Dawns Everlastin' (former title: Dusk Before Dawn) Book 2 (23 page)

Then Kahl moved into her
line of view. The next moment, he flung himself into her arms and
wept against her bruised shoulder.

Her vision zoomed in on a
figure precariously balanced on a window sill on the second
floor.

Roan!

Getting to her feet and
clutching Kahl's hand, she inched her way through the thickening
horde of spectators. She stopped a few yards from six men holding
taut a blanket to catch him.

"Jump!" one of the men
shouted. "Hurry, mon! We've a catch!"

Laura wanted to scream.
Behind Roan, she could see a wall of fire moving toward him. She
wanted to turn back the hands of time and go back to that first
night of the accident.

With all the strength she
possessed, she called out, "Roan! Don't be afraid!
Jump!"

She waited a moment, then,
"Roan, please! The men down here will catch you in the
blanket."

He cast off, sailing into
the air. Laura's heart swelled and became a weighty inanimate
object behind her breasts until he bounced off the blanket and hit
the ground.

Wood creaked from every part
of the house. Fire roared, reaching for the heavens.

Trying to suppress coughs,
she led Kahl along, following closely behind the three men dragging
Roan away from the house. Behind her, small explosions went off.
Window panes exploded outward from every side of the
house.

"Laura!"

Tearing her gaze from the
men placing Roan atop a blanket and covering him with coats, Laura
looked to her left to see Alby pull free of a woman's hold on his
hand. He ran to Laura, his arms opened wide. Despite her pain, her
weakness, she lifted him into her arms and hugged him
tightly.

"Laura, Laura," he chanted,
his little arms wrapped about her neck.

"It's okay, hon. It's okay,"
she wept. "Kevin—" She looked into the boy's eyes and felt her
blood plummet to her feet. "No. No...."

Whirling to face the house,
she released a tortured cry. "Kevin!" Her gaze searched the sea of
faces around her but not one remotely looked like her oldest
nephew. "Kevin!" She cried out to the crowd, "There's still a boy
in there!"

Placing Alby on his feet,
she knelt beside Roan's semi-unconscious form. "Roan! Roan, did you
see Kevin? I can’t find him! Roan!"

Roan opened his eyes. After
several moments, he was able to focus somewhat on Laura's
features.

"Kevin?" he
choked.

Laura burst into tears and
drew the boys in her arms closer against her. "I couldn't find him.
And I couldn't reach you."

"Stand clear!" a
rough-voiced man ordered.

The people standing
shoulder-to-shoulder on Roan's other side, moved out of the way for
a large man. He went down on a knee, a beefy balled hand resting on
a hip. "Roan, laddie. It’s Ben. Yer pub mate. Can you hear
me?"

"Aye," Roan wheezed. "I'm
no' deaf."

Resisting the hands trying
to keep him down, he sat up. Coughs seized him. Ben's hand
none-too-gently clapped him on the back several times.

"Take it easy, mate. You
swallowed some smoke by the looks o' it."

"Jamey.... Ma
son—"

Reality cruelly returned
home to Roan. He stared into the rounded face of his old friend,
and felt a swell of tears lodge in his throat.

"Jamey's gone, mate. But you
saved the lad here."

Roan squinted at Laura then
at the back of the boys' heads she kept pressed against the hollows
of her shoulders.

"Kevin," he said. He was
about to push up to get on his knees when excruciating pain razored
through his left arm.

"Ma arm's broken!" he
gasped, then doubled over during a coughing fit.

"Lucky it’s no' yer back,"
Ben said gravely. He looked at Laura then again at Roan. "She
claims one o' the lads didn’t make it ou’," he said thickly. He
glanced up and scowled, and bellowed to the crowd pressing closer
for a look at Roan, "Get back! If you can’t lend a hand, go home,
the lot o' you!"

Roan.
"Roan."

