She and Basil were forming a friendship, along with some mutual respect. She didn’t want to appear pompous about knowing more than Basil as to how lacking the powers he was so proud of actually were when compared to the overall scheme of things. They needed to work together to help Shain bring whoever was sabotaging Chenaie to justice. Yet he was waiting for some sort of explanation.
“Uh ...” she began as, below them, Shain assisted Alaynia into the buggy, and Jeannie handed something to the minister’s wife. Both of them tossed their hands toward the smiling couple, and a shower of rice fell on Shain and Alaynia. The minister joined his wife and Jeannie in peals of gay laughter.
Basil crossed his arms on his chest and smiled smugly as everyone murmured one last leave-taking and Shain handed Jeannie into the buggy. Climbing in after her, he settled between the two women, then lifted the reins. The buggy horse tossed its head and trotted off, just as the sun rose in a beautiful morning sky.
“Basil,” Sylvia said in a tentative voice. “This might not be the best time to mention this. I mean, I realize your grandson just got married, and you’re feeling pretty happy about it.”
“That I am,” Basil admitted. “Some folks think it’s women who have the most feelings for their kids or grandkids. Christopher and I never developed a close relationship, but in the little time I had on earth with Shain, I came to love him like it was an ache in me. I want him to have a good life, and Alaynia’s just the woman to make him happy.”
“If she stays with him,” Sylvia murmured.
Basil swiveled toward her. “What do you mean? I told you that I’ve got no intention of sending her back to her own time.”
Sylvia released a deep breath. She glanced overhead once again, sending another thought winging toward Francesca. Either the distance of time separating them was too great, or Francesca chose to ignore her, because the superior angel made no appearance. Avoiding Basil’s gaze, Sylvia smoothed at her dashiki skirt.
“Sometimes it’s not up to us, Basil,” she said. “There’s a higher order to things, and we’ve got absolutely no control over the events that take place. In a way, it’s like it was when you were living. All you could do then was cope with the circumstances life handed you. You couldn’t change things or twist them into what you wanted them to be.”
She clenched her hands together and continued, “If Alaynia was supposed to have found that time warp and returned before this, you wouldn’t have been able to keep it hidden from her. And, to tell the truth, your powers didn’t bring Alaynia back here, Basil. You might have been the channel through which it happened, but meeting Shain was what was supposed to take place in Alaynia’s life. What she did with the situation herself after that was her own choice.”
Basil sat silently for several long moments. Sylvia slipped a brief glance at him from beneath her eyelashes, and he turned to stare down the road, although the buggy was no longer visible. Sylvia could see the meaning of her words sinking in and Basil’s joy at his grandson’s happiness fading into worry.
“What you’re saying,” he said at last, “is that even though Alaynia’s here now, her destiny may not be to stay here. She might still be taken away from Shain sometime in the future.”
“May,” Sylvia said. “We can’t be sure. Staying here may be what’s supposed to happen in Alaynia’s life. Or it may not be. And I don’t think I’d say that she would be taken away from Shain. It’s just whatever her destiny is supposed to be.”
When Basil only stared at her, silently demanding more information, Sylvia steeled herself to be truthful with him, despite knowing what she was going to say would hurt him deeply. “What’s really out of place here—what you’ve done—is not give Alaynia access to the time warp again. You took away something very important to humans. Something given to them at their own creation.”
“And what would that happen to be?”
“Her free will—her right to make her own choices.”
“She says she wants to stay here now! She loves Shain.”
“But she’s still determined to find out what’s happened to her. If you’d given her the choice at any time of going back or staying here, she’d be content in knowing that she’d chosen her own destiny. She’d be satisfied with her decision, and not worried about you interfering in her life again, even though she doesn’t know it’s you she’s worried about. And Frannie and I could have been on vacation right now, instead of in this situation.”
