If There Be Dragons (5 page)

Noting her slight smile, Cody quoted thoughtfully, “‘Flushed and confident.’”

Still smiling, Brooke murmured, “The flush comes from the nearness of the fire. The confidence comes from lots of reading. And the quotation is from Ibsen.”

Cody inclined his head in a small salute and racked his brain. “‘I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all winter,’” he said, altering the quotation’s last word.

Brooke started laughing. “Not exactly a poet! That was Ulysses S. Grant, and
he
was going to fight all summer.”

“‘Understand a plain man in his plain meaning,’” Cody told her in an offended tone.

Soothingly Brooke said, “It’s always easy to fall back on Shakespeare when one runs out of other poets, isn’t it?”

Cody visibly gritted his teeth. “‘Victory is not a name strong enough for such a scene.’”

“Lord Nelson.”

“‘We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist.’”

“Queen Victoria. You’re not a poet’s poet, are you? You just like words put together well.”

“‘With native humor temp’ring virtuous rage,’” Cody warned awfully.

“Pope.”

Cody put his head in his hands. “‘And like a thunderbolt he falls.’”

“Tennyson.”

“Uncle!” Cody raised his head and made the traditional “time out” gesture with his hands. “I give up already. I can see I’ll have to read up before I cross poetic swords with you again.”

“You started it,” she reminded him mildly.

A gleam was born in Cody’s golden eyes. “How about a game of poker?” he asked with deceptive casualness.

Brooke wasn’t deceived. “You wouldn’t win,” she murmured.

Cody grimaced slightly. “Pepper taught you to cheat?”

“No.”

“But?”

Her smile growing, Brooke said, “There’s a deck of cards in that end table. Shuffle them and put them facedown on the coffee table, and I’ll show you why you wouldn’t find it easy to defeat me in a card game.”

Cody followed the directions, beginning to guess what would happen.

“The top card,” she told him easily, “is a ten of clubs.”

He turned the top card faceup. Ten of clubs.

“The six of hearts is next.”

It was.

“Jack of diamonds.”

Silently Cody turned up the card. Still silent, he turned up ten more cards one at a time. Each card was exactly as she called it. He finally sat back and gazed across at her amused face. “Lord, you’d be worth a fortune to a professional gambler.”

Brooke laughed. “Afraid not. Under pressure I miss every time.”

“You couldn’t have read my mind,” Cody noted, “because I didn’t see the faces of the cards.”

She shrugged. “Like a lot of psychics, I have a lesser second ability; I can predict the turn of the cards.”

Hurt
…

Brooke gasped in spite of herself, her gaze moving toward the back of the lodge. It was there—outside. She could feel its pain and confusion, its fear. There was a sensation—almost a scent—of wildness in the jumbled images, in the pain. And she was afraid to break through her wall and reach out to it.

Because it wasn’t human.

She rose to her feet, even her strong awareness of Cody blocked by a jumble of thoughts and the acid taste of fear. The first time had been a week ago. She had awakened from a peaceful sleep with the confusing, frightening sensation of something else’s pain battering her. Immediately the wall lowered by sleep had slammed back up, leaving only the faint echoes of…presence.

She had never been so confused or so terrified in her life.

What is it? Why did it come only with the night and reach out to her? And why did its cry of pain stir a primitive terror in her?

The wind wailed suddenly, loudly, and her eyes skittered toward a window. Her guard slipped a little.

Hurt…hurt…hurt…

Brooke closed her eyes, shivering. She couldn’t shut it out completely anymore. And it wasn’t a thought, not a clear, crystalized thought from a human mind; that was what frightened her. It was just an impression, a sensation of hurt, of pain. It made the hairs rise on the nape of her neck and froze the blood in her veins.

There were never any tracks outside. But then, it had snowed every night for the last week, and the wind had created drifts, obscuring any tangible evidence of a visitor that wasn’t human.

Hurt…

A part of her wanted to help something in pain, but she was afraid. Terrified. It had to be her imagination—had to be. She didn’t believe in inhuman things voicing human thoughts. And she had never before felt this wildness, this primitive sensation. There was intelligence in the wildness, and the anger of a cornered beast.

