CHAPTER SIX

Shea had left Rosie’s cottage within seconds of her arrival. She’d no more than stashed her suitcase next to the dresser in her room before she’d advised Rosie that she was going for a walk, but to expect visitors. Mother had said another agent was with Eric, but Shea had forgotten the name.

Professor Grover’s eyes widened to see her on the doorstep of his cottage. “What are you doing here?” he asked, his wire-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose. He’d fussed, sputtered a moment, then waved her inside. “Come in, child, it’s raining. Are you alone?”

“I am, but I can’t stay long.” She entered quickly with one last measured glance to make sure she hadn’t been followed. Only when she was safely behind his heavy wooden door did she allow a deep breath of relief.

His home was none the worse for wear considering his long absences to Amsterdam. Embers glowed at the hearth where a black cat lay curled on a golden velvet pillow. Yet the professor seemed caught off guard. Edgy. He reopened his door to peer outside.

“Did I catch you at a bad time?”

One bushy brow lifted. “No, I don’t get many visitors, that’s all. Let me look at you. What’s going on? You’re thinner. Have you lost weight?”

This wasn’t the time to look thinner. Shea used her deepest Finn voice as she adjusted her very large paunch. “You tell me what’s going on. You’re the one who left without saying a word. Did you know Phoenix was killed right after you left? Gordie’s dead, too. They were beheaded. With a sword!” The words rushed out of her.

He blinked in surprise. “Murdered? A sword? Oh, dear me, no. I hadn’t heard that, not that anyone knew where I’d gone. You see, my sister took ill. I rushed home, but she passed before I could get here. I’m... I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry.”

Shuffling to the rocking chair by the fireplace, he shook his head and slipped out of his penny loafers. “To tell you the truth, I was so frazzled when I got the news about Eloise that I honestly didn’t think to tell anyone I was leaving. Once I got here…” He gestured at the room in general as he sank into the chair. “I’m sorry. I simply forgot about everything, but her.”

Of all people, Shea understood how dazed a person could become after the death of a loved one. She crouched at his knee. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were dealing with a sick sister, nor her death. I wouldn’t have come, but now…” Her gaze shifted to the closed door behind her. “Do you know anyone who would want to murder Phoenix and Gordie?”

“Murdered?” he asked again, squinting at her through the smudged lenses of his glasses. “What happened to you? You’re different tonight. Come, let me make you a cup of tea.” He seemed confused instead of upset at the deaths of his favorite students.

Shea lifted to the chair beside his, confident that her padding was still in place. A knitted cream-colored afghan hung off the back of his chair, no doubt his sister’s. Maybe that was why this home seemed well taken care of. His sister must have lived here with him. She’d been keeping house for him while he commuted back and forth between Ireland and Amsterdam. How weird.

“Professor. Didn’t you hear what I just said?”

“Umm, what?” Stretching forward, he asked yet again, “What’s wrong with you?”

Me? What’s wrong with you? Oh, hell on earth, Shea should’ve guessed. Her unibrow, the only item that had failed in the past, must be coming undone. Tentatively, her fingers ran over the perfect line of a long, furry caterpillar spirit-gummed over her own delicate brows. Nothing wrong there. She fingered the wart on her chin. Still in place. Her shaggy red wig was next, but it was as good as ever, hopefully as ugly.

What was he seeing that she wasn’t? “Why do you think I’m different?”

He squinted through his spectacles, his entire face wrinkling. “I don’t think I’ve ever noticed the color of your eyes before. They’re quite lovely for a young man. What color are they? Green or turquoise?”

Crap! My glasses. She patted her pockets, not sure where that part of her ensemble had gone. Talk about scatterbrained. “I must’ve lost my glasses. My eyes are greenish blue. Sometimes,” she admitted. And I’ll get another pair the first chance I get. Extra thick. Twice as geeky. So no one can see them. Especially not Eric.

