Mirror of My Soul by Joey Hill (book club recommendations .TXT) 📕

Tyler nodded, ran a hand up her arm. “I won’t press, but one day, any day you’re ready, angel, I’d like to know more about him. I know he was important to you.”

She wasn’t ready to tell him. Marguerite couldn’t tell him that before she’d shared her bed, which meant before she’d met him, she’d had to tie her arm loosely to the bedpost. That way when she tried to sleepwalk, to fly, she’d wake half slumped on the floor, her arm pulled taut. During those quietly despondent hours of the night, she’d sit crumpled on the floor and blearily look up into the night sky, at the stars or various phases of the moon. She’d think how their light was like the promise of a heaven she could never reach, because for some inexplicable reason she wouldn’t free herself to go there. To go to David.

She closed her eyes. “Not today. Today’s too good.” She opened them, looked at him. “But something changed, as of this week. For the first time, it was about joy. True freedom. The first freedom I think I’ve ever felt. And I shouldn’t be telling you these things, because you’re arrogant enough as it is…”

“Tell me anyway.”

She reached out, trailed her fingers along his forearm, let her hand be captured and held on his thigh. “I felt like there’d be someone to care, to catch me if I fell.”

“Next time you might mention when you’re going out, so I’ll know to arrange for that.”

She gave him a tiny smile. “I know it’s not realistic. It’s just a feeling.” She bent, unlaced her shoes, removed them and pushed up the fabric of the bodysuit covering her calves. Rising, she moved to the water’s edge.

“So how long have you done this?” He looked up as a Piper Cub buzzed over for a landing.

“About ten years. I could take you up one day. I’m a trained instructor.”

“Not happening.”

Her attention flicked over to him. “It’s really wonderful. Falling at over a hundred miles an hour, just you. Sometimes it’s nice with others, too, because you don’t talk.

You’re just up there together, feeling the same thing, not having to explain or 117

Joey W. Hill

understand anything.” She sloshed her feet in the water and shivered, enjoying the coolness. He enjoyed watching her indulge in the almost childish whimsy and

wondered how often she’d had moments like this by herself, these many faces she revealed when no one was there to see.

“I’m afraid I’m just going to have to watch you fly, angel.”

Her brows lifted. “Surely you’re not one of those people who are afraid of flying?

You know they’re safer than cars.”

“So I’ve heard. And I think that argument is more effective for someone who’s

never crashed in a plane. I have. Twice. I totaled a car once. I’m here to tell you that the car crash, as scary as it was, was nothing next to the plane.”

“Twice?”

“Both in small surveillance planes, bad weather conditions. Both times we went down where we’d have been executed if we were caught. If we were lucky.”

“Well, it makes it hard to argue, putting it that way. But…” She slanted him a glance beneath those silky lashes. “Did you know there’s such a thing as nude

skydiving? A growing chapter.”

He chuckled. “You think the overwhelming male desire to see a woman naked can

overcome any fear?”

“Just about.”

He grinned. “As long as I can see you naked down here, angel, I’d prefer to enjoy the pleasure on the ground. But I’ll think about it.” He surveyed the planes lined up on the tarmac. “You know there’s very little I’d refuse you. You just have to ask me.”

“Always conditions…” He heard the humor in her voice and smiled.

When Marguerite came back to him, wet clay from the banks of the pond was between her toes, across her feet, even up her ankles. She shook her head over them.

“I’m afraid you’re seeing one of my private rituals. A balancing thing. Coming from the sky, I always like to do this grounding in the earth.”

When he didn’t reply, she raised her gaze. Marguerite found him staring at her feet, his expression distant, almost empty. “Tyler? Tyler.” She said it sharply when he didn’t respond at all. Reaching out, she touched him, seeking a response.

He started. His gaze jerked up to meet hers. “I’ll get some water.”

He dumped the water cup he’d brought with him from the classroom water cooler, rose and strode down to the water’s edge.

Her brow furrowed. “I keep a towel and some towelettes in the trunk of the car.

And there’s a hose back there. It’s okay.”

Again, he acted like he didn’t hear her. Genuinely concerned now, Marguerite

started after him, but he’d already turned. Drawing her by the hand to the bench, he pushed her firmly down to the seat. He knelt there before her, poured the water over her toes, rubbed his hand over them, trying to remove the sticky clay. He went back to the pond several times. There was something in his face, something about the

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determined way he scrubbed at her feet that kept her silent, watching him. There was nothing left on her feet that she could tell, but he poured a fourth cup of water over them, lifting her foot to check the soles, parting each toe to ensure each one was completely clean.

When he started to rise again, she’d had enough. She caught his hand, held on

firmly. “Tyler, quit it. They’re clean. Tell me what’s happening. And don’t tell me nothing.” She increased her grip, alarmed to see his face was growing paler by the minute, his eyes unfocused as they moved in the direction of her voice. “Sit. Now.”

She was familiar with the signs of an impending faint. Fortunately she had a bottle of drinking water she’d brought with her to replenish her own