Hope Everlastin' Book 4

by Mickee Madden

  With a squeal, the boys dashed off in the direction of the house, Kevin in the lead and Alby trailing as they held out their arms like wings and made sounds that were supposed to be that of engines. They didn't stop until Laura came out of the house and met them a few feet from the front door. They briefly spoke to her then disappeared inside.

  "She doesna look happy," Lachlan commented, watching Laura approach the gazebo.

  "I hope she's not upset because the boys got so wet."

  Lachlan frowned. "No. Somethin’s troublin’ her."

  Beth decided not to question the conviction in his tone, for she also felt a shadow of foreboding pass over her awareness. By the time Laura stepped onto the floor of the gazebo, she was briskly rubbing her arms for warmth. She sat to Beth's right. With a burst of breath, she turned her gaze on the couple with a look that bespoke of uncertainty.

  "You look as if you've seen a ghost," Beth said, not thinking about her choice of words.

  Laura paled. "I have. Roan thinks I'm crazy, but I know what I saw in our bedroom."

  A chuff of a laugh escaped Lachlan before he realized Laura was serious. Sobering, he asked, "A wha' in yer room?"

  "A man," Laura said with a tremor in her tone. "Short dark hair. Glasses. A black raincoat. I swear I could see him as clearly as I see you both."

  Lachlan's face darkened with a scowl. "Perhaps a reporter has gotten into the house."

  "I could see through him!" Laura exclaimed.

  Two pairs of eyes stared blankly at her.

  "I know how it sounds, but it's the truth. Roan and I were in bed, about to—" She caught her breath and blushed hotly. "Well, we were in a compromising position when I caught sight of this man in the corner of my eye. He was there for a second or two while I looked straight at him. It wasn't an illusion. He was there."

  "Oh, damn," Beth murmured.

  "Is it possible another spirit could have come through with you?"

  "Laura, I think we would have known," said Lachlan.

  "I agree. And if one had somehow managed to come through, why wait so long to appear?"

  Angrily, Laura sputtered, "Do you know how unnerving it is to realize something has been watching you when you're naked? I'm so pissed off, I could spit! The sonofabitch seemed to be getting off watching us make love!"

  "Roan didna see him?"

  Laura made a gesture of futility. "No, but my hero felt the air for the bastard."

  Lachlan and Beth chuckled in unison, but regretted it when Laura scowled at them scoldingly. "Look, this may strike you two in the funny bones, but I'm not amused. Beth, how would you like it if you found a stranger watching you during an intimate moment?" Before Beth could reply, Laura charged on, "And how would you like it, Lachlan, if a dead man was drooling over Beth?"

  "I'd split ma spleen," he grumbled.

  "So how do we get rid of him?"

  "Laura," Lachlan said on an exaggerated sigh. "I was in the business o’ spooking, remember?"

  "How could I forget?" she retorted.

  "Weel, now, how would I know how to send a spirit off?"

  The green eyes stared at him with a sour accusation. "You think it's amusing, don't you?"

  "Laura, be serious," Beth said.

  "I am!"

  "Fegs, lass, dinna put thoughts in ma head or words in ma mouth. I dinna know wha' you expect me to do, is all."

  Laura became instantly contrite. "I'm sorry. Seeing him has me so damned rattled, I don't know what I'm saying."

  "Tis all right," said Lachlan kindly. "Laura, soon as Deliah and Winston return, you'll have yer answer. If they canna tell us how to handle this, no one can."

  "You're right." Laura released a pathetic little laugh. "I guess I thought you two had an inside connection to the afterlife."

  "I hope not." Beth grinned, but it vanished when she noticed Lachlan shiver. "What is it?" she asked him.

  "I wish I knew. It has happened afore."

  "What has?"

  "The best I can explain it, tis like a wink o' darkness inside me."

  Laura's features contorted in a grimace and she shivered. "I'm going to have nightmares."

  Lachlan's dark eyes became glazed and riveted on Laura as swift images flashed through his mind, too nebulous for him to decipher. A loud hum from an unknown source filled his ears, and something akin to flames licked along the periphery of his vision. The hum moved into his throat, his chest, and spread into his fingers and toes, numbing him. Through it, he vaguely heard Beth calling his name. He forced himself to concentrate on her, using her as a lifeline to tow himself back to reality.