“Don’t worry about it. Come in and sit awhile, child. Tell me what you’ve been up to.” He leaned back in his rocker with his hands folded on his stomach. “It’s been a long time since we’ve talked, hasn’t it?”

She leaned in closer, frustrated that he couldn’t seem to absorb the awful news she’d just shared, and oh, by the way. I’m already in and sitting. “Professor. Are you okay?”

He rocked forward and backward. “I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

Because you’re freaking me out. “Phoenix and Gordie are dead, but you act as if you haven’t heard me.”

“They are? What happened?” His rocking chair squeaked on the forward thrust as he came to a stop. His lips curved with an oddly disjointed, lopsided smile that didn’t reflect any concern. He might as well have asked about the weather.

She caught herself. There was no sense in repeating what he didn’t seem capable of understanding. Her professor’s appearance was different, too. His left eyelid sagged. His smile drooped on the left side of his face, too. Had he suffered a stroke? “Professor, you don’t look well. Is there someone I can call?”

A crease narrowed between his brows. “Heavens no. Just sit with me. Sometimes grief is too much to take in all at once. It takes time to process it.”

As she well knew. “Are you hungry?”

He nodded in time to the sway of his rocking chair. “Yes. I believe I could eat.”

Shea bit her lip, the hope of any explanation into the murders of her friends lost in the blink of an aged man’s eye. “I’ll fix something before I leave.”

“But Finn. You must stay. You only just got here.”

“I’ll be back another day when you’re feeling better.” She lifted from her seat, disappointed, but determined to do what she could.

Considering his state of mind, his kitchen was quite orderly. She couldn’t locate the cat’s food dishes, but fed it anyway since the friendly beggar kept rubbing its long svelte body against and between her pant legs. Once the cat had its face in its bowl, she fixed toast and opened a can of noodle soup from the professor’s well-filled pantry.

Someone must have helped him with the housework or there would’ve been more mess. While he ate, she contented herself with petting his cat. It all but scrubbed its furry face on her chin, seemingly starved for attention.

The banked embers in the hearth glowed, while she stroked the purring feline on her lap. A wisp of smoke curled into the chimney, and her mind drifted with it, back in time

Two years of running and pretending to be someone she wasn’t, had taught her well. All the disguises in the world couldn’t hide her stretch marks, nor Eric’s pride when she’d gained weight while she was pregnant. He’d patted her backside right up to the day Cheyenne was born.

“I put that baby inside of you,” he’d breathed between kisses to her sweaty forehead in the delivery room. “Just bring her to home base, and it’ll all be worth it. You’ll lose every last, pinchable ounce, and you’ll be in love with yourself again. Like I am. You’ll see.”

She’d made him happy that day. The grin on that handsome face when the nurse placed his newborn daughter in his arms haunted her.

Delivery wasn’t the problem. The funeral was.

After a particularly heartbreaking visit from her neighbor, she’d run from all that reminded her of that perfect smiling angel she’d never hold again. Never read another bedtime story to. Never smell her minty toothpaste breath at goodnight’s kiss. Never another giggle. Another Christmas morning. Another tooth fairy. All those nevers!

The day she lost Cheyenne, she lost her way. Something inside of her broke, and for once in their perfect married life, she and Eric weren’t in sync. There was no comfort to be found in his arms, and some days, she couldn’t stand to look at him. Like a vinyl record set too long in the sun, the diamond needle of his love couldn’t reach the scream buried in the tracks of her warped and desolate heart.

Yet not a day passed that she hadn’t thought of Eric. Didn’t need him. Didn’t wish he’d look for her and find her.

Professor Grover’s spoon clattered to the floor, drawing her out of her depressing past. He’d fallen asleep with the empty soup bowl on his lap.

