Society Rules (9 page)

Indie suddenly felt a craving for strong arms around her, telling her that everything was going to be okay, offering her the feeling of the utmost comfort and protection . . . her own hero in her very own romantic love story.

She wanted a partner who was involved in her life . . . her thoughts . . . someone who knew how she felt about things. Someone who understood how hard every day was for her, she thought, stifling a small sob.

Jesus, just someone who thought she was worth talking to, even.

She felt the tears welling up in her eyes, and bit her lip to still the trembling. Indie allowed herself a very rare moment of intense self-pity as she leaned against the wall in the hallway. Was it so much to ask that her partner be someone who was on her emotional level. Someone who was her . . . equal.

No. Her
Equal
.

Yes, it definitely felt like a proper noun. Indie clutched at her head, aghast at what had just shot through it.

Am
I
crazy
, she asked herself, swallowing the lump in her throat.
What
could
I
possibly
be
thinking
, she wondered, freaking herself out at the thought.

Turning to stumble down the hallway, Indie stopped short as she passed the window on the way to the bath. Her hand shaking, she pulled the curtain back and stared out into the utterly opaque darkness, seeing nothing but her own reflection . . . but yet . . . Her senses were screaming.

He was out there. Somehow, she knew it.

And he was watching her.

With a gulp of panic, she drew back from the window, realizing that she was backlit, and very visible to any handsome and mysterious voyeurs who might be lurking in the shadows. Crazily, she wanted to peek out again.

Confused at her unexplainable compulsion, Indie hesitated, then re-focused on the project at hand. Oh, yes. She was late for a date with the showerhead, wasn’t she.

Disentangling the scrunchi from her hair, and shaking out the now knotted waves, Indie hastened to lose herself in a scalding hot shower. Closing up her mind into a tight little box, she dried off methodically and put herself to bed. She closed her eyes, and the face of Jackson appeared, as if conjured purposely by her traitorous brain.

She allowed herself to study his features behind her eyelids. Indie had perfect recall. His face was, she had to admit . . . perfect. His eyes were the most unusual shade of dark, almost teal blue, under a frame of black lashes and brows. The curve of his jaw line was gentle, not too angular.

This contributed to his youthful appearance, in spite of the shadow of a beard that was making itself visible by day’s end, although he didn’t seem overly endowed with an abundance body hair, thank God.

Thank God?

Whatever. As if it mattered to her.

She mentally kicked herself as the assessment continued, unable to stop her virtual voyeurism.

His somewhat full lips looked as if they could do some real damage . . . the kind any woman could appreciate, and they remained frozen in that patient smile that he had last given her, before he had dematerialized like a ghost.

She wondered again, how old he really was, feeling a little uneasy; he might be young enough to be her child! Technically, Indie could easily be the mother of a twenty-two year old, at least. Indie shuddered. This was such a terrible thought, that she snapped her eyes open with a nearly audible pop.

What kind of perv would that make her?

She wondered though. Something inside of him seemed older . . . wiser. He didn’t have the lanky build of a teenager, either. He was tall, and muscular, but not in a bulgy He-Man kind of way. She’d never found that look attractive. There was definitely nothing gangly about him.

No, his was more of a focused and graceful power; lean and potentially dangerous, a tiger, ready to pounce. She could see the pent up energy in him, like a tightly compressed spring that could release at any moment, but well controlled. Indie liked this in a man.

It was probably the reason Will had first appealed to her . . . that promise of lethal ability, kept under lock and key.

Her speculation continued as she pictured him again. His eyes were not the eyes of a young man. They had the look of someone who had suffered for a long time, she recalled. An almost unendurable sadness yet, at the same time, he was calming to her.

When he had reached out to her in Miss Maggie’s room, she had shrank away, terrified, but not of him exactly. She was terrified because a very central part of her core was convinced that what she had just heard was truth, and it was too much.

It was true sensory overload, and his close proximity, she feared, would toss her over the threshold of madness. In addition, she’d noted that her rejection had nearly destroyed him. She had felt it, without a doubt, yet that made no sense.

He didn’t even know her.

She thought of his voice. Indie shivered as she remembered the way her name had flowed sensuously from his lips. His voice sounded as if it was created just for her. The perfect pitch to calm the havoc in her brain, the soft breath of his accent was just an added bonus.

