Eternity
Teresa Federici
Smashwords Edition
©2008Teresa Federici
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Genre: Paranormal
Heat Level:
Word Count: 99,500
Author address: 1250 SW 29th St Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33315
Author Phone number 954-826-6793
Content Editor: Kristy Bock
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Line Editor: Sara Hermann
Eternity
Teresa Federici
Dedication
A book dedication is something that I never thought that I would ever write, but I find myself needing to write one. It’s awesome. Though there are many people whom I would like to thank here, I’m going to limit it. Don’t worry, there will be more books to dedicate…
To Stamee and Doug- you are the kind of friends that everyone should have. Stamee, I’ve known you more than half my life (scary!) and you’ve been a friend whether we were near or far and Doug, you’ve made Stamee happy, so that’s all I need to know. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come to my rescue and I love you both!
To Heather (you know which one you are) - I can’t even begin to say how much I’ve treasured our friendship; I couldn’t fit it in a full-length novel. You are more than a friend to me; you’re my soul-sister, my confidant, and my sanity-keeper. Love you, mean it!
To Tommy- Without you, there would be no inspiration, no heroes to write about, no knowledge of love and passion and romance and all the wonderful and crazy things romance writers prose about. No matter where our paths go, separately or together, you will always be my heart and my love.
Prologue
“Mommy, there’s something outside my bedroom window.”
It’s an early memory of mine, coming out into the living room one night after my mother had sent me to bed, dragging my beat-up stuffed rabbit after me. Bleary-eyed with sleep, not sure what my young mind had just seen, I was caught somewhere between terror and crankiness.
“Honey, it’s nothing, I’m sure. Go back to bed.” My mother answered me, turning on one of the safe lights in the living room so that I could see her better.
I scuffed my toe on the rug, swinging my arms a little. I wanted to believe her, wanted with all the love and hope my little heart held for my mother to trust her word, but…
“Mommy, it has really big teeth.”
At that moment, a howl cut through the night like a knife, making my mother jump up from her chair and raising the hairs on every inch of my tiny body. The sound was primal and I knew immediately it was from the creature that had been outside my bedroom window.
The scream that pealed from my lungs was pitched high enough to break glass.
My mother snatched me up in her arms, backed into a corner, and pushed me behind her. She used her frail body to shield me from an unknown threat. We cowered there for what seemed like hours, until the phone rang, breaking the paralysis that had seized us.
In the light of the following day, she told my father that wolves must have come down because of snow high in the mountains; it had been an early winter, after all.
To this day, I don’t think she believed what she told my father. Something Other had been outside my window that night, and it wasn’t of the natural world. We both knew it.
Chapter One
I was twenty-seven when he walked into my life and drastically altered the world as I knew it. I finally found my purpose, and his name was Gareth Macgregor. He owned the genetic lab that I worked for, along with half a dozen other business ventures that contributed to his considerable wealth.
I didn’t set out to make my boss the purpose of my life, but the first time I saw him, about six months after I started working for his company, it was as though I had been reborn. As though I had woken up from a semi-comatose state that had lasted my entire existence.
He strode into the lab, tall and imposing, his eyes a strange brown color that almost didn’t seem real because of the countless hues in them. Browns, golds, and greens made up the overall color, but they could not be called hazel. Very unusual eyes that I couldn’t draw my gaze away from. He exuded confidence with every stride and carried a quiet arrogance on his broad shoulders.
I could only stare at him, apparently with my mouth hanging open. One of my colleagues snickered and nudged my arm. My mouth shut with a snap.
“I guess this is the first time you’re seeing our illustrious employer? The girls always react that way.” With a snort and an eye roll, he showed what he thought about the female population’s reaction. I looked around the room, mostly because I didn’t believe him; surely a group of adult women wouldn’t react as though a boy band had just come through signing autographs.
Sure enough, most, if not all, of the women in the lab were either open-mouthed or hiding shy smiles behind hands, their eyes downcast.
I glanced back at their object of infatuation only to find that he was looking in my direction, those odd eyes about to land on me. I shifted my gaze and looked away quickly, not wanting to make eye contact. Puzzled by my reaction to him, I tried to think if I had ever felt this way before and realized I hadn’t; not with the first man who took my virginity, nor the last man that I had been with. Just looking at him took my breath away, and I didn’t think it was just his dazzling beauty.
He was beautiful, there was no denying that. Handsome would not pertain to him, because it brings to mind ruggedness and possible imperfections that contribute to a pleasing whole.
Gareth was spectacular in every sense of the word. His skin was a dusky gold, but slightly pale at the same time. His strange eyes were mesmerizing and perfectly almond shaped, his long nose straight as a knife’s edge. His mouth was sheer heaven, with a full lower lip and thin upper lip that seemed to have a secret smile playing about it. All this was framed by a strong jaw, strong chin, and high cheekbones. He was tall, and that day he seemed to tower over the other occupants in the room. His height was impressive, as a female of average height, I usually noticed tall men, and he was easily a few inches over six feet.
