Love and Dreams: The Coltrane Saga, Book 6 (19 page)

Bryan was being patient, understanding, not pressing her to consent to accept his proposal, but how long would he wait? Each time he held her in his arms, he swore that all he wanted in life was to spend it with her, as her husband. “I love you,” he told her over and over, “and I won’t be happy till you belong to me completely.”

She continued to ask herself if what she felt for him was true love, deep and abiding. On one hand, she felt strongly enough about him to want to be beside him and nurture that emotion and find out if it was enough on which to base a marriage. On the other hand, she was forced to acknowledge there was a strange seed growing within—a seed of doubt that was frightening to even contemplate, growing larger with each dream of Colt. It was as though he were calling out to her from another place, but not from the netherworld.

She knew, also, that if she did not marry Bryan, there was no way she could remain on the island and impose on his hospitality. The emotional limbo could not continue.

If, however, she married him, she had no doubts that he’d be good to her, and she would certainly try her best to make him a good wife. The fact that she could never love him in quite the same way she loved Colt was a moot point. They’d find their own comfortable plateau of love and mutual respect. No doubt there’d eventually be children, too, and that thought was not unappealing. Yet always, when she leaned toward giving in and consenting, the burning question returned to torment: What if Colt were alive? Dear God, it wasn’t fair to her or to Bryan for her to enter into a union with him when there was even the slightest possibility that such a miracle might be true.

The indecision and mental torture continued, and in its midst Bryan began to act differently. He was still as pleasant to be around as always, but he stopped coming to her bed at night. He gave no reason; Jade’s pride did not ask for one. His manner during the day also became a bit formal, and more and more, she would rise to learn from Amelia or Pauly that he’d gone to the mainland for the day…as though avoiding her. It was also along about then, she noted, that his crew returned with his yacht.

This sudden, mysterious behavior caused Jade to realize the time had come for her to make a decision about the future, but that awareness did not make it any easier for her to do!

Then came the nightmare that left her with only one choice to make.

She dreamed that Colt was alive, but this time there was something terribly wrong with him. He was calling to her in anguished desperation, stumbling through a great gray fog that made it difficult for her to see him at times due to the changing density of her vision. Sometimes she could see his face clearly, and what she saw there wrenched her heart with terror—he had no eyes! He groped for her, and she screamed out to him that she was there, she, would help him, be his eyes…but he could not hear her, continued to stumble about pitifully in the smoky mist rising about him. She fought to get to him, but each time she was within distance to reach out and touch him, an invisible hand scooped him up and away, and when that happened, his cries to her became near hysterical, and he sobbed and shuddered in his helplessness. When at last he was taken away, so far as to no longer be seen, his final scream wrenched her to the very core of her being, “If I’m not dead…then please, God, kill me…”

She screamed and screamed again, and even when Bryan heard and ran to gather her in his arms, she kept on screaming. He sharply patted her face and shook her and cried out to her to wake up, it was only another nightmare.

Finally, she was torn from the wretched depths of her hellish hallucination and stared up at him in wild-eyed horror. “I’ve got to know if he’s dead!”

Bryan closed his eyes and prayed he himself was only dreaming. Then he looked down into her face, so etched with despair, and raggedly whispered, “Jade, Colt is dead. You’re being haunted by a ghost. You’re in love with a ghost. Please, please, let it go. Marry me, and put the past behind you. Stop clinging to it, or it’ll destroy you.”

He lovingly pressed his cheek against hers. “You don’t know how much I love you. I thought I couldn’t love any woman more than I loved Marnia, but that was nothing like this. I’ve never felt this way before. God forgive me, but the way I love you makes me actually glad Marnia did die, so fate could bring you and me together—”

“No!” She quickly placed her fingertips against his lips for silence. “Never say anything like that again, Bryan. It’s not right. It…it’s an awful thing to say, and you know you don’t mean it.”

