Branded Sanctuary (11 page)

When she flicked her gaze up, she saw her reflection in the glasswork of Marguerite‟s display cabinets. Her eyes looked like the bloodshot melon ball scoops of a Pekinese. “But it‟s fine. That‟s the way guys are, we all know it. I‟m going out to the storehouse to get that extra teakettle. You know the a.m. shift will be busy.” Her voice started sounding strange and too high as she got to the end of her diatribe, but she escaped before either woman could point out they didn‟t really need the extra kettle. They didn‟t say anything to stop her, though. Maybe they were as sick of dealing with her shit as Brendan was.

Breathing fast, she slid out the back and cut through Marguerite‟s private garden, practically running to the small shed and slipping inside. One breath, two breaths, three… The quiet storeroom, smelling of old wood and dried herbs hanging from the ceiling, had become the place Chloe ran when she couldn‟t hold it together. She was never bothered there. Which meant they knew why she came here.

She squatted on her heels in a shaft of early morning sunlight and closed her eyes.

Maybe she was just as sick of her own shit. She refused to have a panic attack this morning. The last time she‟d had one at Tea Leaves, it had occurred when she was writing the specials list. For awhile after that, Gen had quietly taken it over until Chloe could handle it again.

Writing the specials list had been a daily ritual she‟d loved, peaceful and normal.

She‟d used the different colored whiteboard pens to create pictures of tea cups and herbs, things to jazz it up. Added wise and thoughtful sayings for the day, sometimes from famous people, sometimes ones she‟d made up.

Natalie had come up with the one for that horrible day. It had been as perfect and simple as a child‟s mind. “Smile. It makes everyone feel good.” A few minutes later, he‟d come up behind them…

No. This shed was a true sacred place, baptized daily by Marguerite‟s lovely rituals of preparing tea leaves, working on different mixtures, the herbal magics she created with her elegant, beautiful hands. Chloe wouldn‟t allow that memory here. Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, she imagined a white, protective light over the place, keeping such a stain out. But what if
she
was the stain?

Stop it, Chloe. Go into work mode. You can do that. Leave all this outside the door, and if
you can look nice and normal enough, maybe Marguerite won’t look at you in that way that
strips you bare naked, and Gen won’t touch you a hundred times a day as if she’s stroking a
wounded animal. But if they don’t do those things, I might fly apart as well.

Of course she was in danger of that either way.

I have
so
had enough of this.
She banged out of the shed, intending to march back to the tea room, but came up short.

When she‟d flown down the garden path to the drying shed and storeroom, she‟d completely missed that the garden had an occupant. If Marguerite stayed overnight at her rooms in Tea Leaves, she wasn‟t alone. After her morning yoga, she usually left Tyler finishing his coffee and reading the paper at the bistro set, placed near one of Marguerite‟s many fountains. The peaceful area was surrounded by green ferns and jasmine bushes.

Wearing tailored slacks, he had his coffee cup in hand, one ankle resting comfortable on the opposite knee. Thanks to all the gods, he hadn‟t yet buttoned his dress shirt, because his broad chest, the soft mat of hair over it that arrowed down to a hard abdomen, was a welcome distraction. But he was looking at her as she came out of the shed. She found herself drawn by those serious amber eyes, pulled in his direction by a need that—when she voiced it—shocked herself.

“Will you teach me how to use a gun?”

Tyler considered her. He didn‟t seem surprised by the request, but then Tyler always seemed prepared for anything. There was a self-possession to him so absolute, Chloe was sure most would have guessed he was a former government operative, even after learning about his current profession of erotic cinema screenplay writer and sometime producer. But even that wasn‟t his main profession. He had his fingers in lots of pies, probably because he had the money to own a whole pie-making factory.

“Chloe.” His voice had a rich timbre, flavored with a cultured Georgia drawl. “You take flies out of Tea Leaves in a cup. You apologize when you kill mosquitoes sucking blood out of your skin.”

