Amanda Stevens - The Awakening

The man’s face settled back into its normal appearance, but my nerves bristled with unease. He looked familiar and I wondered where I might have met him. He was tallish and trim and I judged his age to be mid to late fifties. I could see a sprinkling of silver throughout his dark hair, and his face was a healthy golden shade that no tanning bed or spray could replicate. I couldn’t place him, but I recognized the cut and drape of a well-tailored suit and the carriage of a man who had unquestionably been raised in the lap of luxury.

He gave a surprised, pleased nod when his attention moved across the table to Temple and she looked suitably taken aback by his arrival even though I suspected he was the reason we had come to this restaurant in the first place.

“Who is that?” I asked, thrown off guard by the man’s disquieting presence and by my bizarre reaction to him.

Temple glanced at me in surprise. “You don’t recognize him? That’s Rance Duvall.”

His back was to me now as he turned to greet someone beyond my view. Released from his gaze, my pulse steadied, but I still felt quite shaken. “Rance Duvall,” I mused. “Why do I know that name?”

“In Charleston, you would be hard-pressed not to know his name.” Temple lowered her voice. “He’s one of the Duvalls. As in Duvall Island. His family has been around for generations.” She waited for me to make the connection and when I appeared suitably impressed, she continued. “He’s also active in local politics, especially on issues regarding zoning and historic preservation. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if your paths had crossed at some point.”

I watched as others joined him and the party was guided into a private dining room. “He does look familiar, but I can’t remember when or where we may have met. How do you know him?”

“One of the burial mounds we’re excavating is located on Duvall Island. He’s given us unlimited access and even arranged for the use of some very expensive equipment. Considering all the resistance and red tape that we’re usually up against, his cooperation has been refreshing, to say the least.”

Somehow I didn’t think professional collaboration or cooperation was the extent of Temple’s appreciation for Rance Duvall. I felt the need to warn her about what I’d seen in his visage. But what had I seen—or sensed? “Did you know he would be here tonight? Is that why you chose this restaurant?”

She smiled. “Happy coincidence.”

“Sure it is. And your fixation on the entrance was just my imagination.”

“It was.” But she didn’t try very hard to convince me. If anything, her smile turned self-satisfied as she picked up her napkin and dabbed at the corners of her mouth. “As long as we’re both here, you don’t mind if I go say a quick hello, do you?”

I did mind but I could give her no good reason for my objection. “Would it do any good if I said yes?”

She scooted back her chair and stood. “None whatever.”

“That’s what I thought. Temple—” Her name came out harsher than I’d meant it.

She lifted a querying brow. “What?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. Be careful.”

She gave me an odd look before turning away from the table.

Six

I used Temple’s absence for a trip to the ladies’ room, where I applied a layer of lip gloss and tightened my ponytail. I examined my reflection as I washed my hands and dried them on a paper towel. Like Dr. Shaw, I had dark circles under my eyes from stress and lack of sleep. A ghost visit always took a toll and I didn’t think I’d seen the last of this one. A part of me did wish she would fade away without further contact, but my curiosity had been roused despite my dread.

Leaning in, I stared at those dark circles as if I could somehow wish them away. And then I focused even more intently until the tiny motes at the bottoms of my pupils took on the look of keyholes. How many times had I wished for the ability to see into those openings, to peer so deeply into my psyche and soul that I could somehow divine my destiny?

The prospect of knowing the road ahead was at once intriguing and terrifying, I backed away from the mirror, turning my attention once again to the smudges beneath my eyes. Poor Dr. Shaw. I’d tried not to dwell on our conversation, but his mannerisms and vague musings about wrong turns had left me disquieted. And then how strange to already have Ethan Shaw on my mind when Temple had called to invite me to the very restaurant where the three of us had spent our first evening together.

The universe was aligning in strange and disturbing ways, and somehow at the center of it all was Woodbine Cemetery. Ever since I’d been awarded the project, there’d been so many references to my past.

I was still brooding about all those niggling moments as I left the ladies’ room, but none was quite as unnerving as the sight of John Devlin standing in the alcove blocking my path just as he had done once before, in this very space, in this very restaurant. He leaned a shoulder against the wall and managed to look surprised, but my suspension of disbelief only extended so far. He must have seen me leave the table and followed me into the alcove to wait for me. Why, I couldn’t imagine, but a happenstance meeting this was not.

I faltered, but only for a moment. Then I mentally braced myself as I moved forward, already feeling the heady pull of his orbit. His eyes were just as dark and perhaps even more mesmerizing than I remembered. He was tall, lean and still otherworldly handsome though his looks had changed. The five-o’clock shadow had become a perpetual feature, it seemed, as had the longer hair and his more casual attire.

My throat tightened as I approached and I hoped I wouldn’t embarrass myself, either by being tongue-tied or blurting something far too revealing.

As it happened, Devlin was the first to speak. “Amelia,” he drawled. “Just like old times.”

He spoke softly, intimately, and yet I had no trouble at all hearing him over the din of the restaurant. His voice drew a quiver and I closed my eyes briefly, steeling myself against his unfair ambush.

“Hello” was all I could manage, along with a brief smile. I clung to my poise, but it was a feat hardly worth celebrating because I should have been over John Devlin a long time ago. I should have been dining with a new lover rather than an old friend, and I set my chin with an accusing jut, as if the blame for my bleak love life rested solely on Devlin’s shoulders.

He said, “This seems to be quite the popular place tonight.”

“Doesn’t it?” My smile turned wry and I added an edge to my voice. “I’m still reeling from the coincidence of it all. You. Me. This alcove.”

“One would almost think it planned.”

And just like that, poise shattered. I made a nonsensical gesture toward the archway. “I was just on my way back to the table.”

He made no move to allow me passage. “You look good,” he said, searching my face and then dropping his gaze for a more subtle scrutiny.

Good, not well. I hated myself for taking note of the distinction.

I had on a simple black dress with my mother’s pearls. Perfectly safe and acceptable attire, but that dark gaze made me feel as if I had on nothing at all.

“You, as well,” I said. “I mean, good. You look good. Different, but...good.” Why did that scruff on his lower face appeal to me so? Or those silver strands at his temples? I had the strongest urge to run the back of my hand against the stubble and then plunge my fingers into his hair. Instead, I toyed with the string of pearls at my neck. I could feel my great-grandmother’s key beneath my dress and I wondered if I should pull it free and hold it in front of me to ward off Devlin’s magnetism.