Into the Dreaming (24 page)

Elisabeth nodded tightly. His golden eyes, unblinking and predatorily patient, reminded her of a tiger’s. A shiver kissed her spine.

“I’ll wager she’s paying you well, seeing as she brought you all the way from America.”

Elisabeth gave him a frosty stare. She could see full well where he was going with it and didn’t like it one bit.

“ ’Twould seem I have something you need,” he said silkily. “One might even say I
am
something you need.” His smile grew, but oddly, so did the chill in his gaze.

Elisabeth gritted her teeth, refused to reply.

He waited in silence.

Finally, she gave him a faint, tight nod.

“Mayhap we should strike a bargain, lass.”

“What do you have in mind?” she asked coolly.

“Being that Gwen is dear to me, if she wishes me to see you, then see you I shall. But”—once again, he placed his palms against the door on either side of her head—“ ’twill be as a guest in my home. If you wish to practice your study of the mind on me, ’twill be on my terms. We’ll put Gwen’s mind at ease and you’ll earn your wages. You’ll no’ trouble Gwen or Drustan with any questions, nor will you share with them anything we discuss, because the moment you do, ’tis o’er betwixt us. Understand?”

Elisabeth felt as if the breath had been knocked out of her. In a few sentences, he’d fenced her into a tidy little corner, using Gwen’s peace of mind and well-being during her pregnancy as his weapon. And she knew he meant every word of it.

She’d already made a mess of things by not waiting for Gwen. If he refused to see her, she’d be in a serious bind. Fifty thousand dollars’ worth of a bind. She’d be in the embarrassing position of having to inform Gwen that she couldn’t even get in his door. She’d have left school midterm, for nothing. She’d have to go back to Harvard, back to the
Beanpole
for goodness’ sake, a failure. Oh, she’d sooner die a virgin tomorrow!

Suddenly it was perfectly clear why Gwen had offered so much money. The man didn’t want counseling, didn’t think he needed it, was too intelligent by far, and indisputably a master strategist. Simply finding out what his problem was would be a greater challenge than any she’d ever faced. She felt a strange thrill at the thought of getting inside such a man’s mind.

Could she? she wondered. The tension between them was thick enough to cut into bricks and build a wall. If she could navigate the labyrinth of his mind, she’d never again suffer doubts about her abilities to counsel. If she could conquer him, she could handle anything.

“Breakfast tomorrow then?” he repeated, leaning into her. His golden eyes held hers in a wordless challenge. “What are you afraid of, lass?” he said softly.

He used physical closeness as a weapon, she realized. He fully intended it to throw her off balance.

Thrusting her chin in the air, she met his gaze levelly. Tomorrow was another day, tomorrow she’d be completely on her toes, up to any challenge. She would accept his terms because she had no alternative, but all the while he would be treating her as his guest, she’d patiently and cleverly probe him as a psychologist.

“Fine. I’ll be here at nine,” she said smoothly, thinking that the Elisabeth Zanders he would meet tomorrow would be vastly different from the one he’d run ramshod over today. She gave him a pleasant smile, ducked from between his arms, and twisted the doorknob. Naturally the door didn’t budge because a good two-hundred-plus pounds were leaning against it. Arching a brow, she gave him an imperious look.

Smiling faintly, he dropped his hands.

She took care to close the door gently behind her.

Dageus watched her from the window until she disappeared over the crest of the hill. For the first time in a long time, the morrow’s sunrise seemed to hold promise.

Deep inside, far from defeated, the thirteen stirred restlessly, murmuring approval, and for a change, being of a like
mind with the ancient ones didn’t fash him in the least. For a moment, he even enjoyed the thirteen’s camaraderie, thinking mayhap he had a thing or two in common with the Tuatha Dé Danann Druids. Though they were separated by millennia, men were men in any day and age.

’Tis for but a few days
, he reminded himself.
’Til Gwen and Drustan return
.

He couldn’t fathom what Gwen’s plan involving the lass was, but he was fair certain tooping wasn’t part of it. And when she found out, she’d be furious with him.

He’d deal with that when need be.

In the meantime, he planned to wedge as much life as possible into the next few days.

J
ULY 9. ASHFORD, GEORGIA. NINETY-FOUR DEGREES, 97 PERCENT
humidity.

It gets crazy hot in the South in the summer, but it’s worth it to have such short, mild winters. I like most all seasons and climes. I can get into an overcast drizzly autumn day—great for curling up with a good book—every bit as much as a cloudless, blue summer sky, but I’ve never cared much for snow and ice. I don’t know how northerners put up with it. Or why. But I guess it’s a good thing they do, otherwise they’d all be down here crowding us out.

Native to the sultry southern heat, I was lounging by the pool in the backyard of my parents’ house, wearing my favorite pink polka-dotted bikini that went perfectly with my new I’m-not-really-a-waitress-pink manicure and pedicure. I was sprawled in a cushion-topped chaise soaking up the sun, my long, blond hair twisted up in a spiky knot on top of my head
in one of those hairdos you really hope nobody ever catches you wearing. Mom and Dad were away on vacation, celebrating their thirtieth wedding anniversary with a twenty-one-day island-hopping cruise through the tropics, which had begun two weeks ago in Maui and ended next weekend in Miami.

