Fairytale (21 page)

But she hadn’t been in the house, and when
he’d looked outside, he’d heard her. Her anguished cries to a deaf
god had blasted the anger from Adam’s mind.
Where do I belong?
What the hell am I doing here?
Pain arcing through the dawn sky
so clearly it hurt to hear it.

And the questions...he didn’t want to analyze
them now. He told himself that it was normal for a person who’d
never known her parents to feel an identity crisis now and then. He
didn’t believe that was the case, here, but he told himself he did,
and focused on getting to where she was. Talking to her.

Taking her pain away...

No. Not that. Just...just...

He followed the sound of her voice...catching
sight of her just as she dove from the cliffs like an eagle
swooping down on its prey.

“Jesus Christ. . . Brigit!”

He ran to the ledge as well. Crying out in
anguish when he saw her body pierce the lake, holding his breath
while she was hidden from view by the sapphire waters, and then
nearly collapsing in relief when she surfaced again.

Like a mermaid when her head emerged. Like a
pagan goddess as she tipped her head skyward, eyes closed as if to
receive the kiss of the sun.

And then she began swimming. Adam shook his
head in disbelief. Then realized he shouldn’t. He’d sensed from the
beginning that the staid, reserved Brigit was only a mask she wore.
That the real woman within was a hellion. Well, he’d been right.
Though even then, he’d underestimated her.

He caught sight of her again, diving under
the waves. She surfaced some yards out, and dove again. And again.
And again, each time swimming farther from the shore.

“Brigit,” he said softly, wondering if she
were even aware how far out she’d gone. “Brigit! Can you hear me?”
He shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. She didn’t respond,
didn’t look back. Damn, she hadn’t looked back since she hit the
water. Not once.

Okay...there...she was stopping, floating.
Resting. Maybe she was okay. But, damn, she was a long way out. He
turned his body, not his head, and started heading toward the path
that led down to the shore. Keeping his eyes on her as he decided
to swim out in case she needed help.

But then a wave hit her and swept her under.
She came up sputtering, and he knew she’d finally seen how far away
the shore was. He couldn’t see the panic in her face. But he could
feel it. He could feel it as surely as if it were his own. And he
didn’t even stop to wonder how the hell that was possible.

She stroked toward shore and was swept
underwater again. And Adam didn’t hesitate. He turned back toward
the cliff, heeled off his shoes, and ran, peeling the shirt over
his head as he went, and letting the wind take it from his hands.
The jeans stayed where they were. No time for those now. He hit the
edge running and pushed off hard. And then his body was knifing
downward at what felt like the speed of light. Icy-cold water met
him head on, engulfing him, chilling him through to the bone by the
time he curved up to the surface again. And then he poured every
cell into making his strokes powerful, making each movement of his
body propel him forward as fast and as far as possible.

And he’d just about reached her when she
vanished beneath the surface. Like a rebellious mermaid struggling
against her fate, only to be yanked into the depths by some
overbearing sea god. And then he was diving down, deeper, stroking
madly, eyes wide and straining to see her through the
ever-darkening water.

And then he did.

Stroking straight down, he caught her under
the arms, yanked her to him, got his legs under him again. His
lungs burned. He couldn’t hold his breath much longer, but he
wouldn’t let her go. He wouldn’t. He might not find her again. His
legs pumped. He moved his entire body to propel himself upward. And
finally his head emerged in an explosion of droplets...and hers
with it.

Holding her from behind, he maneuvered her
head onto his shoulder as he dragged gulps of air into his starved
lungs. His legs still working to keep them afloat, he gripped her
chin with one hand, turned her head a little, stared down at her
beautiful face. Satin skin. Huge eyes, closed now, thick long
lashes beaded with lake water. Rivers of it running down over her
throat.

He put his lips to hers, tried to breathe for
her. It was awkward, all but impossible to do while trying to tread
water. Three breaths;. Then he struck out for shore. And in a few
seconds, he paused to force his own breath into her body again.
Then swam some more.

He’d nearly reached the shallows when she
choked and began twisting in his arms.

