Dawns Everlastin' (former title: Dusk Before Dawn) Book 2 (34 page)

Animal sounds emanated from
her. Roan felt bewildered and lost. Her face was a contorted mask
of hatred. She kicked fiercely at the laird, and ferociously tried
to twist from his hold.

Finally, Roan found his
voice. "Take yer bloody hands off her!"

Uncharacteristically calm,
Lachlan spared Roan a glance. "Tell her to stop afore she hurts
herself."

Roan jerked back in
surprise. "The only harm to her, is
you!"

Casting Roan a disgruntled
look, the laird released her. No sooner was she free, she swooped
down, lifted something into her right hand, and lunged upward.
Roan's blood turned to ice. For several seconds, he could only gape
as she drove the jeweled dagger into Lachlan's chest, again and
again, each thrust more purposeful.

Beth's horrified expression
zoomed into Roan's focus. Tearing his gaze from her, he blinked at
the heinous scene in front of him then rushed forward. Grabbing
Laura's arm, he yanked her toward him, and away from
Lachlan.

In a lightning move, she
turned on him, driving the dagger toward his heart. A hair'sbreath
from the gleaming tip piercing his chest, Lachlan's hand sailed out
and caught her wrist. Then as swiftly from behind her, he swept an
arm about her middle, lifted her off her feet, and wrenched the
dagger from her grasp with his free hand.

Roan's legs threatened to
buckle beneath him. He was dimly aware of Beth at his side, of her
fingers digging into his right biceps. His hearing was filled with
Laura's hissing and Gaelic curses.

Gaelic curses?

Roan forced himself to stare
into the dark eyes intensely watching him.

"Look at her, Roan," he
demanded in a deep, hypnotizing tone. "See beyond the
packagin'."

Roan was confused. What was
Lachlan talking about?
Packaging?
This had to be a nightmare—

Time swept past him, moving
so fast, lightheadedness threatened to keel him over. With every
ounce of willpower he possessed, he struggled to maintain his
footing, and keep his knees locked. The motion slowed. The room, he
realized, looked exactly as it had prior to the fire.

No!

There was a
difference.

To the left of the fireplace
was a vanity, its top covered with feminine toiletries and a gold
hairbrush set neatly placed upon a filigreed, mirrored tray. Vases
filled with freshly cut roses graced the mantel and
bedstands.

More deeply perplexed than
he'd ever been in his life, he looked at Lachlan questioningly. It
was then he noticed a superimposed visage of another woman on
Laura's face. Her hair, too, was different. Parted down the middle.
Long banana curls fashioned with ribbons in front of her
ears.

As though from far away, he
heard Beth cry, "He's not ready for this!"

Not ready for
wha’?

Insanity, was his
guess.

"If you love me, Robbie,
you'll help me to kill him!"

Laura's lips—the
double-version image of them—had mouthed the words, but it had not
been her voice.

Although he had heard her
speak in that exact voice before.

"Kill him!"

Suddenly, Roan was back in
the fire-ravaged room. Numbness weighted his limbs.

"Robbie!" Laura wailed,
tears streaming down her ashen face.

Roan dropped to his knees.
He felt as if the life had been drained from him. Images flashed
through his mind. He desperately wanted to blame Lachlan for them,
to believe the laird was projecting the images, but to deny the
truth now would be to deny his very own existence.

Lachlan released Laura as if
the touch of her now, sickened him. She dropped to her knees in
front of Roan, her arms winding about his neck and holding onto him
for dear life, while her hate-filled gaze dissected the
laird.

"I gave you both every
chance to right the wrongs o' the past," he said, his tone laced
with contempt and pain combined. He gestured expansively. "Tis all
yers once again, but I vow, you'll no' know a day's
happiness."

With a wretched cry, Laura
sprang to her feet and faced him, her fists clenched in front of
her.

"You pathetic excuse for a
man!" she cried, the Scottish accent not present. "You came to my
village and seduced me with promises of wealth! You created the
monster in me!"

"Look into yer own soul," he
said scathingly.

Roan slowly rose to his
feet, standing directly behind Laura.

"My soul?" she laughed
bitterly. "If you dangle a piece of meat in front of a starving
man's face, he's going to grab it, whether it's rancid or not. You
have never known hunger. How it eats away at the lining of your
stomach! Or cold that settles into the marrow of your bones until
it's an effort to get out of bed each morning!

"Nine of us girls watched
our mother die a slow, agonizing death! Nine of us! The one true
light in my life was my Robbie. We pledge to each other when we
were nine years old, then you come along, Mister-I'm-Your-Savior,
and you never once asked if my heart belonged to someone
else!"

"You wanted it all," Lachlan
growled.

"Yes," she
hissed.

Realization slammed home in
Laura's duo-occupied brain. She fell back into Roan's arms, her
face devoid of color, horror defining the contours of her
eyes.

"No," she whimpered, shaking
her head in disbelief. "It's not possible."

Roan could say nothing, only
stare at Lachlan and wonder what was going through his mind. At
long last, the pieces of the puzzle fit together. The truth was
finally out.

"Lachlan," Beth said
achingly, her eyes pleading with him to show compassion to the
stricken couple.

The laird's hard gaze
softened on his woman, softened beneath such a depth of pain, he
didn't have to tell her that it would take some time before he
could forgive her lack of faith in him. He faded away.

Weeping, Beth melted into
the floor, the sound of her misery echoing for seconds
later.

"It can't be," Laura wept,
turning and flinging herself into Roan's arms.

Roan closed his eyes,
murmuring, "Aye, lass, we're back. And we're no better than we were
a century and a half ago."

* * *

Agnes and Borgie Ingliss
were buried side-by-side in a small cemetery in north Crossmichael,
where three other family members lay to rest.

