I nodded. "It's not out of the realm of possibility. You make it incredibly difficult for me to keep my feelings in check. But...if that day doesn't come, you have to move on. We have to keep it in mind that this is temporary."

"Until you change your mind."

I gave him a sad smile. "A part of me really hopes I will."

He glanced around the backyard for a moment before asking, "So, I guess you won't be coming over tonight then?"

"I think I really just need some time to think things over."

Nodding, he said, "All right."

Not long after he'd left, Grandma pottered to the back porch and took his empty seat. "Phew! What a gorgeous man you've got there, Kenna. If I were sixty years younger, I'd make a meal out of him!"

That cracked me up. "We're just friends," I told her.

"The hell you are. The way he was looking at you, it fair caught my panties on fire."

Brian Murray, a man so hot that he sets granny-panties aflame, I thought with a case of twitchy lip.

"He is pretty good in the sack."

"I bet he is. Why are you two only friends then?"

Why indeed? "Because I'm just not ready for more right now."

"Well, when you're finished, I wouldn't mind a crack at him."

Ripping a very unladylike snort of laughter, I told her, "I don't think he could handle you, Grandma."

By mid-August, work at the clinic was in full swing. It was certainly more work than Gavin and I could handle on our own, but there weren't many people available with our credentials. We'd contacted all of our fellow students in our graduating class, but they had really good jobs as well. Rita was working her own bony ass off. She was looking for, at the very least, a decent deep-tissue massage therapist to join our team.

Things with Brian had steadily grown stronger, and I hadn't backed off as much as I had in the past with him. It was becoming more and more comfortable thinking of him as, if not my boyfriend, then certainly the guy I was dating. We'd even started holding hands, like, in public. He made me happy.

Lili had proven to be pretty civil about it. I thought Alys had told her to back off and shut up about Phil. I couldn't say she'd accepted it, but it wasn't as though she didn't like Brian.

In any case, Brian and I wouldn't spend much time together during the week, but we practically lived together on the weekends, and it had gotten so much sweeter between us. This weekend, however, I was staying home with my girls. Brian had to work the late shifts tonight and Saturday night. Even if he wasn't though, I'd be hard-pressed to go to his place this weekend.

The past few days, Grandma had been complaining of feeling cold. It was fucking August in New Orleans. Cold had no business being here at this time of year. It was sweltering.

She'd refused to go to the hospital, but she'd agreed to go to the doctor next week, and I had gotten her an appointment on Tuesday with her practitioner. In the meantime, in an attempt to warm her up a bit, I'd made her favorite super spicy seafood gumbo, which had turned out to be a little too spicy. Even Lili's Hispanic eyes had started watering, and she'd glistened with a sheen of spice-induced sweat.

Draping Grandma in some blankets, Alys, Lili, and I plopped down on the couch and watched Gone with the Wind, her favorite movie. Lili busted out our three-foot Pyrex bong, Sir Speedy-he gets the job done-and the four of us got nice and baked. I loved watching Grandma hit the bong. There was something so wrong yet so completely right about it at the same time.

Ever since the day she'd asked me to stop hiding the weed, she and I had opened up to one another. I'd always known she loved me, but my mother had always been the true love of her life. It was as though the love she had had for Mom had transferred a bit over to me now, and I felt that level of cherishment. It was good to feel that again.

Cold or not, Grandma seemed to be in a happier frame of mind than she had been in years. She'd started to let go of her grief last year, and it'd lifted the heavy sense of depression that had been hanging around the place for the last six years.

We were all a bit teary-eyed and sniffly when the movie ended.

"I think I'm going to head to bed, dears," Grandma told us.

Alys helped her to stand while I gathered the extra blankets for Grandma to have in bed with her.

"'Night, Grandma Betty," chimed Lili cheerfully.

I followed Grandma back to her bedroom next to the staircase with my arms full of blankets.

"I don't know why I'm so cold." She sighed.

"Well, we'll find out next week. You feel all right, otherwise, yeah?"

"I do. Nothing hurts, not even my back."

She was slow to crawl into bed though, looking stiff and weary. I tucked the extra blankets around her, wrapping one around her shoulders. I had a few theories myself about how and why she felt chilled, but I would rather have an unbiased physician take her vitals and draw some blood for testing.

"Will you stay with me awhile?" she asked.

I happily lay down next to her, resting my arm across her abdomen.

After a few minutes of silence, she said softly, "I miss your mother. I've been feeling it more and more as of late."

"But you seem so much happier," I said.

"I have been. It's been a joy, having this time with you and Alys and Lili, too. I've watched you girls become beautiful young women...especially you, Kenna. I'm so proud of you, of everything you've accomplished for yourself."

"Thanks, Grandma."

"You know that I love you, don't you?"

I hugged her a little more tightly, not much though. She had gotten quite frail.

"Yes. I love you, too."

She grew quiet again, and after a little bit, I wondered if she had fallen asleep. Shifting my weight slightly, I was about to get up when she took a deep breath.

"Kenna?"

"Yeah, Grandma?"

"Whatever it is you're waiting for...it's going to happen-and soon, too."

"Wha-what?" I was not even sure I'd heard her correctly, but my heart started to race, and blood rushed loudly to my ears.

"Your mother was convinced that from the time you'd met the little Deveraux boy, he was the only one for you, and you were meant for him."

"Mom had a lot of convictions-"

"And they all came true, didn't they?"

"She wasn't psychic, Grandma!"

"She was something though. She knew before her heart was dying that it would be what failed her. She knew it years in advance. She knew the day she met your father that she was going to have his daughter. She always knew so much. It was something she learned from her father."

