Fate Forgotten (12 page)

“Are you certain you’re well, Abby?”

She opened her eyes. Garrit was propped up on one elbow in the bed, watching her. She sighed and sat up, giving up on the pretense of sleep, and pulling her knees to her chest. “Adam didn’t do anything to me, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He rubbed her back, and she could feel his eyes on her still. “I’m worried about
you
. You’ve been distant and distracted all night.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. The room was dark except for the light coming from the street. How long had she been lying in bed pretending to sleep and thinking about Thorgrim, and Lars, and Adam’s curses for a man long dead. And how long had Garrit been lying beside her waiting for her to talk. Hoping she would. She had been too wrapped up in memories to notice.

She laid a hand on his chest, over his heart. She could feel the steadiness of its beat. “I’m sorry.”

“What’s bothering you?”

“Everything and nothing. Past lives, a future of avoidance.” She shrugged.

He sat up and brushed her hair from her shoulders, kissing the bare skin there and pulling her against him. His body was warm and comforting. She loved the heat of him when he touched her. The dry warmth of his skin against hers. When she was honest with herself she thought it might have something to do with those first days, and the way Adam’s skin had burned against hers in the Garden. It was as if he had set a flame on her heart, though at the time his touch had been more discomfiting than anything else.

“
Dis-moi tout
,” Garrit said.

It was getting increasingly difficult for her to focus, with his lips against her skin that way, and his palm flat against the curve of her waist, his fingers not quite digging into her body, but gripping her with just the right amount of pressure. “I’m not sure there’s anything to tell.”

He sighed and kissed her behind her ear. “If there’s nothing to tell, Abby, why is it keeping you up? What happened today? Did he resurrect the memory of some abusive husband?”

His breath against her ear made her shiver. “No.”

“Then what?”

She hesitated, but he was kissing her again. The length of her neck back down to her shoulder, while his hand inched up along her ribs. “That man, Lars. I think he’s one of my many-times-great-grandchildren, three thousand years after the fact.”

“Oh?”

She twisted to face him, placing her hands on either side of his face. “Would you like me to show you?”

“Can you do that?”

She shrugged. “I don’t see why not. It isn’t any different from what Adam can do, to get people to do what he wants them to.”

He arched an eyebrow. “
Vraiment?
”

Eve flushed. “That isn’t what I meant, and you can hardly believe I’d meddle with your free will, Garrit.”

His lips curved just slightly. “
Fais-moi voir
.”

She closed her eyes and found the image of Thorgrim as she had known him, gently setting it in his thoughts. “Do you see that?”

“Yes.” His voice was rough.

She removed herself from his mind and opened her eyes again. “They look very much alike.”

“He was your husband?”

“A very long time ago.” She frowned and wondered if she could put a date to it. “It was maybe nine or ten lives before Christ. Before even Rome was founded.”

He pulled away from her and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “
Bien sûr.
”

“What do you mean, of course?” She hadn’t meant to upset him. It was always a mistake to talk about her pasts. Always. Why did she insist on repeating that blunder time and again? “Garrit? You’re not mad at me are you? I assumed René must have known, and that was why the family trusted him.”

“
Non
.” He stopped and rubbed his face. Just sitting there. “
Non
,” he said again more gently. “I am not mad at you, Abby. I just wish things were a little bit less complicated.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head and lay back in the bed again. Whatever decision he had made about getting up abandoned. “This isn’t in any way your fault. You have nothing at all to apologize for. Nothing at all.”

She curled up against his side, resting her head against his chest and listening to his heartbeat. His skin was even warmer now. As if his frustration and anger had been turned directly into body heat. “It was easier when I was just Abby, for you. If I could forget, and just be Abby, without all the memory of Eve, it would be easier for you.”

“
Peut-être.
” He held her against him and kissed the top of her head. “But even when you were just Abby, you were still Eve. You would not be the same person without all those memories.”

“No. Probably not.” One day, she would ask Adam what it was like, living life after life without remembering. If it was easier or better. “I think I would miss knowing my family.”

“We would have missed knowing you.”

She frowned. “You wouldn’t have known what you were missing.”

He stroked her hair. “What was his name?”

“Who?”

“The man you showed me.”

She hesitated, only because she didn’t want to encourage him. Or let him realize that she remembered that life as though it had happened yesterday. Bad enough he already had to live in Ryam’s shadow. “Thorgrim.”

He laughed, but she didn’t know why. “Fitting.”

“I guess.” She didn’t want to admit she remembered her own name, too.

“He’s the man your brother was shouting about?”

She propped herself up and frowned at him. He was staring at the ceiling, but he looked at her when she moved. “You’re very curious.”

“And you are not your usual forthcoming self.”

“Some things are better left in the past.”

He caressed her cheek. “Then let me help you to forget.”

She was glad that Alex was sleeping in the nursery, and they had the room to themselves.

