BlackWind (58 page)

“I thought you were getting up,” he protested, bracing himself on his elbows so he did not crush her.

She craned her neck and looked down at his lap. “And I thought you were.” She arched a thick brow. “You need some starch for that package, Reaper?”

He grinned. “Wicked woman.”

“Goes well with an evil man.”

He shifted position so he was lying against her, his belly to her hip. “Shall I show you what evil men do to wicked women, Milady?”

Bronwyn's eyes widened. “Aye, my warrior. Show me.”

“With the greatest of pleasure.”

Sometime near dawn, the storms returned. Lightning crackled across the firmament and the strobe-like flash brightened the room in a harsh blue glow. The window-rattling boom of thunder woke them both. Bronwyn moved closer to the safe harbor of Cree's arms, flattening her trembling body to his.

“Shush,” he crooned, stroking her long hair. “I am here, Beloved.”

Her whimper brought an ache to his heart and his hold grew more possessive.

“I will never let anything harm you, Bronwyn. Never.”

She clutched at his chest, her fingers threading through the hairs nestled there. He could feel the sticky moistness of her sweat along his side.

“Come over the hills, my bonnie Irish lass,” he began to sing in a low, soft voice. “Come over the hills to your darling. You choose the road, love, and I'll make the vow. You'll be my true love forever.”

As the tempest grew bolder beyond their window, his words rose in volume, drowning out the raging rain that lashed at the glass and the thunderous vibrations that shook the building. His left hand moved along her back, stroking her, calming and soothing her; his right hand held her held cradled in the crook of his shoulder, his fingers partially blocking the pulsing of the lightning.

When at last the elements were nothing more than a distant echo, coming back to them from miles away, he realized she had fallen asleep. He smiled, closed his eyes, and would have drifted into a Reaper's dreamless rest had not the sudden intense pain in his back brought him fully awake.

“I am hungry, Reaper,” the Queen stated.

“Not now,” he pleaded, biting his lip to keep the agony at bay.

“I allowed you the female, now you must pay!” the revenant worm Queen demanded.

He knew what She was requesting. The thought of leaving Bronwyn's side to kill for Her sickened him. He also knew that if he did not, it was entirely within Her power to accelerate his Transition. Such a punishment would not only be painful, it would be dangerous for Bronwyn. He had no desire for his lady to ever see him in his bestial state.

He rose carefully from the bed and his lover's side, bending over to kiss her goodbye. He made one stop before leaving, taking a grumpy Ralph with him when he left.

Bronwyn turned off the water and opened the tempered glass door. Patting the wall beside the shower, she fished her bathrobe from the hook and pulled it on. She hated drying off with towels and the thick terrycloth robe cocooned her in warmth while it absorbed the water. She belted the robe around her and, after stepping into her slippers, padded over to the vanity to brush out her hair. But she stopped and sniffed the air.

“All right!”

She put down her brush and headed for the kitchen. Her objective was a steaming hot cup of the coffee she'd smelled wafting through the air. The aroma of the rich brew was a pleasant surprise and she was thankful for Cedric's ability to provide her with that much-needed waker-upper each morning.

The coffeemaker was just finishing its timer cycle, the rich black coffee pooling in the glass pot, but Cedric was not in the kitchen to greet her. Instead, Cree had left a note on the computer by the refrigerator asking her to join him for lunch by the lake when she got back from Mass.

“I'll bring human food, too, along with my usual entrails,” he'd typed and signed it simply “C.”

“Idiot,” she called him affectionately at the reminder of what Sage Hesar thought Cree ate for his lunch.

The coffee beckoned, the aroma comforting.

“And the man makes coffee,” she sighed, opening the cupboard to retrieve her favorite mug.

After pouring herself a cup of the delicious-smelling brew, she carried it into the living room and sat on the sofa, curling her legs beneath her. Her first sip of the scalding liquid made her sigh with contentment.

“The man makes great coffee,” she said and sighed again.

