BlackWind (4 page)

“And have your mother come in here and drag you out by your hair? I think not,” he muttered.

“How do you
do
that?” she asked, her eyes wide.

He turned his head toward her. “I want you to remember something, Bronwyn,” he said, his face grave, his eyes boring into hers. “They might be able to take you out of my arms, but they will never take you out of my heart. No matter what. No matter where you go, I will find you. I will remove anything that gets in the way between us. Don't ever forget that.”

She lifted her chin, thinking of one of the songs her mother had sung to her as a child. “'You choose the road, love, and I'll make a vow that I'll be your true love forever,'” she quoted.

He stared into her eyes for a long time, then smiled. “My Celtic warrioress.”

“I like that!”

He laughed and it was the first time she had heard him do so. It transformed his stern face, and she thought he was the most handsome boy to ever walk upon the face of the earth. A stray curly lock of flaxen hair dipped low over his forehead and she ached to reach out and push it back. She wanted to run her fingers over the mole on his right cheek and trace the faint white scar under his chin. She wanted to slip into his arms and have him hold her against his chest, a chest that had filled out nicely over the years.

His look softened. “You'd better go.” His eyes left hers as he stared through the window. “She's getting antsy.”

Bronnie scooted off the stool. “I'm going to the show with my friends Marti and Jean this weekend. Meet us there?”

He shrugged. “If I can. Which one?”

“The Albany.” She blushed. “We can sit in the balcony and have some privacy.”

He nodded. “We'll see.”

She tucked her lip between her teeth, wanting to say more, but not knowing what.

“Go,” he said, shooing her away with his left hand. “She's waiting to read you the riot act.” He grinned. “Don't disappoint her.”

Bronnie giggled and started out of the store.

“Hey, little witchling?” he called to her.

She looked back at him. “What's that?”

Sean was holding up his right hand, the thumb, index and little fingers extended, the middle and fourth tucked under. “It's the American Sign Language symbol for I love you.”

Bronnie imitated the sign and held it out to him. With that, she turned and hurried out, her gay laughter following.

Tift Park, Albany, Georgia, May 1984

He pushed her higher.

“You did it on purpose,” she scolded.

“I never was good at math,” he responded.

“You're good at everything you do.”

“Not everything.”

“You did it so you'd have to repeat the year.”

“Maybe.”

“No maybe about it, Cullen,” she said, pulling hard on the swing's chain to propel her body higher. She dug her heels into the air. “I know you.”

He stepped from behind her and leaned against the swing set's front leg. “Are you complaining?”

“You betcha,” she snapped. “I don't like having an ignoramus for a boyfriend.”

He chuckled, folded his arms over his chest, and stared at her. “I've been called worse.”

The smile slipped from her face. He had been called worse—mostly, she thought, by her parents. She lowered her legs to slow the swing.

“You know it doesn't matter to me what they think,” he told her.

She had long since given up asking him how he seemed able to read her mind. Each time she asked, he either grinned, wagged his thick brows, or simply ignored the question.

“It matters to me,” she said, dragging her feet against the ground.

He reached out to grab the chain of her swing seat. He stepped in front of her, grunting as her knees struck his, but bringing her to a stop. With his hands wrapped around hers, he leaned forward.

“Stop obsessing about it, Bronwyn,” he demanded. “Let them think whatever they want. You and I know we will be together, so what they think doesn't count.”

“They'll know you failed so you could stay behind and be with me.”

“But they can't prove that I'm not just a retard.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, that, I might agree with them about.”

He smiled, crossed his eyes, comically twisted his lips, and sent her into gales of laughter.

“You goofy nincompoop,” she said.

He drew her from the swing and into his arms, arms now thick with muscles from his daily workout with the weights at the school gym. “But I'm your goofy nincompoop.”

She circled his neck with her arms, laid her head against his chest, and sighed. “That you are.”

He looked about them. Bronnie knew that prying eyes was something about which he constantly worried. Not only prying eyes, but wagging tongues that would carry tales to both her father and his. Seeing that no one was watching them, he put his finger under her chin, lifted her face, and bent down to claim her lips.

