He could hear the repressed tears, see the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes even though she stood behind him. See the brave, drawn expression, the still-slim body. “I need you now.”
No one had needed Jerry since his mother died except his daughter for a while … and God those years had gone fast.
But Rachel had her anchors, buoys to grow old with. Her damned house filled with family relics to which she’d always belong, inanimate things she seemed to love and trust more than she did people. The safety valve of escape into the imaginary world of her writing. Neither of which he could share. Oh, yes, Rachael’d be fine without him. Not even menopause slowed her down.
All Jerry had was the looming prospect of retirement. Was it really any wonder that he turned to others who needed too? Escaped to the cabin that he had designed and built, instead of some ancestor of Rachael’s? Of course he’d stay until Shay left, but after that …
All these things Jerry wanted to say but they wouldn’t form into coherent words and sentences when spoken aloud, as most of his personal thoughts would not, so he mumbled, “She’s my daughter too.”
And he hurried out of the Gingerbread House as if he were being chased.
Brandy McCabe sat alone in a secluded booth, tingling with the excitement of her first outing in an automobile. She and “the family” had walked the short distance to and from the mortuary to view her dead body.
This was also the first time she’d gone abroad with her limbs bared. Shay’s skirt came only to the knees. Beneath it – nothing but the tiny silken drawers. If Sophie McCabe ever learned of this, she’d succumb to the vapors.
And yet Shay’s loving father had insisted she come to this place. It was no more than a saloon. Brandy’d never seen the inside of one before. The rampant curiosity that had allowed the wedding mirror to place her in this fix to begin with almost overwhelmed her now.
She sat surrounded by foliage. As if the proprietor hoped to give the impression this saloon was a jungle. Rough earthenware pots hung from open rafters by twisted ropes that flared to form nets around the bowls. The rope ends dangled beneath in frayed strands that resembled horses’ tails.
Leafy vines showered from the pots, forming curtains around three sides of the booths. Hooded light bulbs above each plant provided the only lighting in the room and it was dimmed to suffocation by the forests of greenery.
At intervals between plants, rectangular panels of leaded and beveled glass hung from chains like useless windows.
Through the protective foliage she could see Mr. Weir leaning against the bar.
Brandy fought the temptation to forget she wasn’t Shay, to learn and experience as much of her granddaughter’s wicked but interesting world as she could before she returned to her own.
In the booth across from her a youthful couple embraced and kissed and felt each other, heedless of their presence in a public place. His hair grew so long he tied it back with a leather string, while hers was short and frizzled, forming a close-fitting dome around her head.
Brandy felt as suffocated as the lights by the rapidity of new sensations and sights. She gasped stale air into Shay’s lungs to ward off faintness.
Marek Weir stood in front of her holding a goblet of green foam and a smaller glass. He was tall and slender like her brother, Elton.
“Your favorite.” He set the goblet in front of her and slid in the other end of the booth and around beside her with that relaxed ease of movement so unlike Elton.
“Do you realize that at this moment we would be in Aspen on our honeymoon if your grandmother hadn’t died last night?” He sat so close their arms and thighs touched. “You’d be Mrs. Marek Weir.”
If Brandy moved away from him she’d fall off her end of the booth’s seat. So she leaned forward to sip Shay’s favorite drink and at least get Shay’s bare arm away from his.
It was more than foam. Almost liquid ice cream, with the taste of limes and sugar. Salt coated the rim of the goblet, its taste mixing with the others. The combination was delicious. “Is … this a lady’s drink?”
“Well, it’s no martini.” He laughed as if she’d joked.
A rasping sound descended from the ceiling, followed by the odd music Brandy’d heard from the box in Shay’s room.
Shake, shake, shake,
Shake, shake, Shake
Shake, your boodeez.
She turned to Marek. “What is a boodeez?”
“Boodeez?” He cocked his head to listen. “I thought it was boobies.” Violet eyes laughed into hers seductively. “Shows you on what level low minds gather, doesn’t it?”
