Dream Under the Hill (Oberon Book 8)

by P. G. Forte

  “So, is everything okay now?” he asked after a minute. “Gregg didn’t give you a hard time, did he, about being late, or anything?”

  Cara shook her head. “No, it’s fine.” She turned to face him, radiating relief. “You’re so smart, you know that? You were totally right. He wasn’t mad at all. And that thing you did with the tire–” She stopped and shrugged, eyes gleaming as she smiled at him. “Omigod, you saved my life with that! Thank you so much.”

  “S’okay, it was nothing,” he murmured intending to leave it at that. But that smile of hers had a funny way of scrambling his senses, and damned if some perverse demon didn’t make him add, “Unless, maybe, you wanted to come over here and thank me again, like you did in the car?”

  “Wh- what did you say?” Cara’s eyes widened. Her gaze flew to the door, then back to his face. She bit her lip, looking for all the world as if she were actually thinking about it. As if another minute might find her pinning him to his chair, pressing her body against his and once again kissing him silly.

  “Nothing. Forget it,” Liam replied, mentally kicking himself as he scrambled out of his chair and headed for the door, before either of them could act on his suggestion, and dig themselves into an early grave. “I was just kidding. Good night, Caramel. Get some sleep, huh? You look like you need it.”

  * * *

  Cara stared at the door as it closed behind Liam. He hadn’t even looked at her. He’d just gotten up from the table and walked from the room, without even a glance in her direction. Leaving her with a wrenching tightness in her chest and stomach, and twice as much scrambled egg as she was going to need.

  What just happened, she wondered. What did I do? But the empty room gave her no answers.

  She was recalled to herself by the smell of burning butter. “Oh, shit,” she muttered as she grabbed the pan from the stove and looked around for the paper towels, so she could wipe it out. Not surprisingly, the towels were nowhere to be found. She shook her head in annoyance. A dozen guys, all of them older than her, and not one of them capable of putting anything back where it belonged. It was enough to make her want to scream and throw things. It was almost enough to make her stop cleaning up, start leaving the place a mess herself. Almost, but not quite. Shit, maybe Liam had a point with the whole Peter Pan and Wendy idea, after all.

  Liam...

  “Damn it, why’d you have to come down here, anyway, you jerk?” she grumbled as she washed off the pan, standing first on one foot and then the other, to keep her toes from turning into ice cubes, on the cold, stone floor. “Why can’t you ever just stay in your room like everyone else does?”

  But she knew the answer to that, didn’t she? He wasn’t like everyone else. He was different. He was special.

  He was hers.

  No. No, he wasn’t. That was not what she needed. Or wanted. Especially not now, just when it looked like she was getting her life back on target. Really not what she needed. Not at all.

  She’d been wrong about Gregg. He wasn’t a monster like she’d begun to believe. He really did care. And it was her fault that he had to be so hard on her sometimes. Would she care about keeping the kitchen clean if he hadn’t shown her how important it was? She rubbed her hand across her stomach when remembered pain knifed through her gut. Gregg was only trying to teach her how to act right – and not simply looking to hurt her. She’d been stupid to think that.

  She’d been stupid for thinking Liam would rescue her, too. Rescue her from what, anyway? She didn’t need to be rescued, she didn’t want to be rescued. And she’d been really stupid for kissing him earlier.

  Good thing Gregg doesn’t know about that.

  The thought stopped her dead in her tracks, and left her chilled to the bone. Oh, fuck. She’d been really stupid for kissing Liam. Really, really stupid. That was exactly the kind of thing that gave guys ideas. Really stupid ideas, too, most of the time.

  It didn’t even matter that Gregg had been doing a whole lot more than that with Lauren. She’d bet anything that he’d still blow more than a circuit if he found out about her and Liam. ‘Cause that was another thing guys got stupid about.

  She was lucky to have Gregg. Lucky to have a home. Lucky – just plain lucky – for the first time in her life. And she didn’t plan to mess that up.

