Charon's Crossing (A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novel) (45 page)

"Don't madam me, Matthew. I'm trying to explain. I was worried about you. I didn't know where you'd gone."

"Where in hell
could
I have gone? Answer me that."

"I don't know. That's just the point, isn't it? So I went upstairs and you weren't there and—"

"Of course I wasn't! I was out back," he said tightly, letting her go and stabbing a forefinger into the center of her chest for punctuation. "I was in the fucking garden, fixing the fucking rose trellis because the fucking storm had almost—"

"Don't you yell at me!" Kathryn slapped the offending finger aside. Her cheeks glowed with angry color. "And don't use that language. I don't like it."

"She doesn't like it." Matthew threw out his arms. "She doesn't bloody like my bloody lang—"

"You bastard!" she hissed, banging her fist against his chest. "You heartless, thoughtless, self-centered, arrogant bastard! Don't you hear what I'm telling you? I heard that—
that thing,
that godawful whisper saying you were in the attic and... and..."

Her voice wobbled and broke. She made a strangled sound and started to turn away but Matthew caught her, dragged her into his arms, and kissed her. She fought against him, trying to tear her mouth from his, to slap his face, but he was relentless, his hands sweeping over her, his teeth nipping, hard, at her mouth until she groaned, fisted her hands in his hair, and kissed him with all the love and despair in her heart.

"I thought I'd lost you," she sobbed against his mouth.

"Never," he said thickly, knowing even in his blind passion, in his need for her, that "never" was not a word meant for them.

"If you hadn't come in time..." She shuddered. "How did you know?"

"I don't know. Maybe I sensed Waring's presence. I only knew that you needed me, that I had to come to you."

"He said you were in the attic, Matthew. I thought he'd hurt you, or—or—" She shuddered again, closed her eyes tight, and buried her face against his throat. "What happened up there?"

Matthew made a sound that was not quite a laugh.

"I wish to God I knew."

"Is he... is he...?"

"It was like a stage set, Kathryn. Waring, or whatever remained of him, was standing in the middle of the attic, holding a sword."

"A sword?" she said in disbelief.

"Aye."

"What did he look like? That time I saw him he was so—so horrible..."

"He looked like Waring," Matthew lied. What was the point in telling her that the Thing he'd fought had to have been even more hideous than her memory of it? Or that it had whispered of what it would do to her once it had dealt with him?

"He wounded you." She touched her fingers gently to the cut on his face and then on his shoulder.

"The wounds are nothing, sweetheart. I've given myself worse nicks while shaving." He drew her close and pressed his lips to her hair. "I was the one who delivered the telling blows."

"But you had no weapon."

"I had these." He held his hands up between them, "A sword can't hurt you once you get past its point and inside its arc. It's just a matter of being quick enough. A man can kill with his hands, Kathryn, if he knows how."

Kathryn's eyes widened. "You killed him?"

"I destroyed him, aye. He went down hard, turned transparent as glass, and disappeared."

She gave a long, shuddering sigh and went back into his arms.

"We're free of him, then," she whispered.

Were they? Matthew wasn't so sure. It didn't seem reasonable that you could kill a man twice, especially if he wasn't a man at all but a specter when you killed him the second time.

But he wasn't about to say any of that to Kathryn. Why frighten her when there was no need? He was certain—as certain as he could be, at any rate—that even if Waring were going to return, it would take time for him to gather enough strength to make it happen. By then, Kathryn would be safely back in New York. She would be gone from Charon's Crossing, gone from being a part of this twisted unholy world of his.

He thought of everything that had happened, not just now but in the past, the mistakes he would pay for through the eternity that stretched ahead of him, that Kathryn would pay for, as well, despite her innocence in this nightmare. Pain, despair, anguish... a hundred different emotions closed around his heart and he knew that there was only one thing that could drive them all away.

"Kathryn," he said in a rasping whisper.

She fell back against the wall under his weight, her hands already tearing at his trousers as his tore at her clothing. He knew he was being rough, that he might be hurting her, but he couldn't have stopped what he was doing if the sun had taken that moment to fall from the sky.

And she wouldn't have let him. She was as wild as he, sobbing his name, fisting her hands in his hair, sinking her sharp white teeth into the soft flesh of his lip.

"Now," she said, "now..."

He lifted her and drove into her hard and fast, impaling her on his swollen sex. She was hot and wet and she cried out and convulsed around him almost immediately.

"Kathryn," he said brokenly, "Kathryn, my love..."

She kissed him, her black hair hanging like a silken curtain about both their faces, her legs wrapped tight around his hips, and Matthew clenched his teeth, threw back his head and exploded like white-hot lightning into the sweet, satin warmth of the woman he loved.

Chapter 18

Kathryn sat cross-legged in the center of the four-poster bed, watching Matthew as he tried on the clothing she'd bought him.

She'd guessed right about the sizes. The shorts and jeans fit him perfectly, as did the T-shirts. Right now, he was wearing only a pair of sandals and the Levi's, and doing things for them she was certain no other man could. They rode low on his hips, showing off his flat, hard-muscled belly, hinting at the power of his sex that lay cupped within the soft denim.

"The jeans look great," she said happily. "Here. Try on this last shirt."

