“I have to write the story,” he sighed. His editor was expecting something big. Unfortunately, that was his own doing. He’d used his powers to persuade him to let him have this assignment, but only because he had to. Now his boss thought it was all his idea and was patting his own back for how brilliant it was that Eric had dug up some possible dirt.
Sorrel yanked her hand away from him. “How could you even think that I had anything to do with the deaths of my parents? I was a child when my father died,” she cried. “And you have no idea how much I miss my mother.”
He gathered her in his arms and let her sob into his bare chest. At first she resisted, but soon she melted into him. Her tiny frame shook against him. He’d never felt more worthless in his life, and that was saying something. He hated that he was the reason for her anguish. Every part of him wanted to make it better. But how? He’d started this damn ball that had taken on a life of its own. Stopping it would mean possibly losing his job and his editor thrusting another ruthless bastard on her. More and more he was hating the damn book that ruled his life.
After her sobs became tiny shudders, she leaned away from him. “Why are you always shirtless in my dreams?”
He laughed and ran a finger down her cheek. “I thought you liked it.”
She bit her lip and blushed. It was adorable. “I do,” she quietly admitted. “But I shouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t have you.”
He tilted his head. “Why not?”
“I need to go,” she rushed to say.
He held on to her. “Is it another man?” He sounded like a pathetic teenager begging his crush to not give up on him.
“No.” She gave him a sad smile before standing on her tiptoes and barely brushing his lips. “Goodbye.”
He reached for her, wanting more than a casual peck on the lips. He wanted to taste her and caress every part of her. But she was gone, and he was left alone in his bed. He pounded a fist against his mattress. He’d been hoping for more of a romantic interlude. He could only blame himself, though, after she’d seen the coroner’s report he’d requested. She had every right to hate him, even though the report was inconclusive. The coroner had listed the cause of death as a heart attack, but that was because he hadn’t had any other choice.
The retired coroner from Tulare, California, was easily persuaded to talk to him, and David Black’s death still baffled him. He had said he’d never seen a healthier person and couldn’t find one shred of evidence as to why the thirty-two-year-old had passed away so suddenly. There were no signs of foul play, but there weren’t any natural causes to be found either. He’d also found it odd how his widow and little girl had left town immediately after having David’s body cremated. He spoke, though, of how enchanted he had been with little Sorrel. Apparently, she’d always had an effect on people. Eric could hear the smile in the coroner’s voice when he spoke of how lovely Sorrel had been. How she’d tried to comfort her mother.
Eric could easily picture her trying to help her mother. Who had comforted her, he wondered? He wished it could have been him. Oddly, he’d lived not far from her at the time, in Fresno. Except, it would have been in bad taste for a twenty-year-old stranger to comfort a young girl. And he’d gone by a different name back then. The book that ruled his life had mandated it. Cursed him to live a solitary life.
He rubbed his chest. He found himself aching to be with Sorrel. To have enchanting daughters with her who would look exactly like the beauty who had come to haunt his every thought. But he knew if the book ever told him who to marry, he would have a son, only one. And he hated to think of bringing Sorrel into his sordid affairs. She would only end up despising him, like his mother despised his father. Perhaps this abhorrent curse would drive even the lovely Sorrel insane, like it had his mother. Not that his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were any better. They were consumed with hunting down some ancient enemy who probably never even existed, in search of another book that had never been seen. They were in Paraguay now on some wild-goose chase. Some rumor about a woman living to be 110 without aging and only eating raw plants her entire life.
He was glad to be done with the lot of them. Once the book had become his, sixteen years ago, it instructed him to move away from his reprehensible family. But it had failed to mention the one thing it was supposed to tell him. He reached under his bed and pulled out the blasted book, hidden in the shadows where only he could find it. Unfortunately, he couldn’t deny the book’s power. He’d tried to disobey its wishes, to the detriment of not only himself but also the only other woman he’d ever cared for. He would never forgive himself for Karina’s death. He would never let Sorrel become a victim of his recklessness.