Because You're Mine

by Colleen Coble

  The music in his head continued to play, only this time he heard the words.

  Two souls bound which none can sever. This nightsong

  is for you. Our love will last through fire and

  trouble. This nightsong is for you. Not even death

  can break our hearts. This nightsong is for you.

  He recognized the tune now. The tune that played on the music box Alanna had played for them. The tune he’d been humming. In a moment it all flooded back. His life, the night of the explosion. He could hear the screaming metal in his head, Jesse’s shout.

  He was Liam Connolly, not Jesse Hawthorne.

  Struggling to his feet, he knew he had to get to Alanna. Tell her who he was and get her out of that house.

  In a loping run, he turned and plunged in the direction of the estate. The current had thrust him closer and he’d come up on the north side of the creek. He should be there within half an hour.

  The wind blew the rain sideways, blinding him. He swiped the moisture from his eyes and peered through the darkness. The wind pushed against him, impeding his progress. It might take longer than he anticipated. The wise thing to do would be to take shelter in a closer house, but Alanna needed him. An inner urgency drove him on.

  He had to save her.

  Thirty-Two

  Was he still looking for her? Alanna wished she knew when it would be safe to go inside. Where were her mates and Grady? Once other people were here, she would have nothing to fear. Maybe she had nothing to worry about even now. If Barry was still looking for her, he might be wanting to apologize.

  She was overreacting.

  She slung the strap to her purse over her shoulder and rose. This was quite wonky. The thing to do was to march in there and tell him she wouldn’t tolerate behavior like that again. He was likely penitent. The incident in the garage wasn’t like Barry. She pushed open the door, then ran for the house.

  The rain drenched her again, pouring down her back, cloaking her vision. Her bare feet slipped in the mud, and she went down onto her knees. She struggled to her feet and staggered toward the door again. Running up the steps, she reached the back door. It was still locked, so she fished her key out and unlocked it before practically falling onto the kitchen floor.

  The relief of being out of the rain made her inhale thankfully. In the mansion, the sound of the pounding rain was muted, too, and the sudden de-escalation of noise let her pulse resume a normal rhythm. Her present position was vulnerable, so she struggled to her hands and knees, then to her feet.

  A towel was lying on the counter. She grabbed it and wiped her streaming face, soaked the water from her hair, and wiped the mud from her feet. She left the ruined towel on the floor by the door and went toward the living room.

  There was no noise she could detect except the intensifying storm outside. Where was Barry? She opened her mouth to call for him, then closed it again when she heard him bellow her name. She thought he was up in the ballroom. The rage in his voice sent every nerve tingling. The sensible, gentle, kind Barry was still missing.

  Or maybe she was seeing the real man for the first time.

  She crept up the main stairs, careful to avoid the third step that squeaked. She didn’t think he could hear her from the third floor, especially with the storm pounding the house, but she didn’t want to risk it. She reached the hall and tiptoed to his bedroom.

  The bed was unmade today, and his clothes from yesterday were in a pile on the floor. Very out of character from what she’d seen, but his behavior today had been out of character too. The death of his father must have profoundly affected him. The closet door stood open a crack. For a moment she imagined he was waiting in there and would grab her by the throat the moment she approached. She swallowed hard and told herself not to be a dope.

  Aware she was holding her breath, she let it out and moved to the closet door. Her fingers gripped the doorknob. Her pulse was nearly as loud as the thunder crashing overhead. This was quite silly. Just open the door, she told herself.

  She forced herself to yank open the door. Her shoulders sagged when she realized there was no one there. She grabbed the keys from the hook and retreated. Barry was still banging around in the ballroom. She had time to get to the locked room.

  Her hand crept to her throat, and she jumped when she heard someone at the front door. At last, there were reinforcements. She ran down the steps to the front door and threw it open. The figure who stumbled through the opening wasn’t recognizable at first. Blood poured from his head and his face was swollen with numerous cuts.