Sean's kisses—so few and so far between—were precious to Bronnie. They were intoxicating moments in which their two souls seemed to blend through the pressure of their lips. The taste of his tongue as it slipped gently, tenderly, and possessively into her mouth was a mating of their souls and sent shivers of ecstasy through her body. Unconsciously, she pressed closer against him, needing the feel of his masculine length against hers.

He released her lips and stepped back, putting distance between them. As her eyes fused with his, he shook his head. “One day, little one,” he promised.

“I'm a woman.”

“Not quite yet. You're going to have to wait a while for that to happen.”

“I don't want to wait.”

“But we will,” he said firmly. “When this...” He hooked a finger under the chain around her neck and pulled out the amulet she had not removed since the day she put it on. “When this can be replaced with a ring to signify our lawful Joining as bondmates.”

She groaned with frustration. “You're a beast, Sean Cullen.”

“I'm a good Catholic boy even if you're a wicked Catholic girl,” he teased. “Stop trying to seduce me. You're giving me sinful thoughts. I'm gonna wind up confessing to Father Mike tomorrow.”

“I take it back—you're not a beast, Sean Cullen, you're a priest in training!” She pouted.

“You will thank me when you're able to tell our grandchildren their granny went to her Joining bed as pure as the white gown she was entitled to wear.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

He chuckled, cupped her cheeks, slanted his mouth brutally across hers for a moment, then set her aside. “Take
that
to your dreams this eve, Milady!”

She lifted her hand to swat him, but he danced away, wiggling his fingers toward him. “Come on, witchling! Give it your best shot!”

She ran at him but he skipped away, darting around the merry-go-round and setting out for the cages where the zoo animals were kept. She chased him, dodging between the tall pines and occasional park visitor.

“Be careful!” one elderly man warned, drawing Bronnie's attention to him and away from Sean.

“Sorry,” she said, blushing.

When she turned around, she didn't see Sean. She slowed to a walk, knowing full well where he would be.

She found him at the manatee tank. His shoulders were hunched, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his jeans. She went up to him and put her hand on his back.

“It isn't right,” he said.

She looked down into the tank and felt her heart ache. “I agree. It isn't.”

The huge creature was barely able to move about the tank as it swam in an aimless, awkward circle.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I wish it would die. At least then it would be free.”

She slipped her arm around his waist. “I know.” They had had this conversation before.

“The gods didn't mean for wild creatures to be caged out of their element,” he said in a hard voice.

“She's safe here,” Bronnie said, laying her head against his shoulder.

“She is in agony here,” he protested, shrugging her away. “She misses her own kind. That is worse to her than not having freedom. Being able to commune with your own kind...” With his face set and hard, he turned and stalked off.

Bronnie took one last look at the sea cow, wondering if, in his fey way, the man she loved so desperately could somehow communicate with the creature. If he could, it would not surprise her. He had always seemed capable of reading her thoughts at will. She hurried to catch up with him, falling silently into step beside his tall frame.

He did not acknowledge her presence. His jaw was clenched, his shoulders still hunched. They walked to the Teen Center at the western end of the park without speaking.

“It bothers me,” he said finally.

“I know.”

He stopped beside her car. “She is so lonely and doesn't understand why she is where she is. She doesn't understand torture but she understands grief. She grieves for those she left behind when she was captured.”

Bronnie stood beside him, wishing she could take him into her arms and make the sadness leave his eyes.

“They all feel that way,” he said softly, looking back toward the zoo. “They were taken from their homes and shipped thousands upon thousands of miles away to a place so unlike what they are used to. They spend the rest of their lives locked in a cage, looking out at the humans who can come and go at will, dreading the little boys who come to taunt and torment them.” He ran a trembling hand through his hair. “Sometimes I wish they could all go to sleep and never wake.”

Bronnie understood how he felt. She hated zoos as much as he did. “They are safe,” she said lamely.

