Kiss Across Chaos

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Jesse made herself breathe steadily as that moment came zinging back with unusual clarity. Veris would spot her spiking heartbeat. Would smell the adrenaline.

  He examined her with the intense concentration of a hunter watching its prey and Jesse suspected he’d seen all that and much more. Yet he said with a mild tone, “I can already guess what your answer will be, but I still have to ask, Jesse. Do you want to go down there and talk to them?” He moved his head to indicate the window and the journalists at the end of the drive. “You could give them the quotes they want, the footage that will make their editors happy, and acknowledge you’re Jerry Hale. Step out into the public limelight.”

  “Or…?” Jesse breathed, pressing the side of her fist against her belly as it swirled.

  “Or don’t. Let the story die for lack of oxygen.” He shrugged. “They’ll soon figure out that Brody Gallagher lives here, too, and they’ll dig up the old stories about his band and that’ll add to the speculation, but if you don’t give them anything, all they can do is make guesses. They’ll find someone else who does want the limelight, and move on.”

  “That one,” Jesse said quickly, relief trickling through her. “That’s what I want.”

  Veris relaxed. It wasn’t obvious. He didn’t telegraph it with slumping shoulders like civilians often did. He had more military training from more military organizations than she did, which was why she often felt like she was reporting to a senior officer. He was good at hiding his reactions. But Jesse’s senses were all on high alert, because it was Veris she was talking to. She felt him lower an internal guard.

  Puzzled, she said, “You really thought I might say I wanted all this?”

  Veris weighed his answer. “You became a writer for a reason.”

  “To tell the world the truth about war and violence, in a way that wouldn’t get me court-martialed,” she replied. “I’m not in it for the fame.”

  Veris smiled. It was one of his small, intense smiles, that Jesse had come to realize was the expression he used with those he trusted the most. He used the bright, large, dazzling smile for strangers. “Brody told me something similar once.”

  That jolted her. “You asked him the same thing?”

  “Just before he started the band,” Veris replied.

  “He said he was in it for the music,” Jesse concluded. Wasn’t that just another version of what Aran had said about his piano-playing? He did it because he liked it, not to be a “success” in the eyes of the world. “Why did you want to know that?” she added, for Veris had made a point of asking her the same thing.

  Veris glanced at the window, as if he was glancing at the media gaggle, but he couldn’t possibly see them from over here. “When you pass through time the way we do, drawing attention to oneself can be dangerous. Spotlights reveal the wrong things, make the wrong people ask the wrong questions. Becoming known to the power-holders in any age was hazardous. It always drew the wrong attention. It pulled enemies out of the woodwork, and those enemies would dig for weaknesses. For secrets.” He gave a tiny shrug with his massive shoulders. “Since the invention of the camera and records that capture images, it has grown increasingly more dangerous. Becoming a public figure and having our faces out there is something we’ve sought to avoid.”

  Jesse crossed her arms. “That must have made Brody’s rock-star days interesting for you.”

  Veris laughed. “That it did. The makeup and hair and attitude were enough to misdirect most people, although I’m not glad those days are gone.” He said it with a frank air. “We’ve spent the last two and a bit decades trying to drill this into our kids, Jesse.”

  She jumped. A little. She held herself still and drew in a calming breath. “That fame is dangerous? It shows. Aran is allergic to the limelight.”

  “He told you that?” Veris’ tone was casual. There was no interrogation in his voice.

  “He didn’t have to,” Jesse said. “Do you have any doubts that if he’d chosen the front end of politics, he wouldn’t one day end up in the Whitehouse? Instead, he’s a lobbyist, where there’s zero glamour and all the cameras are pointed away from him.”

  Veris studied her. “I know Aran can achieve anything he puts his mind to. He’s his father’s son. The other father, I mean.” He smiled. “The one whose blood he shares, along with Taylor’s…and it shows.”

