A Rush of Wings (18 page)

Just now, however, Noelle hovered between him and the fire fighters still on the scene, all enjoying Marta's cooking with a deeper than culinary satisfaction. If Rick's contentment included Noelle's attention along with the relief of saving his and others' property, he could hardly be blamed. Her eyes shone as they had when she'd first ridden Destiny, and she didn't turn away from his answering glance. He could get used to that, too, but it was not at all what he intended.

She was his guest and deserved to stay without overtures from him, no matter how unintentional. It was all part of his code, and something he hadn't struggled with before. Two things made it difficult now; she was lodged in the house, not her own cabin, and she'd been there long enough to feel like family.

W
illiam St. Claire shoved aside the papers on his desk. What was Noelle doing? Two months away, no word, no use of credit or calling cards, no activity on the checking account she had accessed before leaving. Why?

He shook his head. She would have told him if she was in trouble. She had always kept him informed, though in the months before her departure, she had become increasingly non-communicative. He leaned back in his chair and considered that. He had attributed it to a natural breaking away or perhaps her absorption with Michael Fallon. They'd been together so much, maybe too much.

Michael. After returning from his four-day rest he'd been consumed with perfection. Not one detail did he leave unscrutinized. He was putting in as much time as William. He'd driven off one legal assistant and had another on the brink. His focus was dangerous, like sunlight through a magnifying glass, scorching anything beneath it.

Michael was burning himself out, and William could do nothing to stop it. If only he knew how to find Noelle, to tell her what she was doing to Michael. The thought confused him. His first allegience was to his daughter, of course. If she were there to explain . . . but maybe that was part of it. She had excluded him, denied him the chance to champion her, to counsel her. She didn't want his counsel, maybe resented it. How long had she felt that way?

William frowned. Michael's trouble was present and immediate,
and Michael did look to him and respected his opinion. Why had Noelle terminated their engagement? Why disappear so abruptly and stay away so long?

A fresh unease stirred. Had he misunderstood her call? Was she saying more than it seemed? Well, it had been long enough. He pressed the intercom. “Margaret, contact Myron Robertson.”

In a moment, he lifted the receiver. “Myron. William St. Claire. I have a situation. Any chance we can get together?” Myron Robertson was the best P. I. he knew. He hung up and called Michael in. “I'm putting Myron Robertson on Noelle.”

Michael looked surprised, and something else flickered there momentarily.

William continued. “I'm confident that once we locate her things can be worked out.”

Michael's throat worked, the tendons at each side drawing tight. “William, if Noelle wants to end our engagement, it's her decision.” His eyes darted to the side. Unease, or something else?

“Michael?”

He fingered the coins in his pocket. “She . . . hadn't been herself. I didn't say anything because I thought it might be stress or something. Prenuptial nerves. I never imagined she'd take off like this even though . . .”

“Even though?” William's own concern amplified.

Michael strode to the window and looked down at the city a long moment. “I should have spoken sooner. If I'd known about that earlier event in her life—”

“The kidnapping? What does that have to do with it?” Had he missed something critical? Denied what he didn't want to see?

Michael didn't turn from the window. Avoiding eye contact? “Maybe nothing. I don't know how any of that works. But, William, I think Noelle imagines things.”

William noted the nervous timbre of his voice. Natural when making that sort of accusation about a man's daughter. But he was wrong. Noelle was not delusional. He would have known, the psychiatrist would have picked it up, surely.

As Michael finally turned, William caught the shift in his eyes, slight enough that another might have missed it. But then, Michael was a master at concealment. That's why he worked a jury so well,
making them see only what he wished. What was his purpose now? Manipulation?

William swallowed the tightening in his throat. “What did she imagine?”

Michael drew his brows together in a look of pain. “I don't want to speak out of turn.”

“Tell me what you know.”

“Absolutely nothing.” Michael's hands closed at his sides. “It's just . . . is it possible she's paranoid?”

William narrowed his eyes. “Paranoid? Clinically?”

Michael moistened his lips, checked his pager, and slipped it back into his pocket. “I have an appointment, and . . . I don't want to say anything equivocal. I would never say anything against Noelle.” True pain washed over his face. “I love her.”

