Now and Forever (47 page)

He flung the book at the far wall and rose from his chair.

"The wonder of it all is that the world still exists," he roared as he paced the empty library

Shannon appeared in the doorway. "It's a bit much to digest in one sitting." She handed him a cold drink.

He gulped it down and wished for rum. "How is it that life continues?" he asked, knowing there could be no answer. "The weapons of destruction are everywhere. How does a man build a life knowing it can be destroyed in the blink of an eye?"

"Optimism," she said with a shrug of her slender shoulders. "Stubborness. Wasn't it the same in your day? Life has always been an uncertain proposition. We just make the best of it while we're here."

"'Tis not the way I thought it would be," he muttered.

"And isn't that just too bad," she snapped, with a harsh edge to her lovely voice. "If you were looking for something easy, McVie, then you've come to the wrong time and place."

"Aye," he said. "I am quickly learning that."

"What did you want?" she asked, moving toward him. "What on earth did you think you could find here that you couldn't find where you were?"

The word leaped forth of its own accord. "Purpose," he said. He had meant to say both wealth and ease and the truth of his statement surprised him.

Her expression softened and he had the sense that she understood his meaning in a way few others of this time or any other ever could.

"I hope you find it, Andrew McVie." Her voice caressed him. "Life isn't worth a damn without it."

"You have purpose?"

She considered his question. "I do," she said at last, "but purpose and happiness don't always go hand-in-hand."

"Happiness is a fool's errand. A man is more well-served by a sense of purpose."

"Said by a man who once held happiness in his hand."

"You have no knowledge of that, Mistress Shannon."

Her eyebrows lifted. "Mistress? I thought you had put that aside."

He ignored her comment. "How is it you believe you know so much about me? Have you skills like your friend Dakota?"

She shook her head. "I'm not psychic, if that's what you mean. I simply remember the way you looked when you showed me the watch Elspeth gave to you."

Emotion gripped him by the throat, making it difficult to speak. "As a husband I was a grave disappointment."

She said nothing, simply leaned against the doorjamb and watched him with those big aqua eyes.

"I had but one goal," he continued. "The pursuit of the almighty shilling. All else paled by comparison."

"You'll find little has changed. Many men and women make the same mistake each and every day."

"'Tis a sorrow to hear that. I would wish no man the grief I knew when Elspeth and David were lowered into the ground."
They're in the arms of Jesus,
the good Reverend Samuels had said as Andrew stood silently next to the grave, cold as the December winds blowing across the cemetery.
They'll never hurt again.
If only someone had been able to say that about him.

She moved closer, so close that he caught the sweet scent of her skin, felt the warmth of her body near his. "I'm sure they knew you loved them."

"Love is not always enough for a good woman to warm herself with on a winter's night."

"Your wife was unfaithful?"

"Nay," said Andrew, "although I gave her just reason to seek comfort with another. The law was wife and mistress and child and all else walked behind. Elspeth lived a life of loneliness in a town that was not her home and she did it to help serve my own purpose."

"What happened to Elspeth and David? How did they--?"

"Fire," he said bluntly. "I was on my way back from Philadelphia. They died just hours before I reached them." His voice broke and he looked down at his feet, strange to him in the low-slung leather shoes. "That was when I left the practice of law and took up the cause of rebellion."

The words tumbled from his mouth like so many marbles through a child's fingers. He told her of the spy ring, of the chances he took, the praise he received for risking his life. "I had no right to such praise," he said, wishing for the sweet oblivion to be found in a bottle of rum. "A man who risks his life when his life is a thing of value does a praiseful thing. A man who risks his life when death holds strong appeal deserves naught but scorn."

She placed her hand on his forearm and for a moment he thought his battered and weary heart felt whole again.
'Tis your imagination. What you feel is but a man's need for release.

Her cheeks flushed and he looked at her sharply. Had she somehow heard his innermost thoughts? The notion both pleased and alarmed him in equal measure. He'd always held his emotions on a tight rein in the belief that a man did not acknowledge anything that spoke of weakness.

Yet this woman had seen him stripped of all wealth and power and knowledge - reduced to learning how to survive in a strange new world - and still she viewed him as a man of worth.

"I am not what you think, Shannon," he said, his voice gruff with emotion.

"And you are not what
you
think either," she whispered. "Let it go, Andrew. Get on with your life."

He looked down at her hand resting against his forearm. Seeing where his gaze lingered, she gave him a brief smile and made to deprive him of her touch but he placed his hand over hers.

She met his eyes.

He reached out with his other hand and let her dark hair drift through his fingertips. So soft...so silky...so sweetly perfumed. A man could grow drunk on such sweetness.
Dame Fortune did me an honor when she brought me to this place, mistress.

"I am pleased you think so, Andrew."

He jerked back in surprise. "I said nothing to warrant a reply."

"You did. I heard you quite clearly."

"I did not speak aloud."

