Reunion (6 page)

He’s very tall.
The thought was random and, by itself, of no consequence. But as Laura got out of the car, she became aware of another facet of the man. His dress was casual—gray chinos, a white knit shirt and black loafers—but there was a carelessness about the way he stood that told her he didn’t give a damn about what she might think of his appearance. She sighed. His sanity might be in question, but his defenses were in perfect working order. She extended her hand as Travers began to introduce her. To her surprise, Gabriel Connor reciprocated without hesitation.

When their palms connected, his fingers curled around her hand in a firm but gentle grip. Laura stifled a gasp. She could hear Travers talking, introducing her to the man he called Gabriel, but her head felt light. When the man said her name, it wrapped around her like a whisper in the night. It was all she could do not to faint.

His mouth raked across her face, centering on her lips as his hands fisted in her hair. They clung to each other in desperation as their sweat-slick bodies moved in unison—him to her—her to him.

Someone groaned. Was it the man? Was it the woman? The rhythm of their madness was increasing with every thrust of his body as he drove himself deeper inside her. She felt him—knew him in every biblical sense of the word—from the sweat on his brow to the contortion of his features as sexual ecstasy came upon him.

She saw his face…it was Gabriel. He called her name over and over as he spilled himself into her.

Laura. He called her Laura.

The world came back into focus just as Gabriel dropped her hand. Laura staggered as the connection was broken. Mike grabbed her elbow, suddenly concerned.

“Miss Dane! Are you all right?”

“Please, it’s Laura, remember?” She took a deep breath, trying to put away the truth of what she’d just seen. Somewhere in the not-so-distant future, she and this stranger would be lovers. She didn’t know whether to turn tail and run, or accept the inevitable. “And yes, I’m fine. Just a little road weary, I suppose.”

Gabriel made no comment other than to lead the way into his home.

She wasn’t what he’d expected.

He hadn’t been prepared for blue jeans and sneakers, and in any other situation, the T-shirt he could see beneath her blazer would have made him laugh. Emblazoned directly across her very ample breasts was the phrase
I know what you’re thinking.

Her hair was short and tousled, and there were freckles on her nose. Somehow, freckles and fakes didn’t go together, and until he’d seen her, he’d been convinced that was what she was—a fake. But that was before he’d looked long and hard into her big blue eyes. He hadn’t experienced any revelation. All he’d seen was his own reflection and an unassuming expression.

Laura purposefully fell a couple of steps behind as the two men led the way. It was obvious that they were more than friends. Concern for Gabriel was etched deeply into Travers’ face, and, in return, Gabriel’s head was tilted slightly to one side as they walked so as not to miss what the older man was saying. Family. That was what they were. At least, all that was left of what had once been a family.

She frowned as they entered a large, book-filled room. There was more than sadness in this house. She felt a spirit that did not belong.

Gabriel turned in time to catch the frown on her face and, somehow, knew he was the cause. If it wasn’t for his uncle Mike’s insistence, he would send her packing right now. This was going to be a monumental waste of time.

Careful…be careful.

Gabriel jerked. The intrusion of the voice was unexpected. Startled, he clenched his fists and took a slow, deep breath.

Laura felt as if she’d been kicked. “My God.”

He looked up. Laura was staring at him in open-mouthed wonder.

“I heard your thought,” she whispered. “I heard you say ‘Be careful.’ That’s never happened to me before.”

Okay, so she’s not a fake, he thought. Then he shook his head in quick denial.

“On the contrary, Miss Dane, that thought wasn’t mine, and that wasn’t my voice. But that’s the same damned voice I’ve been hearing ever since the wreck. So what’s wrong with me? Am I really tuning in to some other world…or am I going insane?”

It was after midnight. Earlier, Laura had bade the elderly doctor a reluctant goodbye and then watched as the housekeeper, a woman Gabriel called Matty, took her leave, as well. After that, their conversation had been stilted.

“Mr. Connor, I think it would be easier for the both of us if—”

“Call me Gabriel.”

She nodded. “As I was going to say…I want you to be yourself while I’m here. Go about your normal routine. And if you begin to experience anything unusual, I will know.”

“And that’s supposed to make this easier?”

“I don’t understand,” Laura said.

“What’s not to understand?” Gabriel muttered. “I’m already having a hell of a time trying to cope with what’s happening to me, and now you tune in to my thoughts as easy as changing channels on a television. Hell, lady, I feel naked in your presence.”

Laura froze. He didn’t understand.

“I do not eavesdrop on people’s lives,” she said shortly.

“Then how do you explain hearing the same voice I hear?”

