by Sylvie Kurtz
He raised his hand and brought it down in a swift arc. Something hard cuffed her temple. Stars danced before her eyes. A leaden feeling weighed her down.
Everything went black.
When she came to again, Eclipse’s familiar back trembled beneath her. Moaning, she opened her eyes. Her head pounded in a slow piercing rhythm. Her arms were bent behind her, her wrists bound together with rough rope. Her swelling shoulder throbbed in excruciating pain. Her stomach cramped in a twisting inferno.
“Welcome back, sugar. You wouldn’t want to miss your own party.”
As she jerked her head toward the sound of the voice, the rope around her neck abraded her skin.
“Whoa, there. Take it easy. It’s not quite time yet for you to go away.”
She followed the dark slinky line to the canopy of an oak that hung over her. A helpless cry was torn from her lips. She was going to die and she’d never even lived. “Please…”
The bitter odor of gasoline filled her nostrils. A quick scraping sound. Sulfur wafted onto the air. A flame burst and seemed to spring from the tips of his fingers. The flame danced there for a moment, then gyrated downward with his hand.
“Nothing like a good old-fashioned witch hunt to bring a community together.”
The flame hesitated, then leaped. It raced in an arc, first one way, then the other. Soon he stood on one side of a circle of fire and she on the other. His face in the wavering light mutated into the monsters camouflaged in her paintings. Smoke caressed her skin. Heat lapped at her, kissing the scars on her cheek and neck. Old terror and new terror fused, paralyzing her.
“When the fireworks start, you’ll have an audience,” he said, shrinking back into the night. “No one should have to die alone. Not even a witch.”
Fire crept inward toward the tails of rockets poised at the sky. Her heart pounded. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. Her body quivered like a flag slapped by a storm. Eclipse pranced beneath her, tightening the rope around her neck.
She let out a scream that echoed around her like a nightmare.
Chapter Seventeen
Knowing her habits, Tyler followed the probable path of Melissa’s ride, hoping he’d get to her before Ray.
Ahead a circle of flames flared against the night sky, illuminating the macabre scene next to the playground. An old oak, canopy spread, guarded the area. From one of its sturdy branches hung a rope. It wound around a body, propped on a horse. Against the stark light, the stallion’s eyes seemed to glow red, his nostrils to breathe fire, his snapping feet to melt. The horse’s nervous jitter jostled the body on his back. If he spooked…
A spear of pure terror gored through Tyler.
Melissa.
No more than the length of a soccer field separated him from the horror, but the distance seemed infinite.
Tyler shook away the image of Lindsey’s limp body in his arms, of the red blood staining the bodice of her white dress. He cranked the Jeep off the road and sped across the field to the picnic pavilions dotting the playground area. The Jeep skidded when he failed to slow down to cross an access road. He drove as close to the fire as he dared, afraid to speed through the flames for fear of frightening Eclipse.
At the sandbox he slammed on the brakes with the sick certainty that he was too late. Her body was so still. Leaving the engine running, he snagged the knife from the glove compartment and bolted out of the Jeep and dashed toward the fire.
A godawful cry ripped through the night, tearing at him like the hounds of hell shredding carrion.
The jackhammer of his heart redoubled. She was alive. “Melissa, hang on!”
Flames crackled and hissed. Heat throbbed, repulsing him in breath-stealing waves. A hole. He had to find a hole.
“Melissa! Talk to me, Melissa.”
A murmur reached him, its soft, calming tone out of place alongside the raging inferno. She was trying to keep Eclipse quiet.
“That’s it,” he said. “Keep him calm. Keep him quiet. I’m coming for you, Melissa. Hang on.”
Tyler drew his T-shirt over his head and wrapped it around his nose and mouth.
“Tyler! Behind you!”
Melissa’s warning hit him at the same time as the blow. It came out of nowhere, smacking him on the back of the head, forcing him to his knees. A brilliant light played in front of his eyes, then blinked out like dead fireflies.
“To your left!” Melissa yelled.
