Kate had half expected Nick to follow her. She didn't know whether to be glad or sorry when he didn't. Par for the course, she thought as she slid behind the wheel of the truck and started the engine. She didn't seem to know what she felt about anything right now.
She drove with no particular destination in mind, but she was not surprised when she found herself pulling into the parking lot of one of her favorite parks. It was a neighborhood park, not particularly large but well kept, mostly by volunteer labor from the neighborhood it served. What she loved about it was the huge old sycamores that shaded it. The trees were much older than the surrounding houses, and she liked the idea that, when it came time to build, someone had cared enough to plan this park around the trees.
She didn't get out of the truck but rolled down the windows for ventilation. There were half a dozen boys playing on the basketball court and their shouts drifted to her on the hot, late afternoon air. She watched them run and jump and tried to remember what it had felt like to have that much energy.
For a long time, she was content to watch them, keeping her mind a careful blank, letting the tension ease from her. Joshua would be about their age, she thought suddenly. But the thought didn't bring the same fierce rush of pain it once had. The hurt had softened and there was a certain acceptance in it now.
She let her head fall back against the headrest and closed her eyes. Maybe Nick was right. Maybe she had been holding onto the anger and hurt for too long, hugging it to her. She thought of the times she'd seen her father over the past couple of weeks. Now that she knew he was leaving, she found it easier to see him clearly. And what she saw was a lonely, lonely man who'd spent his whole life chasing after a dream that he probably couldn't even define. She wondered if he realized how much the pursuit had cost him.
Kate opened her eyes and looked out at the soft green sweep of grass in front of the truck. What was she doing here? Running, just like her father. It was ironic that she'd tried so hard to avoid being anything like him, and yet she was following in his footsteps' in this one essential way. Instead of dealing with things, she hid from them, just the way her father had always done.
Nick was right about a lot of things, she thought He was right about why she'd agreed to marry Gareth. He'd been right about the way she'd let her father's actions influence her expectations of the people around her. Maybe he'd even been right about fate bringing them together again. And, God help her, he'd been right about how she felt about him.
She loved him.
There was a certain relief in admitting it. She loved Nick. And he loved her. This time, the thought brought warmth rather than panic. He loved her. He wanted to settle in Eden and build a life with her. Her hand settled on the gentle swell of her stomach. A life with her and their child, she corrected herself, and felt the warmth increase.
Why had that seemed so frightening? Because loving Nick meant risking everything. She wouldn't be able to live her life on the surface anymore. She'd be opening herself up, making herself vulnerable, trusting someone else with her emotions in a way she'd never been willing to do. It was frightening. But the alternative was even more frightening.
Kate sat up and reached for the key. What a fool she'd been to think that safety lay in closing herself off from loving Nick. The truth was, the only security was in his arms.
❧
"I wish you'd stop walking back and forth like a duck in a shooting gallery," Harry said irritably. You're making me seasick."
"I don't like it that she's been gone this long," Nick said. He stopped in the living room doorway and looked at the front door as if willing Kate to walk through it.
"She didn't tell you where she was going?"
"No." Hell, she hadn't even told him she was going at all, but he saw no point in telling Harry that.
Harry had arrived over an hour ago, carrying boxes of Chinese take-out. He'd found Nick prowling restlessly through the house, looking at the clock every five minutes and looking more like a tiger in a cage than anything as innocuous as a duck. The moo goo gai pan and Szechwan pork were congealing in their containers on the kitchen table.
"It's not all that late," Harry pointed out for the tenth time. He was ignored, also for the tenth time.
"She should have been back by now," Nick muttered, stalking to glare into the empty fireplace.
"She's a big girl and this isn't exactly the big city, you know. Maybe she had a flat tire or something."
"She was upset when she left," Nick admitted reluctantly. "We...argued. Sort of."
"About what?" The question was automatic, a habit ingrained by years of cross-examination. Always pull as much from the witness as possible.
"I told her I loved her."
Harry's brows climbed in surprise. "And this was a bad thing?"
"Not bad. Not exactly." Nick shoved his hands into his pockets and then pulled them out again. He paced from one end of the living room to the other, measuring off the distance between the fireplace and the bay window at the front of the house. He stood next to the window for a moment, frowning at the fading light.
"Not exactly?" Harry prompted from behind him.
"It wasn't exactly a bad thing." He turned from the window and paced to the fireplace. "It has to do with her father and putting down roots and...other things." He waved one hand to encompass the emotional complications of his relationship with his wife. "It's getting late," he muttered, glancing at his watch for the fifth time in as many minutes.
"It's barely eight o'clock—not exactly the witching hour." But Harry was frowning, too. It wasn't like Kate to disappear. She was nothing if not dependable. "Probably just car trouble."
"The truck went in for a tune-up a couple of weeks ago," Nick said.
"Tune-ups don't prevent flat tires," Harry pointed out. "If she was upset, maybe she went to see Brenda. Why don't you call and ask?"
Nick started to shake his head and then hesitated. Considering the strained nature of her relationship with Brenda, it didn't seem likely that she'd go there, but it was a possibility. He reached for the phone book to look up Brenda's number and the doorbell rang. He dropped the phone book with a thud and looked at Harry.
