Timeless Moon (33 page)

"You're welcome." Carly hugged her fiercely.

Josette
would have pulled back, but Carly held on. "I need to ask you a favor." The words were a bare whisper of air. There was no way Rick could hear it from where he was standing by the trunk. She loosened her grip, and
Josette
leaned back enough to look in the other woman's eyes. They were dark and wet with tears that threatened to spill over.

"What do you need?"

"If Raphael finds out I asked
—" She swallowed hard.

"He won't find out from me."
Josette
assured her.

"We need a healer. Even if only for a little while. Raphael's got some talent, and God knows he's trying his best, but Betty was badly injured during the birthing yesterday. I'm one of only two other alphas in Albuquerque. Our people don't even have enough power to heal themselves, and they don't dare go to a regular doctor. Raphael's helping you because it's the right thing to do, and he'd be furious with me if he thought I was trying to use what he's done to blackmail you into helping us, but
Josette
—I don't know what else to do." The tears were falling now, streaming unheeded down her perfect features. Her voice was tight with strain as she pleaded.

She patted Carly's thin back. "I'll talk to Amber. She'll know what to do."

Carly pulled back and then grasped both of her hands in a trembling grip, squeezing hard. "Thank you! You have no idea how much that means to me
…
to our whole pack."

"I can't make any promises,"
Josette
warned. "You do realize that."

"Just try. Please."

"I win." Reaching over, she gave Carly's hand a reassuring pat. Then she climbed out to join Rick. He'd removed their luggage from the trunk.
Josette
gathered up her bags from the ground in front of him, watching as Carly pulled away from the curb to drive quickly away.

"What was that all about?"

"They need a healer. Raphael won't ask and didn't want her to, but they're in trouble since Betty hurt herself last night."

"Shit."

"Rick." She met his eyes. "I want you to promise me that if something happens to me, that you'll see to it Amber gets them their healer. They've helped us so much during this."

"Nothing is going to happen to you." He answered gruffly.

"You don't know that." She sighed. "Neither one of us knows that."

"Well, if it does I still won't be able to help her. They'll have to have gone through me to get to you."

She answered that the only way she knew how, by
going on tiptoe and kissing him. It was just a tender brush of the lips, but she tried to let him know with that small touch how much he meant to her. She loved him. God how she loved him. He was an empath. Surely he knew, could sense what she felt for him.

"The look on your face," he whispered the words softly. "There aren't words to say how I feel when you look at me like that."

"I love you, Rick."

"Yeah, me too."

They both had their hands full of baggage, so they really couldn't do anything more, and there were no other words that needed saying. So the two of them went into the airport to face the lines, the bother, and the flight to Atlanta.

The recycled air
humming through the airplane vents was filled with the ammonia scent of panic. Rick knew not all of it was Josette's, although he supposed she accounted for a good portion. She held onto the armrests with a death grip and very determinedly kept her eyes averted from the windows, with their view of floating clouds and the ground oh so very far below. He heard the crunch of plastic cracking and glanced over. She was damaging the armrests. Slowly, deliberately she forced each individual finger to let loose of the plastic.

"I'm sorry." Rick shifted in his seat so he was facing
her once he had her hand firmly resting in her lap. His expression was serious. "I knew you didn't like flying, but I didn't think it would be this bad."

She gave him a
look,
and he chuckled. "Here, hold my hand."

She shook her head as she once again closed her eyes. She was quite possibly too terrified to move. But then she spoke. "I'll break it."

"It'll help you feel better." He intentionally changed his voice so that it hinted at a hidden meaning behind the words. "The right touch can be wonderfully reassuring."

Her eyes flew open as he began to push some very intoxicating emotions her way. He was an
empath,
after all. He could project emotions. He was surprised he hadn't thought of it earlier. Of course, normally he wasn't dealing with a full-blown phobia. But he needed skin contact to take the edge off of this terror.

She held out
her hand, trying as hard as she could to keep it from shaking. The minute his skin touched hers she felt the warmth of magic flowing over her, wrapping around her like a warm fluffy blanket. Instead of panic she smelled bread baking. The knotted muscles in her back and shoulders began to unclench, and she felt herself sinking back into the seat. Her frantic heartbeat slowed and steadied until it matched his.

"Better?" He brought her hand up to his lips and kissed her knuckles.

"Much."

"Good. I don't like seeing you so miserable."

She met his gaze easily now. So long as she kept her eyes away from the window and concentrated on the man next to her she would be okay, maybe
…
she hoped. Taking a slow, deep breath she made herself look him directly and felt the warmth and reassurance pour over her again.

"Thank you."

"Does that make up for making fun of you earlier?" He moved until he could whisper directly in her ear, his warm breath tickling the sensitive hairs there.

She thought about it for a minute. "If you can manage this all the way to Daytona, I'll forgive you anything you've
ever
done wrong."

"What a deal." His smile was practically heart-stopping, and now that she could sense things beyond her own panic she noticed that the stewardess and more than one of the female passengers were reeking with lust and glaring daggers at her.

"You're making quite an impression." She spoke softly, so that only he would hear.

"There's only one woman on this plane whose opinion matters to me, and she's sitting right next to me."

It was the perfect thing to say. The type of line she'd expect to hear from a cad
—what was the term
now? Ah yes, a
player.
He certainly looked like a player in that outfit, and while he'd been a little self-conscious at first, he seemed to have settled into it comfortably.

"Sit back and try to relax," he suggested. "We've got about another half hour before we arrive."

