Leaving Tracks (15 page)

“I don’t want her snapping at me that I should mind my own business.” Rhett huffed. “I’m being nice. Just like I’ve been warned to be by everyone from Thierry to Avala, but she’s not being nice.”

“She’s far from what she’s always known as home. That’s probably pretty scary, and probably has her back up pretty good.”

“I guess.” Rhett sighed. “Dinner’s in an hour. You need to get out and dressed. Wesley’s driving us over in about thirty.”

“Fine. Get out.” I grimaced as I stood and grabbed my towel. “Can’t get a damn moments peace.”

Rhett grinned. “Sure you can. It’s called being dead. Since you’re not, I guess you’re just going to have to deal.” With that
, Rhett strolled out leaving the door open to the cold air.

I
cursed him loudly and his laughter rang back at me.

Hadley’s smile was
tired and if I didn’t know any better, a little annoyed, when she opened the front door to my brothers and I. “Good evening. Avala says you can stretch out in the family room until supper.”

She tilted her head at
me. “You look stiff.”

I
shrugged but couldn’t prevent the wince in the movement. “A little. My soaking was interrupted.”

Hadley grabbed
my hand and pulled me aside. My brothers greeted her and made themselves at home in the back of the house. She nodded to them, smiled, and waited. When they all vanished down the hall, she tugged me towards the stairs.

“Come with me.”

“Hadley, I don’t think…” But my words were cut off as she dragged me up the stairs down a short hall at the top and into a bedroom.

I
cleared my throat, “This is definitely not proper.” Proper wasn’t the word I should have used. Safe was. This wasn’t safe. I had kept a chokehold on the attraction I had for Hadley the last few weeks because she seemed to want it. It wasn’t easy and the longer I was alone with her the harder it got. I knew I wouldn’t last forever like this, but I didn’t want to scare her.

Hadley laughed. “Whatever. This is my room when I stay in the main house.” She moved over to the wall length closet at the far end of the room and opened a door to reveal the built in drawers.
I glanced around, hovering nervously by the door, while she rummaged.

The walls were a pale pink, and accented with white lacy trim at the ceiling and along the chair rail. The wall under the chair rail was white. The same kind of frothy lace hung at the windows and draped around the silver, and very female
, four post bed. In a corner hung a hammock chair.

“Found it.” Hadley came out of her closet with a jar about the same size as one of
my mother’s old perfumed lotion jars. She opened the jar and showed me what looked like a homemade ointment of some kind. “Rub it into your muscles before bed. I wish you had said you were getting sore earlier. We can cut back some…”

“No,”
I covered her hands with mine. “I don’t want to cut back and right now it’s not really hurting anything to be a little stiff. The yoga usually works it out in the morning.”

“Still.” Hadley closed the jar and handed it to
me. “Rub it on what pains the most before going to bed. It’ll help. If you’re still stiff by the end of next week, you may need to see a doctor. I’d hate to think you’re pulling muscles but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“I understand.”
I slipped the jar into my pocket and then silently cursed myself as I stared down into her face. “Thank you, Hadley, for the gesture.” Then I lowered my mouth to hers.

I was tired of fighting myself. I had hoped she’d have made some kind of move, clearly friend zoned me or something.
She hadn’t, just repressed herself. I should have done this sooner and forced the line to either be drawn or defined.

It had only meant to be a light kiss. A small gesture, but her small shiver, and
sigh drove me mad. Without thinking about what I was doing, I turned, pressed her against the wall, and deepened the kiss. I tangled a hand into her beautiful hair and cupped the other on her bottom drawing her up. Drawing her closer. When she gasped I invaded her mouth with my tongue. I had to taste, I wanted to take, I needed her like I needed air.

She didn’t resist.
One of her hands jerked up and rested on my chest but she didn’t push me away. The other arm snaked up to my shoulder and ran through my hair at the nape of my neck. When she whimpered softly, I jerked away breathing hard.

Her eyes were half closed, and the hand she had raised folded over to cover her heart.
Her chest rose and fell in quick shallow breaths that were nearly as much a turn on as her mouth had been. I fisted my hands when her tongue darted out and lightly licked her lips. She didn’t move and I was afraid for a single moment I had hurt her somehow.

“Hadley,” I whispered softly.

Her eyes opened the whole way and she stared at me as if she didn’t know me for a minute.

“Hadley, I’m sorry.” I reached out and then thought better of it and dropped my hand.

“Why,” she asked with a slight almost drunken slur to her voice, “are you sorry?”

“That was wrong. It was wrong of me to do that.” I ran my hand frustrated through my hair, “
You’ve never. I shouldn’t have…I’m sorry.” It was lame. Completely lame, and if she dropped me like a handful of hot coals I only had myself to blame.

“I think;
we may need to have this conversation when my brain turns back on.” Hadley murmured and pushed shakily off the wall. She held out her hand. “Are you ready to go down to dinner?”

I stared at her hand a moment then nodded slowly.
“Sure.” And I slipped her hand into mine.

I didn’t recognize
the soft piano music that drifted up as we came down the stairs. Glory sat at the old spinet piano under the windows playing the gentle notes. My brothers didn’t seem to mind the piano music and talked to Morgaine and Avala as it played.

“Wonder
ed where you got off to.” Thierry commented.