He only held her tighter, and stroked onward
until his feet reached bottom. They were still a hundred yards from
the shore, but he could walk now. He got his footing and picked her
up, carrying her the rest of the way.

They emerged from the water like that. Adam
still searching her face for the signs of life that had subsided
into stillness again, still frantic for her. And Brigit just lying
in his arms, head thrown backward, long hair trailing in the water
as were her arms.

He laid her on the shore. No sand. Cayuga’s
shore was grassy down here, rocky in other spots. With barely time
to catch his breath he bent over her again, covered her mouth with
his, pushing air into her chest until it rose.

Seconds ticked by, and then he felt her
moving. Her hands came up, threaded into his hair, tugging gently
until he lifted his head away. She rolled weakly to one side,
choking, gagging, spewing lake water into the grass. And then she
sat there, head hanging down between her braced arms.

“Are you all right? Do you need an
ambulance?”

She said nothing. Her back to him.

“What the hell were you trying to do,
Brigit?”

Silence.

He gripped her shoulder, pulling her around
to face him. “Talk to me, dammit! What the hell is going on with
you! You could have got yourself killed out there! Or is that what
you wanted?”

Her eyes seemed to recapture a bit of life
then, and her chin came up a little. “I was coming back. I was
coming back...I just couldn’t make it.”

“Why?” His grip on her shoulders tightened,
and he shook her a little.
“Why,
Brigit?”

She shook her head slowly. “It was
stupid...but it wasn’t what you think.”

“Jesus, Brigit, at this point I don’t even
know
what I think.” He wrapped his arms around her in abject
relief, held her hard to his chest, and ran his hands over her wet
skin. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

She straightened away from him, and a worried
frown puckered her brows. Her palms came up to run slowly down
either side of his face. “Adam,” she said, and it was no more than
a whisper. “Don’t care about me. Whatever you do...don’t
care...”

And then her back bowed with a spasm of
coughing, and her shoulders shook with it. He pulled her to his
chest again, and just held her there. “What the hell made you think
I cared, Malone? Adam Reid doesn’t care about anyone except Adam
Reid. Anything else is freaking lunacy.” He only wished to Christ
it was the truth.

He scooped her up in his arms and headed back
for the house, taking a longer but safer path up the steep, rocky
hillside. And he didn’t bother trying to silence the voice inside
that told him every word he’d just uttered was a goddamn lie. And
had been, since the first day he’d laid eyes on her.

Turmoil. So much of it in his eyes. And his
face. Even his hair showed signs of stress. It stuck up a little
crazily from the many times he’d shoved his hands through it. He
was sitting in a leather armchair, just staring at her, when she
awoke some hours later. Those eyes seemed to be eating holes
through her, intense. Burning. He sat slouched, one elbow propped
on the chair’s arm, and his hand buried in his hair.

He’d put on dry clothes. A pair of pleated
black trousers with knife-sharp creases. A clean white t-shirt, and
a black suit jacket. The jacket hung open. He had classes today,
she realized. But he was waiting...

He hadn’t shaved yet this morning. Soft
golden bristles coated his face. A shade or two darker than his
hair. He looked tired. So tired.

Brigit blinked, realizing she’d been staring
at him as intently as he was still staring at her. She looked away,
tried to take stock of herself instead of him. Her lungs hurt. Her
throat hurt. Her head hurt.

Her clothes were damp. He’d laid her on the
sofa in the study, built up a fire in the hearth. But he hadn’t
undressed her. Just wrapped her in so many blankets she couldn’t
help but feel warm.

She looked at him again, and trembled because
he was still staring at her that way. Disturbing.

“You should change.”

His voice coming so suddenly amid the silence
made her jump.

“I’d have done it myself, but. . .” His lips
thinned and he shook his head. “I think we both know what would
happen if I were to undress you. With my hands, I mean, instead of
just with my eyes.”

Her face burned. She brought her hands to
it.

“Why are you here, Brigit Malone? What the
hell are you trying to do to me?”

“Adam...”

