazes at the sunset that bleeds through the trees. He seems unfazed by the hunger he must be feeling and ignores my small handout of raisins.

“To answer your question,” he sighs, keeping his focus on the red-gold color in the west, “You’re nutty as a fucking loon.”

He turns and gives me that lop-sided smile that always makes my heart soar.

“But here’s the thing about loons,” he threads his fingers over my head and gently through my wild, curly hair. “They’re highly sensitive creatures. Granny Tinker nicknames them the ghosts of the lake, with the way their calls echo across the water and haunt the air when they’re hidden in the mist. Whenever you hear a loon, she says, make a wish, because your dream will soon come true.”

He brushes his lips past my temple and cups his hand to my ear. Then he makes the softest, loneliest bird call I’ve ever heard, like the voice of someone mournful hailing from beyond the grave.

“Don’t blame the spirits for reaching out to you, Robin,” he whispers in that low, smoky voice of his that sends my nerve endings on fire. “They’re just lonely—and you are very, very beautiful.”

With that, his lips press against mine, his palms cradling my jaw as though he were drinking from a cup, long and slow. Then his hand reaches to the small of my back, and he arches me over his arm and tenderly lays me down on the forest floor.

As hungry as I am, the rest of my body is starved for so much more—

I want to rip his clothes off this minute, be free and naked in this wild bramble as if we’d somehow stumbled upon Eden. Yet even though I can feel Creek’s every muscle snap at my touch, reaching for the warmth of my fingers, his hand stops mine from quickly unraveling every button and zipper on his frame.

“Robin,” he gasps, startled, “do you see them?”

For a moment I wonder if he means more ghosts.

I shake my head, confused.

He peers through the branches, pointing to a small cluster of trees on the horizon.

With the sun behind them, I can make out the dark outline of some people who look like they’re setting up a camp in the woods, with the silhouette of tents and wagons on either side. Tethered to their vehicles are several horses.

“It’s them,” Creek’s lip curls into a half-smile. He reaches over and plucks the gold earring from its bed of leaves, tossing and catching it in air. “The gypsies.”

“But how do we know if they’ll help us like the gondolier did?” I ask, daunted by their shadowy presence. “Or if they’re even for
real
.”

My own words make me shudder. Uneasy, I strip a few leaves from my hair.

At that moment, the wind sends a strange scuffling sound like whispers.

Creek pulls the blue feather he’d saved from his pocket and runs it along my cheek with a thoughtful glance. “That’s the thing, we don’t know,” he replies, swiping another kiss. “We’ll never know. We’ll have to wing it, like usual.”

He’s so handsome in the thin sunlight that filters through the trees, caressing his rugged face and tousled hair with hints of amber warmth. My body’s aching for us to be skin on skin, with nothing between us but heat. I half expect to die from the rush of blood between my thighs, working its way up and making me feel as if my insides are on fire. Creek smiles and leans against me, hard against my pelvis, and the look in his eyes is all yearning, all . . .
possession
. Yet at the same time, his expression has that familiar, endless sadness, as though forever haunted at the edges by . . . loss.

I swallow a ragged breath, knowing every woman he’s ever tried to love has either died or deserted him.

But that doesn’t fucking mean
me
.

I force up my chin.

I’ve staked a claim to his heart and I’m here to stay—and with all my might, I try to let my eyes burn that message into his. To make him feel it coming from my body and soul in waves.

Creek doesn’t look away. But he doesn’t exactly fall into my embrace either.

Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I roll up his flannel shirt sleeve to remind him of the scar that must still be painful on his arm.

“Partners,” I say adamantly, tracing the letters of the word with my finger and watching him hold back his flinch. “We’re always gonna be partners, Creek, ’cause you couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.”

Impulsively, I hold up my hand to show Creek the stain of his own blood on my fingertip. With a devil-may-care smirk, I wave it in front of him like I’d dipped my finger in a sweet berry liqueur and brazenly take a lick. Fuck Martiya and all her weird plans—if this act binds my soul to Creek’s forever, so be it.

I totally expect the ruby to wobble in my pocket and throw off sparks, whispering bizarre demands until it practically sizzles my ass.

But instead, it remains still.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spy the silhouettes of the gypsies seated around their camp in the distance with a small bonfire in front of them. One by one, they each turn to face me and stand up.

