The Soul Summoner (The Soul Summoner Saga Book 1) (29 page)

He nodded. "All day long."

I thought it over. "It's impossible for me to take vacation time tomorrow, but I could try and take off toward the end of the week."

"Do what you've got to do, babe. I'll be fine," he said.

"What are you going to do while I'm at work?" I asked.

He sipped his water. "I dunno. I thought about maybe heading up in the mountains and looking around for a few hours. I came a little more prepared with gear this time than I did last weekend."

"You're going to look for the girl who went missing around here?" I asked.

"Maybe," he replied.

"Well, tomorrow I'll probably go see Adrianne over lunch if you want to join me," I said.

"Yeah, we'll see where I'm at when you're ready to go," he said. 

I sighed. "I'm glad the worst of this is all over. I hope it is anyway," I said. "I don't know what I would ever do without her."

"I think she's going to be all right," he said. "You actually got her to talk."

"Do you really think I can heal?" I asked.

He nodded. "I think so," he said. "You seem to literally be my better half. Sick people get sicker around me, so it only makes sense that they would get better around you."

I dug around with my fork on my fajita skillet looking for another piece of grilled chicken. "I wish I could figure out how to do this stuff on purpose." 

"You've just got to work at it," he said. "Exercise it till you get better."

"How do I exercise it?" I asked.

"The summoning thing is pretty obvious. You just need to figure out what works and what doesn't," he said. "We could try together."

I pointed my fork at him. "OK. Let me try and summon Mark Higgins, and then you can take him out."

He laughed and pointed at me. "Interesting idea but not exactly what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?" I asked as I bit into a piece of chicken.

"When was a specific time that it happened?" he asked.

I thought about it for a second. "The very first time you showed up at my house after I left Nathan's."

He narrowed his eyes at me. "Are you sure that wasn't just a coincidence? Because I'm certain that I was going there anyway, and I know you didn't call me there on purpose."

I waved a small chunk of a green pepper in his direction. "That seems to be how it happens most of the time. I don't do it on purpose. You didn't feel anything weird?"

He shook his head. "No. I just knew I had to see you."

I shrugged "I don't know then."

"Have you ever tried to do it on purpose?" he asked. 

I nodded. "Sure. I tried for years when I was younger to summon my birth mom," I said. "And maybe a few cute boys."

He rolled his eyes. "But were you serious about it?"

"My birth mom? Absolutely." I shook my head. "I don't think I have to be serious about it. Did I ever tell you about the night that I told Adrianne?"

"No," he said.

"I was home from college and we were at this restaurant not too far from here. She was always teasing me because she thought it was funny how people would randomly show up after I had mentioned them. That night, she was begging me to try and summon this guy that she was crushing on," I said.

He slid his empty plate across the blue tile tabletop. "What did you do?" 

"I pretended I was meditating. I pushed my chair back, crossed my legs, and everything. Then, she started throwing stuff at me and she made me repeat 'Billy Stewart' after her three times."

"And?" he asked.

"And when we walked out of the restaurant, maybe ten minutes later, he drove by. It scared the crap out of both of us because we knew he was supposed to be in a completely different town at work."

 He thought for a moment, then tapped his finger on the table. "When I do,
what I do
"—he looked at me with knowing eyes—"it's almost like I speak to them. I see it in my mind before it happens, and I will it on them."

"I did not see Billy Stewart in my mind sitting outside of that Italian joint," I said.

He pointed at me and leaned against the chair back that was next to him. "Maybe not, but I'll bet you wondered what would happen if Adrianne saw him there. I'll bet it crossed your mind what would happen with her if Billy did show up."

I sat back in my chair. "I've never thought about that. That makes sense. I'm sure I probably did."

"I'm also pretty sure that your curiosity about me was the same as mine about you that night you were talking to Nate about me," he said. "You wanted to meet me."

"That's true," I said.

"So try to do it now," he said.

"You want me to summon Billy Stewart here? Right now?" I asked.

He shook his head. "No. Try someone else. What's something else that you need to do?" 

