Fatal Attractions

by Jeanne Foguth

  Tempest automatically moved into a defensive position. Ariel put her free hand up in surrender. Dear Lord, this was worse than she'd ever imagined. She should have remembered the mother bear was the dangerous one. Whatever was in store for them, it was time to stop running. Ariel focused on Tempest. “Relax.”

  Mrs. O'Banyon leaned against the door making escape and relaxation impossible. "Stonehenge!" She screamed, again. "Gaelic!" Dear Lord, she hadn’t realized Windy had been murdered, too. But of course, she must have been on the Dolly O when it exploded. This was worse than she’d imagined. Mrs. O’Banyon barred the door with her body, as if she intended to fight to the death to prevent the escape of those responsible for her children's' deaths. Fortunately, to do so, she let go of their arms.

  "If we'd known Peter had found us,” Ariel said, as she fought the desire to rub her bruised arm, “we would never have stayed and endangered their lives."

  Tempest dropped her defensive pose and sobbed, "I'm so s-s-sorry." Tempest rubbed her eyes. "It's all my f-fault. If I hadn't wanted to touch a real live glacier..." She fell to her knees and prostrated herself at Stone's mother's feet.

  His mother stared at them, her shocked expression looked as if she was unable to comprehend their regret. Didn't the woman realize that they were suffering, too?

  As Tempest sobbed, Ariel tried to think of words that would express her guilt, her lose, her misery, but all she could think of was the simple truth. "I loved him." The woman nodded and shouted Stone’s name for the third time. From the distant recesses of the house, running footfalls of at least two or three people could be heard. If they all got here, Tempest would never get closure. "Please forgive us," Ariel said. She grabbed Tempest around the waist, hauled her close as she looked for an escape route.

  Mrs. O'Banyon threw her arms around them in a half hug, half grab. "You have to stay."

  "What the heck is going on here?" a man asked from behind them. I had to be Mr. O'Banyon because he sounded amazingly like Stone. Mrs. O'Banyon gestured helplessly. It was enough for them to get free and halfway to the door. Afraid to face a second parent, Ariel yanked open the door, she looked back and shouted, "We're sorry for-" Her eyes locked with the man's stunned blue gaze. She dropped Tempest’s hand as she fainted.

  Chapter 36

  He stared from the crumpled Mexican on the foyer's rug, then looked at his mother’s frazzled expression, as she tried to hold a second scruffy female. When the she lost her hold, his mother knelt next to the women who smelled of grease and cheap soap. His mother rocked back and forth, as if in pain. This was the woman who had been tranquil even when a tornado touched down within fifty feet of the house. The woman who had been calm when her son came home more dead than alive. Her stressed expression stunned him.

  "Mom, what the heck's going on?” Windy shouted from the back hall. “We could hear you all the way out at the duck pond." She sprinted forward, skidding to a stop inches from him then stared open-mouthed at their mother, who wordlessly pointed at the scrawny Mexican, who’d collapsed at her feet.

  The standing one was blubbering incoherently, yet seemed familiar, but he couldn’t recall where he might have met them. Couldn’t identify her from her back. Couldn’t see much of the other one because of his hovering mother. Windy knelt next to her, fingertips searching for a pulse beneath the dirty dark hair, of the one that had landed face down.

  "They're alive," his mother said.

  After assuring herself, Windy turned her attention to the other one, gently touching the kneeling one’s hand. "Breathe in.” The ragged shoulders quivered. “That's it.” She turned, her expression as anxious as their mother’s, as she looked her gaze with his. “Do something.” When he stood there, she snapped, “Now!”

  “Like what?”

  Her look snapped with fury, but instead of screaming at him, she focused on the kneeling one. “Slowly breathe out. Good." Windy glared at him, again, tilting her head in an obvious command to kneel on the other side.

  Muscles protesting, he hunkered down and rolled over the comatose one. A long black wig flopped off to reveal clean, short, dark hair. What the heck? He squinted at her familiar profile. Ariel? No, it couldn't be. She and Tempest had been kidnapped by her stepfather and died in a fiery hell, when Peter Baldwyn crashed his stolen Cessna. He leaned closer. The woman's tan seemed uneven, almost as if it was makeup.

  The smaller one continued to wail. She sounded like Tempest.

  Hoping against hope, he turned the girl around. Black eyes stared at him from an unfamiliar, bloated face. As her gaze focused, white surrounded her irises and she froze in mid-scream.

  "Tempest?"

  "Am I dead?" she whispered.