"Still," said Shannon, "I heard your voice and it's not the first time...."

"The world is a strange place," he said. "There are many things we are not given to understand."

"I don't want to understand this. Magic doesn't need to be understood."

The urge to draw her close against his body was growing more difficult to ignore. "From the first moment I have felt a sense of destiny, as if all things in my life have led me to you."

"Oh God," she whispered, resting her forehead against his chest. "When you stepped out of the woods I felt as if my life were just beginning."

He cradled her head between his hands and lifted her face to his. Her eyes were wide. Her lips parted slightly on a sigh. He knew if the Almighty called him home at that very second he would have died already knowing the face of Paradise, for he could wish for no greater reward than the taste of her mouth against his.

Chapter Eleven

This can't be happening,
Shannon thought even as her eyes closed for his kiss.
Things like this don't happen in real life.

"They do happen," he said, his breath warm against her skin. "We are the proof of it."

He knew her thoughts before she gave them voice same as she knew his. There was a connection between them, inexplicable though it was, and she was powerless before it. But not frightened. This was surrender of a sensual kind, the giving over of control that promised even greater rewards. Something deep and real and forever.

His lips brushed across hers, lightly at first, as if taking her measure. She inhaled the scent of his skin, reveled in the delicious sensations awakening within her body. His fingers were callused and rough against her face but his touch was so gentle, so tender, that she wondered if you could die from feeling cherished. She'd never felt cherished before, never felt as if her pleasure mattered. And it would with Andrew. She knew it instinctively, same as she knew that they were moving toward something that would change her forever and in ways she couldn't yet imagine.

She wanted to crawl inside his heart and ease his pain. She wanted to slip into his mind and know his secrets. But more than anything she wanted to hold him deep inside her body and spend the night in his arms.

And a night would be enough. She would make it be enough. Nothing lasted forever. Not youth or beauty or riches. But she would rather grow old knowing that she'd followed her heart this once than knowing she'd let a chance for happiness slip through her fingers like so many grains of sand.

He deepened the kiss, drawing her breath from her body on a shuddering sigh of longing. She felt drunk with it, so intoxicated with the smell and touch and sight of him that she thought she was hearing bells.

Unfortunately she
was
hearing bells.

"Someone's at the door," she murmured against his mouth.

He kissed her again - thoroughly - and it took a great display of will power on her part to leave his embrace.

"You are expecting visitors?" he asked, smoothing back her hair with a gesture of such affection that her knees threatened to buckle beneath her.

She shook her head. "Whoever it is, I'll tell them to come back tomorrow."

"That is a sound idea."

She floated down the hallway toward the front door in a romantic haze. The doorbell rang again just as she unfastened the dead bolt.

"I was beginning to wonder if you were home," said the attractive African-American woman who waited on the doorstep. "I rang twice."

"I was in the library." She hugged the woman and ushered her into the foyer. Karen Naylor was an attorney, an advocate for battered wives, and one of Shannon's favorite people in the world. "Business or pleasure, Karen?"

"Business, unfortunately. We're going to have a full house tonight in the old building."

Shannon reached for the notebook she kept in the basket by the door. "How many?"

"Six," said Karen. "Mother, grandmother, and four children. The mother is being seen by the doctor right now and then Jules will bring them over in the van."

"How old are the children?"

"Eleven, eight, five, and eighteen months."

"Do we need the crib?"

"Not a bad idea. The little one has some sleeping disorders."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Shannon muttered. So many women stayed in an abusive marriage for the sake of the children, only to find the children scarred by the endless cycle of physical and emotional abuse. "Did you call Dakota? She'll want to stop by tomorrow after work and see to the kids." Dakota's crusade was literacy and she'd taught many a young mother and child about the joys of reading.

"I left a message," Karen said, "but I think Monday is psychic party night. You might want to try her again in the morning."

"I'd better check the guest houses and make sure everything's in order," Shannon said, her mind shifting into high gear. "I have a stack of new magazines, some videotapes, and some really terrific kids' clothes." She looked up at Karen. "Are any of the kids girls?"

"Three of them," said Karen. "You'll be in your glory."

Shannon scribbled a few hasty notes then glanced at her watch. "What on earth are you doing out so late? You could've called to tell me this."

"I know," said Karen, "but I have some papers I wanted to drop off for you to read, so I figured why not do everything at once?"

Shannon's interest was immediately piqued. "My updated will?"

Karen nodded. "That and the new modules for the trusts."

Shannon rolled her eyes comically. "Both will make wonderful bedtime reading, I'm sure."

"Just make sure you
do
read them," Karen warned. "This is important stuff. I need to make certain you know what you're signing."

"I told you what I wanted and you've delivered it. What more can I ask? I trust you."

"Don't trust me," Karen said, rolling her eyes. "Double-check everybody."

"Words to live by," said Shannon with a wicked grin.

Karen considered her carefully. "You look like the cat that ate the canary."