Dawns Everlastin' (former title: Dusk Before Dawn) Book 2 (9 page)

He looked to the doorway
again. The smile faded.

Easing himself onto his
feet, he carried Alby to the bed and gently laid him toward the
center, to Kevin's right.

How angelic and peaceful
they appear when sleepin’,
he thought, and
smiled wryly as he brushed the back of his fingers over each of
their brows.

Exhaustion settled over him.
Walking into the hall, he was half-tempted to go to bed himself,
but he was concerned for Laura's state of mind. He hadn't meant to
exclude her from taking care of Alby—at least not intentionally.
She'd been so pale since the fever in the boy had been
discovered.

Believing she'd gone
downstairs for a cup of something hot, he headed for the staircase.
He was about to descend when a draft drew his attention to the
opposite end of the hall. The heavy drape covering the tower entry
was flapping back.

Frowning at the warmness of
the draft, he entered the tower and began to climb the stone, newel
staircase that hugged the rock, outer walls. Stories he'd heard all
his life of Baird's remains being found in this part of the
mansion, had long doused his interest in exploring it. He paid no
attention to the sparse furnishings of the bygone servant quarters
as he ascended. On the fourth landing, at the top of a steep set of
wooden steps, he discovered the ceiling hatch open. The instant his
head breached the opening he spied Laura standing by a four-foot
tall, crenelated circular wall.

He climbed onto the flat
roof, and for a time was content to watch her. She was more than
simply attractive, he realized, admiring her slender form,
accentuated by the snug dark slacks and brightly-colored sweater
she wore.

Her face, lifted to the
silver illuminance of the night, showed to advantage the delicate
angles of her jawline. Long, graceful fingers lay anchored on the
opposite upper arms.

"The fever broke. He'll be
fine."

At the first sound of Roan's
husky voice, Laura gave a start.

"Thank you."

"It was ma pleasure." Roan
stepped to her side and gazed out in the direction of the shadowed
waters of Loch Ken. "It’s quite a view from up here."

Laura nodded.

"Spill it, lass."

Green eyes swung up to
regard his profile.

"Somethin' is eatin' at you.
Get it off yer chest."

"It's been a long day,
that's all."

Roan offered her a lopsided
grin. "Liar."

"I'm not in the mood for
another confrontation," she sighed. She started to turn away when
his hand clasped her arm and stayed her. "And I'm not in the mood
for another lesson in preeing, thank you," she delivered
icily.

"In yer dreams," he
chuckled, releasing her arm and lifting his hands in a placating
gesture. "I'm here to talk."

"I can't think of anything
we have to talk about."

Roan gave an exasperated
roll of his eyes. "Ye're a stubborn womon if I've ever met
one."

Stiffening, she countered,
"I'm sure you've had your fair share."

"O' women or just
plain
stubborn
women?"

The laughter in his eyes
crumbled her attempts to appear stern. "Fine. You want to
talk?"

"Aye."

"Then tell me...how did your
son die?"

A shadow of pain clouded his
expression. "It’s no' a subject I care to discuss."

"Are you still
married?"

"No."

"I see," she murmured,
staring sullenly out across the glistening land. "The subject
you
will
discuss
is me, right?"

"Tell me abou' yer family,"
he urged in a soft, seductive tone.

She eyed him warily, her
heart thudding behind her breasts. "Whatever for?"

"I'm curious." Bracing his
buttocks to the wall, he folded his arms against his chest and
looked down into her defiantly strained features. "Behind all yer
spit and polish, I sometimes see a verra lonely womon."

"Ha," she said flippantly
with a toss of her head.

"I'm curious, you see,
because ma family is close. We're scattered from here to the west
coast, but we keep in touch. We Inglisses have an understandin', we
do. Family comes first, wha'ever the price."

Laura looked away. She
didn't like the feeling of being beneath the scope of his practiced
eye. His curiosity was too personal, and she was already having
enough of a struggle keeping herself emotionally distant from
him.