Her thoughts shifted to absorb the possibility of a partner who was
there
for
her
 . . . in every possible way. Someone who wanted to take care of
her
.

A lover who was also actually interested in her thoughts and struggles.

She gasped and pulled the covers over her head. This was so wrong.

Completely unacceptable.

What, was she going to
fantasize
about the person who was part of the psychosis-inducing scene that had taken place, Christ, was it just this morning? She didn’t want to do it . . . but then . . . she
did
want to.

Maggie had said he was her
Equal
.

Indie shamefully acknowledged to herself that she liked the sound of this. She shivered again.

However, what exactly did it mean, her
Equal
? It sounded good, in theory, except that she was a married woman, and he could not conceivably be her anything, could he? She had no answer.

After glancing longingly at her latest fantasy romance novel and deciding that reading it would only further her torment, Indie flipped on the television and lost her thoughts to the Discovery Channel. They were running a special on ancient civilizations.

Perfect.

Chapter 6

If just yesterday, someone had asked Jackson Allen to describe himself, he was quite sure that the words sick-o, obsessive, disgusting, and Peeping-Tom would not have immediately leaped to mind.

How things change, he thought dryly.

Repulsed by his actions, he leaned his back against a large birch tree situated across from the split-level home that concealed the cause of this all-new tendency to lurk in the shadows like a monster from a horror story.

He cursed silently. What in the hell
was
he doing?

I mean, really, he thought to himself, like this would be considered Society approved activity, right?

Groaning softly, overcome with the need to see her face once more, Jackson turned, pressing his chest and belly to the smooth tree trunk, and faced the house; the windows glowing with a cozy light. He stared at the window; feeling for the connection that he knew was inside.

There was no doubt about it . . . he could sense her presence now that he had been so close to her, even though they had not made physical contact.

William
Taylor
. Jackson had gleaned the name from Indie’s mind when they’d faced off in Ms. Maggie’s room, though he’d picked up on nothing else. She’d thought of her husband because of her guilty conscience. She felt attraction to Jackson, and it made her feel all wrong.

It’s
not
wrong
, he thought violently. In fact, it was
so
much more than right.

And this William character . . . Will, she called him, didn’t appreciate her or give her the love that she needed. Jackson could see it in the pain reflected in her eyes. She was lost, and needed to be found.

And so she had. And Jackson stood more than ready and able to give her what she needed. He was literally drowning in his feelings for her.

Maybe she was feeling him right now too, he mused. Surely this enhanced sensory kick wasn’t all one-sided, was it?

He stopped breathing as a shadow passed in front of the window that had drawn his stare. The shadow went by, paused, and then returned to stand directly in front of the glass.

Jackson’s strong hands were now strangling the poor birch, his fingers digging deeply. He watched as the curtains were slowly moved aside, and the lonely looking figure of Indie stepped forward, her face cupped right against the glass.

Was she looking for him, he wondered breathlessly, or did she simply sense an unwelcome presence in the night? Earlier in the evening, he had perched in the tree that held him up now, and watched as Indie attempted to break the three minute mile record; racing around the block for what seemed like hours. She was clearly running
from
something.

Oh, let’s see, maybe it could be the book of weirdness laid open and shoved at her feet by some crazy old lady and a creepy strange guy?

Nah, couldn’t be
that
.

And he had felt like an intrusive predator, hanging out in the trees and spying on her desperate attempts to get away from the events of the day. Maybe he would sprout fur and fangs next.

Brilliant. Then he could really creep her out.

It almost looked as if Indie’s eyes were reaching across the distance and making direct contact with him. He lifted his hand on impulse, and then quickly dropped it again, feeling foolish. There was no way she could see him, concealed in the darkness as he was.

But she knew.

Oh yeah, she knew he was there. Jackson closed his eyes and wished fiercely that he’d touched her today. He so needed to read her thoughts clearly. Was she looking out with longing . . . or fear?

Maybe a little of both. Or was it just curiosity?

Was she just interested in hearing his little story, and then planning to send him on his way with a “
thanks
for
stopping
by,
now
get
lost
before
my
husband
kills
you
,” kind of vibe?

The figure in the window stepped back and let the curtains fall shut, and he watched her shadow move away. The light in the smallest window at the center of the house flipped on, and Jackson got the distinct impression of water running.

“Ok,” he sighed to himself. “I’ve broken enough laws for tonight.” With one more quick glance up to the lighted window, Jackson shoved himself away from the tree and took a slow stroll up to the small park where he had left his car.