Rolling, Tyler put his arms up defensively and caught the next strike on the elbow. Prickly splinters raced up his arm like a march of frenzied ants. Blindly Tyler swung the knife, heard the rip of material, felt the warm wetness of blood.
Springing to his feet, Tyler swayed dizzily. He shook his head to clear it and charged at the shadow stumbling backward. Lurching like a drunk, he rushed his attacker. His knife connected with the body, taking them both down.
The man cried out. Hands scored at Tyler. He twisted to one side, out of their reach. For the first time Tyler saw the man’s face and recognized him as Ray, the goon who’d held Melissa at knifepoint.
Growling like a crazed bear, Ray frantically grabbed the knife buried in his gut and pulled on it. The blade slipped free and fell to the ground. Springing to his feet, Tyler grabbed the bloody knife, then crouched in a defensive posture. Ray staggered to his feet. Blood covered his hands and seeped through his splayed fingers. He plugged the gushing hole with the other hand.
Then bellowing like a dying bull, he charged Tyler.
MELISSA SCREAMED. She couldn’t stop. Eclipse grew more frantic beneath her. The rope at her neck chaffed, tightened. The tongues of flame sucked up more of Ray’s fuel, stealing closer and closer, their roar almost deafening. Any second now the rocket’s tails would catch and she wouldn’t be able to hold Eclipse still in the booming thunder of the fireworks.
Tyler and Ray tumbled into the darkness. The grunts and groans of their scuffle added a grim counterpoint to her own helpless cries.
He was gone. She couldn’t see him. Tyler, Tyler, Tyler. Just like her mother, he was a prisoner in the darkness. Trussed in Sable’s arms as a child, on Eclipse’s back now, she couldn’t reach them. All she could do was cover the sound of their dying with her own anguish. Mama! “Tyler!”
Suddenly Eclipse’s hindquarters dipped down. He surged forward, leaping over the flames. Her scream froze, stolen by pure terror as she felt herself fall and the rope choke her.
The expected neck-breaking jerk never came. Instead, hands closed around her, holding her tight. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
Tyler.
Shaking uncontrollably, Melissa melted against him. Her silent scream turned to racking sobs. She cried as he cut her down from the tree. She cried as he freed her hands and her knees buckled. She cried as he lifted her into his arms, then murmured calming words in her ear while they ran through fire.
Pain rolled through her in acute waves—throat, shoulder, stomach—curling her into a fetal position. Rockets winged skyward, whistling before exploding in a shower of color. Eclipse took off toward home safe.
“You’re hurt,” Tyler said as he gently placed her into the Jeep. “You’re bleeding.”
“The baby,” she cried, and a new wave of fear swamped her. The nightmare kept pressing on. She’d lost her mother. She’d lost Tyler. She was losing her baby, their baby. “The baby, Tyler, our baby.”
“Hang on, sweetheart. I’ll get you to a hospital.”
But it was too late; she could feel her baby leaving, her soul dying.
SHE WAS A CORPSE in a world that had become dead.
News rolled off her like rain on a window. Ray was dead. Randall was facing bankruptcy and jail. Sable couldn’t apologize enough for her part in all this mess. None of it mattered.
Even dreams no longer offered Melissa a refuge from the pain. In those black folds she relived her baby’s death time and again, and the anguish of it never abated. Even Tyler’s forgiveness of her lie didn’t matter.
Ray had done what he’d set out to accomplish. He’d stolen what she’d most desired.
The baby had been her last hope for happiness. She’d clung to that dream like the last leaf on an autumn branch, daring the wind to sweep it away. Then suddenly it was taken from her in a single breath.
She was hopelessly empty and always would be. Her spirit snapped like a twig on the edge of winter.
There was no reason left to live.
“I’M NOT SUPPOSED to just marry, Melissa,” Tia said as she plumped Melissa’s pillow. “I’m supposed to marry rich.”
Tia flopped on the side of the bed, setting off a wave of pain that rippled from head to toe. Melissa clung to the sheet with her free hand and cushioned her stabilized shoulder against the pillow. The last thing she wanted was a ray of Tia sunshine. Her sister’s bubbly efforts to draw her out only deepened her anguish.
