Turn The Page (Kissed by A Muse Book 2) Read online

  The sun began to set as she ate and by the time she was left with only crusts on her tray, the damp underside of her hair was chilling the back of her neck and the autumn chill was snaking around her bare ankles. Outside her window, the falls looked more like a watercolour print than a force of nature, and she lamented the fall of darkness, because it signified the passing of one full day in Niagara- a day in which she’d barely experienced anything, aside from her abject humiliation and the charity of the hotel staff. When the warmth of the food began to fade from her skin, Leigh stacked the plates, took them to the hallway and rested the tray by the door. Letting it close behind her, she made her way over to the open suitcase on her bed and began to pull out her possessions so she’d have what she needed for the night; the new nightgown she was dying to wear, and a decent book.

  ‘Baby… oh baby…’ Leigh shrugged out of the robe and grinned as she held up the nightie she’d bought in Ontario before declaring: ‘Oh baby I am gonna be one HOT mama tonight!’ Before bursting into peals of laughter. The nightgown was old fashioned; floor length, thick white linen, with full puff sleeves, delicate pearl buttons to the clavicle, and lace detail trimming the hems, sleeves and collar. It was something her grandmother might have worn, and EXACTLY like the one that Anne and Diana had worn in the movie adaption of Anne Of Green Gables, and Leigh had fallen in love with it the moment she’d spotted it at the markets during a pit stop the bus had made earlier that morning. She pulled it over her head and then, smiling wickedly, reached for the starched bonnet that had come with it. She pulled it down over her temples, tucked her damp hair up into the band at the back and then turned around to look at herself in the floor-length mirror that had been affixed to the bathroom door.

  ‘Oh my god!’ Leigh pressed her hands to her cheeks and laughed maniacally, before turning to check herself out from the side. The fabric of the dress was as starchy as the bonnet, and though it had been labelled ‘small’ it swam on her, as most clothes did. She looked frumpy, shapeless, four and to her eyes- utterly romantic. ‘Perfect!’

  Still laughing, she went back to her suitcase and began to root through the contents she’d been painstakingly repacking at every stop, and preceded to make a big mess as she hunted for the vanilla cigar she’d purchased on a whim in Maine. Leigh wasn’t a smoker, and had intended to give it to her father, but suddenly, she wanted to know what it was like. She wanted to know what the WORLD was like! Vowing to buy him something else, Leigh pulled it out of a sleeve in the lid of her suitcase and then began to root through her books.

  I’ll open my champagne, choose a book, and smoke it until I either drop dead of suffocation or the starchiness of this fabric stabs me to death!

  Leigh had bought over eleven paperbacks since she’d arrived in America, including an early edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin that had cost her what the fancy hotel room in Savannah had, and three more copies of The Hardest Fall, which she’d bought because she was forever recommending it, and giving it away, to strangers, but also because they had the original owner’s names on the inside of the covers, and she loved that. Leigh never sold or traded her own books, but had kept every one- good or bad- and she’d written her name inside each one since she’d been old enough to spell it. They were all sitting in the spare bedroom at the flat her father had bought for her in Queensland in their cardboard boxes, waiting for shelves to be built so that she could finally have her very own library; over three thousand dusty, warped and loved little friends. A roommate would have made the repayments easier than having a library did, but Leigh had never bothered interviewing any of those, because people wearied her, and none more so than strangers that she couldn’t silence with a bookmark.

  Leigh picked up the third copy of her favourite novel and stared down at the glossy hardcover, biting her lip as the temptation to just dig into it took her over. She’d vowed to take her mind off the whole Ryan thing, but she saw now how silly she’d been- who was she to punish the most perfect being in the planet for her own stupid lapse in judgement, when she could curl up with him instead? And why was she so worked up anyway? The poor guy back at the falls had done nothing but resemble a figment of her imagination, smile for her camera, and then apologize when his sheer deliciousness had caused her to drop her own stuff. Really, she had no one to be angry at but herself, and no reason to continue to be so angry. What was done was done and at the end of the day- her missing passport was what was going to ruin her vacation, not a random moment with a beautiful stranger.

