Everlastin' Book 1 (21 page)

“In the bedroom.” He
casually pointed to a hall to the left of the parlor. “Tha' way.
There's a directory in the drawer o' the night table. Help
yerself.”

Beth glanced in the
direction he'd pointed and managed a wan smile.
The bedroom, huh?
The hairs on her
arms seemed to squirm against her sensitive skin.

“Thank you. I won't be
long.”

“No rush,” Borgie said as he
sat on the couch. Popping the lid off his bottle, he saluted his
guest then took a long swig of the tepid brew as he stretched out
his long, thin legs atop the coffee table.

Beth walked to the closed
door of the bedroom and opened it. Her nervousness prevented her
from noticing the dark pine interior, or the masculine decor. She
went directly to the night table and opened the drawer. Sitting on
the edge of the bed, she opened the directory and began to scan the
yellow pages for a listing of the airport.

Pain squeezed the back of
her neck, robbing her of breath and blinding her. Fighting down the
threat of panic trying to overwhelm her, she leaned slightly to and
cupped a hand over the throbbing area. Pursing her lips, she forced
herself to take slow, easy breaths. Bursts of tiny lights went off
in front of her eyes.

“A problem,
Miss?”

Again, Borgie startled her
with his sudden appearance. Inexplicably, the pain in her head
vanished. Not even the usual residual aftermath
remained.

She looked to Borgie. The
sight of him hanging in the doorway, gulping down the last dregs of
his beer, filled her with sudden apprehension. There was something
in his demeanor that triggered her awareness. The man across from
her was no longer the gardener who had offered to help her out. Her
feelings toward him when he had been making those accusations about
Lachlan returned with more force.

“No. No problem,” she said
finally.

She slid the directory back
into the drawer and closed it. As much as she wanted to return to
the States, her first priority was to get away from Borgie Ingliss
before her fears came to life.

Swiping an arm across his
mouth, he swaggered further into the room. “Make yer
call?”

“No. I've changed my
mind.”

“Good. Good. I didn't think
you were the hasty sort, Beth.”

Shifting his weight to one
leg, he cooed, “Oh...you don't mind me callin' you by yer given
name now, do you?”

“No. No, I don't mind,” she
said warily.

“Good. Good. We Scots are
friendly folk. Like to be on a first name basis wi' those we take a
fancy to. If you get ma meanin'.”

Her body tense with
disgust, Beth stiffly rose to her feet. “No, I don't get
your
meaning,
Mr.
Ingliss.”

“I'm just a friendly mon,
sweetness.”

“I'm sorry I've wasted your
time. I'll be returning to Baird House now.”

“No' a waste, sweetness.”
With a swing of his arm, he slammed the bedroom door shut then
tossed the emptied beer bottle onto a nearby dresser. “Ma mum told
me some scary things abou' you, Beth. She said you were sleepin'
wi' the devil, hisself. Tha's a fearsome notion. But I keep
thinkin' to maself—” He haughtily, slowly approached Beth. “—why
would a womon as fine as you be hot for the likes o' him? Can you
explain tha' to me, Beth sweetness?”

“I think you've gotten the
wrong idea about me,” she said heatedly. Standing, she tried to
brush past the offensive man, but he took a steely grip on her arm
and forced her against him.

“You promised to pay me for
ma trouble, didn't you?”

Beth winced at the fetid,
bitter breath spilling past the man's lips. “I meant
cash!”

“Cash won't warm ma bones,”
he crooned, then made a clumsy attempt to kiss her, which she
stopped by sinking her teeth into his lower lip. With a howl, he
harshly lifted her, swung her around, and tossed her onto the
bed.

Before the initial shock
wore off, he ripped the telephone from the wall and began to lower
himself atop her.

Beth fought back. She
slapped his face, hard. Then the slaps became punches when he
merely laughed at her efforts and buried his face into the side of
her neck.

“Ye're a looker,” he
chortled, as his free hand worked to undo the front of his
pants.

Beth's punches escalated
into a frantic fight with her using the heels of her sneakers to
pound the back of his thighs and calves, and her teeth to bite into
his shoulder. This elicited a guttural sound from him, and for a
fleeting moment, she thought he was rising up to release her. But
then a hand sailed through the air and caught her on the side of
her face.

Through the haze of pain
exploding in her head, she saw his lips curl back from his
teeth.

“Beddin' him will see you
buried behind the house wi' the rest o' them!” he snarled, his
fingers curling about her throat to anchor her. “It's a real mon
you need, you crazy bitch!”

“Get off me!” she wailed,
more terrified than she'd ever been in her life.

Unholy fever gleamed in his
eyes as he drew his rigid, curved penis into his hand.

“Scream,” he laughed. “No
one will hear you.”

The fingers of his other
hand tightened about her neck. “I like a fight. It makes me hard.
See how hard? And I'm goin' to drive it into your wet—”

Beth screamed, but not at
his threat. As his words became strangled in his throat, a bolt of
lightning streaked across the ceiling. Thunder filled the room.
With another outcry, she wormed her legs up under Borgie’s ribs and
gave a fierce thrust. In her panic, she didn't realize he fell back
out of fear, but she used the moment to her advantage and scrambled
from the bed to the door.

A sound whirled her about,
and she gaped in horror at a phenomenon happening across the room.
A ball of bright green mist was hovering above the bed. Multiple
appendages of lightning darted from it, licking and jabbing at the
man upon the rumpled covers. Mingled with the ever-loudening
thunder were Borgie's cries of fear, shrill cries that beckoned
Beth's compassion.

She took a step toward the
bed.