Shea rubbed her chilled biceps. Carefully, she extracted it from his grasp and took it to the kitchen. She washed the few dirty dishes in the sink, straightened the counters, and filled a bowl with water for his cat. It seemed a lonely but friendly animal. She lifted it into her arms. “I’m going to call you mittens until I know your real name. My little girl would’ve loved a sweet kitty like you.” And I’d give the world to have her back. Just to see her play with you. Just once...

The feline rubbed its nose against Shea’s chin. Its body arched into the curve of her palm, seeming to crave her touch. So much like another tiny little body…

Time shifted in the quaint little cottage. For a split second, comfort invaded that barren hole in her heart. Holding the cat felt a lot like holding Cheyenne. Mittens was warm and soft. Alive.

A smattering of rain kicked up outside the cottage windows. The professor snored lightly, his head bowed, while the chunks of peat in the fireplace barely glowed anymore, but Shea made a decision. She’d go her way when the rain stopped.

Eric stood at the open door to Rosie’s B&B, mad as hell, with his arms crossed. Sleepy from what had to be a carb overload, Jordan had already gone upstairs to his bedroom while Eric took first watch. Rosie had retired earlier. She’d kindly left a full pot of coffee on the stove. There were no other guests in the home, and no damned Finn Powers.

For hours Eric watched and waited. Midnight came and went. By zero two hundred hours, the rain stopped. Eric doubted Abdul-Mutaal’s ability to track Powers to the ‘Edge of O’Banner’, as far off the beaten path as it was. Unless the genius still carried a GPS enabled cellphone and made it easy. Anything was possible.

When the coffee was gone, Eric called it a night. He climbed the stairs to wake Jordan for his turn at watch. Naturally, Jordan was sound asleep, but he’d left his door unlocked. That saved Eric having to knock and risk waking Rosie.

Jordan roused easily and snapped to like a good troop.

Finally flat on his back in bed, with his pistol on the nightstand beside him, Eric let his mind relax. Jordan would wake him at the first sign of trouble.

Eric stretched, his legs too long for the mattress. Angling his body corner-to-corner, he adjusted the pillow at his neck and strove for sleep. Though short, the bed in Rosie’s B&B was a godsend after a tremendously wasted day.

He tossed. He turned. Eric punched his pillow, cussing at those last two cups of coffee. As every night before, the moment he closed his eyes, his mind drifted back in time. It had only taken once to get Shea pregnant, he was sure of it, not that they’d made love just once in Rio. More like every morning, noon, and night. She couldn’t keep her hands off him, and he’d felt the same about her. Smitten. Totally smitten. Downright intoxicated.

Yes, sex with her was out of this world, but that wasn’t the only way they were good together. Loving Shea was as easy as opening his eyelids in the morning and looking at the sunrise. As easy as breathing in and breathing out. He’d always believed it was at the peak of their first mind-blowing orgasm together that his perfect child came to be. Life only needed one spark.

Despite the caffeine in his blood, Eric fell asleep.

Shea came to him in a dream. His nose filled with the light fragrance of her vanilla musk as she climbed up his body the way she had on their honeymoon. Delightfully bare-naked and tantalizingly horny. Luscious and dripping wet. For him.

She held him down with her anxious lovemaking, not like she’d weighed anything. But being at the mercy of this woman was, at best, Eric’s favorite wet dream. He cupped her hips as he filled her to the hilt, her soft moans and grunts and groans his favorite erotic playlist. “You’re back,” he whispered.

“I never left,” she whispered back.

Even in his dream, he knew better, but she rode him hard, as if she couldn’t get enough, and he let her. Not until she collapsed on his chest with her nails dug into his shoulders, did she kiss his neck and moan, “Eric. Eric. Eric! Ahh…”

His palms found the back of her head, the tangles of her dark brown swirls. Some women screamed in the throes of passion, but Shea always ended with a sexy, throaty moan that climbed up her body from her toes and clenched every muscle along its way, him along with it.

In return, he thrust into her warmth over and over. The dream was good, just not good enough. I love you, Shea. Why can’t I find my rhythm? My release?

