Fantastical (Fantasyland #3)(104)

“Not very nice?” he asked back, his voice soft.

“To talk that way,” I explained, “about, um… me.”

He stared at me through narrowed eyes then he leaned back an inch. “Well, f**k me,” he murmured. “She’s got feelings under all that ice.”

“No,” I whispered, “she doesn’t, but I do.”

His head jerked then he asked, “Come again?”

I stared at him. Then it came to me.

I had a previous address and a first name, Clarabelle.

And he was a cop and cops had access to databases that had all sorts of information.

And it would kill me, being around someone who looked like Tor and sounded like Tor, but if I could convince him to help me find Clarabelle, I was going to do it.

The problem was, I had no freaking clue how to convince him.

“I’m in love with another man,” I said quietly.

“Well, congratulations,” he replied, his mouth not quite but almost curling in a sneer.

My mind whirled and then I hit on it, a tactic that had worked before with my boss Dave.

Soap opera.

“And,” I tried, “you knew Rosa, not Cora. I’m Cora and Rosa is my twin sister. Identical twins but she’s the evil twin. She’s a pain in my ass. She was watching my place when I was –”

“Jesus,” he cut me off, his brows going up, “seriously?”

I stared at him.

Okay, clearly Noc was not as bubbleheaded as Dave, my boss, who bought the amnesia story without a peep.

Shit.

“No, that was a lie,” I admitted.

“No shit?” he asked sarcastically.

Shit!

Then I decided to stall in order to come up with a different strategy so I asked, “Do you want a beer?”

“No, I wanna talk about what you’re gonna do about our kid,” he answered.

“I think you need a beer,” I told him.

“No, babe, I need to discuss this mess so I know what I’m dealin’ with. What you gotta get is, I’m a cop. You have the kid, can’t say that’ll make me happy, but I’ll take care of my kid. What I won’t do is bust my ass payin’ a shitload of child support so you can have fourteen hundred dollar shoes. And you’ll also have to get off your lazy ass to do somethin’ other than countin’ cards and goin’ shoppin’ ‘cause my kid’s Ma is not gonna be doin’ that shit. None of it. You get me?”

Hmm. Seemed he had Cora’s ticket too.

Not good.

“I’m getting you a beer,” I stated and started to the kitchen.

He caught my arm as I walked by him and I turned and tipped my head up as he exploded, “Fuck, Cora, I don’t want a f**kin’ beer!”

That was when I announced, “I’m in love with a man from an alternate universe. It isn’t your child I’m carrying, it’s his. He looks exactly like you except he has a scar on his face…” I turned fully to him, reached up and touched his temple lightly. His face, I noted distractedly, was frozen with shock but my eyes moved to my finger against his perfect skin. “Starting here,” I whispered then curved my finger down his cheekbone, “and ending here.”

“Fuckin’ shit, you’re insane,” he whispered back, his eyes, when mine shifted to them, were moving over my face.

But I didn’t really hear him. I was transfixed by his face, so like Tor’s, so beloved, but not Tor’s.

“He’s a warrior,” I whispered. “He has scars here,” I moved my finger to touch his chest where Tor’s scar was, “and here,” I kept whispering, touching another place on his chest, “and… here.” I finished with another touch and tipped my head back to look from his chest to his eyes. “He has your eyes, he has your voice and he has half my soul.”

Noc didn’t speak, just looked in my eyes.

So I kept going.

“I know you think it’s crazy, it sounds crazy, it is crazy, but it’s true. There are two worlds, the same people in each world. Cora from that world came here, you know her, not me. I’m not cold, I can’t count cards. I don’t even know how to play poker. And I’m nice. I make people laugh. They care about me. When I was there, I met you but the you of there. And I fell in love with the you of there and I’m having your baby…” I shook my head, “His baby. He was the man your people saw but I’m guessing they didn’t get a good look at him or they would have told you he looks exactly like you.”

His head jerked, his gaze grew intense, my heart leaped and I leaned closer to him.

“They did,” I whispered. “They said he looked exactly like you.”

“They thought he was me,” Noc replied, his voice quiet.

“Did they get video? Pictures?” I asked hopefully because if I never made it back to Tor, at least maybe I could convince Noc to give me the pictures.

“Only of the back of his head,” Noc answered, I closed my eyes and leaned back an inch. “Babe,” he called and I opened my eyes. When I did he said not a word, just stared into my eyes then his gaze moved over my face before it came back to me. “Jesus, f**k,” he murmured, “you believe this shit.”

“Only because it’s true,” I replied then I asked softly, “Standing here talking to you, am I anything at all like her? And looking around my place, is it anything at all like it was when she was here?”