Eternal Oath

by Jewel Quinlan

  Linda could feel the edges of her mouth curve upward at the drawn eyebrows and pursed mouth her father gave to the chair. It relieved her to see his spirit flare up after seeing the mortification he’d tried to hide as he’d been transported down the stairs. He did his best to behave stoically, but she knew her father well enough his true feelings were always apparent to her. Though he might be weak physically, his soul was feisty as ever. Her heart lifted.

  She herself was not looking forward to today. Falk had spoken to Sarah, and Sarah had made an appointment for her with a psychiatrist. As much as she loved Sarah, she would have preferred she not know. Now two people, and her father, were aware of her issues. No, more. Sarah would probably tell one of the other staff members. The thought made her want to curl in on herself. Were they talking about her behind her back? Would Falk still love her if she went insane? After the last twenty-four hours, she was sure she must be. Did they even have any asylums in Constance?

  Yesterday, after breakfast, the skies had cleared and she and Falk had gone for a walk. The house sat at the edge of a large piece of land sometimes harvested for lumber. But for the most part, it was left undisturbed as part of their home. It had felt like old times as they had talked while hiking on one of their favorite trails winding in a loose circle around the property. The air had been crisp and birds sang from their hiding places in the thick branches of the trees.

  Falk had held her hand, which she’d loved, but he had been unusually quiet for the first part of the loop. She had chatted to him about school and friends and where she wanted to go to college, but when it became apparent he listened only with a fraction of his brain, she tugged him to a stop.

  “Hey,” she said gently. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

  “Nothing.”

  But he wasn’t being forthcoming.

  He scuffed his shoe on the ground, looked off to the side, and then back at her. He could fool most people with that line, but not Linda. “I just have a lot on my mind,” he said with a shrug. “I’m worried about Dad and you. And then there are the mills to think about…the business. Finishing college. That’s all.”

  With each item he listed, she could almost see the burden physically weighing his shoulders down, as though a stack of bricks had been added to him and he was doing his best not to let one fall. She hadn’t given any thought to the stress he must be under and felt kind of naive. Amazing how much a person’s life could change in a couple of years as they matured into an adult.

  Going to college and working at the mills had changed Falk. And she felt like the immature schoolgirl everyone thought she was. All her life her father had taken care of her…taken care of everyone. She hadn’t thought what would happen if he were to pass away. Her only thoughts had been of the immediate concern of getting him well again. But it looked like Falk had thought further ahead. He had the big picture in mind, she realized, and it stressed him out.

  “That’s not all.” She squeezed his hand. “Those are some big important things.” She held his gaze. His beautiful blue eyes tried to hold her gaze, and then, a moment later, they wavered.

  “I don’t feel ready yet,” he admitted.

  She waited, knowing there was more.

  “I mean, I’ve got a lot of it under my belt. I think I could probably muddle my way forward with the business. But God, Linda. I don’t want to mess up all Father has built. I still have two more year of school to finish. How am I going to oversee everything while I’m doing that?”

  Worry laced his tone and his forehead. She’d never seen him this way, and it was so uncharacteristic as to be almost comical. But she didn’t laugh. Instead, she stepped closer to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. He embraced her automatically in return.

  “First of all,” she said, “Dad didn’t build it all up himself.”

  “Huh?”

  She suppressed a grin. In Falk’s eyes, her father was practically a god. And placing someone so high set up impossible standards to meet. “As smart as you are, I wonder how you can forget some of these important details. The company has been built by generations of Hartmanns over many, many years. Remember?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Now, don’t you think there’s been even one other person in our family history who wasn’t ready to run the thing? Could it even be feasible someone less prepared than you had to step up to the plate at some point in all that time?” she asked.

  “I suppose it’s possible.” But the doubt in his tone contradicted his statement.

  “Are you sure you read the entire library?” she teased.

  “Of course I did.”

  He looked a tad affronted, which made her chuckle. “Then how could you forget the memoir of Rudolph Hartmann?” she asked, loving the consternation that came over his face.

  “Rudolph? What does he have to do with anything?”

  It was the first book he had read from the library. She remembered because they had read it together. “You and he have a lot in common. Back then, he didn’t know what he was doing either. He all but said how stressed out he was. But somehow he made it through.”

  He rubbed his hands up and down her back. “But that’s not the same at all. Rudolph founded the company. It wasn’t handed to him as a successful venture he had to continue to build on.”

  “You’re right. What I said was you shared some things in common. Don’t you think it was just a little stressful for him to try and eke out a living here? Difficult to start a company at all? But that brings me to my next example. Nicolai Hartmann. There’s a lot more commonality there.”

  One of his golden brows furrowed as he riffled through the database of knowledge in his head. “Nicolai?”

  Linda nodded. “Third son of Rudolph. Ring any bells?”

  “I just remember the firstborn died in a logging accident and the second of influenza.”

  “Then you missed the best part.” She slapped her palm on one of his shoulders. “Nicolai was the son Rudolph bore with his second wife, so of course there was a bit of an age gap between him and the other brothers. Anyway, he had to take charge of the company when he was only fifteen after Rudolph passed away.”