In front of the curious
spectators, Beth materialized and immediately knelt to one knee in
front of the new laird of Baird House. "Are you all
right?"

Roan nodded. With Beth and
Ben's help, he got up onto his feet. Neither he nor Beth noticed
the sickly look of shock on Ben's face, or the awed expressions of
the strangers filling the driveway.

"I've got to get Kevin,"
Roan insisted, finally beginning to feel like himself again, in
spite of the pain racking his body.

"Lachlan's searching for
him."

Blinking hard, Roan looked
into Beth's troubled eyes. "Can he help him?"

"If it's within his power,
he will," Beth said, her voice cracking with emotion.

"Kevin," Laura whimpered,
rising to her feet with a boy sitting on each of her
hips.

With his right arm, Roan
reached out and urged Alby to come to him. Surprisingly, the boy
clung to Roan's broad neck.

Laura, who had not realized
Beth had actually materialized from thin air, turned in the
direction of the house and uttered, "Please, God. Give me a second
chance to do right by them."

Roan stepped to her side.
"Lannie will find him. Have faith, Laura. We must have
faith."

Sobbing, she laid one side
of her face to Roan's chest. "It all happened so fast!"

"Aye, lass. I know," Roan
soothed, absently planting a kiss on the crown of her head. "Thank
God you two made it ou' okay. Kahl? Ye're no' hurt, are
you?"

"Where's Kevin?" the
five-year-old bitterly demanded.

Roan cast a fearful look in
the direction of the house. "Comin', laddie. Lannie will save him.
I feel it in ma bones."
Dear God, make it
true. For us all, make it true!

Tongues of fire lapped at
the night through the desolate portals of what had been the
windows. A chimney on the west side of the house began to crumble.
Flames reached high into the midnight sky from several of the
rooftops.

"Lannie," Roan said in a
prayerlike whisper. "I'll promise you anythin' if you just bring
Kevin to us, alive and unharmed."

Fed by the broken gas lines,
the flames grew until the manor's stonework exterior could barely
be seen. Not a murmur stirred among the spectators. All eyes were
riveted on the destructive element consuming the region's most
famous house.

Laura's legs weakened,
forcing her to lower Kahl to the ground. She wanted to lean
completely into Roan's powerful body, and weep herself into
forgetfulness. She'd never been a dreamer or a believer in the
powers of prayer. She didn't even know where to begin and
self-loathing ate away at her stomach.

She closed her eyes for a
moment, opening them when murmurs began to circulate around her.
She glanced absently at the faces then in the direction their
attention was focused.

The fire. The destruction
of flesh and bone, history and dreams.

Then, amidst the blaze, an
image was seen slowly emerging.

"Lachlan!" Beth cried
joyously, her diaphanous form moving toward him as he lumbered
toward Roan and Laura. They, as well as everyone else, remained
frozen in shock when Lachlan and Beth came to stand in front of the
anxious couple. In Lachlan's arms was a wide-eyed Kevin, who, for
the first time in his life was absolutely speechless.

"The saints be wi’ us," Ben
muttered, hastily blessing himself as he stared wondrously into
Lachlan's taut face.

Joy overcoming him, Roan
released a sob and sank to his knees. He hugged Alby tightly with
his good arm, then with a kiss to the boy's cheek, set him on his
feet. Lachlan placed Kevin down, his gaze never wavering from
Roan's ravaged features. Kevin endured hugs and kisses from his
aunt before he turned to stare for a long moment into Roan's
tear-filled eyes.

Although Roan suspected
Kevin had started the fire, he reached out with his right arm and
drew the boy against him. "Thank God," he repeated, over and over,
until Kevin stepped back and pointed up to Lachlan.

The crowd inched closer. No
longer was the manor the center of their attention. It was the man
who'd walked through the flames, unscathed, carrying a boy in his
arms who also appeared untouched by the wrath of the blazing
inferno.

