“My father’s disappearance is just one of many in my family. It’s happened in each generation for as long as we’ve been keeping track…hundreds of years. My cousin was the latest to disappear last year.”
“What do you think is going on?” He returned to the stove, his voice stilted, almost robotic. Way too much information. She needed to back it down.
“I don’t know.” She studied his profile and watched as his jaw muscle flexed over and over, as if he were chewing on his thoughts, and he twisted one of his thumb rings with a forefinger. Why had she felt compelled to tell him? He was clearly uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry. I should never have shared all this with you. Maybe I should just—”
“No.” He said it with such force that it jerked her head up. “I really want to know more. You think your father’s fate awaits you, don’t you? And that’s why you really quit school.”
Oh God. He got it. He really understood.
He gave her the kind of smile that made her ache inside. “I…I suppose so. Why waste the money? College represents the future, so with Mom’s illness and Stacy going missing, I decided to stop fooling myself and get realistic. I know that must sound terribly pessimistic to you.”
“Not at all. You’re just living the best way you know how within the framework you were given. But your brother obviously doesn’t feel the same way.”
“My brother? Corey is one of those people who doesn’t worry about much. All the weed, I guess.”
“Maybe he smokes to drown out the worry.”
“Could be.”
“And your mother. She’s been through a lot, too, hasn’t she?”
“Yeah, she sure has. My whole life she’s been a worrier. She let her guard down, thinking my father had escaped the curse when he reached his forties, and finally agreed to his job transfer to San Diego. Six months later he disappeared.”
“And your mother determined it was the move to the big city, right?” His voice was faraway, distant.
It was like they really were on the same wavelength or something.
He stared out over her shoulder, his eyes dark and unfocused now, and a spot at the base of his jaw pulsed. A strange rush of heat, starting at her toes, ran up the length of her body.
She felt as if she wanted to punch something. She was pissed off. No. More than that. It was fury she was feeling.
What the hell? And then just as quickly, the feeling faded away.
“Yeah,” she said. “Got complacent, my mother said. She took paranoia to the nth degree after that because she worried that the same thing could happen to Corey or me. We moved around to many small towns in Washington and Oregon. We were in the Seattle area when Mom got her diagnosis, so we decided to settle here.”
He assembled everything on a large wooden tray, then reached for her hand. “How’s your finger? Let me see it.”
“It’s fine.” She kept it in her lap. “Did you know I don’t like it when people fuss over me?”
“Yes, I assumed that.”
“So why all the fuss?”
He stared at her, unblinking. “When you are here, I take care of you.”
To be taken care of by anyone was such a foreign concept. “I don’t need anyone’s help doing anything, you know, but I appreciate the concern.” The words came out quiet and half-hearted even though it had been her motto for as long as she could remember. The ache beneath her ribs widened. Being here with Dom overemphasized what she’d never have in her life.
Enough.
She flipped that familiar mental switch and smiled. “I know you can’t say much, but whereabouts are your offices in Canada located? You said British Columbia. Vancouver? Victoria?”
Not answering right away, he sprinkled some nuts into a skillet and flicked them into the air with a turn of his wrist. Yeah, he was the kind of cook who liked an audience. And she was the kind of person who loved to watch. After drizzling some olive oil into a shallow wooden salad bowl, he poured in a small amount of dark liquid from a small bottle with foreign writing and began to whisk the contents together.
“Our region headquarters are in the Horseshoe Bay area. Do you know where that is?”
Her hands flew to her throat. Did she know where that was? “Oh my God, yes. On the way to Whistler Mountain, right? The Ski-to-Sky Highway? Wait. Sky-to-Ski.”
“It’s the Sea-to-Sky Highway from Vancouver to Whistler,