Just Believe (6 page)

"Oh, Erin," she moaned, struggling to
keep her voice low.

It was so unfair. Sweet, trusting Erin
had given her heart to a rat who'd betrayed her. Now the rodent was
gone.

At first Annabelle had been sure Erin
had been driven delusional. Not only about the aliens who took
Lucas, but about Lucas himself. Even after her visit to his
apartment, Annabelle clung to her original theory: Lucas was
laughing with his buddies in some bar about how he'd gotten Erin to
put out and then left her to face the consequences alone. But she'd
gone to every bar on Franklin Street, and a few on the side streets
her father had forbidden her to even look at, much less
enter.

No Lucas.

Of course, she hadn't told Erin any of
this. She was sure her sister would go right off the edge if her
fears about Lucas's safety were confirmed.

Still he'd left her alone. No matter
what happened later, that much was still true, and it was still
enough to earn her big sister's ire. Preferring anger to fear,
Annabelle nurtured that emotion.

"The no-good-" She clipped off the rest
of the words. He wasn't worth it.

Thank Heaven, she'd listened to her
Granny. At least she still had her self-respect, which was more
than Erin would have when she finally snapped out of this
fantasy.

Meanwhile, she thought, her tears
trickling, one by one, down her cheeks, she could forget sharing
the burden of their mother's care with her sister. Now Annabelle
would have to put her own life on hold to take care of both Erin
and their mother.

Leaning over the small sink, she
splashed cold water on her face and sniffed her tears to a stop.
She dried her face and hands. Lowering the coarse white hospital
towel, she stared into her own eyes.

"Is this all life is? One disaster
after another?" she whispered.

Trying to see some hope in the plain
brown eyes staring back at her from her reflection, Annabelle
didn't notice the total silence until it was broken.

"Lucas!" Erin's voice echoed clearly
through the door. "I knew you'd come."

"Lucas?" She shook her head. No one
would be allowed up here except family. Her shoulders drooped as
she realized what Erin's words meant. "Oh, no, please. She's
talking to herself." It didn't take a medical degree and advanced
psychiatric training to see the deterioration of her sister's
condition. Would institutionalization be necessary? How in the
world would they pay for it?

Thoughts of state-run facilities and
the horror of it all played through Annabelle's mind.

"Annabelle," Erin called softly, "Come
here, hurry. Lucas is here."

Eyes squeezed shut, Annabelle prayed
for guidance. Should she go along with the fantasy and pretend to
see Lucas? Or should she confront Erin with her delusion? Gulping a
breath of courage, she pulled the door open and stepped into the
room.

Erin lay in her bed, face alight with
happiness. There was no Lucas standing by the bed.

"See, I told you he'd come," she
said.

"Erin," Annabelle began, "please,
honey, can't you see you're just imagining? The lowdown, dirty
skunk got what he wanted, and he left you alone in the woods, and
you've just got to face facts."

Erin smiled, Cheshire cat-like. "Oh,
really?"

The scratching sound of the door and
the scuffing of soft-soled shoes made Annabelle turn, expecting to
see a night nurse coming with medication. Relieved to have some
backup, she opened her mouth to ask for help in convincing Erin of
her folly.

A young man in a doctor's green scrubs
with shaggy russet hair peered out the door as it eased closed. He
was very tall, slender but not slight, with wonderful, broad
shoulders. Turning away from the door, he flashed a smile that
twinkled in his black eyes and raised a finger against his lips.
Annabelle watched him cross the room, pick up a straight-backed
chair and take it to the door where he jammed it underneath the
handle.

"What are you doing?" she asked,
alarmed by his action. "Who are you?"

He came back toward her, his smile
broadening as he extended his hand to her.

"I'm the lowdown, dirty skunk, Lucas
Riley."

" Squooshed and flying, Gaelen picked
up the trail easily enough. The particle residue Lucas had left
behind burned bright. Even a human could have seen it.

"Holy Bridget!" he whispered as he
followed it eastward out over the ocean. "That must have been one
great lay!"

The thought that all this trouble was
caused by sex made Gaelen even angrier. It wasn't as though Lucas
couldn't have found a fairy woman to dally with. Or even a pixie.
There were many right in Chapel Hill, each one of them beautiful
and lush and willing.

The coast of northern Africa came into
view.

Slowing only a little--too slow and
humans could see the pinpoint of light a squooshed fairy appeared
to be, and it was better if they saw nothing at all--Gaelen
oriented himself along the trail of fairy dust and followed it into
the Valley of the Kings. The trail petered out at the Great
Pyramid.

At least Lucas had managed to keep
himself on this world. Once, Gaelen forgot all his father's wise
words and ended up on Jupiter, wing-deep in liquid ammonia and sore
as hell. The girl hadn't spoken to him for years.

Of course, she'd eventually come around
and Gaelen had redeemed himself.

Settling on the base of the Great
Pyramid, Gaelen unsquooshed.

"Whoa!" he put out his hand to steady
himself, waiting for the dizziness to pass. He hated squooshing. It
was unnatural, smashing your atoms, compressing all the space out
of them and reducing yourself to the size of a speck of light. But
the lightheadedness of unsquooshing was the worst of it.

"Ah, but that's the fairy way," he
repeated his old da's words. And for this particular task, it was
the only way. He had to find Lucas, and get him and the girl back
to New Jersey.

"Lucas!" His sent his voice out over
the countryside. If Lucas were within fifty miles, he'd hear. And
if he were hurt, as Gaelen suspected, he'd stay here until he
healed.

"Lucas!" He repeated his call and
strained to hear a sound.

For the first time since leaving the
Council Chamber, Gaelen began to worry. What if Lucas were hurt
more severely than Gaelen had thought? When he'd been in contact
with Lucas that one time, the injury hadn't seemed too bad,
but...

