Books by Maggie Shayne (244 page)

He didn't question the tight little pouch of her belly. She'd said herself that she'd been eating nonstop lately, and she could be bloated. Any number of things could explain it. Not that she'd bed to him. That wasn't even a possibility. The child was his. He knew it with a certainty he could not—would not—question, and he thought he should have sensed it all along. Should have known it at the very moment of conception. How could a man not notice when his universe was inexorably altered?

She'd taken him over.

He wondered if she knew, sensed, his need for her. God, he hated this feeling. He was utterly at her mercy.

And yet she sat in the tub with him, as fresh, hot water rose around them, even while the cooling batch drained. She washed him, lathering him with soap and scrubbing him down with a loofah. She worked on his arms and shoulders, arm pits and then his chest, where she lingered a long while.

She liked his chest, he thought, feeling it swell with the notion. She seemed to pay a lot of attention to it.

Finally he settled his hands over hers. He didn't speak, just pried the soap and sponge from her grip, and began washing her the way she'd been washing him. She was the one carrying the child. She was the one who was half mortal. The female, the weaker of the two of them. At least, he liked to think she was. Even though everything she had shown him had denied those notions.

He washed her chest, thinking he understood her obsession with his. Then he reached all the way around her and pulled her against him on the pretense of scrubbing her back. So small, so delicate she felt in his arms. Snapping her like a twig would be no challenge, and that knowledge frightened him in ways he'd never imagined. He stopped scrubbing for a moment and just held her against him, waiting for the soul-deep shudder that had worked through him to fade. He didn't like pondering how fragile she was, or how delicate the life she cradled within.

"Edge?" she whispered.

He swallowed hard, forced himself to release her. "Morning is coming," he said, as if that explained his momentary lapse.

"Finish up," she said, and she rose from the water like Venus rising from the foam. Rivulets ran down her skin as she stepped out of the tub, pulled on one of the complimentary, emerald green plush terry robes. "Haven Inn" was embroidered on the front in gold thread, beneath some kind of crest. "I'll go make sure the windows are all covered."

"You didn't wash your hair."

"I can do it later."

"But I wanted to do it."

She looked puzzled, her head tipping just slightly, her smile wavering and unsure.

Edge shrugged. "I've never washed a woman's hair before." Nor had he ever wanted to, he thought. He was pathetic. He thanked his stars she was pregnant. It seemed to be reason enough for her to let him hang around a while. Bask in her light. God knew he wasn't worthy.

She tugged the robe tight, took one of the towels from the big stack nearby and went to the bathroom window to hang it over the glass before drawing the curtains. "That's not a tight fit, Edge, so don't linger."

"I'll be out in a flash," he promised.

She nodded and left the room.

Edge finished his bath quickly, then wrapped himself in a towel and joined her in the bedroom. She'd managed to seal the room's two tall windows already, and he looked, then gave his head a shake and looked again. "Where did you get the duct tape and trash bags?"

She smiled. "Downstairs. I did a little snooping around the kitchen while you finished your bath."

"I was only five minutes."

"Closer to ten. And I can move almost as fast as you can, you know."

He nodded, walked to the canopy bed, eyeing it, then lifting the spread to glance underneath the bed. "You think I should play it safe?"

She tugged the covers out of his hand, then turned them down and shed the robe, crawling into the bed. Smiling at him, she patted the spot beside her.

"Hell, yes." He dove into the bed, then gathered her close to him. "Ah, this is way better than sharing space with dust bunnies."

"I thought it might be."

"Do you think it's safe, though?"

"What's the matter, Edge? Don't you trust me?"

He kissed her hair. "Course I do."

"I'm not going to let anyone get near you while you rest. The door is locked up tight, including the bolt and chain on the inside. Just relax."

He lifted his head, glanced at the clock. "Maybe I'm not ready to relax yet." She sent him a questioning look, and he wiggled his eyebrows. "Twenty minutes to sunrise. Think it's time enough?"

