Books by Maggie Shayne (266 page)

“And now there’s your age, as well,” Arianna went on. “Nathanial would get a lot of life force from a heart three centuries strong. Besides all of that, the more times you thwart him, the more angry and determined he becomes. You know that, as well.”

Lowering my head very slowly, I said, “I’m going to have to kill him, aren’t I?”

Arianna nodded. “I’m afraid it’s the only way you’ll ever find peace.” She searched my face. “You’ve killed before, Raven. He wouldn’t be your first.”

“Yes,” I admitted, “but only in battle, when it was forced on me. Only when I had no choice. It takes something from me when I take a life, Arianna. I die a little each time.”

“The bastard needs killing,” Arianna told me.

“But not by me. Not unless he forces me to.” I bit my lower lip. “We’ll leave here for a while. Tomorrow. I’d rather avoid confrontation if I can.”

Tipping her head skyward, Arianna rolled her eyes. “Raven! Why must you be such a pacifist? After three centuries of living as a being who must kill or be killed, how can you cling to that mortal idea of morality? I swear, if I get the chance, I’ll cut out that black heart of his myself.” I looked at her harshly. “I
will!”
she vowed. “I’ve owed that bastard for a long time. But he’s as slippery as a snake where I’m concerned.”

“He does avoid you,” I said, contemplating. “It’s as if he’s always out there, watching us, waiting. Every time he’s attacked me since Duncan, it has been when you and I were apart. In Virginia, when I stayed behind to care for that ailing woman, while you went off to find her husband. In California, when I sat on the beach thinking of Duncan while you slept soundly in the beach house. In New York when we got separated in that crowd at the theater…”

“Because he knows I can take him.”

“I suspect you’re right,” I told her. “And that’s why he never gives you the chance. It’s me he comes after. Always me… and those I love.”

“So you’ll run from him again,” Arianna went on. “And what if Duncan returns here while you’re hiding from Dearborne? What if you miss your chance to find him again?”“

I only shook my head. “That won’t happen. We can keep watch from a safe distance.”

“He won’t come after you if I’m here, Raven.”

“You can’t watch over me twenty-four hours a day, Arianna.”

“But we’re not even sure Dearborne is here yet!” she wailed.

I turned to stare out at the night sky, at the full moon, and even as I did, a dark cloud eclipsed its golden face.

“He’s here,” I whispered. “I feel it. He’s here.”

Duncan stood near the curving glass windows of the lighthouse for a long time. Alone, as utterly alone as he’d always been.

She’d been out there again tonight.

The same woman, he was sure of that. The same one he’d glimpsed that first night he’d come here, a month ago. When this had been just another job, and not one he particularly wanted at that. Not that restoring a century-old lighthouse wasn’t exactly the kind of thing he loved best…just that it meant spending months surrounded by water. And he hadn’t been over the fear of water all that long. Heights barely gave him a second thought anymore, but the water…

Still, he’d agreed to come out here, take a look at the place. And he still wasn’t exactly sure why he’d done that when he’d been certain this was one restoration job he’d be turning down. He only knew that a strange sort of pit-of-the-stomach feeling had started gnawing at him from the moment he’d set foot in this tourist mecca town. And when he and the owner left shore in a small motorboat the first time to head out to the lighthouse, the physical reactions, the cold sweat and rapid heartbeat he’d been expecting, hadn’t come. They’d been overpowered by different reactions, unexpected ones as he stared back at the peninsula, and the cliffs at its tip. A clenching sensation in his stomach. An empty well opening in the vicinity of his heart. A tightening in his throat that made it hard to swallow.

All of that only got worse once he was inside the lighthouse, discussing the renovations with the owner, who wanted to fix it up and sell it. Already, he’d been reconsidering his earlier decision not to take on the job.

Then he’d glimpsed her. Through these very windows. She stood like some kind of sea goddess, on those cliffs, with the wind lifting her satin hair like a flag. Her face turned up to the rising moon as if she were drinking in every moonbeam. And he’d lost track of what the owner was saying, of what he was supposed to be doing here as he’d watched her, mesmerized. Someone said, “So how much do you want for this place?” and he realized later it had been him.

And now he owned it.
Him.
The guy who’d had a crippling, inexplicable fear of water ever since he’d been a toddler had bought himself an old abandoned lighthouse surrounded by the stuff. And he wasn’t even sure why.

But he was pretty sure it had something to do with
her
.