Basil gaped at her in astonishment. “You mean, I have to lead her back to that time warp? Allow her to decide whether to go back through it or not? That’s easy enough, because I’m totally sure what choice she’ll make. I’ll just—”
“It’s more complicated than that now. You’ve let all kinds of questions build up in Alaynia’s mind. She’s not going to be completely at ease until she knows every answer. Besides, you probably haven’t recouped enough of your powers to remove the barricade to the time warp yet. And that’s not something I can help you with, since you’re the one who put it in place.”
“How do we find out what I should do?”
“I don’t know.” Basil tossed her a furious look, and Sylvia held out her hands as she faced him. “I really don’t,” she stressed. “You have to remember, I’m fairly new to this guardian angel business and dealing with a human’s free will. Like Frannie told me a few weeks ago, I’ve only been at this for a blink in time. The spirits I dealt with before were already on the next plane of existence, and you’re the first spirit I’ve met who chose not to join us. I don’t know if Frannie’s ever run into a situation like this one before, or whether she might have some idea of what’s permissible for us to do to correct your tampering. But I’ve got a firm feeling that we’d better be very, very careful, so things don’t get even more complicated.”
“So how can you find out?”
“I guess we’ll just have to wait for Frannie.”
“We need to know soon,” Basil said sternly.
“I agree. But right now, we can’t leave Chenaie. Something terrible might happen while we’re gone, if that Fitzroy decides it’s taking too long for him to gain control of Shain’s timber rights. We’ll have to wait for Frannie to get back.”
“Can’t you contact her now?”
“I tried a few minutes ago. She must be busy, or else she’s decided I need to handle this on my own.”
“You and I have plenty of time,” Basil grumbled. “Eons and eons of time. But I’m not so sure about Shain and the situation at Chenaie. Come on. You need to see some things.”
Basil floated into the air. A second later, Sylvia unfurled her wings and drifted after him. Instead of following the road below them, Basil veered in a different direction, motioning with one hand for Sylvia to accompany him.
They flew west, over St. Francisville, in the opposite direction of Chenaie. Below them, most of the houses were silent and dark. The town inhabitants never woke as early as their country friends, who had to use every available moment of daylight to assure themselves of bountiful crops at harvest. Here and there, Sylvia did see a few people walking toward the more spacious houses. From their mode of dress, they were probably servants on their way to a full day of caring for the town’s more prosperous inhabitants.
When they reached the Mississippi River on the far edge of town, Basil pointed down at the muddy banks. Though the river was still wide and flowing smoothly, the water was several feet lower than it had been when she arrived. In answer to her questioning glance, Basil said, “There hasn’t been any rain for months. Even the Grand Old Miss is showing signs of the drought. And look at this.”
Basil blinked his eyes, and they both found themselves over the creek where Shain’s cotton crop had been dumped. Only a small trickle of water flowed down the middle of the rock-strewn creek bed. The heaps of muddy cotton lay in dry piles, covered with baked mud.
“The pond at Chenaie’s down, too,” Basil said. “And the cisterns are so low, Shain’s worried a
bout the water. The wells on the plantation have never gone dry, but there’s always a first time. They need rain.”
“Shain’s been bringing in the cotton crop, though,” Sylvia pointed out.
“Yeah, but it’s not as good a quality as it would have been, if he’d been able to wait a few weeks. And he’s set his hopes on that cane crop making up the difference for getting less money on the cotton. Cane needs water, though—lots of it. He had Carrington raise the levy gate on the irrigation pond higher, but no one’s sure if that will be enough water to assure a quality crop.”
Next, Basil led her over Jake’s house, and she glanced below to see Zeke carrying a bucket of feed out to Stubborn. Basil tilted a finger against his forehead in a salute and murmured, “Hello, old friend.”
Zeke’s steps faltered, and he craned his neck overhead. Stubborn reacted even more clearly to the invisible presences. With a bray of fear, he raced over to the small shelter at one end of the corral and disappeared inside. Zeke dropped the feed bucket, spilling grain around his feet and clutching at the gris gris bag around his neck.