The cup nestled in her hands, she laid her head on the back of the sofa and thought of the night she had spent in Viraiden's arms. After their first wild coming together, he had proven to be a gentle and knowing lover, a true partner in the wondrous act they had shared—giving as well as he received; enjoying as greatly as he pleasured.

Bronwyn lifted her head and took another sip of coffee. As she did, her eyes fell on the box of letters sitting on her desk.

A brief spasm of pain flickered through her heart. She stared at the box, knowing she would have to deal with it sooner or later. Before she had followed Viraiden to the lake, she had made up her mind to read some of Sean's letters to his mother. Now, she realized that would be unwise. The past would be dredged up, dissected, and relived. The agony of what had happened to them would open fresh wounds and, at that moment, she was too happy, too satisfied with the way things were advancing with her and Cree to look back, to borrow trouble from the past.

She put her feet on the floor, the coffee cup on the table, and stood. Her gaze on the box, she walked to her desk and stared at the manila envelopes housed within the cardboard receptacle. She ran a finger along the box's flap, her bottom lip tucked between her teeth. But before she could open anything, her phone rang, surprising her. She doubted it would be Cree and she had no desire to talk to Brian, so she let the machine catch it.

“Bronwyn, are you there?” her mother demanded. “If you are, pick up!”

There was a long pause, then an audible sigh.

“All right, I suppose you went to the nine o'clock Mass with Brian. You know I really don't approve of your relationship with a man old enough to be your father. Well, anyway, I can't wait any longer to tell you our good news.”

Another pause, then a more cheerful tone of voice:

“Bronnie, Neal and I were married in Provence a few days ago. I know we should have waited, but we found this darling little country church and the priest was so sweet.”

Another prolonged sigh.

“Sage was best man and the priest's housekeeper was my maid of honor. I wish you could have been here, but I knew we'd never drag you away from work. I hope you aren't too upset with us. We are deliriously happy and wanted to share our good news with you. When you get this message, please give us a call at...”

Bronwyn grabbed a pen and wrote down the international number in Switzerland where her mother and new stepfather were located.

“We'll be here through Tuesday, then it's off to Norway, Denmar,k and Sweden. Sage, however, should be back in Iowa by tomorrow. You know you could do a lot worse than that sweet young man, Bronwyn.”

Another long pause then a quick “I love you” and a hasty goodbye.

Bronwyn leaned against the desk, not sure how she felt about her mother's marriage. While she liked Neal Hesar and certainly understood her mother's need to have him in her life, Bronwyn felt a slight betrayal of her lost father. She knew that was natural, but all the same, it hurt a little to know her father could be replaced in her mother's affections.

Mentally shaking herself, she was about to return to the sofa and her cooling cup of coffee when she looked at the box of letters. For a long time she stood there, deciding what needed to be done. Finally she let out a ragged breath.

“I'll take out my letters to Miss Dorrie,” she said, nodding. “No one needs to ever see them.”

The decision made, she pulled the first envelope from the box and opened it. The first ten or so letters were from Brian. His name was in the return address. Next came a letter from her—the first of many she'd written Sean's mother—and she pulled it from the stack, remembering well how she had smuggled the letter out of Galrath and who had helped her. There were two more letters from Brian, then in the return address were simply the initials SDC. She deliberately looked away, hearing the blood beginning to pound in her ears.

She remembered that day at St. Teresa's as though it had been yesterday—

“I'm here to enroll me boy,” Dorrie Cullen had said in her thick brogue. “His name be Sean Daniel Cullen.”

“Sean Daniel Cullen,” Bronwyn whispered, staring at the bold initials. She ran her thumb over the initials. Before the tears that stung her eyes could gather and fall, she quickly moved past the letter.

There were five at the back of the stack postmarked Ireland, all from Brian. With a sigh of relief, she stuffed the letters back in the envelope and moved on to the next year's group.

The first letter in the next envelope was from her. She laid it aside, shuffled through several from Brian, an equal number from Sean, another from her, then she stopped.

