BlackWind: Viraiden and Bronwyn (29 page)

“The man makes great coffee,” she said, and sighed again.

The cup nestled in her hands, she laid her head on the back of the sofa and thought of the night she had spent in Viraiden’s arms.

Bronwyn lifted her head and took another sip of coffee. As she did, her eyes fell on the box of letters sitting on her desk.

A brief spasm of pain flickered through her heart. She stared at the box, knowing she would have to deal with it sooner or later. Before she had followed Viraiden to the lake, she had made up her mind to read some of Sean’s letters to his mother. Now, she realized that would be unwise. The past would be dredged up, dissected and relived.

The agony of what had happened to them would open fresh wounds and, at that 171

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moment, she was too happy, too satisfied with the way things were advancing with her and Cree to look back, to borrow trouble from the past.

She put her feet on the floor, the coffee cup on the table and stood. Her gaze on the box, she walked to her desk and stared at the manila envelopes housed within the cardboard receptacle. She ran a finger along the box’s flap, her bottom lip tucked between her teeth. But before she could open anything, her phone rang, surprising her.

She doubted it would be Cree and she had no desire to talk to Brian, so she let the machine catch it.

“Bronwyn, are you there?” her mother demanded. “If you are, pick up!”

There was a long pause then an audible sigh.

“All right, I suppose you went to the nine o’clock Mass with Brian. You know I really don’t approve of your relationship with a man old enough to be your father.

Well, anyway, I can’t wait any longer to tell you our good news.”

Another pause then a more cheerful tone of voice.

“Bronnie, Neal and I were married in Provence a few days ago. I know we should have waited, but we found this darling little country church and the priest was so sweet.”

Another prolonged sigh.

“Sage was best man and the priest’s housekeeper was my maid of honor. I wish you could have been here, but I knew we’d never drag you away from work. I hope you aren’t too upset with us. We are deliriously happy and wanted to share our good news with you. When you get this message, please give us a call at…”

Bronwyn grabbed a pen and wrote down the international number in Switzerland where her mother and new stepfather were located.

“We’ll be here through Tuesday, then it’s off to Norway, Denmark and Sweden.

Sage, however, should be back in Iowa by tomorrow. You know you could do a lot worse than that sweet young man, Bronwyn.”

Another long pause then a quick “I love you” and a hasty goodbye.

Bronwyn leaned against the desk, not sure how she felt about her mother’s marriage. While she liked Neal Hesar and certainly understood her mother’s need to have him in her life, Bronwyn felt a slight betrayal of her lost father despite what he had done to her own life. She knew that was natural, but all the same, it hurt a little to know her father could be replaced in her mother’s affections.

Mentally shaking herself, she was about to return to the sofa and her cooling cup of coffee when she looked at the box of letters. For a long time she stood there, deciding what needed to be done. Finally she let out a ragged breath.

“I’ll take out my letters to Miss Dorrie,” she said, nodding. “No one needs to ever see them.”

The decision made, she pulled the first envelope from the box and opened it. The first ten or so letters were from Brian. His name was in the return address. Next came a 172

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letter from her—the first of many she’d written Sean’s mother—and she pulled it from the stack, remembering well how she had smuggled the letter out of Galrath and who had helped her. There were two more letters from Brian, then in the return address were simply the initials SDC. She deliberately looked away, hearing the blood beginning to pound in her ears.

She remembered that day at Saint Teresa’s as though it had been yesterday—

“I’m here to enroll me boy,” Dorrie Cullen had said in her thick brogue. “His name be Sean Daniel Cullen.”

“Sean Daniel Cullen,” Bronwyn whispered, staring at the bold initials. She ran her thumb over the initials. Before the tears that stung her eyes could gather and fall, she quickly moved past the letter.

There were five at the back of the stack postmarked Ireland, all from Brian. With a sigh of relief, she stuffed the letters back in the envelope and moved on to the next year’s group.

The first letter in the next envelope was from her. She laid it aside, shuffled through several from Brian, an equal number from Sean, another from her then she stopped.