She’d been out there again tonight, soft breeze fingering her long, dark hair, yellow moonlight bathing her face. There had been another one with her, a tiny blond, but he’d barely noticed. The two had gone inside now… back into that twisted-up mishmash of a house that towered up there.

Odd, that house. He’d commented on it to lighthouse’s former owner, and the guy claimed he’d never even noticed the place.

How could anyone not notice
that
!

He shook his head and looked at the place atop the cliffs once more. The bonfire burned low, and by and by the blond one came back outside with a pail of water to pour over it. But of the dark one, he saw no more.

The cell phone bleated, and Duncan reached for it, still watching for a glimpse of the woman on the cliffs as if he were some sort of stalker. God, what was wrong with him? He jerked his gaze away deliberately and answered the call. Just before he brought the phone to his ear, he thought of his father, and almost laughed at himself. He often got an inkling of who was on the other end when the phone rang.

Then his jaw dropped when he heard his father’s voice on the other end. “Is that you, Duncan? There’s so much static…”

“Father?”

“Ah, then it
is
you. Good.”

Duncan licked his dry lips. His father wouldn’t be calling unless… “Is something wrong?”

“No, no. I heard you’d bought a lighthouse… on an island of all things! Couldn’t believe it.”

Frowning, Duncan shook his head. “It’s true. To be honest, Father, I can’t imagine you’d be all that interested.”

His father cleared his throat. “I know we haven’t been… close… since you left home.”

“Since I left home?” If he sounded sarcastic, he ought to. His father had ignored him most of his life… and Duncan often wondered why the man had bothered adopting him in the first place. As a newborn, no less. He couldn’t imagine a less paternal man. There had been nannies, an entire staff to care for him, until he’d been old enough to ship off to boarding school, followed by summer camp, followed by an expensive, private college. He’d barely known his father.

But he’d always wanted to. A relationship with the cold, distant man was something he’d craved in secret all his life. Sometimes he thought that might be the answer to that emptiness, that ache in his heart that he’d never been able to explain.

“I’m in Sanctuary, son.”

Duncan’s thoughts ground to a halt. “You’re… where?”

“In town. I arrived on Monday.”

Blinking, Duncan gave his head a shake to clear it. “You’ve been in Sanctuary for three days? And you didn’t even call me? No, no, that’s not the surprise, the surprise is that you’d bother calling me now. What do you want, Father?”

There was a long pause. “I want… to
be
your father, Duncan.”

The breath seemed to have been stolen from Duncan’s lungs. He couldn’t inhale, and couldn’t speak until he did. How long had he imagined his father saying those words? How many nights had he dreamed them, wished for them, as a child? And why, why had his father waited so long? Why couldn’t he have started this conversation years ago, when a little boy had needed it so badly? Why now?

Swallowing, Duncan said, “I’m a grown man with my own business and my own life. I don’t
need
a father now.”

“I know. Duncan, I know, believe me. My mistakes… well, they’re too numerous to mention, but I’m well aware of every last one of them. I want to start over, to try to… to make up for the past. Please, give me that chance.”

Duncan had to close his eyes, because they burned. When he spoke, his voice was gravelly, coarse. “Do you mean it?”

“I do, son. I swear to you, I do.”

But Duncan was almost afraid to let himself believe it. He’d wanted this too badly for too long to trust that it could be real.

“You aren’t convinced,” his father said. “But you will be. I sold my house, Duncan. And today I bought a new place, the old courthouse right here in Sanctuary.”

Frowning, Duncan took the phone away from his ear, stared at it for a moment, as if he could read his father’s expression through it somehow. Then he brought it back.

“That’s how serious I am about this. I want to be close to you, close enough so that we can work on… on building a relationship, Duncan. I want to start over with you. Will you let me try?”

Blinking the moisture from his eyes, Duncan nodded. “Sure, Dad. Sure, we can both try.”

His father sighed in relief, and Duncan could almost imagine the stern face cracking in a rare smile. “Meet me for breakfast tomorrow?” his father asked. “Here in town, at the Coast Road Cafe?”

With a quick swipe at his eyes, Duncan said, “Okay. Around eight?”

“Perfect,” his father said. And then he hung up without another word.

Duncan set the phone down after a long moment. He told himself not to hope for too much, not to invest any emotions in this apparent softening of his father’s hard heart. It would only lead to disappointment. But he’d had plenty of that over the years. He should be used to it by now.

