Fairytale (25 page)

He lowered his head, caught her staring at
him.

“I’m sorry about last night, Adam. I,.. know
you didn’t want anything to happen between us. And I. . . pushed
you into it.”

He was surprised at her heartfelt apology,
and he couldn’t stop himself from smiling at the embarrassment in
her huge, ebony eyes. Hie color in her cheeks. Her take on what had
happened between them...What had happened between them had been
incredible. It had been beyond anything he’d ever experienced with
a woman.

“It wasn’t exactly rape, Brigit. I don’t
recall begging for mercy.”

She dipped her head, gnawing on her lower
lip.

“I wanted it as much as you did,” he said,
and his voice tightened and roughened. “I still do.”

Her head came up, eyes glittering. “No you
don’t, Adam. It was a mistake and I—”

“Don’t tell me what I want. I know. I’ve been
lusting after you since I laid eyes on you. Maybe even longer than
that.”

“How—”

He gave his head a firm shake. “Don’t ask.
Believe me, angel, you don’t want to go there.”

She looked alarmed, frightened for him, as
she searched his face. “I didn’t come out here for this. This isn’t
what I—”

“The point is,” he said, interrupting her
deliberately, “I resisted everything my body was screaming for, for
one simple reason.”

She tilted her head, waiting.

“I didn’t trust you, Brigit.”

He saw the flash of guilt in her ebony eyes,
the remorse, but the truth, too. Right there. She didn’t duck it or
try to hide it. She took his direct hit, and she never even
flinched.

“I know you’re up to something. I know you’re
keeping the truth from me...about a lot of things. From who you
really are, to what you expected to find in that crate yesterday.
But knowing all that doesn’t stop me from wanting you.” He
shrugged, wishing she were sitting closer. Wishing he could touch
her. “So there’s my dilemma.”

Without meeting his eyes, she whispered, “I’m
sorry.”

“I was afraid. See, I’ve trusted the people I
care about before. And I’ve been hurt before. I was afraid it would
happen again if I let myself feel anything for you.”

She said nothing, only sat there looking as
if she were in abject misery.

“Problem is, I can’t stop myself from feeling
something for you.”

She gasped, parted her lips to argue with
him, but he didn’t give her time.

“I don’t even know what it is, exactly. But
there’s definitely something. Something powerful. Something . . .”
He reached out across the distance between them, cupping her chin
and lifting her gaze to his. “Something I’ve never felt before,” he
finished, and he felt a little sick to his stomach. “So the whole
caution thing is really a moot point. The choice has been taken
right out of my hands.”

She shook her head. “Adam, don’t—”

“It’s a relief, really. I don’t have to
struggle against it anymore. I’m sort of left with no choice but to
go with this thing.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

She sure looked as if she meant every word of
it. But she was going to. She didn’t realize it yet, but she had no
choice in the matter. Before she did, though, he was going to get
to the bottom of whatever she was up to and confront her about it,
and make her tell him why.

There was a powerful reason motivating her.
He knew that as well as he knew everything else. A reason that had
to do with the fear he’d seen in her eyes yesterday. And he
suspected, with the creep who called himself Zaslow. These were
things he knew, beyond doubt. Not like those other things. Those
fairy things that he couldn’t begin to understand.

“I believe that,” he told her, because he
did.

“Adam, I’d tell you everything if I could. I
swear it.”

“I know.”

Tears brimmed in her eyes, and he found
himself wanting to change the subject. He could see the agony this
one was causing her. She wanted to tell him the truth. He knew she
meant it when she said that she did. But she couldn’t, and the
conflict was tearing her apart.

Interesting.

“Adam—”

“Shhsh.” He stroked her hair, studied her
face. “I want to tell you something.” He saw her press her lips
together, and she nodded for him to continue. Adam drew a deep
breath and let his hand fall away. He took his gaze from her, and
looked around at the pines and the myriad paths twisting through
them. “I used to come out here when I was a little boy. But I
haven’t been back in almost thirty years.”

