Dawns Everlastin' (former title: Dusk Before Dawn) Book 2 (41 page)

"I never said—"

"It was on yer mind afore
the first fire."

"Speakin' o' which...."
Frowning, Roan despondently pushed his cup away from him, his gaze
unseeingly leveled on the handle. After a moment, he placed his
elbows atop the table, and buried his face in his hands for several
seconds longer.

"No one in these parts will
lend a hand or back to help rebuild the house. This last...the
floors are gone. I-I know you performed a miracle in front of a
few...bringin' Laura back to me, but I talked to a mate o' mine at
the pub, yesterday, and he said no one wants to see the place
restored.

"Lannie, they're just
ordinary people. You and the house represent their darkest fears.
Wha' one person might consider a miracle, anither sees as somethin'
evil."

"No' efter tonight," Lachlan
said mysteriously.

Roan leaned back in his
chair and warily eyed the man. "Wha' have you got
planned?"

"If I told you, it wouldna
be a surprise, would it?" he grinned. He sobered, locking gazes
with his host. "One last promise, Roan Ingliss."

Sighing, Roan
nodded.

"Accept ma gift."

"If it means tha' much to
you."

"It means the world to
me."

"All right, then. Lannie,
are you really goin' on tonight? You could stay—"

"No' wi'ou' Beth." Lachlan
rose from his chair. "I've one last thin' to get off ma
chest."

Roan slowly cranked himself
up onto his feet. "Sometimes, ye're a regular pain in the
arse."

"Ye're playin' faither to
those lads now. Bahookie's a kinder word to use around wee ones,
laddie."

Roan laughed.

Despair shadowed the taller
man's face. He looked away then brought his dark eyes to meet
Roan's. "There winna be time tonight for a proper goodbye," he said
huskily, his expression trying to tell something to Roan, Roan
couldn't grasp. "Despite our history, I'll miss you."

Roan briefly looked off to
one side. It was all he could do to hold back the emotions rising
inside him. "I'll miss you, too. It'll be bloody quiet wi'ou' you
poppin' in and ou' o' ma life."

"Will you remember me kindly
through the years?"

Despite his mental effort, a
fine mist of tears sprang to Roan's eyes. He again looked away, but
couldn't bring himself to say goodbye in this way. Meeting the
laird's probing gaze, he managed a wavering smile.

"I'll make you anither
promise, old mon: I'll always carry you in ma heart."

A tense moment passed. Then,
as if unable to contain himself, Lachlan whisked Roan into his arms
and hugged him. A hoarse breath ejected from his phantom lungs. He
drew back, exposing a tear escaping down his cheek before he began
to fade.

"Thank you, laddie," he
whispered, and vanished completely from sight.

Roan wasn't given the chance
to recover his emotions. Laura entered the kitchen. He abruptly
turned his back to her, and struggled to hold back the tears
pressing at the back of his eyes.

"Roan, are you all
right?"

"Right as rain," he tried to
say cheerily, but his voice cracked.

"Where's
Lachlan?"

"Gone." Heaving a fortifying
breath, he walked to the sink, turned on the cold water tap, and
brusquely cupped the liquid to his face. When the tap was turned
off, he peered upward to see Laura's hand on the white porcelain
handle.

"He upset you," she stated,
trenching her fingers through the back of his hair.

Straightening, he braced his
hands on the edge of the sink, and lowered his head. "No' the way
you think. Damn me, Laura, I hate to see him go so
soon."

"I know," she said in a
whisper of a tone.

Lifting his head, Roan gazed
deeply into her eyes, compassionate eyes that told him she truly
understood what he was feeling.

She rubbed his back between
his shoulder blades, soothing his tensed muscles, his melancholy.
"Did he happen to mention what he planned to do
tonight?"

Roan shook his
head.

"You're concerned, aren't
you?"

"Ma gut's in knots. I don't
know why."

"Does he still want you to
rebuild the mansion?"

"Aye." Turning, he drew her
into his arms. "You feel so good." He tightened his embrace,
snuggling, molding her against him. Her face turned up, the pools
of her emerald eyes capturing his attention. "Have I told you
lately, ye're the maist beautiful womon ever born?"

She wrinkled her nose at
him. "I don't recall you ever saying anything like
that."

"Hmmm. It must have slipped
yer mind."

"I don't think so," she
smiled. She glanced over at the stove. "I was expecting a
four-course breakfast. How disappointing."

He playfully jiggled his
sandy-blonde eyebrows. "I'll make you a seven-course masterpiece if
you promise to sneak back to bed wi' me when the boys go down for
their nap."

Laura released a theatrical
sigh. "If I must."

With a burst of laughter,
Roan swooped her up into his arms. "You minx!"

"I told you," came a smug
little voice, "they do it in the kitchen, too."

Roan's expression went
deadpan as he lowered Laura to her feet, his gaze on the three boys
standing by the doorway. They looked like angels, their hair
combed, their hands folded in front of them, smiles exposing their
teeth.

"We do wha' in the kitchen?"
he asked with a scowl.

"Bumpity bump bump bump,"
Kevin replied in a singsong manner. "Kahl owes me two
pence."

"For what?" Laura asked,
although dreading the answer.

Kevin pointed to Roan. "It
was a sure bet you couldn't last three hours."

Laura and Roan rolled their
eyes in unison then looked at one another.

"We need a bigger house—wi'
solid walls."

Laura regarded her nephews
with an arched eyebrow. "Or earplugs for the little
darlings."