And now it was here in the light of day, and she could see what it was. But she was afraid to see, afraid of what she’d see if she looked.

Hard hands gripped her shoulders, the very touch of him draining away the spell of that inner cry.

“
Brooke.
Tell me what you’re afraid of.”

She looked up into anxious golden eyes almost blindly for a moment; then her own eyes cleared of the mist of fear. “I—nothing. There’s nothing.”

“Brooke.” Cody’s hands tightened on her shoulders. “Dammit, tell me what you’re afraid of.” Patience had gone by the board, Cody realized, when he’d seen the swift leap of terror in her green eyes and the rigid control he’d come to dread grip her face in stillness.

Hurt…

She winced, closing her eyes for a brief moment. “There’s…something outside,” she murmured, thinking dimly that if this didn’t send him in a mad dash away from a crazy woman, nothing would. “For about a week now, but only at night until a moment ago.”

“What are you picking up?” Cody asked quietly, as if it were the most natural and reasonable question in the world.

Brooke looked up at him wonderingly. “Pain…wildness…confusion,” she said unsteadily. “Not—not human.”

“An animal of some kind?”

She reached to rub her forehead fretfully. “I don’t know. Yes, I suppose. But I’ve never sensed an animal before, not even Mister. And, whatever it is, it’s intelligent. It’s hurt and I want to help it, but”—she laughed shakily—“it scares the hell out of me.”

Cody glanced briefly toward the front window, which showed a still-light fall of blowing snow. He looked back at her, his hands squeezing slightly and releasing her. “I’ll take a look outside,” he told her, turning away.

Momentarily frozen, Brooke swiftly caught up with him in the hallway leading to the kitchen. “Cody, no!”

He didn’t respond until they were in the kitchen. Reaching for the thick jacket still draped over the back of a chair, he said, “Honey, I have to find out what’s out there. For your peace of mind as well as my own.”

Her heart leaping into her throat at the endearment, Brooke had to swallow hard before she could speak. “I’ll go with you.”

Cody looked at her steadily for a moment. “Have to face the phantom yourself, I see. Is there a gun in the house?”

She nodded.

“Get it.”

Brooke came back into the kitchen moments later wearing her thickly quilited and hooded coat, and carrying a loaded .45 automatic. She handed the gun to Cody, watching while he examined it.

“Cleaned and oiled,” he noted approvingly. “You?”

“Josh taught me.” Brooke pulled the hood up over her hair, then went to the closet off the kitchen and exchanged her loafers for boots. She followed Cody out the back door, and they stood for a moment on the porch, both listening to the howl of the wind and Brooke listening to something else.

“Where?” Cody asked after one look at her face.

Brooke thrust her hands deep into her pockets and nodded jerkily toward a clump of trees about sixty feet from the back of the house and beside the beaten path leading down to the barn. “Over there.”

In step they moved out into the snow, feeling little of the wind but hearing it howling in the trees above them. Snow fell faster now, the flakes still large and wet and coming down almost in a solid curtain of whiteness.

“Careful,” Cody warned as quietly as possible over the sound of the wind. “If it’s hurt, it’s dangerous.”

But the closer they came to the trees, the less Brooke feared what was waiting for them there. Partly because Cody was at her side, partly because she was finally facing the fear and facing it in daylight, and partly because the inner voice she listened to now was a quiet one. She stopped suddenly, staring toward the trees.

Cody followed suit. “What is it?”

“It’s coming out,” she murmured.

He moved another couple of steps toward the trees, straining his eyes to see clearly. Automatically thumbing off the gun’s safety catch, he mentally prepared himself to act quickly when—if—the need arose.

They saw the animal a moment later, and Brooke realized instantly why she’d felt the primitive terror, and why she’d sensed an intelligent wildness as well as pain.

Though pitifully thin, the wolf must have weighed close to two hundred pounds. Gray and white fur showed through the layer of snow, and yellow eyes examined the two humans in turn before settling on Brooke. Moving with an uncanny grace, the wolf slowly pulled itself through the snow toward Brooke, dragging an obviously broken and useless front leg.

