He was surprised at her heartfelt apology, and he couldn’t stop himself from smiling at the embarrassment in her huge, ebony eyes. Hie color in her cheeks. Her take on what had happened between them...What had happened between them had been incredible. It had been beyond anything he’d ever experienced with a woman.
“It wasn’t exactly rape, Brigit. I don’t recall begging for mercy.”
She dipped her head, gnawing on her lower lip.
“I wanted it as much as you did,” he said, and his voice tightened and roughened. “I still do.”
Her head came up, eyes glittering. “No you don’t, Adam. It was a mistake and I—”
“Don’t tell me what I want. I know. I’ve been lusting after you since I laid eyes on you. Maybe even longer than that.”
“How—”
He gave his head a firm shake. “Don’t ask. Believe me, angel, you don’t want to go there.”
She looked alarmed, frightened for him, as she searched his face. “I didn’t come out here for this. This isn’t what I—”
“The point is,” he said, interrupting her deliberately, “I resisted everything my body was screaming for, for one simple reason.”
She tilted her head, waiting.
“I didn’t trust you, Brigit.”
He saw the flash of guilt in her ebony eyes, the remorse, but the truth, too. Right there. She didn’t duck it or try to hide it. She took his direct hit, and she never even flinched.
“I know you’re up to something. I know you’re keeping the truth from me...about a lot of things. From who you really are, to what you expected to find in that crate yesterday. But knowing all that doesn’t stop me from wanting you.” He shrugged, wishing she were sitting closer. Wishing he could touch her. “So there’s my dilemma.”
Without meeting his eyes, she whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“I was afraid. See, I’ve trusted the people I care about before. And I’ve been hurt before. I was afraid it would happen again if I let myself feel anything for you.”
She said nothing, only sat there looking as if she were in abject misery.
“Problem is, I can’t stop myself from feeling something for you.”
She gasped, parted her lips to argue with him, but he didn’t give her time.
“I don’t even know what it is, exactly. But there’s definitely something. Something powerful. Something . . .” He reached out across the distance between them, cupping her chin and lifting her gaze to his. “Something I’ve never felt before,” he finished, and he felt a little sick to his stomach. “So the whole caution thing is really a moot point. The choice has been taken right out of my hands.”
She shook her head. “Adam, don’t—”
“It’s a relief, really. I don’t have to struggle against it anymore. I’m sort of left with no choice but to go with this thing.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
She sure looked as if she meant every word of it. But she was going to. She didn’t realize it yet, but she had no choice in the matter. Before she did, though, he was going to get to the bottom of whatever she was up to and confront her about it, and make her tell him why.
There was a powerful reason motivating her. He knew that as well as he knew everything else. A reason that had to do with the fear he’d seen in her eyes yesterday. And he suspected, with the creep who called himself Zaslow. These were things he knew, beyond doubt. Not like those other things. Those fairy things that he couldn’t begin to understand.
“I believe that,” he told her, because he did.
“Adam, I’d tell you everything if I could. I swear it.”
“I know.”
Tears brimmed in her eyes, and he found himself wanting to change the subject. He could see the agony this one was causing her. She wanted to tell him the truth. He knew she meant it when she said that she did. But she couldn’t, and the conflict was tearing her apart.
Interesting.
“Adam—”
“Shhsh.” He stroked her hair, studied her face. “I want to tell you something.” He saw her press her lips together, and she nodded for him to continue. Adam drew a deep breath and let his hand fall away. He took his gaze from her, and looked around at the pines and the myriad paths twisting through them. “I used to come out here when I was a little boy. But I haven’t been back in almost thirty years.”
Her brows lifted, in interest, he supposed, but mostly, in surprise that he’d changed the subject rather than grilling her.
He got off his stump and sat on the ground in front of it, leaning his back against the uneven bark. He lifted his arms toward her, waiting.
With a little sigh of disbelief, she came closer, curling into the V between his open legs, and laying her side against his chest. He closed his arms around her. It felt good to hold her there. It felt right.
“Why did you stay away so long?”
“My father forbade me to ever come back here. And I knew better than to disobey the old bastard.”
“He was a monster, Adam.” She snuggled closer to him as she said it, and her arms tightened around his waist. “It wasn’t your fault, what he did to you. You know that.”
“It’s taken a long time, but yeah. I know that.”
She lifted her head, scanning his face with eyes that seemed to see more than they should. When he looked away, she lowered her head again. “Why didn’t he want you out here?”
“Because...I thought I saw something out here. Something...that couldn’t have been real. And I guess the old man thought he was making sure I knew the difference between fantasy and reality.”
“No,” she whispered. “No one believes beating a child will keep him sane. No one who abuses their own child does it for the child’s own good. Though I imagine they all say they do.” She sat up, looked him in the eye. “He did it because he was sick, Adam.”
It was as if she sensed the bolt of pain that shot through him when he remembered. And she deftly pulled that bolt out again, snapped it in two, and tossed it aside.
Brigit’s hand ran over his nape, the warmth of her fingertips infusing him.
