by Gina Wilkins
She looked at Bailey, her eyes brimming with tears. “I’m so sorry you were hurt again,” she said, her voice choked. “Casey and I were in the garden when Owens jumped out at us. This was the closest place for me to run to. I didn’t want to involve you, but I was so afraid he would hurt Casey.”
“You did the right thing,” Bailey assured her firmly. “I’m fine, Cara.”
Cara nodded, clearly struggling to reclaim her composure. “Thanks to your friend,” she said, turning to Ian with an unsteady smile. “I haven’t even had a chance to thank you yet,” she told him.
Ian’s eyes widened.
Bailey gasped.
Cara could see him.
“I—you’re welcome,” Ian managed to say, glancing at Bailey in question.
Mark was looking at Ian now, his face creased with a frown. “You look familiar,” he murmured. “Have we met?”
“This… this is, er, Bran Cameron,” Bailey stammered, then decided that further explanation was called for. “Anna’s brother.”
Mark’s jaw dropped. “Anna’s brother?”
Did Mark know? Bailey wondered, thinking of the times he’d acted so oddly when Anna’s name was mentioned.
Ian nodded, watching Mark warily.
Mark closed his mouth. “Well,” he said a bit weakly. “Whoever you are, I’m grateful to you for helping Cara and Casey.”
Ian cleared his throat and nodded toward the prostrate form at his feet. “We’d better see to him. He’ll be coming around soon.”
Before Mark could respond, they were interrupted. Belatedly drawn by the noise and commotion from the cottage, others had come to investigate. Sometime during the pandemonium that followed, Bailey realized that Ian was gone.
SHORTLY AFTERWARD, Owens was taken away. Almost excited at having a real live escaped convict in his jurisdiction, Chief Roy Peavy himself supervised the arrest, looking uncharacteristically commanding in his crumpled uniform. Like the others, he suspected that Owens had been involved in the “accident” the night before, and predicted that Owens’s prints would be found in the stolen truck.
“He didn’t even care if he killed anyone else trying to get to me,” Cara whispered with a shudder.
Mark slipped an arm around her shoulder. “He won’t bother you again, honey. No one will ever threaten you again.”
Her cheeks pink, Cara looked up at him. Bailey felt a lump form in her throat at the look in Cara’s eyes. She suspected that Cara had been concealing her true feelings for months, and was just now allowing them to show.
It appeared to Bailey that Mark’s patience and perseverance had finally paid off. She was delighted for both of them.
Mae had fussed over Bailey until Bailey had begged her to go rest. The latest excitement had been almost too much for Mae. She had finally allowed Elva to lead her away.
“Cara, you should put Casey to bed,” Bailey murmured, nodding toward the little girl who was so drained that she was swaying on her feet. “She’s wiped out.”
“I know. I just want to thank you again for what you did.”
Bailey smiled wearily and squeezed Cara’s outstretched hands. “I’m just glad it’s all over. You’re safe now.”
“Yes.” Cara looked dazed at the realization. “Safe,” she whispered.
“Take Casey on in,” Mark urged her. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
And then Mark and Bailey were alone.
“You obviously can’t stay here tonight,” he commented, nodding toward the broken front door.
“No. I’ll sleep in one of the rooms in the inn. I just want to collect some of my things.”
Mark touched the lump at the side of her head. “You’re sure you’re all right? I wish you’d let me take you to the doctor.”
“It’s just a lump, Mark. I’m getting used to them by now. Really, I appreciate your concern, but I don’t want to see another doctor tonight.”
He glanced around the trampled room. “What happened to, er, Bran?”
Bailey didn’t blink. “He had some things to do.”
“Would you like me to wait for you to get your things so I can walk you to the inn?”
“No, thank you. I may take a while to pack. You should go to Cara.”
“You don’t mind being out here alone now?”
“No.” She smiled weakly. “I don’t think anyone would dare pester me after all the commotion tonight. And if someone does become a nuisance, I swing a mean computer.”
He searched her face, hesitated a moment, then nodded. “All right. But if you’re not inside in an hour, I’m coming after you,” he warned.
She smiled. “Don’t push your luck, Winter.”
He returned her smile, and moved toward the doorway. He stopped halfway there and bent to pick something up. When he turned, he was holding the framed photograph m his hand.
Bailey stood very still as Mark looked at the photograph in silence for what seemed like a very long time. She couldn’t read his expression.
Finally, he lifted his head. “Here,” he said, holding it out to her. “You’d better put this somewhere safe. It looks… very old.”
She took it from him gratefully. “I will,” she whispered. “Thank you, Mark.”
He chuckled hollowly. “I’m learning not to ask a lot of questions around here.”
Before she could respond, he turned and walked out the shattered door.
BAILEY WANDERED into her bedroom, vaguely intending to pack. She knew the packing had been only an excuse. Truth was, she was waiting for Bran. She still had trouble thinking of him as Ian.
She had to believe he would come back to her. She refused to accept the possibility that he had left her life forever. She could still so clearly picture the look in his eyes when he’d told her that he didn’t want her hurt.
He had to care—at least a little, she told herself.