Instinctively Cody cocked the gun, and the soft click stopped the wolf. Eerie yellow eyes turned toward him and small, pointed ears pricked up as the creature looked at the man. As if he knew. As if he understood. Then the wolf sank silently down in the snow, rolling over almost onto his back and showing them his vulnerable belly. His tail moved weakly.

Cody hesitated for a moment and then eased the hammer back down. Cautiously holding the gun, which was still pointed at the wolf, he glanced at Brooke and then started slowly toward him. “I don’t think he’ll attack us. No, stay back,” he warned Brooke softly as she began to move toward the wolf. “I’m not sure, dammit.”

“I am. He won’t hurt us, Cody.”

“Brooke—”

“He won’t hurt us.”

“Dammit,” Cody muttered, still moving toward the wolf and making sure he had a clear shot just in case. He hoped Brooke was right; he didn’t want to be forced to kill such a proud and beautiful creature.

They reached the wolf at the same time, both kneeling in the snow. Brooke reached out slowly to touch the fur between the small pointed ears, gazing into yellow eyes that held a curious reassurance. And when the wolf licked her cold hand, the last of Brooke’s fear melted away.

Cody thumbed the safety catch of the gun a second time and slid it into his pocket. Cautiously stroking the fur over a still-muscular shoulder, he looked across and met Brooke’s eyes. “Even if he wanted to hurt us,” he murmured, “I don’t think he has the strength.”

“How bad is his leg?” Brooke asked.

The wolf was lying on his side now, his head a little raised and resting against Brooke’s thigh as the yellow eyes watched Cody’s gently probing touch. After a moment Cody said, “A clean break, I think. It’ll have to be splinted. I guess there’s something to be said for growing up on a ranch; I know how to splint an animal’s broken leg.”

Frowning, Brooke said, “I think there are some splints in the big first-aid chest, but they’re for people. D’you think….?”

“We can modify them. Go.”

“Cody, I can—”

“No, you can’t,” he interrupted quietly. “Brooke, I’m not going to leave you alone with him. Not until we have more experience in his temperament.”

Brooke wanted to argue, but the rising wind and the wolf shivering with cold beneath her hand decided her. They had to get the animal inside. Gently easing from beneath the animal’s head, she quickly rose to her feet and headed for the house.

She was back in ten minutes, immediately warmed to see that Cody’s thigh had replaced her own beneath the wolf’s head and that he was stroking the animal comfortingly. She changed places with him smoothly and silently, then watched as he went to work.

The wolf stiffened only once, when his leg was gently straightened, but he didn’t make a sound or even offer to bite either of them. Cody silently thanked the Fates that it wasn’t a compound fracture; there was no break in the flesh that he could find, and the broken bones seemed to set themselves when he straightened the leg. As quickly and gently as possible, he put the splint in place and fastened it securely.

The moment he finished, the wolf struggled awkwardly to his feet, holding the splinted leg out in front of him. He stood there, swaying a bit, and looked toward the lodge as if he could feel the warmth waiting there.

Cody got up and then bent, sliding one arm cautiously around the powerful chest and the other around the hindquarters.

“Your ankle—”

“It’ll hold.” Keeping as much of the weight as possible on his good ankle, Cody lifted the wolf very cautiously; he knew that most wild creatures panicked when lifted from their feet. But the wolf remained still and quiet. Cody grimaced as his ankle complained of the additional weight, but as he’d hoped, it held.

“Get a blanket or something to put in front of the fire,” he told Brooke. “In the kitchen would be best, I think.”

Nodding, she headed quickly toward the house.

Moving slowly, Cody followed her.

FOUR

T
HE BIG WOLF
was placed on a thick pile of blankets before the blazing kitchen fire, and two willing pairs of hands went to work drying him with towels. When that had been done, Brooke and Cody consulted briefly before warming a large pan of chicken broth for their canine guest.

Watching as the wolf began slowly but hungrily to drink the broth, Brooke frowned in thought. “I remember Josh saying something once about feeding a sick dog cooked rice mixed with broth and small bits of meat. He said it was the best and most filling meal for them. D’you agree we should feed him just broth today and then start the rice and meat tomorrow?”