  She wasn’t at all like Wendy, always whining at Peter to take her home. What the hell was the bitch’s problem, anyhow? So, she had to sew socks and tell stories and stuff. Was that any reason to complain? Was that any reason to fuck everything up… for all of them?

  Wendy could fly in Neverland. She could do whatever she wanted and everyone loved her. Why go home, where she’d have to grow up, where even the dog got to boss her around?

  Cara dried out the pan and put it back on the stove, waited for the new butter to melt, waited for the eggs to set, still hopping impatiently from foot to foot. If she had to be anyone, she’d rather be Tinker Bell. Tink was smart. She knew where she belonged. She knew a lot of stuff. She knew secrets – things that made all the boys afraid to cross her. It gave her an edge. A girl needed an edge, sometimes.

  Yeah, there were a lot of advantages to being a fairy. For one, Cara was reasonably certain that hovering around in the air had to be a whole lot warmer than being stuck on the ground. She looked down at her feet and wiggled her toes as she waited. She’d painted her toenails a pale, frosty peach, to match the nightgown, but most of her pleasure in its prettiness had been lost. What did it matter anyway? Gregg didn’t care and Liam...

  Fuck. She was not gonna think about him anymore. Even if he was a really good kisser. She smiled just a little as she thought about that. Just one more thought – that was all she’d give herself – and then she’d stop, and forget all about him. Forever. She was with Gregg now, and that was that.

  * * *

  Well, that’s that, Deirdre thought, scrolling through the list of emails she’d just sent off to the men on her list.

  Are you my father? [Please read. This is NOT spam] the subject lines read. And, if that didn’t get their attention, she didn’t know what would.

  The letters themselves had been short and to the point – and she’d sent the same one to all six addresses she’d found. She’d mentioned her mother, mentioned what little she knew about her birth, and assured them all that she was not looking for financial support; just the chance to get to know something about her family. And then, just for good measure, she’d mentioned the fact that she was coming to live in Oberon in a couple of months.

  If that spurred any of them into action, if they chose to read that as a threat – a promise that she intended to show up on their doorstep unannounced, if they failed to respond in a timely fashion. Well, that was okay, too, because she probably would.

  She didn’t care if they didn’t like it. They couldn’t know if she was their kid or not, but that didn’t excuse any of them from taking her request for information seriously. Sure, only one of the six could be her father, which meant the others really didn’t owe her squat. But, the way she figured it, they did owe her mother. They owed Paige a kind word. A smile of remembrance. The courtesy of a response when her daughter approached them with a simple request. They all owed her that. They all owed her at least that much.

  And maybe it wasn’t altogether fair, targeting all the men at once, but she had nothing to go on anymore. There was no way to choose between them now, ever since her mother’s first guess, Dan Cavanaugh, had proven wrong.

  And that was still a good news/bad news kind of thing.

  It was bad news because her mother was right about one thing. If Deirdre could have chosen her father, Dan was exactly what she would have wanted.

  Even when the blood tests had confirmed that they weren’t related, he’d still told her she could think of them as family. Even after the way she’d messed up, he’d said it – when most people would have told her to go to hell.

  But it was good news too, in a way. Because Dan had turned out to be Seth�
�s dad, and she really didn’t want to have to think of Seth as family. Not after everything that happened between them.

  But she wouldn’t think about that right now, she decided, absently fingering the scars that marked her right arm; the bite marks and gouges left by Eric’s dogs. A lot had happened between her and Seth in the short time they’d known one another. Maybe too much. And she wouldn’t think about any of it, right now.

  She’d worked too hard these last couple of years, putting him out of her mind. It had been too painful to think about him while there was no chance of seeing him, no chance of talking to him, no chance of fixing any of the mistakes she’d made. It would have been needless pain. And what was the point of that?