“No. No more lies. Just tell me. Dammit,
Brigit, just open your mouth and tell me.” He closed his eyes,
laughed just a little, a bitter, harsh sound. “Jesus, Brigit, did
you really think you could convince me you were some kind of
supernatural being?
A fairy
for Christ’s sake?”

She sat up straighter on the sofa, fear
somersaulting in her chest. He wasn’t making sense. “I never said I
was—”

She stopped speaking when he pulled her book,
her
Fairytale,
from behind his back, and laid it gently on
the coffee table. “Never said it. But set it up so I’d find all the
clues. What did you do, Brigit, throw my old plants out and replace
them with new ones when I wasn’t looking? Hmm?”

“Adam, I don’t know what you’re—”

“So I was supposed to see the suddenly
thriving plants and immediately think of that Celtic text. I was
supposed to remember how it said animals and plants respond to the
presence of fairy folk, and I was supposed to wonder.”

She frowned at him, shaking her head slowly
from side to side.

“And that story someone planted with the old
nun. Now that was the kicker, that really was. Brilliant. Did you
think of that, too, Brigit?”

She felt her eyes narrow. “Old nun?”

“Oh, come on, you had to know I’d check up on
you. You had to know...That’s why you left that story with the nun,
for me to find. No mother. No birth certificate.”

“You checked up on me?”

“I had a P.I. do it.”

She was stunned, shaken right to the core.
But she knew, at once. “Mac Cordaix,” she whispered.

“He talked to this old nun, Sister
Ruth...”

“Sister Ruth,” she echoed, her voice a choked
whisper.

“So old she’s easily persuaded to forget
about the privacy laws. She told the story of twin girls with
apparently no past, left at the altar of a church. Twin girls...who
just happen to have the same names as the ones in the fairytale you
told me. The motherless fay princesses whose mortal father brought
them to the human world.”

She shook her head, slowly getting to her
feet and letting the blankets fall to the floor around her.
Automatically, she grabbed her precious book and held it to her
chest. “I told you the story, Adam. I told you myself...but what
difference does any of it make? It was just a story. It wasn’t
real.”

He shook his head, looking as if he wasn’t
entirely in agreement with that statement. “If it isn’t real, then
someone went to a lot of trouble to make me think it was. It’s
almost as if this thing has been planned from the day you and your
sister were left at that...”

He stopped speaking at the thump her book
made when it hit the floor. His gaze went from it, up to her face,
and she tried to close her mouth, tried to stop her eyes from
watering. She lifted her hands to him, gripping his t-shirt in
trembling fists. “I have a sister?” She searched his face, trying
to see, no longer caring about anything else, breathless and
hurting, but desperate to know. “A
sister?”

“You didn’t know?”

She blinked, choking on tears. “I...Sister
Mary Agnes told me...things...about a sister. But I thought...I
thought it was something she just tacked onto the
Fairytale.
Something to make it more real to me. She pretended to believe I
was one of them. I guess she thought...” She released his shirt,
lowered her head. “I believed it...for a while. Once I was old
enough to realize it was only a story, I thought
all
of it
was a story.” Lifting her eyes to meet his once more, she went on.
“I tried checking my records once, but the lawyer I spoke with said
it was impossible. They’re sealed—”

“Your records were destroyed in the fire,
Brigit. But according to a retired nun who claims she was there at
the time, you had a twin sister who was adopted almost
immediately.”

His voice had lost the accusatory ring. And
his eyes had taken on a wide, wondering expression, She sank
backward, until she was sitting on the floor. “A sister.”

“You really didn’t know. You really didn’t
make any of this up, did you?”

She said nothing, just sat there, stunned.
Adam rose and came forward. He stood close to her, towering over
her, his hands on her shoulders. “Why are you here, Brigit? Why did
you come to me?”

She blinked and lifted her eyes. “I can’t
tell you that.”

“Then—”

“No. I can’t leave, either. Adam...” She drew
a breath, fought for strength. “You saved my life today. And now
you’ve given me...given me a reason to go on...”

“Your sister.”

She nodded. “I—” A sob interrupted her, but
she fought it and began again. “God, I can’t believe it. Bridin is
real. She’s real.”