  Besides, buying a new iPad meant that she’d finally be able to buy a NEW iPad- a bigger, fancier one with more storage space. Things were way more affordable overseas than they had been back home so, if she truly cranked up the optimism, Leigh could view herself as an incredibly lucky girl who’d simply misplaced her passport.

  And you know what? I think I will go back down to the falls once I have a new iPad, and see if I can find the musician again and get his picture. The fans really will love it, and I’ll be able to apologize and hopefully, get a bit of dignity back… while wielding a much better quality camera!

  Feeling cheered, Leigh tucked the book under her arm, jabbed the cigar between her teeth and made her way over to the table once more. She got her specs out of their case and pushed them onto her nose, and then appraised the ice bucket. The room was so cold that the ice had barely melted, and when Lee pulled out the champagne with its unfamiliar but fancy French label, it was freezing to the touch. She untwisted the foil top and then popped the cork, giggling when it shot out from between her fingers and bounced off the couch, and then made her way to the bed and climbed on top of it while the foam spray trickled over her fingers.

  ‘Here’sh to me!’ Leigh declared, the words coming out gritty and hard for the cigar clamped between her teeth. She lifted the bottle high above her head and got a good look at herself in the mirror, trying not to cackle and drop the cigar at the sight of the lunatic reflected back at her. She squatted a little and thrust her hips rudely, the way she’d seen her uncle Steve dance at his daughter’s wedding, and almost lost her balance when her knees locked in the skirt of the dress. ‘Shingle, shexy about to get rotten drunk alone, while I wait for Ryan Weaver or Gilbert Blythe to duel to the death over the right to do me… yeah baby!’ Still thrusting her hips crudely, Leigh spat out the cigar and lifted the bottle to her mouth, almost choking as her throat as flooded with bitter bubbles. She pressed her lips together and snorted, falling to her knees on the mint green bed runner, as a bit of champagne leaked out of her nose, burning her sinuses.

  I am such a loser… but damn, it’s fun to be me sometimes!

  The burning nose was painful but made her guffaw. Laughing at herself while sniffling, Leigh lay down on her tummy and wriggled forward to the edge of the bed, hanging the champagne bottle over one side, while she stretched for the cigar with the other. Her glasses slid down on the tiny bridge of her nose as they always did when she looked down, and she had to thrust out her tongue to catch them.

  But before she managed to get the cigar, she became aware of two things: firstly, there was a cold draft on her backside from where her gown had ridden up to her waist, and secondly, that whistling draft was not loud enough to cover the sound of someone sucking in a breath to her right.

  How can there be a draft, if the door is closed…?

  Leigh gingerly turned her head toward the doorway as one would in a nightmare, when they sense something emerging from the darkness nearby, and she almost suffered her second heart attack for the day when she saw HIM standing in the threshold to her room- not the attentive concierge she’d half-expected, but the musician.

  No. No. No….

  But it was him, all six feet something of leather, ripped and faded denim and incredulous neon blue eyes. He was clutching a copy of The Hardest Fall in one hand and a rectangular white box and her travel wallet in the other, and his mouth was falling open at such a rate, that Leigh knew he’d soon have to drop her things in order to c
atch his jaw before it hit the floor.

  Leigh froze as she was; bare-ass naked to the chandelier and holding her glasses with her now aching tongue, tasting overpriced Brut and lens cleaner, feeling only the anguish of terminal humiliation.

  If I don’t wake up in my bus seat next to Greta in exactly two seconds, I am going to scream!

  ‘Um…’ the guy seemed to snap out of his stupor just as Leigh’s own took possession of her every nerve ending and thought. ‘Ryan Weaver, reporting for duelling duty?’ He leaned against her doorjamb, his unexpected grin quick and blinding, and his eyes vibrant with mischief. ‘But who the hell is Gilbert Blythe? Is he big?’ He wet his lips and treated her to a simpering smile. ‘Think I could take him?’

  Leigh jumped as his voice tugged on every one of her nerve endings like marionette strings- and then she promptly somersaulted off the edge of her bed, feeling like she was falling in a nightmare and praying that that was the case.

