Lynn Michaels

by The Dreaming Pool

  “I think I’ll leave the stitches in,” he said, as he disposed of the cotton and the gauze and Eslin scratched her itching scalp. “In a day or two you can probably dispense with the Band-Aid as long as you remember to keep it clean. What are you going to do this afternoon?”

  “Pack,” she answered as she followed him out of the bathroom. “Visit Meringue, try to rest.”

  “I’ll be with Ethan, more than likely. Want the car keys?”

  “Please, if you aren’t going anywhere.”

  “I’m not.”

  He gave her the keys, she thanked him, and he left.

  From her two suitcases Eslin made one. She took jeans, slacks, blouses and sweaters, knee socks, her loafers and boots, and only one skirt and pair of pumps in addition to all the clean underwear she’d brought from home. It was only a little past three when she finished packing, took one of the capsules Doc had given her, changed her clothes, and drove down to Ganymede’s barn.

  Again there was no Gage, just woefully lonely little Meringue, who whinnied happily at the sight of her. Once Eslin had saddled her, she rode the mare slowly around the stables looking for Malachi Broom. She found him scrubbing water buckets outside one of the broodmare barns, waved at him, and dismounted when he smiled and nodded to her.

  “Nice li’l mare,” he said. “ ‘Rabian, ain’t she?”

  “Yes. Malachi, this is Meringue—Meringue, Malachi.” Eslin caught the mare’s reins and scratched the crest of her neck. “Do you have room for her down here, Mal? Ganymede’s barn is very nice, but she’s used to other horses and she’s going stir crazy all by herself.”

  “I think I’ve got a spot for her.” He put down the buckets, motioned for Eslin to follow, and led her into the barn.

  Behind her, Meringue lifted her head, picked up her ears, and tugged Eslin first to the left and then to the right as she touched noses with the mares stabled up and down the length of the corridor. Malachi gave her a roomy, freshly filled box midway down the barn, and once she’d been groomed, fed, and watered, Eslin smiled watching her arch her head over the stall door to get acquainted with her stablemates.

  At least she won’t be lonely while I’m gone, she thought, as she gave Meringue a quick farewell hug and left the barn. Malachi had disappeared, so she walked back to the BMW and drove it up to the house.

  The rest of the afternoon Eslin spent reading in the library. After dinner she played pinochle—what else?—with Doc and Rachel. Neither Ethan nor Gage had come in by the time she went upstairs at ten o’clock and paused on the gallery to look down at the atrium and the silent fountain. As she gazed through the grill at the lilies bobbing almost imperceptibly on the smooth green water, she wondered if the stallion had been turned off since Saturday night.

  By the time Eslin had showered, brushed her teeth, and put on a white nightgown with lace-trimmed straps and blue gros-grain ribbon laced through the drawstring bodice, her headache had come back. The bedside lamp hurt her eyes as she yawned her way to the four-poster with a glass of water and took two more of Doc’s capsules. She turned off the light, sighed with relief as the ache behind her eyes subsided, and stretched out on her back beneath the covers. She wasn’t aware she’d fallen asleep until the dreams started.

  The first thing Eslin recognized was the pool she’d dreamed about on Tuesday night and the high, dusty-leaved trees that sprouted around its edges and rustled in the wind. She heard the same voices laughing in a language she couldn’t identify, recognized the scraping noise, and looked up from her seat on the bench to see a slight brown figure running down the beaten earth path. She couldn’t tell if he was running toward her or away from her, and the harder she tried to concentrate on the figure, the faster it ran until it exploded suddenly inside her head with a noise very like that of glass shattering.

  Shards of the broken pool, the trees, and the running figure spun away from each other, free-falling into another shape. Color splashed across the jagged pieces, brilliant blues and reds that were so bright they made her wince even though her eyes were closed. They swirled violently like a whirlpool, sucking her in.

  At first there were no pictures, no images, just the blindingly vivid colors washing through her. They were loss and loneliness, torment without end, and a blackened, withering, bone-chilling emptiness that suddenly became two shiny, ebony-hard eyes and froze the breath in her lungs.

