Just Believe (24 page)

"Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has
turned on the seat belt sign in preparation for our approach to
Shannon Airport."

Gaelen sighed deeply. "Such
timing."

"Please return to your seats and fasten
your seatbelts. Return your trays to the upright and locked
position. And welcome to Ireland."

Gaelen fastened his seatbelt, his eyes
avoiding hers.

He didn't say anything more beyond
pleasantries as they gathered their carry-on bags and prepared to
deplane. Annabelle followed him off the plane and down the
concourse. He appears to know the airport very well, she thought as
she followed him. He strode assuredly, not even looking at the
signs. They stopped at the baggage pickup and waited long minutes
before the buzzer and flashing red light signaled the conveyer's
movement. Still Gaelen said nothing.

When they'd gotten their bags, they
approached customs.

"Stay with me and don't look at
anybody." He turned to her. "But don't look like you aren't
looking."

"How are we--"

"Shhh!"

They approached the line and quickly
got to the front. At a signal from the customs agent, Gaelen
stepped forward and pulled two blue tourist passports from his
breast pocket, which he handed to the agent.

Annabelle cut Gaelen a troubled glance.
Gaelen reached for her hand, pulling her arm to link with his,
stroking her fingers possessively.

"Is this you and your wife's first
visit to Ireland, Mr. Riley?"

Annabelle's eyes widened. Gaelen's
gentle stroking motion on her fingers suddenly tightened in a
warning.

"Ach, no," he answered, a thick brogue
mixing with his words. "I'm an Irishman born. My little wife here,
though, is a Yank. I'm for bringin' her to meet me auld mother in
Galway."

"Galway, is it?" The agent replied with
a smile. He then spoke some words unintelligible to Annabelle. The
man had an expectant expression, almost as though he was looking
for something.

It hit her that the man was testing
Gaelen. He saw through the faked passports and the phony story. He
thought they were terrorists coming to blow up something for the
IRA.

She couldn't help it. Her eyes flew up
to Gaelen's face.

He showed no dismay at all. "Hmmm.
Connacht? North Mayo?"

The agent's mouth dropped open. "Yes.
That's right. How did you know?"

Gaelen made a reply as unintelligible
as the agent's original question.

The agent stamped both passports and
handed them to Gaelen. "Here you are, Dr. Riley. Welcome home." He
smiled at Annabelle. "And I hope you enjoy your visit to the auld
sod, Mrs. Riley."

"Thank you," she responded
automatically, stunned by what had just happened.

"Thank you, sir. Come, dearest," Gaelen
said, picking up their two bags and leading Annabelle away from the
counter.

She remained silent, hustling to keep
up with him, until they got to the front door.

"What did he say to you?"

"'Do you have anything to declare?'"
Gaelen replied with a smirk. "Thought to trap me, did he? My people
were speaking Irish before his people crawled out of the caves in
Europe."

"Why would he want to trap
you?"

"Who knows? Maybe he thought we were
IRA gun runners with two suitcases full of plastic explosive." He
turned to the left and led her down a corridor. "We'll get our
rental car and then we'll head toward Knockma."

"Where did you get those
passports?"

"Shhh!" he hissed, frowning. "Not
here."

"Okay! Don't be so touchy."

He glared at her and approached the
counter. Feeling a little put out by his short temper, she stood
stiffly at his side while he signed for the car he'd already
reserved.

"You're a lot more organized than I
would have been," she said, trying to get some friendly
conversation started again. "How did you get so much done in such a
short time?"

He finally gave her a smile, changing
his serious expression in an instant. "Organization isn't a
particular gift of my people. We have to work on it."

The rental car agent held out a key.
"Go through that door at the end of the corridor, sir, then to the
left. The valet should have brought your car up by now. It's a red
Mercedes."

Annabelle jerked around, staring in
disbelief. "A Mercedes?"

"No need to suffer, is there, lass?" He
winked at her and picked up her suitcase again. He was through the
automatic doors before she could catch up. She glanced toward the
left as the woman at the rental car desk had instructed.

No Gaelen.

"Gaelen?"

"Pardon me, miss." Annabelle landed a
foot away from where she'd been standing. The man who'd appeared at
her side smiled kindly, partly relieving her fear. "I apologize for
givin' you a fright," he said, his pearly teeth flashing in the
twilight. "I'm lookin' for a friend of mine, and I wonder if you
might have seen him."

Annabelle breathed a sigh of relief and
returned his smile. "I'm sorry. I'm a tourist. I'm afraid I can't
help you."

The man's charming smile thinned. "But
you can, Miss Tinker."

Her surprise that he knew her name was
drowned in terror as he wrapped his arms around her. "Don't fight,
lassie. We won't hurt you."

"Let me go, you gorilla!" Annabelle
kicked and screamed, "Gaelen!"

Where are all the people? she wondered
frantically, looking around for help. This was an international
airport after all. And where was Gaelen?

"Hold still, girl. You're only raising
a ruckus for nothin'. Quiet now."

She twisted herself around. "Take your
hands off me!" The man lifted her off the ground and started
walking off with her.

"Come on, Frank. The doc's waitin' in
the car. Hurry along with the colleen."

"I'm trying to, but she's fightin' like
a wild thing. Here, give me a hand."

As the one called Frank set her on her
feet to get a better hold, Annabelle took her chance. Opening her
mouth wide, she sank her teeth into Frank's hand, biting like a pit
bull. She shook her head, tearing his flesh.

"Holy Bridget!" he howled.

In an instant, she was free and
falling. She landed on all fours on the sidewalk just as a familiar
voice called her name.

"Annabelle! Here, run!"

Raising her gaze from the concrete
beneath her hands, she saw Gaelen behind the wheel of a red
Mercedes convertible with the top down.