She only hoped she hadn’t driven him away with her angry accusations.
She loved him. She didn’t know when it had happened, though she suspected it might have been that moment when he’d turned to her after their first meeting and told her she had a lovely smile. Or maybe it had been last night, when he’d awakened her from her nightmare and had so obviously raged against his helplessness to comfort her. She hadn’t understood then. Now that she did, her heart twisted in sympathy for him.
Would he, like his sister, be given a second chance to live? And if so, would he want to spend that new life with her? She loved him enough to accept what he was. Whatever he had to give. If only some miracle would grant them the opportunity.
She wanted so much to see him. To talk to him. But she didn’t know where to look. She could only wait, and hope that he would come back to her soon.
She stood, deciding she might as well start packing while she waited.
Her suitcase was in the closet, next to the box of old books she still hadn’t taken the time to go through. She took out her suitcase, then paused, and looked at the box with a frown. Some impulse she couldn’t understand made her set down her suitcase and kneel beside the box.
She dug through the musty volumes inside, giving only cursory glances at the titles and publication dates. She set them in hastily organized piles on the floor, one stack for the ones she knew to be worthless, another for the ones that merited further inspection. She didn’t know why it suddenly seemed so important to do this now.
The journal was at the very bottom of the box. Bailey opened the cover, then caught her breath when the name written inside leapt out at her.
Amelia Townsend Cameron Peavy. The name Peavy had obviously been added later, in different ink.
Though the writing was splotched and badly faded, Bailey could make out many of the words. The first entry was dated February 16, 1896. “My babies are two days old, diary. My twins. Ian and Mary Anna.”
Ian. Mary Anna. Bailey sank onto her heels, her breath caught in her throat. This journal had been written by Ian’s mother, over one hundred years
ago.
It was almost too much for Bailey to take in.
She kept reading.
They were his final gift to me—born on Valentine’s Day. And though I know it sounds foolish, I made a special wish for them on the night they were born. I prayed that they would not leave this earth without finding the love my darling James and I were fortunate enough to share. I wished that they would each meet someone who would love them absolutely, and that they would feel that same unconditional love in their own hearts. Would that I had the power to grant my own request for them.
“Oh, my God,” Bailey whispered, looking from the diary to the old photograph she’d left on the nightstand.
She had accused Ian of using her. Of manipulating her to fall in love with him so that he could come back to life. But that hadn’t been what his mother had wished for him. She had wanted him to beloved—and to know true love in return.
She remembered again the way he’d looked at her. The undeniable pain in his face when she’d unintentionally flinched away from him. The helpless rage he’d expressed when her safety had been threatened.
Mark and Cara and the others had seen him. Heard him. Felt him.
And there had been blood on his mouth.
A wave of hope swept through her, making her hands tremble. She forced her attention back to the journal, hungry to learn all she could about Ian’s former life.
11
September 18, 1911
It is becoming harder to pretend to the children that I will recover. We have been telling them that Mama just doesn’t feel well. We have led them to believe that I need only rest and time. I can’t bring myself to tell them what I now know to be true.
Ian suspects, I think. He has become so quiet during the past months. So withdrawn. Perhaps he is preparing himself for the separation he dreads. I do not believe he has shared his fears with his sister. She seems as happy as ever. She waits on me so sweetly, as though her tender care will hasten my recovery. My poor darlings.
Emma has been a godsend. She gives my children so much love and attention, and is still such a wonderful mother to her own little Billy. What would I do without her now?
I haven’t the strength to write any more now. The children will be home from school soon. I want to be able to greet them with smiles and hugs. There is so little time left for me to be with them.
BAILEY’S FACE was wet with tears when she sensed his presence in the bedroom doorway. She looked up from the diary that she’d almost finished reading to find him watching her, his black hair disheveled, his lower lip slightly swollen, his dark eyes guarded, watchful.
“Where have you been?” she asked, her voice husky.
“Walking in the woods,” he answered. “It’s cold out. There’s a scent of winter in the air. I scratched my hand on a broken fence post.”
More tears escaped her in response to the wonder in his voice. Cold. Fragrance. Pain. Sensations she’d taken for granted for so long.
She never would again.
“Did you enjoy it?” she asked with a tremulous smile.
He didn’t smile in return. “No. You weren’t there to share it with me.”
Her eyes welled again.
“You’re crying.”
She mopped at her face and nodded. “I’ve been reading your mother’s diary. I hope you don’t mind.”
He stilled. “My mother’s diary?”
She nodded again. “I found it in this box of old books. Oh, Bran—Ian. She was a very special woman. She loved you so much.”
He moved slowly toward her, his gaze fixed on the slim volume in her hands. “I didn’t know it existed. I never saw it.”
“She wrote in it at night mostly, when you and your sister were sleeping. She poured her heart out in these pages.”
He knelt beside her. With a reverence that almost made her start crying again, he reached out to touch the journal. “Anna will want to see this.”
“Of course. We’ll show it to her as soon as she returns.”
He lifted his gaze to hers, his eyes still carefully shuttered. “Will we?”