"For you or me?''

"Ouch!" He clutched his chest as if wounded, then grinned and pulled her closer.

"I'm only kidding, you know," she whispered. "You're an incredible lover, Edge. You take me to places I never dreamed of." She shrugged as he touched her. "Not that I have much of a frame of reference for comparison, mind you."

"And never will, if I have my way," he heard himself mutter as he pulled her into his arms. What shocked him was the realization that he meant it.

Amber fell asleep in his arms, and by the time she woke again there was life in the house around her. She could feel people moving around, hear their voices. Ordinary people. Nice, ordinary people. It was kind of comforting, in a way, to be surrounded by folks who knew nothing about her.

She took a quick shower and was delighted to find brand-new cellophane-wrapped toothbrushes and a sample-sized tube of toothpaste in the bathroom drawer, along with other comforting items, like deodorant, a hairbrush, a tiny sewing kit and a map of the nearby town. Gosh, that Sally really did want her guests to feel welcome.

Once she finished primping, she left the room, putting the Do Not Disturb sign on the door; then, as an after-thought, she decided to refasten the chain, just to be safe. From outside the door, she focused. Moving tiny things in precise motions was harder work than hurling large objects in a general direction. She used her forefinger to direct her energy, ran it along the door, lifting the chain on the other side and sliding it into the slot. Then she tried the door, just to make sure.

Finally she turned and headed down the stairs.

A couple were just heading out the front door, arm in arm, laughing all the way. Amber followed her senses to the kitchen, where she found Sally, garbed in a floral print dress and a full white apron, chopping vegetables on a cutting board. Beside her, in a row on the counter, were seven individual-sized pie tins, each of them lined in a perfectly trimmed crust.

"Pot pies for supper?" Amber asked.

Sally looked up quickly, startled. Too startled to stop the knife from continuing its downward journey. She hacked into her finger, shrieked and jumped. The knife clattered to the floor as she clutched her now bloody hand.

"Oh, geeze! I'm so sorry!" Amber raced forward, yanking paper towels off a roll and gripping the woman's hand to press the towels to her finger. "Hold this here. I'll get bandages," she said.

"In the bathroom, through there, down the hall, to the left," Sally said, nodding in the direction, because she couldn't really point. Tears were welling up in the woman's eyes. God, it must hurt.

"And don't apologize," Sally added quickly.

"I could just kick myself." Amber headed to the bathroom in search of the bandages and antiseptic ointment. But then she paused with the items in her hands. She recalled the magic her own blood had worked on Edge's burned flesh. Was it just him she could heal? Was it only vampires? Or would it work on anyone?

Licking her lips, she rummaged in the cupboard some more, locating a safety pin at length. Then she took all the items back to the kitchen with her. She got fresh paper towels, wet them at the sink and turned to Sally. "Sit down now. I'm very good at this."

"I hope so. I'm afraid it's deeper than I thought at first. I think I might need stitches."

"Let me take a look." Amber took the woman's hand in hers, turning it palm up, and with her free hand lifted the paper towels away. The cut was midway up the forefinger, and it was gaping. As soon as the pressure was off, blood started flowing again.

"Oh, mercy," Sally said.

"You shouldn't look at it. It'll make you queasy." The sight of all that blood was making Amber queasy, too. But she fought past it. "Lean back in your chair, close your eyes, and hold your fingers tight, right here." She showed the woman the pressure points on either side of the base of her forefinger. "Squeeze hard. We have to get the bleeding stopped."

The woman did as Amber told her, closing her eyes and squeezing. Amber lifted the paper towel, replacing it with the cold, wet ones, wiping the blood away. The bleeding slowed. Glancing quickly at Sally to be sure her eyes were still closed, Amber grabbed the safety pin, flipped it open and jabbed herself in the forefinger with it.

When the blood welled up in the pinprick, she again moved the paper towels aside and quickly squeezed a few droplets of her own blood onto the wound. Then she lowered the paper towels again.