"Had a brither o' mine died,
Laura Bennett—wha’ever the differences between us—I would have done
anythin' to have the chance to say ma final goodbye to him," he
went on, his tone as painfully probing as a needle in a raw wound.
"No' so wi' yer clan."

A shiver passed through her
as she murmured, "Different strokes for different
folks."

"Why are you workin' so hard
to have me believe you've no heart?"

Her anger-brightened gaze
cut to his face. "Why do you care if I have heart or
not...
eh?
" She
emphasized the latter with a sneer, then felt instantly contrite
and looked out across the scenery.

Roan heaved a whimsical
sigh. "I, too, don't like feelin' helpless, lass." Hearing a sob
catch in her throat, he leaned his head back to see more than just
her profile. "But yer brither.... How could you no' come to say yer
goodbyes to him? I don't understand."

Gulping past the tightness
in her throat, Laura unconsciously gripped the rough edge of the
wall. "My brother was seven years older than me. We were both
passed off to every neighbor, friend and family member who would
take us while my parents pursued their dream of traveling the
globe. We simply got used to them not being around."

Her voice grew huskier as
she continued, "Steven resented having to watch over me as much as
he had to. When he turned eighteen, he enlisted in the Air Force. I
was twenty-two before I heard from him again, and he'd only written
to tell me how much he loved England, and his plans to spend the
rest of his life here. I got the distinct impression he blamed the
morals of all Americans on his hang-ups. He wanted his children to
have the kind of family life he'd been denied.

"It was a two-page,
bitter...bitter letter, and at the time, I was angry that he'd sent
it to me. I showed it to our parents." A dry laugh caressed her
throat. "They shrugged it off, so I tossed it away without a
further thought about him."

She paused to will back a
threat of tears.

"Then...as I told you...he
called after each of his sons was born. Nothing but a brief
gloating message of his ability to procreate."

Shrugging, she ran her
fingers through her pale hair. "How ironic that I should now have
his sons." She lowered her hands to the wall. "Steven would hate
the fact I'm taking the boys to the States, and he would hate the
fact that I'm all they have in this miserable world." Her voice
cracked when she added, "Justifiably so."

"Have you never been in
love?"

She tried to focus on the
loch in the distance, but could not. "Love is for dreamers, Mr.
Ingliss. I've never believed in dreams, or in magic, or in anything
I couldn't see and touch."

An invisible fist closed
around Roan's heart. To guard his dismay at her disclosure, he
shifted behind her. Placing his hands atop the wall, he caged her
within his muscular arms. He was aware of her indignant stiffening,
but chose to ignore it while he deeply inhaled the gentle floral
scent of her hair. "And here you are, lass, in the heart o' magic
land."

"Am I?" she asked
coldly.

"Look around you," he
laughed softly. "Wha' do yer eyes tell you? Wha' do you feel
against yer skin?"

Laura could not stop a
shudder from coursing through her. "Back off, Roan," she rasped,
folding her arms against her.

A smile played across his
mouth as he contentedly gazed about the landscape. "All ma life,
I've hated this house and all it stood for," he began, unwittingly
pressing himself closer against her and grazing the top of her head
with the underpart of his chin. "And I've hated Lannie wi' a
passion tha' has just abou' eatin' away ma innards like a cancer.
But so much has changed ma way o' thinkin' the past couple o' days.
His cursed magic has finally opened ma eyes."

Whirling to face him, Laura
furiously glared into his face. "So we're back to the ghost stories
again?"

Closing one eye for but a
moment, Roan winced. "Ye're no' payin' attention, lass. Get yer
mind off ma anatomy and look around you."

Briefly, Laura considered
throwing herself from the roof of the tower, or the less dramatic,
ducking beneath his corralling arms and running like hell to the
relative safety of her bedroom. But the laughter in his tone held a
challenge, and she remained rooted. Her shoulders haughtily thrust
back, her chin lifted in a show of defiance, she looked into his
smiling eyes with as much bravado as she could muster.