“Yes,” she whispered. She drew a deep breath. “About what I said earlier—”
He winced. “It wasn’t true, Bailey. I wasn’t trying to use you. I only wanted to help you.”
“I know that now.”
“I didn’t try to make you… fall in love with me,” he continued doggedly. “I tried to keep my distance from you. I knew you deserved better, even if there was a chance that we—”
“Ian, I love you.”
His mouth tightened. “I don’t need your charity, Bailey,” he snapped. “I’m not another of those needy men who used you before. I won’t be dependent on your compassion and your assistance.”
She thought of the words in his mother’s diary. The wish. She looked again at the raw cut on his lip. “It’s different this time,” she murmured. “I love you. And, oh, Ian, I need you.”
His voice was hoarse now. “You deserve better. I have nothing to offer you. I don’t belong in your time. I have no job, no skills. I don’t know how to use that computer device, or… or who Lois Lane is.”
Her soft heart twisted, but she held his gaze steadily. “Do you love me?”
“Bailey—”
“Ian,” she broke in firmly, clinging to the words in the diary. “Do you love me?”
His eyes were tortured. “Enough to die again if you ask me to,” he murmured.
She’d shed more tears in the past hour than she had in months. It seemed she still had more to spare. “Oh, Ian.”
She reached out to touch his face. For a moment, it appeared that he would move away from her again. But he stayed where he was, seeming to hold his breath.
She laid her hand gently against the side of his face.
His cheek was firm beneath her fingertips. Warm. The faintest hint of stubble tickled her skin She felt the muscle work in his jaw as he swallowed.
“I love you,” she whispered.
He caught her hand in his own, gripping it so tightly he was in danger of pulverizing her fingers. She didn’t protest. He dragged her hand to his mouth, and kissed it. “I love you,” he said. “I loved you before I ever met you.”
She rubbed her thumb carefully over his battered lower lip. “You haven’t even kissed me.”
He smiled against her touch. “I know.”
“Don’t you want to?”
He reached out to move a strand of hair away from her cheek. She felt the tremor in his fingers. “It’s beena very long time since I’ve kissed anyone. What if I’ve forgotten how?”
She thought she’d explode if he didn’t kiss her soon. “It’ll come back to you,” she assured him, and swayed toward him.
He crushed her against his chest. His mouth covered hers. Bailey threw her arms around his neck, delighted to discover that he hadn’t forgotten anything.
The kiss lasted a very long time. Ian finally raised his head, laughing softly and gasping for breath. “Air,” he murmured, filling his lungs.
She smiled and touched the cut on his lip. “Doesn’t that hurt?”
“Yes. It feels good.”
She understood. There were so many questions she wanted to ask him, so much she wanted to understand about the existence he’d led for the past seventy-five years, about Dean and Anna… everything. But that could wait.
She tugged his head toward her and kissed him again.
“Bailey,” Ian muttered some time later, dragging his mouth away from hers. His breathing was ragged now, his dark eyes burning with desire. “We should stop. I can’t—I want—”
“Make love with me, Ian.”
He caught his breath. “You’re—you’re sure?”
“I want you. Does that shock you?” she asked, belatedly remembering the time he’d lived in before.
He smiled and cupped her face in one large, strong hand. “No,” he murmured. “It delights me. I love your honesty. And your courage,” he said, brushing his
mouth against her.
“Your kindness,” he added, kissing her again. “Your loyalty.”
She melted into him, hopelessly enthralled by this charmingly seductive side of him.
“Your legs,” he said, smiling against her lips. “I particularly like your legs.”
She giggled. “If I start listing parts of you that I find especially attractive, I’ll really shock you.”
His grin was delectably wicked. “We’ll have to put that to the test. Later.”
They were still kneeling on the floor, beside the stacks of books. Ian stood and reached down a hand to her.
Bailey’s legs, folded into the same position for so long, protested when she tried to rise, as did her swollen ankle. She stumbled. Gasping, she clutched at him for balance.
Ian promptly swung her into his arms, high against his chest. “Do you have any idea,” he asked huskily, “how badly I’ve wanted to carry you to bed?”
“I know how badly I’ve wanted you to,” she answered candidly. “But, er, what about the front door? We can’t lock it. We can’t even close it.”
He kicked the bedroom door shut. “We can lock this one. Where’s the key?”
She reached down to depress the lock button. “It’s locked.”
He glanced at it doubtfully for a moment, then shrugged, making her cling more tightly to him. And then he strode toward the bed.
BAILEY WAS utterly fascinated by lan’s body. Only one word came to her mind to describe it. Perfection.
Kneeling beside him, she ran her hands down his warm, sleek chest. Her fingertips glided over brown nipples, well-defined muscles, his flat, hard stomach. “You’re so beautiful,” she breathed.
He lay on his back, his hands sliding upward to cup her breasts. “No. You’re the beautiful one.”
She leaned over to kiss him, tracing his firm lips with the tip of her tongue, and then shivered when his thumbs rotated lazily against her hardened nipples. “I…don’t think you have to worry about whether you’ve forgotten anything,” she managed to say as she sank onto him. “You haven’t.”