The Sapphire Brooch (The Celtic Brooch Trilogy Book 2) (65 page)

Charlotte bent over him, pressed her hands on the arms of the chair and dug her fingers into the upholstery. “I didn’t save you from Chimborazo to see you waste away like this.”

“I didn’t ask you to save me.”

“No, you didn’t, but a man who loved you very much asked me to do it.”

Braham glared at her and the rhythm of the pulse in his throat closely matched the pounding of her heartbeat. “I failed to do the same for him.”

“Your failure, if it’s what you want to call it, grants him immortality.” From the corner of her eye, she caught the movement of his hand as it inched down into the side of the seat cushion. Thinking he might have hidden a flask of alcohol, she pushed his hand aside and dug her fingers into the crevice. When her hand brushed the smooth-finished grip of a revolver, she jerked upright, gasping with a hot flash of shock, and then she slapped him across his whiskered jaw. His head popped up, and he shot her an affronted glare, clutching the side of his face, red with her handprint from chin to cheekbone.

She snatched up the revolver and held it by thumb and forefinger. “Take this,” she said to Jack. “And check the room. See if there are any other weapons. He’s not going to blow a hole in his head while I’m here.”

“Get out.” Braham clenched his teeth and waved a shaking arm. He swallowed hard and visibly. “I don’t want you here.”

“Right now, I don’t give a damn what you want. You’re going to have a bath and dinner and when you’re sober, we’re going to talk. When we’ve finished, Jack and I will get out of your life.”

Braham was not the same man she had witness struggle to get to his feet in the cell at Castle Thunder. That man had the will to live. The man sitting in front of her now, crumbling in grief, had simply given up.

The crackle and roar of the fire interrupted the room’s charged silence as one log splintered and exposed another piece of wood to the flame. The aroma of burning hickory quickly displaced the pungent odors in the room.

Braham eyed her narrowly through bloodshot eyes. Most of his hair had escaped the thong and dirty blond tangles fell around his shoulders, reeking of whiskey and smoke. “Where’s my whiskey?”

She squinted and rubbed her face, trying to think how best to help him. He didn’t need the skills of a surgeon or the passion of a lover. “Coffee. No more alcohol.”

Jack squeezed in, gently pushing her aside. “Go on. Let me take care of him.”

“But I need to check his—”

“Later—”

Their words collided, and they stared at each other, waiting to see whose glare would win. “Give us some time to talk. It’s a guy thing,” he said.

She nodded. “Okay.”

With a heavy heart, she returned to her room, where she sat in the window seat looking out over the city draped in black. Braham’s shouts blasted through the velvet-draped doorway. As the hours wore on, he stopped slurring and his voice softened.

When she hadn’t heard voices for some time, she peeked into the room to check on them. The men sat in front of the fire. Plates covered with discarded white napkins sat on a tray nearby, and they held steaming cups of coffee. From where she hovered, she couldn’t make out their murmured conversation, but from the chuckling, she knew Jack had accomplished what she couldn’t. Quietly retreating from the doorway, she curled up on the settee in her bedroom and closed her eyes.

Later, it might have been minutes or hours, she woke suddenly, listening in the dark. No one had turned the gaslights on, and the fire was cold on the hearth. She stirred, shivering slightly beneath a heavy quilt.

“I’ve been waiting for you to awaken.”

She unearthed herself from the covers and came quickly to her feet. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

“I wanted to watch you sleep and listen to you breathe.”

Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the duskiness, and then she blinked hard when his dark form, sitting in a wing chair next to the dying embers in the hearth, took shape. “How’s your shoulder?”

“Jack said the wounds are healing fine. No red streaks.”

She turned up the gaslight and studied him closely, seeing the same emotions on his face she knew were on hers, relief and regret. It was impossible to say which one ranked above the other. “Good.”

“I’m leaving soon, and I wanted to apologize for my transgressions.”

She pulled up a stool and sat next to his chair, breathing in the scent of him, musk and soap and the polish Edward used to shine the brass buttons on his uniform. “Are you going to lump them all together in one big apology or enumerate them?”

He chuckled, almost soundlessly. “There’re several.”

“Like stealing my car?”

“That one I’ll never forget.”

Her lips tightened at the memory of how frightened she’d been when she realized he’d taken her car. Abraham McCabe was a man of many talents.

“I’d best enumerate them so you can remind me if I forget one. Let’s see, stealing your car, lying to you, putting your life in danger.” He paused and reached for her hand, linking their fingers. His large palm, textured with calluses, and both warm and hard, pressed against hers. Dark bronze skin covered the corded tendons on the backs of his hands, which she traced lightly with her fingertips.

“I never should have taken you to bed when I couldn’t offer you a future. But you handed me your heart and body and trusted me not to forsake you. Now I’m doing it anyway. I knew this moment would come, and I feared it more than any battle. You’re taking my heart with you, lass.”

Then he looked at her, giving her a small smile, but with such pain in his eyes she caught her breath, stricken through to her bones. Drawn to him, she slipped off the stool, knelt between his legs, and placed her hands on his cheeks. His face was warm, and the lushness of his beard stubble was both soft and scratchy. His wide, sweet mouth met hers in a kiss. She closed her eyes against the sting of tears and pressed her lips against the soft, warm flesh of his mouth.

“And you’re keeping my heart with you.” She lowered her head, and pressed her cheek against his chest, and her tears dampened his jacket.

The door opened, and Jack entered. “It’s time to go, sis.” He came to stand next to the chair. He laid one hand on Braham’s shoulder and placed his other under Charlotte’s elbow, lifting her to her feet. “I packed your medical bag.”

Charlotte held up her hand to still her brother as she felt Braham slip something into the hand he’d been holding. She opened it to find the perfect sapphire ring he’d given her at Georgetown. And she’d chosen to leave it behind. Shaking her head and swallowing hard, she tried to hand it back.

