Part 36 (1/2)
Ryan looked from her to the horse. ”Wallace! Shame on you.” He looked back, glancing anxiously at Bruce. ”Really, what the h.e.l.l were you doing?”
”Getting lost, nothing more. And I'm fine,” Toni told them.
David and Kevin were both there now, looking at Toni worriedly.
”I'll make tea,” Kevin said.
”With a shot of something,” David said.
”We have about an hour before the buses show,” Gina said, sounding very much like the business manager. ”So we need to hop to it.” She glanced at Bruce and swallowed a little uneasily. ”Um...Bruce, are you still willing to play this with us?”
”Who else could better do the old great MacNiall?” he asked her, allowing his own accent a practiced strength.
”I'm going up,” Toni said, and she flashed him another quick glance that was almost a question. Was he going to follow?
Oh, aye, beyond a doubt!
As if on cue, Eban came striding out from the barn. ”Eh, Bruce, shall I be taking Shaunessy, setting him up for his grand entrance?”
”Aye, Eban, thank you.”
”Well, Wallace, I'll be cleaning you up a bit!” Ryan said.
Bruce left them and walked toward the entrance, aware that they watched him in silence as he departed.
Toni sat in the tub, simply glad of the steaming water that soaked into her, pure bliss after the hours of cold. But her mind was racing. I'm on overload! she told herself.
So much had happened, yet no matter how hard she tried to recall those moments in the forest, she couldn't. Something had struck her. When she'd risen after falling, she'd thought she hit a tree branch.
But had she? Because it had happened right after she had seen...something. Something ahead of her in the water, gone when she had found her seat on the rock, gone when they had walked back following the stream.
Then there was the time--seconds, minutes, longer?--she had been out. Knocked out or just.. .out. Seeing a picture of the past, coming alive in the forest. She'd seen...Annalise, on her knees. Bruce, shouting, raging, straining, anguish written into his features.
And in the vision, she had been screaming herself, just as she had when she'd been a child. She'd been so desperate not to see more, praying, please, G.o.d, don't let me see the execution....
There she was, half in the water, half out, her temple killing her and the rock before her. And as she found her footing and then sat, she heard Bruce and Thayer again, calling to her. The forest had been as it was, trees, pine carpet, bubbling, beautiful brook.
”I'm losing my mind!” she whispered aloud to herself. But she wasn't. And she remembered the woman's voice over the phone. Medium. She was an incredible medium.
No!
But she knew that denying something couldn't make it change. Maybe she had put it all past her for years and years, so far behind her that she'd never expected to know that kind of sensation again, that kind of fear. And yet, if she just accepted some of it, would the fear recede?
I talk to lots of ghosts, the woman had told her.
There was a tap; the bathroom door opened. Bruce came in, hair damp and raven dark, features taut and concerned, chin hard squared, eyes slate and sharp. For a moment, she saw the distant MacNiall, saw him as she had in the very strange interlude amidst a field of trees. The ferocity, the rage.. .and the undying devotion he'd given his Annalise.
She bit into her lower lip, watching him, and the warmth of the water was nothing compared to the searing tempest she felt when he was near. She started to rise from the water very slowly, stepping from the top, coming to him.
”La.s.s, you've been soaked. A bad day...”
”Then make it better,” she whispered.
He c.o.c.ked his head slightly. ”There's not much time.”
”Then we'd best use it well.”
He wrapped his arms around her. For a moment, he held her tight, her frame taut to his. She felt the changes.
And yet.. .it was as if he waited, waited to know what she really needed.
And then.. .he gave it to her. All that she wanted. A total abandonment of thought and worry, fears and visions. Reality, flesh, the senses...the feel of his hands and lips, body heat emanated, damp and slick, pure physicality, grinding, mes.h.i.+ng. She had the longing again to crawl into his skin; they couldn't be close enough. And then those seconds of total constriction, the soaring, the touch of Elysian fields.
The man at her side was real, flesh and blood.
He stroked her hair for a moment, pulled her closer.
”The chill is gone?”
”I could never feel the slightest chill with you,” she told him.
”It's not my show, you know,” he reminded her gently, ”but your buses are coming.”
”I know,” she said, but didn't stir. She waited a moment, thinking there was a tension about him, that he was about to say something. But he didn't.
So she did.
”I saw...what happened, in the past. Today, in the forest.”
”What?” She felt his withdrawal, just slight and not physical.
She rose on an elbow, looking into his eyes. ”I really didn't mean to be in the forest. I was furious with myself for being lost, but I was doing all right, except that that traitorous horse spooked at something and took off on me. Still, I was all right. I think I heard your voice first, maybe Thayer's, too. I turned to find you...and smacked into a branch. I saw stars, mist, darkness. Then--I know how this sounds--but it was as if I was back in time. Bruce, it was vividly real. There were these men, so many of them, and they had your ancestor. They dragged in Annalise, and the fellow strangled her there, in front of him. He broke free, but someone threw an ax, and he fell. They were about to do other things, but then I heard your voice.”
He was staring at her as if she were stark raving mad. Well, what the h.e.l.l had she expected?
”So you did b.u.mp your head!”
She sighed. ”Bruce--”
”A conk on your head, and you.. .dreamed.”
”No! That wasn't it.”
”I knew you'd hurt yourself, the way you kept feeling your forehead,” he murmured, thumb on her cheek then, s.h.i.+fting her head, looking for damage.
”Bruce--”
”My ancestor is not a ghost, a presence, ranging the forest, looking for victims!” he told her.
”I never said that--”