  Again the wink of darkness occurred. He experienced an internal pop, and was released from the clutches of the spell.

  "Lachlan!"

  He was startled to see Laura holding Broc. The babies were crying, squirming within the confines of their blankets. He stared down at his empty arms while he tried to release the information nibbling to escape his subconscious.

  "Lachlan, you're scaring me," said Beth, her tone husky with concern.

  Remember....

  He looked up, startled at the sound of his mother's voice caressing the inside of his skull.

  "Remember wha'?"

  "Hey, Lachlan," said Laura, "What's wrong with you?"

  "Ma mither," he murmured. He scowled and gave a forceful shake of his head, as if to clear his boggy mind. "She wants me to remember somethin’. Wha', I dinna know."

  "Your mother's trying to contact you?"

  "No, Beth." He sighed wearily. "I think a memory from the itherworld was tryin’ to surface. Tis gone, though."

  The sound of a car coming up the driveway drew their attention away from their immediate concerns. Winston's dark blue Audi parked in front of the carriage house. He climbed out of the car and opened the door for Deliah, then waved to the trio sitting in the gazebo.

  Lachlan gestured for the couple to join them. The babies, now quiet, squinted into the shaded light. By the time Deliah and Winston stepped onto the planks of the gazebo, Broc and Ciarda were again sleep. Deliah, her smile as bright as the sunshine when she spied the infants, reached for Ciarda. Beth passed her into Deliah's arms, planting a kiss on the infant's brow before releasing her.

  "It has turned ou’ to be a beautiful day, hasn't it?" Winston commented.

  Both Beth and Lachlan saw through his guarded front, and Lachlan asked, "Wha' did you find?"

  Winston focused on Beth, whose eagerness to hear what he had uncovered was deeply etched in her face. "There isn't a death certificate for Beth on file."

  A breath gushed from Beth, and Lachlan grinned with immense relief.

  "But how's that possible?" asked Beth. "There was an autopsy performed on me."

  "Aye," said Lachlan. "Miss Cooke showed me the report—no' tha' I understood any o' it. She said Beth died o' a cerebral hemorrhage."

  "There was never an autopsy done on Beth," Winston said. "Nor could I find a single legal document pertaining to her death."

  Bewildered, Beth glanced at Lachlan, who met her gaze then looked at Winston with his eyebrows scrinched down in a scowl. "Beth was in the coffin, and I was there when she was put in the ground."

  Laura shuddered. "This conversation goes beyond weird and morbid."

  "So Deliah and I paid a visit to Phineas Stratton," Winston went on, a rueful glint in his eyes. "Now there's a character straight from the imagination o' Edgar Allen Poe." He sat on the bench across from the others and braced his forearms atop his thighs.

  "He be the mortician," said Deliah.

  Winston nodded. "And the only one who could have supplied the coffin for Beth."

  "Which he denied," Deliah said.

  Beth asked, "Why?"

  Winston briefly massaged the nape of his neck before replying, "At first, I thought he was trying to cover his tracks, wha' wi' burying someone wi’ou' going through the proper legalities. Needless to say, he was no' only reluctant to talk to us but resentful. Borderline bellige
rent. However, Stratton is a mon wi' a burdened conscience, and his mind was very receptive to ma scanning it."

  He sighed like a man too weary to go on, his gaze flitting between Lachlan and Beth before settling on Lachlan. His brow furrowed thoughtfully. He linked his fingers and absently rotated the thumbs for a time.

  He cleared his throat and asked Lachlan, "Where were you when Beth died?"

  Stricken by the question, Lachlan paled significantly. It was a time he would give anything to forget, and it pained him now as much as it had when it had happened last July.

  "Earlier," Lachlan began, his voice hoarse with emotion, "Beth collapsed from one o' her headaches."

  "The migraines," Winston said.

  Lachlan nodded. "I knew she didna have long. We'd argued on the tower, and I had spent maist o' ma energy. When she collapsed in the hall, twas all I could do to carry her to her bed. When she woke up hours later, I was still unable to fully leave the grayness. She ate a sandwich then went into the parlor, where I sensed she started to have anither attack."