Her brows lifted, in interest, he supposed,
but mostly, in surprise that he’d changed the subject rather than
grilling her.

He got off his stump and sat on the ground in
front of it, leaning his back against the uneven bark. He lifted
his arms toward her, waiting.

With a little sigh of disbelief, she came
closer, curling into the V between his open legs, and laying her
side against his chest. He closed his arms around her. It felt good
to hold her there. It felt right.

“Why did you stay away so long?”

“My father forbade me to ever come back here.
And I knew better than to disobey the old bastard.”

“He was a monster, Adam.” She snuggled closer
to him as she said it, and her arms tightened around his waist. “It
wasn’t your fault, what he did to you. You know that.”

“It’s taken a long time, but yeah. I know
that.”

She lifted her head, scanning his face with
eyes that seemed to see more than they should. When he looked away,
she lowered her head again. “Why didn’t he want you out here?”

“Because...I thought I saw something out
here. Something...that couldn’t have been real. And I guess the old
man thought he was making sure I knew the difference between
fantasy and reality.”

“No,” she whispered. “No one believes beating
a child will keep him sane. No one who abuses their own child does
it for the child’s own good. Though I imagine they all say they
do.” She sat up, looked him in the eye. “He did it because he was
sick, Adam.”

It was as if she sensed the bolt of pain that
shot through him when he remembered. And she deftly pulled that
bolt out again, snapped it in two, and tossed it aside.

Brigit’s hand ran over his nape, the warmth
of her fingertips infusing him.

“Damn,” he said softly. “You’re good for me,
Brigit.”

“That’s what friends are for,” she
whispered.

“Is that what you are? My friend?”

She lowered her eyes, licked her lips. “I
care about you, Adam. No matter what else happens, don’t doubt
that.”

She turned sideways again, as she’d been
before, tucking herself against his body. And he closed his arms
around her almost automatically. It was such a natural thing to
embrace her, to hold her, to talk to her this way.

“So, why did you come out here this morning,
after staying away for so long?”

He stiffened a little. “That gets back to
what I was starting to tell you before. About what happened the
last time I came up here.”

“Thirty years ago,” she whispered. “What did
you see, Adam?”

He drew his brows together, glancing down at
the top of her head, which told him nothing. “What the hell. You
deserve to be warned, Brigit. Hell, you’re living with me,
sleeping
with me...though you might change your mind about
that soon enough.” He licked his lips, trying not to realize how
important her reactions to his revelations would be to him. “You
might as well know the worst. I found a cave out here, somewhere.
And I crawled through it and emerged...somewhere else.”

She sat up, eyes sharp and probing as they
met his. “Where?”

“Rush.” He blurted it before he could think
better of it, waited for the fear or the sympathy to fill her eyes.
He never saw it. He saw something more like childish excitement and
wonder, instead.

“The forest of Rush?” she breathed. “The one
in the painting? God, Adam, the one in my
Fairytale?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. It was exactly like the
one in the painting. And...” He closed his eyes, letting his voice
trail off.

“That’s incredible.”

“In-credible. Meaning not credible. That’s
exactly what it was. A kid’s daydream. Nothing more. At least,
that’s what I thought...until I saw that book of yours.”

She sat up straighter. “It looked like the
Rush in my book?”

He only nodded.

“What happened there?” She was all but
bouncing up and down as she spoke. “Did you see anyone? Talk to
anyone? How did you find your way back?”

“Slow down. Are you sure you want to hear
this? You said before—”

She stopped speaking, eyes narrowing. “Well,
just because I want to hear it doesn’t mean I have to believe in it
again. Please tell me the rest, Adam.” Like a little girl pleading
for a bedtime story. He couldn’t have resisted if he’d wanted
to.

“All right. But...brace yourself. I met a
woman who claimed to be a fairy. I...she had...wings. And...Jesus,
Brigit, she said her name was Maire.”

Brigit went stiff, looking up at him slowly.
She pressed both hands to her chest, fists clenched until her
knuckles whitened. Her eyes...God, they were wider than he’d ever
seen them. “Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t look like that. There’s a
chance I heard some version of your fairytale somewhere, and just
transferred it to my dream. Maybe.”