"Hold them there for me," she told Sally.

Frowning, Sally did so. "It feels… funny, dear."

"Funny how?" Amber asked, unwrapping adhesive strips that had roses decorating them. Better than cartoon characters, she thought.

"Kind of tingly, icy cold and burning at the same time." She opened her eyes, looking worried. "You don't suppose I've sliced into a nerve or something?"

"It's going to be fine. Close your eyes now. I'll be finished in a minute."

Sally obeyed, leaning her head back. Amber lifted the paper towels again. She watched but saw no fresh bleeding, and as she dabbed away the blood that was already there, she could find no cut. Only a pale pink line where the cut had been.

She bit back the exclamation that jumped to her lips, and instead washed the finger clean of blood, applied a little ointment to a bandage, and then stuck it around the place where the cut had been.

"There," she said. "Done."

When she looked at Sally's face, the woman was staring at her, an odd look in her eyes. She said, "It… doesn't hurt anymore."

"Well, this ointment must have some topical pain reliever in it."

She frowned at her finger, bent and straightened it. "But it doesn't hurt at all. It's like I never cut it."

"What can I say? I'm good at bandaging." Amber smiled. "Now, how about we clean up this mess, and then I'll help you finish those pot pies."

"You're a guest, dear. I wouldn't dream of it."

"Nonsense. I'm a guest who just made you darn near hack off a finger. I owe you one."

"You haven't even had breakfast."

"Oh, don't worry. I plan to snack while I help. Why do you think I came wandering into the kitchen in the first place?''

Sally smiled. "I kept two plates of breakfast aside for you and your husband this morning. You can help yourself." She nodded toward the fridge.

Amber opened it and found two plates wrapped in tinfoil. She took the foil off the top of one and saw stacks of French toast, fluffy scrambled eggs, home-fries and sausage links. She flipped the tinfoil over, took the sausage links off the plate and dropped them into the foil, then did the same with the second plate. "I'm a vegetarian," she explained as Sally looked at her quizzically.

Then Sally nodded. "Ah, I had one of those here last summer. No worries, hon. The home fries were cooked in vegetable oil, and not even in the same pan."

"That's a relief. God, I'm starved." She took both plates out, set one inside the microwave and the other on the counter, and hit a button.

"You going to take a plate up for your husband?"

"Oh, he won't be awake before dinnertime. I'm going to eat them both."

Sally grinned ear to ear, carrying paper towels and bandage wrappers to the garbage, washing her hands at the sink. "My goodness, I would have guessed you to be one of those young women who eats like a bird. You're so tiny."

"I don't usually have this kind of appetite," Amber admitted.

Sally let her gaze roam down Amber's body, and it stopped on her belly. "Is there a reason for it?" she asked with a smile.

Amber licked her lips. "The truth is, I'm kind of eating for two."

Sally looked up, eyes gleaming, a smile on her face. "You're expecting!"

Amber nodded. "I've only known for a couple of days."

"Oh!" Sally clapped her hands together, rushing back to her pies at the counter. "You eat. I'll put these together and set them aside. Then you and I are going into town for some first-class baby shopping."

"We are?"

"Oh, dear, yes. Trust me now. Go on, eat."

The microwave beeped. Amber took out the first plate, inserted the second, grabbed a fork and a bottle of maple syrup, and dug in.

Edge kept to the shadows while Amber thanked Sally for the huge basket of food she had made up for them to take along. He shouldn't be surprised, he figured, that Amber had won the woman's affections within the space of a single day. She'd won his in a heartbeat.

He smiled, waved goodbye, took the heavy basket from Amber and headed out to the car. Amber opened the passenger door for him, and he set the basket inside. Then he frowned at her. "It's chilly tonight. We'll be running the heat in the car. You think the food would be better off in the trunk?''

"No." She said it quickly.

Edge frowned at her, tipping his head to one side. "You hiding another vampire back there, Alby?"

