Chapter 4

“What do you think?” Nora asked as she slowly backed the car out of the driveway.  “Normal or paranormal?”

“I hope it’s normal,” I huffed as I adjusted my seat belt, “but, with my luck, it will be paranormal.”

“We really need to work on your attitude lately,” she scoffed.

I shrugged.  She was right.  I’d been incredibly moody and negative since we’d escaped through the portal and returned home.  It was more than the mess with Lance and Killian.  I knew that, but I just couldn’t pinpoint what it was. 

Staring out the window at the row of shabby and ill-kept homes, I went over my life in my mind.  My childhood was something that I considered normal.  I had no recollection of being taken from my birth parents and transported into the future to my new parents.  College was so normal as to be considered dull. The fact that my life was so blatantly average was actually the reason I became a private investigator.  It seemed exciting and full of peril.  I thought that it was until I met Lance and developed a new definition for peril.

“Why so quiet?” Nora asked as she turned onto the main street that would take us to our side of town.  “Did I upset you?”

I shook my head.

“I was just thinking about things,” I said with a wistful note.  “I used to think my life so daring and dangerous.  Then, I met Lance.”

My head slammed against the windowpane for the brief time that her emotions got the better of her and she lost control of the car.  Fortunately, she quickly regained it.

“Will you please watch where you’re going?” I  bellowed as I cupped my forehead with my hand.

“You do blame him for it all,” she said while sucking in air.  “I knew it.”

“I don’t blame him,” I protested. “I’m just saying that since I met him, things changed.”

“Did you ever stop to think that they might have changed anyway?” she asked with angst.  “He didn’t put those supernatural abilities inside you, after all.  It was probably destiny.  He just happened to show up at the same time.”

“You think I’m supernatural?” I chuckled.  “Wow.”

“You open and close portals and can shoot tiny energy balls that look and burn like fire from the palms of your hands,” my friends said with a roll of her eyes and a hint of sarcasm.  “I wouldn’t say that was natural.”

“So, I’m a meta-human?” I giggled.

“Well,” she said as she turned onto the street that would take us to our house with more concentrated effort than she’d shown the entire time that she’d been in control of the car, “since meta denotes something beyond the norm, I guess you are.  At the very least, you’re meta-normal.”

“I’ve never heard of meta-normal,” I mused.

“I just made it up,” she said with a tiny burst of laughter.

I joined her in laughing as the car traveled home with no more near mishaps.

Lance watched us from the portico with his rich  chocolaty eyes as we pulled up the drive.  Seeing his lean, handsome figure resting in such a charismatic, nonchalant manner against one of the thick, white columns as if he hadn’t a care in the world made me think of the male models in magazines like GQ.  With his good looks and physique that clothes seemed to be displayed at their best on, he could have easily been one of them.  I prompted Nora to bypass the garage and park the car on the circular drive in front of the house. 

His sexy physique quickly came to life.

“I understand you two were out assessing a new client,” he drawled as he opened my door and extended his hand to assist me out of the car.

His brilliant white teeth glistened behind lips that were just made for kissing.  They were in stark  contrast to  his sun-kissed flesh.  My body gave a slight tremble with ecstasy as I slid from the car and stood close to him as he closed the door with a swift and steady movement.

If he noticed my reaction to his nearness, he made no indication of it as he looked across the top of the car at Nora. “Well, Miss Nora, so you’ve become a private investigator?  How daring of you.”

“Your southern accent is quite pronounced today,” Nora teased as she walked around the car to join us.  “Going back to our roots are we?”

With a broad and jovial smile, he took in the grandeur of the old house with his blue eyes and said, “I can think of nothing I’d like more than to go back to the time when this old house was at its finest.”

“I don’t know,” Nora said as she moved toward the front door. “I think it’s pretty grand now.”

“Ah,” he said with a nod. “This old gal will never lose her grandeur.  She’s just not shining with the brilliance she had a few centuries ago when she was filled with the bustle of life.  I do believe these old walls thrive on that.”

Nora’s nose wrinkled as she turned to enter the house.  Just before she disappeared through the door, she playfully tossed over her shoulder, “I forgot what an old man you really are.”

His hand flew to his heart as he sucked in air and gave her a look of mock dismay.  I slipped my arm through his and leaned my head on his shoulder for a moment.  It was nice to see how well he and Nora got along.  They were two of my favorite people, after all.

“It doesn’t matter to me that you’re as old as Rip-Van-Winkle,” I teased in a low tone. “I love you anyway.”

“Just for the record, you happen to be my age,” he said with a chuckle.  Then, with a puzzled look he added, “Rip-Van who?”

Ignoring his remark about my age, I urged him to start walking into the house as I murmured, “I thought that you kept up with the times as you passed through them.”

“I kept up with it enough to be able to fit in while I searched for you,” he informed me.  “Who is this Rip fella?”