I noticed that everyone had turned to look at me, and I couldn’t figure out why. I had shut my mouth and didn’t feel like I was drooling. Then the reason they were staring spoke from behind me, and I almost slid out of my chair. His voice was as hypnotic as his eyes, like a smooth whiskey poured over my nerve endings.
“I hear you’re our newest geneticist. I’m Gareth Macgregor.” His hand came into my field of vision so I stood up to face him. I placed my hand in his and if he hadn’t grasped it firmly, I would have pulled it right back. An electric current went surging up my arm from where our palms met, and I gasped, raising my eyes to his.
Bad mistake. I was captured, and that’s when he became my purpose. I could see myself reflected in those colorful irises, but more importantly, I saw his reaction to me. There was something akin to recognition, although we had never met, and a brief flash of anguish, which puzzled me.
It was as if he studied my features forever, taking in everything about me. There was a slight scowl on that beautiful face as his eyes traveled over me like a physical touch, even though it seemed they were always locked on mine. They touched on my lips, dropped lower to the hollow at the base of my throat, where I could feel my pulse tattooing a fierce beat. Then abruptly, he dropped my hand as if he had just realized he was still holding it and tucked his own in his pants pocket. I could see that he held his hand clenched, as if he wanted to keep the sensation of my hand in his for a little bit longer. My own was curiously cold, as if it had been held against a freezer door.
I found my voice and murmured, “I’m Dr.
Anna Greer. It’s an honor to work here.”
That was now an understatement. As we held each other’s gaze, my green eyes locked inexorably to his parti-colored ones, I could have kicked myself for not coming to work for him straight out of college. This was my first real job, and as a geneticist, it was like winning the Super Bowl as a rookie quarterback.
Macgregor Biosciences was one of the most cutting edge private pharmaceutical and genetic research labs in the country, and competition was fierce to get in. The company was responsible for all kinds of innovations in developing vaccines and making staggering advances in the fight against AIDS, cancer, and diseases of the blood. Gareth Macgregor, PhD, was behind it single-handedly. He came from money, which his parents left him when they died.
From lab gossip, Gareth was either very young when they died, or he was in college. Either way, he was still a young man to have accomplished everything that he had. I placed him in his mid-thirties, which blew me away, because I could barely get up in the morning to come to work, let alone build a small pharmaceutical empire by the time I was thirty-three.
Suddenly he smiled, his teeth just as perfect as the rest of him, and he broke our eye contact.
“Fantastic to have you aboard, Dr. Greer. I’ve heard good things about you.” His voice had a hint of Scotland in it, which was odd because he was born and raised here in New Hampshire. There were many unusual things about this man, and a large part of me wanted to get to the bottom of them.
“How long have you been married? Is Greer your maiden name?”
With a jolt I realized I was wearing my mother’s wedding band, something I did out of remembrance, and to stop guys from hitting on me at work.
“Oh, no, I’m not married.” The words came out in a rush. For some reason I needed him to know I wasn’t married.
Interest kindled in his eyes, but was quickly brought under control. “Have a good day, then, Dr. Greer.”
I watched him walk out the doors of the lab. My eyes lingered on the back of his head, with its riot of wavy black hair that just brushed the collar of his suit jacket, as he left.
When he turned the corner and I lost sight of him, I sat back down in my chair and noticed that I had now become the center of attention. Six pairs of eyes stared at me, all women. Most of them I was on a friendly basis with, some I just nodded to in greeting, but now they all wanted to talk to me.
“He has never done that before, and I’ve worked here six years! You must be something special,” Angela said as she leaned over her computer monitor, her tone not quite unfriendly, but a little shift would put the comment into catty territory.
“No, I’m not something special. It’s weird though, I never even met him at my interview. He was out of the country. “
“He came in here just to meet you.” Grace giggled.
They sounded like a bunch of secretaries gossiping by the water cooler, instead of geneticist geeks, but I guessed they were entitled to sound like adolescent girls sometimes. An exceptionally beautiful male specimen had just left our presence, and although I was never good at this stuff in school, his attention and scrutiny had left me giddy. Grace’s words made me even more so, although I doubted them.
“Do you think so?” The idea that the indescribably gorgeous man that had just left was interested in any way, shape, or form in skinny little Anna Greer was absolutely ridiculous, but stranger things have happened.
Something still bothered me about him though, and then my mind touched on it. His eyes weren’t real, or rather the color wasn’t. He had to be wearing the best pair of colored contacts that money could buy. The only reason that I was aware they were contacts was because I had been staring so keenly into them. His company profile stated that he did not wear glasses. Perfect 20/20. He didn’t strike me as a vain man, and it’s not like his beauty was a quiet one that he had to enhance, so why the fake colors?
It niggled at me the rest of the day, making me unproductive, so I left a little early at 4 o’clock. I also could no longer stand the sudden interest that everyone had taken in me; I would have much rather gone back to semi-anonymity.