Mia went into labor the following day, and they went as a family to the hospital to wait. Alex didn’t care for the waiting room, with the biting scent of antiseptic and sterile walls, and fussed until Eve settled him in her lap and read to him. It was probably half her own fault. If she hadn’t been uncomfortable in hospitals already, after her last life in the mental institute, Michael’s visit after Alex’s birth had ensured she’d never feel safe in one again. Especially not with Adam so near.

He sat across the room, since Mia had kicked him out of the delivery room in favor of her mother, and together with her father and Garrit, the three men sat staring at the ceiling and the floor, anywhere but at each other, in silence.

Mostly silence anyway.

I’m sorry about yesterday
, Adam said.

She tripped over the sentence she was reading, though she probably shouldn’t have been surprised that he would try to talk to her now. Alex didn’t notice, and neither did Garrit.
I’m not sure I want an explanation.

Oh, I’m sure you’d love it. But I couldn’t explain if I wanted to. Not now.

I don’t think now is appropriate anyway. Mia is in the process of giving birth to your child, Adam.
She continued reading aloud, though Alex was starting to droop. Hopefully he would fall asleep and nap through a good portion of the wait.

Yes. And she loves me so much she doesn’t want me to be part of it.

She tried not to frown.
Don’t be ridiculous. She’s probably kicked you out for fear you’ll find her forever repulsive if you witness the mess of it.

She saw him smile out of the corner of her eye.
That sounds like Mia.

She can be impossibly shallow sometimes.

There was a mental snort.
Not impossibly, just foolishly.

She finished reading the book and set it aside. Alex had fallen asleep in her lap. All the better to keep him from picking up on her own anxiety. Not that she was sure what bothered her more—memories of women screaming and weeping, tortured as much by their visitors as they were the doctors, or the thought of Michael returning to make good on his threats. At least Adam was a distraction.

You make her happy,
she assured him, though she hadn’t ever thought he’d need reassurance of that kind. He must know. Unless he wasn’t using his power at all. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know, either way. She already liked him more than she wanted to admit, and if he had learned restraint…

I try.

I know.

You really think parenting is easy?

She smiled.
It is when you can read your baby’s mind. You’ll be able to skip all the guesswork and always know why he’s crying and what he needs. I don’t know how the rest of them fumble through it.

Garrit seems to do just fine with Alex.

You’ll be fine, Adam. You’ll be a good father. It isn’t as if you haven’t ever done it before. You’ve had families, children, in the past.

Mmm.
She followed his thoughts as he considered that. Moments of fatherhood flitting through his mind from centuries ago. Crying children being whisked out of his sight by servants and slaves and nannies.
I don’t think any of that counts in my favor. I was never an attentive parent, it seems. I left the childrearing to my wives.

She sighed.
You weren’t the only man to do so.

He smirked, then looked back at the ceiling.
I suppose if I ask your husband for parenting tips, he’ll give me dirty looks and be snide.

Who knows. Maybe you can bond over your kids.
Not that she was going to hold her breath, but Garrit had seemed a bit less tense today. Or at least less tense about Adam. She told herself it was a good thing.

No, I don’t suppose he hates me anymore.

Why do you say that?

He shook his head almost imperceptibly.
Now probably isn’t the time.

She stared at him, but he ignored her, standing up and walking out of the waiting room to go check on Mia. Maybe if Michael had gone to visit Adam instead, he’d be less… whatever it was he was being.

“Anything I should know?” Garrit asked quietly.

“What?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t usually have such an animated expression when you’re thinking, or am I wrong and you weren’t talking to him?”

“Oh.” But he wasn’t nearly as annoyed as she thought he’d be, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that either. “He’s just nervous about being a father. He wanted to know if he could ask you for some parenting tips or if you’d glare at him.”

He grimaced. “I suppose, all things considered, that’s a fair question. What did you tell him?”

She kissed his cheek. “I told him I was holding out hope that maybe you’d bond over your children.”

“You would.” He smiled. “One of the many reasons I love you.”

“Yes, yes. And one of the many reasons I vex you, too. Go talk to him, would you? For Mia, if not for him.”

He frowned, glancing toward the door. “
Puisque tu insistes.
But if punches are thrown, it’s on your head.”

“Garrit!”

He flashed a grin, kissed the top of Alex’s head, and then followed Adam out of the room.

When they didn’t come back within the hour, she began to wonder if it had been a mistake to suggest it. Alex was still asleep, and she couldn’t exactly leave him with her father, who could never be relied on to pay close attention. Not in a hospital, and not under the circumstances. She tapped her foot and checked her watch. If there was an actual fist fight, she would have heard something. Someone would’ve called the police. And she would’ve felt something, too, she suspected. Not that she kept tabs on Garrit, but that kind of violence spoke for itself with plenty of volume, emotionally and psychologically. And she was all too familiar with the flavor.

Eve bit her lip and forced her thoughts to remain firmly in the present. She would not remember the mental institute. Not now. This was a happy occasion. Mia was having a baby, and she was going to be an aunt. Alex was going to have a cousin. And she was married to Garrit. Very happily married.