by Jayne Castle
“Which provided you with the psychic target you needed,” Harry said. “I understand.”
They were sitting in the kitchen. Dinner was over but the table had not yet been cleared. The last slice of the enormous takeout pizza that Harry had picked up earlier was sitting in a box. The bottle of wine next to the box was almost empty. Instead of dessert, Rachel had brewed some harmony tea for both of them.
Darwina was on the windowsill munching a chocolate zinger. She had Amberella with her. Doll and dust bunny looked out into the night as if expecting company.
“Technically speaking,” Rachel said, “I didn’t destroy that section of his aura but I threw the wavelengths into what will probably be a permanent state of disharmony. He won’t be able to focus his psychic talent clearly again.”
“Serves the bastard right.”
“Lancaster is still one of the monsters.” Rachel picked up her tisane, took a sip, and lowered the cup. “Like I told Dr. Oakford, some things can’t be fixed, at least not with the para-psych knowledge that we have now.”
Harry set down his cup, reached across the table, and captured her face in one hand. “Have you considered Oakford’s offer to return to the clinic?”
She smiled, enjoying the power and tenderness of his hand. “Nope.”
“Not even for a moment?”
“I knew the day I was fired that I was not cut out for the mainstream world.”
“I don’t seem to be cut out for that world, either.”
“Where does that leave you?” she asked.
“Here on Rainshadow Island with you.”
“You won’t be going back to Frequency City?”
“Not to live,” he said. “My work is here on Rainshadow, at least for now.”
“Yes,” she said. “You’re needed here.”
“I need to be here but not because of the Preserve. I could handle the logistics of the investigation from off-island. I need to be here because this is where you are. I loved you from the first moment I saw you, Rachel.”
“Ha. You had me at the top of your suspect list.”
“What’s that got to do with it?” He seemed genuinely confused.
“Are you serious? How could you fall in love with someone you thought was up to no good inside the Preserve?”
“You expect me to answer a question like that?” Harry asked. “You’re the one trained in Harmonic Enlightenment philosophy.”
“All right, maybe you were sexually attracted to me from the start,” she suggested.
“Maybe?”
“That’s okay. I was attracted to you, too. Sexual attraction can sometimes be a starting point for a deeper, more enduring relationship.”
Harry smiled his pirate smile. “Honey, I’m a guy. I know all about sexual attraction and how fast it works.”
“Oh, right.”
“There was definitely a lot of heat between us right from the start. But here’s a little insight into my personal psyche. I wouldn’t set out to rescue a female suspect from whatever mess she had landed in just because I was sexually attracted to her.”
Rachel was overwhelmed with emotion. Tears gathered in her eyes. “You wanted to rescue me? Even though you thought I might be guilty? That is so—”
“Irrational? Crazy? Unenlightened?”
“No.” She sniffed and grabbed a napkin to blot her eyes. “That is so romantic.”
“First I’m a gentleman for taking the fall in my divorce and now I’m a romantic because I fell in love with a suspect.” He shook his head. “Mind telling me what herbs you put in the aura tea blend that you brew for yourself?”
She ignored that. “What would you have done if it turned out I was guilty of stealing those three stones?”
“I knew that you weren’t exactly the cold, calculating criminal type. I figured that, if you were involved, it was because you had been lured into trouble and gotten in way over your head.”
“Gee, thanks. You think I’m that naïve?”
“Worst-case scenario was that you had allowed misplaced loyalty to a friend to get you into trouble,” Harry assured her.
“Like my loyalty to Calvin Dillard? Because I don’t consider that misplaced.”
“Neither do I,” Harry said. He captured her hand, rose, and pulled her to her feet. “It’s part of who you are. I’m good with that. In my family we understand loyalty, even when it’s misplaced. Marry me, Rachel. I want a full Covenant Marriage with all the trappings.”
“Again?”
He smiled. “I’m willing to risk it if you are.”
“Are you sure that’s what you want?” she asked uneasily. “You’d have to meet my family, and there will be an additional Harmonic Enlightenment ceremony to go through. We have our own set of traditions in the Community.”
His eyes burned with the heat of love. He drew her into his arms.
“Lately you and I survived a firebombing, an encounter with a sea monster, and some bad guys who wanted to kill us. Not to mention the escape from an exploding Alien laboratory full of hot artifacts and the results of some paranormal biology experiments. As long as I have you at my side, I can deal with your family and an HE wedding ceremony.”
She smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Of course you can. You’re the great-grandson of a pirate and you’re a shadow-aura. You’re a real-life legend. You can handle anything.”
Harry kissed her. She kissed him back.
After a while he picked her up in his arms and started to carry her out of the kitchen.
Darwina grabbed Amberella and another chocolate zinger. She hopped down from the windowsill and bustled to the door, chortling.
“I think she’s expecting a hot date,” Rachel said. “I’d better open the door for her.”
“We may have to install a dust bunny door,” Harry said.
He carried Rachel across the kitchen. She reached down and opened the door. Warm, balmy night air wafted into the room.
“No storm tonight,” Harry said. “That’s a good sign.”
Darwina dashed outside onto the darkened porch with Amberella and vaulted up onto the railing.
“Have fun,” Rachel said. “But no riding around in fast cars with guys.”
Darwina chortled.
Rachel closed the door and locked it. Then she de-rezzed the lights. After all, Harry did not need artificial illumination to find his way to the bedroom.
At the top of the stairs Rachel heard the delicate, musical clash of her charms and then she forgot everything except the sweet, hot fire of love that burned in the atmosphere.
Rex appeared out of the night, his crystal-studded clutch purse glittering in the moonlight. He fluttered across the yard and bounded up onto the railing, chortling a romantic greeting. Darwina was waiting, with Amberella clutched in one paw. She gave him half the chocolate zinger.