"Perhaps a verra large
spankin' stick," Roan added, gleefully eyeing the now squirming
boys. "Verra large, indeed."

"You wouldn't dare," Kevin
challenged, backing through the doorway.

"I wouldn't?"

Roan lunged for them,
snatching Kahl and Alby in his arms in his pursuit of the oldest
boy. By the time Laura walked to the parlor, Roan and her nephews
were embroiled in a wrestling match atop the couch, Roan trapped
beneath the energetic trio piled on top of him.

Laura braced a shoulder to
the wall and watched them for a time, a wistful, faraway smile
gracing her lips.

A daughter would be
nice,
she thought.
A little girl with Roan's eyes.

A little blond daughter
with Mary's sweet disposition.

Breath-robbing sorrow welled
up in her from the ancient memory.

Mary Blossom
Ingliss.

Tessa's first and most
cherished daughter.

One spring rainy morning,
Mary had left the house, and had never returned. The
sixteen-year-old had vanished from the face of the earth and had
never been heard from again.

The pain in Laura's heart
felt very real, and very new. Tessa—Laura, herself, in some
respect—had never recovered from the loss of her daughter. Her
heart had sustained an open wound of unrelenting grief until
Tessa's body had at long last given out.

It occurred to Laura that
she could search through the records—providing there were any—and
try to unravel the mystery behind the young woman's
disappearance.

Greater miracles had been
accomplished since her arrival in Scotland.

No one could simply vanish
without a trace.

* * *

Winston Connery passed over
the psychic beacon for the third time before coming to a stop. His
hands in the pockets of his trench coat, he coldly stared down at a
depression behind a group of large rocks. Although it was daylight,
he could see the shimmering psychic energy print that had been left
behind. He looked up. A strong image manifested in front of his
mind's eye.

It was night. Late at night.
A man lay on the ground by the house. A woman—the Bennett woman—was
sitting beside the man. She held something in her hand—

Reaching out with his
psychic sense, he zoomed his mind's eye on what she
held.

The dagger he'd seen
imbedded in her chest three days ago.

He watched in trained
detachment as she sliced open her palm with the edge of the weapon.
Her expression, vacant yet deadly, sent a chill through
him.

Why was she looking like
that?

Had she been aware that she
was being watched?

He sank to his knees amid
the very spot the Phantom had knelt. His nostrils flared. His eyes
became orbs of rage.

Focus, he counseled himself.
He couldn't afford to assimilate the killer for too long. It had
proven too costly in the past.

The Phantom had watched her.
Winston experienced the killer's madness, his lust to overpower the
woman.

Fear?

The Phantom had experienced
a rush of fear.

Fear of what?

Bolting upright, he clenched
his fists within his pockets.

The images were gone. His
reluctance to cling too tightly to the prints had caused him to
fail once again.

Gazing across the massive
building remains, he felt his heart rise into his
throat.

Baird House held the
answers. He didn't know why he was so sure but he was. If he hadn't
thought to probe the back of the building the morning after the
fire, he would have been on the plane to Paris.

He would have discovered
that the lead had been false.

The Phantom was
here!

Pulling up his collar over
his red-rimmed ears, he walked back through the woods, to where his
car was parked on the street.

When he was out of sight,
Agnes stepped in front of the second floor window, in the room Roan
had used. Her frown deepened the crevices on her wrinkled brow, but
deepening interest in the young stranger, snapped in her
eyes.

A psychic,
she mused. No wonder she was having such a hard
time reading his mind.

His personality was also a
challenge. On the surface, he appeared controlled, but she had
managed to decipher a fragment of his aura, and in that, had
touched upon the thin shield which barely held back his darker
side. Of course, she was just learning to use these mental powers.
She could have misread him.

But she didn't think
so.

He possessed a conflicting
mixture of personalities and passions. Whether he realized it or
not, he was in desperate need of help—exactly the kind of troubled
soul that a place like Baird House could put on the
mend.

A little love. A little
hocus-pocus.

"You'll be back," she
whispered through a knowing smile.

She vaporized and returned
to the grayness, to collect enough energy to see her through the
'gift' Lachlan planned to offer that night. If he accomplished even
half of what he'd sworn to her, it would be a night like no other
in the world.

C
hapter 15

The greenish, luminescent
mist surrounding Lachlan was all that lit the remains of the
parlor. Agnes found him floating above the partially fire-gutted
floor, in front of the barren fireplace, staring at where Beth's
portrait had been. She paused at the blackened door to observe him
for a time. It still amazed her how human and alive he was. Too bad
she'd had to die to completely banish the blinders she'd worn most
of her life.

His sadness permeated the
room. She sensed it as if she, herself, were experiencing it. She
also felt his anxiety with leaving his home. Only his love for Beth
Staples was giving him the strength to pass on into the unknown.
She understood his doubts. What if there wasn't an actual state of
existence beyond the light? He would not only lose his home, his
Beth, but even his memories of her.

She couldn't imagine an
existence without the companionship of memories. For that matter,
she couldn't imagine a nonexistence at all!

Voices carried into the room
from outside. Hours earlier, she'd stood on the tower and watched
cars slowly passing by, and wondered just how many of the locals
would find the courage to come to the estate.

"Are you aware o' the
gatherin' ou' there?" she asked Lachlan, pointing to the gaping
holes where the windows had been.

It was several seconds
before he turned his gaze to her. He nodded solemnly. "They're
quiet enough."

Agnes folded her hands in
front of her, her gaze flitting over his strong features. "You
could always remain here. Ye're part o' this family,
Lannie."