Beth proudly peered at
Lachlan's profile. She could feel the pull of the grayness tugging
on her, but she clung to this world, relishing the rise of emotions
emanating from Lachlan.

Laura rose to her feet, her
wide eyes drinking in the strange couple. Behind her breast, her
heart thundered, drummed in her ears, her throat, the center of her
brain.

A portly woman came through
the crowd and beelined for the children, gathering them into her
arms and holding them to her sagging bosom. "The bairns are cold.
I'll take them to ma car to warm them up."

Laura was too rattled to
object. She'd seen the master of Baird House walk through the
flames with Kevin, but her mind refused to accept it as reality. In
an absent gesture, she helped Roan to his feet, and stood close to
his side as he and the laird stared intensely into each other's
faces.

"Thank you," Roan said in a
barely audible voice to Lachlan, and made a helpless gesture with
his good arm. In the next second, Lachlan was embracing
him.

Another hush fell over the
crowd.

Lachlan held Roan out at
arm's length and searched his face, a question in his dark eyes.
The laird was beginning to lose his physical integrity, fluctuating
between the two worlds.

"Dusk afore dawn, laddie,"
he said with a crooked smile. Stepping back, he drew Beth's fading
form into his arms, and together they vanished into the
night.

Mixed emotions pummeled
Laura. Awe. Wonder. Utter joy. Disbelief that the boys' ghost had
been real all along.

No...
ghosts.
Beth Staples, too.

And Laura had thought Roan
insane.

Her world began to ebb away
from her and she fainted.

For several seconds, Roan
stared down at her as if disbelieving she had fainted. Then his own
experience and his own pain, caught up with him. He collapsed
alongside her, unaware of what a romantically poetic image the two
of them presented to the crowd.

* * *

He had convinced himself
that he would always feel as numb as he felt now. Numb inside. Numb
outside. Four days had passed since the fire. It seemed like a
lifetime. Two lifetimes.

The rocker gently swayed to
and fro beneath him, in front of a warm, cozy fire in his Aunt
Aggie's red-brick fireplace. The skin beneath the cast on his left
arm itched. At least the break had been clean. Considering what
could have been, he should feel damn lucky, but he didn't. He was
grateful that Laura and the boys had survived, although to look at
the bruises and cuts on her face and body, reminded him how close
she'd come to death. But he wasn't at all grateful for his own
life. Countless times he'd questioned his reasons for jumping out
the window.

Cowardice.

He'd been afraid to
die.

Worse, he'd been terrified
to experience the agony of the flames as had his wife and
son.

"Roan, ma dear, have some
tea to warm yer insides."

His gaze swerved at the
sound of Agnes' soft tone. He studied her wrinkled visage for a
moment then shook his head and again stared into the
flames.

"You've got to pull yerself
from this depression." Her eyes filling with despair, she sighed
and perched herself atop a faded oak stool to the left of the
rocker. "She's leavin' this day."

His dull gaze swung to her
face.

"Borgie and Ben are goin' to
take them to Edinburgh."

A slow frown materialized on
his brow.

"Borgie?"

"Aye. Ben's got tha' big
German truck that'll take the rough roads. You might want to say
yer goodbyes to them, Roan."

"The lads are afraid o'
him."

"Borgie?" Agnes smiled. "No.
They're still jaggey, is all."

Roan's frown darkened to a
scowl. "I don't trust Borgie wi' Laura."

"Fegs, why no'?" Agnes
gasped.

"He tried to rape
Beth."

"Who said such a
thing?"

"Beth," he replied dully.
"It’s why Lannie attacked him and why his hair is white, Aunt
Aggie."

"How can you sit in ma home
and defend tha' devil?" she snorted, rising to her feet.

"He's no' so bad." Roan cut
his gaze back to the fire. "In maist ways, he's just a
mon."

"He's touched yer
brain!"

"No, Aggie. He gave me the
house." His pained gaze lifted to search the incredulity
brightening her eyes. "His precious house and his
worth."