“Safe but unhappy. As miserable as you or I would be if such a thing was done to us.” He shuddered and turned his back on the zoo. “Let's change the subject.”

She smiled gently. “Fine by me.”

He leaned against her car. “I got a job.”

She arched her eyebrows. “Other than with your dad?”

He nodded. “Over at Griffin Motors.”

“Doing what?”

“Detailing cars, changing tires. That sort of thing,” he said with a shrug. “Tym Cullen doesn't pay me for working at the butcher shop and I need the money.”

“So what do you need money for, Cullen?”

“To take you to the prom.”

Bronnie's mouth dropped open. “Get outta here!”

Sean narrowed his eyes. “You don't think I'd let some other guy take you, do you?”

She clamped her lips together. They'd had similar discussions over the years. “Not if I don't want you to punch the poor boy in the face.”

“So it's settled.”

“No,” she drawled, drawing out the word. “I don't remember you
asking
me if I wanted to go to the prom.”

“Every girl wants to go to her proms, Bronwyn. It's a right of passage.”

Sean was big on rites of passage, she thought. Although she had always dreamed of going to her junior and senior proms, she had given up on the notion because she knew he'd never let her go with someone else and she thought such things would bore him to tears.

That and the fact she also knew he did not have the money to rent a tux.

“Well?” he queried, one thick brow arched.

“Well, what?”

“Is it settled or not?”

“Are you going to ask me or not?”

Sean sighed, dropped his head, shook it in what could only be exasperation, then drew in a breath. He raised his head and released the breath with his words. “Would you do me the honor of accompanying me to the prom, Milady?”

Bronnie put her index finger on her cheek and pretended to think. “Well, I'll have to check my social register. That's almost a year away and...”

She got no farther, for he stepped in front of her and pinned her against the car, deliberately pressing his lower body against hers. He did not speak, but the heat in his blue gaze said more than words ever could have. He ground against her and, at her gasp of shocked breath, grinned brutally.

“Aye,” she said on a breathless note. “T'would be my pleasure to have you escort me, Milord.”

He stepped back. “Then it's settled.”

“Did I have a choice?” she muttered, looking around to see if anyone had been a witness to her capitulation.

“No,” he answered and started walking backward. “See you next Tuesday?”

“Of course.” She laughed.

He gave her the deaf language sign that had become their special goodbye, winked, and headed toward the bicycle he had chained to an oak. She sighed as she watched him throw a long leg over the seat. The muscles against his light green T-shirt rippled and her eyes fell of their own accord to his tight derrière in the torn, faded jeans.

“Hey, aren't you going the wrong way?” she yelled.

He looked back. “Going to Aunt Lou-Lou's!” He stood on the pedals and pumped hard, the bike cantering from side to side as it sped beneath his powerful legs.

She laughed again, shaking her head. “I should have known,”

Sean had one addiction and that addiction was hot boiled peanuts. The best place in town to get them was at a roadside stand run by a cheerful black lady named Lou-Lou Rainey. Packed in little brown bags wet from the salty water, the green peanuts were Sean's favorite treat. To Bronwyn, his militant craving for the peanuts was an endearing trait.

To Sean, they were nectar from the gods.

Deirdre McGregor looked up from the kitchen sink when she heard the car door slam under the carport. She stared out the window, not seeing the lush lawn Dermot had spent thousands of dollars to landscape earlier that spring. She did not see the pretty white latticework gazebo or the glider and Adirondack chairs that formed a quaint seating arrangement on the old brick-paved patio. “Is that you, Bronwyn?” she called as the door to the mudroom opened.

“Yes, Ma'am.”

Girding herself for the talk she had been instructed to give her daughter, Deirdre pushed away from the sink and took a seat at the breakfast table. “I'd like a word with you, dear,” she said as her daughter entered.

“Wanna drink?” Bronnie asked as she made a beeline to the fridge. When Deirdre didn't answer, she turned with a cola bottle in her hand, wobbling it from side to side. “Mama? You wanna drink?”

“No thank you, sweetheart.”