by Dani Harper
By the time help arrived, Jillian was dressed. Sort of. All the clothing in the duffle bag belonged to Connor. The jeans were far too large to be of any real use, so she ignored them. The thick flannel shirt hung just past her knees once she had struggled into it. She’d been forced to let James fasten the buttons and roll the sleeves while she fumed. Her wrist was throbbing and her usually slender fingers felt as thick and ungainly as bananas, useless for anything requiring fine motor skills. She tried to put socks on herself but soon threw them down, swearing.
“Here, let me.” James picked up the big pair of woolen socks and eased them onto her as if she was a child. They went up to her knees, meeting the shirt. He pulled a sling from the first-aid kit and arranged her arm more comfortably, then tucked the blanket back around her just as Connor and Zoey drove up with Birkie.
Chapter Twenty-five
There was no hospital in Dunvegan, and the entire medical clinic would have fit into the livestock wing of the North Star Animal Hospital. In the cramped waiting room, James voiced his opinion that maybe Jillian should be taken to the city for proper treatment, but Birkie just patted his hand and smiled.
“Lowen and Beverly Miller are excellent doctors. I’ve known them for years.”
Connor looked around from behind Zoey, who was sitting in his lap. “Give yourself some credit for being a pretty good medic yourself, James. They took an X-ray of Jillian’s wrist and decided to plaster right over what you’d already done. Lowen said he couldn’t improve on how well those bones were set.”
James said nothing, just kept watching the door, feeling his patience wearing thin with waiting. He wanted to see Jillian. Period. He knew she was all right, yet he needed to see for himself, see that she was alive and well. It could be a long time before he got his fill of seeing her, of hearing her talk. Hell, of listening to her breathe. It had been close, much too close. The entire drive to Dunvegan he’d been thinking about what could have happened, and thanked the heavens over and over that he had been in time.
When the doctors emerged, they didn’t have a chance to say a word before James was out of his chair and in the doorway of the treatment room. Jillian was sitting in a chair, dressed in green hospital scrubs and booties.
“New duds?”
“Yeah, they loaned me a set to go home in. I think I like the blue ones we’ve got at the clinic better.”
“I don’t know. These kind of bring out your eyes.” They did, too. Her short blond hair stuck out in all directions; her faery features were obscured by bruising and swelling. James would bet money that she’d have two shiners by the next day, and still those sea-green eyes arrested him.
“Ha. I think I’d have to wear red to bring out my eyes at the moment.”
“Jillian, we need to talk.” He wasn’t sure what he was going to say, how he was going to explain, but he knew he had to make a start somewhere.
“No.” She shook her head carefully but kept a hand on it as if to brace it for the movement. “No, we don’t. Please. I really do appreciate what you did for me tonight. Thanks for the underwater rescue and the first aid.” She waved her cast at him. “The doctors say you’re a natural. Guess you have another career to fall back on if you get tired of farming.”
“Guess so. Look Jillian, I’m sorry that I—”
“Don’t. I mean it.” The light tone vanished from her voice, and her delicate mouth was set in a straight line.
Jesus Murphy, what am I doing? “I should have thought. It’s not a good time. I’ll wait a couple days until you’ve had a chance to rest. But I have things I need to say to you.”
“No, James. You already said them. You’re not interested and that’s that. I don’t want you to feel sorry for me and think you should hang around.”
“It’s not like that.”
“No? Let me tell you what it’s not going to be like. It seems to be very trendy to have sex and then just be friends, but I’m not wired that way. So let’s just say a nice, clean goodbye, okay? End of story. And as for tonight, thanks again for what you did for me, but I have other people to help me now.” She rose and headed for the door. Waited with folded arms for him to move out of the way. “I’m really tired, James, and I’m going home with Birkie now.”
“I’ll call you.” He felt like the ground was crumbling away from under his feet.
“I don’t want you to. Goodnight.”
“But—” She had already brushed past him and gone out into the waiting room. Head reeling, James watched Zoey wrap a blanket around her and Connor offered an arm for support. With Birkie leading the way, the four of them headed out the door, and he followed.