  So, she’d put him from her mind, concentrated on school, focused on her plan, and then, when her goal was finally in sight, she’d been broadsided once more by her mother. Way to go, Paige. Thanks.

  Just when she’d resigned herself to the idea she’d never know her father, never know her history, that she had no choice but to reinvent herself as a brand new person; the tape had arrived in her mailbox, and the rules had once again changed.

  Seth, and all her other plans and dreams and hopes for her future, would have to wait. She owed it to her mother to find out the truth, to solve this mystery, to put all the questions to rest. She owed it to them all.

  * * *

  “Well, that took long enough,” Gregg muttered, when Cara returned with his food.

  She looked at him in surprise. “I wasn’t that long, was I? It’s not my fault you don’t like it when your eggs turn brown or the cheese isn’t melted. I always have to cook them on low – you know that.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he told her. “I’m not hungry now, anyway. Put the tray down and come over here.”

  “Not hungry?” She looked at him in dismay, still standing just inside the bedroom door, with the tray full of food in her hands. “What do you mean you’re not hungry? Gre-egg! I froze my butt off down there cooking your omelet. I could have been up here keeping warm. I could have been asleep by now. I need some sleep.”

  “Too bad,” he said, watching the odd expression that had filtered into her eyes, after she’d uttered that last sentence, as though her words had sparked a memory. She shook her head in defeat, moving to put the tray down on the dresser, and then turning toward the bed.

  “Wait,” he said, stopping her before she was halfway across the room. “Go turn off the light.”

  He waited until her back was turned before he struck a match to light the little gas burner he kept at his bedside, and then ran the blade of his knife through the flame several times to sterilize it.

  Cara’s soft gasp, as she turned once more and saw what he was doing, echoed in the quiet. “Oh.” It was not quite a whimper, not yet a moan.

  “Come on, pet.” Gregg smiled, lightly slapping the blade against his open palm, enjoying the sting of hot steel against his flesh. “Hurry up. I’ve got something that’ll warm you.”

  * * *

  Cara’s eyes spasmed shut for a moment. Despair tore at her chest. Warm her? Well, of course he did. And didn’t that just figure? Just when she’d got it in her stupid head that things were okay, he had to pull something like this again. In the last few weeks, she’d gotten to hate the sight of knives – any knives, all knives. They made her crazy. She thought it would get easier over time. That she’d grow used to it. But it seemed to be getting harder, instead.

  Maybe she should have questioned Liam more about the help he said he’d give her. Maybe she should have run away when she had the chance.

  But where would I go? Who would take me in? How would I live – that would be any better than this?

  It was really such a small thing that Gregg was asking of her, nothing that millions of people didn’t volunteer for every day, lining up at blood banks and bloodmobiles – on their lunch hours, even. It was something most people felt good about doing. It was hardly Gregg’s fault that it didn’t feel small to her, that it felt like everything, somehow, instead.

  She rubbed her hand in circles over her stomach, where a dull ache had begun, feeling the smooth slide of silk beneath her fingers, remembering how the material had looked earlier today, bunched up in Liam’s hand.

  That was why she’d put it on tonight. The thought of his hand on her, the sound of his voice, the look in his eyes as he admired her gown... they made her feel cared for, somehow. Protected. Safe.

  But there was nothing that could make her feel that way now.

  So, maybe she should change into something else? She’d hate to ruin it. But Gregg was ready now, and he wouldn’t want to wait. The blade would grow cold.

  Love hurts. Isn’t that what everyone always said? Maybe that’s how you knew you were in love, by how far you were willing to go, by how much pain you were willing to endure.

  Or, maybe, by how much pain you were willing to inflict.

  The hot knife was for her sake, after all. It was safer, cleaner, better… that’s what Gregg always said. What he’d neglected to mention, however, was that it hurt twice as much.

  “Tell me you love me,” Gregg demanded, as he took her hand in his. “Show me how much.”