“Hadley gave me some salve for my muscles.”
I answered in an easy tone I didn’t feel and sat in a chair. I would be damned if I told him any more than that and Hadley didn’t seem inclined to either.

She
sat on the arm of my chair, allowing her prosthetic leg to hang off the side. “Glory has many skills,” she said down to me. “Piano is one of her favorites, but it’s not all she can do.”

“Can you play?”
I asked.

“No. I never had the time nor the patience to learn it. You can’t exactly take a piano with you when you travel.”
Hadley smiled amused at the thought.

“Will you play with me?” Glory asked looking at Hadley. She smiled wickedly. “We haven’t played in a while.”

Hadley sighed. “North,” she didn’t look at me but at her sister. “Under my bed is a black case. Would you bring it down?”

Since she wasn’t looking at
me, she didn’t see me frown, but saw my nod as I stood. “Sure. Be right back.”

“You said you didn’t play.” Wesley commented studying
Hadley as I stepped out.

“I said I don’t play piano.” Hadley corrected. “I never said I didn’t play an instrument.”

Wesley smiled, “So what do you play?”

“You’ll see.”

I didn’t waste any time and came down with the case in less than two minutes. It was round–about as round as my palm was wide and a smidge over two feet long. Not very big at all and perfect for traveling around the world with.

I
handed it to Hadley and sat back down on the chair.

“Thank you
, North.” Hadley stood and walked over to Glory and shared her bench with her.

“You’re lucky it’s easy enough to play around you,” Glory grinned at her. “The usual then?”

Hadley pulled a soprano saxophone from the case and reattached the necessary pieces. “If you’d like.” She said before blowing lightly and drifting into a soft jazzy number.

Glory joined her moments later and the family room turned into a warm and comfortable jazz lounge.

It was beautiful. She was beautiful. This was something new and something I hadn’t expected from her. I only stared mesmerized as she and Glory went from one song into another in a smooth transition anyone would think they played professionally together.

I
didn’t have a moment to tell Hadley what I thought. I wondered briefly, as we sat at the table, if the instrument enhanced her endurance for skating or if her skating enhanced the instrument. She didn’t appear to get winded at all.

Dinner wasn’t a grand affair. It was like any other dinner at the Knifeblade house with the additions of Glory and Hadley. The only difference
I could see was the addition of the leaf to the table so everyone could fit.

Hadley,
I saw, ate like someone who’s last meal was weeks ago. She hadn’t done that at my house. And she didn’t hold conversation with anyone just sat and ate quietly. But I saw her eyes paid attention to everyone.

Glory on the other hand, barely ate. Or it appeared her plate was lightly filled compared to Hadley, but she barely ate what she had.
I wondered if I should mention it to Hadley or Avala. Would it be important to know if Glory was anorexic or suffering some other kind of eating disorder?

“How’s training going?” Avala asked casually as she handed Thierry the bowl of rolls.

I saw my brother tense and ignored it. Thierry would have to get used to it. “It’s going well enough. Hadley’s very strict and very thorough at what she does.”

“Wesley mentioned you’re in school too,” Morgaine interjected.

I raised a brow at my brother. “He’s awfully chatty. Yes, I’m in an English, Chemistry, and Still Life class for this semester.”

“Still Life? For
ceramics?” Morgaine frowned. “I wonder why.”

“It’s important, I believe, to be able to draw my vision. Not just for me to see in my head but to share with others I could be potentially working for. And if I drew more of my work instead of just making it, I could post the
‘concept drawings’ on the website for people to see. If someone wants that concept created, they can purchase it. It would certainly save some of the waste of space for the stuff that isn’t selling.”

“Clever way to reduce overhead and cost of supplies.” Avala smiled. “More potatoes?”

I accepted and focused on eating. I fumed silently inside. I didn’t doubt one of my brothers had made a casual comment that had in turn prompted one of the sisters to ask. If they had wanted to know my business, why hadn’t they just asked? It was, I supposed, not atypical of them. They weren’t very good at face-to-face communication.

After the meal
, Glory and Hadley vanished. Since neither Morgaine nor Avala took it as a serious event, no one made comment that the girls had ghosted without excusing themselves or saying good night to the Gratons.

“I’m going to head on home,”
I stood and made eye contact with Avala. “Thanks for the meal. I have an early start tomorrow.”

“You’re welcome any time.” Avala smiled.

I turned to Wesley, “I’ll walk back. I’ll see you in the morning. Good night, Morgaine.” I nodded to her and made my way back into the kitchen to go out the solarium doors. I’d probably find Hadley in the rink.

Just inside the rink door
, I stopped and could only stare. Music was on low enough that it wouldn’t attract attention from the main house, but loud enough that the door opening and closing wasn’t heard over it. The piano was soft and the instruments with it weepy.

Hadley skated over the ice in an easy fluid pattern. Her hair had been ponytailed on her crown and she had changed into what
I would call practice clothes. The tights were black, and the oversized, loose tunic a soft pink color. Her arm and legwarmers matched her tunic.

Silently,
I moved to a darker corner of the arena and sat to watch. I’d never seen her skate before. In the almost month of knowing her, I’d never even seen a pair of skates for her. She never mentioned wanting to skate or skating in secret. I should have guessed it. If I lost my legs tomorrow there wouldn’t be anything I wouldn’t do to skate again, even if only in the peaceful spins and foot works that Hadley was currently doing.