The other thing that had made me useless was the way I acted. Not the kind of woman to moon over someone, I never spent all day long thinking about a guy I just met, no matter how good-looking he was. I could appreciate male beauty and not be swept away by it. My reaction to Gareth was completely out of character for me, and it bothered me.
As I walked toward my car in the gathering darkness, my thoughts were caught up in Gareth, and I wasn’t paying much attention to my surroundings, but something, an intuition call it, made me stop.
Someone was watching me.
I stopped in the middle of the parking lot, and turned a complete circle, my black coat flapping gently around my legs in the wind. Nothing was there, but I could feel eyes on me. Despite the warmth of my coat, I shivered, even though I wasn’t scared.
I stood for a moment, thinking that someone would eventually come forward; a co-worker, someone else cutting out early, or a client leaving the building. When no one did, I continued on toward my Jeep.
I opened the door and climbed in, quickly starting it to get the heat going. As I sat there in the gathering gloom, waiting for the Jeep to warm up, I glanced around the parking lot, peering intently into shadows. As I was trailing my gaze along the line of trees that ran in a straight formation in front of my parking space, I saw something that made me draw back in shock.
Someone was standing next to the evergreen closest to my Jeep.
I turned on my lights, fumbling a bit with the adrenalin that coursed through me, but no one was there. I knew I had seen someone. It brought back memories of my childhood, to a time where I had questioned the things I saw. I had known things as a child, things better left to the imagination and I had no desire to revisit them.
I used to be able to see things that other people couldn’t. I saw the ghost in the hall, I saw dead people. As I got older and more interested in science, I seemed to lose that part of myself and eventually forgot it ever existed. Now it came slamming home to me in a flash of remembrance and I was positive that someone had been right there in front of me.
I quickly threw the Jeep in gear and backed out as fast as I could. I almost backed into a snow bank, but narrowly missed it, gunned my engine and hit the road. I headed north on Route 13, joining the rush hour traffic heading home. My eyes returned again and again to the rearview mirror. I don’t know what I was looking for, maybe someone following me, but in my heart I knew no one was. What I had sensed in the parking lot was not something that would need to follow me to know where to find me. If it wanted me, it would be able to track me down using preternatural senses. Whatever it was, it hadn’t been malevolent. It hadn’t been benevolent either, it had just been…watchful, studying me.
Another shiver ran up my spine, and again it wasn’t a feeling of dread, but what my mother would have said was a goose walking over a grave. I had no idea why I wasn’t scared, because it was certainly a disconcerting experience. Any woman who had that vibe, as though she was being watched, especially in a darkening parking lot with no one else around, knows how frightening that is, but still no fear here.
The reason came to me in a moment of insight; the figure had looked like Gareth. That’s why I wasn’t afraid. Whoever had been standing there, he had his height, his undeniable beauty, and the most piercing eyes I’d ever seen. They had been such a light blue as to be white, and had matched the color of the snow in the fading light. That could be the reason for the contacts, if it had been Gareth. Eyes like that would be noticed, and maybe someone who doesn’t want to be noticed would go to great lengths to hide them. Why wouldn’t he want to be noticed? And why take the contacts out now?
More questions were swirling through my brain as I traveled north with traffic, trying to keep at least part of my mind on my driving and those around me.
Why wasn’t I afraid, even if it had been Gareth? When he had held
my gaze in the lab, he had made me feel protected, even as he had set my pulse racing. His gaze had spoken volumes, and the flash of anguish in those eyes gave me the impression that he was a sensitive soul. Maybe I reminded him of someone he once knew, maybe he’d had a death in the family and a little bit of sorrow had come through, but he was not about to scare me in a parking lot.
Whatever the reason, I had a new curiosity about my boss. Questions flitted through my mind, like how could he move so fast? He had been standing there, either him or his twin, and God help us all if there were two of those beautiful creatures in the world. In the blink of an eye, or in my case the flicking on of head lights, he had been gone. He could have ducked behind the tree, but I still would have seen him, or the branches would have been swaying from his passage.
Why would he be watching me? Another good question. Maybe something to do with the recognition in his eyes, as though he had met me before. What I saw in his eyes was more like when you run into your first love after not seeing them for a long time, not that I had ever been in love before. If he saw in me something like that, I could see why he would want to get another look at me, but did he have to be so clandestine about it?
Which brought me to the conclusion that it had to be my imagination at work. My mom had always told me that I had a way too active brain, and with just the shear magnetism that Gareth had exuded, it was no wonder I was imagining him peering out at me from behind trees. I took my exit and tried to move my mind onto other things, like work. I was working on research for XP, or xeroderma pigmentosum, which is a genetic disorder causing hyper-sensitivity to sunlight, and in some cases any kind of light that produces UV rays. XP is what made me want to become a geneticist. One of the few people who I had ever been close to had XP, and she was also the reason why I didn’t let myself get close to people. She had died, and her loss profoundly affected me. I learned at an early age that you don’t get close to people because they leave you, whether they want to or not, and then you’re devastated, inconsolable, and I did not want to live that way. For me, it was better to live and not love, than love and be crushed.
Eternity Page 1
