Oh, but how? Where the hell was a formerly homeless street brat going to come up with a hundred grand?
She blinked in surprise as the answer came to her. The shop. Akasha. It had been just another condemned heap when she’d discovered it. The city had been about to tear it down to put up something new and shiny, when Brigit had come along with her plan to repair it, to make it into something special and new.
Other business owners on the Commons had jumped onto Brigit’s bandwagon, and the local students had joined her in her campaign to save a building that turned out to be over 150 years old. And after that the loans had come easily. With the money she’d already saved up from her former career as an art forger, it was enough to get Akasha up and running. And when her business had thrived as she’d known it would, the loans had been repaid on time and with interest, and the entire city won.
It had been a lonely street brat’s dream come true. But it wasn’t half as important to Brigit as Raze was. Or as her sister was.
Or as important as Adam Reid had suddenly become to her.
It was the only way.
With trembling hands, Brigit picked up the telephone, and dialed the number Zaslow had warned her to use only in an emergency.
Zaslow was there. He answered on the third ring.
“It’s me.” Why was her voice shaking so much?
“Is it done?”
“N-no. Not yet.”
“Then why the hell am I hearing your voice?”
Brigit licked her lips, cleared her throat. “I have a deal to offer you.” “We already have a deal, Brigit. Finish the damned painting and I won’t kill your friend.”
“I know...I know...but...”
“But?”
He sounded ominous. Her hand was sweaty, making the receiver slick. So much riding on her words. Raze’s life. Her own future. She had to be careful.
“If I were to sell the shop, Zaslow, I could get at least a hundred grand. Maybe more. I’ll give it to you. All of it, if you’ll just let Raze go.”
Silence. Dead and heavy. Lengthening.
“Please,” she whispered.
He sucked in a slow breath. “It’s Reid, isn’t it? You sleeping with him, Brigit? You getting soft?”
“No!”
“I had a man watching you at that little snob-fest last night, honey. I have a man watching every move you make. He’s got his eyes on you right now. I heard all about your little dance with Reid. Seems the two of you were so into it, you forgot to stop when the music did.”
She swallowed, but almost choked on it.
“Did you take him to bed when you got home, Brigit? Did you show him all the tricks you learned on the streets? Hmm?”
Fear made her heart trip over itself. But anger set it right again. “If you have someone watching my every move, as you say, then you already know.”
He laughed and it made her skin crawl. “You apparently don’t understand how this works, Brigit, love. But don’t worry. I’ll make sure you get the point. This is life and death, honey. You cooperate, there’s life. You give me bullshit like this, and there are gonna be some corpses turning up in odd places.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Again, that low, evil laughter. “You need a lesson in obedience, Brigit. A little class in cause and effect.”
“Don’t do anything to Raze!” She shouted at the receiver as panic bubbled in her chest. “Please, don’t hurt him! I’ll finish—”
The phone went dead.
Frantic, Brigit dialed the number again, Only to hear endless ringing. God, what was Zaslow thinking? What was he going to do?
She paced, wringing her hands until she’d made red marks all over them. And finally, she hauled her equipment down to the study, and she painted. She worked slowly, carefully, taming her trembling hands by the sheer force of her will, battling the fear and the imaginary horrors it induced...until she finally found that place where it all faded away. And her mind floated free as her hands worked.
Free. And images of a sister who looked like Brigit, only she radiated goodness and purity and control, and her hair was as golden as the sun. She was everything Brigit had tried to be, everything she’d failed to be. If only she knew her. Bridin. If only she had her here, to talk to, to confide in.
Maybe...maybe someday, they’d find one another.
And maybe those people who’d adopted Bridin had known what they were doing when they’d chosen not to take both babies. Maybe they’d somehow sensed that Brigit was less than worthy of a family’s love and of a sister like Bridin. Maybe she didn’t deserve to find her twin. It might be fate.