She slipped out of his hands and lifted into nothingness. Only the anguish in his heart remained, that bottomless hole he risked falling into. There was no way out. Only—

Shea! Come back! Eric woke covered in sweat and the taste of her in his mouth. Her scent in his nose. The moisture from her hot, silky skin still on his fingertips. It can’t be!

But it was just a dream. He squeezed his eyes shut, sick at heart, his tongue certain he’d just tasted the honey of her lips and the cream of her body. It was enough to make him doubt his sanity. Enough to make him cry. She’d felt so real!

Cheyenne’s pretty face, so much like her mother’s, added to the heartache. Eric bowed his head at the daily struggle he lived with, scrubbing the back of his hand over his eyes.

Goddammit, he’d lost everything that made inhaling another breath—any breath!—worth taking. No one had a clue how tough just the simple act of getting out of bed at the start of every day was. Hell, how impossible pasting a smile on his face was. Yet he’d done it, hoping someday he might actually mean it. For now, all it did was keep people from asking.

The black hole at the core of his soul reached out with long tentacles of despair and melancholy. There was a time he’d fallen. Been sucked into it was more like it. But booze only added more depression to an already bleak time in his life, so he’d worked harder at his job, and he volunteered for longer hours until he was fit for human company. After all, a man had to look himself in the mirror every day. He had to see something looking back at him to keep on keeping on.

Eric pushed out of bed and strode to the window overlooking Rosie’s front yard. The rain had ceased, but left a shimmering blanket of misty fog.

And there she stood...

Just beyond the picket fence in a swirling shadow of mist. Waiting. Beckoning him to come hither. Needing him. Calling for him. E-r-r-ric... Her voice drifted along with the clinging fog. One word. The right word. She’d come back to him. E-r-r-ric...

His heart jump started to an impossible beat. It couldn’t be real. Not here. Not her. He blinked, and when he did, the fog swirled. The dark mists claimed her, and Shea dissolved into nothingness. Like before.

He swallowed the ache in his heart before it climbed up his throat and screamed for all the world to hear. Crying didn’t help. This bottomless hurt never healed. Couldn’t begin to. Might never. Not with this kind of crap digging at him!

Why should it? He was a fool to still want the woman who’d cruelly deserted him, but God, what he wouldn’t give to have Shea back. Let her tell her lies. Living without her was a thousand times worse. He’d take anything at her hand if she’d only come back. Just one more day. One more hour. Just call me and talk to me for a minute or two. I’ll understand. I promise I will. I’ll listen.

Eric leaned his forehead to the glass, his knees weak and his heart broken. He was a fool for still loving Shea. He always would be, but he honest to God didn’t know any other way.

The grief groaned out of him. Why now? Why after all this time had he dreamt of her, then seen such an enticing apparition? A nightmare of Berglund or Mikkelson made better sense, but Shea? So full of life? So incredibly beautiful? Why the hell now?

It had to be this ‘Edge of O’Banner’ place. Edge of insanity seemed a better name. Something in its precocious owner had stirred the deepest currents of his soul and brought these wickedly sad memories to the surface. It was as if she knew what he’d suffered and why. As if she’d recognized a kindred spirit.

He huffed out the excess adrenaline mucking up his mind. That had to be it. Rosie had lost her husband. She’d simply recognized another’s grief. That made better sense.

He padded to the door and down the steps, sleep robbed and gone for another night. It made better sense to offer up what little was left of a good night’s rest to Jordan. No demons bothered him. Hell. He could sleep anywhere. He might as well do it now.

“I’m going for a walk,” Eric announced at the front door of the best B&B in all of Ireland. “Go to bed. I won’t be gone long.”

Jordan lifted his cup of coffee in a silent toast. “Later, bro.”

Eric stepped into the mist. He closed the door behind him and took a deep breath of the cool air. Shea wasn’t out there, but peace of mind might be.