Page 35 of Gothikana

He shrugged. ‘I told you I found you unusual. So, how’s that letter to your mother if she’s unavailable?’

Corvina felt her throat go tight, her fingers clasping together as she wondered if she could tell him, if she should tell him. She’d always been alone in her life, never really confided in anyone by choice. She was used to it. But for some reason, she wanted to confide in him and wanted him to keep her secrets safe. At the end of the day, she didn’t know a thing about this man, except that he played the most beautiful music she’d heard, he was highly intelligent, and he kissed her like she was both something to cherish and something to ravish.

‘If I tell you’ — she swallowed the knot in her throat — ‘does that stay between us?’

He stayed quiet as they drove round another curve before he gave her a glance. ‘Anything we talk about stays between us.’

The subliminal messages under his use of words made her pause — when they were alone, anything they talked about, all of it indicating to something more. She didn’t understand if it was actually there or if she was reading too much into it. But he was someone careful with his words, she’d noticed. He’d not overtly lied to her, and her instincts were screaming at her to cave in.

‘My mother is alive, but unavailable,’ she told him, brushing the edge of her finger over the envelope. ‘She’s in a psychiatric institute.’

She felt him steal another look at her. ‘Why?’

Corvina blinked, not willing to admit everything just then. But she didn’t want to lie to him either. ‘She’s unfit to live on her own. She needs continuous supervision.’ She gave him half the truth.

A beat of silence passed before he asked quietly, ‘Did she ever hurt you?’

‘No!’ Corvina looked up, denying even the thought of it vehemently. ‘Oh lord, never. Mama would have killed herself before she ever harmed me. She even tried to.’

‘How long has she been at the institute?’

Corvina closed her eyes. ‘Three years, eight months.’

God, she missed her mama. She missed her scent of soil and sage and all things love. She missed the food that she grew herself. Shemissed pouring the wax as she sat and worked the jars. Her mama might not have talked to her, but Corvina never once doubted the love between them. And she missed that.

‘I’m sorry.’ The deep, gravel voice soothed the raw edges inside her softly. She looked out the window, blinking her eyes rapidly, her nose twitching with her need to cry.

‘What about your father? Is he alive, too?’

She breathed in the fresh air. ‘He died when I was one.’

‘Jesus.’

Corvina shook her head at his expletive, needing a distraction. ‘What about you? How did you come to be here?’

Another curve around the mountain.

‘Probably how most kids come to Verenmore,’ he said, his tone quiet. ‘I grew up in a home for boys and got adopted as a teen by an old man who had no other family. He’s the one who taught me to play the piano. I came here after he passed on my eighteenth birthday.’

That was the most she’d heard him speak about himself, and though he’d delivered that in an even tone, she could feel something frothing inside him. He’d said a lot, but he was hiding something. Without thinking, she touched his shoulder and squeezed, feeling the warm, hard flesh under her palm, little sparks of electricity making her hand tingle.

‘I’m sorry,’ she told him sincerely.

His grip on the steering wheel tightened as he gave her a nod, and Corvina pulled her hand back.

Wanting to lift the heavy mood crowding them in, she asked a question she’d wanted to for a long time. ‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-eight. Why?’

‘The grey in your hair.’ It was hot.

‘I’ve always had premature grey hair,’ he told her, steering the vehicle expertly around another bend. ‘Never understood why anyone expected me to hide it.’

‘You carry it well,’ she told him truthfully. ‘Especially with your eyes.’

Those eyes slid to her wordlessly.

They sat in compatible silence after that, Corvina looking out the window and enjoying the wind around her, him driving down the roads and mulling over his own thoughts. After a few moments, he fiddled with the music dashboard and the heavy strings of the guitar emerged. Corvina listened to the music and smiled, not alone for the first time in a long time, in a space her body and mind were at peace, with the unlikeliest of men.

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