She came back to herself with a start when she heard vehicles out front. “Oh, God, Adam!” Whirling, she stared at the sun slanting low through the study windows. Late afternoon. He was back. And he wasn’t alone.
She grabbed the painting and took the stairs two at a time, running full tilt to her bedroom, lunging to the back of that oversized closet. She only paused long enough to place her painting carefully, not smudging the paint or allowing anything to touch the sides. Then she raced downstairs again, dumping the palettes and dirty brushes and uncapped tubes of paint into a heap in the middle of the color-spattered drop cloth, and gathering the entire bundle like a peddler’s pack. She slung it over her shoulder and snatched up the tripod under her arm.
Her trip up the stairs was a little slower this time. She kept tripping, and the tripod was awkward, swinging sideways and knocking against her legs every couple of steps. But she made it to the top, and flung everything into the closet. She slammed the door, panting.
Still no sound from downstairs. Adam must be busy with whoever had arrived with him. She ran into her bathroom, cranked on the faucets and scrubbed the still-wet paint from her hands. When stains remained, she used nail polish remover to lighten them.
Good. Barely noticeable.
She turned to head back downstairs, stopping in the doorway when she heard Adam come in.
“Brigit?”
“Up here,” she called, and at the same moment, realized she was still wearing a paint-smattered smock over her clothes. She hauled it over her head, tossed it behind her into the bedroom, and slammed the door just as he stepped into the study and looked up at her.
She forced a smile, and tried to remember if she’d checked her face for paint flecks.
Adam glanced at the stool that stood in the middle of the study, then up at her, then back at the stool again, frowning.
“There was a big cobweb I couldn’t reach,” she lied, feeling miserable. “I was on my way back to the kitchen with the stool and I got distracted. Sorry.”
He only shrugged, looking up at her again. “Can you come down here? There’s a package for you.”
Brigit felt her brows crease. “A package?”
“Delivery men were just unloading it when I pulled in, so I signed for you. Did you order something?”
She shook her head, running her palm over the cool hardwood rail as she walked toward the stairway, then started down it. “No,” she said. “I can’t imagine what...”
Halfway down the stairs she stopped, recalling Zaslow’s evil laughter, his cryptic threats.
“What. . . kind of package?”
“Big son of a bitch,” Adam said.
She blinked, forcing herself down the remaining stairs, turning to go out the huge double doors of the study, through the foyer.
The front door felt heavy, the knob, hard to turn. Slow and sloppy. She forced it open and took a single step outside.
The coffin-shaped wooden crate sat on the sidewalk, daring her to step forward, daring her to look inside.
Brigit screamed.
He’d only been a few steps behind her, but when she screamed, Adam shot forward, adrenaline propelling him like rocket fuel.
She’d fallen to her knees on the front steps. Her face covered by her trembling hands, her entire body shaking, she was muttering...or maybe praying. “Please...nononono
...please, please, please...no...no...pleeeease...”
Adam caught her shoulders. “Easy, Brigit. Come on, get up. Turn around. Look at me.”
She tried, but her knees buckled. He had to help her. She was breathing too fast, in short, choppy little gasps. He drew her to her feet, and he turned her, nice and slow, holding her steady. And then he sucked air through his teeth. The woman was terrified. He’d never seen terror etched as clearly and plainly as he saw it now on her stricken face, in her eyes. The color had fled, leaving her skin as smooth and white as bleached linen. Her eyes were wide, her irises distended until the whites were no more than a narrow band encircling the black centers.
Shaking uncontrollably, she clung to him with her hands and with her eyes. Clung to him as if for her very salvation.
“Just what do you think is in that box, Brigit?”
Her lips parted, but only jerky, spasmodic breaths escaped.
Shaking his head in frustration, Adam guided her hands to the railing, and anchored them there. Then he spun on his heel and headed out to the tool shed. He grabbed a pry bar, and hurried back to the front of the house. God knew he didn’t dare leave Brigit alone out there for more than a second or two. She was where he’d left her, her eyes glued to that damned box as if she expected a dragon to jump out of it and swallow her whole.
