Now and Forever (43 page)

He was heading toward the exit near First Place. She broke into a run and grabbed him a few yards from the door.

He shook her off and kept walking.

"Andrew!" She darted in front of him, almost daring him to stomp right over her. "Please."

He stopped. "I have no wish to argue with you, mistress."

She prided herself on the fact that she never cried yet found herself blinking back hot tears of frustration that confused as much as they embarrassed her. "What's wrong? Why are you so angry?"

 
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She looked up at him with aqua eyes wide with emotion and he wondered how it was those emotions had grown so strong, so quickly.

"Andrew?" She rested her hand on his forearm. "Tell me."

"I do not know what to tell," he said, struggling to control the battle of opposing forces inside his chest. "I am a stranger here."

A quick smile lifted the corners of her mouth. "You just realized that?"

"Yes," he said slowly. That moment of near violence in the moving room made it all real to him in a way nothing thus far had.

"You won't be a stranger for long," she said, drawing her index finger beneath her right eye in a quick motion. Was it for him she cried?

"I believed it to be a difference in language and ease," he said, "but there is more to understand than that."

"Poor Andrew McVie," Shannon whispered, meeting his eyes. "Are you wondering if you made a mistake when you came forward to our brave new world?"

"Nay, mistress--" He caught himself. "No, Shannon," he said, pushing the 18th century into the shadows. "This is not a mistake. This is where I am meant to be."

She smiled but remained silent and in her silence he read something akin to sadness.

Chapter Eight

Dressed in his 18th century attire, Andrew had been an intriguing figure.

Garbed in upscale 20th century clothing, he was devastating.

While he would never be a handsome man in the classic tradition, his strong-boned face and powerful form commanded attention and Shannon experienced a jolt of pure jealousy as the register clerk at the pricey men's store turned on the charm for Andrew who was now wearing soft brown trousers, a cream-colored silk shirt and Italian loafers. He had expressed serious misgivings about the loafers, convinced they would flop off with the first few steps he took.

The clerk's eyebrows lifted when Shannon whipped out her Am Ex Black to cover the purchases and Shannon's elation was overshadowed only by the look of discomfort in Andrew's eyes.

"You'll get used to it," she told him as they exited the store with their purchases. "I promise you the shoes will stay on. Indians got along fine in their moccasins, didn't they?"

"'Tis not the shoes," he said in a gruff tone of voice. "My indebtedness to you increases each hour."

"Believe me I have more money than I can spend in a lifetime," she said with a careless wave of her hand. "Don't give it a second thought." Her ex-husband never had.

"This is not what I am about," said Andrew, apparently unwilling to let the subject drop. "I have always made my own way in the world."

"But this isn't your world," Shannon pointed out gently as they walked toward the restaurant. "This is my world and until you understand the rules, you'll need someone to help you."

Andrew said nothing until they were seated in a booth. He seemed not to notice the half dozen TV screens that broadcast different sporting events day and night.

"I will pay for the meal," he stated after she ordered hamburgers, fries, and Cokes for them.

"With what?"

He reached for the bag that held his old clothing.
 
"This." He withdrew an old pocket watch from within and pushed it across the table.

Shannon held it in the palm of her hand. "It's gold, isn't it?"

He nodded. She noted the way a muscle on the left side of his jaw tightened. She turned it over and squinted to make out the tiny, faded script etched into the case.

"From Elspeth." She looked at him curiously.

"My wife." Such simple words but the sadness in his eyes was anything but. "On the occasion of the birth of our son."

"Gold?" she said again, her voice rising on the word.

"There was a time when I need not beg for money, Shannon."

"Oh God," she whispered handing back the watch. No man should have to sacrifice his past in order to obtain a future. "Have I made you feel that way?"

His expression softened. "'Tis the situation that makes me feel this way. I did not intend to be a burden to others in this world. I thought--"

"You're not a burden. You're my--" She stopped. What on earth had she been about to say?
You're my destiny.
Pathetic. Truly pathetic.

"I will leave you tonight."

"No!" The word exploded with the force of years of loneliness behind it. "You can't."

"I must."

She felt angry. She knew it was unfair but the emotion overwhelmed her. "If you believe you have a debt to repay, then repay it." A thought struck her and she seized it eagerly. "You repaired the back doors this morning, didn't you?"

"A simple thing. I am surprised you did not see fit to have it done a long time ago. You are not a poor woman, as you told me yourself."

"I have many other things to do with my money," she said. More important things. "But the windows do need to be repaired and painted and the cabana needs a new floor. You could work off your debt and--"

"Done. I will stay until all is completed."

The waitress served the hamburgers, openly eyeing Andrew as she did so, and Shannon barely resisted the urge to kick her hard in the shins.

"There is fire in your eyes," Andrew noted over the French fries.

"It's your imagination."

"Nay, Shannon, I see it quite clearly."

She leaned back in her seat. "I think that waitress likes you."

He followed Shannon's gaze. "She was most attentive," he said with a wicked grin. "Back home a wench such as she would do well."