Kneeling, he resumed the unpacking he’d been in the midst of when he’d become distracted by the dark woman on the distant cliffs. It was the first box. He traveled a lot. Always searching, it seemed, though he could never quite figure out what for. But wherever he went, this was always the first box he unpacked. His collection, the one he’d been accumulating ever since the fourth grade, when he’d bought the first piece at a five and dime with his allowance money. He thought the fascination might have begun when he’d read that poem by Edgar Allan Poe… or maybe the love of the birds had already been there, and that was why the poem had affected him so deeply. Why, that haunting refrain “Nevermore” could still bring tears to his eyes.

Either way, he liked them. Had over a hundred now. And the tiny sills along the insides of all these curving windows would be the perfect shelves for them.

He opened the box, removing the protective paper that cushioned them, and began removing his collection of ravens, one by one, placing them carefully, just so. And as he did, he whispered the words of the poem he sometimes heard in his sleep.

“Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door! Quoth the Raven, ”Nevermore.“

Duncan was early. His father wasn’t at any of the round, lion-footed stone tables or their matching rock-hard benches outside the Coast Road Cafe. And the inside of the place was all but deserted. Too nice a day for anyone to want breakfast inside, he figured. The foliage-seekers filled almost every available spot outside—uncomfortable stone benches notwithstanding. The tourists wore cardigans and sunglasses. The locals wore flannel and baseball caps with the names of their favorite products on them. John Deere. Mack. GMC. His father fit into neither group, but Duncan would spot him easily enough. He’d show up in his traditional funereal suit with his thin ribbon of a tie dangling.

Duncan glanced at his watch. Twenty minutes. Daddy dearest wouldn’t be a minute early, either. Well, he’d walk, then. He was too nervous to stand still, or grab a table and wait. Besides, it was high time he got to know this town a bit, if he was going to live here.

The sun blazed so brightly from the clear blue sky that the hillsides nearby seemed fluorescent. The air had a bite to it, but it was invigorating rather than chilling. Made a man want to taste it.

Something had lifted his spirits this morning. He had a good feeling, and he hoped he was intelligent enough that it wasn’t because of his father’s apparent change of heart. That would be a foolish mistake. It didn’t seem as if it was, however. Something else lingered in the air. Expectation. A sense that something big was going to happen. A feeling that he ought to be holding his breath.

He often got… feelings… intuitions about things. But he’d never had one like this before.

Strange.

He walked a full block, then stopped dead in his tracks and stared. Across the street a woman stepped out of a small shop. She carried boxes, empty boxes, stacked inside one another. They towered so tall in her arms that they hid her face. But it didn’t matter. He knew her.

He knew her
.

Sure he knew her. She was the woman who stood on the cliffs in the middle of the night. The woman he was compelled to watch. That was all.

It doesn’t
feel
like that’s all, though. It feels like something more
.

When she turned and that long ebony hair swung around her shoulders, his heart did a crazy leap in his chest. He couldn’t make his legs work, could barely make his
mind
work. He could only stand there, staring at her, wondering why the hell she got to him this way. Cars passed back and forth between them, traffic increasing as the morning aged, but they didn’t disturb his intense study of her. He couldn’t have looked away even if he’d wanted to.

She shifted the boxes to one side, balancing them on her hip. She wore black. Leather, he thought. A snug leather dress with a zipper that traced a path up the front of her, cool metal, he imagined, pressing to her center and running right between her breasts. The hemline hugged her thighs. Below that her legs were encased in black stockings that ended at short, laced-up boots with pointy toes.

His gaze rose once more. Her head turned toward him, slowly. Very slowly. As if she sensed him there, looking at her. Her dark, dark eyes met his, locked on them, held them. Then widened, and the boxes fell from her hands. The smaller ones spilled out of the larger ones when the stack tumbled in the stiff autumn wind. Her hair danced with the breeze, moving in apparent slow motion. Her lips parted, seemed to form his name.

She stepped off the sidewalk and into the street. Into the traffic. Eyes glued to his, blinking rapidly now, but never glancing to one side or the other, she came closer.

He did manage to look away—but only when the shadow loomed and the horn blared. The traffic—she was stepping right into the traffic, and there was a truck, and—

He opened his mouth to shout a warning. Before he made a sound, the dark enchantress lifted a hand toward the rumbling vehicle—like a traffic cop signaling “stop”—and abruptly the truck skidded to the left as if something had shoved it. Something
big.
It came to rest neatly against the curb. She never even looked at it, never took her eyes from his, just kept coming. The wind blew harder, and her hair writhed and twisted like Medusa’s.

