Whispers (30 page)

“
It’s not that. He’s just changed her course so radically— how can I not resent him for that? Analise had her hands filled with opportunities and now—now she’s going to be a mother. She’s not even out of high school, Reilly.”

He looked at her, not sure if this was the place to butt in or butt out. “Your circumstances were a hell of a lot worse at her age, and you still turned out pretty good.”

“
Appearances can be deceiving.”

“
I don’t think so. Look, I know a teenage pregnancy isn’t what you wanted for her, but she’ll have you to help her. From what I’ve seen so far, I’d say she’s lucky.”

Gracie’s eyes shimmered for a moment before she looked away. “You didn’t used to be such a nice guy.”

“
Yeah, I didn’t used to be a lot of things.”

He’d said it lightly, but the words seemed to open a door inside him. The conversation he’d had with Chloe weighed on his mind. Should he bring it up? Should he even mention it to Gracie? Chloe had said it was time to be a good man. What would a good man do in his shoes?

“
What do you know about your family, Reilly?” Gracie asked.

The question seemed as turned inward as out, but it paralleled his train of thought too closely.

“
Not much more than you know about yours. My mother’s family was from the East. After she married my dad, they pretty much disowned her. They thought he was trash. They were right. My dad’s parents were killed in a car accident—I think around the time he and Mom got married. He had a little sister once, but she drowned in a neighbor’s pool when they were kids. And that’s it. My folks went on to have me and Matt and my dad spent his last breath torturing the three of us for loving him.”

“
I remember when he died. And your mom. It was awful.”

He looked down, shaking his head. “Awful. Yeah. It was that.”

She was watching him. He felt her eyes, felt her waiting for him to go on. And funny thing, he wanted to. He’d been furious with Chloe for prying the lid off the horror of his family life. But now that the wound was exposed, he wanted to talk.

“
I remember, he’d been on a binge for a good week. He got laid off from the construction job he had, and he was burning mad about it. He had it out with the foreman, almost beat him to death before the other guys pulled him off. And then he came home and stewed. The first day he just drank. And then he started looking for a fight. He picked on my mom because she wouldn’t defend herself and he knew that it would get to me and Matt. It was a pattern and we knew it, but no one ever seemed to be able to stop it.”

Reilly stood and moved to the edge of the porch. The rain splattered him there, but he didn’t care. It felt good. Clean. From her seat Gracie watched him, still and silent. But he felt her presence. Felt her attention and it made it easier to go on.

“
That time, though, my mom saw it coming and she pleaded with me and Matt to just stay out of it. She said he’d quit if he didn’t get a rise out of us.”

“
Why did she stay with him?”

“
Why does anyone stay where they don’t belong? God knows we begged her enough times to take us away from here. When you’re a kid you don’t see the reality of things. She didn’t have anywhere to go. She didn’t have any money. He barely gave her enough for groceries, never enough to save. And after awhile, I guess you start to think it’s normal. It doesn’t even strike you strange that everyone in the house tiptoes around the monster in the living room. It’s just how it is. But that day ... God, I can still hear him. He was on her about everything, but she just kept ignoring him. And then he started hitting her. Matt and I were in our room, listening. Thinking he’d stop. Thinking if we just did what she told us...I still don’t understand it—to this day I don’t know. She was so quiet and he was too—usually he’d be ranting and shouting. But not that time. I swear, it didn’t sound like he was killing her. She never even screamed. She never cried. But he beat her to death while we waited in the next room doing nothing.”

He took a deep breath and let it out. “It got quiet and we thought she’d been right and he’d quit. We thought it was over. We came out, wondering what was for dinner. I remember that. Thinking, wonder what Mom’s cooking tonight. And then we found him sitting on the kitchen floor with her blood all over him and her body just lying there next to him.”

“
My God.” Gracie breathed.

He faced her, leaning against the damp pole behind him. She had her hands up over her mouth and her eyes were a shiny gray that matched the pouring rain. He swallowed, not sure if he could keep going. Silently, she stood and came to stand beside him. Juliet gave a whine and lay down by her chair, apparently accepting that Gracie was safe with him.

“
You’ll get wet,” he said.

“
I’ll dry.”

He nodded once, tried to smile, then realized he was close to tears. He couldn’t cry in front of Gracie Beck. He wouldn’t. He took a deep breath and looked away, forcing himself to continue.

“
Matt.. . I’ve never seen anything like it. He went nuts. She was dead—no doubt about it. Half her face was caved in, like he’d hit her with something hard. I saw the iron and realized she’d been trying to press his shirts, thinking if she just pretended he wasn’t a crazy man, he wouldn’t hurt her. It didn’t work that way, though. I picked Mom up off the floor and then I didn’t know what to do with her. I just stood there, holding her thinking, what now? I don’t know how long I stood that way before I realized that Matt was pounding my dad’s head against the counter until his skull fractured.”

“
But... he drove off the road, into the canyon. I thought... He killed himself.”

Reilly shook his head. “Not without help he didn’t.”

“
My God.”

Reilly covered his face with his hands, fighting to keep control of the waves of emotion that rose like the water outside. He didn’t want to look at her. He didn’t want to see the disgust on her face or the revulsion in her eyes. Chloe was right. He’d done nothing to stop it and then he’d helped his brother hide the murder.

He fought it. He might have won, but then Gracie touched him and everything he held back spilled over. She put her arms around him and pulled him into her. He held her tightly and buried his face in the soft skin of her neck. Tears scalded his cheeks as they poured from his eyes. He held her and rocked as she soothed him, as she murmured soft words that told him it was okay and to let it out. He hadn’t cried that day, he hadn’t cried after, ever. But he couldn’t stop now. He cried for the child who’d watched his mother beaten by the one person she should be able to trust, he cried for the teenager who was covered in blood as he dragged his daddy out to the car. He cried for the man who’d lost every member of his family and was now alone in the world. And Gracie held him, weathering his emotion with a strength he’d never had in his lifetime.