“Since that has never happened to me before, I’m afraid I can’t.”

A bitter grin broke the seriousness of his expression. “Well, that’s just great. Seems to me you aren’t any better off than I am.”

“Don’t count me out yet. I promised Dr. Travers I would help, and I will. I just can’t promise that you’ll like the outcome.”

This time there was no mistaking the bitterness of Gabriel’s mood.

“Well now, that’s what I call hedging your bets. If you aren’t able to produce the proverbial rabbits out of the hat, then all you have to do is claim there were never any rabbits to begin with.”

But Laura stood her ground. “All you have to do is keep an open mind and give me—and yourself—a chance.”

He was impressed with her in spite of himself. He kept looking for flaws, and all that came out was an unswerving honesty. He sighed.

“Fine. You want a chance. You’ve got it. Uncle Mike seems to think you walk on water, so do your stuff.”

She smiled. “Your uncle is charming, but slightly misled. I do not walk on water, I sink, just like everyone else. However, if there are sharks lurking about below, I just might be able to warn you ahead of time not to step in.”

He grinned. “Fair enough. Now, is there anything you need before you retire for the night?”

“Just a place to lay my head.”

He had an instant vision of her head nestled on his chest just below his chin and forgot what he’d been going to say. In the following moments, as she walked up the stairs toward the room she’d been given earlier, he kept struggling to remember his manners. Finally he regained his sense enough to call up to her.

“Miss Dane?”

She paused and turned. “Laura.”

“Then good night and sleep well…Laura.”

A long moment of silence passed between them. Finally she nodded and smiled.

“Good night to you, too.”

Only after she had disappeared did Gabriel realize he’d been holding his breath.

The bedroom she had been given was beautiful. He’d told her it had been his mother’s favorite. The wallpaper design was a thick, rich cream with tiny pink roses flocked in random order across the surface. The matching bedspread covered a four-poster bed made from dark cherry wood and shined to a high gloss. The carpet was a pale, delicate pink, like the color of a fading rose. It was a woman’s room, and in a way Laura felt protected, as if no man could endure within the confines of such fragile surroundings. She wondered if Gabriel had done this purposefully and then shrugged off the thought. Probably not. She had yet to meet a man who was that insightful.

In spite of her exhaustion, sleep eluded her. The fabric of her nightgown was sticking to her body. In a fit of frustration, she yanked it over her head and tossed it aside. At once her body felt cooler. She stretched and then yawned, reveling in the feel of cool sheets against her skin, and in that same moment she could feel Gabriel’s weight upon her body and the thrust of his manhood hammering between her thighs.

She groaned and rolled out of bed, moving toward the window, searching for something else to occupy her mind. That was a thought she wasn’t ready to handle. It was unsettling enough just knowing it would come.

G
abriel slept, and for the time being, the woman who’d intruded upon his life was forgotten. He lay belly down across his bed, pillowing one arm beneath his cheek, the other dangling off the side. His legs were sprawled and tangled within the sheet covering the lower half of his body. Every now and then the central air-conditioning would kick in and a burst of cool air would circulate throughout the room. Other than the occasional involuntary twitch of a muscle, he hadn’t moved in hours.

Outside, a light rain began to fall, freckling the flagstones on the patio below his windows. Within minutes, the shower had turned to a slow, steady downpour. Somewhere inside his mind, the peace that had taken him into sleep was being moved aside for a darker, more intense emotion.

Rain came without warning. It blew first in his face, then onto his clothes. Before long, the place in which he’d been lying was ankle deep with running water. Confused and miserable, he staggered to his feet, clutching a bouquet of limp, wilting roses and shivering with cold. Another gust of rain-laden wind blew into the tunnel in which he was standing. He picked up his bag and took a defensive step backward. His belly rumbled with hunger as he peered out. Somewhere out there he would find food, but not until this storm had passed. Thunder belched. Bile rose in his throat. He was afraid. So afraid.

Clutching his flowers a littler tighter, he turned toward the darkness and began to walk toward it, wincing as water squished between his toes. His socks were wet. Worse yet, he was walking in water. He wasn’t supposed to walk in water.

Something rumbled on the street above him, and he slapped his hands to his ears, unaware that the noise he heard was nothing more than a truck barreling over the viaduct in which he was standing. Down here, below the surface of the street, it sounded as if the world were coming apart. A quick shaft of pain split the thought in his head, but it disappeared as quickly as the noise that had brought it.

After that he began to walk faster, trying to find a place that was dryer and quieter…. And no noise…there must be no noise.

