Love Everlastin' Book 3 (10 page)

Tears welled up in his eyes
as he lowered himself into the deep, claw foot tub. The
re-awakening of his circulation was excruciating, but he settled
himself on the bottom, clothes, blankets and all, the woman angled
lengthwise across his legs, one side of her unseen face against his
chest. Tears streamed down his crimson and gray blotted
face.

Thoughts of the Phantom
tried to intrude, but he forced himself to maintain his focus on
the woman. Her heartbeat was steadier now, her breathing shallow
but regular. She was no longer a block of ice, but supple flesh.
The water was shoulder-high to her. Cupping his left hand, he
scooped handful after handful of the warm liquid onto the top of
her head. When he could no longer feel a chill emanate from her, he
gingerly brushed her hair back, exposing a face so exquisite, his
heart seemed to leap into his throat. Perhaps knowing that she
wasn't aware of him was what gave him the courage to trace her
features with his fingertips.

Beneath her mane of thick
dark hair was a smooth brow. Flawless, pale, almost translucent
skin. Delicately winged eyebrows, expressive even in her state of
unconsciousness. Long and thick dark eyelashes. A pert nose. Full
pouty lips. A dimpled chin, slightly turned up.

It struck Winston that, even
in her condition, she possessed an ageless beauty, a beauty which
seemed to defy the laws of nature. His heart raced. His breathing
was erratic. Never had he looked upon a face that so utterly
captivated him. He brushed the side of his thumb along the
underside of her chin. Even the texture of her skin amazed him. So
soft. So unbelievably soft.

Gulping past the tightness
in his throat, he wound his arms about her and settled himself more
comfortably in the liquid warmth. He rested his chin atop the crown
of her head and dazedly stared into nothingness.

Unable to stop himself, he
began to go over the events of the past hour. What had happened in
the cellar. The supernatural moaning. The disappearance of the
magic. And the woman.

The Phantom was
alive.

How, it didn't matter. A
grave mistake had been made. Unimportant. The killer was on the
loose. At Baird House.

Had the woman in the fourth
dimension perished, taking with her the powers in the
house?

The thought caused a fierce
ache within his chest.

She had accused him of
draining her energy during his last visit. Had the earthquake and
storm been an aftermath of her passing?

And this
woman...?

He couldn't convince himself
that her and the Phantom's arrival were mere coincidence. Had that
bastard dumped his latest intended victim on the grounds to taunt
Winston? To show Winston that the killer was not only alive, but
capable of besting Winston's psychic powers after all?

The garden woman's words
began to echo in his skull.

"He waits, while ye wallow
in self-pity."

The Phantom was the danger
she had warned him of!

A soft moan wrenched him
from his stupor. He realized the stranger was squirming. His mind
went blank in anticipation of her fully awakening.

Her head moved slightly
against his heaving chest. She moaned again. Squirmed with more
force.

"You're safe," Winston said,
his voice sounding foreign and strained.

She stiffened. Then, for
what seemed an eternity, she didn't move. She was fully
consciousness, for he could sense the depths of her confusion. When
he could no longer bear the silence, he stated, "As I said, ye're
safe. But can you tell me how you came to be naked and on Baird
land?"

A long sigh escaped her. It
was a curious sound, Winston reflected, his black eyebrows drawn
down in a frown.

Her head dipped back. If he
had thought himself prepared to look into her eyes, he discovered
he was wrong. A breath caught in his throat when she boldly looked
up at him. He found himself locked within the mesmerizing depths of
her eyes, unable to speak or move. Unable to think. Her bright blue
irises were sparingly flecked with gold, but the pinpoints seemed
to hold tiny lights within them.

When she gracefully pulled
away from him and sat up, Winston slipped his legs from beneath her
and bent them at the knees to each side of her. She turned and
braced her back against the brass spout, at the same time slipping
the heavy, wet blankets off her shoulders. Her gaze never left his
face, as if searching for a reaction in him. But none came.
Winston's facial muscles were frozen. He could not even avert his
eyes when the upper portion of her breasts became visible through
clinging strands of her hair.

The bathroom door opened.
Roan walked in, took one look at the scene greeting him, and
swiftly turned his back to the tub.

"For the love o' Jesus, Mary
and Joseph!" he wheezed.

Winston's spell was
broken.

Scrambling out of the
bathtub and casting off the blanket as he went, he positioned
himself against the wall across from the tub, and glared at the
stranger with heightening chagrin.

"I take it she's alive!"
Roan shakily bit out.

The woman slowly stood, the
blankets lost beneath the murky water. In all her glory, she stood
before Winston, her penetrating gaze seemingly a permanent fixture
on his face.

Winston vainly tried to
produce saliva in his painfully dry mouth. He couldn't stop himself
from looking her over, any more than he could force himself to stop
shivering in the cold draft coming through the exposed doorway. For
as far down her body as he could see—which was more than he told
himself he needed to see—she was clinging hair, flawless skin, and
dynamic curves.

"I-uh..." Winston nervously
ran the tip of his tongue over his lower lip. He lamely shrugged
then broke out in a ludicrous grin. "I would say she's definitely
alive."

Reflexively, Roan looked
over his shoulder. The sight of her nakedness wrenched a grunt from
him, and his face turned beet red. Heading into the bedroom, he
flung, "Let me know when she's decent!"

Decent?

Giving himself a mental
shake, Winston ran into the bedroom. Roan was already heading into
the hallway. Mumbling beneath his breath, Winston whipped the top
quilt from the bed. When he turned to head back to the bathroom, he
found the stranger standing in the doorway, watching him with
curiosity and wariness combined.

He was about to assure her
again that she was safe, but the words never left his
mouth.