She knew the exact date Sean had died. That day, month and year was etched firmly in her fertile memory as the day John F. Kennedy had been slain. She stared at the postmark from that terrible day, her lip quivering. Her gaze shifted to the initials in the return address and she realized this was Sean’s last letter to his mother. She lifted it, looked at it a long time, torn between reading what he had written and not wanting to know. No doubt the missive had been penned the day before the tragic events in front of the Flying Wench Tavern occurred. Bronwyn wondered if he had mailed it the morning he died or had dropped it in the post a day earlier. A part of her longed to know, to be a witness to his last thoughts, but another part warned the grief would be unbearable and she had no right to pry.

At long last she laid the letter lovingly aside then moved on.

In that envelope, there were seven more letters from her, the rest from Brian. When she opened the next envelope, she started looking only at the postmarks. If the letter came from Florida, she put it aside. If it was from Iowa, she thumbed past it without bothering to look at the return address.

She found thirty more letters from her in the next six envelopes. Some were thin, only a page long—most were two pages. One or two were several pages thick.

“I guess it depended on how sorry I was feeling for myself at the time…”

She remembered complaining about college classes, professors, dorm room conditions and roommates who didn’t have a clue how to keep a room livable. There had been reviews of books she’d read or movies she’d seen that had struck a chord. A particularly moving homily at church might warrant a comment or two.

And there had been clippings that Dorrie had asked to see when Bronwyn had made the Dean’s list or when she had won an academic award of some sort.

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And there were pictures of Bronwyn through the years—self-consciously sent and graciously accepted and acknowledged in the letters Dorrie had written back to her.

Opening one of her letters to Dorrie, Bronwyn realized the picture that should have been there had been removed and she wondered what Sean’s mother had done with it, with any of the pictures, for when she opened several that should have had photos, she found none.

Neither were they in the box.

“I wonder what they did with her belongings,” she said, and made a mental note to gently query Brian.

She knew there would be only seven letters from her to Dorrie in the last envelope.

Four had been sent from Florida and the other three from Iowa. She had to look at the return address to see which ones were hers and which ones were Brian’s.

It was then her world came crashing to a sudden stop.

* * * * *

Bronwyn pounded on the security headquarters door. The man behind the desk looked up and frowned. “What can I do for you, Dr. McGregor?”

“I’m looking for Captain Cree.”

“This is his day off. He doesn’t like being bothered on his day off.”

Digging her fingernails into her palms, Bronwyn stepped into the office. “I neither need nor want your opinion about what Viraiden does or doesn’t like, Mr. Cahill,” she snapped, putting all the haughtiness she had ever heard her mother use into her tone.

“All I need from you is his whereabouts.”

Douglas Cahill’s eyebrows shot up. “He’s down at the stables.”

“Which is where exactly?”

“Down where the road into Baybridge T-bones into paved on the left and gravel on the right. Take the gravel road about a mile and a half east. You’ll see the farm buildings. Turn in there and keep on the road until it winds ‘round to the stables.”

“Thank you,” Bronwyn muttered.

She turned on her heel and left the office, her jaw clenched, her eyes narrowed. Five minutes later, she left the paved section of the street at the kiosk and took the serpentine curves of graveled roadway out to the farm. She barely noticed the pretty scenery surrounding the crimson-hued outbuildings with their green metal roofing. She drove past a duo of tall brick silos and turned in at the opening of the winding split-rail fence that swept from either side of the farm access road. Absently, she waved at several workmen gathered around a tractor and hay wagon when they greeted her.

The road passed beneath a modern version of a covered bridge perched over a narrow stream, then became shrouded with the branches of old-growth maple and walnut trees as it wound its way east by northeast. The curving road would have been 174

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beautiful had Bronwyn’s mind been other than where it was. The lush growth and the changing colors of approaching fall barely registering with her. By the time she caught sight of the sprawling stables and white paddock, she was as tense as a coiled watch spring.

She didn’t see anyone milling about, and when she stopped the car, got out and went into the dusky interior of the stable, her calls of “hello” went unanswered. Going back outside, she stood by her car, her hands on her hips and gazed around with growing frustration. There were two horses in the paddock, one lying in the sun and the other drinking at the trough.