“I won’t take it back,” he said. “I want you to wear it so you’ll remember me.”

Gently she took Braham’s hand, placed the ring in his palm, and tucked his beautiful, masculine fingers around it. “I don’t need a ring to help me remember you.”

The light in the room dimmed almost as if someone had turned down the gaslight, but it wasn’t the room which had darkened, nor was it a fire which choked the air with smoke. It was her heart and lungs straining for blood and breath, and her eyes brimming with the tears clouding her vision. She trudged toward the door, believing her heart would crumble into a thousand awkward pieces and crunch beneath her feet.

“
Charlotte
.” Braham came quickly to his feet and pulled her to him, kissing her hard enough to leave a trace of blood in her mouth. Then he whispered so she felt the words as much as heard them. “I’ll never forget ye’. Go now, before I canna’ let ye’ leave.”

Jack took her hand and led her through the doorway. She glanced back to see Braham in silhouette, his hair glinting off a beam of moonlight streaming through the window. He turned slightly, and she gasped.

Her shoulders began to quiver with repressed sobs. His long hair would never again trickle across her breasts like the sweetest of lover’s touches. Never again would she smooth the long golden strands behind his ear. Now she saw him in profile, she could see what she hadn’t noticed before. She had thought he had bound his hair in a tail, but she was wrong. He had cut it.

Jack pressed the brooch and tweezers into her hand. “When you’re ready, let’s go home.”

“The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.”

—Abraham Lincoln

72

Richmond, Virginia, Present Day

C
harlotte spent the
next few days in a twilight sleep. Going through the motions necessary to sustain life, but not living it. Numb to everything but her pain. Decisions took effort, so she didn’t make any.

In twenty-first century time, she and Jack had been gone only two months, leaving her with four months of sabbatical time still available. When she could think clearly, she’d make a decision about when she wanted to return to work.

Food wasn’t easy to swallow. Bitter or sweet, tangy or salty, hot or cold—everything had the bland indigestibility of cardboard. She ate only enough to keep her stomach settled. Even putting on her shoes to go running exhausted her, so she quit lacing them up and left them in a pile on the floor with her other running gear.

Sleeping, however, came as easily as closing her eyes, but only during the day. At night, she cuddled up on the chaise lounge on her screened-in porch and stared into the starlit sky. She withdrew to a place where she could control what was happening to her by refusing to think or feel. Grief, as she’d discovered as a teenager, was not easy to live with.

Whenever Jack called she lied and told him she’d been eating well and exercising, and he’d respond with a snort. He didn’t believe her, but he’d probably decided, since she was a health nut and exercise junkie, she’d eventually find her way back from her depression. He wouldn’t let her drag it out for long. If she didn’t come out of this on her own, he’d intervene, and they’d do something completely random, like a quick trip to London or the Caribbean or Alaska.

A picture on the bulletin board in the kitchen of her and Jack at the family’s oceanfront cottage on Hilton Head Island became the impetus to kick-start her recovery. She needed the ocean, the ebb and flow of the tide—sometimes soft and gentle, and sometimes furious. If any place could soothe her and restore her connection to life again, surf and sand had the best chance.

Jack was meeting in L.A. with his agent and two movie producers and wouldn’t be home for several days. If glowing sunrises, lazy afternoons, and al fresco suppers at the Inn down the street from the cottage wouldn’t snap her out of her funk, she’d need his intervention.

On the sixth day following her return from the past, she loaded her car and drove to the island. Jack had shuttered the cottage for the winter and the house needed a good airing. She threw open the windows and left for the market. When she returned, a cool sea breeze had filled the rooms with the tangy scent of salt and the promise of healing.

She changed into shorts and T-shirt and went out on the back deck with a basket of medical journals, her cell phone, and iPad. It was a gorgeous day for early March: high-sixties and a light breeze, goosebumply cool, but the sun warmed her face.

Her phone rang. She dug it out of the basket, frowning. If Jack was calling instead of texting, something was wrong. “What’s happened? Are you in the hospital?”

“No. I’m just tired.” The reply was casual, but there was something odd in his voice, off-key. “The producers are requesting changes to the proposal.”

“If you make them will they option your story?”

“They might, but I can’t find my journal. Did I leave it in your bag? Where are you, anyway?”

Charlotte stretched out on the cushioned lounge chair and wiggled her toes, admiring their trimmed, polished pinkness. “I’m at the island. I stuck the bag in my clothes closet when I got home and never opened it. Go over there and look. Check my mail, too.”

“I’m taking a red-eye tonight. I’ll go over there tomorrow. I don’t remember packing it in your bag, but it’s the only place it could be.”

“Maybe you left it at…” By unspoken agreement, they hadn’t mentioned Braham’s name. It didn’t mean she hadn’t thought about him. She had, constantly. She just couldn’t talk about him. “Maybe you left it behind.”

“If I did, I’ve lost six months of irreplaceable research, and if anyone reads it, the stock market could be impacted for the next hundred years. I’ve got to find it.”

“I’m sure it’s in my bag. You wouldn’t have left it behind.” She slipped on her sunglasses and hat and stacked the magazines on the table next to the chair. “I wish you’d come to the island. The weather is decent for early spring.”

“How long are you staying?”

“If you won’t come down, then I’ll come home Friday. It’s lonely here by myself.”

“Come out to the mansion, and I’ll grill steaks. Do you want to invite Ken? You promised him a full report when you got back.”

“No, I’m not ready to talk yet.”

“I’ll see you at the house Friday night about seven-thirty. We’ll sit out on the portico, watch the sunset over the river, and drink a bottle of the Australian wine you like. Be sure to text when you leave the island.”