  They flashed past her, along with a fleeting, mirror-like glimpse of crystalline water tumbling over jeweled green rock. For a split second the cascade thundered in her ears, then exploded in a spray of foam that splashed thin and milky down the flanks of the marble stallion rearing above the pool in the atrium.

  Only his flanks weren’t marble anymore, but a sleek dark bay quivering and alive with muscle and flesh and blood that oozed thick and dark past his hocks. It dripped off his hooves, struck the surface of the lily-dotted pool and leapt up again in spirals of red-gold fire. The stallion screamed through his bared teeth, only it wasn’t just any stallion—it was Ganymede—and the lilies weren’t lilies anymore, but disembodied heads with staring eyes and frozen, horrific expressions. She recognized the faces, opened her mouth to scream—

  But instead she woke up with a jolt, her heart banging against her ribs and her eyes wide and staring. While the dream was still fresh and vivid, Eslin shut her eyes and meditated to memorize every frightening, bloody detail; then she slipped out of bed. The backwash of the outside security lights through the French doors illuminated the room as she crossed it, opened her door, and stepped out into the hall, which was empty but dimly lit by a lamp on a credenza.

  The fountain was still silent, yet she could hear it calling to her in her head. Silently, she padded down the hallway and the first few steps to the gallery. The atrium beneath her was dark except for the reflection of the underwater pool-lights shimmering in pastel shades against the white stucco walls. The tile steps were cold, but Eslin stopped shivering once she’d hurried down the staircase, slid onto a stone bench on one side of the pool, drew her legs up inside her gown, and wrapped her arms around them.

  Leaning her cheek on her knee, she closed her eyes and sighed as her mind absorbed the last terrifying dregs of the dream. Once the frogs and crickets she’d disturbed when she’d come downstairs started chirping and croaking again in the flower wells surrounding the palms, Eslin stretched her legs out on the bench, leaned back on her arms, and gazed at the pool and the fountain. The lilies were just lilies, the stallion nothing but a marble statue.

  This is how things should be, she thought, as she tilted her head back and looked up at the few stars that were visible through the skylight. Her dreams, she reflected, were not unlike Rachel’s tarot cards. In the Celtic layout she’d read for her on Saturday, the sixth position where the Lovers had fallen represented unchangeable future, a thing that would come to her unbidden; but the fifth card signified a possible and therefore changeable future. Just as her dreams did. The Hermit had been in the fifth position in Eslin’s reading, and had suggested the possibility of a journey. That much had come to pass, but now that she’d seen what lay at the end of that journey—what could be—she’d hopefully be able to change it.

  “Don’t jump a foot,” Gage said quietly, “I don’t want to startle you.”

  He did anyway, though Eslin did her best not to scramble as she hastily drew her legs up again and hugged them to her chest with her arms. He stood well away from her at the far end of the bench, in nothing but a faded, nearly threadbare pair of blue pajama bottoms that rode low on his hips and left absolutely nothing to Eslin’s imagination. The bruises on his torso had faded to yellow and green, the tape on his ribs was gray and frayed, but the horseshoe nail wasn’t where it should be, lying slack against his upper chest.

  “I knew you were here,” Gage said, as he sat straddling the end of the bench. “I couldn’t sleep either.”

  “Where’s your neck chain?”

  He looked down as he lifted his right han
d to his throat.

  “Upstairs on my dresser,” he answered, as he lowered his hand and looked at her. “I took it off when I showered. I don’t know why, I usually leave it on.”

  “Did you have the clasp fixed? It was broken when I found it.”

  “Yeah, I did. Wednesday morning, as a matter of fact, after Ethan bailed me out of jail.” He smiled at her. “We happened to drive past a jewelry store and I made him stop.”

  Thank you, God. Eslin sighed with relief.

  The rise and fall of her breasts beneath the thin fabric of her gown, and the outline of her body backlit by the pool lights, tightened the muscles in Gage’s lower abdomen. He felt an erection starting and hastily leaned forward on his arms and the heels of his hands.

  “Last Saturday,” he said, “you asked me why I felt so threatened by psychic phenomena. Now I’ve got a question for you—why do you feel so threatened by me?”

  “I don’t,” she denied quickly; too quickly, Gage thought.

