Shaking my head at my own silliness, I told myself to stop channeling Coral. That was just the sort of thing she would think. My heart tightened. I missed her. Missed her and Raven both.
My hand started to tingle, and I reached into my pocket for the small notebook I kept in it. It wasn’t there. Panicked, I stood to scan the shelves for a notebook and a pen, but before I could move, my norn forced my hand. I grabbed the ketchup bottle and began to squirt it onto the table in thin, long lines.
Music on the lake.
This is what our norns did—the Norse goddesses my sisters and I carried inside us. They gave us stupid cryptic messages in ways that disrupted our lives, caused our mother to pull us from school and made keeping a job ridiculously hard. Though Raven managed to keep two most of the time. I’d actually been fired from my last one. I hadn’t told my family. Hadn’t told them that my boss had been totally freaked over talking to me one moment and seeing me trying to wipe permanent marker off a nice new white refrigerator the next.
My table didn’t have napkins and neither did the next few. I finally went into the bathroom in the back, realized I was glad I’d decided not to eat here when I saw the condition of the sink and grabbed a handful of paper towels. I was back in my seat, ready to clean up the ketchup runes, when the norn spun the world again.
Gods! She usually gave me a bit more breathing room.
Groaning, I held on to the edge of the table with one hand and tried to wipe at the runes with the other. But the spin always threw me off if I kept my eyes open and all I got were the last two runes before everything stopped spinning.
To everyone else in the truck stop, nothing had happened. They all continued their movements, their conversations. The man in the next booth held up the hair he’d pulled from the onion rings. I hurriedly swiped the ketchup runes into a smeared mess and flinched when someone cleared his throat next to me.
I looked up into the most fascinating face on a boy I’d ever seen. He had a charcoal-colored beanie pulled so far down his head, I couldn’t tell his hair color, but his narrow features looked like they belonged on a magazine. Sleepy, slightly slanted eyes that were a dark, dark brown stared down at my table in amusement. They were like the seal brown on a color wheel—that last shade before black. With eyes that dark, he should have had black hair under that hat, but his eyebrows were blond. He had thin, elegant, wide lips over a square jaw and sharp cheekbones. All that too-pretty sat atop broad shoulders and a long, rangy body. I guessed him to be about six feet tall.
“Hi.” His voice surprised me. It was deep and warm when I’d been expecting something higher, with clipped accents. I’d been expecting British...in Wyoming.
Okay, I really, really needed some sleep.
“Hi,” I replied, drawing the word out because he just stood there, staring down at me. My norn sort of moved. She didn’t have a physical body—gods, I was pretty hopeful on that one because I had no desire to physically experience a reenactment of Alien—but her essence could sometimes feel physical. This boy agitated her. Not in a bad way, either. Not like the guy in the parking lot earlier. No, this was warmer...like interest. Sheesh, does she think he’s hot or something?
I studied him, thinking maybe he was the boy I’d come here to find, but wouldn’t that be a coincidence? And he looked nothing like the goofy one in the tabloid picture I had.
His gaze flicked back to the runes. “Saw you sitting by yourself and wondered if you wanted company for lunch. Looks like you already started.” He picked up the bottle. “I usually prefer mustard on my table. The occasional zip of extra Italian dressing can help even out the Formica flavor, too.”
“Funny.”
“Not going to eat?” He held out the ketchup bottle.
I took it as I shook my head. Not after seeing that bathroom. “Do you work here or something? Are you really here to take my order?”
He chuckled. “No. I stopped in for a pop, saw you and thought you might like some company. Though, I was going to try to talk you into eating somewhere else. Now that I’m closer, I can tell you’re probably too tired to go anywhere else.”
“Thanks,” I snapped, then swallowed a groan.
“I didn’t mean you looked bad.”
“Being told you look tired is the same as being told you look like crap.” I swiped at the ketchup again, frowning over the mess I was making. “It’s a fact.”
“Well, I don’t know about that. You certainly don’t look like crap—just like you’ve come a long way. You don’t live here.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I would have noticed you before.”
Something in his tone made my stomach feel kind of weird and fluttery. I wasn’t sure I liked the feeling, so I frowned at him.
He lifted a blond eyebrow. “Are you some kind of artist?”
“No,” I drawled out this word, too, completely startled by his rapid change of subject. “Why would you ask that?”
He pointed to the smears of ketchup.
My face heated. “Really? You’d call that art?” I noticed one of the runes was still intact and hurriedly wiped it. “Looks like something a toddler would do.”
“True. I’ve only seen babies do this sort of art before. Doesn’t mean they weren’t proud of it. Could mean you’re trying for that whole abstract genius sort of vibe.”
Weirdo. Too bad. He was ridiculously pretty, but I didn’t do weirdo.
Not that I did anyone. Trust issues tend to slow down even the hint of a possible connection. Trust issues and a bloodsucker of a Norse goddess who could turn a kiss into someone else’s bad dream. I sat straighter, cleared my throat. “Look, your invitation was nice and all that, but I’m getting ready to leave town in a couple of minutes. I’m not worth your time.”
“I very much doubt that,” he said, half under his breath, before giving me a brilliantly white smile. “Take care then.”
Surprised he’d given up so easily, I watched him walk off—couldn’t help it. He moved in long bold strides, wearing his confidence like an invisible cloak. He looked at me once, over his shoulder, as he was leaving.
That irritating fluttery sensation in my stomach stuck around after he left.
“Wonder what music on the lake means,” I said out loud as I cleaned up the ketchup.
The woman in the booth next to mine turned around in her seat. “Sorry. I couldn’t help but hear. Haven’t you heard of the music on Yellowstone Lake?” She pointed to the man who’d found the hair in his food. “We were camping just before this weird snow started. We camp up there a lot, but something was different this time. It was loud enough to wake us up from a sound sleep, and I swear I heard harps or something.”
“They weren’t harps,” the man interrupted. “They were like wood flutes or something. And voices. Lots of voices.” He shuddered. “Creepiest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Well, it’s not as creepy as this snow,” the woman snapped. “I mean, I know it can snow early here but not this early.”
“Dear, it’s snowing everywhere. It’s snowing in Mexico.”
“I’m sorry.” This time I interrupted. “Did you say that you heard music at Yellowstone Lake?”
She nodded. “It’s famous for the ghost music on the lake.”
I