I thought for a moment. "I need to talk to my boss, Mary Travers, about taking the rest of the week off." 

He nodded. "That should work."

I pressed my eyes closed and pictured my boss with her mousy brown bob and her smushed face. "Mary Travers." 

When I opened my eyes, he was grinning at me.

I laughed and threw a green pepper at him. "You just made me feel like an idiot!"

He laughed. "That was kind of funny." He turned his hand over. "But you never know. It just might work." 

I rolled my eyes. "Shut up," I said. "Finish your food. I wanna get out of here and actually do something with you today before the week gets crazy."

"I'm trying to figure out if your life is ever not crazy," he teased.

"It's certainly been very crazy lately." I pointed at him. "It's been straight up chaos ever since I met Nathan McNamara."

My phone rang. Warren and I looked at each other. 

"If this is my boss, I'm going to go and check myself into the psych ward right now," I said.

He smiled.

I looked down at my phone and then showed Warren. It was Nathan. "I should check myself in anyway," I muttered. I shook my head and answered the phone. "Hey." 

"Hey, what are you doing?" he asked.

"Practicing voodoo with Warren." I wiped my mouth with a napkin, and then dropped it onto my skillet. "What's up?"

"I just wanted to give you a heads up that Mark Higgins, the guy who was driving Adrianne, just bonded out of jail," he said.

My mouth fell open. "Are you serious?"

"Yep."

"How did that happen?" I asked.

"That's how the system works, Sloan. Go to jail, bond out, and wait for your court date," he said. 

"That's completely unacceptable!" I slammed my palm down on the table. "I guess I'm just going to have to handle it myself!"

"What are you going to do?" he asked, obviously trying to contain his amusement at my outburst.

I pushed my chair back from the table. "I can go find Mark Higgins!" I said and disconnected the call.

"What was that about?" Warren asked.

"Come on," I said. "It's time to go inflict some street justice."

He laughed. "What?"

I shot up out of my chair. "That guy—that creep—who was driving drunk with Adrianne just bonded out of jail." 

He looked up at me. "What are you going to do about it?" 

"I'm going to go find him and kick his ass!"

He laughed and dropped a twenty dollar bill on the table before standing up. He wrapped his hand around mine. "You're so sexy when you're a raving lunatic. Let's go." 

I pulled him toward the door and threw it open. A group of Sunday morning churchgoers almost went flying through the parking lot as I stormed outside. When I looked down, I realized that one of the tiny women I had just about run over was my boss.

I stumbled backward into Warren. 

"Hi Sloan!" she cheered. "Where are you off to in such a rush? Who's your friend?"

I tried to make my mouth form words but only disjointed syllables came out. "I, uh… the, uh—"

Warren reached around me. "Hi, I'm Warren."

She extended her tiny hand to meet his, smiling brightly. "Hello, Warren. I'm Mary. Sloan and I work together at the county office." 

Warren laughed. "No shit?" he said just loud enough for me to hear.

I went into a coughing fit and covered my face with my hands.

Mary grabbed my arm. "Are you OK?"

"I'm fine," I choked out. "I'll see you tomorrow, Mary."

Warren ushered me toward the car. "Well, congratulations, Ms. Jordan, you have mastered your superpower."

"That's crazy!" I jabbed my thumb into the center of my chest. "I'm crazy!"

He held the door to the Challenger open for me and gripped my jaw in his hand. "You're not crazy. You're just not exactly normal."

I huffed and sat down in the car. 

He got in and started the engine. "Do you still feel like going and kicking some ass?"

I leaned against the door and covered my eyes with my hand. "No. Just take me home. I need a drink, and I need to lie down."

"I think that's probably a good idea," he said, backing out of the parking space. "I think all the stress and exhaustion is starting to get to you a little bit."

Warren stopped at the grocery store on the way home. He put the car in park but left the engine running. "I'm going to run in and get some beer and food to make for dinner." 

I groaned and sank down in my seat. "I don't cook, Warren."

He winked at me. "I do."