"Lucas, answer me!"

Where was he? Why no answer?

He couldn't have flown back already,
could he?

Heart racing, Gaelen glanced around,
making sure there were no humans about. Then he took a deep breath
and...

Squa-ooosh!

As a pinpoint of light, he flew over
the pyramid and picked up Lucas's incoming trail again.

"Ah-hah!" There, nearly parallel to the
first, was a lighter trail, heading west. The puppy had covered his
tracks going back. Gaelen would've smacked himself in the forehead
if his hand had been material at that moment. He should have
considered the possibility Lucas had turned around and flown home
right away. The trail was clear enough once he looked for
it.

The jerk was probably lounging in his
apartment, swilling a beer and laughing at how he'd led Gaelen on a
merry chase.

Given the alternative possibility--his
little brother was really in trouble--Gaelen seized onto the less
grave one. Lucas was fine and the girl had seen nothing. Then he
allowed himself to get mad.

"All right, Lucas, big brother is
coming. You'd better have a good story."

He'd be back in Chapel Hill in less
than ten seconds.

* * * *

"You!" Annabelle shouted. "What are you
doing here? How did you get in?"

"Shhh!" Erin hissed. "They'll hear
you."

Ignoring Erin's admonition and Lucas's
offered handshake, Annabelle headed for the door, fully intending
to pull the chair away and call a guard.

"Oh, no, Annabelle," Lucas said, his
large fingers encircling her wrist. "I can't let you do that." He
pulled her away from the door and dragged her back to the
bed.

"Let me go!" Annabelle struggled, but
he was stronger than he looked. In fact, she didn't see any strain
on his face as he picked her up and dumped her onto Erin's bed.
"Hey!" she huffed in indignation.

Erin giggled. "Isn't he
wonderful?"

Lucas stood by the bed and took Erin's
hand. Their fingers laced together instantly, as though by long
practice, and Erin gazed at him with naked adoration.

Annabelle felt her heart begin to melt
and hastened to freeze it again.

"Now, first of all," Lucas said, his
voice tinged by a hint of an accent, exotic and familiar all at the
same time, "I'm very pleased to meet you at last. Erin has told me
so much about her big sister I feel I know you already."

Annabelle glared at him, refusing to be
taken in by his charm.

He went on. "Second, I'm very sorry
about leaving Erin alone like I did." He turned to face Erin. "I
am, you know. I would never have left you, but..." A scowl twisted
his handsome features. "Well, I can't explain now. Soon, but not
yet. It's safer if you don't know anything."

"Aw, puh-leeeez!" Annabelle scoffed,
"What are you, a secret agent?" She moved to get up and open the
door and call--no, scream-for the guards.

"Annabelle," Lucas whispered after her.
"Please listen. I swear I'm telling the truth."

It was his voice, not any
force--because he didn't lay a finger on her--that kept Annabelle
in place. And the unreasonable urge she felt to believe.

Lucas took a deep breath. "I would tell
you now, but I can't."

"Why not, darling?" Erin asked, her
voice gentle, totally lacking in anger.

Annabelle decided to be angry for her
little sister.

"Yes, Lucas, why not? Why can't you
explain to my sister how you used her then ran off to...what? Laugh
it up with your buddies at how she put out for you?"

"No! That's not it at all!"

"Lucas." Erin reached for his arm, her
voice soothing in contrast to the edge in Lucas's. "She's just
worried about me. She doesn't believe what I told her, about the
aliens."

"Aliens?" His brow wrinkled in
confusion.

"I saw them take you. Are you all
right?" She ran her hand up and down Lucas's arm, as though
searching for wounds. "Did they stick things up your nose? Did they
put anything inside your head?"

Incredibly, as he stared into Erin's
face, his own lightened and an angelic smile spread. His eyes
crinkled and Annabelle's animosity melted under the sunshine of his
expression.

"It wasn't aliens, Erin. It was
me."

"What?"

"Can you trust me for a
while?"

"Of course."

"I'll tell you everything very soon."
He laughed out loud. "Though I'll not promise it makes any more
sense than aliens." Turning to Annabelle, he asked, "Will you trust
me, Annabelle?"

In spite of her determination to treat
him like the skunk he was, as she looked into his black, sparkling
eyes, Annabelle found herself wanting to say the words, "I
believe."

Still, her silent thoughts denied it.
"You haven't told me anything I can believe," she
replied.

Lucas squinted at her, as though
studying a bug under a microscope. His eyes fluttered shut, and he
leaned against the bed.

"Lucas!" Erin was on her knees in the
middle of the bed, her small hands on either side of Lucas's head.
"Lucas," she whispered, her voice small and afraid. "What's
wrong?"

A small laugh puffed from his mouth.
"Nothing. I'm just tired, is all." He opened his eyes and pinned
Annabelle. "You do know, don't you, lack of faith is
fatal?"

His words, though they made little
sense, sent a shaft of guilt spearing through her heart.

He gasped a deep breath and sat heavily
in the chair by Erin's bed.

"Oh, Bridget, I'm tired." Lucas leaned
back, his long frame draped on the chair like a piece of clothing.
His breathing evened and Annabelle thought he must be asleep. She
eased off the bed and toward the door.

"No! You heard him." Erin still knelt
in the middle of the bed.

"Honey, please be reasonable,"
Annabelle whispered, not anxious to lose this chance to have this
rat snagged once and for all. "He's not supposed to be up
here."

"He's hurt, Annabelle."

"I don't see any wounds on him. You're
the one in the hospital."

Erin glared. "That's only because
everyone thinks I'm crazy."

Well, aren't you? Annabelle wanted to
scream at her. Not only was she ignoring the obvious--Lucas only
wanted to keep her quiet about his unreliability--but now she was
trying to protect him.