The Wish Collector
Page 64

After showering quickly and drying her hair, Clara called for a ride and then paced outside as she waited, going over the points she wanted to make.
She wiped her hands down the sides of her hips, nerves cascading through her. It would take audacity to show up at his house again after he’d thrown her out.
Fifteen minutes later she stood before his fence, traces of daylight fading to gloom, that hour that was easy to allow courage to melt into fear. Clara hesitated, taking one deep fortifying breath. Even the tall grass seemed to pause and hush, waiting to see what would happen when the wish collector realized the dauntless girl was back. At least . . . that’s what Clara tried to tell herself she was . . . though it could be argued she was less dauntless than pushy and foolhardy.
So don’t let him.
Okay. She brought her shoulders back. I can do this.
She knocked, and a few minutes later she heard a door close and the sounds of footsteps trudging toward her. Myrtle opened the gate and didn’t look at all surprised to see her. “Hi, Clara.” She opened the gate wider, allowing her entrance.
“Hi, Myrtle. I’m here to see Jonah. Though . . . he’s not expecting me.” She glanced to the side, fidgeting. “In fact, he’ll probably be less than pleased to know I’m here.”
“Well,” she sighed, her eyes full of sadness. “I don’t know that he can get any less pleased than he’s been this past week, so I don’t reckon that’ll be an issue. He’s out back again. Seems he lives out there these days. That or he’s slinking through the halls of Windisle like some wounded animal. Do your worst, dear.”
She’d attempted lightness, but Clara could see the pain in Myrtle’s tightened features, the weariness around her eyes that was surely from the worry she’d been expending on Jonah’s behalf.
Gratitude flooded Clara for the second time in less than an hour, and she wrapped her arms around Myrtle, hugging her tight. Myrtle returned the hug and then nudged her along, giving her a sad smile as Clara turned toward the place she figured Jonah would be.
She’d never walked the path through the slave cabins in the light of day and, though she had another burning purpose for being there, she couldn’t help but to look around in wonder as she walked, seeing this place as it might have been a hundred and fifty years before as slaves came and went, walking this very same dirt path as they headed for the fields, or returned home at the end of a day of hard labor.
Sadness descended upon her, a desperate wish to change things she could not change for people she did not know. Things long past, people long gone. Except Angelina, perpetually trapped, and wishing to be set free in death as she had never been in life.
“Why are you here?”
Clara turned toward his voice with a small intake of breath. He stood against a gnarled tree next to a patch of wild violets, his stance casual at first, but she saw his hands clenched by his sides, knuckles white. And his face, his face was uncovered, the last of the day’s dwindling sunlight finding him through a break in the trees.
She allowed herself a moment to look upon him as a whole. Uncovered. Bared to her. Finally. He had no idea how beautiful he was, scars be damned. He was hers and her love for him swelled in her chest so that she had to take a deep breath to keep from rushing to him.
Gossamer mist rose from the ground and lacy strands of moss draped from the trees, shifting gently in the breeze and creating a dreamlike quality to the woods around them. His lair, indeed, she thought, her heart skipping a beat. And God but she hoped he’d let her stay.
Clara stood taller, stealing herself. “I came to apologize again, not via text, but to your face. You don’t have to accept it, but you can’t ignore me this way.”
He raised the brow on the uninjured half of his face. “No, you make it pretty tough to ignore you, even when I want to.”
That hurt her, but she held her head high. “I wouldn’t have had to come uninvited if you’d have answered any of my calls or texts.”
“I didn’t want to be pushed, Clara.”
“Jonah.” She moved toward him, reaching, and seemingly instinctively, he drew his face back, turning it. Her arm dropped by her side. “Please accept my apology. Please know that I would never do something to hurt you on purpose, or to break a promise.”
He regarded her for a moment and then moved closer. “I saw the way you looked at me. That moment when you first saw me, told me everything I needed to know.”
His voice sounded dull, dead, but a muscle ticked in his jaw, once and then again. He tilted his head. “You told me once that you pictured me as I was, because you had nothing else to go on. How do you feel now that you know this was the face that was above you as I fucked you in the dark?”
He was being crude in order to rattle her, to push her away. Okay then, she’d be honest. “Of course I pictured you as you were. I had nothing else to go on. Now I do. And I like what I see, every scar. Even more because it’s you. Not as you were then, but as you are now. It only took me a moment to merge the two. But you, you haven’t managed to do it over eight years.”
Jonah laughed, and there was both a cruel edge to it and a note of desperation as though he were forcing himself to be cold, and it was costing him. “This”—he motioned toward his face—“is really what you want? You want to see this face looking down at you?”
God, why was that so hard to believe? His scars were extensive, yes. The burns he’d sustained made her cringe internally, not because they were ugly, but because she wept inside considering the pain he’d endured.
“Yes, actually. I never gave you any reason to think I didn’t. You misread my reaction, Jonah, I told you that. And I think inside you know it or you wouldn’t have been concerned about me pushing you into anything. I’m here, aren’t I? Back again, willing to risk appearing a fool. You’re the one pushing me away. Maybe you don’t want to look at me. Maybe you enjoy picturing someone else. Maybe you prefer the darkness, Jonah, because you don’t like what you see when you look at me in the light.”
He stared at her, his body frozen, his expression momentarily baffled. “You think that?”
“I have no reason not to. I’m here, offering myself to you, and you’re rejecting me. What else should I think?” She was bluffing. He’d only ever made her feel beautiful. But maybe turning the tables on him this way would make him see how ridiculous he was being. “Maybe you wouldn’t have looked twice at me in your previous life. Maybe you’re settling for me now because you think I’m all you can get, but you’d rather keep the lights off when you’re with me.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Is it?”
“Yes,” he growled.
“Really? Were there many girls who stopped by your gate then? Lots of other choices?”
“Clara, stop. I see what you’re doing.”
“Do you? What am I doing? Telling the truth?”
“You know that’s not true. You know I want you.” His words were spoken harshly, that same muscle in his jaw ticking.
“Do you? You weren’t ready to show your face, sure, but with the lights off, who were you seeing? One of those perfect society girls you used to date? The ones I saw when I looked you up? Were you picturing one of them, Jonah? The curvy redhead maybe or—”
“Stop it. I want you far more than I ever wanted any of them.”
Present tense, Clara thought. Good. But not enough. “Prove it.”
They stood staring at each other for a frozen moment and then another as Clara’s heart sank in her chest. There were sounds around them, she was sure of it, but all she could hear was the rush of her own blood in her ears. She had thrown the ball into his court and now, if he wasn’t going to respond, she was going to have to be willing to walk away. Jonah continued to watch her, still and tense. Unmoving.
Clara’s shoulders dropped, though she lifted her chin. “For a man who used words for a living, your silence speaks volumes, counselor.” Her voice emerged as barely more than a pained whisper though she knew he heard her by the clenching of his jaw. She paused for another beat and then with an aching heart, turned back onto the path that led out of the wooded area.