As we walk hesitantly up to the camp at twilight, the gypsies stare me down, almost unblinking, with a strange look of wonder as if I were a long-lost cousin who’d run off to find her fortune in childhood, now returned years later like a ghost. The light of their bonfire warms their faces, and at first, only the men approach me with folded arms, jabbering in their gypsy tongue and peering cautiously at Creek as if he might be dangerous.

They’re right, I nod to myself. He
is
.

But when one of them pulls out a knife—or is that a machete?—with a shiny steel blade as long my forearm, I instinctively hold out my hand before Creek can intervene.

And they all take a step back.

I swear, I thought I saw the biggest guy among them tremble.

What the fuck? I feel as if I could slice my arm in the air and they’d part like the Red Sea. Do they think I possess some kind of magical powers?

Strangely enough, Creek remains motionless and silent at my side, flanking me as close as a shadow. Yet I can feel the tension rising in him as he scans the small group, his mind tallying precisely what it would require to kill each one of them if they get anywhere near me.

So much for taking refuge among the gypsies.

I draw in a deep breath, feeling lied to by a bunch of capricious ghosts. These people look like they want to kill me—not exactly like they’re ready to hide us or hand us a bowl of the stew they’re cooking over their campfire.

“I’m looking for my mother,” I blurt out, troubled by their response and hoping to all hell they might understand a little English.

And that’s when she approaches as softly as a night breeze. I feel her before I see her, this woman who slinks up like a cat from behind me in the fading daylight. She is all darkness—a tangle of sable hair that threads over ink eyes, wearing a ruffled maroon blouse and a dusky riding coat that cinches at her waist and fans out at her hips, extending all the way to her ankles with a slit up the back as if she were about to ride sidesaddle. If I didn’t know better, I’d peg her as Catherine, that wild and tempestuous creature from
Wuthering Heights
—the last novel I was forced to read before bolting from my old high school for good.

Creek eyes the woman fiercely, as if she might have a dagger up her sleeve. And there’s no doubt in my mind he’s already planned how to break her neck.

But she doesn’t look at him.

She doesn’t even look at
me
.

Though we stand shoulder to shoulder, her gaze is steady upon the flames of the campfire that make her dark eyes and caramel skin glow.

“Your mother,” her voice sounds deep and lush, like the throbbing of an old song, “she’s already here,
shebari
.”

At that moment, the fire crackles and snaps, flickering as red as the ruby in my pocket.

And my heart leaps with the flames.

Oh God, is she playing me? I wonder. I reach out to grab Creek’s hand for strength and he squeezes it, knowing full well how desperately I want to find my mother. But then his grip tightens and holds me firm, as if to say
Don’t believe everything you hear. After all, they’re gypsies
.

“Come,” the woman says, waving us toward the campfire. “You need food and rest.” She points to a black pot—a cauldron, really—that’s boiling with a heavenly-scented stew.

Though gentle, her words make the men fall away from us like attack dogs that’ve been warned to back down.

Except for Creek.

Like a wolf, his eyes track my every move, allowing me to follow her to the black pot before he steps into the tree shadows just beyond the fire’s range, glaring at each of the gypsies in spite of his hunger.

But I can’t stop myself. When the woman dishes some stew into a wooden bowl, I yank it from her hands like a feral child and spoon it into my mouth in large gulps.

It’s
crazy
good!

Hunks of tender lamb and potatoes spiced with paprika and herbs that’s so over-the-top delicious I pray it doesn’t possess some magical spell. I feel selfish devouring it in front of Creek. Quickly, I spoon several more helpings from the pot back into the bowl and step beyond the fire ring to hand it to him.

When I turn around, the gypsies are gone—

All but the mysterious woman who served me stew.

“No-no,” she waves her hand with a wry smile, as if reading my mind. “No
mulani
. There are no ghosts here.” In the campfire’s glow, two of her front teeth shine gold. “We are a welcoming people. But we need time to . . . how do you call it? Make friends. You watch—tomorrow they will sing you songs and tell stories. You won’t be able to shut them up.”

“Where’s my mother?” I demand with a hiss, my fists clenched. Creek sets down his bowl and grips my shoulders so I can’t dash toward her and take a swing.

Jesus Christ—add a little food to my belly and I become a bitch! My own violence unnerves me, but at this point I don’t give a fuck about her gypsy pals or anything else on Italian soil. After being haunted and shot at
twice
in this god-forsaken country, all I want is to find my mother and get the hell out of here.