The Alignment (30 page)

I go into the hallway. Some guy appears to be attempting to go up the stairs without Tara’s permission.

“They’re sleeping.” She’s forcing her voice low. “Why are you doing this? Don’t you know what will happen if I call the police?”

“Don’t threaten me.” His hand reaches up, grasps her arm, and suddenly his throat is in my hand and I’m in his face, holding his back against the wall.

“Can I help you with something?” I ask him.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Fearghus…” Tara warns, her hand on my arm. “I have a restraining order, all we have to do is call the police.”

“The police take way too long,” I say, still in his face. I release him, but I don’t withdraw.

“So this is your new boyfriend?” The prick sneers at me while speaking to her. It’s a perfect way to ask me for a broken jaw.

“Don’t be an idiot. He’s my brother.”

“Don’t lie to me. You don’t have a brother.”

“Yes she does.” I open the door. I grab him by the shirt and throw him onto the porch. He picks himself up and I stand in the doorway, waiting for him to leave, memorizing his features and the way he moves. I’m sure I’ll see him again someday. I hope I do. I watch him drive away in a black Impala before I go back inside.

Tara’s right behind me. She’s rubbing her arm where the shithead touched her. “I am so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” I feel a little better now. I’d feel a lot better if I could have relocated his nose, but I’m not going to tell her that. I catch Liv’s eye. She’s looking very pleased. She must have heard me acknowledge myself as Tara’s brother. I wish I could say I did it on purpose but it slipped out. I must admit it was convenient at the time.

“He’s my ex-husband, and he’s a psychopath,” Tara says as we sit back down in the living room. “He just shows up like that sometimes, convinced he’s going to take our kids even though I have full custody. And a restraining order.”

“Your children are twins, too?” Liv asks.

“Yes.”

“Cooper is your married name?”

“Yes. I’ve thought about changing it back to Bevan, but being in real estate, people just know me as Tara Cooper.”

“And you didn’t know Trey lives in Black River?”

“No, I didn’t. I don’t even think our mother knows where he lives. I’ve just known Nancy forever. I’m sure you know she used to live here in Chicago, and she moved to Montana about ten years ago when her husband died. When you came to me wanting a big change for a similar reason, I immediately thought of her.”

“It’s just really hard to believe,” Liv says.

“I know.” Tara grins, looking between us like she’s about to get up and initiate a group hug.

The old woman returns and sits next to me. “Our lives have been incomplete without you, Fearghus. We’ve watched you through your mother’s eyes, but it was never enough. Tara had a very hard time without you. And your mother, how she suffered without Tara. And how she suffers now, unable to be with her grandchildren. She is a true warrior. That’s what her name means.”

“Sloane,” Liv says.

“Yes. Warrior.” The old woman smiles at her. “Your Sloane—” She reaches across me for Liv’s hand. “She was born too soon. She was born without Fearghus’ blood, without his gift to her, and she was unable to remain in her time.”

“What do you mean?” Liv chokes, her eyes instantly moist. I feel her pain like I’m in her head taking command of it. Dragging it to my side of the field. If only I could.

“She had to be taken. The timing was wrong. But be patient,
a chroí
, you’ll have her again.”

“You can bring her back?” A tear scurries down Liv’s cheek.

“No, but you and Fearghus can bring her back. And if my old senses are right, I think you already have.”

Chapter 36

Liv

I
jerk the door
open and hit the air outside. A sob has inflated in my chest and it’s too big to get out. I’m stuck between an inhale and an exhale and I don’t know which way the air wants to go. My mind reaches, trying to make sense of the impossible. I want it to be true so badly, maybe it will be true if I believe it. Maybe she could have a second chance—she could be back, inside me right now instead of that little coffin buried in a grave. Soon I could see her again, pink and smiling and cooing. My memory of her lifeless limbs could be snuffed from my reality, like waking up and realizing that eternity of crushing darkness was all a bad dream.

