Countdown (39 page)
“You lie.” She rode the next spasm of pain. “This land is hard and cold and not easy on women. But it won’t beat me. I’ll make it mine. Just like this child. I’ll bear it and raise it and give it everything that I missed.” She lifted her hand to gently touch his cheek. “I’m happy I didn’t miss you, Antonio. Velvet nights and silver mornings. That’s what I told Pia to search for, but there’s so much more.” She closed her eyes. “The other half of the circle . . .”
“Cira!”
“By the gods, Antonio.” Her lids flipped open. “I told you I wasn’t going to die. I’m just tired. I’ve no time to comfort you any more now. Shut up or go away while I go about having this child.”
“I’ll shut up.”
“Good. I like you with me. . . .”
M
acDuff answered his phone on the fifth ring. He sounded sleepy.
“How many children did Cira have?” Jane asked when he picked up.
“What?”
“Did she have just one? Did she die in childbirth?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Tell me.”
“According to family legend Cira had four children. I don’t know how she died but she was a very old lady.”
Jane breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks.” She had a sudden thought. “Where are you?”
“Canada.”
“Have you found Jock?”
“Not yet. But I will.”
“Sorry to wake you. Good night.”
MacDuff chuckled. “My pleasure. I’m glad you’re thinking about us.” He hung up.
“Everything okay?” Eve was standing in the doorway of Jane’s bedroom.
“Fine.” Jane pressed the disconnect. “I just had to check on something.”
“At this hour?”
“It seemed urgent at the time.” She got out of bed and put on her robe. “Come on. We might as well go get a hot chocolate since we’re both awake. You’ve been working so hard that I’ve scarcely had a chance to talk to you since I got home.” She made a face as she headed for the door. “Of course, some of that is my fault. I’ve been going to bed early and getting up late. I don’t know what’s been wrong with me. I feel as if I’ve been on narcotics.”
“Exhaustion. Backlash from Mike’s death, not to mention what you went through in Idaho.” She followed Jane to the kitchen. “I was glad to see you resting for a change. When are you going back to school?”
“Soon. I missed too much time this quarter. I’ll have to do some catching up.”
“And then?”
“I don’t know.” She smiled. “Maybe I’ll hang out here until you kick me out.”
“That’s no threat. Joe and I would like that.” She spooned instant cocoa into two cups. “But I don’t believe we have a chance in hell.” She poured the hot water. “Another dream, Jane?”
She nodded. “But not a scary one.” She wrinkled her nose. “Unless you call having a baby scary.”
Eve nodded. “And full of wonder.”
“I thought the dreams would stop when Cira got out of the tunnel. It seems I’m stuck with her.”
Eve gave Jane her cup. “And that upsets you?”
“No, I guess not. She’s become a good friend over the years.” She headed for the porch. “But sometimes she leaves me hanging.”
“You’re not upset about her any longer.” Eve half sat on the porch rail. “Before, you were pretty defensive.”
“Because I didn’t know why I was having those damn dreams. I couldn’t find any logical sequence that would have explained them.”
“And now you have?”
“Demonidas was on record. He might have had other records than the ones we found. I might have picked up something about Cira from him.”
“Or you might not.”
“You’re a great help.”
“If MacDuff told you the truth about you being a descendant of Cira’s, then there might be an answer there.” Eve looked out at the lake. “I’ve heard there’s such a thing as racial memory.”
“Translated into dreams that I can almost step into? That’s reaching, Eve.”
“It’s the best I can do.” She paused. “You told me once that you wondered if Cira was trying to make contact, trying to stop the use to which her gold was being put.”
“In one of my nuttier moments.” She sat down on the porch step and patted Toby, who was lying stretched out on the step below her. “Not that I’ve had many coolly rational moments since Cira started paying me nocturnal visits. It’s okay, I’ve gotten used to her. I even missed her when she stopped coming for a while.”
“I can understand that,” Eve said.
