Steeped in Secrets by Lauren Elliott

Author:Lauren Elliott [Elliott, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

With one hand balancing the wooden chest in the handlebar basket, Shay steered her bicycle with her other hand through the side gate of the white picket fence surrounding her cottage. She didn’t dare take a breath until the bike, and its cargo, were tucked safely inside the storage shed beside her back stairs. With shaking hands, she removed the chest Pearl had charged her with. Questions zinged through her mind as she struggled to balance it and fish her keys from her front jeans pocket.

White light illuminated the lane behind her cottage, and at the sound of crunching gravel, Spirit yipped, shot across her back garden, and leapt the fence in one surreal motion as a car pulled into Liam’s parking spot in front of his cottage.

“Traitor,” she grumbled. “You brought me to it, and now you can’t even see me through it?” She cursed her four-legged friend, nudged the door open with her hip, and deposited the wooden box on the kitchen table. “Phew, what in the world is in that thing?” But the bigger question racing through her mind was, did she really want to know?

Small pearls of perspiration from her brow cooled her flushed cheeks, and she closed her eyes and slowly exhaled. Her hands rapidly opened and closed at the battle raging between her mind and her heart. Open it or stuff it away somewhere and forget she ever received it? If only the key ring Julia had given her didn’t lie on the table beside it, seemingly taunting her.

Her head won out, and she filled the kettle with water to distract herself, but no matter how hard she tried to ignore its presence, the ornately carved box called out to her. She knew if she opened it, there would be no denying what she found inside. Was this her very own Pandora’s box?

She toyed with the pouch’s cord around her neck, not certain if this box coming into her life was fate or destiny, but she couldn’t shake the sensation that an unseen hand had been guiding her every movement lately. It was eerily like the whispered message she’d received when holding the blue bottle. Look beyond the amber veil.

She turned away, placed the kettle on the stove top, and switched on the gas burner. “Can I do this?” she whispered and risked another peek at the box.

Decision made, Shay shored herself up and took a step toward the table.

The door beside her flew open. An involuntary shriek escaped her lips.

“What’s wrong?” Liam demanded as he burst into the kitchen, Spirit on his heels.

“What’s wrong?” Shay grabbed a chair back to support her wobbly knees. “You just scared the bejesus out of me, storming through the door like a SWAT team!”

He halted, gave her a quick once-over, and then glanced around the kitchen. “But . . . but Spirit was doing his barking-pacing thing again, like he wanted me to follow him, and this is where he led. I assumed—”

She fanned her blazing

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