Like a sprinter out of the blocks, she
darted across the road toward the open car and jumped over the door
into the car. A shot of pain speared through her shoulder as she
whacked the gearshift.

Her head landed in Gaelen's lap.
Hard.

"Owww!" Their howls ripped out in
unison. The car shot forward with Frank and his friend grabbing at
her arms, her heels, her hair, anything to get hold of
her.

"Holy Sod, woman!" Gaelen squirmed in
his seat, letting up on the gas and reaching over with one hand to
drag the rest of her into the car. "Have a care, will
you?"

Uncharitable words remained unspoken on
her tongue as Annabelle scrambled to twist herself around. She
raised her hand to her stinging shoulder.

"Will you just get us out of
here?"

Obligingly, Gaelen hit the gas. The
airport buildings faded to a blur. Annabelle gasped a breath before
turning to Gaelen. She slammed him in the shoulder.

"Where the hell were you? Did you see
those men? They tried to kidnap me!"

"I saw them. Why do you think I ran for
the car?"

"And left me alone?" Her anger masked
the hurt. "They could have kidnapped me and taken me God knows
where."

"Oh, I know where. Straight to
Finnvarra in Connacht." He stopped at an intersection and looked
both ways. "Which way?" he mused, too quietly to be asking for her
opinion. "Direct is best, I suppose." With that he turned
right.

"Finnvarra." Annabelle remembered the
name. "You mean the old lecher who kidnaps young girls?"

"The very same," Gaelen replied.
"We--the fairies, the Tuatha de Danaan--divided Ireland into five
kingdoms. We're in Munster right now. Connacht is a little bit
north of here. Each one had its own king, both above, that's the
Irish, and below, that would be us."

"Below? Below what?"

"Below the ground. When the Irish came,
their chief druid, a huckster named Amergin, made a deal with my
folk. We'd split the land right down the middle." He chuckled.
"After we agreed, Amergin revealed that he meant dividing it this
way..." He took one hand off the steering wheel and made a
horizontal slice through the air. "They got what was on top of the
ground. We got what was underneath."

"Your people agreed to
that?"

"Indeed. Of course, they were also
doin' us in on the battlefield at the time. We didn't have so much
bargaining room as we'd have liked."

To Annabelle, it seemed the kind of
underhanded dealing that would have its victims demanding
reparations, even centuries later. Gaelen's apparent humor struck
her as odd.

"You think it's funny?"

"Don't you?"

In spite of her indignation at his
people being tricked, a smile spread across her face. She then made
the mistake of glancing at Gaelen, whose smirk spread wider, and
then they were both laughing.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to
laugh."

"Why not? It's funny. Of course, it
won't do to laugh about it in public. Some of my folk take this
much too seriously." He chuckled as they both calmed down. "You
have a wonderful laugh, you know. Makes a man want to join
in."

Suddenly self-conscious, she didn't
even know what to say. Did you thank someone for complimenting
something you had absolutely no control over? Trying to get their
conversation to a more comfortable place, she asked, "Do you know
the men who grabbed me at the airport?"

Gaelen gave her a suspicious glance.
Annabelle smiled to herself. He heard her subtle reprimand for
letting her fall into danger. Satisfied with getting her dig in,
she added, "They looked familiar."

"Yes, you've seen them before for
certain. They work for Linette Duncan. They're the brawny laddies
who hoisted me off the roof of the hospital."

"What?" She turned in her
seat.

"Aye. You saw me falling by Erin's
window. You ran out with a security guard."

The memory of watching him fall and her
desperate dash to help him flashed in her mind.

"Oh. How did you manage...?"

"To survive?" he finished for her. "I
can fly. Remember?"

"Oh, right." Annabelle's chuckle drew
out, extended into a jaw-cracking yawn. A heavy blanket of
exhaustion settled over her.

"Sleep, darlin'. We'll soon be in
Connacht, and we can find a place to light for the evening." He
took her hand as he spoke, squeezing gently.

With his reassuring words, Annabelle
stopped fighting and drifted to sleep.

Chapter Seventeen

'Tis welcome you are to Killis, County
Roscommon. Seat of the fairy king of Connacht,
Finnvarra.

The bright green, clover-shaped sign
brought a smile to Gaelen's lips.

"Here we are," Gaelen whispered to
Annabelle, who snored softly, her head resting on his shoulder.
"And here's a B&B. Convenient, isn't it? Just a little while
longer," he promised and dropped a kiss on her hair.

He pulled off the street and onto the
shoulder of the road in front of a narrow two-story house. A coat
of whitewashed mud daub gleamed in the moonlight. Windows reflected
the light, shining Irish eyes in the skeletal face the house
appeared to be. Even the thatched roof added to the impression,
neatly trimmed as a fresh haircut.

Gaelen chuckled at his fancies and
gently moved Annabelle so he could get out. "Be right back,
darlin'."

"Okay." Her muttered reply was almost
inaudible, as she snuggled against the leather of her
seat.

Gaelen approached the front door. As
his knuckles rapped against the wood, his fairy soul recognized it
as rowan. He frowned. That was odd. People normally didn't use
sacred wood for doors.

The door swung open. Expecting to see a
welcoming face on the other side, he was surprised to see no one.
The heavy door rocked fully open, cracking against the wall behind
it.

Feeling the presence of magic, Gaelen
stepped back and instinctively closed his mind, shielding himself.
Unfortunately, his protection also kept him from knowing
whoever--or whatever--was on the other side of the door.

"Come in, good sir. My home is honored
to welcome you."

Gaelen stepped over the threshold,
wondering who would know the old welcome, but more importantly, who
would know his true nature and welcome him in this way.