“I know you can.” Jane looked up at her. “You understand everything I’ve ever gone through. That’s why I can talk to you when I can’t to anyone else.”
Eve was silent a moment. “Not even Trevor?”
Jane shook her head. “It’s too new, just scratching the surface. He makes me pretty dizzy, and that doesn’t help for analyzing a relationship.” She hesitated, thinking about it. “Cira wrote about velvet nights and silver mornings. She was talking about sex, of course, but the silver mornings meant something else to her. I’ve been trying to puzzle it out. A relationship that changed the way she saw everything?” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m too hardheaded. It would probably take a long time before I let myself feel like that.”
“A long, long time.”
Jane wasn’t sure if Eve was talking about Jane or her own experiences. “Maybe it won’t ever happen to me. But Cira was pretty hardheaded herself, and she was the one who told Pia what to look for.”
“Silver mornings . . .” Eve put her cup down on the railing and sat down on the step beside Jane. “Sounds nice, doesn’t it?” She put her arm around Jane. “Fresh and clean and bright in a dark world. May you find them someday, Jane.”
“I already have them.” She smiled at Eve. “You give one to me every day. When I’m down, you bring me up. When I’m confused, you make everything clear. When I think there’s no love in the world, I remember the years you gave me.”
Eve chuckled. “Somehow I don’t believe that was what Cira was talking about.”
“Maybe not. She never had an Eve Duncan, so she might not have realized that silver mornings aren’t restricted to lovers. They can come from mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers, good friends . . .” She contentedly put her head on Eve’s shoulder. The breeze was chilly but brought with it the scent of pines and the memory of years past when she had sat like this with Eve. “Yes, definitely good friends. They can change how you see your world too.”
“Yes, they can.”
They sat in silence for a long time, gazing out at the lake in contentment. Finally Eve sighed and said, “It’s very late. I suppose we should go in.”
Jane shook her head. “That makes too much sense. I’m tired of being reasonable. It seems all my life I’ve forced myself to be practical and sensible, and I’m not sure I haven’t missed a heck of a lot by not letting in a little whimsy. My roommate, Pat, always told me that if your feet are planted firmly on the ground then you’ll never be able to dance.” She smiled at Eve. “Hell, let’s not go to bed. Let’s wait for the dawn and see if it comes up silver.”
BOOKS BY IRIS JOHANSEN
C
OUNTDOWN
B
LIND
A
LLEY
F
IRESTORM
F
ATAL
T
IDE
D
EAD
A
IM
N
O
O
NE TO
T
RUST
B
ODY OF
L
IES
F
INAL
T
ARGET
T
HE
S
EARCH
T
HE
K
ILLING
G
AME
T
HE
F
ACE OF
D
ECEPTION
A
ND
T
HEN
Y
OU
D
IE
L
ONG
A
FTER
M
IDNIGHT
T
HE
U
GLY
D
UCKLING
L
ION
’
S
B
RIDE
D
ARK
R
IDER
M
IDNIGHT
W
ARRIOR
T
HE
B
ELOVED
S
COUNDREL
T
HE
M
AGNIFICENT
R
OGUE
T
HE
T
IGER
P
RINCE
L
AST
B
RIDGE
H
OME
T
HE
G
OLDEN
B
ARBARIAN
R
EAP THE
W
IND
S
TORM
W
INDS
T
HE
W
IND
D
ANCER
COUNTDOWN
A Bantam Book / June 2005
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2005 by Johansen Publishing LLLP
Bantam Books is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Visit our website at
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Johansen, Iris
Countdown / Iris Johansen.
p. cm.
1. Duncan, Eve (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Facial reconstruction (Anthropology)—Fiction. 3. Women art students —Fiction. 4. Women sculptors—Fiction. 5. Adoptees—Fiction. 6. Louisiana—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3560.O275 C68 2005
813'.54 22 2005046403
Published simultaneously in Canada
eISBN: 978-0-553-90141-2
v3.0