“I know that. But if you have information I need . . .”

“Please believe me. If I had thought her condition dangerous—”

“What condition, Michael?” It was the first time he'd ever raised his voice with the man.

Michael jolted. “She thinks people want to hurt her. She feels controlled by normal interaction, imagines danger and threat. I think she has a paranoid-delusional condition.”

Blood siphoned from his veins as William stood mute. Not possible he could have missed something like that. Yes, Noelle was timid . . . understandably. Even if she'd forgotten the incident, it had affected and subdued her.

“I have to go. Ms. Henley is waiting.” Michael raised a hand and dropped it. “Don't take anything I've said as . . . I only know what I saw. And maybe I misinterpreted it.”

“Michael.” William's tone stopped him at the door. “Was it you or Noelle who ended things between you?”

Michael shook his head. “I love her.” He went out.

William released a slow breath from his stunned diaphragm. Had he missed something crucial? Did Noelle imagine some delusion she fled? He squeezed the bridge of his nose. Did some fear, some terror, lurk in her subconscious and cause a disorder he'd never realized? Or had it only surfaced in her relationship with Michael?

“She thinks people want to hurt her.”
Had she been damaged in those days she had been held? His mind was swift to deny it. But it was possible, wasn't it? It had always been possible, though he'd almost
bullied the doctors into denying it. Now he forced himself to ask, had she been abused?

He dug his fingertips into points across his forehead. That was the question he'd refused to face. They had no reason to. She was a pawn, not a plaything for some pervert. They had taken her to force his response and released her as soon as he did, though it took days to recuse himself and have it accepted when he could not say why. But didn't abuse explain the possible paranoid behavior Michael referenced?

He was fairly sure they hadn't slept together. At any rate Michael had never spent the night at the bungalow, and to his knowledge Noelle had not stayed at Michael's place.

Or was this another smoke screen? Michael was hardly sound himself these days. Was there more behind his self-destruction than a broken relationship with the woman he loved? William released his breath slowly through his teeth. It was time to find Noelle.

———

Michael walked back to his office and took a drink from the artesian-water cooler. Ms. Henley could wait. Did William doubt him? Did he suspect? He dumped the water down his throat and crushed the cone-shaped cup. Everything he had said was true. Noelle had taken the simplest things out of context, resisted and accused.

He sat down and stared at the wall. Did he want her found? Of course he did. But not by William's man. He must see her first. He must make sure that . . . He dropped his forehead to his fingertips. Couldn't she see? Hadn't she known it was all because he needed her? It didn't matter if she was afraid or delusional. He would take care of her.

The first time he'd seen Noelle, he had determined she was his, the daughter of the senior partner of the firm. His position was ensured in both the firm and New York's society. But that wasn't it. She was exquisite. Sheltered and untouched, with an air of mystery, a purity, a perfection he could hardly bear.

She was everything he dreamed of, everything Jan should have been, could have been if life had played fairly. He had lost the fight with his baby sister. But Noelle was new, fresh, beautiful, uncorrupted. William St. Claire had created a masterpiece, and Michael longed to possess it.

It had seemed an impossibility. Her life was so thoroughly controlled; he had no way in. Until William himself opened the door. It
was as though his desire had willed it. Suddenly William invited him in, and Noelle . . . oh, Noelle.

Where had she found the courage to leave? It was the last thing he would have expected, and he did not often miscalculate. Where was she? Sebastian Thorndike still had nothing. After all this time, she'd done nothing traceable. She must have help. She must be with someone. There was no way she could do this herself.

He slid a legal pad closer and began a methodical list of everyone he knew she was acquainted with. He had already called, asking if they knew her whereabouts. Now he would have Sebastian track them as well. If someone was hiding her, there would be a pattern, a hotel, a property, something. And when he found the nest to which his bird had flown . . .

The carbon tip of his pencil snapped. He tossed it aside and grabbed another. Once she understood how sorry he was . . . yet she'd driven him to it. He would never willingly hurt her. Never. His phone buzzed, informing him again that Ms. Henley waited. He laid the pencil straight across the pad and asked for her to be admitted.