And suddenly Duncan felt an icicle of fear slide up his spine. Why?

She stepped up onto the sidewalk. Came closer. Tears, he could see them now. Welling deep in her eyes, glimmering, spilling over. Wet black lashes shining, dampening her cheeks. Longing so intense he could
feel
it, flowing from her eyes with the pain and the tears. Closer. And she was so close now she was nearly touching him. God, was he dreaming this? Her body brushed his and he felt a snapping, crackling electricity spark between them as she tipped her head back, searched his face. A trembling hand rose to touch his cheek, brush at his hair, and he felt it again. Delicate brows drew together. She tilted her head slightly to one side, and she whispered, “Duncan?”

“Yes,” he said, amazed he could speak at all with the force of these unnamed, and utterly illogical, emotions swamping him. He felt absurdly like pulling her into his arms, like kissing her endlessly. It was an effort to keep his arms at his sides, and the muscles flexed and his fists clenched as he reminded himself to do just that. “How did you know my—”

“Duncan?” she asked again, both hands running over his face now, as if she couldn’t believe he were real. Her breaths came faster, and the tears flowed like rivers. “Oh, Duncan…” There was more, but the words were garbled and choked out on sobs so he only got bits and pieces. “Waiting” and “centuries” and “living without you.” Not that it mattered what she said. Not to him, because it was what she
did
that had his full attention.

She pressed herself against him, twisted her arms around his neck, and she kissed him. Even with the sobs making her hiccup and gasp, she parted her lips over his, so that he tasted the salt of her tears. She clung to him as if she’d never let go. And something happened to him. He didn’t know what. Something. It was as if he were someone else, someone who knew this woman and returned her wrenching emotions fully. He wrapped his arms around her slender waist and it felt… familiar. The shape, the size of her, the way her body rubbed against his. And he bent over her— just the right amount to compensate for the differences in their heights. He returned her kiss. But it was more than a kiss. It was like… coming home when he touched his mouth to hers.

His mind seemed to shut down. It no longer mattered who he was, or who she was, or how insane this entire encounter was. All that mattered was the taste of her mouth, and its warmth. The texture of those lips moving against his, that tongue as soft and rough as velvet when he stroked it with his own. The feel of her waist clasped in his hands, or of her hair when he touched it, plowed his fingers into it, rubbed it against his cheek. Sweet. God, she was sweet. And small and pliant in his arms. And he wanted her. He wanted her with a power and a passion that exploded inside his mind. His hips arched against her belly. She didn’t even pull away.

He fed from her mouth, and his head spun. His heart pounded, and it felt as if something stabbed into it, but he ignored the sudden pain as his lips slid around to her jaw, and lower, to suckle the skin of her neck. No matter where he put his mouth he found sweetness, salt, softness, heat. And wanted more.

Panting, he lifted his head to stare down into her eyes. Still wet with tears, but wide and deep and incredible, they gazed back at him. He couldn’t speak above a whisper, felt dizzy, weak, and entirely disoriented.

“Who are you?” he managed to ask her. And next he’d ask who
he
was, he thought vaguely. Because for a few minutes there it was as if he’d lost his own identity. This shock, this dizziness, must be the aftermath of that temporary lapse.

She blinked up at him, and Duncan saw the fire in her eyes flicker and, slowly, begin to fade.

“Not that it matters,” he went on, very quickly. To hell with the fear of losing himself, losing his identity or even his soul to her…

Odd thought, isn’t it
?

His only fear now was that she wouldn’t let him kiss her again. “I mean, it doesn’t matter,” he blurted. “Not at all. I just—”

“Oh, Duncan.” The words were a sigh. Unspeakably sad, then riding away on a stray breeze. Closing her eyes, she untwisted her arms from his neck, took a step backward. “Oh, sweet Duncan, I didn’t mean to do it this way.” She shook her head slowly. “What must you be thinking right now? You don’t even know me, do you?”

He swallowed hard, reaching up with one hand, stroking her cheek, and absorbing a tear into his fingertips. “Oh, yeah,” he whispered. “I know you. I’ve seen you on the cliffs… I’ve watched you… from the lighthouse.”

“
You
live in the lighthouse?”

He nodded, watching her face, wishing he could kiss her again. But even now the confused yearning of that moment was fading, and he was beginning to realize how weird all this was, and to feel self-conscious about losing his head with a total stranger. Practically making love to her in the street.