Trey follows me outside, and I turn to him, colliding with him, clinging on. The sob breaks and I press my face into his chest. All the things that have changed for him, and I’m the one breaking down.

“I’m so sorry,” I choke.

“Why are you sorry?” There’s a tinge of a laugh in his voice.

I pull away and look at him. His eyes are glowing, and his face is relaxed. He dabs my cheeks with the sleeve of his jacket.

“All that you’ve been through, and I’m the one losing it.”

“I’ll lose it soon. I wanted to let you have a turn first.”

He closes the front door and we sit on the porch bench. His brain might be working but my thoughts remain scattered, and I make no attempt to rein them in. It feels as if I’m sitting in the dark in front of a television playing static, and I’m too entranced to switch the channel.

Still staring straight ahead, he says, “I have to say it. Screw everything. I couldn’t be happier.” He turns to me and smiles broadly. “And I think I’m going to be really disappointed if she’s wrong.”

I wipe my eyes on the arm of his jacket. I need to blow my nose but I don’t think it would go over too well. “After everything…?”

“I’m not thinking about anything else right now. Forget all of that. It doesn’t matter.”

But all of it does matter. It has to matter—all those things we’ve learned since we stepped off that plane in Richmond. It’s an impossible amount of information. One of us should have been taking notes.

“Stop thinking,” he says. “Just think about this, right now.”

“I can’t believe it,” I reply in monotone. My mouth is numb.

“Believe it. If she’s anything like my mother, she knows these things. Now, how do you feel?”

I feel like it’s too good to be true. Instead of just waking from a bad dream, I’m going to wake from this, a good dream, and realize it was all in my mind. My baby is still dead. I look up at him, and his smile transmits across the inches of air separating us. Filling me. I feel myself smiling back. He takes my face in his hands and kisses me, even though I’m salty from crying. It makes me want to cry again.

He pulls away. “We were crazy to fight this.”

“We didn’t know.”

“Everything we knew was wrong.” His voice remains light. There is nothing in the world more gratifying than seeing him happy. I’ve never seen him like this.

“I have a recurring dream about her. Every time, I wake up convinced I’m holding her.”

“An omen.” He smiles that same broad smile.

I don’t know how long we sit there watching the lilac next to the porch wiggle in the breeze, but at some point I find his hand and don’t let go.

When the door creaks open, it takes me a moment to recognize Tara’s head sticking out. “Are you two hungry?”

“Yes, we’re coming in,” Trey says. When the door closes, he kisses me again and pulls me up and into the house.

The aroma inside triggers my memory of one of the first meals I had with Trey. It was the night he made stew, and I was too stubborn to eat it until he got me drunk with his special tea. It seems as though a lifetime of events has happened since that day. If things don’t settle down, I won’t be able to keep up with this pace much longer.

The dining room table is set, and Tara’s children are already seated in booster seats. Trey offers his help to bring bowls of stew in, and I stand until Tara makes me sit. Once we’re all seated, we pass a basket of rolls around the table and take turns with the butter. What I’d expect to be awkward silence feels like some agreed upon lull, like everyone in the room has just cried as hard as me and we’re all too weary and overwhelmed to speak.

Trey’s the first one to finish. “This is my mother’s recipe.”

“I taught her everything she knows,” the old woman says proudly.

“Are you two staying the night?” Tara asks with a hopeful smile.

“We need to be—” Trey begins.

“Yes,” I say. “We’d love to.”

“Perfect. I have a few appointments tomorrow I could easily reschedule. We can catch up. Mamó, your nurse never showed up.”

“Yes. I told her I didn’t need her anymore.”

“You did what?”

“I’m an old woman. There’s nothing she can do to make me live forever.”

Tara’s spoon rattles into her bowl.

“Liv’s a nurse,” Trey announces, grinning widely at me.

“And it looks like she is off the clock,” Mamó says. She pushes back from the table and disappears into the kitchen. The children follow.