She rolled her eyes, moving around to the driver's side. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Well, I know your penchant for shutting us up in your trunk. And you obviously don't want me poking around back there."

She crammed the keys into the switch and started the engine. "You coming with me or staying behind?''

Pursing his lips, Edge got in. He looked at her as she pulled away, then looked again. "You're wearing different clothes," he noted.

"Mmm-hmm. Sally took me shopping today. God knows I needed a change."

He nodded, noticing the loose fitting cotton sundress, white with lilac and yellow pansies all over it in honor of the impending springtime, and the long yellow cardigan sweater she wore with it in deference to the chill of winter still lingering in the air.

"It's pretty," he said. "Awfully timid for you, though."

"What, I'm not timid?"

He shot her a look. "You're vivid. You should wear jewel tones, not pastels. Satin and velvet, not cotton." He frowned a little. "You're not trying to change, are you?"

She shrugged. "Why would I?"

"The pregnancy. Do you think you need to behave in a manner befitting an expectant mother, Alby? Respectable, discreet… toned down?"

She didn't look him in the eye, which told him he might just be onto something.

"Don't mute your colors, love. It won't work, anyway. They're too bright to be covered in paler shades. They'll only bleed through."

She pursed her lips, seemed to think for a moment. Then she said, "I figured I should get used to it. I was looking at maternity clothes, and they really tend to be mostly muted pastels and sunny floral prints. Besides, I've been eating so much my jeans barely buttoned this morning."

"Maternity." He digested that. "God, I hadn't thought that far ahead. You're going to swell up like a hot air balloon before long, aren't you?"

She swung her head his way so fast he thought she must have wrenched her neck. "You have a
problem
with that?"

He grinned at her, looking her up and down and trying to imagine her tiny body stretched around a baby. Her little belly swollen to beach ball size. It made his insides feel knotted up to picture her that way.

He jerked out of his imaginings when her fist connected with his shoulder hard enough to make him wince, and he forced his eyes up to hers again. "What?"

She looked wounded, refused to speak to him and kept her eyes dead ahead.

He reached out, cupping his palm over her belly. "Hard to believe it can happen. You're so tiny. I mean, there's not enough of you to stretch to that size, is there?"

"Oh, you just wait and see," she said. And she said it like a threat. As if she expected it to upset him or bother him, which, of course, it didn't.

"I intend to." His hand warmed there where it rested on her belly. Warmed and tingled. "I saw this sculpture of a goddess once. She was as green as the forest, and her belly was huge. Her breasts, too. She looked like a wild woman, an earth mother, and yet she had this expression of… serenity. I thought at the time that she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen." He smiled at her. "That's what you're going to look like, Alby. Like an earth mother, a nature goddess."

When he dared a glance at her face, she was gaping at him, blinking as if she'd never seen him before.

He shrugged. "Yeah, you're right. That was the sappiest thing I've ever said. I think your pregnancy hormones must be spilling over into me. Probably seeped in with your blood."

Her smile was tentative but finally real. "You have a sweet side," she accused.

"Don't let it get around."

There was a sharp popping sound, like a gunshot, and the car jerked suddenly to the left. Amber gripped the wheel for all she was worth, her foot jamming onto the brake in a reflexive motion as the car skidded sideways. Edge gripped the wheel, as well, to help her hold it. A rush of panic hit him. What would have once seemed to him an amusing little thrill ride now scared him senseless, his mind jumping to thoughts of the tiny life inside Amber's womb. How easily it might be snuffed out.

The car finally came to a halt in a spray of gravel on the road's shoulder. Edge turned to Amber, hands to her belly, eyes wide as they searched her face. "Are you all right? Were you hurt? Is the baby… ?"

"Fine, I'm… we're fine."

He let his eyes fall closed and sighed his relief. He'd never known fear like that. While self-preservation had always been his top priority, he thought, he'd never really cared if
he
lived or died. Oh, he'd decided he preferred living on, but he had no fear of death and what lay beyond its veil.

