Shock Waves (26 page)

The weary breath escaped all by itself. A shower. A shower sounded like heaven. And maybe he could use some sleep. God knew he’d had very little since they’d returned to Richmond. The doctors had operated well into the night to remove the bullet that had slammed into her gut but missed all vital organs. They’d expected her to open her eyes within hours.

Instead it had been days.

“It should be me in this bed,” he growled, and hot remorse burned the back of his throat. For years he’d hungered for justice, to see Jorak Zhukov brought down, to see Allison freed from the prison of the past. Both goals had been achieved, but the emptiness inside didn’t go away. It festered.

Elizabeth’s hand squeezed his knee. “But it’s not you, Eth.” Her touch was as soft as her smile. “And as much as you wish you could change things, you have to realize you’re not doing her any good punishing yourself like this.”

“She knew.” Ethan looked from Elizabeth to Miranda. Still, even after replaying the scene on the beach hundreds of times, the truth staggered him. “She knew what was going to happen that day, but she came to me anyway.”

Miranda smiled. “She sounds pretty special.”

His sisters didn’t know the half of it. He hadn’t, either. Not at first.

“Come on,” Elizabeth said, taking his hand and dragging him to his feet. “Just for a few hours.”

She was right and he knew it, but that didn’t make walking away easier. He leaned over the bed and took Brenna’s pale,
lifeless hand, squeezed gently, then brushed a kiss over lips dry
and cracked, despite the balm he’d been applying every few hours.

“Come back to me,” he murmured. “Come back.”

* * *

She didn’t want to wake up. She didn’t want to see Ethan standing like a soldier over her bed, staring down at her through those penetrating eyes of his. She didn’t want to feel his hand on her body, the intensity of his touch.

She didn’t want to feel the ache in her heart, the stinging reality that it was time to say goodbye.

But she had no choice. She had no idea how long she’d drifted, aware of her family on one side, Ethan on the other. Every time she’d gravitated toward her grandmother, her mother, she’d feel Ethan’s hand squeeze hers, hear his low sexy
drawl, and as though he possessed an invisible rope, he pulled her back.

Pain hurt less, her grandmother had told her, when it was fast, like a bandage ripped from her skin rather than eased away
one millimeter at a time. Brenna knew that.

But the sight of him hurt. Her eyes were dry, gritty, the room washed in what had to be early-morning sun, but still she saw him, not standing, but sprawled in a chair dragged close to the bed. She knew he’d gone home to shave at some point, but dark whiskers again shadowed his jaw. His mouth was slightly open. His hair badly needed a cut. His eyes were closed.

She swallowed against a dry throat and wanted to just drink him in, savor the moment. Even in his sleep he looked alive and vital, strong.

Even in his sleep guilt glowed like an unwanted badge of honor.

He wore a wrinkled gray button-down, untucked. His jeans were well-worn, threadbare, torn in a few spots. She wouldn’t have thought the man even owned such ratty clothes.

And in his hand he held her grandmother’s necklace, the Celtic cross dangling from his fingertips.

Deep inside, she sighed. Emotion bled from her heart and tightened in her chest, burned her throat. She hadn’t known. She hadn’t known it possible to love like this, so deeply and intently, so purely. So wholly.

“Brenna.”

The sound of his voice washed over her like a gentle caress. Before her heart could so much as beat, he was out of the chair and propped on the side of the narrow bed, reaching for her hand, despite the IV needle jutting from one of her veins. “God, angel, you’re awake.”

She didn’t want to smile. She didn’t want to feel. But she might as well have tried to block the sun from streaming through the window. “You look like hell.”

He laughed. It was a wonderful sound, one she’d never heard from this driven man, who worked so hard to keep his deepest desires from the world, rich and lyrical, with a hint of lazy Virginia good ol’ boy, and it streamed through every cell of her body. “You look beautiful.”

The words did cruel, cruel things to her heart. “W-water?”

He automatically reached for a pitcher by the bed, poured water into a cup, grabbed a straw and brought it to her dry, cottony mouth. “Drink.”

She did. The liquid felt wonderful sliding down her throat and moistening her vocal chords. “Allison?” she asked.

His gaze darkened. “Let’s not talk about that.”

The scene on the beach played through her mind, like it had so many times as she’d hovered in that foggy place where she was aware of all that happened around her but somehow seemed disconnected from it. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine,” he clipped out. “It’s you—”

“You should be with her.”

