Page 267 of Shifting Hearts 1
“Oh fuck,” I thought, my chest tightening.
Mel stared straight at her, smiling the way Morgan’s gaze always lingered on her. Probably seeing Leigh first, and then her eyes shifted, and froze on me.
She stopped completely, unable to look away, just staring.
“We both decided it’s too late, please,” I whispered.
But she forgot. And for some reason, I felt suffocated.
“Morgan, don’t, please,” I begged.
I could see her about to introduce herself, but she stopped a few tables away. With my back to her, she turned to a nearby table and asked someone to watch her section.
“You okay?” he asked. But she didn’t answer. She disappeared into one of the stalls, slid down, and cried her heart out as quietly as she could.
It brought tears to my eyes to see her like that, but the feeling inside me remained the same.
A few minutes later, Paul arrived. He picked her up and vanished through the bathroom window. That night, they packed and left for Montana. She was done. She didn’t want to do anything else, just told Paul she had seen someone from her past.
He handled everything, found them work, tried to lift her spirits.
A part of me wished he could just keep her. They belonged together.
On the night of their first job, Morgan seemed more at ease. She laughed with Paul, and it relaxed him. Whatever had forced them to leave Black Hills wasn’t nearly as dangerous as he had feared.
Many of the human men flirted with her, her demon eyes were certainly something to notice, but she wasn’t interested.
She was going to be fine. I knew she would be.
The following evening,I stopped dead in my tracks as we stepped into Smokey Joe’s.
Em was singing at the bar.
She was so much like her mother, or what her mother had been, that I couldn’t even look at her properly. For what? For nothing. That was the sting: Adrienne had turned my world, the reason I existed, into this suffocating, empty shell I couldn’t wait to escape.
I focused on Em as she sang her heart out, riling up the crowd. I laughed despite myself. Annie had been right—she was me too, in so many ways.
She took a break and came over to the bar. My chest tightened; I’d fucked up so many times with her. The regret ran deep, into every fiber of me.
Morgan came over.
“So, you’re the new girl everyone’s gushing about?”
“That would be me,” Morgan said. “You must be the nightingale I’ve heard so much about.”
Em laughed. “Name’s Emily, but you can call me Em.”
“Natasha, what can I get you?”
“Just a water and a shot of vodka.”
“You got it.” She smiled and went to get the drinks. Em couldn’t take her eyes off her, and I squinted. Paul broke her gaze.
“You helped.”
“Yes, thank you, Emily.”
“Paul,” he said, smiling.