Now… God, now he was a quivering wreck of a man. To panic over a little skid. Is this what fatherhood did to men? He would never have believed himself capable of falling this far.

Sighing, he backed away, opened his door and got out to survey the damage. The driver's side front tire was flat, with a large, jagged tear in it. Amber got out, as well, and came to stand beside him.

"What happened?"

"Blowout," he said. "It's no big deal. I can fix it. Keys?"

She slapped them into his hand, and he aimed the key ring and thumbed the button with the open trunk icon. The trunk opened as if by magic, and Edge went to the rear of the car. Amber gasped and raced after him, right on his heels.

"Wait!"

He didn't heed her. And then he was standing there, looking down into the trunk, at the semitransparent pink and blue shopping bags, each bearing a teddy bear logo. He glanced up at her, and she lowered her eyes. Then he returned his attention to the bags, tugging one open and reaching inside. He pulled out a brown plush bunny with floppy ears. A tiny quilt in bright yellow checks with happy little ducklings all over it. A stack of tiny white T-shirts, and an assortment of minuscule pajamas in the softest fabric he'd ever touched and every color of the rainbow. They had little feet at the bottom. He couldn't believe any baby could be small enough to fit these things.

He lifted his head again, met her eyes, the little pajamas still in his hands. "You bought baby things today."

She nodded.

"And you didn't want me to see them?"

Pursing her lips, she seemed to have to make an effort to hold his gaze. "I don't know why I bought them. Given the dream, it's not like the baby is going to get the chance to use them."

"Don't say that."

"Sally took me into town, to the baby stores. I saw these things and I got… foolish. I forgot what I know. I let myself believe… "

Edge gripped her shoulders and turned her to face him. "You have to believe. Dammit, Alby, if you don't believe, who the hell is going to? If you don't believe, what hope can this baby possibly have?"

She blinked up at him, tears brimming in her eyes.

"Forget about protecting yourself from heartache,

Alby. You already know you can't. If it's going to come, it's going to come. But you can't just lie there like a doormat and wait for it. You can goddamn well fight it."

She stared into his eyes. "That's basically what Alicia said."

"Alicia's a smart girl."

Amber licked her lips. "The visions have never been wrong before."

"Damn the visions, then. Nothing is certain. Any tiny change you make can alter the future. You know that."

She blinked at him, seemed to gather herself, swallowed hard. "I so want to believe that."

"Don't
want to
. Just do it." He gave her a little shake. "Do it, Alby. I am. And I'll tell you what else, that baby is, too. No kid of mine is going to go down without a fight."

"I'm just not sure I'm strong enough to bear it, Edge, if… "

"I'll be strong enough for the both of us," he told her, even though he doubted his ability. He pulled her against him, pressing his mouth to her hair, holding her hard.

He felt her relax in his arms after a moment. Felt her melt against him and go soft and pliant. And then he felt the soft sobs shaking her back and shoulders as she wept. "I… wasn't sure what colors to get. So I… I bought everything."

"You don't have any sense of whether the baby is a girl or a boy, then?" Edge asked.

She sniffled, straightened a little, and looked at him, smiling through the tears on her face. "No idea at all."

I'm a boy. J.W. Mom calls me Jimmy. Tell her I like blues and greens, and especially red. I really like red.

Edge frowned, because the voice in his head was back.

And it hadn't been, not since it had directed him to where Amber was.

"My mother said she had this powerful sense of me from very early on. She knew I was a girl. She knew what I would look like."

I have my mother's hair, almost black with that blood-red rinse effect. But my face and my eyes, those are all yours. By the time I'm nineteen, people who see us together will mistake us for brothers.

"What the hell… ?" Edge whispered.

He tucked the blanket sleepers—that was what the pajamas were called, according to their tags—back into the bag and shoved it aside to reach for the spare tire and jack.