“Well, where was love in all of that?” Tia asked. “I wanted it all—love and money.”
“Sometimes you have to make choices.” And it seemed to Melissa that she’d made all the wrong ones. For twenty years, she’d made nothing but mistakes.
“Yes, well, I learned that, didn’t I?” Tia reached for the brush on the bedside table and ran it through a lock of Melissa’s hair. “On the surface Drake was everything I wanted and everything Mother wanted. I hate her for what she did to you—for what she did to me. But you know what?”
Tia paused. Naturally she expected an answer. “No, what?” Melissa asked with effort.
“I’m glad Drake happened. I learned something about myself because of him.” Fussing like a hyperactive nurse, Tia rounded the bed and brushed the hair on Melissa’s other side.
Melissa curbed the urge to swat at her sister’s well-meaning fussing. “And what would that be?”
“That I have more to offer than money.”
“I’ve been telling you that for years.”
“Yes, well, now I can see it.” She paused, brush in midair. “I met someone yesterday.”
Melissa’s effort at a laugh sounded like a seal bark. “Another true love?”
“Even better—a purpose.”
Melissa looked at Tia for the first time since she’d entered the hospital room. There was a glow in her sister’s cheeks, a brightness in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. “A purpose?”
“I’m going to stay with you after you get out of here, then I’m going back to school. I’m going to make something of my life.”
“Good for you.” Melissa glanced at the clock, wishing for the end of visiting hours.
“When I went to Christie’s—you know, the image consultant—house to pay her, she was talking to a friend and her friend, was showing her pictures.”
“Mm.” Melissa was fast losing interest. Tia’s world of beauty was still a galaxy from hers.
“I want you to meet her.”
The only person she wanted to see was Tyler, but the doctor wouldn’t let her out of bed for another day. Tia had told her he was in the hospital and brought her daily reports on his condition. Burned on both arms. She knew that pain. “I’m not up to visitors—”
“Gina—that’s Christie’s friend—she’s an aesthetic rehabilitation specialist. You should see what she did with this woman. She’d lost her eyebrows and eyelashes and her skin was all blotched from a house fire. The woman was black so the discoloration showed even more than it does on your skin. Gina used this special makeup, and I couldn’t believe the difference. Not perfect, mind you, but enough to shift attention from this woman feeling as if she was being defined by her scarred face to being defined for who she is. It was a miracle, Mel, a real miracle. And I want to make miracles like that happen.”
Tia finished plaiting Melissa’s hair into a single braid and tied a lawn-green ribbon at the end. Then she sat on the bed hip to hip with Melissa and took her hand. If the squeeze was too hard, it wasn’t malicious. The fervor in Tia’s eyes almost made Melissa believe in miracles.
“I don’t want any other little girl to go through what you’ve gone through, Mel. It makes sense when you think about it. What do I know? Beauty. All my life I’ve been trained to look beautiful. Now I’ll be able to give that gift to those who really need it.”
The ice around Melissa’s heart softened. “Oh, Tia…”
“And when you’re ready,” Tia added softly, “I’ll take you to Gina.”
Melissa’s lips trembled. She didn’t have the heart to tell Tia that she might never be ready. With Tyler and the baby gone, she had no reason to care.
“I’M SO SORRY for your loss,” Freddy said. He stood at the door of her hospital room, looking both confident and scared. She’d seen his picture on the editorial page of his magazine, but of course, that was posed to make him look like a serious businessman. Tonight the soft contours of his face reminded her of her mother, and the heart she’d thought too bruised to feel contracted.
After a long while, she nodded, accepting his condolences.
“May I come in?”
She shrugged, not quite knowing how to breach the wide gulf between them.
“I…” he started, then cleared his throat. “I owe you more than an apology.”
She turned her head away, staring at the dull blue sky through the window. She’d been so stubborn, so hard. She’d closed so many things, so many people out of her life. “No, you tried, and I didn’t give you a chance.”
He fidgeted with the magazine in his hands. “I brought you something.”
