“These past few days haven’t been great, Thea,” I butted in. “I missed you.”
Her eyes softened. “I missed you too.” She sighed and began kicking her feet. “You’re right, the water has made me feel better.”
I smiled at her. “I’m glad. Just take it easy though. I don’t want you to swim a hundred lengths, just… I don’t know, get a feel for the water.”
Her lips curved, and the somberness of moments before had disappeared. “Thank you, Adam.”
“For what?”
“Being you.”
My lips twitched. “I can’t do much else but be me.”
“Not true.” She grabbed a tight hold of the foam board and hefted herself onto it more. “If I tell you something, I don’t want you to freak out.”
I knew what freaking out was. After this past week, nothing she said could trigger a worse reaction in me than her disappearing the way she had.
I reached over, rubbed my hand down her arm, relishing in her proximity and the feel of her against my fingers. “I promise I won’t.”
Well, I could keep that promise so long as she wasn’t telling me she was moving. I knew her foster family only had kids there for the welfare check that covered the mother’s wage and allowed her to care for her sick daughter.
The possibility suddenly became reality, and fear walloped me even as she muttered, “We have gifts in my family.”
“Gifts?” Relief swirled inside me—she wasn’t talking about moving. “Like, the swimming, you mean?”
Her gaze darted to mine. “No. But, I mean, that’s a gift too, I guess. I think that’s training more than anything. I’ve always swum since I was small. We used to travel around the country, visiting racing stables.” Her lips curved. “We spent a long time at one place in Kentucky. There was a river there. Papa taught me how to swim. After, when he died, Momma did too, and I went back to Nanny’s. She encouraged me to swim, so I did. It became all I cared about for a little while.”
Her sad past made me want to fill her future with happiness, but I could only do that if she let me.
These last eight days had revealed that to me.
“It let you connect with him?”
“That, but it also helped me forget.” She shot me a sad smile. “He was a good Papa, but not the best husband. In our world, violence isn’t that unusual, and Momma often had bruises and stuff. When I saw that, I knew I had to be a good girl, so I could escape in the water. It was a time when I didn’t have to worry about always behaving. After he died, swimming turned into a coping mechanism. But I wasn’t talking about swimming.
“It’s something that was in my momma’s line. I don’t know if it’s all Roma, or just the Kinkades, but we have gifts. Momma was magnificent with horses. She was like a horse whisperer, and my papa used that with his business. He used to get jealous, I think. About her skills. Men are the ones who work in our families, not the women, but he needed her. Especially with the difficult horses. They were the ones that earned the most money.”
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what had happened. “You told me he fell off a horse, didn’t you?”
She nodded. “I did. There was this stallion that a stable owner in Kentucky wanted him to ‘fix.’ He wouldn’t let anyone get close enough to touch him, never mind saddle him. Papa had a reputation built on Momma’s skills. So he went in, tried to be the big man, and fell for his efforts. Momma couldn’t live without him. She was weak.”
There was so much wrong with that statement that I wasn’t sure where to begin. Instead, I just gaped at her, and when she looked at me, her lips twitched. “It’s okay, Adam. I grieved her weakness a long time ago.”
“If that was her skill,” I began hesitantly, deciding it was wise to change the subject a little, “what’s yours?”
“I share the gift with my nanny. I can read auras, and through them, I can do other stuff.”
My eyes flared at that. I knew what she was saying was crazy, but it also made sense. “That’s how you knew Cain was—”
She huffed. “Evil? Exactly. I knew he was lying about his name too.” Thea ducked her eyes from mine. “I know what I’m telling you is strange, and you don’t have