Brandy gulped at the sweet-sour concoction in the goblet. She seemed to be having some difficulty with the language.
His arm encircled her and drew her back against the cushions.
Brandy sucked in Shay’s breath.
His shirt had short sleeves and opened partway down the front. Black hairs along his arms, more peeking from the shirt opening. Firm muscle rolled from beneath the sleeves.
Gooseflesh rose on Shay’s skin.
“I don’t understand this sudden change in you, Shay.” His breath tickled her neck. “It’s not like you were that close to your grandmother. She was practically a vegetable.”
The music changed to a throbbing clamor that kept time with the pulse rhythm Brandy’s reactions caused in Shay’s veins. “It was disturbing to see her die that way.”
“It must have been. You’re like a different person since it happened.”
Brandy was fighting the devil on his own ground. She’d had no idea all she’d been protected from. She’d heard much about sin in her life, but …
She tried to ignore the amorous couple and their disgusting antics across the way.
She tried to ignore the warm body so snug against Shay’s, the arm with its muscle and hair that held her so casually. Shay’s body did not cooperate.
Brandy leaned away to drink from the goblet and Marek’s arm loosened to allow the movement, slid down so that his hand rested on her … lap.
Brandy drained the goblet. Even the hanging vines seemed provocative now. Marek was handsome. Even when she wasn’t looking at him. She’d have to tell him she wasn’t Shay.
“You’re cold. When you get chilled your nipples swell under that thing you’re wearing.”
“Nip …” The audacity of the man to refer to … She glanced down to see that his observation was correct. Rachael’d pointed out that if she wore a “bra” under it the straps would show.
“Let’s dance. Warm you up.” His thigh bumped Shay’s and Brandy had either to stand or to fall on the floor.
She protested but he drew her to a sunken parquet area. Blue light played upon it. Hypnotic music made her senses swim.
Marek Weir began to writhe. Sensual, heathenlike writhing.
Brandy wanted to look away. But she couldn’t.
Shay’s body swayed in answer to the primitive music and the look in Marek’s eyes.
The body felt light and the head lighter.
The kissing couple joined them, contorting themselves.
And then another couple. These two wore beards.
Brandy McCabe passed beyond shock.
The twangy music increased in tempo and drumbeat, like wicked native dances she’d heard a missionary from Africa tell of at a church meeting. He’d described much the same thing – sensuous music and movements, half-clad bodies.
Brandy wanted to run. Shay wanted to sway.
“Relax, Shay. Loosen up,” Marek said, looking like the devil incarnate with dark hair and tanned skin. “It’ll do you good.”
There was a warm moistness in the area of Shay’s private parts. Dear Lord, please forgive me. Brandy felt locked into the dance.
Surely God would come to her aid at a time like this. Where was he? Testing her? If he really had the legions of heaven at his disposal, he could spare one angel to help Brandy now. But that missionary from Africa had seen his wife butchered by nati
ves, and the Lord hadn’t done a thing except to make that a lesson to him.
Marek Weir could be Satan. But the dance floor was by now crowded with Satans and loose-jointed women who didn’t seem to mind. Satan Weir didn’t touch Shay’s body once. He merely moved and so did Shay.
“You even dance differently,” Marek said when the noise stopped. “Hardly move at all.” He led her back to the booth and went to the bar.
He returned with two more drinks. “That’s all you get,” he said as he put another foamy goblet in front of her. “I’ve ordered snacks. You’re not only freaked and different, you’ve never handled booze that well.”
“This has alcohol in it?”
“I’ll admit that’s a bastardized version, but, Shay, you’ve been drinking margaritas since before I knew you.” He sat away from her now, studied her. “The night before a family funeral’s no time to take your fianceé dancing. This was your dad’s idea, not mine. Your folks are worried about you. So am I. You sure it isn’t more than just your grandmother’s death that’s got you so fluffy?”
A girl delivered a tray of crunchy tidbits, all of them salted. Brandy longed for more of the drink to quench the thirst they inspired. Of course, she had seen Sophie McCabe take an occasional sherry before she’d joined her temperance committee.