  His pride in Aran shone in his eyes, just for that one little moment, stealing Jesse’s breath. She knew Veris had lowered the guard enough to let her see it and she was dazzled as well as breathless. She was also warmed by his revelation.

  Then the thought struck her and she pressed her fingers to her temple. “That’s why you brought me up here, isn’t it? You thought that if I wanted the…the fame, then you had to warn me.” She dropped her hand. “Me,” she repeated. “You think it’s dangerous for me to become well-known, too.”

  Veris crossed his arms, but it was just a relaxed thing to do with his arms. There wasn’t the usual defensiveness in the pose. “You’re part of this family, Jesse. You’ve been touched by time and with each passing year, you’re becoming more entwined in it. For now, you’re human and have a human life that is documented and withstands scrutiny. A little of it, at least. Somewhere in the future, that will no longer be the case and then, notoriety will become a deadly enemy to you.”

  Jesse held still, even though her heart abruptly began to race, again. “You know what is in my future?” she breathed.

  “I can see the shape of it,” Veris said, his tone gentle. “Not the details, but the direction.” His gaze was steady.

  He knew about Aran and her. Something in what she’d said, a wrong note, or maybe Aran’s scent clung to her…something had given her away.

  Jesse cleared her throat. “I wish I was as certain as you,” she whispered.

  Veris stood. “Nothing is ever that certain,” he replied. “Except, perhaps, your hunger.”

  Her belly grumbled.

  “There. See?” He raised a brow.

  Jesse put her hand to her belly. She couldn’t help the weak laugh that escaped her. “It’s been a very long day so far,” she admitted.

  “I’m sure,” Veris said, which was unusually diplomatic of him. “If you’re certain you don’t want to court the hellhounds out there, then we should head back to Canmore.”

  “I shouldn’t impose.”

  “The media are imposing. You’re invited. Speaking of which…” He lifted the phone. “You go ahead. I need to let the Chief know we have no intention of speaking to the media and he can discourage them all he wants.”

  He turned back to the window.

  Jesse made her way back down to the sunroom in the middle of the house, wondering what Aran and Taylor were talking about. Was it as unsettling, as oddly comforting, as her conversation with Veris?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Aran watched Jesse climb the stairs up to the suite of rooms over the garage. He could read her reluctance in the tautness of her shoulders and the steady pace of her steps.

  “Move away from the fireplace, Aran,” his mother told him. “I’m not expecting anyone, but jumpers rarely call ahead.”

  Aran stepped closer to the sofa, as Taylor settled on the far end of it and put the mail she had been holding on the central cushion. She settled back in the corner, looking relaxed and casually chic, which Aran found a discomforting thought to have about his mother.

  Only she didn’t feel like “Mom”. Not anymore. The last time he’d been in the room with her, which was, shit, over a year ago… He paused to absorb the fact. It added an extra dollop of guilt to the pile already steaming in his gut. Aran perched on the opposite arm of the sofa to the end where Taylor sat and considered her.

  Why had she hugged Jesse and not him?

  Why did that bother him so much? He’d stayed away, yes. But he hadn’t ghosted anyone. He’d stayed in contact. Called and texted. Not regularly, it was true, but…

  It really had been over a year since he�
��d seen the family. He came back to that sad fact with a jolt.

  And somewhere in between the last Thanksgiving he’d attended and today, he’d stopped thinking of the woman sitting at the end of the sofa as his mother. She was Taylor in appearance and in his mind, the woman who had captured the love and devotion of two of the oldest vampires still marching the earth, men who’d survived innumerable dangers, wars and disasters, who refused to suffer fools and who had belonged to no one but themselves until shortly before Aran had been born…

  He loved all three of them but had no illusions about his fathers. They were shaggy old wisdom bound in eternal, deceptively youthful flesh. That was probably why they raised his hackles within minutes, no matter what the conversation.

  Aran always felt completely inadequate, talking to his fathers. His mother, though, never seemed to judge him, no matter what.

  Yet she was studying him now, and not smiling. “We missed you at the solstice dinner.”