“I know. But I thought…” She sighed, miserable. “I know, Tyler. I‟m just so afraid…of being afraid, and I don‟t know how to stop. And I don‟t know what to do about it. I‟m not going to some idiot shrink because all they do these days is put you on drugs. But hey, what else is there? He can‟t convince me that there‟s nothing to fear in the world, right?”

Rat toes, she was blinking back more of the hated tears. But at least she was back to her normal creative expletives, instead of the more common, crass ones.

“Come here.”

She stepped forward obediently without thought, always amazed at his ability to do that, but even more amazed when he took her hand and drew her into his lap without any awkwardness or hesitation. Closing his arms around her, he brought her in to his chest for an all encompassing masculine hug. “Oh God,” she mumbled, her voice muffled in his shirt. She wanted to curl up in his lap like a kitten and thought since his other arm was behind her knees, she might already be. “No wonder Marguerite married you. I‟d marry you for the hugs alone.”

He rubbed her back, probably because he felt her trembling, but he spoke with a trace of humor. “She tells everyone she married me for my great wealth.”

“Well, there is that. And the incredible ass, if you don‟t mind me saying.”

“Just as long as you don‟t feel compelled to grope it.”

“Well, I am feeling vulnerable, and it‟s the least you could let me do…” But instead she gave a little sob, and he tightened his arms around her.

“Chloe, it will get better. You‟ve known such joy in your life, and the idea of someone like Marguerite‟s father is so alien to you. Why don‟t you come stay with us for awhile? There‟s no shame in it. We‟d love to have you there.”

“She doesn‟t…” Chloe closed her eyes tightly. “Does Marguerite feel guilty about any of this? Because it was her father? I couldn‟t bear it if she did.”

“Marguerite understands the nature of evil. She was sorry you were drawn into her particular brand of it.”

“I would have done anything to protect her place or her, Tyler. I don‟t regret that, not ever.”

“I know that.” He shifted his hands to her shoulders, drawing her gaze up to his face, the steady expression. “You did. You‟re so very dear to us, Chloe. Give yourself time. If you still want to learn how to use a gun in a month or two, I‟ll teach you. But like most things, it‟s a decision best made when you‟re in the right frame of mind for it.

Until then, I‟ll shoot anybody that needs shooting for you.”

“Just the kind of friend I need.” She stared up into his handsome face, the expression that looked as if it could weather any storm. “Can I use you for the other thing that friends are known for?”

“Sure, little flower,” he said gently, his pet name for her. He curved his hand around her neck, caressing her cheek as she laid her head back on his chest and let herself be held some more. Curling her body up against his, she used it as a bulwark against the tears she refused to spill.

* * * * *

Brendan had wanted to turn around and look at her again, but he‟d made himself walk to the Jeep. Drive into Tampa, handle his morning classes. Keep a vigorously maintained wall between who he was to his students and what he‟d been to Chloe last night. How he might have failed her this morning. But after lunch, the wall fell. He had a work period before the advanced drama class would arrive to start the Camelot rehearsal. He stood on the auditorium stage, staring out into the darkened seating, only stage lights casting a dim, antique yellow glow on the assortment of props around him.

Things to create realities not necessarily his own.

Damn it. With a curse, he brought his fist down on the table they were using as a centerpiece for this scene. It had a tapestry draped over it, so he‟d forgotten it was a solid oak piece they‟d picked up from a rummage sale, rather than a far more advisable and expendable card table. He cursed again, with a violence and frustration that startled him as it echoed back from the vaulted ceiling. But it was the dry female voice from the darkness that made him jump.

“I don‟t think they used that particular turn of phrase in Arthurian times.” The thin brown institutional carpeting on the aisles was worn to holes in some places, and the downward slope was broken up by the occasional single shallow step, but Marguerite navigated the unfamiliar terrain as if she were the Lady of the Lake herself. The Lady of the Lake in stylish, earth-colored, ankle strap heels, high enough to be sexy but not impractical for Tea Leaves.

She came to a halt within twenty feet of the stage, and he marveled as always at her Mistress‟s intuition. It put her just above his eye level. If she‟d come all the way to the stage she would have had to tilt her head back to look at him, something that would have been vastly unacceptable, to him at least.