  “Oh yeah,” Falk said, as the remembered the story again. “But he’s not that remarkable. The company survived under his management, but that’s about all.”

  “What are you talking about?” Her voice rose with disbelief. “He was fifteen! He knew a lot less than you and I did. Gosh, you’re hard to please. But that’s fine. I have a third example.”

  “You have a third?” he asked with amusement. “When did you find time to study up on all of this? Is there a fourth?”

  She shook her head. “Don’t need a fourth.” They stood even closer. The mist of their breaths intertwining as they spoke. From this distance, she could make out the color of every one of his eyelashes and the perfection of the planes of his jaw beneath the dusting of stubble.

  “Okay, who’s number three?”

  “Dad.”

  Falk looked confused, and then Linda realized maybe he never knew how things had been before he’d joined the household. She’d assumed someone had filled him in.

  “You’re forgetting something about him. Dad almost ran the company into the ground after mother died,” she said. “It was a close call, but he somehow got back on his feet and brought things back to normal. It wasn’t until after you joined us that the company began to enjoy success again. I think something about you lit a new fire in his heart. I don’t think the company has ever reached such a peak before. My point is, all companies fluctuate in their success and ours is no different. And those who have come before you are no better and no worse than you are right now at this moment.”

  He stood considering her words for a moment and then cupped her face in his hands. “When did you become so wise?” he asked with a smile.

  Her gaze skipped over his face from his expressive brows to his manly nose and t
hen down to his lips. How wonderful his mouth had felt on hers last night. The light in his eyes changed, and he leaned his lips toward hers. She relaxed in blissful expectation.

  The moment was interrupted because her awareness was sucked into another vision. One so horrible and shocking she screamed.

  It was an image of Falk dead.

  A younger Falk, hanging upside down from a tree with his throat slit. Blood poured from his neck, covering his beautiful pale face on its way down as his arms hung lifelessly from him. His eyes were open and his skin was white, so white….

  She must have passed out because, following that, she woke up on the couch in her sitting room before the fire. Falk sat on the floor beside her with his head resting on the edge of the couch beside her. He’d probably fallen asleep waiting for her to wake up. At the first touch of her fingers on the soft strands of his hair, he’d immediately lifted his head.

  “Oh thank God,” he said. “I’m so glad you’re awake. You passed out on the trail, and I carried you back. I was so scared.” He clasped her hands. “Don’t worry, we’re going to get you some help.” His voice was hollow with stress. “The doctor will know what to do.”

  Later, she leaned her head on the cool glass of the car window on the way into town. Is it possible there is a doctor who can figure out what is going on with me? Doubt filled her mind, and she wondered what diagnosis she would be walking out with at the end of the hour. Would he prescribe medication?

  She tried to resign herself to the realization that maybe it was time. The dreams were causing some pretty dramatic interruptions to her everyday life. Medications had to be in order. It wasn’t really the idea of them per se that bothered her. Heck, she would welcome anything that would control the damned images. It was more the acknowledgement, the hard proof, that something was wrong with her. Something requiring medication. Ugh! It was silly, but that was how she felt.

  A warm hand grasped hers, and she turned her head to look at her dad. He also rode in the back of the Range Rover. She’d sat in the back to keep him company.

  His warm brown eyes assessed her. “It’s going to be okay,” he said firmly. “Whatever it is, it is a temporary thing. It will pass.”

  He also knew what was going on with her. Either Sarah or Falk had told him. Tears welled up in her chest. The sensation of comfort tangling with other emotions as his strength and certainty washed over her. The few words he spoke brought her a priceless comfort. She believed him. Dad was right most of the time to the consternation of those around him. She nodded and wiped a tear from her cheek with one hand while squeezing his hand back with the other.

  “If I can survive being carried about like a babe in nappies, then you can go in there and chat with that doctor,” he said.

  She gave a wet chuckle. “Yes. I can.”

  “Make sure you tell him everything.” He fixed her with a stern look. “Everything. The man has to piece together what’s going on from what you tell him, so don’t leave anything out.”

  He knew only too well how shy she could be sometimes. His advice warmed her heart. “Okay. I will.”

  “I love you, baby girl. No matter what, you’re going to be fine.”

  She smiled as a couple more hot tears trickled down her cheeks. “I love you, too.”

  The car slowed to a stop, and Falk looked back at them from the driver’s seat. “We’re here.”

  Chapter Six

  A few hours later, Falk drove back to the house with Linda, and both of them were quiet for most of the ride. They’d been a little shocked when the new doctor had insisted Father be admitted to the hospital and new tests be run. Not that they didn’t want the man to do his job, but leaving Father behind overnight in a hospital brought home just how critical his health had become.

  They’d stayed with him after he was admitted, all the way until visiting hours ended. Dad had weakly shooed them away to go home and eat dinner, exhausted from the day’s events.

  “I’ll be fine.” But his pale, tired face contradicted the faux grin he gave them. The nurse walked in with a tray of food at that moment. “Besides, I always did like Jell-O. There is Jell-O on there, right miss?” he called to the nurse.