Still wanting to.

“How did you know my name?” he asked, maybe because it was all he could think of to say—to distract himself from thinking of her taste, and wanting more. To ground himself in something solid and logical and practical. To grab hold of the first rational thought to come into his mind in several minutes, and cling to it for dear life.

“I know a lot of things about you, Duncan.” She closed her eyes, lowered her head again. “But I’m messing this up. Badly.” And she looked up at him again. Like the sun emerging from behind the clouds. “I meant to take it slowly. To give you time to get to know me again and—”

“Again?”

She nodded. “Yes. But don’t worry about that now. Don’t worry about anything now. I’ll explain it all, Duncan, and this time I’ll tell you everything. I won’t keep anything from you this time, I swear it.”

Frowning, he studied her and wondered for the first time if this beautiful young woman were, perhaps, slightly insane.

Good, Duncan. Better that than wondering what happened to your own sanity just now, isn’t it?

“This time?” he said, pretending not to hear his own mocking thoughts. God, how her black eyes gleamed. She reminded him of something… some…
one.

“All that matters now, Duncan, is that you’re here. You’re here.” Her beautiful lips curved into a smile so enticing he found he really didn’t care if she were sane or not. “You’re really here.”

He found himself smiling back at her, a reflex beyond control. “Yes, I certainly am.”

She shook her head from side to side. “You don’t sound the same.”

“The same as what?”

She shook her head again. “You’ve lost the lilt of the Highlands. But beyond that…” She stroked his hair once more, tugged a strand away from his head and ran it between her fingers. “Beyond that, you’re the same. Lord, but I’ve missed you so much. And to think I thought it was
him.
And I left poor Arianna home packing, convinced we had to go away and—”

“Go away?” She sounded crazier all the time, but for some reason the idea of her leaving here shook him. His hands were on her shoulders now, and he battled a rising tide of panic that usually only crept up on him this way when he tried swimming or looked down from some substantial height. “But you can’t. Not now, not when—”

“Oh, but we’re not going away. No, Duncan, not now, I promise you that. I’m not about to leave you when I’ve only just found you.”

He sighed his relief. “I’m glad.”

“Are you?”

He nodded. “We… we know each other, don’t we?” he said, a little uncertain.

A cloud covered the light in her eyes. “We did… once. I’d hoped you might remember, but Arianna told me you wouldn’t. It’s all right, Duncan.”

He licked his lips, swallowed hard. “I can’t imagine meeting you and not remembering,” he said.

She shrugged, averting her eyes. “It was a long time ago.”

He tilted his head, studying her face. “You do seem… familiar to me. Maybe that’s why I’ve been…” He let his words die. Maybe that was why he’d been so drawn to her, so compelled to watch her from the lighthouse. Maybe he
had
known her once.

“Well, if I’m a bit familiar to you, then that’s something, isn’t it?”

“I’m half afraid you’re mistaking me for someone else.”

“There could never be someone else, Duncan. Not ever.” Lowering her head slowly, she whispered, “There’s so much we need to talk about. So much I have to tell you.”

“Apparently so.”

She drew a breath. “This must seem so strange to you.”

“It’s… yeah. It’s strange.” She bit her lip, and he rushed on. “Strange in a very nice way,” he added, and he caught her chin, lifted it so he could look into those mesmerizing eyes of hers. “Tears,” he said. “They’ve got no business filling eyes like these.”

She sniffed, and the tears welled deeper and spilled out onto her cheeks. “Will you hold me, Duncan? I know it makes no sense to you now, but I need to feel your arms around me more than I need to draw another breath right now.”

She didn’t have to ask twice. He pulled her close, and she nestled in his arms. She fit herself against him as if she were custom-made for him to hold. Her arms around his waist, her cheek resting on his chest. Her hair just below his face so its scent wafted up to entice. Something stirred a memory when he smelled that scent. Lavender and honeysuckle. He’d smelled it before, he knew he had.

For a very long time he stood there and just held her. It felt… potent. Emotions more powerful than any he’d ever known roiled around inside him, and he couldn’t even figure out why. But he didn’t want to let her go. Hell, he’d hold her like this forever if he had time.

Time.

Damn, the
time
.

He glanced at his watch, realized he was late now for his meeting with his father. Almost decided to let the old man sit alone all morning. But his conscience gave a twist. No, he’d wanted this chance with his father for too long to blow it when it finally came. He had to at least try.