I’d been working devotedly on my tan in their absence, taking quick dips in the cool, sparkling blue, then stretching out to let the sun toast drops of water from my skin, wishing my sister Alina was around to hang out with, and maybe invite a few friends over.

My iPod was tucked into my dad’s Bose sound dock on the patio table next to me, bopping cheerily through a playlist that I’d put together specifically for poolside sunning, comprised of the top one hundred one-hit wonders from the past few decades, plus a few others that make me smile—happy mindless music to pass happy mindless time. It was currently playing an old Louis Armstrong song—“What a Wonderful World.” Born in a generation that thinks cynical and disenchanted is cool, sometimes I’m a little off the beaten track. Oh well.

A tall glass of chilled sweet tea was at hand, and the phone was nearby in case Mom and Dad made ground sooner than expected. They weren’t due ashore the next island until tomorrow, but twice now they’d landed sooner than scheduled. Since I’d accidentally dropped my cell phone in the pool a few days ago, I’d been toting the cordless around so I wouldn’t miss a call.

Fact was I missed my parents like crazy.

At first, when they left, I’d been elated by the prospect of time alone. I live at home and when my parents are there the
house sometimes feels annoyingly like Grand Central Station, with Mom’s friends, Dad’s golf buddies, and ladies from the church popping in, punctuated by neighborhood kids stopping over with one excuse or another, conveniently clad in their swim trunks—gee, could they be angling for an invitation?

But after two weeks of much longed-for solitude, I’d begun choking on it. The rambling house seemed achingly quiet, especially in the evenings. Around supper time I’d been feeling downright lost. Hungry, too. Mom’s an amazing cook and I’d burned out fast on pizza, potato chips, and mac ’n’ cheese. I couldn’t wait for one of her fried chicken, mashed potatoes, fresh turnip greens, and peach pie with homemade whipped cream dinners. I’d even done the grocery shopping in anticipation, stocking up on everything she needed.

I love to eat. Fortunately, it doesn’t show. I’m healthy through the bust and bottom, but slim through the waist and thighs. I have good metabolism, though Mom says, “Ha, wait until you’re thirty. Then forty, then fifty.” Dad says, “More to love, Rainey,” and gives Mom a look that makes me concentrate really hard on something else. Anything else. I adore my parents, but there’s such a thing as TMI.
Too much information
.

All in all, I have a great life, short of missing my parents and counting the days until Alina gets home from Ireland, but both of those are temporary, soon to be rectified. My life will go back to being perfect again before much longer.

Is there such a thing as tempting the Fates to slice one of the most important threads that holds your life together simply by being too happy?

When the phone rang, I thought it was my parents.

It wasn’t.

It’s funny how such a tiny, insignificant, dozen-times-a-day action can become a line of demarcation.

The picking up of a phone. The pressing of an
ON
button.

Before I pressed it—as far as I knew—my sister was alive. At the moment of pressing, my life split into two distinct epochs: Before the call and After the call.

Before the call, I had no use for a word like
demarcation
, one of those fifty-cent words I knew only because I was an avid reader. Before, I floated through life from one happy moment to the next. Before, I thought I knew everything. I thought I knew who I was, where I fit, and exactly what my future would bring.

Before, I thought I
had
a future.

After the call, I began to discover that I’d never really known anything at all.

I waited two weeks from the day that I learned my sister had been murdered for somebody to do something—anything—besides plant her in the ground after a closed-casket funeral, cover her with roses, and grieve.

Grieving wasn’t going to bring her back, and it sure wasn’t going to make me feel better knowing that whoever’d killed her was walking around alive out there somewhere, happy in their sick little psychotic way, while my sister lay icy and white beneath six feet of dirt.

Those weeks will remain forever foggy to me. I wept the entire time, vision and memory blurred by tears. My tears were involuntary. My soul was leaking. Alina wasn’t just my sister; she was my best friend. She’d emailed incessantly and we’d spoken weekly, sharing everything, keeping no secrets.

Or so I thought. Boy, was I ever wrong.

We’d been planning to get an apartment together when she came home. We’d been planning to move to the city, where I was finally going to get serious about college, and Alina was going to work on her Ph.D. at the same Atlanta university. It was no secret that my sister had gotten all the ambition in the family. Since graduating high school, I’d been perfectly content bartending at The Brickyard four or five nights a week, living at home, saving most of my money, and taking just enough college courses at the local Podunk university (one or two a semester, and classes like How to Use the Internet and Travel Etiquette, which didn’t cut it with my folks) to keep Mom and Dad reasonably hopeful that I might one day graduate and get a Real Job in the Real World. Still, ambition or no, I’d been planning to really buckle up and make some big changes in my life when Alina returned.