She snatched up the shirt she'd been saving and tossed it to him. He caught it, held it out, and looked at her as if she'd gone crazy.

"Good God," he breathed, "what were you thinking?"

She looked at the shirt, then at him. "Don't you like it?"

"Like it?" he said. "Like it? Kathryn, love, a gift's a lovely thing, but this must have cost you a fortune!"

Kathryn gave a little laugh, uncrossed her legs and scooted to the edge of the bed. "Actually, it was the least expensive of the lot. Come on, let me see you in it."

Matthew held the shirt at arm's length. "You expect me to wear a work of art?"

Was he joking? She looked at the shirt. She'd bought it on impulse at the open market where she'd stopped to buy fruit and vegetables on her way out of town. The shirt had been hanging in one of the stalls and she'd thought of Matthew the instant she saw it because of the sailing ship splashed across the chest.

Now, she looked at it through his eyes. She had no idea if the ship was drawn accurately but it certainly looked pretty good, all silver and black and heeled over hard on a sea of bright blue waves, white sails flying in what she supposed was a stiff breeze.

To her, it was a mass-produced, silk-screened Fruit of the Loom T-shirt. To him, it was priceless. How could she not have realized that something so commonplace would seem a miracle to him?

"I cannot possibly accept this, Kathryn."

"Believe me, you can."

"Nay, I cannot. The cost—"

"I paid less than ten dollars for it, Matthew."

"Ten Continentals or an Eagle?" he said, his face a study in amazement.

"Ten dollars, American. I'm sure ten dollars means a lot less now than it did in your day."

"Things have changed, aye, but surely ten dollars is still—"

"It wouldn't have paid for the groceries I bought in town this morning." She looked at him, her expression one of complete innocence. "And all I bought was some bread, some cheese, some fresh fish, fruits and vegetables... and oh yes. Some ale."

Matthew sighed and carefully pulled the shirt on over his head.

"Everyone in your world must be as rich as Midas, or..." His head popped through the neck of the shirt. "Did you say you'd bought ale?"

"Uh huh. I thought... well, what little I know of your time... I mean..."

She laughed as Matthew plucked her from the bed and whirled her around in a circle.

"Stop trying to be diplomatic, woman. Aye, we drank ale. And aye, I have longed for the taste of it, cool and sharp, slipping down my throat." He kissed her, deposited her on the floor, and gave her a light pat on the bottom. "Lead me to it, then, and I will tell you what a nineteenth-century man thinks of twentieth-century lager."

He smiled and Kathryn smiled in return, even though there was a sudden tightness in her throat.

Nineteenth-century he might be, but he looked every bit a man of the 1990s. It was easy to picture him holding her hand as they strolled along the streets of Greenwich Village on a cold winter evening, their breath streaming out in white plumes as they headed home for cups of rich hot chocolate and a sinful assortment of those wonderful cookies you could get at the little Italian bakery just off Fourth; so easy to imagine him at her side on a drowsy June Sunday in Central Park, sprawled in the sun on the Great Lawn while they ate lemon ices and tried to decide what movie to go to see in the evening and, in the end, deciding they'd be happier going home and making slow, tender love in their own bed.

It was all so easy... and all impossible.

None of it could ever happen, not without a miracle. Her century had produced everything from heart transplants to men on the moon, but it was woefully short of the kind of miracle she needed.

"Kathryn?"

She blinked to keep back the tears that threatened and looked towards the bedroom door where Matthew stood, holding out his hand.

"Come with me," he said, and it took all her self-control to keep from saying that she would go with him anywhere, even into that dark world of his, if she could only be certain it meant they could be together always.

* * *

The ale, he said, was excellent. Perhaps not quite as good as what was served in a little pub down by the wharfs in New York, but excellent nevertheless.

But it was the books and the magazines that made his eyes go wide.

"Is this true?" he said, as he turned the pages. "And this? By God are such things possible?"

Kathryn smiled as she watched him, his fair head bent over an illustration of how jet engines worked. They hadn't even gotten to the television set, which still squatted in its box in the foyer.

An hour or so later, Matthew looked up at her, his eyes shining, and held out his arms. She went to him and he sighed as he drew her down on his lap.

"Thank you, sweetheart, for all these wonderful gifts."

"I hoped they'd please you. I know how eager you are to learn all you can about what's happened in the world since... I'm just happy you like the books."

"The books, the clothing..." He kissed her. "I love it all. But didn't you buy anything for yourself?"

She thought of the black and white bikini, lying unwrapped in the bedroom. Who had she bought it for, Matthew or herself? Not that it mattered. It seemed silly now, even embarrassing.

"You did get yourself something," he said, "I can see it in your eyes."

Kathryn laughed and shook her head. "No. I mean, I did, but—"

"What?"

"Matthew, really, it's silly."

"And it's making you blush!"

"It isn't." Kathryn shot to her feet. "Come on outside. There's one last thing in the car, and I can't wait for you to see it. It's called a television set, and—what? Why are you shaking your head?"

"I'm not moving an inch until the mystery is solved."

"What mystery? Honestly, Matthew..."

"You bought yourself something that makes you turn pink even to think about, and now you won't tell me what it is."