Mark reached across the table for my hands, and I was glad for the connection and calm holding onto him offered. I’d rather have been held securely in his arms, but this would do, I supposed, until we could get home.
*****
On home soil, the five of us filed slowly out of the airplane at 11:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time—we had been gone less than a full day. Gail had stirred shortly before landing but was still resting on the sofa, completely confused as to how she had gotten so “ill” that she’d had to lie down. It was generous of Mr. Mackenna, she fawned in her light-headed stupor, to allow her the use of the sofa to recover. Juliette and Jake were amazed that she wouldn’t even remember having sex with him.
Diarmid came out of the plane as we were saying goodbye to Jake. The canine shifter nodded and quickly and climbed into his car, and with a final wave he took off across the tarmac, headed for the exit.
“Mida, darling,” my father said as he walked down the few steps to the ground.
I turned reluctantly as I was about to round the end of the truck to get in on the passenger side. “Yes?”
He smiled genially. “Despite the lack of total harmony we endured on this voyage, I wanted to say that I thoroughly enjoyed spending this time with you. I hold to my word that I will make sure our people understand your bondmate is not to be harmed.”
“I very much appreciate that,” I replied, hoping I sounded grateful. I did feel grateful, but the man was so damn hard to trust that my gratitude was edged with wariness.
Diarmid smiled and turned to Mark, who stood by the open driver’s door. “My daughter is very important to me. See that you never incur my wrath by causing her pain. Do we understand each other, Mr. Singleton?”
“As long as you understand that the reverse is also true,” Mark replied succinctly.
My father smiled and nodded. “Well said, young man,” he said to him, then turned back to me. He kissed me on both cheeks again and then embraced me, to which I awkwardly responded by wrapping my arms around him briefly. Diarmid then stepped back, and with a nod at Lochlan, walked over and got into another waiting limousine.
We watched it drive away, and then I said to Lochlan, who had driven his own car, “You’ll see that Gail is taken care of?”
He nodded. “Aye. She’ll be well looked after by yours truly.”
“Thanks, Loch. For everything.”
My brother reached over and embraced me heartily. “You’re quite welcome,” he said, then stood back and offered Mark his hand. “Congratulations on learning you’re a little more a freak of nature than you thought you were, brother.”
Mark laughed as he shook his hand. “I’m glad for it, believe me. One less thing to have to worry about, knowing I get to stay with Saphrona forever.”
Lochlan rolled his eyes at that, but he smiled. After bidding Juliette a farewell, he turned and climbed back into the airplane to tend to Gail.
The three of us then climbed into my truck and headed home. It occurred to me that by the time we reached the farm it would be almost 12:30 in the morning, leaving a good six hours to sleep before we’d have to get up and start our regular day. Grateful that Mark had offered to drive, I leaned my head on his shoulder and drifted off even though I had slept some on the plane, but was woken a few moments later by the ringing of my cell phone. Concern flashed when I saw Harry Mitchell’s number on the caller I.D.
“Harry, what’s wrong? Is one of the animals sick?” I said without preamble, knowing there was no way he’d be calling unless he had bad news to impart.
“Oh God, Saphrona,” Harry’s weary, worried voice came over the line. My concern became full-fledged fear. “I’m sorry, honey, I’m so sorry.”
“Harry, what happened?” I asked, praying that Moe and Cissy and my farm animals were alright.
“Your… Sweetheart, I’m so sorry. Somebody set your barn on fire.”
*****
“What?!” I roared, and had to stop myself from crushing the phone in my hand.
The volume of my voice awoke Juliette, who had drifted off in the back seat. She leaned forward as Mark reached for my hand.
“I heard fire trucks a little while ago, making all kinds o’ ruckus, so I went and looked out the window and I could see the flames from my place. I’m down at your place now, but they won’t let me up the road too close,” Harry told me.
I screamed again, and did not care if I shattered the windshield. Mark pulled over to the side of the road and yanked the parking break, then gathered me into his arms as tears began falling down my face.
“Harry, what about…what about the animals? What about my animals?! And my house! What about my house? Moe and Cissy are in there!”
“They told me the house hasn’t been touched, but the barn’s a goner,” my neighbor replied. “I won’t know about the barn animals until they get the fire under control. Honey, I’m so sorry.”
I could no longer speak—I could only cling to Mark and sob. I was vaguely aware of Juliette taking the cell phone out of my hand and speaking to Harry, then relaying the story to Mark as to what had happened.
After venting my pain through tears and soaking Mark’s t-shirt, the anger began to creep in. I sat up and wiped my eyes furiously, a slow burn of a different kind beginning in my chest. “Let’s go,” I said, and Mark nodded wordlessly, putting the truck back in gear and taking off down the road.
Based on where we had pulled over, it would normally have taken another forty minutes to get home. Mark virtually ignored the speed limit and we made it in twenty, turning onto our street and pulling to a stop behind a long line of police cars and fire trucks. He hadn’t yet engaged the parking brake when I opened my door and threw myself out, taking off at a run. A couple of police officers tried to stop me, but I threw them off—I had to get closer, to see.