She blinked, gave her head a shake, and
finally nodded. “I know. I know none of it can be real. For a
second I just...let myself forget. You know, when I was a little
girl, I honestly thought of Maire as...as my mother.”

“Ah, Jesus, Brigit, I shouldn’t have—”

“Go on,” she whispered, and he thought she
was holding her breath. “I want to hear the rest. Please, go
on.”

He swallowed hard, licked his lips. “You’re
sure?” She nodded, and he began again. “In this...this daydream or
whatever the hell it was, Maire told me she’d show me the way home,
but first she wanted to know if I’d like to see my fate, because
she’d seen it the second she’d looked into my eyes.”

“Yes,” Brigit whispered. “That’s the same
question she used to ask me...”

Adam looked at her sharply.

“I used to dream about her, too, Adam. But go
on,” she told him. “Did you say yes?”

“Yes.” He wanted to ask questions, but he was
compelled to get the entire story out. Here and now. No more hiding
from it.

Brigit blinked fast, and he thought there
were tears trying to work into her eyes.

“What did she show you?”

“You,” he said, and the single word slipped
from between his lips without his consent, and fortunately, without
a sound. She never heard it. He hoped she never saw it. He was
confessing enough as it was.

Brigit shook her head hard, but he went on.
“She pushed aside some bushes and told me to look through. I did,
and I saw a woman, bathing in a pool, all but hidden by
rushes,”

“Like the painting?”

“Not
like
the painting. It
was
the painting. Only...real. And then she told me the woman was my
fate. That my destiny was to show her the way home, and that I
mustn’t let myself fall in love with her, because she would break
my heart. And then she let the bushes come together again. When I
looked up at her again, she was gone. I pushed the bushes apart
again, but there was no lake, no woman. Just more trees. I turned
around, and there was the cave, right in front of me, though it
hadn’t been there before. So I crawled inside, and, I don’t know, I
guess I fell asleep there. When I woke later and came out again, I
was in these very ordinary woods, not far from my house.” He smiled
at her, seeing her confusion, and decided to give her a way out, in
case she wasn’t ready to swallow all of this. “It took me a while
to realize I’d probably fallen asleep the first time I entered the
cave, and that the rest was just a dream.”

“You really believe that?”

He was surprised she would ask the
question.

He thought she’d already made up her mind
that none of this could be real.

“What else could it have been?”

She blinked, looking a little dazed. “I
know...it had to be a dream. What else could it be? It’s just that.
. . Adam, you have a painting of what you saw, hanging in your
study. Unless you painted it yourself...” She lifted her brows,
waiting.

“No. I found it in a shop on the Commons. The
Capricorn.”

“Then how can you dismiss all of that so
easily?”

“I don’t know. Anything can be explained if
you try hard enough. Say...the painting is only
similar
to
that childhood fantasy, and when I saw it, I subconsciously
substituted it for the image I’d seen in the dream,”

“But you don’t believe that. Do you,
Adam?”

He wasn’t sure he should tell her what he
believed. So he shrugged, drew a breath. “Lately...”

“Lately, what...?”

He wanted to tell her. He wanted to see if he
could scare her into running from him, because he’d already decided
he couldn’t run from her. He didn’t have the strength let alone the
will.

But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t
deliberately drive her out of his life by telling her the thoughts
he’d been having about her. Not now.

Or...not yet.

Maybe it would be better to let her see that
Celtic text. See if she saw the parallels that he did. See if maybe
it stirred something in her.

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

She stepped closer, ran her fingers through
his hair, searched his face. “Why did you tell me all of that?”

“I’m not sure,” he told her, in all honesty.
He wrapped his arms around her waist to hold her close to him.
Seemed he couldn’t get enough of having her close to him. “Maybe so
you’d know my deepest, darkest secret, Brigit. Maybe I thought it
might make you feel a little safer, later, when you’re ready to
tell me yours.”