“It sounds right to me,” Cody replied. He had removed his jacket and eased himself down on one of the chairs. “The broth’ll warm him up and take the edge off his hunger; he probably couldn’t stand anything more today.”

Brooke looked at Cody for a moment, a new frown drawing her brows together; then she left the room. Returning a moment later, she held the small first-aid kit in her hands. She drew the step stool forward and sat down on it. “I want to have a look at your ankle,” she told him firmly.

“Brooke—”

“Hey.” She looked up at him with a faint smile. “There are certain advantages to being psychic; I know damn well that you strained that ankle by carrying the wolf. So shut up.”

Cody sighed softly. “I’m beginning to realize that there are certain
dis
advantages to your being psychic.”

“I wondered when you would.”

“Nothing I can’t live with though,” he added hastily.

Brooke smiled but said nothing. Her smile died, however, when she unwrapped the elastic bandage from his ankle; it was swollen again and looked extremely painful. She got up and left the room again, returning with a pillow from one of the couches and what looked like a wraparound hot water bottle. The pillow was placed on the step stool and Cody’s ankle raised to rest on it. Then she went outside long enough to fill a medium-size plastic bucket with snow.

She didn’t say a word to the puzzled Cody until she’d spread the rubbery device out on the counter and began filling it with snow. Then she merely said, “Cold compress.”

Cody, seeking to take her mind off her obvious concern for him, said lightly, “We can’t keep on saying ‘the wolf’ whenever we talk about our new houseguest. What should we name him?”

“You’ve already named him,” Brooke said.

“Have I? What did I name him?”

“Phantom.” Brooke carried the snow-filled rubber cuff back and carefully wrapped it around Cody’s ankle, then straightened and smiled at him. “You said that I had to go out and meet the phantom myself; can you think of a better name for him?”

Cody smiled a little. “No. No, I can’t.” He looked toward the hearth; the wolf was watching them silently. “Hello, Phantom.”

Phantom pricked up his ears. His tail thumped once.

Strangely unsurprised, Cody noted, “He knows his name.”

“Of course.” Brooke poured out two cups of coffee, handing one to Cody and taking the other herself as she sat down across the table from him. “I’ve seen him before, Cody.”

“Really?” Cody sipped his coffee. “When?”

“Well…several times. In the fall was the last time. But I’ve seen him at a distance for three or four years. Up on the ridge usually. He runs with a small pack, and he and another wolf—a black one—seem to be the leaders. I’ll bet the black one’s his mate.”

“Wonder how he broke his leg,” Cody mused idly.

Brooke shook her head. “I guess we’ll never know.”

Cody turned his gaze to Brooke. Oddly fanciful, he found himself telling Phantom’s story as if he knew it well. “There was no power struggle within the pack; Phantom’s too strong for that. And he’s too canny to have fallen into a trap set by hunters. He must have fallen or been kicked while they were hunting. With a broken leg he couldn’t hunt and he couldn’t lead the pack. So his mate had a choice. She could stay with Phantom and hunt alone for both of them, losing leadership of the pack, or else she could leave him where his chances of survival were good, and come back for him when the leg had time to heal.”

Taking up the thread of the story, Brooke went on. “She left him here, where there was no scent of hunters. Maybe she even knew that he could reach out to me for help. There was shelter here, and humans who’d left the pack unmolested in the past, so she believed this would be the best place to leave him. What shall we name her?” Brooke demanded suddenly.

Cody thought. “Psyche,” he decided firmly.

Brooke’s lips twitched. “Goes well with Phantom,” she murmured. “And so, Psyche left Phantom here; we’ll have to wait and see if she comes back for him.”

“D’you think she will?”

“Yes.”

“Is Phantom telling you that, or are you guessing?”

“Neither. I know. And Phantom isn’t telling me anything. He’s just lying there watching us and he’s warm.”

“I’m glad he’s warm. I wish I could say the same for my ankle.”

“It’ll take the swelling down.”

“Actually it feels pretty good.”

“Terrific. The last thing I need is to be snowbound with two cripples.”