To smell. I knew that if I could get close enough, I would know if my beloved horses and cows and pigs and chickens had perished in the blaze.
A burly fireman grabbed me as I started up my tree-lined driveway. “You can’t go up there, ma’am.”
“That’s my house—my house, damn it! My barn! I have animals in there! I have to know if they’re okay!” I hollered, shoving him off of me.
He grabbed for me again as Mark and Juliette caught up, and the former of the two relieved the fireman of the duty of restraining me. “Ma’am—”
“Saphrona!”
I turned and saw Harry Mitchell coming toward me. Mark let me go and I ran to him. “Harry, the animals—are you sure you don’t know anything about the animals?” I asked desperately.
He surprised me by nodding. “I just got a call from Tommy—he said he just found the horses over by our back pasture.”
Relief, although fleeting, crashed through me. “All four of them?” I pressed hopefully.
Harry nodded again. “I had the boys go looking in the woods, in case any of the animals might have escaped. Tommy said he and Billy only found the horses. They’re putting them in our barn for safe keeping.”
Mark had wrapped his arms around me again. “Some good news at least,” he said. “And you’re sure the house is safe?”
The other man nodded. “The fireman you were just talking to said the house is fine, though it was a good thing they got here when they did or it would have been a different story.”
“How did they know?” Juliette wondered. “If you didn’t even know until you heard the fire trucks, how did the fire department know to come out here?”
Harry shrugged. “Somebody driving by must’ve seen it and called it in,” he said.
Juliette pointed toward the house. “The house and barn are about five hundred feet into the woods, and there are so many trees here you can barely see anything from the road, especially at night. The barn would have had to already be engulfed for someone to see it from here,” she said.
Harry shrugged again and I turned away, looking back toward my home. I felt so heartsick. I was worried about the other
barn animals, worried about how frightened Moe and Cissy must be. I wanted to wrap my arms around the neck of each of my horses to assure myself that they were really alive…
And I wanted to find the son of a bitch who had done this. How dare someone come out here and risk the lives of my animals, destroy my property, threaten my home and my livelihood? And for goodness’ sake, why? Why had they done this to me? Was I a specific target or just a random one? Was someone out to get me, or was the fire started by a couple of kids just out screwing around? I almost wished it was someone out to get me, because at least then I would have a focus for my anger—I couldn’t hate what I didn’t know or understand, and right now, I wanted to hate the bastard who had destroyed my life.
Of course, I really had no idea who would want to do something like this to me. I was friendly with all my neighbors, when I chanced to see them. I was friendly with the people in town when I went shopping, too. Truth was I was pretty much a loner. I kept my head down and my nose clean and I didn’t draw any attention to myself—it was a law of vampire society not to draw attention! Only in the last few days had my daily routine changed, ever since Evangeline had come to me with Diarmid’s request and Mark had come into my life.
I was struck with the sudden realization that the only explanation for this had to be related to one or both of those events. Diarmid wanting me to seek out Vivian Drake and her source of information was drawing me back into the twisted world of vampire politics, something else I had been glad to escape when I’d left. And Mark’s appearance in my life had led me to learn that some of the things I’d believed my entire life were nothing but lies. I was also likely to be drawn into the world of the shapeshifters—with my soulmate’s sister being one, there would be no escaping it.
As soon as the fire was out and my barn—and Juliette’s new home—had been reduced to smoldering embers, I tore off up the driveway. I was two-thirds of the way there when it hit me—the scent of cooked meat, of burnt flesh. I knew in my heart that all but the horses had been killed, and when I came abreast of the house, I fell hard to my knees.
The barn was, as Harry had reported, a total loss. Three of the four corners still stood, but the entire roof of the structure had caved in. Broken timbers blackened with soot poked up here and there, and the immediate area of the backyard was full of cough-inducing smoke. My eyes stung and I vainly tried to blink away tears that I could not say were solely a result of the ash and smoke surrounding me. Feeling broken inside, I threw back my head and screamed, conveying in one long, loud wail all of my heartbreak and outrage.
Firefighters walking around me were gathering up their equipment, and through the white noise that now filled my ears I heard one of them say, “Smells like a damn barbecue out here.”
Anger flared white-hot, and I was on him faster than it took to take one breath, smashing my fist into his face and shattering his nose. Blood gushed over my hand and my fangs dropped as we fell to the ground, and had Juliette not grabbed hold of me, I’d have broken the strictest of vampire laws by feeding on the insensitive prick in front of a hundred witnesses. With her superior shifter strength she was able to haul me up but she needed Mark’s help to hold me back. I struggled for a few minutes, growling incoherently through clenched teeth until I was spent as suddenly as I had been enraged. Drawing my canines back up, I sagged against Mark’s chest and sobbed.
