Enchanted (13 page)

They wouldn’t understand—not yet. But in time they would. She was sure of it. After she was established in a home of her own, with a career of her own, they would see. Maybe, just maybe, they’d even be proud of her.

She glanced at the phone, considered, then shook her head. No, not yet. She wouldn’t call her parents and tell them what she was doing. Not quite yet. She didn’t want to hear the doubt, the concern, the carefully masked impatience in their voices, and spoil the moment.

It was such a lovely moment.

So when she heard the knock on the front door, she sprang up. It was Liam, had to be Liam. And, oh, that was perfect. He’d brought more work, and they could sit in the kitchen and discuss it, toy with it.

She’d make tea, she thought as she hurried through the cabin. A glass and a half of wine was enough if she wanted her mind perfectly clear. She’d had another idea about the Land of Mirrors and how that red sea should reflect when she’d walked home.

Eager to tell him, she opened the door. Her delighted smile of welcome shifted to blank shock.

“Rowan, you shouldn’t open the door without seeing who it is first. You’re much too trusting for your own good.”

With the spring breeze blowing behind him, Alan stepped inside.

“Alan, what are you doing here?”

She knew immediately her tone had been short and unwelcoming—and very close to accusatory. She could see it in the surprised hurt on his face.

“It’s been over three weeks, Rowan. We thought you might appreciate a little face-to-face. And frankly”—he shoved at the heavy sand-colored hair that fell over his forehead—“the tenor of your last phone call worried your parents.”

“‘The tenor?’” She bristled, and struggled to fix on a pleasant smile. “I don’t see why. I told them I was fine and well settled in.”

“Maybe that’s what concerns them.”

The worry in his earnest brown eyes brought her the first trickle of guilt. Then he took off his coat, laid it neatly over the banister and made a pocket of resentment open under the guilt.

“Why would that be a concern?”

“None of us really knows what you’re doing up here—or what you hope to accomplish by cutting yourself off from everyone.”

“I’ve explained all of that.” Now there was weariness along with the guilt. It was her cottage, damn it, her life. They were being invaded and questioned. But manners had her gesturing to a chair. “Sit down, please. Do you want anything? Tea, coffee?”

“No, I’m fine, but thanks.” He did sit, looking stiffly out of place in his trim gray suit and starched white oxford shirt. He still wore his conservatively striped, neatly Windsor-knotted tie. It hadn’t occurred to him to so much as loosen it for the trip.

He scanned the room now as he settled in a chair by the quiet fire. From his viewpoint the cabin was rustic and entirely too isolated. Where was the culture—the museums, the libraries, the theaters? How could Rowan stand burying herself in the middle of the woods for weeks on end?

All she needed, he was certain, was a subtle nudge and she’d pack up and come back with him. Her parents had assured him of it.

He smiled at her, that crooked, slightly confused smile that always touched her heart. “What in the world do you do here all day?”

“I’ve told you in my letters, Alan.” She sat across from him, leaned forward. This time, she was certain, she could make him understand. “I’m taking some time to think, to try to figure things out. I go for long walks, read, listen to music. I’ve been doing a lot of sketching. In fact—”

“Rowan, that’s all well and good for a few days,” he interrupted, the patience so thick in his voice her teeth went instantly on edge. “But this is hardly the place for you. It’s easy enough to read between the lines of your letters that you’ve developed some sort of romantic attachment for solitude, for living in some little cottage in the middle of nowhere. But this is hardly Walden Pond.”

He shot her that smile again, but this time it failed to soften her. “And I’m not Thoreau. Granted. But I’m happy here, Alan.”

She didn’t look happy, he noted. She looked irritable and edgy. Certain he could help her, he patted her hand. “For now, perhaps. For the moment. But what happens after a few more weeks, when you realize it’s all just a”—he gestured vaguely—“just an interlude? By then it’ll be too late to get your position back at your school, to register for the summer courses you planned to take toward your doctorate. The lease is up for your apartment in two months.”

Her hands were locked together in her lap now, to keep them from forming fists and beating in frustration on the arms of the chair. “It’s not just an interlude. It’s my life.”

