Somewhere I'll Find You (19 page)

He looked up the hill, but
Seaview
’s roofs were invisible from here, hidden under a cloud of mist and fog.

Even then, Michael was taking no chances.  He waited by a narrow stone brid
ge to see if anyone appeared but a
fter fifteen more minutes
,
Michael decided it was a simple auto breakdown.  Coming out of the water wearing a layer of mud,
he slipped on the
soggy
bank and staggered a moment before catching his balance again.  Cursing the fragile earth in this part of the world, Michael started back up the hill, heading back towards Seaview.  He had gone no more than a few feet, however, when the slick soil on which he was standing gave way.  Cursing a
gain
, he f
ought to catch his balance once more
, swaying wildly in the dark.  Thrown off balance as his ankle struck something hard in the dark,
he fell sideways and rolled down the hill. 
He only had time to curse his stupidity once before his head slammed down against the unforgiving granite of the bridge.

* * * *

Paige paced the living room, her eyes locked on the beach.  She had long since gone through the nail biting stage, moving to muttering a string of graphic oaths. 
Where
is
the damned man? 
Glancing up at the ticking mantle clock, she counted as the seconds swept by.  Outside, boat lights winked on the water, but the winding drive that ran to the house was draped in sheer black.  Something had to be wrong.

Great, now he’s the one needing
to be rescued.  I thought
I was supposed to be the damsel in distress.  I guess I’d better go find him.

Sighing, she fetched her keys before leaving the dubious safety of her house.  The nape of her neck p
r
ickled
,
but with nothing more than imagined fear; when she reached out into the blackness around her, there was
only
the energy of the storm.  Still, she felt
immeasurably safer once she was behind the wheel of her car and
had
the doors locked.

Easing the Cord down the road, she squinted into the miles of fog-swept sand.  Suddenly, something moved out in the darkness, in the lonely silence where no one should have been.

You’re seeing things,
she told herself
, but she had slammed on the brakes nonetheless
. 
Too much coffee and not enough sleep
.  She knew it was only a mile from the cottage to the coast road.  Three turns and then the granite stone marker
that warned of the little stone bridge nearby
.  He couldn’t have gotten too much further.  Talking to herself, she cursed the gift that only worked on a whim.

Still, she sensed him before she saw him, a black blotch against the night.  Had she been driving any faster, she would have struck him. 
Slamming the car into park and t
hrowing open her door,
she leapt out as
fog coiled in
misty swirls
around her ankles.

Leaning against the marker, Michael was upright but swaying slightly.

“Michael?  What happened?  Are you al
l right?” 
Watching as he continued to sway, Paige moved quickly to his side, clasping an arm about his waist.  His body was rigid while he muttered unintelligibly.  Working her shoulder under his arm, she began moving back towards the car. 
“A
little help here would be appreciated,” she muttered under his sagging weight.

His answer was only silence.

“Michael?”

Still, there was no answer.

She struggled with the bulk of him; he stumbled drunkenly, motioning erratically and was little help at all.  Then she felt something warm slide over her fingers, something wetter and thicker than sweat.

Sweet God, he’s bleeding!   No wonder he’s quiet.
  Fighting for calm, Paige staggered forward under his weight, somehow opening the door before he pushed her aside, half-falling into the seat.  Narrowing her eyes, she slammed the door shut, crossing to the driver’s side on a run.  Siding in, she glanced sideways
at him before slipping the car into gear.  He was slumped forward, ignoring the seat belt as he rested on his knees.

Michael seemed to be concentrating on something, trying to form the words.
His desperation batted at her senses like frightened bats until she forced herself to focus on her driving.
  His fingers closed around her wrist while the moon flashed across the windshield, freed from its prison behind a fringe of clouds.

“Stupid – damned bridge
!”  Slumping against her, his eyes slowly closed.

She fought to keep her hands from shaking.  Swinging the Cord around, sand flew alongside the fat raindrops that were beginning to fall.  Slamming back up the road, she veered into a shortcut that skirted the cottage.  But despite the urgency, it took her more than ten minutes, with lightening crackling across the sky, to poke, prod, and push Michael into the house.  Her muscles groaning in protest, she managed nonetheless to stretch him out on the chintz sofa.