*****
“Can you tell me where you were prior to your arrival on scene, Ms. Caldwell?”
Mark and I were seated at the kitchen table as was the arson investigator. He held a little notebook in one hand and a pen in the other; I held Moe and Cissy, cuddling the still-shaking Chihuahuas to my chest as if I were afraid to let them go. Juliette stood at my left shoulder, a hand resting upon it. I was sure the gesture was meant to be comforting, but I was not remiss to the fact that she was there to restrain me in case I lost control again. Mark had scooted his chair as close to me as he could get, and my head was resting in his shoulder.
“We were on the road. We’d just come back from a trip to Ireland,” I said absently.
“May I ask why you were out of the country?”
“Is that really pertinent to your investigation?” Mark countered.
The other man looked at him. “I’m only trying to be thorough, Sgt. Singleton.”
When we’d identified ourselves, Mark had shown his military I.D., an “Inactive” copy of which he carried in his wallet. As such, arson investigator Lt. Parks had taken to addressing him by his Marine Corps rank—that they were in the company of a war veteran seemed to appease the firefighters, who were naturally aggravated that I’d attacked one of them.
“We went to see a family friend. We’d heard she was ill,” I said, replying to his question. “We were only gone for the day, but I had to go. She’s very dear to me.”
Not a total lie, I mused, as Parks made notes.
“What time did you return from your trip?”
I looked at Mark, suddenly unable to recall the time we had landed. “It was around eleven-thirty local time, maybe a little later. I’m sure you can check with airport traffic control—we came in on a private plane,” he said.
Parks nodded. “And Mr. Harry Mitchell, your neighbor, called you at what time?”
I reached for my cell phone and realized I didn’t have it. Juliette fished it out of one of her pockets, pulled up the last call time, and turned the phone so that Parks could see it on the screen. “We were on the road coming from the airport when Mr. Mitchell called,” she told him.
Parks wrote down the information. “Ms. Caldwell, do you trust your neighbor?”
Indignation rose. “Of course I trust Harry! Why else would I have allowed him or his sons access to my property? The Mitchells are wonderful people, a good family. Farmers take care of each other, Lieutenant.”
“You don’t think the Mitchell boys would do something like this, do you?”
“Absolutely not!” I said tartly. “None of them would—I told you, farmers take care of each other. Harry’s been especially friendly since the pig I sold him a couple years ago won prizes at the county and state fairs last year.”
Parks’ eyebrows rose. “How friendly are you with Mr. Mitchell?”
This time it was Mark who answered indignantly. “Just what the hell are you getting at, Lt. Parks? She’s already told you she doesn’t think any of the Mitchells would do this to her.”
“Jealous men do crazy things, Sergeant. When did the two of you start seeing each other?” Parks said.
“I moved in two days ago,” Mark said through clenched teeth. “But we’ve known each other for a long time.”
“How long is a long time?”
“Is that really any of your business?” Juliette asked.
“I am trying to establish motive here. For someone to release four animals but leave twenty-nine others to die strikes me as the act of someone with a lot of anger—anger directed at Ms. Caldwell,” Lt. Parks said calmly. “Who would have cause to do that? Do you have any enemies, ex-boyfriends?”
“Twenty-eight, actually,” Mark said with a glance at me. “We sold a pig to her brother Friday afternoon.”
I wondered for a moment why he had said that, and then I realized: Harry must have told one of the firefighters how many animals should be in the barn besides the horses. When the mess was cleaned up, they would only find ten pigs instead of eleven. Sighing, I stroked and kissed the round heads of my dogs, who—although no longer trembling—seemed still reluctant to leave the warmth and comfort offered by my breasts.
“Lt. Parks, until two days ago, I had lived on this farm alone for five years. I haven’t dated in ages, except for Mark. Hell, when he moved in it was originally just to help me out around the farm, but living in such close proximity, we realized there was a lot more between us than just friendship. When his sister told us she needed a place to stay, I offered her the apartment over the barn, where Mark was originally going to live.” I paused fo
r breath, reflected on what I had just said, and judged it fine. It was a closer approximation of the truth than just having said we’d known each other a long time, which by human standards we hadn’t. It bothered me a lot, but I also realized that we were going to have to ask my brother and possibly Mrs. Singleton to lie for us, verifying that Mark and I had known each other for some time.
“I really don’t get out all that much,” I went on. “The farm took up so much of my time. So no, I don’t have any enemies, not that I know of.”
Parks seemed to consider that a moment, then he jotted some more notes down. “What about your family? Mr. Mitchell said you once told him you don’t get along with your dad or your sister.”
For a split second I wanted to throttle Harry Mitchell, but dismissed the thought just as quickly, as Parks was bound to hear the news from someone. “I don’t get on all that well with them, that’s true. But despite the fact that we’re estranged, my father was generous enough to allow us to take his private jet to Ireland yesterday. He even went with us.”
“And your sister?”
I shrugged. “What can I say? We’re sisters who don’t get along,” I replied.
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