Immortal Trust

by Claire Ashgrove

  “I’m not dressed for work. My jeans are clean and these are my good…” She glanced down at her feet. Despite her efforts, the hem of her jeans darkened with wetness, and the fawn-colored toe of her suede boots was now a telltale shade of dirt-brown. So much for staying dry. She heaved a sigh. “Good shoes,” she mumbled.

  Her intentions foiled, she dragged her trailing leg forward and plunked it into a drift. “You could have warned me we’d be wading through drifts as deep as my calves.”

  Grumbling at him did nothing to erase his amused smirk. If anything, it deepened his chuckle. He turned and continued down the path, calling over his shoulder, “Would you prefer I carry you?”

  That smirk goaded her. Struck by sheer mischief, she reached down, swept up a handful of snow, packed it as tightly as she could, and launched it at Lucan’s broad shoulders. She missed by several inches. Wet, sticky snow exploded on the back of his head.

  Chloe let out a squeak and froze, shocked at what she’d just done.

  * * *

  Lucan stumbled to a stop. God’s teeth, she had not just …

  Disbelieving, he turned to find her rooted in place, her hand over her mouth, eyes as wide as if she had just witnessed a demon. He blinked, dumbfounded, as he processed the reality that she had, indeed, smacked him in the head with a snowball.

  “I’m sorry!” she blubbered as her own shock fell away. “Oh God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  Lucan swept up the largest handful of snow he could find and lobbed it across the narrow distance separating them. It struck her in the chest, at the base of her neck, sending chunks of wetness splattering into her face. At her stunned expression, his laughter burst free.

  But he was unprepared for her to gather her senses and retaliate so quickly. He barely had time to duck behind a neighboring bush before her next missile sailed past the place where he had been standing.

  When he returned fire over the top of the evergreen, a full-scale war began.

  She took cover behind a thick tree trunk, her laughter joining his as they sought to claim victory over the other. The ground between them became no-man’s-land, and had any of his brothers stumbled onto this scene, they would not have recovered from the shock of his childish antics. But Lucan had not played in eons. Not since his youngest brother had toddled on his heels, taunting Lucan away from chores at every opportunity. And the freedom he experienced, the jubilation that lighted his heart with each laughing squeal from her when he hit his mark, erased centuries of darkness from his soul.

  Naught could have made their outing to Picardie more enjoyable or more memorable.

  When he was quite thoroughly soaked, he edged around the bush, eyeing her reinforced position behind the tree. She held advantage—he could not clear the distance between them without leaving himself wide open. The laughter that refused to let him clear his head and breathe normally gave her additional superiority. He could not cease no matter how he tried.

  ’Twas nothing for it, ’twas time for his impish seraph to lose.

  With one burst of speed, he shot across the open ground. She pelted him with every other stride. His thighs, his calves, his chest were all fair game. And his laughter rumbled louder. Hers rang through the air, giggles and shouts of triumph that satisfied more than any victory bellow.

  But when he cleared the distance and darted behind her shelter, she let out a squeak and took off running. Lucan gave chase, lunging after her with a false growl. A deep bank of snow became her undoing, snagging her foot, catching her unprepared, and sending her stumbling.

  He could not stop his own momentum. His fingers latched onto her arm in the same instant, propelling her forward though she had nowhere to go.

  They fell together in the snow, amusement falling freely from their lips. He pinned her in place, set his elbows at her shoulders, and gazed down into her twinkling eyes. “Surrender,” he ordered, grinning.

  Beneath him she panted for breath. Another giggle slid past her rosy lips, and she wrested her arms free to loop them about his neck. “You cheated.”

  Lucan scoffed. “I did no such thing. I merely sought to eliminate the threat.” By the saints, in all his existence he had never witnessed a more beautiful sight. Her long hair clung to her head in places. Snowflakes glistened across her cheeks. And her eyes … the sparkle there erased all that divided them, showing him a glimpse of how life might be if naught placed them at odds. His heart swelled painfully.