A whimper came out of the darkness ahead, and he stopped, his head cocked to one side, listening for a repeat of the sound. When it came again, he shrank back against the concrete wall of the viaduct, shivering with fright. He was no longer alone.

Moments later a small dog appeared at his feet, and for the first time since the start of his odyssey, he knew joy. Unmindful of the running water in which he was standing, he dropped to his knees. The dog, sensing no harm, licked the hand the man offered. Even after the man lifted the dog into his arms, cradling it among the limp roses, it made no attempt to struggle. Instead, it seemed satisfied within the confines of the man’s grasp.

The dog was soaked to the skin and muddy to boot, but the man didn’t care. He drew comfort from the touch of another living thing. Happy that he was no longer alone, he continued his journey toward the faint light now appearing at the other end of the tunnel.

As he walked out into the open, he lifted his head, sniffing the air and taking small comfort in the fact that the rain had stopped. The dog wiggled to be put down. Reluctant to let it go, he held it a little bit tighter. A large puddle beneath a nearby streetlight mirrored their passing as the man began to move.

Six blocks over, a forty-three-year-old accountant named Theodore Russell was stomping his way through the neighborhood park, dodging puddles and, not for the first time in their married lives, cursing his wife, Evie, for her dog’s stupidity.

At least once a month Choo Choo managed to get lost. There were constant reports about animals who could find their way home across hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of miles. Choo Choo continued to get lost within the block on which it lived. It was his opinion that Choo Choo had the homing instincts of a fart—once having escaped, it would lose its point of origin, yet never get far enough away to ignore.

As Theodore walked beneath a stand of trees, water from the recent rainfall dripped off of the leaves and down the back of his collar. He shivered.

“That does it,” he muttered, digging into his pocket for the dog whistle. “I’m tired. Five more minutes, and if I can’t find Choo Choo by then, Evie can get herself another dog.”

Just as he was lifting the whistle to his lips, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. He paused and turned. The faint glow from a nearby security light was barely enough for him to distinguish shrub from shadow.

“Choo Choo? Is that you, boy?”

He stared into the darkness, hoping to catch a glimpse of shaggy white fur, but when no dog appeared, he stuck the whistle in his mouth and blew.

Suddenly he was enveloped in a roar of great rage. Horrified, he froze, unaware he was still blowing the whistle. His hesitation cost him his life. Moments later, the roar visualized into a man of great height who came out of the bushes, blindly flailing his arms before him.

Theodore saw the blow coming and threw up his arms in self-defense. He should have run instead. A massive fist caught him square in the mouth, snapping his neck on impact and knocking the dog whistle down his throat.

Seconds later, Choo Choo came scurrying out of the bushes. The man on the ground carried a familiar scent of home. Choo Choo whined and then began licking at Theodore’s face.

The other man swayed where he stood, his hands clasped against his ears as the last echoes of pain faded away. Trembling from the rush of adrenaline that had surged through his system, he dropped to his knees, rocking to and fro beneath the shelter of the trees, unmindful of the water dripping onto his face or the soggy ground beneath him.

Minutes passed. Calm settled slowly as he sat back on his heels, grateful the agony was over.

A familiar whine came out of the darkness, and he remembered the dog. He turned. When he saw the man on the ground, he fell backward in fright.

It was a stranger! He wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers. He began grabbing for his roses and scrambling to his feet, desperate to get away. But to his relief, the stranger seemed to pose no threat.

Curious now, he leaned forward, giving the stranger’s arm a tentative poke.

“Help me?”

The stranger didn’t move—didn’t speak.

“Asleep,” he announced, satisfied with his assumption. Then, with the gentlest of touches, he patted the stranger’s head, just as he’d patted the dog only moments earlier.

The dog was still there, lying motionless beside the stranger.

“Come,” he said softly, but the dog scooted backward, just out of his reach.

He sighed. The dog wanted to stay. He stood up, and when he did, the little dog whined again, only softer. As he looked back, once more staring intently at the stranger on the ground, an impulse struck him. Pulling one of the roses from his bouquet, he laid it on the stranger’s chest.

“There now,” he said softly, and moved into the shadows as a steady drizzle began to fall.

Something filtered into the quiet of Laura’s sleep. She awoke with a jerk. Momentarily confused by unfamiliar surroundings, it took her a few seconds to remember where she was. When she did, she groaned beneath her breath and shoved a shaky hand through her hair. Moments later, Gabriel’s face flashed through her mind.

Without questioning her instincts, she knew something was wrong. She jumped from her bed, threw on her nightgown and ran to the door. The hallway was shadowed and quiet. A night-light burned at the head of the stairs, lighting the way up or down. She stood without moving, hearing nothing that would give cause for alarm, and staring into the shadows until her eyes began to burn.