He bent to the wood, pried up a board. Then another. And another. And another. He tossed each one aside, letting them clatter to the ground and then moving on to the next. And then he dropped the bar, looking at the box’s contents. When he could breathe again he said, “Come here, Brigit, and take a look. And then tell me what the hell this is all about.”
Her frightened eyes met his. She tried to take a step forward, but that was all. “I...I can’t. J-j-just t-tell me...”
He picked a brick from the top of the pile, and held it up.
She frowned, blinking.
“Bricks. A bunch of them.”
Brigit moved then. She came off the step as if shot from a cannon, and a second later she was on her knees beside that crate and bricks were flying everywhere. She snatched them up, clawed them into her hands and tossed them aside, one after another, as if she were digging for something.
“Jesus, Brigit, enough!”
He grabbed her wrists when she went on digging. Pulled her hands up, holding them prisoner in his. “Look at this. What the hell is the matter with you?”
He held her hands up in front of her face, so she could see what he did. Her nails were broken, fingertips bleeding from the frantic search. But her eyes were still wide, still jumping wildly from his to that box full of bricks and back again.
“There’s nothing there,” he told her. “Nothing. Just bricks. Nothing else.”
Her breaths quickened, roughened. Her eyes squeezed tight and she clenched her jaw. “Thank God,” she whispered through grated teeth. And then, eyes opening, calmer now, but beginning to burn with something...anger, maybe. “Damn him, damn him, damn him.”
And that was all. She melted into Adam’s arms, tears flash-flooding, sobs spasming hard in her chest and wrenching her small body. And he held her. He held her hard. And he felt the sharp angles of her shoulder blades, and winced. He hadn’t seen her consume enough to keep a bird alive since she’d moved in, though he hadn’t given it much thought until now. And come to think of it, judging by the circles under her eyes, she hadn’t slept either. She was an emotional cauldron, and she was damned near bubbling over. Terrified for sure. And yes, trying to pull something on him. Which, for some reason had fallen to the very bottom of his list of things to worry about.
Oh, he had questions all right. He was brimming with them. But the questions would have to wait. Right now the only thing he wanted was to make this haunted woman’s nightmares go away.
Her sobs stopped, and it was several moments before he realized she was unconscious in his arms.
* * *
She woke slowly...her senses coming to life one at a time. Bit by bit. And the very first was the sense of smell. Even before she was aware of it, she smelled the violets on the air. Sweet honeysuckle. And...and sandalwood? Yes. And wax. She could smell the wax. And the so-subtle scent of tiny tongues of flame. Candles, her mind whispered. And floral incense.
Was she dreaming? Was she at Akasha? It felt as if she was.
A touch, gentle and warm on her face, stroking a slow path down over her cheek. Fingertips, tracing the line of her jaw, so slowly. Stopping at her chin, trailing down the arc of her neck, and making her tip her head back further in response. They felt good, those warm fingertips. And when they reversed their path, moving upward again to her cheek, she pressed closer to their touch. Her face found the entire palm, and she rubbed her cheek against it.
“Ah, Brigit...”
The voice was deep, and very soft. Barely more than a whisper. A familiar one, though. A comforting one. The hand caressed her face, fingers threading through her hair.
“You’re magic, you know. Everything you do...”
And then lips—their kiss so light she was almost convinced it had only been imaginary— gently brushing her forehead.
Adam. She wanted to see him. She needed...
Her eyes opened about the fourth time she commanded them to do so. And things were blurry. She felt lightheaded, fuzzy, drunk.
“Just like Sleeping Beauty,” he said.
His face swam into focus, and she saw that he was smiling, slightly. Just slightly.