“You coming, James?” Connor called over his shoulder. “We’re just going to drop these gals off and then head home.”
No. No thanks. He used mind speech because a hand seemed to have tightened around his throat. Jillian was alive. She was all right. And she was dismissing him.
The truck headed south on the main street. James turned and walked north. He could feel the wolf stirring within. The further he walked, the more restless, almost anxious the wolf became. Stop it, you dumb animal. She doesn’t want us. Get the picture? The wolf settled reluctantly, and James could almost swear he heard it whimper. Hell, he felt like whimpering too. This is wrong, this is all wrong. Shit!
He reached the edge of town and kept walking until the paved road gave way to gravel. The thumbnail moon was out, a silver scythe in a field of stars. Farms became forest, and soon James left the roadway and entered the trees. He paused beneath a giant spruce, breathing in the rich scents of the woods at night. And called the Change to take him.
He had almost forgotten what it was like to Change on purpose, to be both wolf and man, aware and in control, to lope through the forest in his lupine form, liberated, exhilarated. He nosed along a game trail, picked up the spoor of deer and gave chase until he had brought down an old doe. He feasted on the hot, fresh meat, replenished his starved cells, fueled his rapid metabolism. Drank deep from a cold mountain-fed stream.
The sheer freedom should have brought him joy, but James’s heart was a lead weight in his chest. He thought about heading back to Connor’s farm. Instead, he made his way to Elk Point. On a great slab of stone overlooking the river valley, he laid his head on his paws with a very human sigh. He had no idea how to get Jillian to listen to him. Nor did he have any idea what he wanted to say to her if he could. All he could think was that it was over between them, that he had ended the relationship almost before it had begun. He should be glad for that, shouldn’t he? She would be much better off without him, safer. I didn’t want to endanger her, didn’t want her to become a target by hanging around with a Changeling. Looks like I got my goddamn wish.
But how would he watch over her, protect her, when she didn’t even want him around? And how would he be able to see her and not want her?
The moon dipped lower in the sky. The white wolf pointed his long muzzle toward it and howled, a long mournful drawn-out note that carried across the entire valley, echoing off the cliffs across the river. His battered heart found expression but not solace in the song, and he howled and howled again until all the real wolves in the area were compelled to join him.
Dawn gilded the eastern horizon when James finally walked up the long lane of the Macleod farm, his boots crunching in the gravel. He still didn’t trust his wolfen self to stay away from Jillian so he’d returned to human form when he’d left Elk Point. He’d hoped that the lengthy walk on two legs would help him think things through, but he had only come to the same conclusion as before. He had completely ruined things with Jillian and wished he hadn’t. Wished there had been some other way . . .
Heavy-hearted, he walked past the trees in front of Connor’s house. Past the barns and the sheds and the corrals to the house, his house now, hidden in a thick stand of mixed poplar and spruce on the south side of the property. James closed the door behind him, still very much aware of the action. He wondered if somed
ay he’d walk in and shut the door without even thinking about it. Would he ever be that comfortable in his human skin again?
It was cool but not cold in the house—it was June after all—but he built a fire anyway. Just for the ambience he supposed. There’s a real human attribute. One point for me. In truth, he couldn’t care less about how human he was, just as long as the damn wolf wasn’t in control. That was all that really mattered, wasn’t it? James sat heavily on the couch and stared at the fire for a long time, willing himself not to fall asleep. The very last thing he wanted to do was dream of Jillian again.
When the fire finally burned down to ashes and went out, James dreamed not of Jillian, but of Evelyn.
He was on his hands and knees weeding Connor’s sprawling front garden. And suddenly she was next to him, planting tiny new bulbs among the tall purple irises and sprays of golden daylilies. In the arbitrary reality of dreams, it seemed completely normal for her to be there. Of course she was there. Where else would Evelyn be?
“What are you doing?” she asked him.
“Gardening.”
“No, silly. What are you doing about Jillian?”
“Nothing. I ended it.”