“Damn,” he said softly. “You’re good for me, Brigit.”
“That’s what friends are for,” she whispered.
“Is that what you are? My friend?”
She lowered her eyes, licked her lips. “I care about you, Adam. No matter what else happens, don’t doubt that.”
She turned sideways again, as she’d been before, tucking herself against his body. And he closed his arms around her almost automatically. It was such a natural thing to embrace her, to hold her, to talk to her this way.
“So, why did you come out here this morning, after staying away for so long?”
He stiffened a little. “That gets back to what I was starting to tell you before. About what happened the last time I came up here.”
“Thirty years ago,” she whispered. “What did you see, Adam?”
He drew his brows together, glancing down at the top of her head, which told him nothing. “What the hell. You deserve to be warned, Brigit. Hell, you’re living with me, sleeping with me...though you might change your mind about that soon enough.” He licked his lips, trying not to realize how important her reactions to his revelations would be to him. “You might as well know the worst. I found a cave out here, somewhere. And I crawled through it and emerged...somewhere else.”
She sat up, eyes sharp and probing as they met his. “Where?”
“Rush.” He blurted it before he could think better of it, waited for the fear or the sympathy to fill her eyes. He never saw it. He saw something more like childish excitement and wonder, instead.
“The forest of Rush?” she breathed. “The one in the painting? God, Adam, the one in my fairytale?”
He shrugged. “Yeah. It was exactly like the one in the painting. And...” He closed his eyes, letting his voice trail off.
“That’s incredible.”
“In-credible. Meaning no
t credible. That’s exactly what it was. A kid’s daydream. Nothing more. At least, that’s what I thought...until I saw that book of yours.”
She sat up straighter. “It looked like the Rush in my book?”
He only nodded.
“What happened there?” She was all but bouncing up and down as she spoke. “Did you see anyone? Talk to anyone? How did you find your way back?”
“Slow down. Are you sure you want to hear this? You said before—”
She stopped speaking, eyes narrowing. “Well, just because I want to hear it doesn’t mean I have to believe in it again. Please tell me the rest, Adam.” Like a little girl pleading for a bedtime story. He couldn’t have resisted if he’d wanted to.
“All right. But...brace yourself. I met a woman who claimed to be a fairy. I...she had...wings. And...Jesus, Brigit, she said her name was Maire.”
Brigit went stiff, looking up at him slowly. She pressed both hands to her chest, fists clenched until her knuckles whitened. Her eyes...God, they were wider than he’d ever seen them. “Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t look like that. There’s a chance I heard some version of your fairytale somewhere, and just transferred it to my dream. Maybe.”
She blinked, gave her head a shake, and finally nodded. “I know. I know none of it can be real. For a second I just...let myself forget. You know, when I was a little girl, I honestly thought of Maire as...as my mother.”
“Ah, Jesus, Brigit, I shouldn’t have—”
“Go on,” she whispered, and he thought she was holding her breath. “I want to hear the rest. Please, go on.”
He swallowed hard, licked his lips. “You’re sure?” She nodded, and he began again. “In this...this daydream or whatever the hell it was, Maire told me she’d show me the way home, but first she wanted to know if I’d like to see my fate, because she’d seen it the second she’d looked into my eyes.”
“Yes,” Brigit whispered. “That’s the same question she used to ask me...”
Adam looked at her sharply.
“I used to dream about her, too, Adam. But go on,” she told him. “Did you say yes?”
“Yes.” He wanted to ask questions, but he was compelled to get the entire story out. Here and now. No more hiding from it.
Brigit blinked fast, and he thought there were tears trying to work into her eyes.
“What did she show you?”
“You,” he said, and the single word slipped from between his lips without his consent, and fortunately, without a sound. She never heard it. He hoped she never saw it. He was confessing enough as it was.
Brigit shook her head hard, but he went on. “She pushed aside some bushes and told me to look through. I did, and I saw a woman, bathing in a pool, all but hidden by rushes,”
“Like the painting?”
“Not like the painting. It was the painting. Only...real. And then she told me the woman was my fate. That my destiny was to show her the way home, and that I mustn’t let myself fall in love with her, because she would break my heart. And then she let the bushes come together again. When I looked up at her again, she was gone. I pushed the bushes apart again, but there was no lake, no woman. Just more trees. I turned around, and there was the cave, right in front of me, though it hadn’t been there before. So I crawled inside, and, I don’t know, I guess I fell asleep there. When I woke later and came out again, I was in these very ordinary woods, not far from my house.” He smiled at her, seeing her confusion, and decided to give her a way out, in case she wasn’t ready to swallow all of this. “It took me a while to realize I’d probably fallen asleep the first time I entered the cave, and that the rest was just a dream.”
“You really believe that?”
He was surprised she would ask the question.
He thought she’d already made up her mind that none of this could be real.
“What else could it have been?”
She blinked, looking a little dazed. “I know...it had to be a dream. What else could it be? It’s just that. . . Adam, you have a painting of what you saw, hanging in your study. Unless you painted it yourself...” She lifted her brows, waiting.
