Page 125 of The Nanny and the Beefcake
“Did your mum like taking yoga classes?” he prodded gently.
“The funny thing is, I don’t think she ever took an actual yoga class. She did take a meditation and stretching class for women going through chemotherapy at one of the community centers in Denver. I used to babysit my brothers at the park right outside while she took the class. And while she didn’t practice yoga, she was a spiritual person—quite intuitive.”
“How so?”
A warmth radiated from Libby, lighting her up in a comforting golden glow. “Like me, my mom knew things about people—like when the twins were about to wake up from a nap or if I’d had a rough day at school and could use a hot fudge sundae. She’d give these feelings colors, and I could see them, too. I didn’t think much of them until I began studying yoga and learned that we were reading people’s energy and perceiving their auras.”
“Like how there was all that blue and purply-violet around us in the police car?” he asked.
“I was surprised when you told me you noticed the colors.”
She wasn’t the only one.
He sat back, recalling the intensity of the night and the powerful yearning to kiss her. “I think me seeing colors has to do with you and me. It happens when I’m around you. And it’s usually the same hue—violet and—”
“Blue,” she finished. “It’s violet and blue when it comes to us.”
“Yeah, do you know what it means?”
He’d never believed in auras, visions, or vibrations controlling people’s fate, but that assertion had been more than challenged since Libby entered his life.
“It could mean a lot of things,” she considered. “Blue signifies intuition and peace. Blue could also represent having the blues and feeling down, but I don’t get that with us. Sadness isn’t the driving force. Yes, it’s there, but the blue I see reads more like healing.”
“And the violet?” he rasped.
Mischief sparkled in her amber eyes. “Power.”
“Well, that makes sense for me,” he joked as the mood lightened.
“It can also be a sign of becoming one, a kind of coming together to heal and grow spiritually,” she added, and her words stopped him right in his tracks.
Was that even possible for someone like him? Could he heal? Did he want to heal?
He ignored the questions. “Does seeing auras run in your family? Can your dad see them?” he asked, and the offhand comment fell from his lips like a grenade.
And bollocks!
Why did he mention her father?
Then again, maybe it wasn’t such a sore topic.
Nope, it was.
Libby’s serene expression dissolved as her features hardened, and his gut churned. If at that very moment a genie had offered him one wish, he’d ask to erase his careless words. He’d felt her energy shift when the cops had asked if she’d known of Connolly Lamb. Even then, in the insanity of that situation, he’d perceived her disdain for the man.
“The only thing my father can see,” she seethed, “is the direction that points toward selfish, self-serving choices.”
Double bollocks!
The last thing he wanted to do was upset her and throw off this beautiful equilibrium they’d created on the step.
He had to fix this.
And the only way to do it was to come clean.
Nineteen
Erasmus