  As if the same depth of feeling crept over her, Chloe’s smile dimmed. The light in her eyes shifted, teasing fading into … affection. Lucan’s lungs knotted together as silence blanketed them. Her breath curled around him. Beneath him, the warmth of her body erased the wintry chill.

  “Lucan?” she whispered.

  “Aye?” His own voice hoarsened.

  Chloe did not answer. Her eyes held his as the slight pressure of her fingertips increased against the back of his neck.

  CHAPTER 28

  Chloe held her breath. Not that she could speak if she wanted to—the way Lucan was looking at her made her throat too tight for words. And the way she felt right now, tucked into his arms in a pile of snow, made thought impossible. All she knew was that she never wanted his smile to stop.

  He dipped his head and every particle of her being tensed in anticipation. When his lips brushed hers, contentment flooded her senses. Despite all the logical reasons she shouldn’t get tangled up in him, this felt right. His mouth gently taking hers. The sweep of his tongue as she parted her lips and opened to his kiss. The way one of his hands slid into her hair and his fingertips pressed against her scalp.

  Not just right … incredible.

  She didn’t feel the cold, despite the fact her backside was soaked. No, she knew only the heavenly feel of his body weighing into hers, warming her somehow from the inside out. Barriers fell away as time stood still. Bit by bit she felt him battering through walls she no longer wanted to reinforce and creeping into her heart.

  He laughed, he played, and yet there was no mistaking he was indeed a man, not a boy who knew nothing about life. He knew how to give pleasure, and moments ago she had witnessed how he received it as well. The simple kind, as well as the fiery desire that fringed his languorous kiss.

  And oh, how she reveled in that tempered passion.

  A crow screeched from a nearby tree, pulling Chloe down from the heights of happiness. It must have yanked Lucan back to sense as well, for he slowly drew his heart-stopping kiss to a close and lifted his head. Beneath his searing gaze, she shivered.

  “Are you cold?” he whispered roughly.

  “No,” she answered just as quietly, hating to break the magical spell their game had woven around them. But all delight aside, they lay in the snow. Letting this go further was impossible. If not impossible, certainly it bordered on foolish. She gave him a regretful smile. “We should get up though.”

  “Aye.” Lucan nodded with a deep sigh. “Aye, we should.” He rolled off her and crouched, one hand extended to help her sit up.

  She slid her palm into his, and they rose together. Lucan cleared his throat. “I had wanted to show you something, but perhaps we should return another day.” He brushed a wet strand of her hair off the shoulder of her coat. “I do not wish for you to become ill.”

  “No. I’ll be fine.” Smiling, she tugged him forward, resuming the path they had started down, into a small clearing. “Show me.”

  He chuckled. “Look up.”

  Look where? She abruptly halted. Uncertain she’d heard him correctly, she turned around with a puzzled frown, nearly bumping into his chest. Startled, she let go of his hand and backed up. “What?”

  Lucan pointed toward the blue sky overhead.

  Chloe lifted her gaze. Her jaw dropped. Tucked beneath a pine’s tall boughs, a twenty-foot-tall stone cross reached toward the heavens. Narrow as a telephone pole, its odd shape put the cross beam only a handful of inches from the very top. A good two to three feet below,
a stone face stared into the distance. She moved closer, drawn to the curious totem.

  “Holy cow. What is this?”

  The snow crunched at her side as Lucan joined her. “Before I answer, can you tell me where you are?”

  Of course she could. They were on a trail behind the church, which was only a handful of yards to the … Chloe blinked. Sure they’d been distracted with the snowball fight, but she’d been certain they entered this clearing from her right. Footsteps in the snow confirmed it. Looking at the trees alone, however, she’d have never picked out the direction they’d come. The branches wove together too intricately, each one joining the other, until they all looked the same. Every tree equal in height. Every trunk as thick as the next.

  “If not for our footprints, you would not know, would you?”

  “No,” she answered, mystified. How did trees grow so perfectly in the middle of a forest? Even those planted by man would be subject to nature. And yet, not a single one of the tall pines looked a day younger than its neighbors.