“But I love you so…” He tried to kiss her, but she turned away. He straightened to sharply, almost angrily decry, “I can’t believe you don’t feel anything for me after what we’ve shared.”

“Bryan, you know I care for you,” she began, “but—”

“I’ve left you alone the past few nights in hopes you’d miss me,” he brusquely informed her. “I wanted you to be so miserable without me you’d realize we’ve got to be together for always, and you’d consent to marry me.

“Obviously,” he added testily, “you didn’t mind.”

With lower lip quivering, heart trembling, she shook her head slowly from side to side. “You just don’t understand, Bryan. I do care for you. I think I love you, but I can’t marry you until I know for certain that Colt is dead.”

He ground his teeth together in resolution, the nerve in his jaw tensing. Then he turned his face toward the first peach and golden light of dawn streaming through the open French doors. Finally he forced himself to ask the question he dreaded having answered. “All right, Jade. Tell me. What does all this mean?”

“I don’t quite know,” she said in a small voice, though all the while a new revelation was building within.

“Are you saying you’re going to leave me? Leave the island? Return to Russia?”

Solemnly, she shook her head, then allowed that new revelation to speak. “I’m going on to New York, to find out whether Colt is alive.”

At that, he stared at her incredulously. “You’re joking.”

Quietly, with determination, she informed him that she most certainly was not joking. “And if you’d help me make arrangements to book passage to New York, I’d be grateful.” Suddenly she sat up and reached out to clutch his shoulders as she implored him with her eyes to please understand. “Oh, Bryan, don’t you see that this is something I’ve got to do if I’m ever going to have any peace?

“The dreams I’m having, the nightmares,” she rushed on to explain, “they’re different. I’ve been dreaming Colt is alive, and just now I dreamed that he’s in some kind of trouble and he was calling out to me from somewhere. I’ll never be able to put it out of my mind until I know for sure that he did die that night!”

“Jade, please don’t—”

“You said yourself everyone would presume I was lost at sea, that I’m dead—but I’m not! I’m here, alive. And the same thing might be true of Colt. I didn’t actually see him die. Don’t you see?
Colt might be alive just as I’m alive!
” She searched his face for some sign that he understood.

Bryan sighed, and his shoulders slumped. “All right, tell me this. How do you propose to find out whether he’s alive? Wouldn’t it be easier to just write to his family?”

Quickly she vetoed that idea. “No. I wouldn’t dare upset his father. If he’s been officially informed that Colt and I are dead, to hear I’m alive, and asking whether Colt might be, could be a fatal blow to him. I can’t risk that, and I won’t. I’m going to New York. I know that Colt was supposed to go to work for some important people named Vanderbilt. They shouldn’t be too hard to find. I also remember the name of the bank where he deposited his money, and they’d know if his account had been claimed.”

“Jade, here we have peace, happiness, everything we want. But if we go back to that other world out there, we’re liable to lose it all. We’ll be tempting fate to destroy what we’ve found together.”

She leaned her head on his shoulder, praying he could somehow understand what she was feeling. “If I don’t do this, then I’ll never have peace, and this won’t be a paradise to me.”

He sat rigidly on the edge of the bed, made no move to put his arms about her. “What if I refuse to help you?”

She raised her head to stare at him incredulously. “Surely you wouldn’t do that.”

“I might,” he said coolly. “I love you. I make no apologies for that, and I’ll stop at nothing to make you love me. I’d be a fool to help you leave me.”

Feeling a chill run up and down her spine, she cried, “That would be the same thing as making me your prisoner.”

“A prisoner of
love
.” His taunting smile was frightening.

“Eventually I would hate you for it.” She pushed him away from her, shakily got to her feet, and reached for her robe. Suddenly she despised wearing a dead woman’s clothes, and as the thought assailed her, she realized that the resentment toward him had already begun. She whirled to face him. “I don’t want your help. Just let me go to the mainland, and I’ll take care of myself.”

His gaze upon her was one of pity. “You have no money.”

