Gladly Beyond (19 page)

“Just twice. Once with my mother. Once with Branwell.”

She was going to ask it. The moment inevitable. “What happened?”

I paused. I
really
didn’t like talking about the two other, more traumatic, past life regressions I had experienced. But, if she were to experience any more with me—and, let’s face it, I intended to pursue Caro and Ethan’s story with her—Claire needed to know what could potentially occur.

“The first regression happened when I was ten . . .”

I told her about Michael Strickland and watching Anne die of tuberculosis. The terror of feeling Michael’s grief at her death.

Claire listened, attentive and interested.

“Wow. What a horrid thing for a child to have to deal with.”

“Yeah. Part of me was terrified to go anywhere new after that. I was always on edge.”

“What was the second incident? The one with Branwell?”

I sucked in a long breath.

This was the one I dreaded the most. I didn’t
have
to tell her.

I leaned my forearms on the table, hanging my head forward.

She noticed my pause. “You don’t . . . you don’t have to talk about it.”

I told myself she deserved to know if we continued to pursue this.

But the truth was much simpler.

I
wanted
to bare myself to her. To kick aside my walls and invite her into my soul.

“I know.” I raised my head. “But I want you to know.”

I met Claire’s eyes and then thought the better of it, moving my gaze to a point just beyond her head.

“We were twenty-two and on vacation in Scotland,” I said softly. “Just Branwell and me. Tennyson had opted to stay behind with his girlfriend. We were hiking the Highlands, on the edge of Loch Lomond National Park. We topped a ridge and dropped into a small glen. And just like earlier this evening, the world spun and lurched.

“Suddenly I was Dougall MacDonald, a knight in the service of Robert the Bruce. We had been retreating from the English only to find ourselves trapped in a deadly battle in the hills above Tyndrum. I was immersed in a bloodbath.”

Claire gasped, soft and quiet, but I heard her all the same. Met her gaze. Surely my eyes were haunted, shadowed.

“Can you even imagine the true horror of a medieval battlefield?” I asked. “We romanticize it far too much. The screams of the dying. The sound of a sword cutting through steel and flesh. The stench. Blood and piss and smoke. It was ghastly even to Dougall, and he was born to it. He . . . me . . . I had been fighting for hours. My horse was staggering beneath me. My sword arm so tired. Dougall was a big man, like me, but even so, he . . . I was at the end of my strength. I watched a man be disemboweled in front of me, one of my men-at-arms. I swung my broadsword and took off the attacker’s head. Or at least enough of it.”

I shuddered. “The feel of my sword cutting through bone. The shower of blood . . . by that point, two more attackers were on me. As I swung again and again, I looked up and saw Malcolm. He was my best friend, the man who always had my back. My sister’s husband. The person I loved most in the world. We had survived so much together. Somehow I knew, even though he looked totally different, that Malcolm was Branwell.

“Two men came at him. One took out his horse, while the other grabbed him off. I screamed and urged my own horse forward. I had to get to him—” My voice choked. I swallowed convulsively. “I didn’t. I watched those men run him through with a spear, impaling him. I screamed again and again, fighting like a madman. I met Malcolm’s eyes across the battlefield, watched the life in them flicker and then fade. I howled and fought, tears blinding me. Something stabbed me in the side. The chest. But all I could see was Malcolm dying.”

I paused, staring down at my hands. I rubbed my face. As if I could erase the memory so easily.

“We came out of the regression, still standing in the same glen,” I continued. “I was sobbing. Part of me hugely relieved that Branwell was alive, that it was the twenty-first century and not the fourteenth. But another part of me still screamed in agony over Malcolm’s death. I had felt everything in that moment. Every iota of Dougall’s anguish and horror.

“Branwell grabbed and held me. Both of us bawling.” I raised my head. “Branwell had experienced it all from Malcolm’s point-of-view, of course. The battle. Dying impaled on a spear, watching Dougall frantically trying to reach him . . .” I took a sip of water. “
That
is why these regressions can be . . . worrisome.”

A massive understatement.

“But something like that could have happened this evening,” Claire frowned and tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear.

“Perhaps. But I needed
you
to understand, Claire.” My eyes begged hers. “No, that’s not entirely true.
I
needed to understand. To make sure the man in your photos was a past life self and not my GUT fracturing further. I’m truly sorry if you feel I played you in any way.”

“No. I suppose I don’t.” Claire bounced her foot, pink heels bobbing. “I would probably have done the same thing in your shoes.”

She did have a strong sense of fairness, bless her.

“Thank you.” I breathed out with a smile.

Our antipasto arrived. The
bruschette
were delicious. But I wasn’t letting up on Claire. Not yet.

“Now tell me something about yourself,” I said. “This has all been about me so far. I want to know about
you
.”

Claire snorted. “Log on to YouTube. Or, better yet, google ‘Batty Ray Psycho’—”

“You know that’s not what I meant. C’mon, Claire.” I nudged her feet under the table. “Why not answer my question?”

“Dante—”

“You called me Dante. That’s a good start.”

She gave a small shake of her head. “Why go there, Dante? You have a terrible reputation with women. I saw that hostess slip you her number.”

Of course. “Did you see me hand it back?”

“You did?”

I nodded. “You’re welcome to frisk me if you want.” I wiggled my eyebrows.

She rolled her eyes and shifted in her chair. “See. Comments like
that
hurt your cause—”

“It’s called
flirting
, Claire. It’s fun. Try it. You might like it.”

She hit me with a truck-stopping glower.