The lightning intensified.
Borgie's wails wrenched a cry from her. As loathsome as the man
was, she couldn't let him die at the hands of—

What the hell is
that?

Temper and fear her avenging
shield, she grabbed up the beer bottle and flung it. By the time it
had sailed through the mist and shattered against the far wall, she
was throwing a small wooden chest from the dresser with all her
might. This, too, passed through the phenomenon and dropped to the
floor on the far side of the bed, but she noticed the lightning had
lessened in brightness and ferocity.

Panting, a man's hairbrush
clenched in her right hand, she watched with gnawing
trepidation.

“Go away!” she demanded, the
strength in her voice surprising her.

“See him for wha' he is!”
Borgie cried, cowering and drawing the bed quilt about him as he
lay quaking beneath the manifestation.

To Beth's horror, the
lightning became arms of mist and light. They gripped every part of
Borgie and began to shake him insensible.

Borgie screamed. “Make him
go away! I didn't mean anythin' wrong by you, Miss!”

The shaking continued a few
seconds longer, then Beth received an impression that the anomaly
was waiting for her to say or do something. A pounding began in the
back of her head. Tears spilled down her ashen cheeks. She could
feel herself rapidly weakening, as if the blood in her body were
being unmercifully drained.

With a low cry, she turned
on her heel and fled through the doorway. Her legs pumped with all
the steam she could muster. Blindly she ran on and on and on until
she became aware of running through a gray, endless fog. She
staggered and ran. Stumbled and ran. There were no sounds around
her but her own sobs. No impressions or colors or life of any
kind.

The headaches!

The only explanation was
that she was in some kind of a coma. Something had gone wrong
inside her head—something, even if it were explained to her, she
wouldn't be able to fathom.

But not madness! Oh God,
not madness, please!

Let it be a coma that she
could fight from within.

Something she could
eventually emerge from to the promise of life.

Not madness!

Was Scotland, Carlene,
David, Lachlan real?

How much of her life had
been mere dream, fantasy?

She stumbled again but this
time she found herself falling through an endless void. The
momentum went on and on, the plunge more terrifying than anything
she'd ever experienced. Her arms and legs flailed wildly. If only
she could touch something solid—stop the flight—the
falling—the...
nightmare.

With inertia came a soft,
sweet-smelling bed beneath her. Prone, her fingers kneading
something dewy and cool, Beth kept her face to the ground and wept
from the depths of her soul. When she dared to look up at her
surroundings, it was to find that she was atop a manicured lawn, a
short ways from a bubbling, cement fountain.

The north
gardens.

She'd noticed the fountain
from one of the windows on the second floor.

She was somehow back at
Baird House. Safe but badly shaken. She must have suffered another
blackout before locating Borgie that morning, and all that had
happened was indeed just a very real nightmare.

A peacock strutted by, its
foot a hair'sbreadth from one of her arms. Somehow, she knew it
wasn’t Braussaw. The indignant angle of its head struck her funny
and she released a raspy laugh. A green and blue-eyed feather swept
under her nose before the bird strolled off.

Laughing at the vividness of
her imagination, she stiffly drew up into a sitting
position.

Her brain felt terribly
cramped within her skull, a strong indication that she had in fact
suffered one of the crippling migraines. That was all right by her.
Any sane, reasonable explanation was appreciated.

Getting unsteadily to her
feet, she looked about her. Except for the rustle of the birds
ambling about the gardens, and the soothing sound of water bubbling
within the fountain, it was peaceful. The morning was warm, the
sunlight bright and reviving.

Brushing off her skirt and
top, Beth started toward the front of the house. Her body was tired
but her mind was electrified at the prospect of being here at this
place, and not in the cottage of that queer dream.

Poor Borgie.

How would she ever look him
in the face again if he learned she had dreamed he tried to force
himself on her?

Well, it wasn't as if she
was about to tell him, was it!

“Coffee,” she sighed,
stepping onto a cobblestone path that circled the fountain. She
stopped and dipped her cupped hands into the icy water, then
splashed the refreshing liquid on her face. Wiping a cool hand
across the back of her neck, she turned toward the pathway leading
to the front of the house.

Something drew her attention
to a field beyond the low hedges and trees behind the house. She
was certainly too exhausted to go off exploring, but an indefinable
sense urged her forward for a closer look.

Muttering to herself, she
trampled through ground vines and low brush until she came to the
edge of the field. There was nothing extraordinary to see here. The
field was richly green, and there was only a huge ancient oak
centered on it.

Still, something beckoned
her.

She took her time crossing
the field, plucking a blade of grass to nibble on along the way.
The closer she came to the tree, the more convinced she was that
she was wasting her time. But twenty yards away from her
destination, she discerned something standing within the shadows
beneath the limbs.

The something turned out to
be several headstones.

Shuddering, Beth began to
turn away until one large stone of two caught her attention before
she could ignore it.

HERE THE DEVIL
LIES

LACHLAN IAN BAIRD

2/13/1811 -
?/1844

Beth sank to her knees in
front of the headstone, her gaze riveted on the name.

Lachlan. So, Lannie was a
nickname.

Lifting a hand, she gingerly
pressed her fingertips to the dates. She couldn't fathom why, but
her heart was twisting with pain and sorrow.

Thirty-three years old. Not
a long life and not a fitting way for him to die.

Tears welled in her eyes.
She gave herself a shake to ward off the melancholy enveloping her,
only then happening to notice another headstone, off to the right
and set back. Questioning her eyesight, she hesitantly crawled a
little closer to it.

A cry lodged in her throat.
Her hands flew up to cover her mouth. Quaking fiercely, her gaze
repeatedly ran over the letters on the newer stone.