Ethan squeezed her hand. “I’m where I need to be.”

Need.
The word was sweet, but not what she wanted to hear.

I can’t give you tomorrow.
Her heart clenched. She knew that.
She’d always known that. And she didn’t want to be a duty to this man, a cross to bear. She wanted—

God, she wanted.

“S-sleepy,” she murmured, and heard the thickness to her own voice.

Ethan’s expression lightened, a smile replacing gravity. “Rest, then.” He leaned over and brushed his mouth over hers. “There’s plenty of time for talking later.”

Groggily she gazed up at him, felt her eyelids grow heavy, saw his image blur. “You … rest … too.”

* * *

“What do you mean ‘she’s gone’?”

The nurse, a tall, dark-haired woman with sympathetic eyes, glanced at the orderly, then back at Ethan. “Just that,” she said. “I came on duty this morning, but she wasn’t in her room.”

Ethan bit back the first thing that came to his tongue, then glared from the vacant hospital bed to the bright batch of sunflowers in his hand. “For the past two days she’s barely been able to talk for ten minutes without falling asleep.” His fingers tightened around the innocent stems of the flowers. “Now you’re telling me she just got up and walked away?”

The nurse winced. “It’s highly unusual.”

Deep inside, something started to tear. “I want to talk to whoever’s in charge.”

“Maybe this will help,” the nurse volunteered, handing him a piece of folded paper. “We found it on her pillow.”

He took the scrap of white and opened it, stared down at the shaky handwriting. Two words. Two little words, but they told Ethan everything.

Tomorrow came.

Swearing softly, he dropped the flowers and walked from the room.

Chapter 15

«
^
»

B
eneath a
bloodred sky, Ethan slowed his car as he ap
proached the wood-frame house deep in the outskirts of Richmond. It would have been easy to miss, if he hadn’t been looking so intently. Oaks surrounded the structure like an army. Even the wraparound, screened front porch seemed protective, designed to shield occupants from the world at large.

“I’m sorry,” Doc Magiver had said an hour earlier. “We haven’t seen Bree since she got back to Richmond.”

The older man had been reluctant to disclose her address, but in the end Ethan had prevailed. Now he turned off his ignition and stepped from the car, let the soft bite of fall wind surround him.

This was where she lived.

He surveyed the land, only a short drive from downtown proper, but seemingly a world away. There was a stillness to the homestead, a blanket of quiet wrinkled only by the occasional rustle of the wind, call of a bird.

It stunned him how hard his heart was beating. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been nervous. It was an emotion, a vulnerability he’d taught himself not to feel. But sleepless
nights had a
way of erasing longstanding lessons. So did reality.

He started toward the porch, acutely conscious of the crunching of his shoes against the gravel. He heard the dog bark first, fast and high, only moments before he saw the blur of black and white.

The Dalmatian rushed around the corner and skidded to a stop in front of Ethan, immediately stood up to slap two front paws against his sweatshirt. “Hey, boy,” he greeted, taking hold of the paws. Then he stared. This dog, with its bright eyes and soft moist nose, with a full belly and a strong, whipping tail, this was the half-starved, beaten pup he’d found along the James. The one he’d taken to Doc Magiver that hot steamy night, when he’d first seen Brenna standing behind a counter, when her whitewashed sapphire eyes had seared into him, when he’d forcibly brushed against her while walking to an exam room.

“Look at you,” he murmured, taking in the dog’s obvious health. He slid a hand to his neck, where blood no longer seeped from a nasty wound. Only scar tissue now, a bright red collar.

The hope caught him by surprise. If the dog was here—

The screen door pushed open with an obvious groan, and a striking young woman emerged to stand on the top concrete step. “Sailer, down,” she clipped in firm tones.

The Dalmatian dropped to all four paws, but kept gazing up at Ethan through wide, expectant eyes. His tail swished with unmistakable strength.

“Sorry about him,” the woman with the long, glossy black hair said. She took another step toward Ethan. “Can I help you with something?”

Familiarity niggled at him as he stared at her. Tall, willowy, dark hair and dark skin … but the eyes. Whitewashed sapphire. And his heart staggered hard. “I’m Ethan Carrington.”

She put her hands to her hips. “I wondered how long it would take.”

The blunt response made him smile. “I’m here for Brenna.”

The sparkle in her eyes, a sparkle he’d rarely seen from Brenna, abruptly faded. “Well, she’s not here for you.”

More blunt words, but these didn’t make him smile. He felt his body go tight. “I’ll wait.”