“Why? So I can be another of your discarded conquests?”

“What have I done to earn your distrust? We didn’t meet until four days ago.”

“Your reputation
does
proceed you.”

“I think you’re wrong about me.” I stared at her, leaning forward.

She stared right back. Seeming icy and contained.

But I had seen Open Claire . . .

Did Claire understand the challenge she presented? The medieval, cave-man part of me saw her as a fortress. Something to be scaled. Put under siege. How did that old song by Sting go?
Let me set the battlements on fire . . .

No way was I letting this woman go without a fight.

“Are you seriously telling me your reputation is exaggerated?” she asked. “That you’re
misunderstood
?” The word dripped sarcasm.

Yep. That pretty much summed it up.

“You, of all people, should know better than to believe industry gossip, or what you read on social media. I don’t date around, Claire. I’m not that kind of guy. I just have a playboy kinda look and people make assumptions. But I do like flirting with
you
.”

“Well, I’m not in a good place right now. Psycho, remember?” She pointed a thumb at her chest.

“You’re not psycho, Claire.”

She blinked too rapidly and turned her head away, looking out over the dark cityscape.

“I want to get to know you.” I angled my head, getting her to turn back to me. “Whatever little tidbits of yourself you are willing to share, I’ll take.”

Silence.

It stretched on too long.

Finally, she reached across the table and tapped my phone.

“Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands,” she whispered. “E. E. Cummings.
Somewhere I have never traveled
.”

All the air punched out of my lungs.

The quote on my lockscreen. The last line of my favorite poem.

No one
recognized that line.
No one.

The fact that she recognized it . . . that barest glimpse into her soul . . . that she reflected the part of myself the world rarely saw.

I stared into her blue eyes. An ache creeping down my spine toward my heart.

Claire leaned forward. “Why?”

Why that poem? Why on my lockscreen?

I paused. Would I tell her the whole truth?

Could I tell her anything less?

“I want that kind of love.” I answered. “The kind that renders ‘death and forever with each breathing.’”

Yes. It seemed I
would
tell the whole truth.

She sat back. Eyes pensive.

“Why?” I lobbed the question back.

Only different subtext:
Why that poem? Why do
you
like it?

Would she be honest with me? Give me this tiny taste of her.

A beat.

“Because it’s comforting to know someone found a love like that.” She bit that plump bottom lip again. “That others have been ‘somewhere I have never traveled.’ I hope to visit that place myself someday.”

Ah.

I recited slowly. “Love . . . the breaking of your soul—”

“—upon my lips,” she finished. Another Cummings poem.

I nearly forgot how to breathe. This woman—

She shattered and healed all at once.

Illuminated places deep within I hadn’t known existed.

“Oh, Claire.” Voice hoarse.

I closed my eyes. Opened them. Reached for her hands.

She pulled back. Shutting me out.

Fourteen

Claire

D
ante stared, letting his hands rest on the table. His gaze . . . it cut me.

Seeing that poem on his lockscreen . . . it had been a sliver of Dante D’Angelo’s soul that I hadn’t wanted to know. It was easier to think of him as a handsome playboy—gorgeous packaging around an empty box.

Because if that pretty packaging proved to be full of amazing treasures . . . I would fall for this man so hard, I don’t know that I could ever recover.

With one last look, Dante sat back. Swallowed. Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

His eyes told me that this conversation wasn’t over. That he would be patient. Bide his time. Wait to make his next move.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

He had shed his leather jacket. His cream button-down hugged his broad chest, and he had rolled the sleeves up his forearm, revealing tan, muscular forearms. His dark hair fell forward, lapping his jaw and wrapping over his shirt collar. He sat with a restless energy. As if he would jump up at any moment, call for his sword and horse, and ride off to slay the dragon.

Every woman in the place had already checked him out at least ten times. Not that I blamed them. One woman at the bar slightly behind him kept staring at his back. Waiting. Probably hoping he would leave the restaurant alone.

Part of me exulted that he chose to be here. With me. That he had returned the hostess’ phone number. (I thought he had but wanted to be sure. Pathetic, I know.)

But most of me was tired of the game. Of that prickly sense of being watched. Of worrying that someone was videoing us together and would post it online. Terrified of trusting.

A quote from Hemingway kept a steady thrum in my mind:

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.

Grammy would say that from time to time.

Heaven knew I had a hell of a scar right along the part of my psyche labeled
Men
and
Trust
.

I wasn’t sure I believed Hemingway.

At what point is the scar tissue too deep? When do you become too broken to ever heal? How many times can your heart be shattered before collapsing altogether?

I had no intention of finding out.

Dante let out a slow breath and sat back, folding his arms over his chest. Bulging his biceps in the process. The moody restaurant lighting painting his face in a captivating terrain of sharp edges and deep shadows.

Stupid man with all his stupid hotness (and even stupider kindness) trying to worm his way behind my walls.

“So how does it work? Your GUT?” I asked.

A pause.

“Claire, I want you to know everything about me, but it should be a two-way street—”

“Dante . . .” I instantly hated the whiny breathy-ness of my voice. “Please. Don’t push.”

This was as open as I was going to be. As open as I
could
be, right now.

He sighed. But nodded. Dark eyes understanding.

I listened as Dante explained how his GUT worked, the silvery shadows he saw trailing after people, the ability to concentrate and see events moving around an object. Tommaso brought our
fettuccine al cinghiale
as Dante finished talking
.

“If you can see things that happened around an object, why don’t you use your GUT to solve crimes?” I asked. It was a logical question.