“So stubborn,” Tara mutters under her breath.

“How old are your kids?” I knew she had kids when she was helping me find a house, but I never learned anything about them. We must have avoided the subject.

“Three and a half. They’re on their best behavior because you two are here. As soon as they get comfortable with you it’s going to be nonstop chaos.”

As if to prove her right, they thunder into the room. The little boy falls down in a fit of laughter, and the little girl stops next to Trey, looking up at him.

“Hi,” Trey says.

She makes a face and balances something on his knee.

“Thanks,” he says, and she bounds away. He sets the object on the table and rolls it to me. “Smart kid.”

It’s an exact replica of Trey’s new Camaro. I look at Tara for an explanation but then realize she probably didn’t see the car we came in.

“She saw that at the grocery store the other day and had to have it.” Tara stands and stacks their dishes. “I try not to spoil them, but she had that I-can’t-live-without-this look. She’s so girly I was glad to buy her a toy car for once.”

“When?” Trey asks.

“I think it was…Sunday. Yeah, Sunday.”

“No shit.”

She pauses in her dish stacking. “Why?”

“It’s the car we came in today. We picked it up on Sunday.”

Tara nods like she’s already heard this before. “It isn’t the first time she’s done something like that. What am I supposed to do? Mamó says just to let her be, so that’s what I’ve been doing. I have no idea what else to do.”

“I wouldn’t know either.” Trey rests his finger on the roof of the toy car and rolls it slowly back and forth in front of him.

“Okay so I’m dying to know,” Tara says. “How did the two of you meet?”

“I ran a red light,” Trey says, deadpan, beating me to the punch.

“He ran a red light
on purpose
,” I explain, and as soon as the words are out I know Trey and I are thinking the same thing. We still haven’t found out who’s been stalking us in that gray car.

“I ran a red light because I was following a car I’ve seen around. I saw it the night I came home to find Kate and Aaron gone. And it’s been stalking around Black River since I moved there.”

“What kind of car?” Tara asks.

“Gray. At least fifteen years old, since I saw it that night by the house. Tinted windows, spoiler. Some kind of Acura, maybe an Integra or Vigor. Probably modified. It’s pretty fast. I could easily catch it on my motorcycle, but it seems like I’m always in my truck when I see it.”

“You were on your motorcycle the last time,” I remind him.

“Yeah but I got a bad start,” he grumbles.

“I can’t think of anyone I know with an Acura,” Tara says.

“Anyone who works on cars?”

Tara shakes her head and seems to focus on the wall behind us.

“I meant to check the garage when we were at the estate, but I didn’t have a chance.” Trey pushes away his empty dish.

“You were there?” Tara’s eyes focus hard on Trey.

“Yes. Monday. We didn’t stay long.”

“Was it like…the last time?”

“I guess. I don’t know. It didn’t end well.” Trey’s face hardens.

“How is she?” She must mean their mother.

“She was happy when I left her room. I didn’t see her afterward.” He looks down for a moment before his head snaps up. “We have to get her out of there.”

“I don’t know how that’s possible.”

“I can make it easy. Can Liv stay with you for twenty-four hours?” He pushes his chair away from the table.

“No. No violence. She wouldn’t want that. And she couldn’t leave that house and live the life you live. She couldn’t protect herself.”

“Liv and I can protect her.”

Feeling like I need to give them some time to talk, I scoot my chair back. “Where’s the bathroom?”

Tara points down the hall.

After I wash my hands and blot away some crystallized tears, I sit down on the toilet lid. Pregnant. Just like that, my baby will be back in my arms, one crippling loss regained. For so long I’ve dreamed of going back in time, making some change, doing something different to somehow evade her death. I’d never imagined going forward in time would be the key to bringing her back. I know she won’t be the same. She can’t be—she’ll have a different father. That won’t stop me from believing it’s her. If I believe in magic now, I can believe in reincarnation.