“Won’t do you any good,” she said, taking another step. The cool breeze whipped dark hair around her face. “Bree’s gone, and I don’t expect she’ll be back anytime soon.”

Ethan just stood there, the dog at his feet and the wind at his face, but saw only the truth. The note. “Tomorrow came,” she’d written, but he could no longer deny what she’d meant.

Goodbye.

He shoved a hand in his pocket where he found her silver chain, and his fingers curled around the weathered Celtic cross. The only tangible proof she’d ever walked into, then out of, his life. He didn’t need the cross, though. He didn’t need that piece of evidence, not when she’d left her mark on every corner of his life. Every corner of himself. He felt her with him with every breath he drew, every beat of his heart.

At night, when he stood at his window and stared into the darkness of Monument Park across the street, he saw only her, as she’d been the last night they’d been together, when she’d given him a gift he hadn’t come close to deserving. Then sometimes he’d see her there on the beach, with the warm breeze whipping the dress around her ankles, that cruel, punishing moment when the plan he’d pieced together had shattered and nothing mattered but getting to her before Jorak had the chance to hurt her.

His throat burned. He stared at the woman who looked so like her, but wasn’t her, and felt the bleed start deep, spread fast.

I stopped believing in tomorrow a long time ago.

* * *

He ran hard. He ran fast. He ran with the single-minded intensity of a man with nowhere to go but an urgent need to get there. He ran with no regard for the exhaustion screaming through his body. No acknowledgment of the cold bite of the wind or the fine mist falling softly against his hot, exposed skin.

Snow, the weatherman had promised. The first snow of the season. Damn early, but Ethan didn’t care. He pushed himself harder, farther, his feet pounding on a decaying carpet of leaves, no longer red and orange from their fiery fall show, but brown and decaying. To his left the James ran unusually fast over the network of flat rocks, and in some hazy place of his mind, he wondered whether the water would bite or sting, or whether he would feel it at all.

Six weeks. It was November. Thanksgiving lurked just around the corner. Then Christmas. Then Miranda’s wedding. His parents were back from Ravakia. His sisters were a blur of constant activity as they prepared for the festivities. They fussed over him, as well, refusing to take a hint and back off.

And still Ethan ran. Jorak was dead. It was hard to believe that the man who had defined Ethan’s life for seven long years had gone down in a gunfight on a beach off the coast of Mexico. Hard to believe that the moment Ethan had craved for so long had passed with barely more than a ripple on Ethan’s life. Hard to believe that too late he’d discovered he’d let Jorak control him all these years. He’d brought the man down, but as Ethan kicked in the last quarter mile of his daily five-mile run, he felt as though Jorak had gotten the last laugh after all.

Night came early this time of year, and the daylight of thirty minutes before had faded into shadow. The trees stretched up against the dark-crimson sky like shadowy specters, naked now, exposed, much as Ethan’s heart had been since walking into the brightly lit hospital room to find the bed empty. An increasingly cold breeze rattled through their branches. Glaring at them, Ethan pushed himself through an invisible finish line.

And went very still.

Very, horribly still.

He could still see her standing there, beneath the branches of the ancient sycamore. She looked small, dwarfed by a mammoth dark-brown trunk that made her look more like a doll than a woman. Dressed all in black she blended with the night, but for the fall of silky blond hair. The dog sat at her feet—

Ethan blinked hard. There’d been no dog that muggy fall evening when his world had tilted on its axis. There’d been only the woman, standing in just that spot, staring at him in just that manner.

The adrenaline that had fueled his run surged anew. He sucked in a choppy breath but didn’t move, just kept staring at the apparition, waiting for it to slip into shadows the way she did almost every night, when he imagined her standing at the base of the monument to General Robert E. Lee across from his town house.

The dog moved. It was a big dog, huge and sleek, with black smudges against a coat of soft gray, almost like a small horse, and it lumbered to stand between Ethan and the woman.

“Gryphon,” she said softly. “Easy, boy. It’s okay.”

Her voice might as well have been a gunshot. Once, the low, throaty sound had burned through him like the moonshine his grandfather had shared with him a lifetime ago, but now the voice slammed into his gut like the shot that had felled her that deceptively beautiful day on the beach.

“Brenna?” He felt himself start to move, felt legs that had effortlessly pounded mile after mile start to buckle. The wind whipped harder, sharper, but no chill penetrated his hot damp skin.