I sighed and rolled my head toward him. "Will you marry me?"

He blinked at me and laughed. "Sloan, you're putting a lot of pressure on me."

I rolled my eyes. "You started it." 

When we got back to my house, I opened a beer in the driveway.

While he put the groceries in the kitchen, I flopped down on the sofa and put my feet up on the coffee table. I pinched the bridge of my nose and prayed that my head would stop hurting. 

"You didn't ask your boss for your vacation time," he reminded me.

"Oh, I'm sorry." I smirked. "I was a little bit distracted."

He came into the living room and clinked his beer bottle with mine before sitting down on the coffee table so he could face me. "I think it's pretty cool what you can do," he said as he tipped the bottle up to his lips.

I frowned. "Of course you do. You can kill people."

He laughed. "Think about it. It's a pretty spectacular gift, Sloan."

I shook my head. "Nobody cares about your opinion."

He smiled and leaned toward me. "Why don't you go upstairs, take a nice hot bath, and drink your beer in the tub? Try and clear your head for a little bit. You've had a pretty big weekend all the way around."

I sighed. "What are you going to do?"

He smiled and gave me a gentle peck on the lips. "It's a Sunday in September. I'm going to watch football."

Obediently, I did as he said and went and finished my beer in the hot bath tub. My brain hurt because it was so full of everything that had transpired in the past month. I wasn't sure how much more I could stand. I laid my head back against the wall and closed my eyes.
What am I?
I asked over and over again.

Just when I was about to drift off to sleep, there was a gentle knock at the door. I opened my lazy eyes and smiled at Warren who was standing in the doorway. 

"Feel better?" he asked.

I nodded. "Much better." 

"I think you must have been talking about me..." He slowly crossed the bathroom floor and picked up a towel off the rack. "Because I had this supernatural urge to come up here."

I smiled. "Oh really?"

He nodded his head and smiled. "Yes. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that you were wet and naked in the bathtub."

I laughed and reached for the towel he was holding. "Well, I have to get out, so turn around." 

He shook his head. "No."

"No?"

"No." His deep tone signaled that he wasn't joking.

My heart started to pound in my chest as he towered over me. More than just physically, I was certain that Warren had reached heights of experience that I had never dreamed of. For me, each romantic encounter left me with a feeling of emptiness, like each lover had been cosmically coerced into my bed. Warren was different. There was no compulsion to his desire. It was raw and genuine and dripping from his eyes as he watched me stand up. 

The towel slid from his fingers and fell to the floor as he closed the distance between us. This time, when his lips connected with mine, there was no interruption. There was no holding back. He carried me to my bedroom and covered my body with his own, obliterating every thought of everything else outside of the powerful force of our connection. When it was over, and his sweat was mixed with mine, I was certain of one thing:

I had died in that bed… a couple of times.

18.

WARREN WAS ASLEEP next to me when I woke up the next morning. I was sure it was an occurrence that wouldn't soon be repeated. I smiled and studied the way his silky black hair fell across his perfect face as his muscular arm curled around his pillow. "I feel your eyes on me, Sloan." He didn't even crack a smile.

"I thought you were asleep," I said, tangling my legs with his under the covers.

His lips spread into a thin smile. "I've been thinking of different ways to wake you up since four." His arm slipped under the covers and grasped my bare hip. He pulled my body into his, and his eyes fluttered open.

I pushed his hair back off his face. "I'm not sure my legs are going to function today."

He shook his head as his fingers trailed down my spine. "That's OK. You don't need them."

I groaned. "I have to go to work."

He rolled on top of me, his full weight pressing my body into the mattress. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." No.

He pinned my hands over my head and nibbled at the side of my neck. I squirmed underneath him. "I'm going to be late."

"I don't really care."

A half an hour later, I pulled on his t-shirt and my wobbly legs carried me to the bathroom. "What are you going to do today?" I asked as he watched me, smiling, from the bed.

He folded his arms behind his head. "I'm probably going to go scout out the woods and look for that girl from here."