Grandma rarely spoke of her late husband. I thought the day he'd died, he had taken a part of her with him. She never had a serious relationship with another man after him, had never wanted to be with anyone other than Morgan Craddock. She had had a beau here and there-I never said she hadn't needed to get laid-but nothing had ever gone beyond having a bit of fun and sex. Morgan always had-would always have her heart.

"He practiced yoga and meditation?"

"Not so much yoga, but yes, he meditated daily. His mother strongly believed in it. She had learned it from her parents, and she had passed the practice on to her children. It was an important part of their heritage. I'm happy to see that you carry it on."

Always, I found my Cherokee heritage fascinating. I'd loved hearing the stories my mother told about Morgan and his family when I was a kid. He'd never seemed like a real person to me, but that had just made my grandfather that much cooler. He was a mythical figure of legends.

Grandma turned her head so that she could look into my eyes. That weird sense of knowing that I had gotten before when I looked into my mother's eyes on that birthday so long ago resurfaced as I gazed into Grandma's dark brown eyes. I had known this woman before. Over and over, we had known one another through lifetimes again and again and again.

"The Deveraux boy-he's got what it takes to bring you to life. I know you find it hard to believe in such things. I used to be the same way before I met your grandfather. But they listened to the world on a frequency that many people don't even realize exists. I get the feeling that if you're patient, you'll find out just how right she was."

"And what about Brian?" I demanded. "It's taken me so long to finally get to the point where I feel ready to let him in, let myself fall for him."

"Why do you think that is?"

"Because my mother once told me someone else was The One!" I said hotly. "And because I love her so much, I believed it! That kind of shit doesn't exist."

"Oh, but it does. The moment I met Morgan, I knew he was The One for me. When your mother laid eyes on Sigmund, she knew he was The One. Just because it doesn't happen for everyone doesn't mean it doesn't happen."

"It's fucked up if it does! What about how Brian and I feel for each other?"

"Honey, you can decide to go ahead and fall in love with him. If you do, I truly believe you can be happy. But he'll never make you feel alive. He'll never encourage the spark inside you like little Philip can. It's not like you don't have a choice."

Little Philip...he's not so little anymore.

I wondered if she had any idea of what he looked like now.

"Just be patient a little while longer. Don't make any decisions on the matter."

"I've waited long enough," I told her flatly. "Not once has Phil tried to contact me at all, Grandma."

"Have you tried to contact him?"

"No."

Suddenly, I wondered why that was. Why haven't I tried? Why did I just sit here and wait? Why haven't I taken the initiative?

"I think you had to find out who you were first before you lose yourself to someone else. That way, you never forget who you truly are, how strong you really are on your own. And you're not just strong, Kenna. You're a power to be reckoned with. Never forget that."

I like that-a power to be reckoned with. I'll have to remember that one.

In silence, we lay like that until I finally drifted off-comfortable in my own skin, if not in my head.

"You met him-The One!" My mother laughs, dancing around me, while I'm rooted into the ground, upside down.

My arms are aching. The roots of my hair are aching, too. My head feels fit to burst. For six long years, the blood has pooled in it, making my feet numb. I try to wiggle my toes, but I only feel the painful sensation of them. After being asleep for far too long, they prickle viciously.

"I can't exist like this!" I scream. "I'm done! No more!"

"What did I tell you, my Little Zephyr, my little breath of fresh air, my little cool breeze, my mighty gust of love?"

"Don't call me that!" I snarl.

I'm struggling so hard, straining against my own limbs, against how hard and wooden they've become. With all my might, I push and pull, tugging on my roots. My fingers and wrists slowly responded beneath the soil, trying to uproot myself.

"What did I tell you? What did I tell you? I told you!" she roars, throwing her head back.

Beneath me, the earth trembles, shaking harder and harder with each second that passes. The soil falls away from my fingers, my wrists, my forearms.

What did she tell me?

"When you try to break freeeee!" Her voice sings, and I can almost see the vibrations of it going out into the universe, calling something close.

"I can't stop thinking about you!" I hear his voice. "I can't stop wanting my fists in your haaaair!"

It's coming from everywhere! It's above me, below me, pulsing through me. It surrounds me, jump-starting a rush of adrenaline, and I'm able to move my waist, planting my deadened feet onto the ground.

"...pulling back your head..."

"No!" I scream. I can't feel my legs. They're so painfully numb. I tug and tug at my arms, pulling them out of the reluctant ground. It wants to hold me hostage, so he can come and take me whenever he wants.

"...making you beg..."

"Fuck you!"

"Ba-ha-ha-ha-ha!" my mother cackles madly. "I've called him down on you, Zephyr! The Dark God of the Universe isn't going to let his Baby Girl escape again!"

"She has a choice!" Grandma calls out from the shadows. "And she's a power to be reckoned with!"

"There is no choice!" my mother shouts. "She is his!"

The blood surges through my legs. I can feel them. I shoot forward at a dead sprint into the jungle, into the wild grass and bushes and trees. I'm running straight for the Plantation House. I shouldn't be. He's there. But I can't make my body, my feet obey- I slam into a huge, strong warm wall, and it wraps itself around me.

He whispers, "Don't go anywhere."

The sound of my own breath being sucked violently into my lungs awakened me, and I bolted upright. My heart was pounding, and I was panting and sweating as though I'd run a great distance uphill. My lungs were burning with it.

Where the hell am I?

Grandma's bedroom.

My eyes were fighting to adjust to the lack of light, slowly seeing the filter of early dawn through the curtains.

Shit, I'm going to wake her up.