  “Alanna?” he croaked.

  Then she recognized him. “Jesse?”

  He took her shoulders in his bleeding hands. “Alanna, it’s Liam. I’m not Jesse. Jesse died in the explosion. I’m remembering everything now. Tell me you recognize me.”

  She stared up into his face. Did she dare believe what she so longed to without absolute proof? The grip on her shoulders hurt. “You’re hurting me,” she whispered.

  He immediately released her. “Sorry, Lanna.” he muttered, shaking the rain from his hair.

  “You need a towel,” she said. She went to the kitchen and found a clean dishtowel. What if he was right? The DNA would be proof, but her heart didn’t need the results of the test. She let the notion carry her along, just for a minute. What if Liam was right there in the living room waiting for her? There was one way she could know for sure. She could kiss him when she was fully awake.

  Her throat closed with longing for her husband, her Liam. Her eyes burned. She was setting herself up for crushing disappointment. Carrying the towel, she went back to the living room. “Here you go.”

  He took it and wiped the blood and rain from his face and hair. With his longish hair swept away from his ears, she saw something that made her gasp. A tiny scar on the tip of his right ear. Liam’s puppy had nipped him and drawn blood, actually taking out a small bit of skin. Alanna stared at it now feeling everything she thought she knew shift under her feet.

  “Liam?” she whispered.

  He looked up. “I remembered the words to the song, Alanna.” He sang in a low voice. “Two souls bound which none can sever. This nightsong is for you. Our love will last through fire and trouble. This nightsong is for you. Not even death can break our hearts. This nightsong is for you.” His voice cracked on the last note of the song.

  The words and the voice sank into her heart. It was her husband. How and by what means he was standing here, she couldn’t be knowing. Nor did she care. She knew it was Liam. The verse in Psalm 139 about being fearfully and wonderfully made had resonated in her heart. Her husband was as unique and individual as the baby she carried, and every sense she owned recognized him.

  She took a step nearer. “Liam,” she whispered again. Then she was in his arms, and his lips were on hers. There was no question it was the man she loved. The scent of his sweet breath, the firm press of his lips against hers, the way he held her so tightly. She reveled in his embrace, burrowed against his chest, inhaled the essence of him.

  She would never let him go again.

  “What’s going on here?”

  When Liam’s arms tightened around her at the sound, she began to swim up out of her joy-caused stupor. She murmured a protest when Liam’s lips were withdrawn from hers, when his grip slackened. Wait, that voice. It was Barry. He was here.

  She turned to face him. “Barry, you’ll never believe it.”

  “Believe what? That you’re a conniving, scheming whore who has taken my love and thrown it back in my face?” He screamed the words, spittle spraying from his mouth.

  Advancing on them with his hands curled into claws, he bore no resemblance to the elegant, professional attorney she thought she knew. The kind man who had offered to help her and her mates had morphed into a monster she didn’t recognize.

  She held out a hand to him. “Barry, I’m sorry. But it’s Liam. He’s not dead. This is Liam, not Jesse.”

  He threw back hi
s head and howled. “You betray me and then make up some kind of weird lie?” There was murder in his eyes.

  Liam stepped in front of her with his hands outstretched. “C’mere, mate. Don’t carry on like this. We’ll sort it all out.”

  “We’ll sort out nothing,” Barry said, his voice devoid of anything but an icy cold. “I killed you once. I can do it again.” From somewhere, he had a knife in his hand.

  Before Alanna could shout a warning, Barry was hurtling toward Liam with the knife held high overhead. In one monstrous arc, he drove it into Liam’s chest. There was a funny punching sound, then blood sprayed from Liam’s chest and covered Barry’s grinning face before he turned toward Alanna.

  “Your turn, my cheating little wife,” he said.

  Blood poured from Liam’s chest. Alanna stood frozen in place as the red stain mingled with the rain that soaked his shirt.

  “Run, Alanna,” he whispered. “Run!”