She knew the exact date Sean had died. That day, month, and year was etched firmly in her fertile memory as the day John F. Kennedy had been slain. She stared at the postmark from that terrible day, her lip quivering. Her gaze shifted to the initials in the return address and she realized this was Sean's last letter to his mother. She lifted it, looked at it a long time, torn between reading what he had written and not wanting to know. No doubt the missive had been penned the day before the tragic events in front of the Flying Wench Tavern occurred. Bronwyn wondered if he had mailed it the morning he died or had dropped it in the post a day earlier. A part of her longed to know, to be a witness to his last thoughts, but another part warned the grief would be unbearable and she had no right to pry.

At long last, she laid the letter lovingly aside, then moved on.

In that envelope, there were seven more letters from her, the rest from Brian. When she opened the next envelope, she started looking only at the postmarks. If the letter came from Florida, she put it aside. If it was from Iowa, she thumbed past it without bothering to look at the return address.

She found thirty more letters from her in the next six envelopes. Some were thin, only a page long; most were two pages. One or two were several pages thick.

“I guess it depended on how sorry I was feeling for myself at the time...”

She remembered complaining about college classes, professors, dorm room conditions, and roommates who didn't have a clue how to keep a room livable. There had been reviews of books she'd read or movies she'd seen that had struck a chord. A particularly moving homily at church might warrant a comment or two.

And there had been clippings that Dorrie had asked to see when Bronwyn had made the Dean's list, or when she had won an academic award of some sort.

And there were pictures of Bronwyn through the years: self-consciously sent and graciously accepted and acknowledged in the letters Dorrie had written back to her.

Opening one of her letters to Dorrie, Bronwyn realized the picture that should have been there had been removed and she wondered what Sean's mother had done with it, with any of the pictures, for when she opened several that should have had photos, she found none.

Neither were they in the box.

“I wonder what they did with her belongings,” she said and made a mental note to gently query Brian.

She knew there would be only seven letters from her to Dorrie in the last envelope. Four had been sent from Florida and the other three from Iowa. She had to look at the return address to see which ones were hers and which ones were Brian's.

It was then her world came crashing to a sudden stop.

Bronwyn pounded on the security headquarters door. The man behind the desk looked up and frowned. “What can I do for you, Dr. McGregor?”

“I'm looking for Captain Cree.”

“This is his day off. He doesn't like being bothered on his day off.”

Digging her fingernails into her palms, Bronwyn stepped into the office. “I neither need nor want your opinion about what Viraiden does or doesn't like, Mr. Cahill,” she snapped, putting all the haughtiness she had ever heard her mother use into her tone. “All I need from you is his whereabouts.”

Douglas Cahill's eyebrows shot up. “He's down at the stables.”

“Which is where exactly?”

“Down where the road into Baybridge t-bones into paved on the left and gravel on the right. Take the gravel road about a mile and a half east. You'll see the farm buildings. Turn in there and keep on the road until it winds ‘round to the stables.”

“Thank you,” Bronwyn muttered.

She turned on her heel and left the office, her jaw clenched, her eyes narrowed. Five minutes later, she left the paved section of the street at the kiosk, and with gray dust roiling up behind her car, took the serpentine curves of graveled roadway out to the farm. She barely noticed the pretty scenery surrounding the crimson-hued outbuildings with their green metal roofing. She drove past a duo of tall brick silos and turned in at the opening of the winding split-rail fence that swept from either side of the farm access road. Absently, she waved at several workmen gathered around a tractor and hay wagon when they greeted her.

The road passed beneath a modern version of a covered bridge perched over a narrow stream, then became shrouded with the branches of old-growth maple and walnut trees as it wound its way east by northeast. The curving road would have been beautiful had Bronwyn's mind been other than where it was. The lush growth and the changing colors of approaching fall barely registering with her. By the time she caught sight of the sprawling stables and white paddock, she was as tense as a coiled watch spring.

She didn't see anyone milling about, and when she stopped the car and got out, went into the dusky interior of the stable, her calls of “hello” went unanswered. Going back outside, she stood by her car, her hands on her hips, and gazed around with growing frustration. There were two horses in the paddock, one lying in the sun and the other drinking at the trough.