“Kick a man while he’s down, why don’t you?”

“My favorite sport.”

Casually Cody said, “Tell me about your father.”

Brooke stiffened for a moment, then sent him a look that was a combination of wry amusement and guardedness. “You don’t sound a warning shot, do you? You just fire away.”

“I get results that way.”

She was silent for a moment. “You’re knocking at the walls, Cody,” she said finally.

“I know.”

“You promised.”

“I promised that I wouldn’t move too fast and that I wouldn’t batter at the walls. I didn’t promise not to knock.” His warm golden eyes were searching. “First dragon, Brooke. I have to start somewhere.”

She shook her head suddenly. “No dragon.” Her eyes were fixed unseeingly on Phantom. “Not exactly. I often wonder if my life would’ve been different if he’d lived longer. But he died when I was six.”

“Tell me about him,” Cody prompted softly.

“How?” She laughed shortly. “What does a six-year-old notice about someone she loves? That he was tall and strong and used to throw me up on his shoulder? That he had eyes the color of new grass and a voice I could listen to for hours?” Her voice dropped suddenly, became painful and bitter. “That he loved me so much it made my mother hate me?”

Cody saw the first dragon looming between them, not the father but given life by the father. And he wasn’t quite sure how to slay a six-year-old’s memory of the tangle of love and hate. He reached across the table to cover her hand, but Brooke snatched it away.

“Don’t.” Green eyes, filled with misery and confusion and pain, stared into his. “I—I can’t think when you touch me. I can’t tell you. And you have to know, don’t you? You
have
to.”

“I have to,” he agreed quietly.

Brooke nodded jerkily, falling silent for a while. When Cody was beginning to think she meant to confide nothing more, she finally spoke. “I guess I was about five when I realized Mother didn’t like me. She was never demonstrative; Daddy was. But it wasn’t that. I was psychic then; I picked up feelings rather than thoughts, and I didn’t understand. I always felt…twisted and ugly whenever Mother came near me. And she said things out loud to me when Daddy wasn’t around. That I was stupid. That I was ugly.”

Cody, swallowing anger, began to build a composite picture in his mind of a mother so driven by jealousy of her child that she cruelly undermined her confidence. Because Cody knew instinctively that Brooke had been a beautiful child, an innately sweet and giving child.

So lost in memory that she was unaware of Cody’s building anger, Brooke unconsciously validated his thoughts. “I tried to—to win her love. I tried to be a good girl. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t win her approval. And I was afraid to tell Daddy what I felt when I was around Mother; I was afraid he’d stop loving me.

“Then Daddy died.” Brooke blinked quickly for a moment, adding with unconscious starkness, “I missed him.”

Cody had forgotten the throbbing of his ankle, had forgotten the wolf lying quietly on his blankets watching them. He was staring at Brooke’s profile and hearing the puzzled anguish of a little girl.

She sighed raggedly. “There wasn’t any money, and Mother wasn’t trained for anything. She complained bitterly about having to wait on tables or clerk in stores. She ignored me, except when she wanted someone to yell at.”

The pain in her voice hurting him more than he would have believed possible, Cody tried to divert her mind. “Your uncle? Couldn’t your mother have turned to him for help?”

Brooke shook her head. “Daddy and Josh had a terrible argument when he married her. Josh thought that Daddy was too young, and that Mother wasn’t the wife he needed. They never saw each other again, and Daddy never told Josh about me. Mother—Mother had never met Josh, and she didn’t know where he lived. We were living in Alabama then.”

“I see.”

Brooke picked up her cup and drained the last of the cold coffee, seemingly unaware or uncaring that it was cold. “We lived in a tiny apartment, near enough to a school so that I could walk. And it was when I was in the first grade that everyone began to realize I was…different. My teacher noticed it first; I was answering questions before she asked them out loud, and she realized I was probably psychic. She’d graduated from Duke University in North Carolina, and she knew about the work they were doing there in paranormal research.

“She gave me a few simple tests herself, making them seem like games. Then she arranged a meeting with Mother after school one day. And she told her about my…gifts.”