  “C’mon, Eslin, I was straight with you yesterday—I admitted I heard you scream. The least you can do is be honest with me.”

  “You don’t threaten me,” she said slowly, hugging her knees tighter to her chest. “You frighten me.”

  “For God’s sake, why? I’d rather give up ever seeing Ganymede again than hurt you.”

  He meant it. Eslin could see it in the momentary glimpse she had of his aura.

  “I explained all this to you yesterday.”

  “I know,” Gage said, as he inched himself closer to her, “and I’ve tried to do what you asked, I’ve tried not to think about you, to stay out of your head, but it’s driving me crazy. Since last Saturday when I found you in Ganymede’s stall, you’re all I think about—besides Gany you’re the only thing I care about.”

  So that’s it, Eslin thought, as she saw his aura flicker again, that’s the reason he shut down.

  “You’re doing it wrong,” she told him, folding her knees inside her gown as she settled herself Indian style on the bench. “You don’t have to try so hard. It’s very simple, I can teach you—”

  “Wait a minute.” Gage held up one hand to her. “Who said I wanted to learn?”

  Almost instantly she drew her legs up again, and he knew he’d said the wrong thing.

  A backwash of the dream—no, the nightmare—she’d just had welled in the back of Eslin’s mind. If she had the time she could recite Doc’s “Fifty Reasons Why You Should Develop Your Psychic Abilities” lecture to Gage, but Mexico City and Marco Byrne lay only thirty-six hours away. She hated manipulation, but she hadn’t any choice, she told herself, trying to rationalize what she was about to do as she folded her legs beneath her again and leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. The straps of her gown slid off her shoulders, and she watched Gage swallow hard.

  “I’m clairvoyant,” she told him quietly. “I can’t change that any more than I can change the color of my eyes. It’s part of me, it’s part of my life. If you reject that, then you’re rejecting me.”

  It took every ounce of self-control Gage had to keep his hands off the small round breasts he could see inside the gaped front of Eslin’s gown. Her nipples were pink and erect, but he dragged his eyes away from them and looked at her face.

  “Teach me,” he said, his voice low and unsteady.

  “All right,” she said softly, straightening and tugging the straps of her gown into place. “Look at my face.”

  “Gladly.” Gage sighed deeply as he levered himself closer to her.

  “Tell me what you see.”

  “The most beautiful—”

  “Thank you, but don’t look right at me.” Eslin smiled, flushing a little as she pressed her right index finger to her forehead. “Focus your eyes here and don’t blink. When you were a child did you ever stare at the sun until you saw spots in front of your eyes?”

  “Mmmm-hmmm,” Gage murmured, moving himself another inch closer.

  “That’s what I want you to do now. Just look, don’t blink, and then tell me what you see.”

  He did as she instructed, his pupils dilating and his eyebrows furrowing.

  “I see…” he said haltingly, “colors.”

  “Good. That’s my aura. What color is it?”

  “Pink,” he answered. “Kind of a rosy pink.”

  Any second now it ought to be hot pink, Eslin thought, as he moved closer to her and she inhaled the manly fragrance of his warm skin. She could feel her pulse racing and her heart beginning to pound.

  “Any other color?” she asked, her voice thready.

  “No,” Gage said slowly, his eyes still fixed on her forehead, “just pink. It suits you. You looked great in that pink silk blouse you had on today.”

  “Thank you. How do you feel?”

  “Like I’m going to explode any second.”

  Too late, as Gage blinked and closed the gap between them on the bench, Eslin realized that she’d been caught in her own trap again. His hands lifted to the straps of her gown, slid them partway down her arms, then cupped her shoulders.

  “How do you feel?” he asked, lowering his eyes to the soft swells of her breasts.

  ‘The same way,” Eslin admitted, raising her hands and wrapping her shaky fingers around his wrists.

  “Seduction is a dangerous game to play,” Gage said, lifting his eyes to smile at her.

  “But I wasn’t—”

  “But you were,” he corrected her, firmly but gently, as he stroked her collarbones with his thumbs. “More than I want to keep on breathing I want to carry you upstairs to my bed, but I’m not going to. All I’m going to do is kiss you good-night.”