“No. I found it in a shop on the Commons. The Capricorn.”
“Then how can you dismiss all of that so easily?”
“I don’t know. Anything can be explained if you try hard enough. Say...the painting is only similar to that childhood fantasy, and when I saw it, I subconsciously substituted it for the image I’d seen in the dream,”
“But you don’t believe that. Do you, Adam?”
He wasn’t sure he should tell her what he believed. So he shrugged, drew a breath. “Lately...”
“Lately, what...?”
He wanted to tell her. He wanted to see if he could scare her into running from him, because he’d already decided he couldn’t run from her. He didn’t have the strength let alone the will.
But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t deliberately drive her out of his life by telling her the thoughts he’d been having about her. Not now.
Or...not yet.
Maybe it would be better to let her see that Celtic text. See if she saw the parallels that he did. See if maybe it stirred something in her.
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”
She stepped closer, ran her fingers through his hair, searched his face. “Why did you tell me all of that?”
“I’m not sure,” he told her, in all honesty. He wrapped his arms around her waist to hold her close to him. Seemed he couldn’t get enough of having her close to him. “Maybe so you’d know my deepest, darkest secret, Brigit. Maybe I thought it might make you feel a little safer, later, when you’re ready to tell me yours.”
She closed her eyes, as if afraid he might see it written right there, in neon ink. “I will tell you,” she whispered, and the words carried the force of a vow. “Very, very soon. I promise, Adam.”
“But not yet.”
“No.” She lowered her head to his chest, but not in time to hide her fresh tears. “Not yet.”
Chapter Twelve
He was hurt that she couldn’t tell him the secrets she was keeping. And that she was still holding herself at arm’s length from him. She could feel his pain. And while she could strive to keep her heart set aside, she couldn’t physically put a distance between them. When he slid his arm around her shoulders and drew her close to his side for the walk back to the house, she didn’t resist. Didn’t pull away. Couldn’t.
“I don’t want to worry about it anymore,” he whispered, leaning close to her ear. “I don’t want to think about anything bad. Not until I have to.”
“But, Adam, I—”
He silenced her with a finger to her lips. And then he replaced it with his mouth. He kissed her deeply, thoroughly, and his hands cupped her backside, pulling her tight against him.
“You’re good for me, angel,” he whispered against her neck, as his mouth moved there. “You make me feel like I’ve never felt. And I want to feel that way again.”
“We shouldn’t—”
“I need you, Brigit.”
It was a confession that was wrung from him, she realized. And it was her undoing. The next thing she knew, she was the one kissing him. Holding him so tight her arms ached, wishing she never had to let go. He did need her. She’d always known that. She was the one who could heal his old wounds. And God, how she wanted to do that. There was nothing she wanted more.
His kisses became feverish, and hers responded in kind. They made frantic love on the forest floor, with the blue sky overhead and the music of birds playing in time with their breathing and their whispers and their kisses and the gentle slapping of their bodies, one against the other.
And when it was over, and he scooped her into his arms and carried her naked, back to the house, she realized it wasn’t over. Not at all. It was only beginning.
The entire day, and long into the night, they spent together. Talking and laughing and making love, over and over again.
/> It was, Brigit thought, the most perfectly wonderful day of her entire life. And the most perfect night. She wished to God it didn’t have to end.
But it did. The next morning, when Adam headed out to the university. She kissed him goodbye, and pretended to believe he’d come home that night, and the magic would begin all over again.
But the magic was make-believe. And the time for her betrayal came again. Her heart felt as if it were made of lead, this time, when she took out the canvas, and the paints, and set up the tripod in the study. And it took a lot longer to achieve the state she needed in order to work. But she did it. Because Raze’s life was hanging in the balance, and because she had no choice.
She felt like the lowest, most vile being on the planet.
And even then, she let her mind wander back to the story Adam had told her out there in the woods. And his earlier questions. What if it were all true? What if she really was the little girl in the fairytale?
Impossible.
And yet, here she stood, wielding paintbrushes without looking, letting some other force control her hands. The ability had been a part of her life for so long, she’d simply accepted it as natural. The way some people can do acrobatics, and some can run like the wind, and some sing like angels. But now, she wondered if maybe that thing, that juice, as she called it, might go by another name. Like “magic.”
Silly. Ridiculous.
And what about her green thumb? Sure, lots of people were good at growing things. That was no big deal. But often, when a plant seemed to be in trouble, she’d instinctively go to it, and rub its leaves between her fingers while envisioning it healthy and strong. She’d done that automatically. Without forethought. The way one pets a dog. But every time she did, the plant would begin to thrive within a day or two. More than thrive. Those formerly ill subjects often grew better than any other plants in the shop.
And then there was the way she could read a man’s heart by looking into his eyes. Another talent she’d grown accustomed to. So much so that she never questioned it.
But now she wondered if there were the slightest chance...the tiniest possibility that...
Fairytale (Fairies of Rush) Page 19