A half hour sounded like forever, but she tried to relax, to not fight the emotions he was pouring into her. She had just refused the flight attendant's offer of a drink when her perceptions shifted.

The sign above the doorway read Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport. People were moving purposefully past with their luggage in tow, most looking annoyed and frustrated. Her host stood between the doors to the restroom and the shoeshine stand. "What the hell is taking her so long?" He turned his arm to pull back the sleeve of his suit jacket, showing a starched white shirt cuff and elegant Rolex. 2:14
p.m.
She'd been in there more than ten minutes already. How long did it take to go to the toilet and "freshen up" for Christ's sake
—particularly when she knew he was out here waiting?

He was just about to walk over there and call through the doorway when she emerged. There was no mistaking her
—
not many statuesque brunettes were strolling around the airport in a tomato red silk dress and three-inch heels. But rather than come over to meet him at the agreed spot she started

walking purposefully in the opposite direction, the heels of her shoes clicking sharply against the tiled
floor.

"Janice! Janice!" What in the hell? He was gathering up their bags to go after her when he saw something move. There was a flash of agony in his ankle. He tried to cry out, but couldn't seem to get any sound past the frantic pounding of his heart. He fell to the floor, but he didn't feel the impact. His senses were dimming, but he heard a woman's shrieks coming from the bathroom and thought he saw a snake slither into hiding behind the shoeshine stand.

"Josette
…
honey?" She could hear Rick's voice, as though from a distance. He whispered to the flight attendant that his companion was prone to petit
mal
seizures, that it was nothing to worry about, she'd be all right in a few minutes.

"Are you sure?"

"I
—"
Josette
blinked her eyes as dramatically as she could. "Oh! I had another one didn't I?"

"Yes, you did." Rick looked relieved that she'd heard, understood, and was back in the present. "But it's okay, sweetheart. Are you all right?"

"I
…
I think so. But I do think I'll have that drink. Do you have any orange juice?"

The attendant, who smelled strangely of fresh white glue, poured the beverage. As she passed the
clear plastic cup over to
Josette
she asked, "Are you
sure
you're all right?"

"I'll be fine. Thank you. This is so embarrassing."
Josette
didn't have to force herself to blush. People all over the cabin were staring. It was humiliating. Thank God Rick had managed to come up with a reasonable excuse for her odd behavior.

The pilot announced they were ready to land not long after. The attendant had other things to deal with, so she scurried off, leaving
Josette
and Rick to fend for themselves.

"What did you see?" His words were a mere breath in her ear.

"Snakes, at the airport," she answered. "I
think
it all happens a few minutes from now, but I'm not sure. I didn't see anything that showed the date.

Rick had stopped in mid-step, his eyes wide. "You're seeing the future again
…
and you're in it?"

She smiled and nodded. "I wasn't sure before, so I didn't want to say anything, but Rick! Think of what that could mean!"

Rick would have
been ecstatic if it weren't for one little problem. Snakes. "It's wonderful,
ma ch
ère.
But how in the
hell
did they track us here already?" He kept Ms voice too low for human ears, keeping his face hidden while fumbling with the seatbelt at his waist.

"Who knows? Maybe they've got people at every hub with flights to Daytona. We can't be certain that they didn't get the information out of Bruce before they
—"

He nodded grimly. "Maybe. But that's a lot of manpower."

"Somebody wants me dead
very
badly."

"Well they're just going to have to live with the disappointment."

Funny thing, thinking of the snakes waiting in the terminal seemed to make Josie a lot less nervous about staying airborne.

It was nearly two o'clock when the plane touched ground. It took another five or so minutes for everyone to gather up their luggage and disembark. Rick and
Josette
hurried down the tunnel connecting the plane to Concourse A. They'd come in at gate A-30. Their flight to Daytona was leaving at 4:07 from gate A-15. Unfortunately that information was posted on every one of the departure screens for anyone and everyone to read.

"Describe it to me in detail
—everything you can remember." Rick pulled her aside to stand by one of the telephone kiosks in the main corridor.

She closed her eyes, apparently trying to shut out the noise and distractions of the busy terminal. Step-by-step she went through every second of the vision, pulling every detail she could from the images. There wasn't much, but it was better than nothing.

"All right. We're going to see if we can find one of
those maps of the building they sometimes have. We'll look for all of the places where a shoeshine stand is next to the bathrooms. In the meantime, keep your eyes and your nose open and stay close."

They were standing in line at a Delta information desk when
Josette
grabbed his arm. "Psst! That's her! Look, there's the shoeshine stand, and the bathroom. What time is it?"

"Two-ten."

"Shit!"
Her eyes moved frantically back and forth several times, and then she smiled grimly. "I have an idea. It's crazy, but I think it might work."

Rick opened his mouth to protest, but
Josette
pulled away from him. She walked with faked casualness in the direction of the shoeshine stand. When she was less than six feet away she started to shriek.

"Oh my God!
It's a snake! Richard, I saw a snake crawl under
that
stand!
Oh my God!"

She dropped her bags and threw herself into his arms. He could feel her put every ounce of fear she had for flying into portraying a full-blown case of ophidiophobia. All the while she screamed, cried, and generally raised the kind of commotion that was guaranteed to bring security, the police, and more unwanted attention than you could shake a stick at.

The man in the navy suit who'd been standing there waiting stared at
Josette as
though she were a madwoman, but grabbed his bags and started putting his distance between himself and the shoeshine stand.

Drawn by the commotion, the statuesque brunette in her red dress hurried out of the bathroom to join the man. "Clifford, what's going on?"

"This woman swears she saw a snake crawl under the shoeshine stand."