  “I thought you were a historian and good at keeping records? I’ve missed more than one. Thanksgivings, too.”

  “Yes, but I thought I’d ease into that.”

  “I wasn’t ready.”

  “To be in the same room with us?” Her tone was cool.

  “Something like that.”

  Taylor’s gaze didn’t waver. Then, suddenly, she smiled. “Did I ever tell you how small Veris and Brody made me feel, when I first got to know them?”

  Aran could feel his jaw loosening. “You?”

  Taylor nodded. “It’s all that history behind them. It oozes from their pores when they speak and react to anything. You can almost smell it. And there was I, a history professor, who knew nothing compared to their first-hand experiences.”

  Aran rubbed his jaw. “Yeah, it’s something like that.” In fact, he thought Taylor had come closer to putting her thumb precisely on what unsettled him the most when he was around his parents, for Taylor gave off dazzling wattage of her own. “I got tired of feeling humble and stupid,” he added.

  Taylor considered that with a small nod of her head. “You know that feeling is purely in your own head, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t stop me feeling it.”

  “But it does stop you from coming home…” she concluded with an unhappy little sigh.

  Aran shifted uneasily on the sofa arm. “Well, I’m home now.”

  “Not quite,” Taylor pointed out. “Although Veris will ask you to come back to Canada with us. You should say yes.”

  “I should?” He could feel the resistance building in him.

  “Jesse will want to visit, and it will cut down on my return jumps there and back.”

  “Jesse visits a lot.”

  “She doesn’t mind feeling humble,” Taylor said, with a small smile. “Her tolerance comes from her military training and having superiors telling her how high to jump, I suspect. And she likes listening to stories, which endears her in Veris’ and Brody’s eyes.”

  “Now you’re just rubbing the guilt in,” Aran growled.

  She looked surprised. “I’m not, actually. Not intentionally, at least. Jesse is family, Aran.”

  The knowledge was clear in his mind that Taylor was in some way trying to warn him. She was referring to the fact that she had found them in the same location on the timescape. Had she extrapolated from there? Did she suspect that they were…whatever they were?

  And Aran was back to the knotty problem which had been gnawing at his middle for weeks. It reared its head way too often, lately. Every time he looked at Jesse, it hovered in the back of his mind.

  What was she really thinking? She had always been completely and utterly independent, to the point where even sharing her thoughts was unnecessary, in her eyes.

  How would this sudden public fuss impact her? Would she finally lose interest in anything but her writing? Aran had been braced for her to move on. Was this what would end it?

  Whatever “it” was.

  He’d grown adept at choking out any hint of hope in his thoughts. He starved his imagination and just…waited. “Jesse will hate all the media attention.”

  “Jesse knows how to handle herself. She might yet surprise us all,” Taylor replied.

  Aran frowned. “You all seem to think she’s made of titanium.”

  “And you know differently?” Taylor asked softly.

  Aran looked away. He’d revealed too much. If he answered her, it would pull him into a conversation he did not want to have. Not yet. Not while fear still lived on his shoulder and whispered in his ear.

  Taylor added; “Jesse will need us now.”

  “Relax,” Aran shot back. “I’ll bring her back to Canada for you.”

  Taylor smiled. “Thank you.” She picked up the mail. “I think there’s a few letters in here for you, too. Did I tell you about the last Thanksgiving and the salmon Kit brought to the house?”

  “Kit MacDonald?” Aran clarified. “He’s a visitor now, too?”

  “Not the way Jesse is,” Taylor replied. She tossed two envelopes onto the far cushion. Both bore his name. “He does find some highly inventive reasons for popping by suddenly. Usually when Alannah is visiting, although I’m still not sure how he learns she is there.” Her smile was full of mischief.

  Kit McDonald and Alannah. Aran let that idea hang in his mind as he reached for the letters. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Although it wasn’t up to him, anyway. Alannah had been born knowing how to make up her own mind about what she wanted and how to get it, too. Which meant she also knew how to avoid what she didn’t want.