Her next thought had been to reach for her cellphone to dial
911, but the approaching storm
had left not only the house draped in black, but also knocked out her
already
unreliable phone service.  “Great,” she muttered, “no phone, which means no medical advice, and there’s a man bleeding on my sofa.”  Thankful for the light from the glowing fireplace, she managed to find a flashlight before attempting to care for the gash in Michael’s forehead.
  It was only after she had cleaned and bandaged the cut did one smoky green eye opened.  “Knew that you’d come – Angel.”  Then his eyes closed once more.

* * * *

He awoke to moonlight. 
As he waited for the room to stop spinning, Michael attempted to process what he was seeing.
 
When
he did, his jaw
clenched
tightly.  In that moonlight, a woman sat sleeping, her black hair a muted contrast to the clean lines of her long gown.  For some reason, the innocence of that image reminded him of candlelit rooms, of satiny-soft kid gloves, and gardenia scented hair.

Images – or memories – reached out to him, but he could sense a great distance between that reality and his.  He blinked twice, trying to focus on what he was seeing as opposed to some fragrance of a memory.

Paige’s dark hair gleamed, lit by flames and a stream of moonbeams.  Her head was angled against the back of an old armchair, while a book lay open in her lap.

Lord, she
’s
beautiful
.

His eyes drank in the sight of her. 
Her slender hands and
silky skin,
her
full high breasts.  Would the
y
fill his hands, he wondered – all that warmth and softness?

Michael cursed softly.  In spite of what she might think of him, he was no playboy.  He was not a man who treated intimacy casually or women lightly.  She had undoubtedly saved his life, so spinning pornographic fantasies
about her was not exactly the way to repay her.  But once begun, the images would not stop.  Visions of white skin tormented him, fantasies of Paige moaning beneath him.  All of them were painfully familiar.  But none of that made any sense.  While her image was the very one who haunted his dreams, everything about her, even her name, was unusual, bright, and new.  Twisting angrily on the sofa, he seized his pillow, all the while fighting hot, deadly desire.

Finally, the
ache
in his head accomplished what raw discipline could not.  Sweat clung to his brow as
pain
, regret, and something more sinister mingled in the dark waves that filled his head.  The
agony
and secrets within his mind, these things that suggested knowledge of some past life, were raising questions in him that shook him to the core.

Part of him wanted to resist, but something else was telling him that the memories were too important to bury.  There were things he
had
to remember.  Somehow, he knew that his life, as well as Paige’s depended on it.  Closing his eyes, he let his mind wander back to another time, another place – another life.

Erik had never been happier.  His days and nights were filled with Jenny.   She let light into all the dark spots of his soul, filling it with sunshine and laughter.  Never had he been healthier
,
or taken better care of himself.  He cared because she did.

Before he had met Jenny, to say that his life had been a mess, would ha
ve been a great understatement. 
His marri
age, of which he rarely spoke
, was in shreds, leaving him with only his work, which
w
as
,
at least
,
something that he loved.  It was what defined him, so that his life still had meaning.  He starred in film after film, filling his days with the chaos and wonder of creating his roles, so that his nights were spen
t in an exhausted haze too great
to allow him to deal with – or even face – his personal demons.

He had been too busy even to acknowledge that his marriage was a sham.  There was nothing there; a black hole filled with indifference
had replaced all other emotions, even anger or contempt.  He and Lily had nothing between them, not even the semblance of a relationship.  Often
,
he wondered if there had ever been one.

Lily, he reflected sourly, was a self-important, self-involved bitch, with very few brains and the morals of an alley cat.  She had absolutely no understanding of his craft, of the demands that it made
on
him
or of his life in general.  Life was simply meant for her to enjoy, at her leisure, and at his expense.

His fame meant little to him, it was merely a by-product of what he did – his acting.  But
his
fame had gone to
her
head.  And his fame had been all there was for her.  When greener fields had beckoned her, she had left without a backward glance.  Not that he cared. 
He was, in one sense, as guilty as she, since he had lost all real interest in her.

Hundreds of times, he had asked himself why he had ever married her.  It was a foolish question, for he knew the answer very well.  He had married her because she was pregnant.  Her pregnancy had resulted in a horrible miscarriage, turning an event that should have been joyous into one that irrevocably altered Lily.