  Through a thin mist of tears, Lachlan painfully regarded the strain in Beth's taut features. She couldn't bring herself to meet his gaze, instead, stared down at her lap, where her hands were tightly clasped. Lachlan closed his eyes a moment, gulped back his emotions and looked at Winston.

  "She was in so much pain, I didna know wha' else to do except—"

  "Please don't tell that part," Beth murmured.

  "All right, Beth." To Winston, he said, "Again she collapsed, and I managed to get her to her room. I dinna know how, but I knew she wouldna live till morn, so I contacted Miss Cooke."

  "How?" asked Winston.

  Lachlan frowned and gave a light shrug. "I only had to call ou' to her and she always came. Her mither was the same way."

  "Go on."

  "Weel, she lived in a wee cottage along the loch, so it didna take her long to come to the house. Mr. Stratton and anither mon came wi' her."

  "Were you present when Mr. Stratton examined Beth?"

  "Winston, I couldna—" Lachlan's voice broke. Willing back the emotionally knot in his throat, he shook his head. "I shut maself off. It was the first time I really understood how verra lonely was the grayness, but I desperately needed the solitude."

  "Go on," Winston said again.

  "I wanted to ask God to please spare her for a wee time longer, but I couldna. I didna want her sufferin’ no mair, so I didna pray. I didna think at all for a time until Miss Cooke summoned me and told me it was over. Mr. Stratton and his apprentice had taken Beth from the house. I was no' to worry. She would see to it Beth had a proper burial."

  Lachlan frowned. Seconds later, it darkened into another scowl. "Her reaction was strange, now tha' I think abou' it," he said in a low voice, as if talking to himself.

  "Strange, how?" Winston asked.

  Lachlan looked hard at Winston. "I insisted Beth be buried alongside me. Miss Cooke was verra upset and tried to persuade me to reconsider. O' course I wouldna. I was in Miss Cooke's debt. She, her mither and her grandmither, had assisted me in payin’ the bills on the estate, and twas Miss Cooke who had ma bones placed in a proper kist in the early nineteen-sixties. But wha' she asked was beyond any debt o' gratitude I felt I owed."

  "So she respected your wishes and buried Beth alongside you at the oak," said Winston.

  "Aye. Beth's spirit had never left the house. She was in the grayness for abou' a week. I figured she needed the aloneness to prepare for her new existence."

  "Understatement," Beth muttered.

  Lachlan nodded in agreement and asked Winston, "But wha' has all this to do wi' Beth's death no' bein’ on record?"

  Beth stiffened her spine and looked up. It was impossible not to notice Winston's reluctance to go on, and Deliah's gaze was downcast, pointedly avoiding Beth's.

  "I need to know what you found out," she said to Winston, her voice surprisingly calm yet forceful.

  "All tha' really matters is tha' you're here, now," he said kindly, but she read torment in his eyes, and it chilled her to the marrow of her bones.

  "Winston, don't sugar the truth," she demanded. "Nothing drives me crazier! Just tell me what you found out, and don't omit any of the details."

  As if he couldn't hold back the information a moment longer, Winston braced himself and stated, "You didn't die o' natural causes, Beth. Viola Cooke smothered you wi' a pillow."

  Chapter 9

  Deliah nudged Laura with a knee, but the blonde was so stunned by Winston's revelation, it was necessary for Deliah to place a hand on her shoulder and give a firmer nudge. The green eyes swung to stare at Deliah with horrified-incredulity.

  "It be best if ye and I take the babes into the house," said the Faerie princess.

  Nodding dazedly, Laura rose to her feet. For several moments, she was at a loss as to what to do then focused on the sleeping bundle in Lachlan's arms and held out her own. She realized he was in a state of shock, which helped her to shake off the remains of her stupor. Tenderly, she kissed him on the brow and eased Broc from his hold.

  Her tear-filled eyes studied Beth for a moment. She wanted to put her arms around Beth's trembling shoulders and tell her she was there for her, but she couldn't. Instead, she smoothed a hand over the crown of Beth's head then followed Deliah out of the gazebo and toward the house.

  Winston started to get up, stopped himself, rose to his feet and sat next to Beth. He heard himself release a thready breath. It hadn't been his intention to blurt the information.