Trey’s family has been working so hard to prevent the conception of a baby that now exists because of their very own actions. If they hadn’t tried to kill me, Trey wouldn’t have needed to heal me and wouldn’t have gotten me pregnant in the process. The whole thing is a massive chain reaction, starting with them tricking Trey into thinking Kate and Aaron were dead, and ending with me carrying the child they fear. Fooled and betrayed by their own game.

Instead of returning to the dining room with Trey and Tara, I join the children in the living room. They warm up to me quickly, and before I know it I have a child on either side of me and a stack of books I’ve read to them. As I’m nearing the end of the final book in the stack, I look down to see two sets of drooping eyelids.

I lean my head back against the couch and relax to the muffled sound of Trey and Tara’s conversation from the dining room. For once, I feel no burden. The immeasurable weight of grief has lifted. My soul is at ease.

Mamó joins me, taking the armchair, and picks up her knitting. Time ticks by on an old clock on the mantel, and I feel calm and content, soaking up the peacefulness of the house and my company. How quickly things can change. The world can drop out from under you, and in the blink of an eye, it has returned, and you are in another hemisphere.

Tara sneaks into the room, followed by Trey, and slides her arms under the little girl. Trey takes the little boy and follows Tara up the stairs. When they return, Trey drops to the couch next to me and wraps his arm around me. Tara lights up the gas fireplace and sits on the hearth with an afghan across her lap. The chill in the air was unnoticeable to me snuggled up to two warm sleeping children.

“What time is it?” I ask Trey.

“Almost ten.”

“Past my bedtime.” Mamó puts down her knitting. “But there’s one more thing you must know. Tara, did you tell them about Kate’s baby?”

“No, I was leaving that up to you.” Tara eyes Trey.

Mamó leans back in her chair to gather a breath. “You already know your unborn child is very special. Am I right?”

“Yes.” Trey removes his arm from me and sits up straighter.

“The Moores will have a special child, a leader, born to them soon as well. We know this from your mother, Fearghus. Her inside knowledge is vital to us. She has told us that Kate is carrying this child, and they believe this child is their only hope to protect them if your child is born.” She pauses until Trey looks at her. “You’ll understand this is their reason for taking Kate away from you; they couldn’t have the two of you together, get this child from her and prevent your child from being born at the same time. Their choice of using Christian in this way has tormented your mother. But she is helpless. You must find it in your heart to forgive him.”

“I know.” Trey looks down at his hands.

Everyone is silent until Trey looks up. “Why was I kept in the dark? My whole life? Was it really necessary?” He can’t keep the roughness out of his voice.

“Yes it was necessary,” Mamó says. “We had to go on as if your path was not predetermined, because any minor change caused by that knowledge would have altered the path. Simply having the knowledge was enough to do harm. We had to be careful to live as if we had not possessed the knowledge in the first place. This is why your mother had to stay with the Moores. It seemed so wrong, when considering the prophecy. But ignoring the prophecy, it was the only option. And now we see that it was the only way everything could have turned out this way. Had you gone alone, you never would have grown with your mother’s influence, never would have had a reason to leave, and never would have met Liv when you met her. And you wouldn’t be here right now.”

“But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t have been told. At some point.”

“Telling you at any time before now would have altered the course. Think about this. At what point could you have taken this knowledge and stowed it away, refusing to allow it to affect your life at all?”

She has a very good point. Maybe if Trey was patient and thoughtful instead of impulsive, vengeful, and quick-tempered, he could have been told. The Trey I know could never have learned all he’s learned today and simply gone on with his life. He’d be on the road back to Richmond to free his mother right now if Tara hadn’t talked him out of it at the dinner table.

“You must learn to accept your destiny. Both of you. You must not fight it. You must embrace who you are. Your lives will not be happy until you do.” She holds my eye for a moment, and seeming satisfied, she moves on to Trey.

I feel like I already have accepted all of this. But Trey is still in the process of fighting. And I’m not sure how long it will last, or what will determine the end.