  Taylor told him about the stupefyingly large salmon Kit had left on the front verandah for Thanksgiving, which had given Taylor headaches trying to fillet and store it for a household of people who didn’t eat food. She went on to describe the solstice feast they’d held last year and the arm-wrestling competition between Neven, Alexander, Rafe and Remi, to decide who would hold this year’s solstice feast.

  Aran realized he had sunk onto the cushions when he leaned back against the arm of the sofa with a small smile at the mental image of four vampires caught up in an ancient display of machismo.

  He realized with a start that he was actually looking forward to the jump back to Alberta and seeing everyone again.

  That was when Jesse reappeared, climbing down the steps with a distant look on her face. What had Veris told her to make her look that way?

  “Are you heading out to speak to the media?” Aran asked her, wondering why his heart was thudding so hard. The effort it took to ask that question!

  Jesse looked at him, startled. “God, no,” she breathed and shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself.

  Something loosened in his middle. Aran didn’t linger to ask himself what it was that had just sighed in relief. He got to his feet, too uneasy to remain seated.

  Taylor rose, too. “I’m going to tour around the house and make sure everything is still screwed down tight. Then I’ll bring Veris back. You two should go ahead.” She looked at Jesse. “You’ll stay for dinner, yes?”

  Jesse smiled. “That depends. Who is cooking?”

  “Rafe, I suspect,” Taylor said. “He’s probably already going through the contents of the kitchen and building a shopping list.”

  “In that case, yes,” Jesse said. “I’d love to stay.”

  Aran smiled. Rafe’s cooking was vastly superior to anyone else’s, including the humans in the family. He even baked and his croissants nearly rivalled Bertrand’s.

  The pleasant remembrance let Aran squash down the hard knot in his middle and momentarily extinguish it, enough to let him put his arms around Jesse and steal the small pleasure while he jumped her to Canmore.

  When Jesse climbed up the open stairs to the hidden door on the main level of the big house, she learned that everyone was there, just as Brody had said they would be. The house was stuffed full of people, once more, although the humans among them were mostly sleeping, for it was the middle of the ni
ght for Europe.

  No one instantly pulled Jesse aside and demanded to know what the hell she had been doing to make the global press corps come after her. No one said congratulations about the ranking book. Even when Veris returned, he didn’t immediately call a family meeting around the big dining table to deconstruct what had happened and make plans to deal with it.

  In fact, Jesse wasn’t even sure everyone did know about the book, or why Brody had yanked them over to the Canadian Rockies. This family was incredibly non-inquisitive about others’ concerns. They may be curious, but they wouldn’t ask.

  So why were they here if not to critique her affairs?

  Jesse finally relaxed half-way through dinner, when she realized that the evening was merely one of the impromptu gatherings that seemed to happen occasionally. The occasion was made all the louder and happier because Aran was at the table, too—something that hadn’t happened in more than a year.

  Unlike previous years, though, Aran didn’t sit off to one side and brood—and no one could brood like Aran could, when he was of a mind to, which had always seemed to be his preferred mode when he was here. Tonight, though, it seemed to Jesse that he had started in that frame of mind, then, suddenly, he wasn’t.

  She first noticed the change when Brody had been talking about the recent mayoral election in the town and the fuss about the First Nations candidate who had lost the election by a small margin.

  “There was the usual call for a recount and claims of ballot miscounting,” Brody added. “But not by Peter Chiniquay or his staff, which was interesting.”

  “Doesn’t mean he wasn’t behind the call for the recount,” Aran said.

  Everyone looked at him, including Jesse, for it was the first time he had spoken since the meal had begun

  Brody’s mouth turned up at one corner. “I don’t think it was a stooge for Chiniquay, either. The man shouting the loudest for a recount is the owner of the local Safeway. He’s white, middle-aged and conservative.”

  Aran shook his head. “You’re blinded by Chiniquay being Sioux—”