  On the way back from town, he'd thought carefully about how he would tell the couple. Deliah had told him to wait, and he'd responded by telling her he didn't feel right about withholding the truth, even for a few hours.

  "I would have known," said Lachlan miserably. Leaning forward, he looked at Winston as though ready to explode with grief. "Dammit, mon, I would have known if somethin’ like tha' happened beneath ma roof!"

  "You were in the grayness, grieving." Again Winston sighed, a sound that told of his difficulty to continue. But he knew he had to. Despite the grimness of Beth's actual death, it freed her in the present.

  "Stratton examined Beth and discovered she still had a pulse. Viola pretended to feel faint and asked the apprentice to make her a cup o' tea. As soon as he was ou' o' the room, she took the spare pillow alongside Beth's head and held it over her face."

  "Why?" Lachlan cried, jumping to his feet, his hands clenched at his sides.

  A mantle of numbness fell over Beth as she looked into Winston's eyes. "She wanted me away from Lachlan."

  "Tha's ma guess," said Winston. "She was willing to kill Agnes and sacrifice the boys to win his love."

  Lachlan's heart thundered behind his breast as he walked in a circle in the center of the gazebo. "But I brought ma Beth to Baird House because I knew she was dyin’," he said, again as if talking to himself.

  "You only knew she was going to die," Winston corrected, softening his words as best he could. "Lachlan, you couldn't know tha' bringing her here was wha' would kill her."

  "What about my headaches?" Beth asked.

  "I've no doubt the migraines were excruciating. Beth, you were under a great deal o' stress for years, and the migraines were the result."

  "They got worse after I fell down the stairs at my mother's house."

  Winston nodded. "I'm sure they did, but again, I believe the stress o' yer life brought them on. You came to Scotland hoping a visit wi' Carlene would bring you peace o' mind, but shortly after you arrived, she left. You were worried about her. Right?"

  Numb, Beth managed a weak nod.

  "And Beth," Winston went on in a softer, more gentle tone, "at tha' time you were also keeping the guilt o' yer mither's death locked inside you. You didn't allow yerself to resent the years you had lost taking care o' her."

  Winston laid a hand on one of her slumped shoulders. "Human beings are complex machines. Guilt is one o' those emotions tha' erode our gears in such a way, there's no t
elling there's damage till it's almost too late."

  "I'm as responsible as Miss Cooke for killin’ her."

  Beth's head shot up at Lachlan's words. Standing, she went to him, wrapping her arms tightly about his middle and laying a cheek against his chest. "You weren't responsible. Lachlan, don't ever think that again."

  Looking upward with a mute plea for strength, Lachlan wrapped his arms around her shoulders ad held her against him. "Aye, I am. I as good as put tha' bloody pillow in her hands!"

  Beth began to weep against him. Tears spilled down Lachlan's face and his lips compressed into a fine, white line.

  Winston stood, his face pale and taut, his eyes dulled by the helplessness he felt. He was restless, antsy. To still his hands, he slipped them into the pockets of his black trench coat. He wanted to return to the house and put off the rest of what he knew, but a little voice in his head told him to be done with the matter. At the moment, he longed to be in the security of Deliah's arms, in one of their beds, away from the troubles of Baird House and the rest of the world.

  He watched the couple cling to one another. Unwittingly, he tapped into their roiling emotions and found himself sinking deeper into a morass of desolation. Of the two, Lachlan was the most stricken. Beth's concern was more for him, her fate at Viola Cooke's hand a far lesser evil than Lachlan's guilt at misjudging the eventual cause of her death.

  They were a remarkable pair, Winston told himself. He couldn't imagine them not being together, any more than he could imagine a future without Deliah.

  He drew in a deep fortifying breath, and said, "Stratton and Cooke were third cousins. She threatened to implicate him in the murder if he told anyone. He's a bit o' a mouse, this Stratton, and we all now know how aggressive was the prim Miss Cooke.

  "Anyway, he went along wi' her scheme to bury the body—sorry, Beth," he added with an apologetic yet wan grin when she turned her watery eyes on him. "It isn't easy talking abou' this."

  A hint of a smile appeared on her mouth. "I know, Winston. Viola was a cunning, warped woman." She peered into Lachlan's face. "But I guess I can understand her obsession. Lachlan, she was determined to have you."