Page 12 of It's You
I had to.
She stared back at him, one question that needed to be answered before anything else.Am I going crazy, or are we in each other’s heads?
“I had to,” he repeated in a whisper, his eyes crackling with urgency.
She sucked in her breath, holding it, then stumbled back from him, almost immediately hitting the bumper of her car with the dress bustle, trapped between Jack and the car, unable to look away from him.
Impossible! This is impossible.
It should be, but it isn’t.
How?
I don’t know.
HOW?
“I. Don’t. Know,” he repeated aloud in a calm, even voice.
He wasn’t shocked. He didn’t even seem that surprised, she decided, as she searched his eyes. They ignited with a whoosh under her scrutiny, like a gas valve being twisted to turn on a BBQ grill. In a moment, they were blazing copper.
He looked down, away from her, and spoke softly, as he would speak to a frightened child. “Let me walk with you.”
Oh my god, what is going on?Darcy had long come to terms with her occasional daydreaming, chalking it up to an overactive imagination when she heard Jack’s voice or smelled pine needles in her head. This was different. This was interactive.Jack Beauloup is back. Jack Beauloup is back, and he can read my mind, and I can read his.
“Just let me walk with you.” He put out his hand, palm side up, still looking down, submissive, imploring.
“I, um…” She swallowed, her brain a jumble as she tried not to think of anything inappropriate. “I must have had too much champagne or, or…”
“It’s okay,” he said gently, softly, not looking at her, not moving.
“It’s definitelynotokay,” she answered. Her eyes burned from keeping them open so wide. She blinked them quickly andfelt them water. To her embarrassment, she realized she was about to cry.
“Hey, Darcy Turner,” he breathed.
His voice was deep and soft, and she had a sudden flashback to him singing “It’s You.”That boy and this man are the same person, she thought, trying to re-establish some facts actually grounded in reality.
“I promise it’ll be okay,” he said in a soothing tone. “Let’s just walk a little.”
Darcy needed to understand what the hell was going on, and without the benefit of an MRI machine at the ready to confirm that she had officially lost her mind, Jack might be her only option for answers.
“Okay,” she whispered, but she didn’t place her hand in his. She scooted to the side, moving around him, shivering as she headed toward Proctor Woods with Jack Beauloup trudging beside her. “Be warned. I have some questions for you.”
“Thought you might,” he answered. Then, “I have a jacket in my car if you’re cold.”
She snapped her head to the side to look at him. “I didn’t think that!”
“I-I know you didn’t.” He was still looking down, but she could tell he was smiling. “You shivered.”
“Oh. Well, I’ll be fine once we start moving.”
He kept pace beside her, easily matching her quick stride as they walked through the parking lot around the old white clapboard church. They followed the path through the parish rose garden, which would bloom pink and red in another couple of months. Darcy’s boots squished in the muddy ground.
“And don’ttryanything. I mean it.”
That made him look up. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. I barely know you. You show up in Carlisle after twenty years, attending my cousin’s wedding with my littlebrother, somehow conveniently seated at my table, and for some reason, I can hear your thoughts, and you can hear mine. Want me to use my imagination? Just don’t touch me.”