She lifted her chin in defiance. “I have plenty of money in New York.”

“What if the Romanovs have claimed it by now?”

“That will take time. It hasn’t been quite three months. I think I can get there before that happens.”

“But you can’t be sure.”

“That’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

They stared at each other for a long, tense moment. Finally Bryan conceded. “Very well. I’ll let you go. But first you have to come with me. There’s something I want to show you. If, after seeing it, you still want to leave me and the love and everything else I have to offer, then I guess I’ll just be fool enough to help you.”

She looked at him suspiciously. “What is it?”

He smiled, a kind smile that provoked no fear, as he held out a hand to her. “Come along, please.”

Jade took his hand and allowed him to lead her onto the terrace and across the sprawling green lawn. They had not gone far before she realized they were heading toward her favorite spot. Suddenly her eyes narrowed. Something was different. The hillock was no longer smooth on top. There was a large object there. It looked like a rock of some sort. But why was it there, and how had it gotten there? She asked Bryan, but he did not reply, merely held tightly to her hand and kept on walking purposefully.

They drew closer, and then Jade could see that it was a large stone, perhaps five or six feet in diameter, and it had been placed on the very top of the hillock, like a monument of some sort. The color, she noted, was strange—an emerald green, with a black sheen within.

Bryan’s voice was proud as he said, “It hasn’t been polished yet. When it is, the green will really shine, and it’ll be seen for a long way in all directions from the sea. No boat or ship passing by will fail to see its brilliance when the sun strikes it.”

They reached the stone. Jade reached out to touch it with her fingertips, felt the coolness of its granular surface, marveled at the glassy green luster.

Bryan moved to stand behind her and caress her shoulders with his hands as he quietly told her, “It’s jadeite. From Mexico. I did some research and learned that’s one of the few places where it can be found. That’s why I sent my crew there with instructions to stop at nothing and spend any amount necessary to find a stone this large and bring it back here. I knew you’d always liked this particular spot on the island.”

She turned to stare up at him, bewildered. “But why?”

His arms went about her, and she did not resist his touch. “Don’t you see?” He smiled at her with adoration, blue eyes shining with love for her. “I named my boat for the first woman I ever loved, and now I’m naming my island for the last woman I’ll ever love—the Isle of Jade— for you, my darling. I did it in hopes that it would make you realize, once and for all, just how much I do love you.”

He pressed his lips against hers in a kiss of dedication, and she received it with tender gratitude. Then, regretfully but resolutely, she pulled out of his embrace. “I’ll always be honored, Bryan, but I’ve got to know for sure if I’m free to love you in return.”

He closed his eyes as though steeling himself for the possibility he might ultimately lose her, then, with a sad smile, yielded. “Very well. I’ll take you to New York.”

She shook her head in protest. “No, I can’t let you do that. Just take me to the mainland, and—”

“My way!” he said sharply, firmly. “It has to be done my way, which means you’ll let me take you to New York and look after you till you find your answers.”

Jade knew he was adamant, and something told her that if she refused, he might make it difficult for her to leave. Because of his love for her, he wasn’t going to let her go without a fight. “All right,” she finally agreed. “I don’t think I’ve got any other choice.”

Bluntly, happily, he concurred. “No, you really don’t.”

Again he kissed her, and once more Jade did not resist, but her heart and mind were not there, in his arms, with his lips pressed against hers, his tongue exploring her own.

She was not really there, on the Isle of Jade.

She was mentally projecting herself ahead, into the future, to America, and New York.

Chapter Sixteen

Jade stood beside Bryan at the bow as the
Marnia
sailed through the Narrows. He explained to her the sights as they entered the harbor. To the right, they could see the low, flat land that was New York City, with buildings and wharves visible along the harbor where the masts of ships stood like an endless parade of sentinels. On the left were the crumbling, ancient walls of Fort Wadsworth and, beyond, even more ships lying at anchor, perhaps numbering in the hundreds.