A tentative smile touched her mouth, the mouth he’d dreamed of for six long weeks. “You came.”

His hands burned to touch, but he kept them at his sides. “I’ve been here every night since I found your hospital bed empty.”

If possible, she looked even more striking than he remembered. She’d been pale in the hospital, unnaturally so, but now color softened her cheeks.

“Where have you been?” The question practically ripped out of him. “Why did you go?”

She lifted her chin, let the increasingly cool breeze play with her hair. “Shh.” The soft sound shimmied between them. “I didn’t come here to see the prosecutor.” She met his eyes, revealing calm confidence glowing in hers. “I came for the man.”

The words staggered him. He stopped close enough to touch, but didn’t, forced his hands to stay at his sides, even though his fingers itched to tangle in her loose hair. The big dog eyed him suspiciously.

“I couldn’t let you die,” she said, and her voice was softer now, almost a whisper. “Tomorrow came,” she added thickly, “but I couldn’t stay there on the other side of the island, not knowing what I did.”

Everything came roaring back, the intensity of their night in the abandoned hotel suite, the beauty of the gift she’d given him, the agony of leaving her sleeping on the soft pallet. The horror of seeing her at the edge of the beach.

“I left you there for a reason,” he said, working hard to keep the rough edge from his voice. That wasn’t what she needed.

Her smile was soft, quietly knowing. “It wasn’t your choice to make.” The wind whispered harder, sending blond hair spilling against the side of her face. “It was mine,” she added, brushing it back, all but a strand that clung to her lips. “And when I woke up in the hospital and you were there…” Night was falling, but even through the darkness he saw the shadow cross her face. The pain. “I knew you’d been there all along—and I knew I had to leave. I couldn’t drag tomorrow out any longer.” She hesitated. “I thought it was best if I made a clean break.”

He felt everything inside of him go hard, but banked the reaction. Instead he echoed her words of only a moment before. “It wasn’t your choice to make.”

She winced. “I did it for you,” she said, and God help him, her voice broke on the words. “And for Allison.”

Somewhere nearby, a lone bird wailed against the night. “Allison?”

Her eyes misted over. “The woman you love,” she clarified.

“The woman I—” He broke off the words abruptly and stared down into her upturned face. And knew. That first night fired through him, the prophecy she’d shared, the claim of the woman on the beach. The woman he’d give his life for.

His heart kicked hard. “Angel,” he said thickly, “you’ve got it wrong.”

She shook her head, almost fiercely. “She was the woman I saw on the beach. The one you’d give your life for.”

She’d been right. He’d scoffed at her, accused her of being affiliated with Jorak Zhukov, but all along she’d been right. She’d known, long before there was the sliver of possibility. “If that’s the case,” he asked, needing her to see the
truth,
feel
the truth. “Then why are you here now?”

That got her. She blinked at him, narrowed her eyes as though he’d just asked her to explain the inexplicable. For a moment she looked away from him, toward her right, where the James rushed over the granite slabs. “The dreams,” she said, looking back at him. “They haven’t gone away.” Her eyes took on an ethereal glow that fed some place deep inside. “They’re … more intense.”

For six weeks he’d looked for this woman, refusing to give up hope even when every sign pointed to the futility of his search. She’d left him. She didn’t want to be found. She’d made that clear. He’d screwed up. He hadn’t seen the truth. He hadn’t told her. But now here she stood, and his body burned at her words. “The same dreams?” he asked, even though he already knew.

She glanced down at her Great Dane, who sat patiently and loyally at her feet, then back at Ethan, revealing even more color to her face, a flush much like the night when he’d run his mouth over every inch of her body. “No.”

He did it then, what he’d wanted to do from the moment he’d seen her standing in the shadow of the sycamore, even those fleeting moments when he’d thought her an apparition. He stepped forward and touched her, very gently, a finger to the underside of her jaw. “Tell me.”

She quickly looked away from the heat he knew burned in his gaze. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me.”

“That’s not why I came here,” she said, and her nervousness, uncharacteristic and strangely charming, almost undid him. “I came here for closure.” She looked up abruptly, pierced him with whitewashed sapphire. “I came to say goodbye, to make the dreams go away.”

He felt himself smile, knew the curve of his lips would be dark and lazy. “You’re so wrong,” he said, and couldn’t believe that everything inside him that had been cold had suddenly turned warm. “Allison is a friend and I love her, yes, but not in the way a man loves the woman he wants to spend his future with.”