"Probably someone selling something," Harry said, but his eyes reflected the same fear that had grabbed Nick by the throat.
That fear took on form and reality when he opened the door and saw Gareth standing there. Behind him, he could see the distinctive outlines of a police cruiser. He looked at his brother and knew what he was going to say even before Gareth said it.
"There's been an accident, Nick. It's Kate."
❧
Gareth drove with lights and sirens and damn the rules. Streetlights provided him with an occasional glimpse of his brother's face, and what he saw there chilled him to the bone. He remembered that look from the days after he'd dragged Nick away from the bodies of his wife and infant son. It was as if Nick was gone, leaving only a shell behind. Whatever had happened between them in recent months, he'd never wanted to see that look again.
"She was alive, Nick," he said fiercely as he slid expertly into a right turn without slowing. "I wouldn't lie to you about that."
"It's my fault." Nick's voice was calm, almost detached. Gareth remembered that voice, too. "We quarreled. She was upset. It's my fault."
"No." Gareth put all the force he could into the flat denial. "She didn't wreck the car because she was upset. We've got a witness who saw the whole thing. A truck coming the other way had a blowout and lost control. It was coming straight at her. She steered away from it and went over the embankment It was just one of those things." He thought he detected an almost imperceptible easing of Nick's tension, but he couldn't be sure. There was no time for more because they'd reached the accident.
At first glance, it looked more like a carnival than the site of a disaster. All the bright lights and noise gave the scene a macabre gaiety. Until you stepped into it and saw the grim purpose with which paramedics, police and firemen were mo
ving amongst the equipment.
Since he was with Gareth, no one attempted to stop Nick as he made his way to the edge of the road. To his right, he could see the truck that had caused the accident. It was a medium-size truck, the sort people rented to move themselves across town. It lay on its side just off the edge of the road. He glanced at Gareth in automatic question.
"Driver's okay. He's banged up some. May have a broken arm but he's okay."
Nick nodded and dismissed the other driver as they stopped at the edge of the embankment. He looked down to where Kate's truck lay and felt the bottom drop out of his world. He'd told himself he was braced for what he was going to see, but nothing could have prepared him for the fifty-foot-long scar gouged out of the hillside where the truck must have slid and rolled its way down.
It lay, miraculously upright, at the bottom of the embankment. The fire department had set up lights around the wreck, and they showed the smashed vehicle with merciless clarity. It didn't seem possible that anyone could have survived that trip down the hillside.
"She's alive," Gareth said, as if reading his mind. "They wouldn't be working so frantically to get her out if she wasn't." He didn't wait for a response but turned and waved to one of the paramedics. "What's going on down there?"
She walked over to them. "You're related to her, aren't you?"
"I'm her brother-in-law. This is her husband." He gestured to Nick, who hadn't taken his eyes from the activity below.
"They're trying to get her out right now. Her legs are pinned under the dashboard and the doors are both crushed."
"How badly is she hurt?" Nick asked without looking at her.
She hesitated, her eyes flickering from Nick's profile to Gareth. He nodded. "We're not sure. One leg is fractured. No obvious head injuries. Possible broken ribs, contusions, scrapes. None of that is life-threatening."
"The baby?" Nick asked.
"There's no sign that she's miscarrying. We can't be sure until we get her out but we think the baby is all right."
When she stopped, Nick turned his head to look at her, and she winced from the intensity of his eyes. "What else?"
"She's bleeding," she said slowly. "There's a four-inch-long gash on her right leg. We haven't been able to get to it well enough to see what kind of damage there is, and we haven't been able to stop the bleeding, only to slow it down."
Nicked nodded and looked at the wreck.
"How long is it going to be before you can get her out?" Gareth asked.
The paramedic shrugged helplessly. "Twenty minutes. Maybe a bit less, maybe a bit more. They had to shore up the lower side of the vehicle to keep it from sliding farther. Working conditions are awkward. I can't give you an exact time."
"She'll be dead before then, won't she?" Nick's tone was flat, emotionless. But there was nothing emotionless in his eyes when he looked at her. "Won't she?"
The woman shifted uneasily beneath the demand in his eyes. "I... We're doing everything we can, Sir."
"I'm going down to her."
"I know how you feel, sir, but the best thing you can do for your wife is to stay out of the way and let us help her."
"I'm going down there." He looked at Gareth, his eyes flat and hard. "I can help her."
Gareth returned his look, his stomach knotting. He knew what Nick meant, what he was going to try. He knew also what it would do to him if he failed, and for a moment he wanted to stop him, wanted to keep him from trying because the price of failure would be too high. He drew a deep breath and nodded. "Go ahead.''
There was a flash of understanding in Nick's eyes, acknowledgement of his concern, and then he turned and started down the slope.
"I can't allow—" Gareth caught the paramedic's arm as she started after Nick.
"Let him go. I can't explain it to you, but he may be her only chance. Besides, the only way you're going to stop him is if you shoot him, and I'm not going to loan you my gun."