“Is anybody here?” she called.

When there was no answer, she opened the car door and tapped the horn. She waited a minute or two then pressed again on the horn, longer.

“Stop that! You’re scaring the horses!”

Bronwyn turned. A tall black-haired woman was sitting bareback astride a pinto.

Anger was carved on the woman’s tanned features and her vivid sapphire blue eyes were narrowed.

“What do you want?” she inquired in a husky voice.

“I’m looking for Viraiden Cree,” Bronwyn grated, trying not to gawk at the woman’s imposing height.

“Do you see him here?”

“Are you the stable manager?” Bronwyn asked, but privately thinking the woman looked like a professional basketball player.

The woman smiled nastily. “I might be. Who the hell are you?”

Bronwyn raised her chin. “I am a friend of Aidan’s.”

“Aidan, is it?” the woman snorted, swinging one long leg over her mount’s rump and sliding to the ground. She walked toward Bronwyn, the pinto following her. “Does he know you call him that behind his back?”

Bronwyn opened her mouth to tell the woman it wasn’t any of her business what she called Cree, but the sound of barking made her look to the west. She thought she recognized Ralph’s excited ululation.

“Who are you?” the woman asked. “And why are you looking for Cree?”

Knowing she could never drive her car over the rough-looking land she was sure must border on the crescent-shaped lake off to the west, Bronwyn turned on her heel and headed for the paddock.

Ignoring the woman who had fallen into step beside her, Bronwyn stopped at the paddock, put two fingers to her lips and whistled for the horses. Both equines turned their heads, but only the one at the trough headed her way, ambling along, tossing its thick mane.

“I asked you your name,” the woman insisted.

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“Bronwyn McGregor.”

“What do you want with Cree?”

The horse that sauntered over to Bronwyn was a roan mare with a coat gleaming so brightly it hurt the eyes. Its sleek body rippled with healthy muscle and its soft brown eyes were filled with friendliness. Looking down the mare’s legs, Bronwyn saw that she was shod.

“If you’re shod, sweetie, you’re rideable.” Bronwyn patted the velvety nose.

“Do you even know how to ride?” the woman inquired, her voice filled with insult.

“Do you know how to mind your own business?” Bronwyn gave a look she hoped would shut up the bitch.

The woman snorted. Crossing her arms over her lush chest, she cocked her head, amusement settling on her pretty face. “Horses can tell when a human is inept at riding them. The beast will throw you quicker than you can bat an eye.”

“I’ve been riding since I was five.”

Bronwyn went in the stable and came back out with a set of reins. Not even looking at the tall woman, she opened the gate arm of the paddock, went inside and speaking softly to the mare, draped the reins over its head. Tightening the reins in place, she led the mare outside the paddock then closed the gate.

“He belongs to me,” the woman said.

“He is a she,” Bronwyn snapped.

“Fool! I don’t mean the horse.”

Bronwyn grabbed a handful of the little mare’s mane and swung up onto its back.

She settled herself then pulled lightly on the reins, turning the mare’s head to the right.

“You don’t mean Cree, either.” Bronwyn walked the mare forward, her gaze locked on the woman. “I don’t know who you are and I don’t care, but Viraidan Cree belongs to me.”

“That I will not allow!” The woman grabbed for the mare’s reins, but Bronwyn dug her heels into the horse’s sturdy sides. The animal shot forward, pulling away from the strange woman’s grasp.

“Eat me,” Bronwyn threw at her.

“He is mine!” the woman yelled as Bronwyn nudged the mare into a fast trot. “Do you hear me, McGregor? The Reaper is mine!”

Bronwyn could hear her shouts but couldn’t make out what she was yelling, for the mare’s hoofbeats were loud and the wind rushed in her ears, blowing her hair, which blotted out the woman’s words.

“Ugly black-haired witch,” Bronwyn murmured, but the woman’s exotic beauty was enough to put seeds of doubt in her mind. Cree had made no mention of seeing another woman. The witch, as Bronwyn mentally labeled her, could be like the young 176