  His words penetrated her stupor, and she realized Barry was advancing with the knife, its shaft still red with Liam’s blood. She wanted to go to Liam, help him, but if she did, they would both die and so would their baby. She was no match for Barry’s bulk and muscles. She needed a weapon.

  She wheeled and ran for the stairs. He didn’t know she had a key to the locked room. She could hide there until he ran past. Then she’d find a gun. Barry bellowed her name and started after her. She dared a glance back and saw him rushing to the steps. He reached the rug at the bottom and slipped, going down on one knee.

  His fall gained her a few seconds. She ran down the hall and turned the corner, then raced to the end. Her hands shook as she jammed the key into the lock and turned it. She heard the click, then quickly opened the door and stepped inside. She locked the door, then realized there was a deadbolt so she threw it as well.

  It was too dark in the room to see well. She would need to turn on the light, but would he see the glow of it from under the door? She realized she was standing on a throw rug. Kneeling, she bunched it up and wadded it along the bottom crack of the door.

  Her mouth was dry and her blood roared in her ears as she put her head against the door and tried to listen. There. The sound of feet walking purposefully along the hall, then the squeak of a door opening. The sound continued, and she knew Barry was checking each room in a methodical way. What would he do when he reached this door? Surely he wouldn’t be surprised it was locked.

  She licked her lips and curled her hands into fists. Liam was bleeding in the hall and she was stuck up here unable to help him. How badly was he hurt? The stabbing had looked horrific. She prayed that Grady would come. Anyone who might help.

  In the dim light, she stared as the doorknob turned and Barry tested the door. She held her breath, then let it out when his steps went on down the hall. He’d expected to find it locked. If she hadn’t relocked it, he would have known she was inside. The strength ran out of her legs, and she sagged to her knees with her head against the door.

  Get up! She had to find help for Liam. Using the desk beside the door for a prop, she struggled to her feet. It would be impossible to find anything in here without a light. She turned on the overhead light then turned to study the room.

  She needed a phone to call for help. There was none in this room.

  The walls were covered with photographs. Her gaze went from picture to picture. Every wall was covered with images of her. She approached the first wall. The pictures were from last year’s concert. One of her favorite pictures was of her and Liam together, but he’d been cut out of this print. Her hand went to her mouth to hold back the scream that struggled to be released.

  Downstairs, Barry had said, “I killed you once. I can do it again.” Had he planted the bomb under Jesse’s car? She remembered that Liam had talked about his upcoming outing with Jesse for a couple of days beforehand. Could Barry really have been so diabolical?

  The expression on his face downstairs slammed into her mind. Yes, the man could be that evil.

  In a fog, she moved to the next wall. And found the woman she thought was herself was, in fact, another woman. Though they looked very much alike, this woman’s hair was darker and her nose was different.

  In fact, she reminded Alanna very much of her sister, Neila.

  A sinking sensation swirled in her gut. She remembered what Paddy said about Neila running off with a “fancy lawyer.” In the Charleston area. Yet she stopped contact with her great-grandfather and her mother. Could it be?

  The music box. It had to be the one Alanna remembered as a child. It belonged to Neila.

  She had to sit down a second. Everything was slamming into her. She sank onto the chair in front of the computer desk. The computer was on. She stared at the open web page. A search engine.

  She had to get help. She rubbed her head. Think, think. There was no phone, but there was the computer. She quickly ran a search for the Charleston police department. There was no emergency e-mail link, so she clicked on the directory of personnel. Detective Adams had a contact link there, so she dashed off a quick plea for help.

  Who knew when he’d get it, though? And there was no link on the website for reporting a crime. She was on her own until help arrived.

  Hattie. She’d said to come to her if she was in trouble. Maybe she could get outside and reach Hattie. The old woman might be able to talk to Barry.

  She stared at the screen again. The truth about Barry and Neila might be here already. Her fingers typed in her webmail address, and she waited for the mail to arrive. There, the one from Paddy. She clicked it open, and an image filled the screen.