His head was throbbing with the pounding ache of unmet needs, along with a chaser of uncertainty and worry. What if she didn’t want him? Just what would he do with himself if he made contact with her, and she wanted nothing to do with him? Could he even survive such horror?

Technically, he should just be able to carry on with his life, right? He’d lived without her for forty years. He could live another forty without her. Or eighty.

Or two hundred.

He cringed inside and out at the idea, and felt it punch through his guts in a bowel twisting earthquake. It seemed that continuing on the journey through this life without her was almost impossible to think about, even in the abstract. The “what if’s” were nearly destroying him, impaling his head with the pain of this possibility.

No
, Jackson’s brain spoke for him.
I
cannot
allow
her
to
slip
from
my
grasp.
Not
now
.

Unlocking the door to the Mercedes, he then pulled himself heavily inside. He wasn’t sure how to approach the situation without coming off like a really scary bastard.

This was something to be done with caution.

He fired up the engine, and pulled out into the deserted street and moved at a crawl, lost in thought. But in the blink of an eye, or so it seemed, Jackson found himself surrounded by a dark blanket of tree boughs and in the clearing that was the entrance to his home.

Parking the car on the carpet of pine needles and dirt, he dragged himself from the car with an exhaustion that was becoming annoyingly familiar. A bone-deep weariness that comes only from completing several triathlons in one day . . . or needing something you don’t have so desperately that it literally slaps the energy from your body, rendering one all but useless.

It was all Jackson could do to make it down the steps and into his house, where he sat on the floor and rested his back against the door. His joints hurt, and the dull aching pressure behind his eyes was disconcerting.

Using the moment to recover the last of his flagging strength, Jackson bounced upright and moved his miserable party of one to the master bedroom. Pulling open the bottom drawer of the apothecary chest that he used as a nightstand, he withdrew a small box made of highly polished wood that was exquisitely hand carved, and he flung himself down on the bed.

He lifted the perfectly fitted lid from the tiny work of art, and removed a pair of wide, highly polished platinum bands, each inscribed with the words, “
Ego
dilecto
meo
et
dilectus
meus
.”

Jackson could read Latin like nobody’s business, having really gotten into the teachings of the old languages. This had been an unbelievable help through law school, and allowed him to move through his classes with relative ease.

Reading the inscriptions aloud, though he’d memorized it years ago, Jackson’s voice was rough with weariness.

The words were so fitting.

Plus, he knew the story, from The Song of Solomon, chapter six, to be precise. The translation; “
I
am
my
beloved’s
and
my
beloved
is
mine
.”

As he stared down at the heavy shimmering weights in his hand, he could not help but add the next line; “
He
feeds
among
the
lilies
.”

Ah yes. He was feeding all right. Absolutely gorging himself on a feast of want, need and dread.

All well done, naturally.

Jackson had received the little box on his sixteenth birthday . . . the age when Society Members are committed to their
Equals,
the bands normally exchanged at the Ceremony of Recognition and worn as a symbol of their everlasting bond.

At first, he had thought it a particularly nasty little joke; after all, his
Equal
was MIA, wasn’t she? His nanny, who left him on this same day, to re-join with her
Equal
, had pulled him into her arms and asked him to look at it from another perspective.

“
Someone
,” she’d said so kindly that it made him want to weep, “
has
faith
that
you
will
connect
with
your
mate,
and
they
wish
you
to
be
prepared.
I
believe
the
Elders
had
these
sent
to
you
so
that
you
do
not
lose
hope.”
She had pushed him back gently and looked in his eyes as she spoke the next words;
“You
have
always
been
extraordinary,
Jackson
 . . .
there
is
something
I
see
in
you
 . . .
your
strength
and
faithful
tenacity,
that
makes
me
believe
that
you
have
a
destiny
to
fulfill,
and
that
your
Equal
must
be
part
of
it.
You
are
extraordinary,
and
so
must
she
follow
in
that
mold.
You
will
see.”

Ms. Rihanna had smoothed his hair away from his expression of brave resignation.

“
You
live,
so
you
know
that
she
lives.
As
long
as
there
is
breath
in
you,
you
may
find
her.
You
will
feel
the
draw,
and
find
your
way
to
her.
Pray
that
you
do
before
she
succumbs
to
the
madness
that
takes
our
orphaned
members.”