“Exactly.” He beamed at her, as she had often seen him beam at a particularly slow student who suddenly grasped a thorny concept. “And your life is in San Francisco. Sweetheart, you and I both know you need more
intellectual stimulation than you can find here. You need your studies, your students. What about your monthly book group? You have to be missing it. And the classes you planned to take? And you haven’t mentioned a word about the paper you were writing.”

“I haven’t mentioned it because I’m not writing it. I’m not going to write it.” Because it infuriated her that her fingers were beginning to tremble, she wrenched them apart and sprang up. “And I didn’t plan on taking classes, other people planned that for me. The way they’ve planned every step I’ve ever taken. I don’t want to study, I don’t want to teach. I don’t want any intellectual stimulation that I don’t choose for myself. This is exactly what I’ve told you before, what I’ve told my parents before. But you simply refuse to hear.”

He blinked, more than a little shocked at her sudden vehemence. “Because we care about you, Rowan. Very much.” He rose as well. His voice was soothing now. She rarely lost her temper, but he understood when she did she threw up a wall no amount of logic could crack. You just had to wait her out.

“I know you care.” Frustrated, she pressed her fingers to her eyes. “That’s why I want you to hear, I want you to understand, or if understanding is too much, to accept. I’m doing what I need to do. And, Alan—” She dropped her hands, looked directly into his eyes. “I’m not coming back.”

His face stiffened, and his eyes went cool as they did when he had outlined a logical premise and she disagreed with him. “I certainly hoped you’d had enough of this foolishness by now and would fly back with me tonight. I’m willing to find a hotel in the area for a few days, and wait.”

“No, Alan, you misunderstand. I’m not coming back to San Francisco. At all. Not now, not later.”

There, she thought, she’d said it. And a huge weight seemed to lift off her heart. It remained light even when she read the irritation in his eyes.

“That’s just nonsense, Rowan. It’s your home—of course you’ll come back.”

“It’s your home, and it’s my parents’ home. That doesn’t make it mine.” She reached out to take his hands, so happy with her own plans that she wanted him to be. “Please try to understand. I love it here. I feel so at home, so settled. I’ve never really felt like this before. I’ve even got a job sketching. It’s art for a computer game. It’s so much
fun
, Alan. So exciting. And I’m going to look into buying a house somewhere in the area. A
place of my own, near the sea. I’m going to plant a garden and learn how to really cook and—”

“Have you lost your mind?” He turned his hands over to grip hers almost painfully. None of the sheer joy on her face registered. Only the words that were to him the next thing to madness. “Computer games? Gardens? Are you listening to yourself?”

“Yes, for the first time in my life that’s just what I’m doing. You’re hurting me, Alan.”

“I’m hurting you?” He came as close to shouting as she’d ever heard, and transferred his grip from her hands to her shoulders. “What about what I feel, what I want? Damn it, Rowan, I’ve been patient with you. You’re the one who suddenly and for no reason that made sense decided to change our relationship. One night we’re lovers, the next day we’re not. I didn’t press, I didn’t push. I tried to understand that you needed more time in that area.”

She’d bungled things, she realized. She’d bungled it and hurt him unnecessarily out of her inability to find the right words. Even now, she fumbled with them. “Alan, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It wasn’t a matter of time. It was—”

“I’ve circled around this incomprehensible snit of yours,” he continued, fired up enough to give her a quick shake. “I’ve given you more room than anyone could expect, believing you wanted a bit more freedom before we settled down and married. Now it’s computer games?
Games?
And cabins in the woods?”

“Yes, it is. Alan—”

She was near tears, very near them, had lifted a hand to his chest, not to push him away, but to try to soothe. With a great feral howl, the wolf leaped through the open window. Fangs gleamed white in the lamplight as he sprang, a vicious snarl erupting from his throat.

His powerful forelegs caught Alan just below the shoulders, knocked him back. A table snapped as the combined weight crashed into it. And before Rowan could draw breath, Alan was lying white-faced on the floor with the black wolf snapping at his throat.

“No, no!” Terror gave her both speed and strength. She jumped to them, dived down to wrap her arms around the wolf’s neck. “Don’t, don’t hurt him. He wasn’t hurting me.”

She could feel the muscles vibrating beneath her, hear the growls rumble like threatening thunder. The horrible image of ripped flesh, pumping blood, screams raced through her head. Without a thought she shifted, pushed her face between them and looked into the wolf’s glowing eyes.