  Barry stood on the left, his smiling face turned toward the woman next to him. The woman on the wall. Neila.

  Alanna tried to wrap her mind around it. She’d known of Barry’s obsession with her great-grandmother by the way he talked about her picture and the music box. Had he gone out and tried to find his own version of Deirdre through her and Neila?

  Heavy steps came back down the hall and paused at the office door. She stared at the doorknob as it turned again. The steps went on past and around the corner. Was he going to get another key? He likely had a second key somewhere. The one she had couldn’t be the only one. Barry was too organized, too methodical.

  She swallowed hard and looked around for a weapon, anything to defend herself. The room held only a desk and chair, a few filing cabinets, and an armchair. Maybe there was something in the cabinets. Easing open each drawer quietly, she searched for a gun but found only files.

  The closet. She moved to the other side of the room and opened the closet door. It was empty, but there was a panel in the back of it. A drawer pull was on the side of it. She yanked it open and realized she’d found a passage to a stairway leading up.

  And a way out of a locked room. She rushed to the door and gently slid back the deadbolt so he would not know she’d been inside, then smoothed out the rug and flipped off the light before hurrying back to the hidden stairway.

  Inside the old staircase, the air smelled dank and dusty. Alanna stifled a sneeze as she pulled the panel shut behind her, plunging the space into total darkness. Feeling her way, she crawled up the steps, counting them as she went. On the seventeenth stair, she came to a tiny landing. Her hands roamed the wood floor until she found the door.

  She raised herself to her feet and fumbled for the doorknob. Turning it, she practically fell into the next room. She blinked in the dim light coming in through the many windows. The ballroom. She was in the ballroom.

  Barry was below her. Could she find her way to Patricia’s apartment and use the private entrance there? But that would leave Liam still here at Barry’s mercy. She couldn’t bear to think of what her love was going through two floors below. Was he still alive? She couldn’t lose him again after she’d just found him.

  Her hands covered her belly protectively. If only she could find a weapon. Lightning flashed outside the window, and thunder trailed it a second later. The room held only Ceol’s inst
ruments. She picked up her fiddle, taking comfort from the smooth wood.

  Think. There had to be some way to reach help. If only there was a signal on her cell phone. Could she creep down the stairs and get to the house phone without being seen by Barry? If she made her way downstairs, she could hide in bedrooms along the way and eventually get to the entry. And Liam.

  It was her only hope.

  Lightning flashed again, and she heard a creak from behind her. She whirled in time to see Barry come up the secret stairway she’d just used. Dirt streaked his face and blond hair. His shirtsleeve was half torn off. His expression was calm and cold.

  “There you are.” The knife was still in his hand, but he held it loosely at his side.

  He must have gotten his other key and gone into the locked room.

  Alanna backed away a few feet. “Barry, I’m sorry I hurt you. Please don’t hurt the baby.”

  He laughed. “I don’t care about your brat.” He took a step toward her. “You’re all I care about, Alanna. You’re mine, no one else’s. I’ve done everything for you, but you still reject me.”

  Her mind spun like a hamster wheel. He said he didn’t care about the baby. Could he have been the one who pushed her down the hill, who put the snake in her bed? “Did you try to make me lose the baby?” she asked.

  He grinned and advanced another step. “Bingo, sugar.”

  The endearment was obscene on his lips. Alanna swallowed down the bile rising in her throat. “Love doesn’t destroy what is important to the other person,” she said softly.

  “I didn’t want you nursing another man’s brat,” he said. “I’ll give you a baby of my own.”

  The very thought nearly made her gag. She retreated another step. “Where is my sister? Did you marry her too?”

  “No.”

  “Where is Neila?”

  His unblinking stare didn’t change. “Part of nature. You have two choices, Alanna. You can join her, or you can let go of your childish devotion to that ridiculous man downstairs.”