Free Of Witches and Warlocks: The Demon Kiss by Lacey Weatherford Page B

softly.
    “You aren’t baggage, Vance. I love you. I’d
do anything I could to help you.” I reached my hand up to cradle
his face.
    “You are helping me,” he replied,
lifting his hand to cover mine. “Just by being here, you’re helping
me more than you’ll ever know.”
    “It isn’t enough, though,” I complained,
removing my hand and turning away from him to stare back out toward
the ocean.
    “It’s enough for me,” he said, coming up to
wrap his arms around my waist. He pressed his lips against my neck
to kiss me lightly there.
    “You need to let me in on things that are
happening with you,” I said. “I don’t like being left in the
dark.”
    He lifted his head to stare out at the ocean
with me.
    “I’m sorry about that, Portia,” he
apologized, hugging me tighter. “It’s just in my nature to want to
protect you. I never meant to hurt you. Sometimes I see you as this
beautiful fragile creature, one I can’t believe is real. I’m afraid
I’ll wake up one morning and find out this was all a dream, one I
created in my head, that you were never really here, or worse, to
find I did something to make you disappear.”
    “I’ll never disappear from you, Vance,” I
replied, “Not as long as there is breath in my body would I ever
leave you.”
    He didn’t say anything back to me, only
pulled me tighter into his embrace and we stood there in silence
for a few moments before he suddenly pointed out across the
railing.
    “Look! Dolphins!” he exclaimed. I followed
the direction of his pointing finger.
    Sure enough, two dolphins were frolicking in
the water, jumping through the air in a fascinating arcing
pattern.
    “They’re so beautiful!” I said. I called for
Brad and Shelly to join us outside.
    They hurried out onto the balcony and looked
where we showed them.
    “This is so awesome!” Shelly spoke with
excitement. “They really are beautiful creatures!
    We watched them for several minutes as they
continued their play, before they disappeared from our sight.
    “That is a good sign,” Vance said softly.
    “How so?” I asked.
    “In magic, dolphins are believed to balance
the energies of the planet through their harmonics. Maybe they’re
here to help balance our energies,” he suggested with a smile,
looking at me.
    “That would be nice,” I agreed. We could
truly use all the balance we could get.
    The four of us headed though the large
sliding doors into the living room.
    “So what’s the plan for today?” Brad
asked.
    “I thought we could go get some breakfast and
then see if we can get some help locating the address on the
shipping invoice. I figured we could go check it out. As far as
after that, I’m out of ideas. Hopefully we can get some type of
lead in our search which will give us a new direction to go,” Vance
said.
    “We need to get some groceries for this
place, too,” Shelly added, going over toward the kitchen. “It’s a
pain to have to go out to eat every single time we’re hungry when
we have everything we need to cook with right here.”
    “That makes sense,” I agreed with her. “Plus
it will make things easier. Let’s go get cleaned up, and then we
can leave to run our errands.”
    A short time later after we were all ready to
leave, we decided to go to breakfast at a restaurant on the pier
near the shopping area downtown. A small boardwalk led out to the
café, as well as forming a deck of sorts around the building. We
sat at a table under an umbrella outside, watching the fishing
boats make their way out into the harbor.
    The morning air was cool and refreshing, and
the food was delightful. We enjoyed pleasant conversation together
while we observed the comings and goings of the locals and other
tourists in the area.
    When we were finished with our food, we paid
and walked back down the boardwalk, crossing the street to go over
to one of the colorful little shops that vendors were set up in at
the plaza.
    “Disculpe. Favor de dar me direcciones a