  They all turned to look at her. She was petite and of an Asian ethnicity. “Oh, I’m afraid not. Chocolate pudding is the dessert tonight.” She gave Dad a kind smile. “Even better than Jell-O.”

  “My other favorite! See, I’m going to be just fine,” Dad said.

  Falk exchanged a glance with Linda then rose to say good-bye.

  “See you tomorrow, Dad.” Linda leaned over the bed to kiss him on the cheek.

  Falk hugged him.

  “You take care of her,” Dad had said in a low voice in his ear.

  “With my life,” he’d murmured back.

  He’d meant it. Falk knew without a doubt he would do anything for Linda. Known it for quite some time in fact. He tried to think when he’d begun to feel that way and couldn’t pinpoint it. It was just and intrinsic part of his make up now.

  “I wonder what Sarah made for dinner tonight,” Linda said idly.

  She seemed a world away from him all the way over on the passenger seat. Her hands curled into her legs, clasping the prescription bottle of pills they’d picked up at the pharmacy for her.

  “I’m hoping for tri-tip.”

  “Mm…sounds good,” she responded, her voice low and lacking in energy.

  It had been a long day, and they’d had yet to talk about what had happened with her and the psychiatrist. After she’d come back, they’d had their hands full getting Dad situated. Linda had maintained a calm facade the entire time. She sagged in her seat, and he drove a little faster to get them home. Linda needed a meal and a good night’s sleep right away.

  “What happened at your appointment?” He knew she wouldn’t want to talk about it. But he had to know.

  She lifted a shoulder and let it fall. Then raised a hand to push her dark hair back over her ear. “Not a lot. I told him everything, and he listened and asked questions. He was hard to read. Didn’t react at all to the strange dreams I told him about. It was kind of like talking to a wall.”

  Falk laughed. “Did he say what might be triggering the episodes?”

  She turned to look at him. Her oval face drawn with weariness, her youthful features looking far older than they should. “His final conclusion was stress. He said I’m going through a lot right now, and the dreams are some kind of response to everything happening in my life.”

  “That’s it?” Falk felt disappointed wave through him. He had expected more. A definite answer as to what the dreams meant or where they were coming from. Or an interpretation of what she had seen. Perhaps some drugs to set her mind back to dreaming about things girls her age normally did, boys…or makeup. Anything would have been better than the simple diagnosis of stress.

  “Yup.”

  The tone in her one word seemed on par with his own disappointment. “What did he prescribe you?” He jerked his chin at the bottle clutched in her hands. Wishing the doctor had given her some magical mind-altering medicine after all but knowing it wouldn’t be so.

  “Something to help me sleep.” She held the amber plastic container up to the light and peered at the writing on the label. “He said I just need to rest.”

  Well, it wasn’t much but it was a start. Linda did need to rest. But from what he had seen so far, Falk wasn’t convinced it was so simple. He regretted not staying in closer contact with her over the last several months and prayed the doctor was right.

  “Well then, young lady, you’re going to have an early night,” he said in a mock-stern tone.

  She smiled at him. “I’m beat. So you’ll get no complaints from me, warden.”

  He grinned.

  “A night of peace at home in my own bed sounds great.” Linda sighed.

  When they arrived at the mansion, Jensen and Sarah met them at the door, their faces full of r
estrained questions. But they only spoke their usual greetings, knowing there was a time and place for such things. Jensen took their coats, and Sarah ushered them to the dinner table, acting like a mother hen as she always did, insisting they both needed a hot meal in their bellies.

  It was nice to have someone care about her that way again, Linda mused. At boarding school the staff served as role models, instructors, advisors at most. But not much more. She was sure school rules set a thick boundary when it came to anything more familiar between teachers and students. Without the support system she’d had at home to lean on, Linda felt as though she had grown in ways she never knew existed. Would there be more during her college years? How weird to think she would be different someday. She couldn’t imagine herself changing, having always been happy with what she was.

  From what she had seen of Falk, more changes had to be ahead. He’d matured quite a bit while away. He’d grown taller and filled out. Thick muscles coated his forearms and thighs, and a great ridge of muscle ran from his shoulders to his neck. His skin had a golden tan from being outdoors. It seemed his time at the mills had been good for him in more ways than one. Physical changes weren’t the only ones though; a new depth accented his eyes as though the fullness of his soul shined through, reflecting the greatness within him, the man that was emerging. It added a new and foreign dimension to the youthful and humorous one he normally wore.

  Although all those things were good, Linda didn’t like change. Comfortable and familiar were more her style. But she supposed she would get used to it. He would always be her Falk, no matter how he grew. Within him would always be the tousled-haired blond who’d shown up with her father that day.

  Instead of going straight to the dining room, Falk went upstairs first to wash up, grumbling about hospitals and disease. Linda followed Sarah into the kitchen and sat on a stool. A couple of old-fashioned wooden ones stood next to the big counter where the cook worked. Put there on purpose, she suspected, as a way to corral non-staff who dropped in, and keep them from getting underfoot. She had also long suspected the stools were uncomfortable on purpose so as to discourage a long visit. It made her grin.