He didn’t know how long it lasted, but he felt empty when it was done. Slowly, he pulled away, embarrassed by the abandonment of his torrent. What did he say now? But as he glanced at Gracie’s face, he saw such complete understanding that he realized words weren’t necessary. Not at all. He was stunned by the miracle of it, of Gracie. He brushed her cheek with his fingertips then let them curl beneath her hair. She stood on tiptoes, holding his face as she brought her mouth to his.

The gentle touch of her lips against his, the acceptance in their sweet taste, knocked down some barrier within him. He gathered her up to him and kissed her like his life depended on it. And that’s how it felt. As if he wouldn’t be breathing unless he touched her.

A feeling he didn’t understand grew in him. A sense that he’d been here, done this before and that it had been taken away from him, too young. The feel of her skin, the touch of her breath, the smell of her perfume, wove in his mind to create a tie that bound him. She tasted of things so dear they should never be lost. Of memories he’d never had. Of feelings he needed to share.

His hands found the hem of her shirt and slipped under to glide across the warm satin of her ribs up to her lace-covered breasts. There they stopped, overwhelmed by the soft delicateness of her. She was fragile, no matter how strong she was, here, at her core, there was a fragility that he yearned to protect. She wrapped her arms around him tighter and the sound of the pouring rain seemed to blend with the pounding of his pulse as it beat through every nerve in his body.

His feelings were a knot of confusion inside him, but he fought to find one that he could ride. He thought it would be desire, but it was something more and he was grateful, grateful that he was capable of more than need and that Gracie was the woman to bring it to him.

She pulled back then, as if reading his mind, as if wanting to see for herself what he was giving. For a moment she stared deeply into his eyes, and everything in him wanted to cover those feelings, but he didn’t. He looked back and her eyes widened with surprise. He rested his forehead against hers and breathed in the scent of her.

They stayed that way for a long time, neither one moving or questioning or attempting to explain. It was the sound of the door opening that broke them apart. But he caught her hand before she could step away, holding her to him by that small gesture. She looked surprised, but she smiled. That moment would stay burned on his mind forever.

Brendan stood at the open door, looking embarrassed to have interrupted. He cleared his throat and said, “Analise needs you.”

Reluctantly, Reilly let Gracie go.

Chapter Twenty-Six

ANALISE was physically and emotionally drained but too exhausted to sleep. Gracie gave her some tea and calmed her down enough to sleep. Her daughter looked young and defenseless in her exhaustion and Gracie yearned to scoop her up and take her away from her uncertain future. But of course she couldn’t. She could only do what she did now—watch and pray.

Once Analise had drifted off, Gracie found an empty box in the pantry and took it up to her grandmother’s room. Brendan was downstairs helping Reilly stack sandbags outside the entrances, and she was alone but for her sentry, Juliet. She tried not to think too much about anything, especially Reilly, as she cleared items off Grandma Beck’s dresser and packed them.

She had her back to the door when she heard a tentative knock. She turned to find the priest hovering just at the threshold with an apologetic look on his face.

“
I’m sorry to disturb you, Miss Beck. But I wondered if I could speak with you for a moment?”

Gracie nodded, but her reluctance must have shown on her face.

“
I won’t keep you from your packing,” he said. He had a kindly smile and warm eyes. Had he not arrived with Chloe, Gracie might have liked him on sight. He came in, sat on the straight-back chair at the desk, and said, “I wanted to offer my services.”

“
I’m not a very religious person, Father. I don’t need—”

He held up a hand. “Call me Jonathan. I am not ordained by any church. I am a man of God, though, and I wear this collar to remind myself of that.” He looked around him for a moment, as if unsure how to continue. Juliet padded over to him, sniffed his feet, and then flopped on the floor, completely at ease with his presence. Jonathan reached down and scratched her behind the ear before continuing.

“
My father was a Baptist reverend and my mother an Episcopalian priest,” he said. “There were always heated conversations in my house about theology and worship, but never about some things. Never about faith or God. And it was a given in my house that people like Chloe LaMonte, people with psychic abilities, were nothing more than heathens. The devil’s children. There were no exceptions. When I realized that I was one of them, I believed that made me an abomination. Chloe taught me that we have a gift, not a curse. Through Chloe I was able to come to terms with what I do and still consider myself a man of God’s love.”

Gracie didn’t know why he was telling her this, but the gentle sincerity of his words kept her quiet and listening as she wrapped frames in paper and put them in her box.

“
You see,” he said. “My gift is that I can see things that happened a long time ago. And sometimes I see things that haven’t happened yet.”

“
And this is the service you’re offering me? I appreciate the gesture, Jonathan, but I’ve had a glimpse of my future. I think that’s all I can take right now.”

“
The baby?” he said.

She nodded, beyond questioning how he knew.

“
Miss Beck, there is a reason why Chloe has brought us here.”

“
And you know what that reason is?”

“
She tells me she wants to end a cycle, a curse that has been on her family and yours for over a hundred years.”

“
But you don’t think that’s true?”

“
On the contrary, I think it’s very true. But I also think there is more. I would like to know what that more is, before I become a participant in it.”

Gracie nodded. “How do you intend to find out?”

“
If I could touch you—just your hand—and also an object of this house? Something your grandmother owned, perhaps? One of these pictures?”

Gracie had found one on the dresser, of her mother holding Gracie. Grandma Beck stood just at her shoulder, smiling down at them both. She swallowed a lump of emotion and handed it to Jonathan. “Will this do?”