She waved vaguely at the chair already piled with magazines and books Tia had provided.
As he walked toward her, he thumbed through the pages. He folded the magazine over and placed it in Melissa’s hands. “Read this.”
Noticing Tyler’s byline, Melissa let the magazine fall on her lap. “My eye hurts.”
“Long ago,” Freddy said as he sat in the chair beside the bed, “I told the world I stood for truth, but when it came to you, I turned a blind eye.” Gaze on the floor, he shook his head. “I didn’t have time for an eight-year-old girl who was in physical and mental pain. The truth is, I didn’t have the heart for it. Sable kicked me out and I didn’t fight back. I let myself believe that your family would take care of you. I let you down.” He put the magazine back in her hand. “I have a son. I understand now how much you needed someone on your side.” Frowning, he shook his head. “I can never repay—”
“It was a long time ago,” she said.
He pointed at the article. “Read it.”
Melissa looked stubbornly through the page until the print grew fuzzy.
“I want to see those eyes moving. Read every word.” He tapped the print with a sausagelike finger. “I’m not leaving until you do.”
Melissa closed her eyes, then opened them, refocusing on the print. “Seduction of the Beast.”
A great sob tore from her. She lifted her hand to throw the glossy magazine across the room. Freddy stayed her hand.
“Read it,” Freddy said. “It’s not about you.”
Swallowing hard, she let her eyes catch the first word and glide on to the next. Soon she was caught in the poetry of the confession, in the beauty of his prose.
Tears streamed down her face, and the page blurred once more. Tyler had portrayed himself as the beast, not her. The ice in her frozen heart cracked.
“He sees me.” He didn’t see the witch or the scars. He saw the woman. He saw her. She covered her mouth with a hand to stifle another round of tears.
“He does. So much it hurts him.”
She turned her teary gaze to Freddy. “I’ve lost him for nothing.”
Freddy closed his fingers around hers. “It’s not too late, but the next move is yours.”
THEY TOLD HIM he was good to go. He didn’t feel good enough or ready to go anywhere. But Freddy would be here in a few minutes and he would need reassurance that Tyler wasn’t going to closet himself in his apartment praying to the god of whiskey.
He sense
d someone at the door. Plastering a smile on his face, he turned from his task of stuffing his belongings in the duffel bag on his bed and looked up. “Fred—”
He stopped short at the sight of Melissa standing there. Her green dress reflected the color of her eyes and hugged feminine curves that could make him salivate even through the pain of the second-degree burns on his arms. The sling supporting her dislocated shoulder added an awkward, yet endearing touch to her appearance. She had never looked more beautiful.
“Hi,” she said. Her smile held a mixture of anticipation and measured reserve.
He tried to respond, but his tongue was too thick and his throat too dry.
“I just came from seeing Grace.”
“How is she?” he asked, pulling the zipper tight on the duffel.
Her smile hiked up. “Making demands and bossing everyone around. She’ll be her old self in no time.”
“That’s good news.”
“Yes.” She pressed her lips tightly together and her eyes became shiny with tears. “I’m sorry about the baby. I’m sorry I lied to you about being fertile. I’m sorry…” She glanced at her tightly clasped hands and frowned. “I didn’t deserve to be a mother.”
He started to reach for her, then dropped his hand. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not?” Her head shot up and her eyes blazed in fury. “It’s the truth. I lied to you. I made this baby on a falsehood. How could it possibly grow into a strong child in that kind of soil? A child grows out of love, and I made this one based on my own selfish desires.”
“It takes two to make a child.” He wanted to touch her. He wanted to hold her. He wanted to tell her he still wanted a child with her. But he had to let her find her own way back to him for her to trust in a future together. “What Ray did to you wasn’t your fault.”
She looked down again, nodding in a way that said her head understood, but her heart still needed time. “I gave the castle away.”
That surprised him. “Why? It’s your home.”
She shook her head. “It’s dead and…” She lifted her slinged arm. “I’m a little battered, but I’m still alive. It’s time I tried living in the real world.”