“I...” She licked her parched lips and tried again. “I feel. . . funny.” She was only gradually beginning to hear the soft strains of music. And beyond that, the gentle tinkling sounds of a wind chime. They came as if from a great distance.
“It’s the tranquilizer,” Adam told her, and his hand was moving into her hair now, stroking up and back, the way he’d stroke a cat. She liked it.
“Tranq...?” Her mouth refused to shape the rest of the word.
“You passed out, Brigit. I called an ambulance. When they arrived and brought you around, you started shaking and hyperventilating again, so they gave you a shot.”
“Oh.” She didn’t remember any of that.
“You need to relax.”
“Mmm.” She was nothing if not relaxed. Her eyes fell closed, but popped open again. She looked past him this time, saw the foggy halos of candlelight...many of them. And the fiery red tip of an incense stick. “What...is all this?”
Adam shrugged. “I thought it would make you feel better.”
Her lips pulled up at the corners. “It does. It reminds me...of Akasha.”
His hand came away from her hair. She lifted her own, groping until she found his, closed around it, and drew it slowly back to her. She kept hers over it, saw him smile and begin stroking her hair again.
“Your shop is a special place,” he told her. “When I walk in there, I get this instant sense of...I don’t know...peace, I guess.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you could use a little peace right now.”
Oh, he had that right.
“So I tried to duplicate the atmosphere for you.”
She frowned a little. “You went to the shop?”
“I borrowed your keys and sent one of my students. Michael. Most trustworthy guy I know. I hope you don’t mind.”
“I don’t.”
“I had him bring one of those tapes you always have playing in there, and a set of those chimes. I asked him to pick up some scented candles and floral incense, so I could get the smells right. It was easier than bringing all the plants.”
She closed her eyes, again hearing the soft music. No wonder she’d felt so relaxed when she’d awakened. “Enya,” she told him as she recognized the hauntingly beautiful voice, in a song called “Fairytale.” “My favorite.”
“Good.”
“You’re a sweet man, Adam.”
“Not a chance, Brigit.”
“You did all this for me...”
“Oh, I did more. I u
ndressed you. Or hadn’t you noticed?”
She drew a short, sharp breath when he said it coming a little more fully awake than she’d been. She lifted the blankets that covered her and peered underneath. She was naked, except for the white panties she still wore. Lowering the covers, she met his eyes.
“I told myself it was just to make you comfortable,” he said slowly, his eyes pinning hers, holding them prisoner in their depths. “But it was a lie. Before I covered you up, I looked at you, Brigit. I looked at your breasts. I touched them.”
Her breath quickened, and she felt her nipples harden in response to his words, and the images those words evoked.
“Thought you ought to know,” he went on, still staring into her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
She sat up in the bed, very slowly, because she was dizzy, and moving made it worse. The bed seemed to spin in uneven circles. Adam’s hands came to her shoulders, as if he’d push her back down to the pillows.
“Don’t, Brigit,” he told her. “If you want to be away from me, I’ll leave. You have to stay here. You need to rest.”
“I don’t want to rest.” She let him press her down, though, too weak to fight him. “I want...to know...” His eyes narrowed, searching her face.
“To know what?”
“How,” she whispered. “How you touched me.”
Adam stood beside the bed, staring down at her, his face unreadable. “How?”
Lifting her trembling hands, Brigit caught the blankets at her shoulders, and slowly pushed them down, all the way to her hips, just as far as she could reach. “Show me.”
Adam slammed his eyes closed. “Jesus Christ Brigit...”
“I want you to...”
“You’re drugged! You don’t know what the hell you want.”
He would have turned away. But her hand shot out to capture his wrist. She held him as tight as she could, and she drew his hand downward. He didn’t resist. He let her bring it lower let her settle his palm on her breast. Her nipple rose, pressing against his flesh, and she knew he had to feel it. She saw him clenching his teeth his jaw flinching, and she heard the air rush out of his lungs.
Fairytale (Fairies of Rush) Page 17