  He did, too, softly, warmly, then leaned away from Eslin and smiled again.

  “I do always get what I want, usually because I just take it, but that’s all I’m going to take from you.” He raised his right hand to her face and traced his thumb across her lips. “You’ll have to give me the rest.”

  Chapter 20

  At nine-thirty Friday morning Doc tucked her suitcase into the trunk, Eslin into the front seat beside him, and pointed the BMW down the road toward the airstrip. On their way downstairs he’d told her Gage was still at the Stables, and that Ethan and Ramón had gone ahead in the Lincoln with Rachel and Josefina.

  That suited Eslin just fine. Between the memory of her nightmare and the unsated ache left by Gage’s kiss, she hadn’t slept much. At least there’d been no more dreams, but it was hardly a consolation. Her headache pounded full force in her temples, and her eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep.

  It serves me right, she thought grumpily, as the BMW broke the crest of a small hill and swooped down the other side into a flat, low stretch of land cut in half by a long and wide strip of runway. At one end of the field sat a white-painted hangar with open doors, and close by on the apron near the Lincoln sat a white Learjet, glimmering in the morning sun. There were two men milling around beside it, and two more ducking under the wings and around the fuselage.

  “What are they doing?” she asked.

  “Preflight check,” Doc answered tightly. “Eslin, I want you to promise me something. If Byrne pulls any fast ones, swear to me that you’ll put yourself and Ramón on the next plane back to Santa Barbara.” He picked up an envelope she hadn’t noticed before from the dash and handed it to her. “Here’s a thousand dollars in traveler’s checks in case you need it.”

  She took the envelope from him and tucked it inside her purse. “What constitutes a fast one?” she asked quietly.

  “Any changes or additions to the conditions he outlined in his letter—or anything else that makes your skin crawl.”

  “What about Ethan and Gage?” She asked, zipping her purse shut. “And Ganymede?”

  “Leave them behind if necessary,” he said flatly, braking the BMW alongside the Lincoln. “They’re big boys, they can take care of themselves.” He notched the gearshift into park and eyed her soberly. “As for Ganymede, he’s only a horse. Valuable as he
is, he isn’t worth—”

  He didn’t finish his sentence, but he didn’t have to. Eslin heard the tail end of it as clearly as if he’d said it out loud: “He isn’t worth a human life.” She remembered her nightmare and felt her hands begin to shake as she looped her purse over her shoulder.

  “And for Josefina’s sake,” Doc added, “keep an eye on Ramón. The kid’s half crazy with guilt over Ganylad. He’s ripe for heroics.”

  “I will,” Eslin promised, the corners of her mouth and her knees trembling as she smiled, opened her door, and rose out of the car.

  Doc retrieved her suitcase from the trunk and carried it to the plane, where Ethan was supervising the loading of the luggage. He waved as he looked up and saw her. She waved back and walked toward the open hatch where Rachel stood, clad in a pink suede blazer and slacks.

  Josefina stood nearby, rattling nonstop at her son in Spanish. Ramón hooked his thumbs through the belt loops of his indigo jeans and looked bored.

  “Where the hell is Gage?” Ethan swore angrily, as he stalked toward them.

  “Oh, calm down,” Rachel snapped irritably, as Doc came up next to her and laid a hand on her shoulder. “You know he’s always late for everything but a race.”

  There was a sudden lull in Josefina’s tirade and both mothers and sons glared at one another. Eslin and Doc exchanged a sympathetic half-smile over the top of Rachel’s head. Ramón broke away from his mother and headed toward the plane. Doc arched an eyebrow at Eslin; she nodded and drifted after him.

  The jet was smaller than she had expected and very sleek, with gold and Kelly-green stripes painted down the hull and Roundtree Stables stenciled in gilt letters near the hatch. The closer Eslin came to it, the faster her heart raced, and she tried not to shiver as a memory of the heads bobbing in the pool flickered in her mind.

  “Have you flown before?” she asked Ramón, as she eased up beside him.

  “Once,” he said flatly, eying her rather warily, Eslin thought.

  “I haven’t—not even once,” she lied with a crooked smile. “I’m a little nervous and I was wondering if I could sit with you.”