  “This,” Lucan ran his hand down the narrow shaft, “is another marker. Many years ago, a road ran through here. ’Twas a central route of passage to the chapel. If we were not standing in snow, you could still see the ruts of wagons in the earth there.” He pointed behind them, at another row of trees that looked exactly the same as the ones before them.

  Chloe lifted a disbelieving eyebrow. “How do you know a road ran through here? Wouldn’t it be documented somewhere?”

  “These things have a way of fading into time.” He patted the stone beneath his hand. “This marked the way to the chapel. The face you see above looks down to promise safe passage.” Gazing off in the direction of the trodden snow, he lowered his voice. “’Twas said amongst the Templar, Seek the one who sees all and says naught, for there you shall find the sacred.”

  “Lucan…” Words failed her. She closed her mouth. He couldn’t possibly know these things. Working for the Church afforded him access to a lot of secrets, but despite his claims, every historian in the world knew the Templar and the Church clashed violently. The people Lucan worked for now simply wouldn’t possess knowledge of Templar prophecies. Or the meaning of a cryptic phrase.

  He made a circle around the cross, gazing up at its high knob as if seeing it for the first time. “Once, many of these rose alongside the most prominent roads. Some stand still—this one, the one in Brittany, a few others buried in the forests. Where progress did not destroy them, time, and necessity, erased their meaning.”

  Her curiosity about his fantastic stories wouldn’t allow her to let the subject die. “Necessity? What kind of necessity?”

  “During the reign of the false papacy, when Philippe IV installed his personal pope, many things were protected.”

  She hugged her arms around her chest to ward off the sudden invasion of the cold. No employee of the Church talked about the wrongs they’d committed. All those stories lay under a rug somewhere, deliberately forgotten. She eyed his profile, unwilling to verify the obvious conclusion, and yet unable to stop the question from tumbling free. “Things like the relic my team discovered?”

  “Aye.”

  The deeply meaningful look he gave her made her shiver more. Protected. It wasn’t the first time he’d used the word, and she knew it wouldn’t be the last. But protected from whom? The Church itself? Or the long-ago king of France? And why keep them hidden all this time?

  His gaze softened with concern. “Are you cold?”

  “No.”

  He looked beyond her, to the trees. “Is it the woods then? You have naught to worry over.”

  She became acutely aware of where she stood. Looking around, she took in the darker shadows of the forest beyond. In almost ten years, she couldn’t recall a time when she hadn’t sensed the demons just beyond her reach. Yet now, as she stood in the heart of a place she feared the most, she realized not once had she felt the foreboding presence of evil. Not here in the forest. Not in the chapel. Not on the drive. He’d done it. He’d really done it. He’d kept the demons away.

  She let out a soft laugh. “No. Come to think of it, I haven’t felt their presence at all. It’s like … they’re … gone.”

  His smile held no mockery. Genuine, it spread slowly across his face. “Aye. And they will stay away today, for we stand on consecrated ground. They cannot harm you here.”

  With one heavy thump, Chloe’s heart came to a standstill. She stared at him, her breath lodged in her lungs. His conviction radiated out through his knowing gaze, echoed in his quiet words. He didn’t dismiss her fears as things that went bump in the night, didn’t belittle her beliefs. She’d treasured his reaction when she confessed, but hadn’t really taken it for more than politeness.

  Wonder slipped into her voice as she asked, “You do believe me, don’t you? I mean … really believe.”

  “Aye. Demons plague you. You would do well to stay away from the forest near Ornes.”

  Oh God. She’d wondered what it might be like to have someone really understand. But she’d never imagined the experience could be so all consuming. As she stood in the subtle gray light of his supportive gaze, tears rose and pooled in the corners of her eyes. She dipped her head to hide the unbidden display and drew in a deep, steadying breath.

  When she exhaled, Lucan’s arms wound around her waist. He drew her against his chest, his gentle embrace full of the strength she needed.