  He shook his head. What a strange dream. He turned to the other woman, half expecting to shove the wig aside and see something totally incongruous. Something, which would assure him that, he was still dreaming in the hammock. What he saw was a dark, emaciated version of Ariel. A lump was swelling on her forehead.

  Stone grabbed her to him and carried her into the parlor. He laid her on his grandmother's antique chaise, then knelt next to her. A moment later, Tempest snuggled against him. He wrapped his arm around her thin shoulders and hugged her close.

  "Are you really alive?" she whispered.

  He nodded. "Obviously, you are, too." If he'd known there was the slightest chance they hadn't been in the Cessna, he would have moved heaven and earth to find them. "The authorities said that there were at least two bodies in the plane. I thought-" He couldn't go on.

  "What plane?" Tempest frowned. "Sherry said that Father shot you and you died in that ditch. She said she tried to save you, but you didn't have a pulse." She looked at him as if he was Lazarus.

  Windy placed an ice bag over the bump on Ariel's head.

  "They're the ones, aren't they?" his mother asked.

  Throat too tight to speak, he nodded.

  "I'll call the crew and tell them that they can stop looking for DNA of a third person," Windy said. She offered Tempest her hand, "Will you come with me and get some chocolate or something?" Tempest snuggled tighter against him. "Please? I really need to ask you some questions, then Link will want to see –"

  "Is Uncle Link here? He isn't dead, either?"

  "He's out riding wi-"

  Tempest let out a war whoop of sheer joy and vaulted straight up. She danced Windy around in a wildly ecstatic circle that had the fringe on the thick brocade curtains swaying.

  Ariel moaned. Stone adjusted the ice pack. Her eyelashes fluttered.

  His mother’s fingernails dug into his uninjured shoulder. She leaned close, kissed his temple, the whispered, "Don't let her get away. She came here to apologize for everything that weasel did."

  He put his hand over his mother's hand then squeezed her fingers. "She won't get away, again." If the bullet hadn't ripped through his shoulder, smashing bone and rendering him unconscious, they would never have been separated. For a moment, he'd held onto awareness, but there had been more shots fired at close range and someone had fallen on top of him. The doctors said that if he hadn't been in the cold water, he would have bled to death.

  The doorbell chimed. With a final squeeze, his mother left. "I dropped a couple 'Cans off here and they didn't pay me," said a whining voice.

  "Did they have any luggage?" his mother asked.

  Ariel's eyelids opened. For a long moment, she stared at him, then, she closed her eyes and raised her hand to feel the icepack.

  "Ariel." He wished he knew what to say. Her lashes moved as if she'd taken a peak, but didn't want to look at him. "How did you get away from that lunatic?" he asked.

  She looked at him, face white under the ugly yellowish glaze of artificial tan. "I'd think I was dead, except my head is freezing and my back is all prickly."

  "I'm alive." He caressed her face. "I only needed three pints of blood."

  "Only –" She swallowed, then lifted a trembling hand and touched his heart, then tentatively felt for
the bullet wound. She found the scar an inch above his heart. "If I'd known." Tears welled and her dark contacts drifted free. "I would never have left. I would have stayed with you until death."

  He smiled. "Careful, or I'll hold you to that for the next fifty years or so."

  She shook her head. "No. I will not endanger you a second time. If I'd known you were alive-"

  He put his finger over her lips. She kissed it. "Peter Baldwyn and whoever else was with him when they stole our 185 – they crashed it – they’re dead." She stared at him. "It’s over. You're safe." She frowned, as if trying to adjust to the concept. "Ariel, since I'm down on both knees, will you agree be my wife?"

  She inhaled. "You don't even know me. Not the real me. You don't even know what I look like. I've really got blond hair and blue eyes. And-" He placed his finger across her lips.

  “None of that matters. I love you, whatever your name is. I love you whatever you look like."

  Her expression looked as if storm clouds had vanished and the sun appeared. "I love you, too. I have for so long.” Tears welled in her eyes. "You got hurt because of me. Because of Peter's hatred, and … you nearly died. How can you possibly forgive that?"

  "That's all in the past. It's time to make a new future. Take the name O'Banyon and whatever first name makes you happy."

  "You make me happy." The ice bag fell aside as she sat up and threw her arms around him. Her kiss was the only answer he needed and more than he'd ever hoped for. “And I think I like the sound of Ariel O’Banyon – it sounds so much better than Sherry Ann O’Banyon and besides, I don’t think it’s worth going through all the paperwork to go back to my original name.”

  He wrapped her in a bear hug and for the first time in weeks looked forward to the future.