Just when she thought she’d imagined it all, she heard a sound at the far end of the hall. She stepped out into the hallway and tilted her head, listening.

Someone was crying!

But not huge gulping sobs, just a quiet despair. Her first thought was that it was Gabriel, but the longer she listened, the more convinced she became that it was a woman she heard. She walked a little farther down the hall. The sound prevailed, seeping into the pores of her skin and winding itself around her heart until it was part of her pulse.

Staggered by the intensity of what she was experiencing, she stopped. She couldn’t put it into words, but there was something about the sound that made her stop in her tracks. It wasn’t so much the fact that someone was crying that bothered her. It was the fact that there was no one up here to be making that sound.

She spun around and started back down the hall, increasing her speed until she was all but running as she reached the door to her room. She dashed inside, closing the door firmly behind her and then telling herself afterward that it was all a mistake. But the thought of going back to bed made her jumpy. Rubbing at the goose bumps on her arms, she moved toward the windows, instead.

From the second story, the lawns below looked black. As she peered out into the darkness, she realized it was raining. The flagstone patio glistened beneath the security lights, and she could hear runoff from the roof moving through the downspout near her windows. She leaned forward, resting her forehead on the cool panes of glass and blinking, trying to relieve the dry, burning sensation in her eyes. Her mind ran free, sorting through all that she had learned of Gabriel Connor.

He’d been more than polite. During dinner, she’d caught glimpses of the man he must have been before his world fell apart, and she knew that, in another situation, they might have been friends.

She pictured his face and then sighed. He was almost beautiful, but in the masculine sense of the word. His features had strength; his gaze was unwavering. Well over six feet tall, his dark skin, black hair and green eyes a striking combination, Gabriel Connor was an enigma.

The images she kept seeing when she thought of his name were confusing. The angel part of it she understood. Gabriel. Angel. The angel Gabriel. That made a strange sort of sense. But two faces? What did that mean? Was there another side to the man she couldn’t see? Did he have a split personality of which even he was unaware? Her shoulders slumped with weariness. This trip was probably going to prove her undoing. She should have stuck to her guns after all and told Mike Travers she couldn’t come. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent two straight weeks at home. There was only so much a human body could endure. It was no wonder she thought she heard voices when no one was there.

The pulse at her temples was starting to pound in the way that it did just before the onset of one of her headaches. She frowned, hoping she’d packed her medicine, when she saw someone walking out of the trees that bordered the yard. He was bare to the waist and coming across the grounds toward the house in a slow, almost staggering walk.

She never knew when she realized it was Gabriel, but even from where she was standing, she could feel his despair. With no thought for the danger she might be putting herself in, she reached for her robe and ran out the door.

Something sharp pierced the bottom of Gabriel’s foot. Awakened by the sensation of pain, he stepped backward in reflex and went ankle deep into a large and widening puddle. The sensation of water on his feet and rain on his face made him stagger, and with cognizance came memory. The memory of blood and pain and death. Again.

“God help me,” he moaned, and covered his face.

Despair shattered his thoughts. There was mud on his clothes and skin, even in his hair. All he could think was to wonder where the hell he had been. And there at his feet, floating on the surface of the puddle, was a single long-stemmed rose. He stared at it for what seemed like forever and knew without picking it up that, just like before, every thorn on the stem had been removed.

Lost. Help me.

Gabriel covered his ears with the palms of his hands and then moaned.

“Help you? I can’t even help myself.”

“Gabriel.”

His head came up, his eyes narrowing, and although he could see the woman standing before him, he wasn’t sure if she was real or part of the dream.

“I’ll help you,” Laura said, and held out her hand.

He stared at it—and at her—for what seemed like forever. He kept waiting for her to disappear, but her image never wavered.

A frown creased Laura’s forehead as she reached for his arm. “Gabriel?”

At her touch, he shuddered. “You’re real?”

She took his hand as she would have a child and was staggered by what flooded her mind.

Rain, pouring into wide, sightless eyes and hammering at the petals of a rose. A small white dog, tattered and muddy, licking away the blood from the corner of a man’s slack jaw.

When she moaned, Gabriel knew that she’d plugged into his mind. Horrified that she’d seen his hell, he quickly pulled away from her touch.

“Get out of my head,” he said harshly. “There’s already more in there than I can cope with. Besides, you can’t help. It’s too late. No one can help.”

He tried to walk past her.

“What happened?” she asked. “Did you have another episode? Do they always happen in your sleep?”

His voice was harsh, laced with bitterness, as he stopped and turned.