  CHAPTER 29

  As twilight faded into deep shades of lavender, shadows stretched before the SUV’s headlights. The forest rose around them, sentinels marking the way to the château around the bend. Wet from the snowball fight and continued outings through the Picardie countryside, Chloe pulled her coat around her tighter to trap the heater’s blast. Her feet and ankles were icicles. Her hands tingled as they thawed.

  Her mind, however, resembled overcooked spaghetti. Between all the information she’d learned that she tried to sift into logical order, she struggled to embrace the newfound contentment her afternoon with Lucan created. More correctly, she struggled to keep hold of all the reasons she shouldn’t be so content with him. They hadn’t just romped in the snow like children and talked about history. They walked quietly, holding hands as if it were the most natural thing in the world. They shared lunch, split a piece of chocolate cake. She’d even caught herself feeding him before she came to her senses and passed him the fork. More than anything, she’d come to see the man with his guard down, and she had allowed him to see the same. She’d been herself, work temporarily forgotten, the relic that kept them at odds shoved into a far corner of her mind.

  And she’d liked it. Liked being with him. Thrived on his simple touch.

  Yet the one person she trusted without question, her brother, suspected Lucan capable of the worst. They stood at opposing poles on what they believed regarding public knowledge of historical facts. And still, she couldn’t move beyond the incredible fact he believed in her demons.

  Worse, she didn’t want to.

  She wanted to embrace the simple gift of having someone understand what haunted her in the dark. Wanted to spend the rest of her days as content as she’d been today, not having to wonder whether she could trust him, or whether he’d turn out like Blake and rip her heart into pieces. Now, as the château’s lights cast a warm glow on the distant trees, logic interfered to insist she was being foolish.

  She ought to be annoyed with herself for shirking her responsibilities. Instead, she couldn’t shake the faint smile that refused to leave and the lightness in her heart.

  Nor could she ignore the other, very real discovery an afternoon with Lucan revealed. He’d made good on his word. Promised she wouldn’t notice the demons, and she hadn’t. Vowed she was safe with him—something she didn’t just believe but felt in the depths of her soul. A sixth sense stood up demanding attention and screaming that Lucan would always keep her safe.

  She slid her gaze sideways and caught him glancing at her. His grip tightened
on her hand. “We are almost here. Would you like for me to aid you in the cleaning of your room?”

  No. The answer rose to the back of her throat. She squelched it from breaking free by looking out the side window once again. No was too blunt. Too final. It left entirely too much room for him to unhesitatingly agree and leave her to right the mess, when what she really wanted was to spend the night with him again.

  She sighed and looked up at the round silver moon. “That sounds like a lot of work. I think I’ll take a bath instead.”

  There. Maybe that would spark his interest. Open the door for her to spit out a hesitant confession that she’d like to stay in his bed. If they could revisit what they’d started last night …

  Her stomach hollowed out as the full reality of what she wanted thumped her in the gut. Him. All six foot-plus of his magnificent body touching hers and taking her off to an unforgettable place where long dark hair caressed like silk, perspiration slicked skin, and pleasure wasn’t merely a feeling, but an odyssey to remember.

  Lucan rounded the last curve, and the château sprawled out before them, aglow like Christmas and every bit as welcoming. As he eased down the long drive, bringing them closer to the moment she’d have to leave his company, Chloe cleared her throat. “I was thinking maybe a glass of wine after.”

  “Aye, wine will thaw you from the inside out.”

  She glanced at his face, searching for a clue to what might be going on inside his head. Unfortunately, his flat expression and relaxed features offered nothing.

  “It’s always better with company.”

  If he missed that not-so-subtle hint, he was dense. She watched for some reaction. Tensed as he remained outwardly calm, his hands relaxed, his profile unreadable. Damn. Surely he wouldn’t make her spit it out in black and white. It wasn’t as if she had a lot of practice at prompting this sort of thing. Why was this so hard, damn it?

  He pulled into a vacant parking spot and shut the engine off, retracting his hand from hers. A faint tick-click emitted as the engine’s hot metal met frigid air. Lucan’s low baritone rasped over her skin. “Are you asking if you may stay?” As he twisted sideways, the blue dash lights illuminated his probing stare.