  Three

  The carpet became the ceiling, the ceiling became the hem of her skirt, and Leigh’s ears were struck so hard by each knee on either side of her head that for a moment, all she could hear was the blood thumping inside her skull.

  No. No, no, no, no NO!

  He was laughing, and his laugh was that of someone who knew they oughtn’t be doing that; husky as he attempted to swallow breaths big enough to smother it. For a moment, Leigh sat in the world’s most uncomfortable yoga pose, as stunned as a fish that had been struck over the head by an oar. But when she heard him move, she became Sonic the hedgehog and rolled her way out of the cramped position, by pushing off the mini-fridge with her bare feet and then wriggling back towards the picture window, snapping her knees together before getting them beneath her.

  ‘What are you doing in my room?’ she sounded like a six-year-old, felt about two and knew she looked about eighty in her get up. She spat out the glasses she’d caught with her teeth and shoved them into position. ‘How did you find me? How did you get UP here?!’

  The guy stopped moving and his eyebrows lifted to match the shrieking pitch of her voice. ‘I came to return your things,’ he said, slowly raising his hands once more. ‘Your passport and stuff, and your hotel info was in there so I-’

  ‘And the concierge just let you UP?!’ she demanded, bypassing the relief to have her things returned to her, for fear for her life. ‘What kind of security is that?!’

  The guy’s brows lowered, and his cheeks had gone from pale to rosy. ‘The staff here know me…and Bruce said that you’d be stoked to have your stuff back, and would wanna thank me in person…’ he turned his face slightly in profile, regarding her with one eye. ‘A bit of an overestimation on his part though, eh?’

  Leigh was struggling to interpret his words. For starters, he spoke with a soft, smoker’s husk, and his accent and enunciation was wreaking havoc with her translation. The ‘stoked’ was Aussie, the ‘eh?’ was Canadian, but he pronounced every other word so carefully that he sounded more American than anything else. Confused, Leigh slithered to the right, getting back behind the bed and glowering at him over the flat plane of the comforter.

  ‘Who, and how, and just...’ she tried to phrase her questions but her thoughts were overlapping and her tongue was getting all tangled up in them. She didn’t know what was going on, and she really was beginning to worry that she’d lost the plot. Or in her case- gotten WAY too invested in the plot!

  I’d almost convinced myself that I blew his likeness to Ryan way out of proportion, but just LOOK at him! He’s a stranger, but my memory is full of his face! And now he’s responding to the name as well? What the hell?!

  ‘Um… yeah?’ he prodded, but Leigh could only stare as he rubbed his jaw and stared back with a lazy gaze. Logically, she knew that Ryan Weaver couldn’t exist, but the physical evidence to his case was staggering- and so utterly divine that Leigh could barely think past his upper chest and how it looked in the clingy black tee that he was wearing like a boss- a boss who lifted weights for fun while tanning and apparently, having his skin polished until it shone.

  The light of expectation faded from the doppelganger’s eyes when he seemed to realise that she wasn’t going to be responding to him any time soon. He swept his gaze over her once more, smirked and then shook his head, as though he were enjoying an in-joke alone.

  ‘Okay, the cat seems to have both your tongue and your vocal cords so… I can do this alone, I guess.’ He moved towards the bed and put down her things and the white box. ‘Listen; you might just be the strangest, smallest woman I’ve ever met, and I’m a little bit scared of you, so let me make this simple-’ he pointed to the bed. ‘You dropped your things when you ran away today. I found out who you were and where you were staying by peeking inside, I’m sorry, but it was necessary.’ He stepped back, raising his hands as though shielding himself from the eyeballing he was getting. ‘And I felt bad- the way you reacted to me smiling at you made it pretty clear that I’ve done something in the past to piss you off and so, to make up for whatever it is, and the fact that I don’t know your name or recall ever having met you before, I’m giving you this iPad, okay?’

  Leigh inhaled cold air and too much of his minty, smoky, heady aroma for her comfort. ‘You’re giving me a...?’ She glanced at the bed, seeing the box with more focus now and recognising the pale, silver print on the side. It was an iPad box all right, and it still had the plastic on it! But then the rest of what he’d said sank in, and she became confused once more. ‘You’re seriously giving me an iPad to apologize for smiling at me and not knowing my name?’