  “Of course I do,” she murmured, as he pulled her down beside him. Already she felt light-headed in anticipation. Already she felt cold. “Of course I love you.”

  He smiled; white teeth gleaming in the flame’s blue light, lips curving as he pressed the knife against her wrist and slowly, carefully, lovingly, cut into her skin. “Then bleed for me, baby,” he said as his hungry gaze followed the blade on its path.

  * * *

  Gregg watched as Cara’s body obeyed his command, the dark blood welling up out of her wrist to streak in ribbons down her arm. He reveled in the hiss of her breath, the trembling of her fingers, all the little signs he’d come to love. “That’s it, pet. Bleed for me now.” He threw the knife down and took her arm between his teeth, happily lapping at the warm flow, while his mind drifted dreamily over the plans he’d just made.

  This... thing... between Cara and Liam, it didn’t surprise him. Not really. He’d watched them from the start. He’d seen their attraction grow. It was inevitable, perhaps, given their ages. It was the attraction of youth to youth – probably nothing more than that. But it was something they shared with each other, and not with him. And he had known all along that he could not let that go unpunished.

  Cara was his. That was something they both would have to learn. His to keep, for as long as he wanted. To use, in whatever way best pleased him. To share... perhaps. But, only on his terms. Under his conditions. And with only one purpose in mind.

  To teach them both the true meaning of pain.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Insult has broken my heart, and I am weak;

  I looked for sympathy, but there was none;

  for comforters and I found none;

  rather they put gall in my food,

  and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

  Offertory Prayer

  For Palm Sunday

  Today was Palm Sunday, and if he’d still been a good Catholic, Nick knew he’d probably be getting ready to attend Mass. But the Church was something he’d long since fallen away from, and, Good Catholic was a category from which he’d been definitively barred, not just for his divorce and subsequent re-marriage, but for a whole host of supposed sins that, according to canon, had irreparably stained his soul. And while he would have liked to once again experience the feelings of Absolution and Grace, that he used to receive from the sacraments, all things considered, he didn’t miss it very much.

  What he would miss, however, were mornings like these, cooking breakfast for his family, and sharing some quality time with his son, Cole.

  “You having fun there, buddy?” Nick asked the little boy, smiling at the two year old’s attempts to stir the batter for this morning’s waffles. “You’ve been at that a while. Think it’s almost ready?”

>   Cole shook his head. “Noooo,” he replied, still gamely slapping the big wooden spoon around in the bowl; clearly intending to beat the batter into complete submission.

  “All right, we’ll give it a little longer then,” Nick told him, chuckling to himself as he went back to tending to the orange hollandaise sauce he was making for the eggs Benedict.

  Sunday breakfast was Nick’s new sacrament. It was also his favorite meal to cook these days, which was odd, considering the one item he’d always considered his signature dish—meatballs – wasn’t usually thought of as a breakfast staple. However, since his family was, once again, eating Sunday dinner at Lucy’s house, more often than not, breakfast had become his one chance to really cut loose.

  Not that his breakfasts were always as elaborate as this morning’s meal, but today was special. It was his forty-fifth birthday, and he felt like celebrating.

  He also felt like staying home, drawing the day out, enjoying the time with his family and friends. Which was partly why, when Sinead had invited them all to the inn for breakfast, he’d declined. Much as he loved his friend and appreciated her cooking, he didn’t want to go anywhere today.

  The impulse surprised him. He’d realized only recently that he’d finally begun to think of this house as home.

  After almost three years, it was long overdue. It was high time he learned to relax into his new life, to accept that fate had handed him a second chance, to stop worrying that it might all be taken away again.

  He took the hollandaise off the heat, checked on the home fries warming in the oven, and then took a minute to stir the tomato sauce simmering on the back of the stove.

  The aroma, when he lifted the cover off the pot, wafted him back to his own childhood, and made him happier than ever to be spending this time in the kitchen with his own son. “Does that smell good, Cole?” he asked.