“Did she want to end it?”
“She does now.”
“But she didn’t before?”
“I never asked her.”
“That’s not very fair, James,” she chided gently. “You haven’t even given her a chance.”
“I can’t give her a chance. It’s too dangerous.”
“Dangerous for who, James?”
“Something could happen to her. Someone might find out what I am and then she’d be a target.”
“You don’t want what happened to me to happen to her.”
“Not to her, not to anyone. I can’t do that to someone again, Evie. Not again.”
“You’ve always had that overactive sense of responsibility. Remember how I used to tease you about that?” She planted the last bulb and laid her hand over his. “What happened to me wasn’t your fault, James. It was never your fault.”
“I should have protected you. I should have been stronger, I should never—”
“Never have fallen in love with me? Never have tried to make a life with me?”
His heart twisted painfully within him. “At least you’d still be alive.”
“Maybe. And maybe not. A million things could happen to any one of us on any given day. If I had been hit by a bus or struck by lightning, would you shoulder the responsibility for that too?”
He didn’t know how to answer.
“Are you sorry you loved me?”
“What? God, no. I . . . Evelyn, you were the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me.”
“But when I died, it was the worst thing that ever happened to you. Maybe you would have been better off never knowing me.”
“No.” His voice was firm with conviction. “No, I can’t be sorry for that, I can’t wish that. We didn’t have very long together, but every moment meant something to me.”
She smiled at him then, that beautiful beaming smile of hers that seemed lit from within. “Well, silly, I’m not sorry for loving you, either. Think about that. And think about Jillian again. I like her. And you like her too.”
“Jesus, Evelyn.”
She laughed at his discomfort. “If you love Jillian, it doesn’t take anything away from me, you know. I wish you’d give her a chance, give yourself a chance.”
He shook his head. “I won’t put her in harm’s way like that.”
“You keep saying that. You think that someone might hurt her because of what you are.”
He nodded, then frowned when she shook her head.
“You haven’t considered that Jillian spends a lot of time with Changelings already. She works for Connor, lives in his clinic, represents him every time she goes on a farm call, is associated with him by the entire community,” Evelyn explained carefully as if to a child. “Not only that, she sat with Culley and Devlin at the Jersey Pub one night, and went shopping with Kenzie only last week. She eats at the Finer Diner regularly, and Bill and Jessie invited her to their home. It seems to me that whether you’re in her life or not, James, she’s already surrounded by Changelings.”
It had never even crossed his mind. How could he not have noticed, how could he have been so stupid? Someone could be out there, watching Jillian, homing in on her. Suddenly a new thought occurred to him, a way to head off the danger. “Evelyn, tell me who it was. Tell me who—” Shot you. Murdered you. He couldn’t make himself say it aloud.
“I don’t know everything, James. Only the things that are important.”
“This is important.” He hadn’t seen the intruders. Didn’t know if there were a dozen or only one. He couldn’t even guess at a suspect. Neither could anyone else. The fire effectively destroyed any evidence the police might have used, and heavy rain washed away any trail so that even a Changeling could not follow. But what about Evelyn—had she seen, had she known? “This is goddamn important.”
“Not as much as you think, hon. Vengeance won’t bring you peace.”
“I was thinking more of a preemptive strike. That’ll bring me plenty of peace.”
She shook her head. “Try mercy instead.”
Mercy. James was appalled by the notion. How could she say such a—
She pointed to the ground. “Do you know what I’ve planted here?”
“Evelyn, please.” He didn’t want to talk about gardening, but her expression was serious. Reluctantly, he recalled the tiny bulbs she’d been working with. “Um, crocuses?”
“Lily of the valley. Lots and lots of it. Tell me what you think of that.”
For her sake, he tried. “I guess those will look nice here, but it’s already mid-summer. It’ll take a long time before these little bulbs really take hold, maybe another year before there are any blossoms.” James considered. “Connor will like it, though. Lord knows he needs flowers that come up by themselves. I just don’t understand how he can be so great with animals and so terrible with plants. Zoey, now, there’s hope for her but she’s busy—”
“It’s not for Connor and Zoey, hon. I planted these especially for you. Don’t you know what it means? You used to know a lot about flowers and their language. You said your grandmother taught you.”