Brandy took but a small sip.
“Let me put it another way,” Marek said. “I’m thirty. I’ve found what I want to do in life. I’ve avoided permanent relationships.” He stretched out, rested his head on the back of the booth and stared at the rafters. “Then I meet this beautiful blond, slightly spacey but interesting, and I think … what would it be like to share my life with her?”
He lowered his head to watch lemon rind swirl in his glass. “Before I know it I’ve asked her to marry me. Immediately I begin to doubt her and myself. I mean, marriages don’t have long life spans anymore.”
Marek lifted Shay’s chin and stared into her eyes as if probing for Brandy. “And then my bride-to-be suddenly gets spacier, looks at me with round innocent eyes and I doubt my doubts, go all macho, corny and protective. Do you know what I’m trying to say, Shay?”
“No,” Brandy answered, hypnotized by the man, unable to move as he leaned over and kissed Shay’s lips.
Marek Weir sat back, his eyes narrowed. “Who are you?” he whispered.
But Brandy didn’t tell him.
5
Brandy McCabe watched her casket lower into the yawning hole.
Beside her, Rachael sniffed behind a paper handkerchief. Jerry’s worried glance rested on Brandy over Rachael’s head.
She could feel the presence of Marek Weir behind her. And across the hole, the solemn elderly twins and their wives.
No hats. No gloves. No church service. No one wore black. Very few people. And I shall come to this.…
The rasp of locusts buzzed in her ears. The din of automobiles not far away. Sun gleamed on the black motor hearse that’d brought her body here and on those for the mourners waiting in a line behind.
The last time she’d come to the family plot in Columbia Cemetery these giant trees had been saplings and a line of horse-drawn carriages waited in the drive. They’d buried her little brother Joshua, so long dead, so sorely missed. And now the plot was full.
Elton rested beside Joshua. His life sadly short.
And next to him her father, who’d died the very summer the mirror had taken her away. She realized she’d rather have married Mr. Strock than to see John McCabe’s grave.
Her mother, the newest addition to the plot, would outlive all but Brandy herself.
Next, the pink headstone of Hutchison Maddon. What would he be like?
The mirror had given her a look into the future. It’d been a cruel trick. I really didn’t want to know.
Over all hovered the Rocky Mountains. Brandy saw them through tears.
“What happened to Mr. Strock?” she asked Rachael as they turned away.
“Mr. Strock,” Rachael said blankly. “Oh, you mean Thora K.’s son? I didn’t realize you even knew of him. He’s buried in Nederland with Thora K. My mother was married before she met my dad,” she explained to Marek, “and widowed in a year or two.”
Rachael talked quietly with her brothers, and Marek took Brandy aside. “Did you see this? I read about it in that local history column in the Camera.” He pointed to another pink tombstone directly across the grassy path from Hutchison Maddon’s grave.
IN LOVING MEMORY OF
TOM HORN
1861–1903
“Tom Horn.” Another name Brandy knew. “The one who kills outlaws?”
“Not anymore, he doesn’t.”
Brandy stood before the wedding mirror, Shay’s eyes swollen from Brandy’s grief over the graves of her loved ones. Elton hadn’t survived to carry on the name. She’d seen the last of the proud McCabes in Columbia Cemetery.
“Haven’t you done enough?” she said to the mirror. “I’ve learned my lesson.” She’d go back and marry Mr. Strock even though she knew he hadn’t long to live. “Please don’t show me any more.”
But how could she return, knowing all she knew? The knowledge would be a curse to haunt her nights and days. How can I stay here? I’m too weak to withstand the temptations of this world.
Brandy had lain awake for hours the night before, her thoughts full of Marek Weir.
In the Garretts’ living room, Marek shifted uncomfortably on the antique settee made for long ago and shorter bodies. “I tried to draw her out last night. She wouldn’t talk. Look, I’m not hiding anything from you.”