Cody watched the still, silent profile for a few moments. He wondered what Brooke was thinking, wondered what had given birth to the diamond hardness he saw now in her face. Then the spell shattered.

Brooke stirred slightly and turned her head to meet his quiet gaze. “That’s Chapter One,” she said lightly. “Let’s leave Chapter Two for later, shall we?”

The forced lightness didn’t deceive Cody; he heard the strain in her voice and saw it in her eyes. And memories, he’d discovered, were best pulled from the dark recesses a few at a time; yanking open the door and allowing them all to rush in at once was possible only if one’s memories were mostly happy ones.

“Fine,” he agreed softly.

Restlessly she murmured, “You haven’t said much.”

“Just trying to decide whether to use my magic sword or my thrice-blessed dagger on those dragons,” he said solemnly.

In spite of herself Brooke started to smile. Wonderingly she realized that the recounting of her painful memories hadn’t hurt nearly as much as she’d believed they would. And Cody, the warm glow in his eyes undiminished, seemed so understanding. Of course, the worst was yet to come, but Brooke realized that Chapter Two, and all those chapters to follow, would come more easily.

She was grateful for that. Grateful to Cody and to his persistence. But she was also nervous and uneasy; she would be stripping layer after layer of her protective wall away until only her bare and wounded self remained. Would those half-healed wounds reopen when exposed to the light?

Would Cody hurt her?

Brooke pushed the silent questions away, and sought to follow his lead in lightening the atmosphere between them. “Thrice-blessed? I thought that
twice
did the trick.”

“Not with your dragons,” Cody responded feelingly. “S’matter of fact, I may have to get the thing blessed again. However, since three’s a magic number, we’ll hope it does the trick.”

“Three’s a magic number?”

“You should know.”

“I’m psychic, Cody—not a witch.”

“My mistake.”

“See that it doesn’t happen again.”

“Or?”

“Or I’ll feed you soup made of bats’ wings and eye of newt, and you’ll turn into a frog.”

“But then you could kiss me, and I’d turn back into a prince.”

“
Back
into a prince?”

“I’d hoped you wouldn’t notice that.”

“I notice everything.”

“Uh, I think I’ll practice reading your mind,” Cody announced calmly.

“Why?”

“Because this one-sided business is very unfair.”

“What brought this up?”

“I was just thinking.”

“Oh. Okay, then—practice. What am I thinking right now?”

“You’re hungry.”

Brooke stared at him, startled. “That’s—right.”

Cody smiled modestly, then started chuckling. “I’d better confess before you dip into my mind and discover that I didn’t dip into yours.”

After mentally untangling his sentence, Brooke shot him a suspicious glare. “You didn’t read my mind?”

“Nope.”

“Then how did you know…?”

“Well, I’m pretty observant myself, you know. Just before you challenged me to read your mind, you looked toward the refrigerator. So I guessed.”

“Princes don’t resort to sneaky tactics,” Brooke reproved him sternly.

“They do if princesses are psychic.”

“Even if. It’s unprincely.”

“All’s fair.”

“Don’t start throwing clichés at me.”

“I’ve already told you that I don’t throw things.”

“You’re looking more and more like a frog, pal.”

“Trust me, lady. I’m a prince.”

That plea was made with such a soulful look that Brooke had to bite back a laugh. Shaking her head, she rose from her chair. “And on that note I’m going to fix lunch. Any preferences?”

“I have a sudden aversion to frogs’ legs.”

“Funny.”

Cody looked mildly pleased with himself. “Apropos, I thought.”

Brooke sighed. “Right. I repeat. Any preferences?”

“Nope. Nary a one.”

“Then I’ll see what’s in the cupboard.”

“Do that, Mother Hubbard.”

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist that.”

“If I’m getting predictable, I’ll quit,” Cody said, injured.

“Not predictable.” Brooke reflected. “Just not surprising.”

Cody frowned. “I’ll have to do something about that.”

Rummaging in the cabinets and refrigerator for the makings of lunch, Brooke sent him an amused look, but said nothing. Surprise, she knew, was the essence of many a battle plan, and she wondered if Cody had chosen deliberately to keep her slightly off-balance. Why? The better to fight her dragons?