“She did.” In fact, he had used that long-ago knowledge to compose the bouquet for Jillian. He searched his mind and came up blank. “I can’t seem to remember this one.”
“Lily of the valley means the “return of happiness.” That’s why I picked it for you, James. It’s time. Your time.”
“Evelyn, I—”
He awakened then, to find the morning sun gilding the stones on the cold fireplace and his face wet. God. Dear God. He felt off-balance, both comforted and shaken. Part of him wanted to linger in the glow of the dream, and the other part wanted to get to work on something, anything, that would ground him. Eventually the desire for solid reality won out, and James forced himself to get up and get moving.
Still, the effects of the dream lingered. Frequently throughout the day, he found himself having to run a sleeve over his eyes. It had been so good, so damn good to see Evelyn, to see her whole and smiling. To see her long dark hair glinting in the sunshine, see her in her favorite gardening clothes—faded jeans and one of his shirts with the sleeves rolled up a half dozen times. A smudge of dirt on her face and laughter in her dark eyes. Just hearing her voice had eased something inside him.
Later, when the initial glow had worn off, he remembered that she’d spoken about Jillian and a terrible suspicion formed. Please don’t let my wolf have anything to do with this. That’s all he needed was to have his furry alter ego try to further its goals by invading his dreams, by planting images of the one person he was most likely to listen to. It couldn’t do that, could it? What if the comforting dream, in which Evelyn was so vital and alive, was tainted? Fixed? Nothing more than lupine propaganda?
Christ, I’m getting paranoid. He was the wolf and the wolf was him. Still, his animal side had acted on its own more than once, and there was no denying it was totally devoted to Jillian. Maybe his wolfen self was really his own subconscious—and the dream just a product of his own desires.
And maybe he was losing his goddamn mind . . .
Luckily there was no lack of farmwork to bury himself in, no shortage of tasks big and small to occupy his time and his thoughts. He spent most of the day plowing under the entire section of old alfalfa to enrich the soil, and had passed Connor’s house only briefly. Hadn’t noticed anything different. But late in the afternoon, after he brought grain to the horses in the front paddock, he caught a glimpse of something white in the gardens flanking Connor’s steps. Mounds of white, low to the ground, almost like snow heaped amongst the sword-like iris leaves and the clusters of yellow daylilies. What the hell? Furious that his black-thumbed brother had carelessly dumped something on the garden, James stalked over to see—and the empty feed buckets dropped from his hands.
Lily of the valley was everywhere. Barely eight inches tall, the tiny white bells on delicate stems massed above broad emerald leaves, crowding between the irises and the daylilies, spilling out of the garden in such abundance that the little plants were even coming up through the cracks in the walkway, pushing through the gravel driveway, marching across the lawn. Lily of the valley was a spring flower and preferred shade—yet the miniature plants sat in the hot June sun looking fresh and dewy, as out of place as roses in a desert.
Stunned, James sank to his knees between the forgotten buckets. He had worked the soil between the neglected daylilies and irises by hand, knew for a fact, knew, there were no other bulbs of any kind in the garden. He had weeded only two days ago. The rich dark earth had been bare when he was done. There had been nothing there, nothing at all.
Evelyn.
He remained motionless for a long time, not daring to move, hardly daring to breathe, in case the beautiful apparition vanished. It wasn’t until a breeze picked up and wafted among the diminuitive blossoms, making them bob and sway, that James ventured to touch one. He could feel the tiny stalk with its bell-like blooms, cool and fresh. Real. Suddenly he leaned into the flowers, gathering a great armful of them. Clutching them to his chest, he bent his head and inhaled great lungfuls of the scent again and again. He crushed handfuls of the delicate bells to his face where their essence mingled with tears. The delicate sweet scent seemed to wrap itself around his aching heart like a healing balm, bringing a powerful peace.
