Chapter 6

“Mystery, we need to talk.” Pastor Alexander Cayden stepped into her store. She hadn’t seen him all week, not since Sunday when he came here for the first time, and then Monday when he kissed her. He’d stayed away ever since. Which worried her. Was there a three-day waiting period required after a first kiss? A cooling down period, as it were?

He looked around before locating her in the back corner, rearranging the fengshui and interior design books with aroma therapy oils, re-shelving a huge selection of incense and space-clearing resources.

She was exhausted from the onslaught from Uncle Hal’s good-ol’-boys whom he had sent to solicit her store and then their Sunday Dinner friends poured in after four o’clock when they got off work. But his nicely fitted Wranglers and a Rocky Mountain National Park t-shirt boosted her energy sensors. Jeans and a T-shirt looked as good on him as the tailored Sunday suit. Maybe better. She swallowed hard.

“Okay...?” Here it comes. The whole ‘this was a mistake’ speech. She stepped down off her little ladder.

Outback hiking boots ate the distance between them, bringing him to her in very few strides. He wrapped her in his arms. She pressed her forearms against his chest for distance, as her heart slammed against her ribs. Don’t. She couldn’t utter the word. She needed him to kiss her. But, if he was backing out, she couldn’t allow herself the indulgence.

“We should go somewhere.” He glanced around her shop. His eyes landed on the stairs leading to her apartment.

“Why?” she stammered.

“Because I really need to-to talk to you.” The husky tenor of his voice exposed the passion rising inside him. It was kryptonite to her resolve.

“Here is fine.” Her words grated across her arid tongue. She cleared her throat.

He glanced at the stairs, again. “No. I want someplace—Let’s-let’s go to the park.”

Terror gripped her heart. She never went to the park. It was like a Gulf War veteran hearing a car backfiring to her. “I-I hate that park.”

“Oh, Mystery.” He pressed his cheek against hers. Squeezing her tight against his chest. “Why? Why do you hate the park?”

She gulped down a sob. “Because, that’s where ... when we were little, Sammy and me, she got lost in the woods.” The sob shook her words. “It was all my fault.”

Lex held her tight against him. His body heat permeated her pure-cotton appliqué jacket melting any resistance she might have had left.

“What?” He pressed. “What was your fault? Sweetheart, I don’t understand.”

“Daddy asked me to watch her. But-but I didn’t. And Sammy slipped off into the trees. We couldn’t find her, at all. She was terrified and so was I. Aunt Susan came and got me so Mom and Dad could hunt for her. I was in the way, a burden. And then she came running across that bridge, screaming.” Mysti vehemently shook her head. “Her cries still echo in my head, ‘He’s after me! Make him stop!’” She thought that stupid ghost of Grandpa Harold and his horse were chasing her. It seemed so real. We all thought we saw the apparition of that horse, rearing up and the rider waving his hat in the air, the way cowboys do when they celebrate something. Why would he do that? What was there to celebrate?” She buried her face against his shoulder. “He terrified my sister for miles, chasing her through the woods, until she found the bridge and came running to us.”

“Hey,” Lex eased her back and looked into her face. “It’s okay. We don’t have to go there. But where can we go?” His hot breath brushed her ear. “Where could we go to ... to not be here?”

She shook her head. “I-I don’t know.” She breathed the words. His closeness fuddled her mind. She couldn’t put two thoughts together.

“Why can’t we talk here?” She pushed her forearms against his chest. She needed distance between them. She needed to think.

“Because.” His voice, ladened with that sultry tone, serpentined her heart and warmed her body from the inside out like no fire ever could. “If we stay here, I’m afraid of what will happen.”

“What? Why?” She searched his eyes. A fire burned in them like her own.

Lex released her and staggered back, twisting a ring on his right hand. “I ... I can’t. I promised myself. I-I took a vow—when I was thirteen—of celibacy ... until marriage.”

“Marriage! We haven’t even dated yet!” What was he saying? She couldn’t think.

He jammed his fingers into his brown curls. “Mystery, please. Let me take you somewhere other than here.”

“Uh, the walking track at the high school. Let’s go there.”

“Alright. Come on.” He released the ring and pressed his hand into the small of her back to guide her toward the door. She snatched up her purse as she passed the sales counter and let him guide her to his black Honda Ridgeline. She climbed in and he closed her door. She could tell it was an older model, but the interior was as clean as a whistle. Could it be, he’d just bought it from Fish? She chuckled. Catch a whale of a deal, at Fish’s Fantastic Pre-owned Vehicles. Had he been suckered in by Jimmy Troutman and his pot-belly pig?

Or—was he a clean freak? A shock shot through her like an electrical current. She knew nothing about him. Nothing. Except he was the youth pastor at that self-righteous church of Reverend Begley. Anger muddled with desire. How could she have gotten mixed up with one of the only men in town who belonged to the other side? The enemy. Begley’s Bigot Boys.

He climbed in the driver seat, startling her from her crazy thinking. Then he jammed the key in the ignition and punched the gas. What was his hurry?

Although her shop was a short walk to the high school walking track, it was a ten-block trip to Adolph Coors Drive where they could park alongside the chainlink fence that encompassed the walking track.

She let herself out of his truck, before he could walk around, and stomped straight to an empty bench. “Let’s get this over with.”

She flopped down with her left foot under her bottom and glared at Lex as he sauntered to the bench.

His brow drew tight and he rubbed the back of his hairline. “Mystery. I don’t want you to think—I just need to talk to you about all this.”

“All what, Lex?” She swung her free leg like a short pendulum.

He pursed his lips and dipped his head.

“Just say it!” she spat.

His eyes darted up to meet hers. “Say what?”

“This was a mistake and a person in your position with the church can’t be seen with a person” —tears swelled in her eyes and her chin trembled— “like me.”

“Mystery. No.” He laid a hand on her shoulder. “No, that’s not what I need to say. Not at all.”

She stared at him. “Then, what?”

“I suspect ... Let me ask you some questions.” His hand slid down her arm and gathered her hand into his. A current of electricity lingered in the trail to her fingertips. “When you do these psychic readings, what happens? I mean, how do you receive the information you tell people?”

Mysti glared at him through veiled lashes. What did he want from her? “I don’t do anything. I-I just still my mind and concentrate on the person. Things come to me, not like a vision or a voice, it’s more like a memory suddenly awakens in my brain.” She shook her head. “The best way I can describe it is like—have you ever thought ‘where’d I leave my keys?’ and you search your mind for where you had them last. Then you remember. Once you remember, it’s like you knew all along. You go there and that’s where they are.”

Lex looked deep into her eyes. “And that’s how you conduct a psychic reading?”

“Well. Yes.”

“How about the fortune telling? How are you doing that?”

“I really don’t have any control over it. It’s like a movie that sometimes plays in front of a person when I’m talking to them. That’s the best way I can describe it, Lex?”

“So you don’t conjure any spirits or call upon any gods ... or ... Satan?”

“God, no. Lex, I’m not—”

He grabbed her and pulled her against his chest. “I know. I’m sorry.” He held her tight for a long time. His breath warmed the top of her head and she could hear his heart. Her consciousness drifted with the rhythm of his heartbeat.

“How did you learn which teas to serve for what healing properties?”

She cocked her head back. Heat filled her cheeks. “Actually, I researched it on the internet.”

“So you taught yourself?”

“Well. Yeah.”

“And the acupuncture?”

“I served an internship with Master Jung Ye in Denver. He’s a Doctor in Traditional Oriental Medicine.”

“And do you call on any spirit animals or guides when you perform this acupuncture?”