There she saw savagery.

“He wasn’t hurting me,” she said calmly. “He’s a friend. He’s upset, but he’d never hurt me. Let him up now, please.”

The wolf snarled again, and something flashed in his eyes that was almost … human, she thought. She could smell the wildness around him, in him. Very gently she laid her cheek against his. “It’s all right now.” Her lips grazed his fur. “Everything’s all right.”

Slowly he moved back. But his body shoved against hers until he stood between her and Alan. As a precaution, she kept a hand on the ruff of his neck as she got to her feet.

“I’m sorry, Alan. Are you hurt?”

“Name of God, name of God.” It was all he could manage in a voice that shook. Sheer terror had his muscles weak as water. Each breath burned his lungs, and his chest was bruised where the beast had attacked him. “Get away from it, Rowan. Get back.” Though he trembled all over from shock, he crawled to his feet, grabbed a lamp. “Get away, get upstairs.”

“Don’t you dare hit him.” Indignant, she snatched the lamp out of Alan’s unsteady hands. “He was only protecting me. He thought you were hurting me.”

“Protecting you? For the love of God, Rowan, that’s a wolf.”

She jerked back when he tried to grab her, then followed instinct and told perhaps the first outright lie of her life. “Of course it’s not. Don’t be absurd. It’s a dog.” She thought she felt the wolf jolt under her hand at the claim. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him angle his head up and … well, glare at her. “My dog,” she insisted. “And he did precisely what you would expect from a well-trained dog. He protected me against what he saw as a threat.”

“A dog?” Staggered and far from convinced he wasn’t about to have his throat torn out, Alan shifted his
gaze to her. “You have a dog?”

“Yes.” The lie was starting to twist around her tongue. “Um. And as you can see, I couldn’t be safer here. With him.”

“What kind of dog is that?”

“I don’t precisely know.” Oh, she was a miserably poor liar, she thought. “He’s been wonderful company, though, and as you can see I don’t have to worry about being alone. If I hadn’t called him off, he’d have bitten you.”

“It looks like a damn wolf.”

“Really, Alan.” She did her best to laugh, but it came out thin and squeaky. “Have you ever heard of a wolf leaping through a window, or taking commands from a woman? He’s marvelous.” She leaned down to nuzzle her face against his fur. “And as gentle with me as a Labrador.”

As if in disgust, the wolf shot her one steely look, then walked over to sit by the fire.

“See?” She didn’t let her breath shudder out in relief, but she wanted to.

“You never said anything about wanting a dog. I believe I’m allergic.” He dug out a handkerchief to catch the first sneeze.

“I never said a lot of things.” She crossed to him again, laying her hands on his arms. “I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry I didn’t know what to say or how to say it until now.”

Alan’s eyes kept sliding back toward the wolf. “Could you put him outside?”

Put him outside? she thought, and felt another shaky laugh tickling her throat. The wolf came and went as he pleased. “He’s all right. I promise. Come sit down—you’re still shaken up.”

“Small wonder,” he muttered. He would have asked her for a brandy, but imagined she’d have to leave the room to get it. He wasn’t risking being alone with that great black hulk.

As if to show the wisdom of this decision, the wolf bared his teeth.

“Alan.” Rowan sat on the couch beside him, took his hands in hers. “I am sorry. For not understanding myself soon enough or clearly enough to make you understand. For not being what you’d hoped I would be. But
I can’t change any of that, and I can’t go back to what was.”

Alan pushed his heavy hair back again. “Rowan, be reasonable.”

“I’m being as reasonable as I know how. I do care for you, Alan, so much. You’ve been a wonderful friend to me. Now be a friend and be honest. You’re not in love with me. It just seemed you should be.”

“Of course I love you, Rowan.”

Her smile was just a little wistful as she brushed back his hair herself. “If you were
in
love with me, you couldn’t have been so reasonable about not sleeping with me anymore.” Her smile warmed with affection when he fidgeted. “Alan, we’ve been good friends, but we were mediocre lovers. There was no passion between us, no urgency or desperation.”

Discussing such a matter quite so frankly embarrassed him. He’d have risen to pace, but the wolf had growled quietly again. “Why should there be?”