“We need to talk,” she said.

“I have a class.” Not for another hour, but he just couldn‟t face this conversation now. There was no rancor in his tone, but since he made a point to deny her nothing, those four words were as insolent as he‟d ever been to her. It underscored that he was fucking up on all levels today.

“Then you‟ll be late,” she said coolly. “Come down here. Now.” He sighed. Inwardly.
Fine.
The day could only get worse. Might as well accept it.

As he moved to the stage edge, she took one of the front-row seats, crossing those killer legs, her long slim hand lying on the armrest. Though she was a Mistress, a formidable one, she submitted to one Master‟s touch, and that was Tyler. As such she often wore his collar as she did now, a beautiful choker of wire and pearls, as much evidence of their bond as the wedding ring on her finger.

When he approached, she leaned forward, extending one long-nailed hand toward the hand he‟d used to pummel the hapless table. With reluctance, he placed it in hers.

Examining his swelling knuckles, she tsked under her breath.

She didn‟t invite him to sit next to her. It was automatic and steadying to drop to one knee in front of her. Bracing his free hand on his thigh, he stared at those feminine shoes, the slim ankles. Chloe had worn pumps for the wedding, but this morning she‟d preferred a pair of sneakers that were a fading rainbow of hand-painted colors that had seen better days. Her closet was filled with a dazzling array of shoes tumbled together like shiny gumballs, but she‟d chosen ones that had gone dull with the effects of time and wear.

“What‟s going wrong, Brendan?”

“I‟m not sure what you mean, Mistress.”

He‟d been the one to slow things down. One intense phone call, a drive to work and an amazing night of lovemaking happening within a two-day period seemed, on its face, a reason to slow things down. But he knew as well as Marguerite did that something
was
wrong. As the silence lengthened, his Mistress waiting him out, he wryly reflected that no one could lie to that intent blue gaze, even though he wasn‟t really lying. He
didn’t
know exactly why he was slowing down. “She‟s been through a lot. I don‟t want to force anything until she‟s stronger. I don‟t want to make her deal with anything else.”

What he‟d wanted to do this morning was frame her elfin face in his hands, taste the sweet pink bow of her mouth until it heated beneath his, until all of her heated, proving he could drive the cold out of her hands, her mind, the pit of her stomach and behind her eyes. The day after their phone call, he‟d thought of nothing but her all day, to the point his students had teased him for his absentmindedness.

“Did you know Chloe had an operation when she was five years old?” Brendan‟s gaze shot up, but Marguerite shook her head. “Nothing serious. One of those things better handled while she was still small. When they rolled her out of the hospital room and toward the operating room, she asked the nurse where they were going. The nurse made up some silliness about an enchanted fairyland. Chloe was an intelligent little girl, and the fact this well-meaning woman wouldn‟t tell her where she was truly going terrified her. She started screaming and thrashing.

“When she tells the story, she jokes about them plopping a Fisher Price musical toy next to her as they strapped her to the operating table and administered the anesthetic.

But you can see the memory of the fear she felt. If the woman had simply told her they were going to the operating room, she would have been fine. Nervous, but informed.” Brendan shifted as Marguerite continued. “Men often make the mistake of thinking a wounded woman needs a lie to protect her, when just the opposite is true. Most of us have a radar for bullshit. Feeling uncertain only enhances that instability. She‟s too fragile for anything less than total honesty.”

Marguerite locked eyes with him before he could obey etiquette and sweep his gaze down. “With you, Chloe is a different, deeper, more troubled part of herself, something she can‟t allow herself to be with us. The joyful Chloe still exists, but she‟s facing that dark side now. No one I know is more prepared than you to guide someone out of darkness, Brendan, because your own demons have never overwhelmed your light. An Arthurian knight in truth.” A faint smile touched her lips as she glanced toward the stage. Then she sobered. “You might best serve Chloe‟s needs right now by taking the reins. Show her how to drive the horse before handing them over. You understand?” He nodded. “I do. I‟d already started…before I realized I was going to do it. Which is why I pulled back.”