Basil chuckled, and Sylvia frowned a chastisement at him. “Quit that, Basil. You’re scaring the poor man, and he’s not even sure what he’s afraid of.”
Basil shrugged. “All he feels is a little chill of goose bumps. And you’d think at his age, he’d know that voodoo nonsense is just that—nonsense.” With a sigh, he continued, “I just miss him, that’s all. He was a good friend.”
“Well, you’ll have to wait until he joins us to pick up your friendship again,” Sylvia said sternly. “And while we’re discussing things like that, I think you ought to be very careful about contacting Alaynia. I know what you did last night, while I was in town checking out Fitzroy’s office.”
“I want her to start writing Chenaie’s history,” Basil defended himself. “But she’s too busy working on Jake’s house.”
“And falling in love, and getting married. Heavens, Basil, what do you expect? You led her into a life completely strange to her ... good grief! Look at that mess below.”
Basil hovered beside Sylvia as they stared at the ravaged hillside beneath them. “This is something else I wanted you to see,” he said.
The hill rose steeply only a few yards behind Jake’s barn. Smaller trees and brush covered the slope nearer the barn, but every living piece of greenery had been removed from a swathe above that area to the top of the hill and down the far side. Protruding rocks littered the barren, dry dirt. On a rutted road at the bottom of the far side of the hill, wagons filled with men holding saws and axes were approaching, ready for another day of timbering.
“It looks awful,” Sylvia said. “As bad as the strip mining areas did before the environmentalists got enough power to force the mining companies to reclaim the areas they destroyed digging for coal.”
“All anyone here’s interested in right now is money in their pockets,” Basil snarled. “They’re not thinking about what this area will be like a few years from now, with nothing left to stop erosion. Jake’s got the right idea—trying to buy this property from Escott and replant it, but this is just one little section. Eventually, the rest of the cutover land’s going to be covered with underbrush and scrub timber.”
“It’s just awful,” Sylvia repeated. “I can see how the drought’s affecting Shain, but what does this have to do with Chenaie? Shain’s determined not to let that company on his land.”
Basil rubbed his chin. “Well, I’m not sure if it really has anything to do with Chenaie, but I’ve got a weird feeling about it. And this is something else I haven’t been able to see the future about. I thought maybe you might be able to penetrate whatever’s keeping me from seeing what’s going to happen.”
“I can’t,” Sylvia reminded him. “It’s not within my powers.”
“It doesn’t make sense to me,” Basil said in exasperation. “Why not?”
“I guess ...” Sylvia paused, her face creasing into a frown of concentration. “Well, think of it. As a guardian angel, my job is to protect my assignment’s body until I receive word that it’s time for the body to die and the soul to join us. If I could always just jump into the future and see what was going to happen, there wouldn’t be much for me to do. It’s just not in the scheme of things, Basil. We have to accept that.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Basil admitted. “Like I told you and Francesca when you first came, I found out for myself that I couldn’t go everywhere I want to. I thought maybe it was because I chose to stay down here, instead of ascending to a higher plane. All the ministers preach about how we have to accept the fact that people will never know the answers to why a lot of things happen while they’re alive. Guess I assumed—like most of them do—that everything would be clear after we died.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Sylvia replied. “We better get on back to Chenaie. Frannie will look for us there when she comes back.”
Basil nodded, and the two of them drifted toward the plantation on an air wave. Sylvia enjoyed the sensation of laziness, though it could be considered a frowned-upon trait. However, it was nice to float through the air without having to power herself with her wings. After all, she was supposed to be on vacation, and vacations were for lazing around and recouping energies.
They arrived at Chenaie the same time as Shain’s buggy. Basil flew down to the swing sitting on the corner of the front veranda. He patted the seat beside him, and she joined him. Despite her worry over whether Francesca would approve of the wedding, she smiled delightedly as Shain lifted Alaynia from the buggy and swept her into his arms.