  ‘Well… yeah, I don’t need it, so it’s yours,’ his voice was softer now, and Leigh wanted to step closer to hear it better. And to smell him better. And to maybe poke him in the eye to see if her finger sliced through air, or his socket.

  ‘But… but it’s an iPad,’ Leigh was lost and nothing he was saying was helping her find her way. ‘An iPad three, to boot!’

  He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and the small chain attached to one of his belt loops clinked against the pewter ring on his right pinkie. ‘I was given it as a gift a few months ago, but I wouldn’t have the faintest idea about how to work it, so it’s just been sitting there.’

  ‘So… so return it! Or learn to use it!’ Leigh looked back at him now, trying to wrap her brain around his, well, everything! What kind of conman went around doling out free iPads to strange women? And what kind of busker didn’t have a close personal relationship with a pawnbroker? Her gaze drifted between him, the iPad and her open door. Had she left it open? Damn the Yankee multiple door latch thing! ‘That’s worth about eight hundred bucks, you know.’

  ‘It is?’ He strained his wrists into his pockets and shrugged, while Leigh wracked her brain, trying to recall if Ryan the character had worn a pewter ring- while her eyes kept flickering over to the iPad box.

  ‘Wow. Well, you’ll be able to keep your room, and I’ll be able to sleep tonight, so it’s money well spent.’ He leaned towards her, burrowing his hands deeper into his pockets and hunching his shoulders, trying to get in her line of vision- or maybe just shrink in general because she was making him feel like Gulliver. The silver chain around his neck swung forward and caught the light. ‘So… are we good?’

  Leigh had no idea what sort of state she was in, but she was hovering somewhere between gleeful and horrified. Why were people always giving her hand-outs that she hadn’t earned? And why was it an iPad she had to turn down, not a cocktail or something? She bundled up more of her blanket in her arms and studied him reproachfully. ‘I can’t accept that, no way!’ She shook her head. ‘It’s too valuable.’

  ‘Not to me, it’s not, and it is to you- so it’s technically a perfect trade.’ He stood taller again, a trace of annoyance pulling down on his eyes and mouth. ‘I didn’t want to get rid of it, because the woman who gave it to me really, really wanted me to have it… but giving it to someone who is eyeing it, the way you are eyeing it rig
ht now, feels good. You said that you needed it for work or something, didn’t you? Then accept it, not as a favour, but as a professional or whatever.’

  Leigh hadn’t known that she was still staring at the box, but his words called her attention to the fact that she’d been reading the specs and breathing heavily with excitement. His iPad had almost twice as much gig as her last! And it was the latest model she’d intended to buy! She wanted to accept it- and badly!

  No, uh-huh lady no candy from strangers, means no candy from strangers you’re contemplating nibbling on like candy!

  Heartsick, Leigh turned her face to him and tried to look bored. ‘No- really, I wouldn’t feel comfortable with this. I appreciate what you’re trying to do but-’

  ‘Look-’ He ran his hands through his hair and Leigh’s eyes followed the swirling, tattoo lines inked onto his wrist before it vanished into his sexily messed-up hair, holding the back of his head as though she were stressing him out. ‘-Leigh, is it?’

  Leigh nodded mutely, annoyed that he knew so much about her now, while she was still trying to deduce if he was corporeal or a figment of her imagination- though the glimpse of the tattoo had definitely activated her rational brain cells a little more.

  Ryan didn’t have a tattoo! Ha! There’s something, Leigh! Grab that anchor point and cling to reality woman!

  ‘I don’t know where we’ve met before,’ he began, removing his hands from his hair and biting down on his thumbnail, looking vulnerable and… well, like someone she wanted to be bitten by. ‘But I can see from your passport that this is your first time overseas. So I’m guessing that our paths crossed in Australia last, yeah?’

  Leigh’s mouth popped open. ‘Our paths?’

  ‘Yeah. You know…’ The guy twisted his thumb over, biting down on the enamel of his nail. ‘When we…’