"Mom says there was even some kind of… communication going on between us when I was still inside the womb," Amber was saying. She stood by herself now, hands cradling her belly as if holding her child. "And afterward, as well. Hell, it's still pretty strong. I can shield from anyone else, but it's almost impossible to keep her in the dark for long." She licked her lips, sighed. "It worries me, Edge. It scares me that I'm not feeling those things for this baby. I keep thinking maybe it's just another sign that it's not meant to be."

"Or it could be because in this case the baby's psychic bond is to its father."

He rolled the tire out onto the ground, stood there holding it upright with one hand, the jack in the other, as she blinked up at him.

"What do you mean?"

"I just figured it out," he told her. "That voice in my head, the one that told me where you were, both when Stiles had you and again when you went to Athenaville."

He shook his head, only barely believing it himself. "It was the baby."

Her eyes widened. "Edge?"

"I wouldn't lie to you about this, Alby. He's a boy. He says he likes blue and green and especially red, and that he has your hair and my eyes." He frowned a little. "He also got a hellish kick out of his old man getting beaten up by a gang of girls—though I don't imagine he saw it coming."

"He… spoke to you?"

Edge nodded. "Yes. And more than that, he spoke about his future, about how he'll look at nineteen. Don't you think that suggests there's a hole in your vision, Alby?"

"I… I don't know."

"Well, he knows. He knows what we're thinking, hears what we're saying when he's tuned in. And it can't do him a hell of a lot of good to hear you thinking he's doomed from birth."

"No. No, it can't."

Edge nodded firmly and rolled the tire around to the front of the car. He leaned it against the fender, then knelt to put the jack underneath.

"Edge, why are you bothering?" she asked softly. And he realized she was in a hurry to be on the road again.

He shrugged, looked both ways, saw no traffic and straightened, lifting the car up with one hand. Amber crouched down and spun off the lug nuts with her fingers. She yanked off the old tire, slid the new one into place and quickly spun the nuts back on.

As she stood up, brushing the dirt from her hands, Edge lowered the car.

"Why do you suppose he doesn't speak to me?" she asked.

Edge picked up the demolished tire and the jack, carrying both of them back to the trunk and putting them inside. "I don't know. Why didn't you speak to your father before you were born?''

She shrugged.

"Is it because you love your mother more?"

"Of course not! I adore my dad. He… oh, I see what you're doing." She smiled a little. "Thank you for that."

"Listen, next time I get the little runt talking, I'll let you know. You can try to listen in, through me. I mean, you and I seem to have a pretty strong bond ourselves, don't we?"

"I think that's an understatement."

"Then you probably know I want to take a turn driving."

"Yes, I do," she said. "And you know I'm starving and need to stop somewhere for a veggie sub soon or die."

He smiled. "Yes, I do. What's wrong, are you sick of the things in the goodie basket Miss Sally packed?''

She made a face. "I polished that off an hour ago."

He smiled. "I'll pull off at the first spot I see."

Edge pulled into the driveway of the Marquand Estate just after midnight. He whistled softly as he cut the engine. "Some place. Looks like a miniature of the White House."

"Eric always lives in style. Though this place is a lot more modern than what he normally prefers."

"Yeah?"

"Mmm, stone castles are more to Eric's taste."

"Maybe he got sick of living the cliche." He opened his door and got out, then came around to open hers, as well, but Amber was out of the car before he got there.

"There's Tarn," she said, waving as Tamara came out the front door, onto the curving, elegant front steps, framed by twin pillars. Amber hurried forward, hugged Tam hard. Tamara wore jeans and a lacy white blouse, her long black curls draping over her shoulders like a shawl. Amber sighed, glad to see her dear friend again.

"It's been so long, honey. How are you?"

"I'm good. I… there's a lot to talk about, Tam. So much." She lowered her eyes briefly, then brought her head up again as she heard Edge's footsteps. She glanced his way. "Tamara, this is Edge."