———

Noelle looked out the window of her room at a foreign land. Fog clung to the ground, even thicker than the smoke had been—was it only last week? The dark pines stood stark against the white until they paled, then vanished. Tiny droplets of water clung to the tips of the needles and dropped when they swelled beyond bearing.

What mystery did the woods hold this day? What secrets would the still air whisper through the mist? What magic lay shrouded and mute? She longed to know, to seek the heart of the mountain that called, that embraced her. She pressed her palms to the smooth log walls. Why did they not melt and let her pass through as a dream walker unsubstantiates and crosses the barriers of the mind?

She stood a long while, until her breath became a matching fog on the glass. Then she went down the stairs to the great room. She found Rick at the fireplace, kneeling on a broad canvas, his head and shoulders thrust up into the cavity. Black dust sworled around him.

“Cleaning the flue?”

His sound of assent was muffled by stone and steel. He thrust with his arms holding the long pole of some tool that caused billows of dust
to descend. Marta would be attacking the room with her duster with equal fervor the minute he was done.

Though it was morning, the room was dim as dusk. “It's so foggy out.”

“It'll burn off soon. The crags are probably clear now.”

Noelle looked out, pictured the valley filled with fog, tips of trees piercing the veil, and above that the rocky peaks shining in the sunlight. Just imagining the scene quickened her excitement. “I think I'll ride.”

He pulled his head out and tugged the bandana from his mouth. “I can't get you saddled up just now.” He was nearly as sooty as he'd been from the fire. And with the bandana he looked like an outlaw.

She smiled at the thought. Father Rick, the outlaw. “I can do it myself.”

He smudged his face with his shoulder. “Well, Aldebaran's in the stable.”

Aldebaran. Did he think she'd take another? Maybe Destiny?

He took hold of the pole again. “Don't go far. It's easy to lose your bearings in a fog like this.”

“I think I know my way around by now.”

“You think you know a lot of things.” He pulled the bandana over his mouth and tucked his head back into the fireplace.

He'd been saying all kinds of cheery things like that this last week, testier and more bullheaded than ever since the fire. Some days he scarcely spoke at all, and not once did he demonstrate the warmth he'd shown when he came off the mountain soot-stained but victorious. Maybe crisis brought out his best. Unfortunately, that left all the normal time.

Noelle sighed as she went out. She saddled Aldebaran, then rode up, her face raised to the chill mist, but the woods were silent. Where were the secrets she sought? She had traveled this land too many times. She needed something new, some place that would sing a fresh song in her heart. She told herself she had no specific destination, but when she came to the shale slope below the high ridge, she knew she had intended it from the moment Rick spoke of the sun shining above the fog.

She looked up there, to the forbidden ridge. From her perspective it was as solidly fog-bound as the rest. But geographically it would be the place to test Rick's assumption. Yes, he had told her to stay off,
but he'd also thought she couldn't ride Destiny. She had learned a lot since then. She had proven herself, whether he chose to acknowledge it or not.

She could see the wet shale peeling from the mountainside, a few scraggly pines erupting at the edges of its cracked and brittle surface. But there was a narrow, grassy trail through most of it. Room enough for a single horse if she was careful. Besides, she no longer acted of her own accord. She must appease the restless spirit that drove her.

What was it? Morgan would say fate. Rick might call it God. Whatever it was, she had to go, had to see. Just as she'd had to come to the ranch. She no longer pretended it was an accident. She was meant to be there, as she was meant now to climb this slope. She started up. The mare was surefooted, though, in fact, the grass was slick and the path uncertain.

She encouraged the horse gently as they wove up the slope. When they broke through the fog, the mare leapt the last few paces to the shelf. Noelle's breath suspended. Here was the heart that beckoned, the soul of the mountain unveiled. The crag ablaze with light, the woods below engulfed by cloud. Pure beauty.

A painful yearning pierced her breast for the power that had drawn her, the force that had snatched her from the talons and hidden her here in the crook of its stony arms. What was it? What presence did she sense?
Who are you?

She left Aldebaran loose while she set up her easel. Fresh storm clouds would soon challenge the sun, but right now its radiance held sway. She must capture it before it was lost, not only for her collection but somehow for her soul. She painted the scene even as it changed around her, one painting and then another, heedless of time, hunger, or thirst.