Rachael prowled the room. “Marek, Jerry and I have talked this out and come up with absolutely nothing. We thought you might at least have a fresh viewpoint.”
“I have a crazy idea I can’t get out of my head and it’s as fresh as hell, but I don’t think you’ll believe it any more than I do.”
“Try us.” Jerry stared into the scotch he wasn’t drinking.
“This’ll sound strange coming from a so-called scientist, but … Shay seems like another person. I’d almost swear you switched twins on me.”
“Where is she now?” Jerry looked over his shoulder toward the archway to the hall.
“Last I knew she was upstairs talking to a mirror.”
“That’s not so crazy, Rachael. I’ve talked to mirrors before,” Jerry snapped. “So have you.”
“Only when practicing to give a talk. And, Marek, that thought wasn’t so fresh.”
“I haven’t finished. You’ve heard of dual or multiple personalities? More than one inhabiting the same body but who surface alternately? I sense a stranger looking at me from Shay’s eyes.”
Jerry stared at Marek over his glass. Rachael stopped pacing. They’d felt it too.
“The thing about this theory that doesn’t work is, at least from what little I know about it, this occurs in people with a history of instability. For it to happen literally overnight to a normal –”
“She’s had chickenpox, strep, colds, flu, a broken arm and her teeth straightened,” Rachael said. “Never anything mental except the bitchy fours and the rebellious teens. I read all the books. I’d have noticed.”
“There’s always possession.” Jerry rolled his eyes. “I mean, as long as we’re getting fresh. Maybe she’s possessed.”
“And Gale doesn’t get back for a week.” Rachael opened a glass-fronted cabinet, took out a blue glass bottle and put it back.
“Let’s just keep her calm and call Gale the minute he gets back,” Jerry said. “She’s always liked him.”
“Well, the three of us had better keep an eye on her.” Rachael gave Marek a hard look.
He thought it ironic they should include him in a three-way deal. He’d sensed their opposition to his marrying their daughter. They clung to Shay but wouldn’t admit it. No man on earth deserved the treasure they’d created.
His ailing mother’d been pleased at having her last son finally settle down. Louise Weir was
of the opinion that no man could survive without a wife. His oldest brother now lived with his third wife. The middle brother was on the verge of divorcing his first. But Louise didn’t know that. She wanted only to see her youngest safely settled before she died.
Had his mother’s wishes anything to do with Marek’s sudden proposal to Shay after a brief three-month courtship?
He considered this again that evening when Shay sat beside him in the Porsche. “I want to run out to NCAR for a minute. Then I thought maybe a movie. There’re several in town you wanted to see.”
“Yes, that will be fine.”
Her hand clutching the armrest whitened as he turned a corner, came up as if to ward off a blow as he stopped behind another car. A sharp intake of breath when he stepped on the gas …
Marek almost ran a red light watching the odd play of expressions. Delight. Wonder. Dismay. Her head swiveled as if she were sightseeing in an exotic vacation spot. Here in the town where she’d lived her entire life.
When she looked at him, he read fascination mixed with distrust and fear. They didn’t jibe. To be able to read Shay’s face at all was a new experience. Before, she’d cloaked her emotions with sophisticated boredom or the protective deadpan Marek saw everywhere and knew he wore himself.
The display on her face now was almost childlike. But at the same time he sensed a mature woman behind those wide amber eyes. It was just that the woman wasn’t Shay Garrett.
Marek was shaken and intrigued by the other woman who was Shay. She regarded him with shocked innocence one moment and something resembling infatuation the next.
None of it made sense but the dual-personality theory was becoming more plausible. He couldn’t believe in possession.
“National Center for Atmospheric Research,” she read from the sign she’d seen dozens of times, and sounded mystified.
As they left the rows of houses to climb the graceful curves to NCAR he pointed out a deer and her fawn grazing on the green-belt area which the city had closed off to the destruction of developers.
Shay merely glanced at them. He could remember her making him stop for half an hour at such a sight when he’d first known her. But now she looked at the mountains and then back at Boulder as if to get her bearings.
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