They perched there together for a while, savoring the evening and the chocolate zinger. When the moon rose, they bounced down to the ground and slipped away into the darkness. A wonderland lit with sparkling crystal waterfalls and flowers that glowed in shades of ultralight beckoned. It was a fine night to go hunting.
Turn the page for a look at
Dream Eyes
by Jayne Ann Krentz
Coming soon from Piatkus
The dead diver was wedged like a bone in the stone throat of the underwater cave they called the Monster. The body—still clad in a tank and regulator, fins, buoyancy compensator, and mask—shifted gently in the subtle current. One gloved hand rose and fell in spectral warning.
Turn back.
But for Judson Coppersmith there was no going back.
The locals on the island claimed that the flooded cave beast swallowed divers whole. The adrenaline junkies who were foolish enough to ignore the signs outside at the entrance never got far inside the uncharted labyrinth of underwater passages. The smart ones turned back in time. But the explosion in the dry section of the cavern had sealed the aboveground exit an
d canceled that option. His only hope was to try to swim out to the sea through the Monster.
There was no darkness as dense and relentless as that of the interior of an underwater cave. But the clarity of the water was surreal. The beam of the flashlight sliced through the deep night like a laser, pinning the body.
He swam closer and took stock of the dead man’s equipment. Relief swept through him when he saw that the killers had not bothered to drain the victim’s air tank. He stripped it off the bloated body, tucked it under one arm, and helped himself to the diver’s flashlight as well. Throughout the process the dead eyes stared at him reproachfully through the mask.
Sorry, pal, but your gear is of no use to you now. Not sure it will do me any good, either, but it will buy me a little time.
He eased past the body and focused the sharp light on the twisted rock passage. The urge to swim forward as quickly as possible was almost overwhelming. But impulsive decisions would kill him as surely as running out of air. He forced himself to drift for a few seconds
There it was, the faint but steady pull of the current. It would either be his lifeline or the false lure that drew him to his death. He slipped into the stream of the ultra-clear water and allowed it to guide him deeper into the maze.
The islanders claimed that there was an exit to the sea. That had been proven years ago by a simple dye test. A coloring agent poured into the cavern pool had emerged a short distance offshore. But the island was riddled with caves, and no one had been able to find the underwater exit point. Divers had died trying.
It was getting hard to breathe off the first tank of air, the one he had grabbed when he had been forced into the water. It was almost empty. He took it off and set it down on a rocky ledge with great care. The last thing he needed now was to stir up the sediment on the floor of the cave. If that happened, he would be forced to waste precious time waiting for the current to clear out the storm of debris. Time meant air usage. He had none to spare. There was, in fact, a staggeringly high probability that he would not have enough air regardless of how carefully he managed the one commodity that meant life or death.
He slipped into the dead man’s tank and waited a beat, drifting upward a little. Sometimes in a flooded cave the current was stronger toward the roof of the tunnel.
Once again he sensed it, the faint, invisible tug that urged him deeper into the flooded labyrinth.
Some time later—he refused to look at his watch because there was no point—the flashlight began to go dark. He used it as long as possible, but the beam faded rapidly. The endless night closed in around him. Until now he had never had a problem with darkness. His paranormal night vision allowed him to navigate without the aid of normal light. In other circumstances, the natural para-radiation in the rocks would have been sufficient to illuminate his surroundings. But the strange aurora that had appeared in the cavern and the explosion that had followed had seared his senses, rendering him psychically blind. There was no way to know if the effects would be permanent, and not much point in worrying about it now. The loss of his talent would not matter if he did not make it out of the flooded catacombs alive.
He fumbled with the flashlight that he had taken off the body, nearly dropping it in the process of switching it on. The chill of the water was making him clumsy. The thin suit he wore provided only limited protection. Although the island was in the Caribbean, he was in fresh water here in the cave and the temperature at this depth was unpleasantly cold.
Ten minutes later he rounded a bend and saw that the rocky corridor through which he was swimming narrowed drastically. He was forced to take off his tank and push it into and beyond the choke point. He barely managed to squeeze through after it. The nightmare scenario of getting stuck—unable to go forward or back—sent his heart rate climbing. He was suddenly using air at an even faster rate.
And then he was on the other side. The passage widened once more. Gradually he got his breathing back under control. But the damage had been done. He had used up a lot of air.
He got the first clue that the current was guiding him in the right direction when he noticed that the once crystal-clear water was starting to become somewhat murky. It was an indication that he had reached the point where the fresh water of the underground river was converging with seawater. That still left a lot of room for things to go wrong. It was entirely possible that he would discover the exit only to find out that he could not fit through it. If that happened, he would spend his last minutes as a condemned man gazing upward through the stone bars of his cell at the summer sunlight filtering through the tropical sea.
The second flashlight slowly died, plunging him into absolute darkness. Instinctively he tried to heighten his talent. Nothing happened. He was still psi-blind.
All he could do now was try to follow the current. He swam slowly, his hands outstretched in an attempt to ward off a close encounter with the rocky walls of the cave.
At one point, to keep his spirits up more than anything else, he took the regulator out of his mouth long enough to taste the water. It was unmistakably salty. He was now in a sea cave.
When he perceived the first faint glow infusing the endless realm of night, he considered the possibility that he was hallucinating. It was a reasonable assumption, given the sensory disorientation created by the absolute darkness and the fact that he knew he was sucking up the last of his air. Maybe this was the mysterious bright light that those who had survived near-death experiences described. In his case, it would be followed by for-real death.
One thing was certain. If he survived, he would never again take the light of a summer day for granted.
The pale glow brightened steadily. He swam faster. Nothing to lose.
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