* * * *
“Welcome to Chenaie, Mrs. St. Clair,” Shain said.
He dropped a brief kiss on her mouth, and Alaynia sighed with contentment. Jeannie scrambled from the buggy on her own and skipped beside them as Shain carried Alaynia to the front steps.
“Oh,” Jeannie said joyfully. “It’s going to be so wonderful having you as a real part of Chenaie, Alaynia. Think of all the fun we can have together.”
Shain paused on the veranda and gave Jeannie a mock frown. “Now, see here. You’ll have plenty of time with Alaynia, but these first few days are mine. I expect when you get married, you’ll want a honeymoon of your own.”
“Most certainly,” Jeannie said with a smirk. “How else will I get any time alone with my husband? Why, I’ve always got someone hovering over my shoulder, if a boy even looks my way. But you’ll never get any privacy at Chenaie. Aren’t you planning on taking Alaynia somewhere?”
Jeannie held the door open, and Shain carried Alaynia into the front foyer. “She’s right about that,” he growled under his breath for only Alaynia’s ears. “The privacy part, anyway. There won’t be any peace and quiet either, with my little sister’s constant chatter.”
Alaynia snuggled against him and remained mute. She didn’t want to discuss Jeannie or even a honeymoon. All that mattered right now was the delicious knowledge that she was Shain’s wife. Visions of the night just past in her bed with Shain filled her head, and warmth stole over her body. She stroked his chest with her free hand, and the muscles beneath her palm bunched in reaction to her caress. As he strode across the foyer, through the parlor and into the dining room, she nuzzled her nose against his neck. His quick intake of breath told her that he was having the same problems of maintaining a proper façade in front of Jeannie as she was.
His arms crushed her against him, and her nipples puckered in response to her longing to be alone with him. Giggling silently, she surreptitiously stuck out her tongue and licked the side of his neck. The slightly salty tang lingered in her mouth. Slipping one finger inside his shirt, she tangled her nail in the chest hair, twirling it into a curl.
“You better stop,” Shain whispered in her ear. “Otherwise I’m going to carry you up to our room and keep you there the rest of the day and tonight. And the hell with what anyone thinks. In fact, I’m so damned hard with wanting you right now, I could toss your skirts here on t
he dining room table.”
“You wouldn’t!” Alaynia’s eyes widened, and she pushed against his chest. In the depths of his brown eyes, she saw a matching flame for the desire she was desperately trying to keep banked in her body. A corner of her mind registered Jeannie’s continuing chatter as the young girl lifted silver-plated lids to examine the food the cook had prepared for breakfast and laid out on the sideboard. The voice hummed undiscerningly until Jeannie said something about cold eggs and scampered out the rear door of the dining room to check with the cook in the kitchen house.
Shain slowly released her, and she slipped down his body while he kept his gaze on her face. She gasped and clenched her fingers in his shirt when his hardness slid along her thigh. As soon as her feet touched the floor, Shain cupped her hips. Pulling her to him, he nestled against her stomach and bent his head.
Alaynia helplessly returned his kiss. This was her husband now, the man she loved with her whole being. She had chosen this life—with all its inconveniences and unprogressive attitudes toward women, but she couldn’t imagine ever wanting to leave. The time warp could remain hidden forever as far as she was concerned. Her life was now intertwined forever with Shain’s.
She only had to make sure that darned warp and whoever ... whatever ... didn’t meddle in her life again. Forever.
Chapter 22
Alaynia slit her eyelids a bare hint the next morning and found the master bedroom still dark. For a minute or two, she lay quietly, enjoying the sensation of Shain’s muscular body pressed along hers, his arms wrapped around her and one hand cupping her breast. Soon a slow heat spread through her, and her breathing grew more shallow as flashes of the night they had shared crept into her mind.
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