Page 11 of Memories of the Lost

Until he landed, quite by accident, in a Buddhist monastery. He was sick with withdrawal and despair, and they cared for him for three months, curing his physical ills, then curing his spiritual ones by teaching him the path of the Buddha and mindfulness.

Krish had found him there. Brought him home to Auckland, where Liam began teaching meditation, finding a large pool of hungry millennials. It was Krish who suggested the meditation app, well before apps for such things were common. As a result, they got in on the ground floor, and the app, with Liam as the host with his good looks and smooth voice, was a staggering hit. They’d hit a million followers within two years.

That had been seven years ago, and the business had grown into an empire.

Tonight, as he carried Tillie to her bed, he thought of what Krish would say about her. His attraction to her, more to the point. Her raven-black hair spilled over his arms. Her head fell on his shoulder. He thought she’d wake up once he got her on the bed and pulled off her boots, but she only murmured, a small noise of pain.

Her legs were clad in green tights. He lifted her knees and scooted her bottom sideways, then covered her with the duvet. She stirred, took his hand. “I’m afraid,” she said.

“What can I do?” he asked quietly. Her lashes were dark against her pale skin, her mouth wide. She didn’t seem to be in distress that he could see. Her respiration was even. Her skin wasn’t too hot or too cold.

Again, he felt a ripple of recognition. He could swear he knew her, but he’d spent little time in the United States. How could they have met? Unless it was in another life, which many people in the world believed.

Her hand slackened in his, and he stood. Now that she was settled, he should go back to the hotel, get ready for his gig tomorrow. There would be nearly three hundred people waiting to hear from him, and he liked to spend an hour in deep meditation before such events. He owed them his best, most-centered self. It wasn’t always possible, but he tried, always.

But he didn’t want to leave her. He could sleep on the couch, nearby in case she needed help.

Her phone had fallen on the floor when she fainted. He picked it up and placed it nearby her on the bedside table so she wouldn’t worry, then curled up on the sofa. The painting he’d noticed earlier kept watch, a naked woman and a wolf pup, savage and nurturing at once. This, too, triggered something just out of reach, but he couldn’t draw it in. He closed his eyes. He’d just rest for a little while, then check on her and go back to his hotel.

CHAPTER FIVE

Tillie awakened with a dry mouth and rolled over on her back, taking stock. No migraine, despite the fact that she’d slept fitfully, too hot, twisting up in the covers. Every time she’d surfaced, something strange wove itself out of the painting she’d seen at the gallery—big leaves coming alive to form a bed she crawled into, a bird swooping through the air, sending out a call, tragic and enormous.

Over and over, it was the cat, grown to a giant size, its head coming up to her waist, its green eyes the size of baseballs. It purred. She rubbed her hands into its soft neck, cooing something.

She woke up, fell back asleep. She curled with the cat, its body warming her from neck to knees. Slept, awakened to—

Her bedroom. Reality. She sat up, thirsty and sweaty. Pulling from the metal water bottle she kept beside the bed, she pushed hair out of her face and stared into the dark. The scene from the painting returned, faint shapes coalescing, all of it coming alive with depth and sound, a starry sky overhead. The murmur of voices she couldn’t quite hear, in a language she didn’t quite understand.

She blinked, rubbed her face. A dream.

Just a dream.

Dawn peeked in the windows, washing the walls with pink. Only when she swung her legs out and saw her tights did she remember fainting. Liam must have put her to bed. It scared her that she’d beenso vulnerable, passed out with a man in her apartment. He could have done anything.

Except—she could trustherself. She wouldn’t have allowed someone she didn’t feel comfortable with upstairs with her.

But didn’t everybody feel that way?

Stop.Clearly, she’d survived his help.

Padding into the bathroom, she traded her tights and dress for yoga pants and a T-shirt, splashed water on her face, brushed her teeth. She moved her head, her neck. The migraine was gone. Barefoot, she headed down an open corridor toward the kitchen.

And there, fast asleep on her couch, was Liam. He was insufficiently covered by a thin afghan, and she grabbed another one from the back of a chair to make sure he wasn’t cold.

His face.

In the soft light of dawn, she gobbled up the details—his jaw and cheekbones and brow. His mouth and throat. His hand lax in sleep, hanging beneath the blankets.

Moving quietly, she picked up a sketchbook and charcoals from a nearby table and sat on the floor. Long windows above the couch let in the pinkish, silvery light that touched the round of his shoulder, the tangle of his hair. She sketched quickly, reproducing the angle of elbow and wrist, hip and knee. On a fresh page, she captured his hands and close-ups of his nails—square and flat and clean.

New page. Eyebrows. Elegant, straight nose. Sharp jaw.

Mouth. She remembered kissing him last night, the sense of his shoulders offering a bulwark. The echo moved through her body. She reached for a wry sentiment—it had been a while since she’d had anybody in her bed—but she couldn’t find any irony. He wasn’t just somebody, some guy. He was ...

She didn’t know. Himself. Liam. Beautiful, yes, but unlike other men.

He slept on, oblivious of her attention. When she finished, charged by the pleasure of drawing him, she headed for the kitchen and set the kettle to boil, remembering he liked tea more than American coffee.For herself, she measured coffee grounds into a French press, and leaned a hip on the counter as she waited. From this angle, she could see his long, fit shape beneath the afghan her mother had crocheted by the fire in her cottage.