"I'm not going to allow you
to provoke me anymore."

"Ahh, is tha' so? Weel—" He
chuckled and teasingly planted a quick kiss on her brow. "—wha'
else but magic would whisk you from the clutches o' a loomin'
oak?"

"I don't find you
particularly amusing."

"No? But then, yer sense o'
humor is a wee wabbit."

"What?" She frowned.
“Wab—what?"

"Wabbit?
Tired...ill."

Lowering her head, Laura
pressed her fingertips to her temples. "I'm going to check on the
boys." A moment later, when he made no move, she wearily peered
into his face. "I'm exhausted. Can't we put this off until the
morning?"

"Ye're no' leavin' till you
open yer eyes," he grinned with devilish glee, straightening back
and folding his arms across his chest. "And no' till I get a weel
deserved apology for you doubtin' ma word."

"Your word?" Her temper
resurfacing, she asked, "Your word regarding what?"

"Lannie."

"When hell
freezes!"

"Explain the dinin' room,
then. And the statue...?"

"It never happened," she
returned smugly.

"Och! Ye're sayin' we shared
the same hallucination?" he asked incredulously.

"Makes perfect sense to
me."

"Are we hallucinatin'
now?"

A warning light went off in
her brain at his coy tone. "Possibly. It's a delightful notion that
you're nothing more than a figment of my imagination."

"You just insulted
me."

Laura gave an airy
shrug.

Scratching his head, Roan
walked to the flagpole by the opened hatch and linked an arm around
the cool metal. "It’s a bonny warm night." He waited until he saw a
pensive frown crease her brow, then went on, "And it’s strange tha'
snow falls ten feet ou' all around us, yet this roof is as dry as a
summer's drought."

Awareness slowly seeped into
Laura's brain. Turning, she realized that it was snowing—very
hard—everywhere as far as the eye could see, except over the tower.
Her gaze lifted to see a hole in the clouds directly overhead. A
black velvet sky, jeweled with stars, crowned the tower, and only
the tower.

The roof was dry, the air
warm. And yet, the other roofs to the mansion bore blankets of the
white stuff.

"Lannie's doin'," Roan
informed, a smug grin turning up one corner of his
mouth.

Laura stared at him for a
long time before forcing her legs to carry her to the hatch. She
was in no frame of mind to try to rationalize the
phenomena.

"Good night, Mr. Ingliss,"
she said in a strained voice then cautiously descended the
steps.

For a time, Roan remained
hugging the flagpole, his eyebrows drawn down in a scowl. He'd
wanted her to face the truth about the house; he'd succeeded in
scaring the wits out of her.

Fatigue revisited him
unexpectedly. In two days, he'd only dozed off
occasionally.

A gasp burst from his lungs
when the air became bitter cold, and snow began to fall on him. He
quickly descended, closing the hatch behind him.

"You bleedin' cleg," he
muttered testily, storming into the second floor hall. "I'll
throttle you, Lannie, I swear!"

He was about to enter the
room he'd been using when he glanced down the hall. His scowl
darkened out of impatience. Laura had implied she was going to bed,
but he knew he wouldn't sleep a wink until he saw for himself that
she was asleep, and with the boys. Grumbling beneath his breath, he
strutted down the dimly lit hall, a palm rubbing the stubble on his
jawline. The bedroom door was open when he arrived. He was about to
step past the threshold when his bleary vision zoomed in on a tall
figure standing by the bed. After a moment, Lachlan Baird followed
Roan into the hall, closing the bedroom door behind him.

"Good o' you to make an
appearance," Roan grumbled, running a hand through his thick,
disheveled hair. His bloodshot narrowed. "It would have been nice
to have had a wee help wi' those little monsters in there," he
added in a hushed tone.