Sweet Unrest by Lisa Maxwell Page A

“What kind of ritual?” I asked warily.
    “It’s a celebration of the summer solstice, and Mama Legba will ask the spirits to intercede for a good harvest. She’ll do a ceremony on the bridge that crosses St. John’s Bayou, and then we’ll all eat and dance.” She frowned. “Okay, maybe it is a little like a party. Anyway, we’ll need to leave around five. I can pick you up if you want.”
    “That would be great,” I said as we reached the employees’ dorm.
    “I’d love to stick around and hang out, but I promised my momma I’d help her out with some stuff at the house this afternoon, and I’m already later than I told her I’d be,” Chloe told me as she mounted the steps.
    “Yeah, I have some stuff to do with the shots I was working on. I’ll see you tomorrow night?”
    “Absolutely. And don’t forget to wear white.”
    “I won’t,” I told her.
    Chloe left, and I turned to walk back to my family’s cottage, but as I got closer to it, the thought of sitting indoors and staring at a computer screen didn’t appeal to me. So I just ran inside and printed off a few of the pictures I’d taken the last few days, including the ones from Thisbe’s cabin that morning, and then headed out to the pond. I hoped I’d see Alex there. I had some questions I wanted answers to—starting with why Chloe didn’t know who he was.

Eleven
    When I came through the trees, I was disappointed to find the clearing empty. Alex wasn’t around. Not wanting my fair skin to burn any more than it already had in the Louisiana sun, I walked toward the beautiful old oak that anchored the far end of the pond. The ground around it was soft with thick grass that had taken hold in the shade of its branches, so I sat down at the base and pulled out the binder holding the pictures.
    I looked over the first few images, sorting them out on the ground in front of me, but when I reached the prints of Thisbe’s cabin, I felt the same sense of unease sift through me as I had when approaching the real thing. So I closed the binder and leaned back to rest for a bit in the coolness of the tree’s shade.
    When I opened my eyes, Alex was sitting next to me, as golden and beautiful as he’d been earlier that day. The lines of his face were softer, though, and his jaw didn’t have the tightness I’d noticed then. His eyes were clear and bright. Their green depths reminded me of the lushness of the forests in the North—a living, fertile color I hadn’t encountered anywhere else in the overheated Southern summer. He was looking at me with such intensity that it fairly took my breath away.
    I’d had short-lived relationships before and flirted with crushes, but I’d never had someone look at me the way Alex was looking at me at that moment. Love. Hope. Safety . The feelings coursed through me with reckless abandon. I loved him , which was a ridiculous thought. I didn’t even know him. But the feeling was there, deep inside me and so sure I couldn’t dismiss it.
    And that’s when I knew I was her again—Armantine. This was only another dream. And for a single heartbeat I hated her, because I knew he wasn’t really looking at me. For that single heartbeat I wanted him to, but the brief burst of anger I felt couldn’t survive the feelings of love and trust and desire welling up from her. Knowing what she felt for him—I couldn’t help but feel it too.
    They were sitting under the oak, inches apart. His hand was close to hers, their fingers barely brushing, and I could feel her delight at his closeness. But I could also feel a new sense of fear bubbling up inside of her.
    Something had happened. Something had shaken her and made her remember how impossible everything about their situation was. As much as she wanted to stay there with him, she was terrified of what would happen to her if she let him know he held her heart.
    He looked at me—her—and smiled. It wasn’t the half-cocked mocking grin he’d given me that afternoon by