"Don't get any ideas," Shannon snapped, appalled by her jealousy.
 
She'd never felt that way about Bryant. "Sexual harassment doesn't go over very well these days."

"Men and women draw their own battle lines and those lines are never the same twice."

Again she felt that strong stirring of the blood, a deep yearning toward him that defied her understanding. She took a sip of soda then leaned across the table. "I suppose this is as good a time as any to set some battle lines, as you put it, for us. I mean, since we'll be living under the same roof we should--"

"You have nothing to fear from me, mistress. I have never taken by force something that should be freely given in trust."

She looked down at her hands, clasped on the table top, and took a deep breath. "I wish my ex-husband had felt as you feel."

Andrew's gut knotted at her words. All along he'd sensed a deep sorrow about her, a wariness that belied the generosity she had thus far shown him. She was strong and brave, it was true, but those virtues had been won in battle.

"He was harsh with you, mistress?"

"Harsh?" Her laugh held no mirth as she touched the side of her face. "He broke my jaw on our wedding night. Said I had spent too much time dancing with my brother-in-law." She laughed again. "Can you imagine that? My brother-in-law."

Bile filled his throat and he reached for the sweet-tasting brown liquid to wash it away. "No sign of such treatment remains."

"Ah, the wonders of modern surgery," she said lightly. "One thousand and one ways to keep a family's secrets secret."

"There is more?"

"More than you need to know."

"I wish to hear it."

Her look held a challenge. "Nobody wishes to hear it, Andrew. Not my mother, not my father, not any of my brothers or sisters."

"I do," he said. "I will listen."

"There's nothing much to tell," she said in a flat tone of voice. "I wanted a husband. He wanted another possession to put on a shelf." She moved her hair off her forehead in an impatient gesture. He noted the diamonds and rubies glittering on her slender hand. "I tried to walk out on our wedding night but he told me he was sorry...he swore he would never do it again...that he'd had too much to drink--" Again that impatient gesture. "I loved him," she said simply. "And I wanted to believe him."

"Your family," Andrew said, aware of the way his heart beat fiercely inside his chest. "Why did they not intercede on your behalf?"

"Because Bryant came from a good family. Because he was powerful." She glanced away toward the window. "Because they figured he was the best thing to ever happen to my family and my little problem was a small enough price to pay for all he would do for us. We had money but he had connections."

"Bloody bastards," he said, slamming his fist down on the wooden tabletop.

"Yeah," said Shannon with a quick smile. "Bloody bastards about says it all."

"Did you never try to escape?"

She nodded. "Once I made it to the check-in counter at the airport." She held her thumb and index finger a hair's-breadth apart. "I was that close to freedom when Bryant burst through the doors and swept me out of there."

He couldn't bring himself to ask how she had paid for her attempt at escape but she told him anyway and he knew her words would stay with him until he breathed his last.

"He beat me in the back of the limousine," she said, a faraway look in her aqua eyes. "Punched me again and again...he was careful not to hurt my face this time...punched me in the shoulders, the breasts, my belly...the driver kept looking in the rear view mirror but he didn't do a thing. He just kept watching."

His gaze strayed to her shoulder.

"Yes," she said, voice strong. "The knife wound you saw was from Bryant."

A red mist of rage threatened to devour Andrew as he imagined an ugly death for the man who had caused her such untoward pain.

"But you are divorced," he said when he could again speak. "How is it you came to break free?"

"The last time I tried to leave Bryant hired a hit man -- someone who hurts people for money - and the police got involved." Her voice gathered power as she spoke, as if in the telling, the story was losing its hold upon her soul. "The hit man was an undercover cop - policeman - and they offered me a deal. They would help me to fake my death then lead Bryant into a trap.

"It was dicey but it worked. I found out they weren't as interested in helping me as they were in arresting Bryant for his involvement in some drug-smuggling scheme out of the Bahamas. They needed to get him out of circulation so they could break down the chain and put them all out of business. He plea-bargained it down to five years and was paroled the beginning of this year."

"He walks free? I would have consigned him to a cold and lonely grave."

"It doesn't much matter," she said. "I'm safe now."

"How is it that you can say with certainty neither he nor another in his employ will threaten your person?"

She hesitated. "I became a different woman."

"I do not understand."

"I did what you did, Andrew. My old life no longer fit and so I found a new one."

"You left your home?"

"I left everything. My home. My family. My friends. I even left my old identity."

"You are not Shannon Whitney?"

"I am," she said, her voice strong with certainty. "I am more Shannon Whitney than I ever was the woman I used to be. Katharine Morgan doesn't exist any longer and I'm not certain she ever did."

He felt himself wishing he could find the man who had hurt her and rip the man's lungs from his body. His own body ached with her pain. The image of her laid low by a man's hand was enough to drive all reason from his brain and send him out in search of blood.

"I hear all that you have told me and yet, despite all, you opened your home to me. It is beyond my understanding that you would find it in yourself to trust a stranger."