Page 125 of Volatile Waters

“Yeah. They died at birth.”

I jolted. Kaleb…

The man noticed my reaction, his eyes studying me again before speaking into his wrist. “That’s a negative.”

Believing this to be odd, I lifted a brow at Wolf. He tapped his ear to inform me the guard had a monitor.

Listening again to the monitor in his ear, the guard’s eyes widened. “He is who?” His jaw fell open as he stared at me. Then his nostrils flared, his jaw now impossibly tight. “Not a good idea,” he said into his wrist. The guard groaned after listening for another moment, then told us, “She claims she has something to tell you.” He didn’t even bother to peek over his shoulder to see his group now all moving toward us. He simply, and sternly, stated, “Keep your hands where I can see them. No phones or recordings are permitted. If you move in any threatening manner, whatsoever, we will take you to the ground and not let you up until the cops arrive.” He didn’t ask if we understood. I guess we didn’t appear to be babbling idiots.

Someone was in the middle of the moving human circle that was approaching. The protection made it as if an endangered queen stood at the center, not the petite country-dressed woman who emerged before us. From under a worn cowgirl hat, enchanting brown eyes with speckles of red and gold peered up at Wolf and me as she stepped around her black guard. “I’m sorry they are behaving like this. It is,” she pointed to me, “your presence that has them so uptight.”

“Angel,” growled the tall man in the cowboy hat that had been on her bus. He stood behind her in a very protective mode, his arm moving around her to rest across her chest.

If Wolf and I meant her harm, it wasn’t her guards I was most concerned about.

It was him.

The question of whether or not he would lay his life down for hers needed not to be asked.

She endearingly kissed his arm yet didn’t try to remove it. Cowgirl boots that looked older than the woman in her late thirties, or early forties, scuffed the ground as she studied Wolf and me. Her smile grew in some sort of amazement with what she was viewing. “Yin and yang. I didn’t know it truly existed like the drawing, the symbols. I’ve never seen someone with so much light be near, or with, someone full of such darkness.” She gestured between Wolf and me.

After blinking in dismay, Wolf and I looked at each other. He appeared as shocked as I was.

“May I touch you?”

Our stunned heads swiveled back to the little one who sounded like kind of a missionary.

“Angel,” again growled the man in the hat.

She laid a palm on his bicep and gently whispered, “Shh.”

His body eased right in front of us.

“So, may I?” Since she wasn’t speaking to me, Wolf swallowed then nodded. He didn’t move, not one bit, as she left her men behind and stepped directly in front of him. Wolf wasn’t threatened into his stilled state; I think he was more enthralled by unseen magic this little being possessed.

She couldn’t have been over five-feet-two. Her delicate hand reached up and touched Wolf’s face. “The answer to your question,” he gasped as if she had read his mind, “is no. True love is a gift. No matter where it started.”

Wolf’s eyes drifted shut as if she spoke the most perfect words ever whispered.

She nodded with tenderness, not letting go of his face. “It is true. His love. It is boundless when it comes to you.” When his beautiful grey eyes opened, brimming with tears, her eyes welled also. “Yes, Soul Reader—”

I gasped.

“—he will follow your light.”

As a tear fell from Wolf’s eye, he asked, “Are you a true angel?”

Grace. This woman was full of grace as she replied, “No. I am only Destiny, who simply can see the beauty within us all.” Her eyes found mine as she released Wolf’s face and stepped back to what seemed to be her greatest comfort. The man in the hat rewrapped his arm around her chest. As she now stared at me, her head tilted to rest on the male arm she clung to as if needing him even closer. “It is there. Believe your beauty is there, and it will continue to grow.”

Staring into her eyes was almost like trying to lie to Wolf. She had his gift of reading a liar, so I couldn’t tell her I believed her.

Her hand lifted as if to offer me comfort, but it then slowly found its perch on the cowboy’s arm again. With a sincere apology, she told me, “I am sorry I cannot touch you.”

I felt a renewed shame of my past encase me. I didn’t need to ask why she refused to touch me. I had already been living with regret and self-doubt daily. An enlightened person would be able to read my wrongdoings by a mere glance.

“It is because of her.”

Confused, I asked, “Who?”