Agnes suddenly materialized
a few feet away to his left. One glance at the stranger and the
specter clamped a hand over her pseudo-heart. "Saints preserve us!"
she squealed, then wagged a scolding finger at him. "Winston
Connery, quit your gawkin’ at the poor child!"

She snatched the quilt from
his hands and hurriedly draped it over the young woman's shoulders.
She fussed over her for a time then leveled an indignant, maternal
look on Winston.

"I'll no' have this kind o'
behavior under this roof! You leave the carin’ o' this guest to the
mistress and me. And I strongly suggest, young mon, you keep yer
demons to yerself!"

With an impatient flick of
Aggie's wrist, a stack of logs in the hearth became engulfed in
flames.

What most disconcerted
Winston was the fact that she'd accomplished this without her
dissecting gaze wavering from him.

"How dare you bring him wi'
you!" she continued to scold. "He's yer problem. I'll no' stand for
him abou', do you understand me?"

Flabbergasted by her verbal
assault, Winston rasped a weak, "I think so." But he didn't
understand her at all.

With a protective arm at the
young woman's back, Agnes urged her in the direction of the hall
door.

"Now don’t you fear none,"
Agnes consoled the stranger. "Some hot tea, a cuppy o' soup, and a
warm bed, you'll be feelin’ fine in no time at all."

Winston watched the women
leaving the room. When they were turning left into the hall, the
blue-eyed mystery looked back at him. For just a fleeting second,
he noted pinpoint dimples in her cheeks, and read amusement in her
eyes.

She's laughing at
me!
he inwardly fumed.

Dragging himself to the bed,
he plopped into a sitting position on the feather
mattress.

"You're bloody right he's ma
problem!" he blustered then released a sound that was suspiciously
like a whimper.

"How could I no' look at
her?" he asked himself in a small voice. His hands flattened to his
chest. "I'm only human!"

A silhouette image of the
Phantom sauntered across the screen of his mind's eye.

His eyes darkening with a
deadly gleam, Winston murmured, "I'll take you ou' maself, you
bastard. Coming here was the biggest mistake o' your miserable
life."

His brain inflamed with
outrage, he jumped up and hastily stripped out of his soggy,
borrowed sweater, his slacks, and shorts.

The next instant, a clanging
crash rang out.

Winston looked up in the
direction of the door.

There stood Laura, a look of
shock frozen on her face, and a tray, overturned bowl and cup
scattered at her feet.

But Winston was beyond
modesty at the moment. His unhurried gait carried him to the
bathroom, where he closed the door and sat on the closed lid of the
toilet.

"I can rise above all this,"
he murmured. "I can."

He shot to his feet and
openhandedly slapped the wall to his right. "Frigging right I
can!"

Inexplicably, his anger
drained out of him. Again sitting, he lethargically trenched the
fingers of both hands through his wet hair.

The bathroom seemed
unnaturally confining all of a sudden. His lungs felt weighted, his
every breath labored.

"Am I losing ma
mind?"

How much more could
happen?

"God, give me strength," he
murmured, and rose to his feet.

C
hapter 4

A case of the jitters
plagued Winston all morning. What annoyed him the most was his
inability to pinpoint its exact cause. It was as if a fiery thorn
were imbedded at the base of his skull, every now and then prodding
the sensitized nerves in that vicinity. He felt as if he were on
the verge of exploding with anger, but anger for what he didn't
know. At first he'd contributed this state to the knowledge that
the Phantom was still alive. As incredible at that seemed, he knew
he had picked up on the killer's psychic transmissions. He'd sensed
the man's trace as clearly as if he'd looked into his own
reflection in a mirror.

And yet....

The boogers—as Roan fondly
called the boys
—
had managed to keep the laird and his lady love hopping the
rest of the previous night, and all of this morning, thus far. It
amazed Winston how three young boys could cause so much commotion.
He didn't recall being as hyper or as creative as them when he was
young, but then, his parents never tolerated a noisy or active
child under their roof. Somehow, Roan and Laura coped, although
Winston was sure he couldn't be any better a parent than his own.
So, with clothing vanishing, food fights, Kahl's wails to be
allowed to play in the tower, Kevin turning loose one of the
peacocks inside the house, and Alby's hysterics over the fact he
couldn't get his wooden animals to come to life, the Baird
household was a circus.

Winston had tried several
times—both last night and this morning—to corner Roan and warn him
about the killer's return. To no avail. Every time a chance arose
for Winston to have his say, another crisis presented
itself.

Agnes avoided him and
refused to let him near the stranger. As far as Winston knew, no
one but Agnes had seen the woman once she was escorted from his
room. Winston had halfheartedly attempted a few times to probe the
traces she'd left behind, in hopes of garnishing tidbits of
information about her. Each time the venture met with a blank wall.
It wasn't that he was interested in her as a person, but rather in
her connection with the Phantom. Still, he should have gotten a
fair reading on her.

Something was blocking his
abilities.

He'd gone outside for a time
and tried to psychically zoom in on the Phantom's whereabouts.
Another blank wall. By the time he went to bed, he had convinced
himself he was trying to juggle too much. So much had already
happened, and he'd been in the house for less than forty-eight
hours.

However, this morning he
still found himself unable to dredge up information about the
stranger and the Phantom. He was well-rested and had eaten a hearty
breakfast. Had bathed and shaved. Was warmly dressed in a borrowed
pair of Roan's jeans and a grey and burgundy striped pullover
sweater, both of which were too big for him, but he wasn't trying
to impress anyone. His paranormal capacity had returned when he'd
entered the house, and he was warm and cozy and secure within the
walls and better fed then he could remember being in a very long
time. And yet, as he stared out his bedroom window, scanning the
winter world beyond, his sixth sense was cold. He could no more
sense the Phantom than he could fly, and that frustrated
him.