Nick slipped and slid down the embankment, following the path Kate's truck had cut through the scrub. Twice, he lost his footing. Each time, he slid several feet before he was able to grab a branch and slow his descent. He heard noise above him and knew Gareth was following him down but his attention—his whole being—was focused on the twisted wreckage at the bottom of the wash. Kate was in there and he had to get to her.
It seemed to take forever, though it was probably no more than a minute before he was standing beside the wreckage. It looked even worse at close range. The bed of the truck was twisted almost beyond recognition, and the cab was so badly crushed it seemed impossible that anything larger than a house cat could still be alive inside it.
Nick was vaguely aware of Gareth running interference for him when the rescue workers would have protested his presence. He wondered vaguely just what explanation he gave them, but it didn't seem important. Nothing was important except getting to Kate.
The angle of the slope forced him to drop to his knees to reach the window on the passenger side. She lay back against the seat, her eyes closed, her hair a pale frame for her face. He wanted to believe that it was the harsh lights that bleached the color from her skin but he knew that wasn't the case. He could smell the blood, could feel death hovering. They'd met before, battled before, and he had once come out the loser. But not this time, he swore. Not this time.
Forcing himself to ignore Kate's pallor and the bruises and cuts that marked her arms, he wedged his shoulders through the window until he was sprawled across the seat. When he touched her leg, he could feel the slickness of her blood beneath his fingertips. He forced himself to ignore that, too. It wasn't important Nothing was important except that he— Yes, there it was. He felt the familiar warmth, the tingle of energy starting in his fingertips.
Always before, when he'd used his gift, he'd allowed the energy to flow through him as if he was nothing more than a conduit for it. This time, he grabbed hold of it, demanded it, controlled it, fed it with his own life force, built the power of it and then set his hands on Kate's leg and poured everything he was, everything he ever would be into bringing her back to him.
❧
Kate was vaguely aware that something was not right. She'd been driving and then there had been lights coming toward her. She'd turned the wheel. She remembered that much, but after that things got hazy. Pain. She thought there had been pain. But if there had been, it was gone now. In fact, she didn't feel anything at all. She felt...peaceful.
She turned—or at least she thought she turned, though she couldn't feel her body moving—and there was a light ahead of her. It was white, but not a harsh, blinding white. It was soft and warm and so inviting. That's where she was going, she thought, and was surprised that she hadn't realized it sooner. Toward the light. That's where she was meant to be. She drifted toward it, content, at peace.
"Kate!" The voice rang in her head, hard and demanding.
She frowned fretfully and tried to move forward but the light wasn't getting any closer. In fact, it seemed to be a little farther away. She strove to get closer to it, but the voice was there again.
"Kate!" It pulled at her. She wanted to put her hands over her ears but the voice was inside her head and she couldn't block it out. "Come back, Kate. Come back."
Through the shattered windshield, Gareth could see his brother's face. There was something otherworldly about him, as if Nick was no longer there at all. Energy shimmered around him, an almost visible radiance that lined his profile with a glow that had nothing to do with the stark white glare of the work lamps.
Gareth sensed that Nick was literally willing Kate to live, breathing the essence of his own life into her, determined to either save her or die with her.
Kate didn't want to go back. If she went back, there would be pain and noise and fear. She wanted to go forward, toward the soft, peaceful light. But when she tried to do that, there was suddenly a new light in front of her. This one was a deep, warm red— the color of passion and love blocking out the cool serenity of th
e other light.
She started to flinch, half afraid of what it represented, of the demands it made even as it promised warmth but then the light surrounded her, bathed her in a soft heat. And she was suddenly aware of how cold she'd been, how alone. She held out her arms in instinctive welcome and the light flared higher as if in triumph. It sank into her, warming her, completing her, filling an emptiness that she'd carried inside her whole life.
She'd come home.
"Come back, Kate." She knew the voice now. Nick. It was Nick calling her, pulling her back from the white light. She looked for it again but it was faint and far away. She felt no regrets. Now was not the time. This was where she belonged.
She turned away from the light and walked into the healing warmth of Nick's love.
Epilogue
The word miracle is easily used and rarely respected, but now and again, something happens that defies all logical explanation—a real miracle occurs.
The people who were there that night knew they'd witnessed the real thing—a miracle born of love and desperation. It was something that none of them would forget.
When Kate stirred and opened her eyes, Gareth felt the last of his bitterness over losing Kate drain away. He might have loved her, but she was the other half of Nick's soul.
Five months later, Steven Joshua Blackthorne came into the world, a miracle of another kind entirely.
There were other children, another boy and a girl with her mother's fair hair and her father's dark eyes.
Harry refused to sell Spider's Walk. Instead, he gave the deed to Nick and Kate as a wedding gift, and the big house rang once again with the sound of children laughing and playing. The gardens were restored to their former beauty, offering food for the soul and plenty of places to play hide-and-seek.
Gareth eventually figured out what Brenda had known all along, which was that they were meant for each other.
Kate spent the rest of her life in Eden, but she'd long since realized that roots weren't a matter of place but of mind. She loved having a settled home, but as long as she and Nick were together, she could be happy.
Home to Eden Page 25