A dark cloud of gloom hung
over the town. Not much had been said aloud about either's death.
Borgie had died in his sleep, roughly about the same time it was
believed that his mother had suffered a heart attack. Some folks
thought it a shame. Agnes had been well-liked, while her son had
been only tolerated for her sake. A growing number of others
harbored deepening superstitions. The renowned curse of Lachlan
Baird fed their fears, instilled beliefs that to even think of it,
was to possibly bring it upon themselves.

Roan, Laura and her nephews,
Ben, and Silas, had been the only ones to attend the double
funeral. In the four days that followed, three neighbors had come
to the cottage to offer their condolences.

In three days, it would be
Christmas.

Laura's hand trembled as she
held out a red glossy bulb to place on the Douglas Fir Roan had
purchased the previous night. Alby and Kahl had strung popcorn and
cranberries. Kevin sullenly sat on the couch, not really watching
or listening, or caring one way or the other about the pending
holiday. A hole existed where his heart had been. He'd been the one
to discover Agnes, and now his small shoulders were burdened with a
secret.

He desperately wanted to
tell his aunt and Roan. But they wouldn't believe him.

A strained smile appeared on
Laura's lips when Kahl began to hum 'Silent Night'. However, it
vanished the instant her gaze fell upon Kevin. Her heart grew
heavier. The boys had been through so much. She couldn't look at
her oldest nephew without wanting to pull him into her arms and
chant that everything would be all right. If only she could. Not
only had he refused to let anyone touch him since finding Agnes, he
also steadily grew more withdrawn. Nothing she said seemed to reach
him.

"Alby!"

Kahl's sharp, scolding tone
brought her gaze to the youngest boy. At the same moment she saw
him trying to insert a plastic candy cane in his left nostril, the
front door opened and Roan entered carrying an armload of firewood.
She snatched the candy from Alby and ignoring his wail of protest,
pulled aside a carton of decorations that was sitting in front of
the wood rack.

"Gimme!" the youngster
demanded, stomping a foot.

Kahl grimaced. "You're such
a baby."

"Am not!"

"Enough," Laura said
wearily, half her attention on Roan as he transferred his burden to
the rack. "Would you like some tea?" she asked him, over-sensitized
to the detachment he'd shown her since the funeral.

"No...thank you."

He pulled off his gloves,
shucked out of his coat, and ambled to the small closet across from
the door. Absently, as if it were an afterthought, he closed the
front door with a nudge of his boot heel.

"Are you hungry?"

He glanced over his shoulder
at her, his dull gaze seeming to stare through her. "No...thanks.
There's some soup left. I can heat it up for you and—"

"We had some a little while
ago."

"And pancakes," Alby
informed, staring at the candy cane clutched in his aunt's
hand.

Kahl snorted. "I'm still
hungry."

Raking the fingers of a hand
through his hair, Roan faced the group. He glanced at his watch.
"How abou' if we make a batch o' Christmas cookies."

Kahl wrinkled his nose. Alby
released a squeal of glee and dashed to the kitchen.

Roan sadly regarded Kevin
for a few seconds. "Kevin, care to give us a hand?"

For a time, Kevin stared off
into space. Then his despondent gaze swung to Roan.

"Kevin?" Laura
prompted.

He shook his
head.

"Come along, Kahl," said
Roan, holding out his hand to the boy.

Kahl militantly stood his
ground. "That's sissy stuff."

Roan arched a brow. "I guess
tha' means you don't want a cookie when we're through."

It only took a second for
the five-year-old to change his mind. Running ahead of Roan, he
disappeared into the kitchen. Roan followed with a leaden gait,
leaving Laura with Kevin.

"Want to help me finish
decorating the tree?"

Kevin remained silent,
staring off into space. Despite the sensation of tears filling her
throat, Laura sighed and seated herself next to him. Hesitantly,
she placed an arm about his thin shoulders and drew him against
her.

"We all miss Agnes, Kevin,"
she said softly, then kissed the top of his head. "Especially Roan.
I know it's hurting him to see you so withdrawn."

"Why do people have to
die?"

His raspy voice painfully
yanked on her heartstrings. "It's part of life, hon. We're born, we
live, and we die. The world would be awfully crowded if no one
died, wouldn't it?"

After a moment, he swung his
despondent gaze up to study her face. "I never got to say goodbye
to her. Not my dad, either."

Tears welled in Laura's
eyes. "I know it must hurt terribly, Kevin."

He nodded.

"But you know, you and your
brothers gave Agnes a lot of happiness during the short time we
were here. That counts for a lot."

"It does?"

A wavering smile graced her
mouth. "She adored you."

Kevin's dreamy gaze shifted
to the Christmas tree in the corner of the room. "She didn't look
happy. She scared me."

A chill speared Laura's
heart. "When didn't she look happy, hon?"

"Last night."

"Ah...you must have been
dreaming."

Kevin soberly met her gaze.
"Naw. I woke up and she was standing at the foot of the bed. At
first I couldn't see her face too clearly. She was kinda green and
like fog."

Swallowing painfully past
the lump in her throat, Laura prompted, "Go on, Kevin."

"Well, she was trying to say
something. I couldn't understand her. She started to cry. Real
hard. And she reached out to me, but I was afraid to let her touch
me."

"Of course you
were."

"Her face got a little
clearer, and she looked like she hurt a lot, Aunt Laura. It made me
feel awful." He tapped his fist to his chest. "I hurt here real
bad, but I didn't cry. I was afraid if I did, she'd try to hold
me."

His chin quivered. Tears
misted his eyes. "I should have let her. I shouldn't have been
afraid of her."

Laura's arms wrapped about
him and held him dearly to her. Tears spilled down her pale cheeks.
"Honey, I'm sure she understood. You're just a little
boy."