by Leigh Morgan
CHAPTER FIFTY
In the week or so thatTaryn had spent sleeping alone, three things became inherently clear. First, she didn’t like it. Second, she ached for Jesse. Third, she didn’t like it. She hadn’t slept well, a fact she tried to blame on her dark knight, but couldn’t because she knew with absolute certainty that all she had to do to rectify the situation, was to go to him.
She spent her days with her mother and with Reed, learning more about each woman simply by being around them. Helping with whatever she could at Potter’s Woods kept her busy and surprisingly fulfilled. Lauren arranged for some of the artifacts she’d helped unearth over the years to be brought to the library. She and Mary and Olive had given an impromptu presentation for the residents. Some of the people who chose to come to Potter’s Woods had stage three and four cancers. They chose to live at Potter’s Woods to pursue alternative treatment, having declined more traditional methods when they failed. The cancer group was small, mostly children, who just wanted to be children. As hard as it was to face their mortality, it was the most fulfilling thing she’d been a part of since…well since forever.
When she shied away, Merlin was at her side, his timeless voice in her ear. These children treasure today knowing it is a gift. Tomorrow is a promise owed to no one. Help them remember today as a good day.
The presentation went exceptionally well. Lauren let the children, and the few adults, handle the items. This was something most scholars didn’t even get the privilege of doing. Taryn promised to make it a weekly event, focusing on a different bit of tangible history she had access to. She and Lauren made a list and they chose their topics in order of importance. She’d been surprised by some of the items Lauren had access to, even replicas of some of those items were rare. Most were set behind glass away from human contact. Lauren reminded her she was exercising her choice to be a Bringer of the Light simply by doing what came naturally to her.
When Taryn wasn’t helping at Potter’s Woods, she was working with Sensei Schwartz. His lessons were shorter and she was even able to train in his dojo with his students, so long as Jordon or Shay accompanied her. She’d partnered with each of them, and true to his word, she didn’t get close to Shay’s face again. Jesse never made an appearance and that made her feel emptier than she’d felt before. Even Reed came a few times and she’d gotten the chance to spar with this other mother, whom she’d grown to like in spite of her original determination not to.
She liked everyone at Potter’s Woods, in fact. Even Peter, the hippie painter Henry scowled at every time he passed. It became part of her morning routine. Enjoy coffee on the patio while Peter taught watercolors. Precisely ten minutes into the lesson, just about halfway through her first cup of java, Henry would walk past with Jordon. Jordon would wink at her. Henry would look at Peter, scowl, and then get on with his day. These people were odd, but in such lovely ways that Taryn found herself belonging and unable to conjure reasons why she shouldn’t.
They were all heading to what Reed called William’s cottage in the morning. Reed came to her with photos of the place so she’d be prepared when they passed through the iron gates. The cottage was a palace, and Taryn was thankful for the warning. Her cottage, Sacred Springs, had three small bedrooms. William’s ‘cottage’ had twenty bedroom suites. Just a little different.
Feeling a flood of emotions, some of which she could define as thankfulness and affection, others she didn’t define at all, Taryn pulled Reed into a quick, firm hug. She knew she startled the smaller woman who left Taryn’s borrowed bedroom before the tears in her eyes fell. That had been two hours ago, and Taryn still couldn’t sleep.
She tried a trick Sensei taught her for patience and counted as high as she could in Japanese before…
They were there again, the three women all with the same bright blue-green eyes, sitting behind an oak table in robes of blue and white. She could see the old wizard with the oak staff standing in the corner more clearly this time. She knew him, yet his name escaped her. The women were more in focus as well. The young one looked to be about thirteen, her beauty but a promise of what it would become. A fine haze surrounded the woman of perhaps thirty or forty surrounding her in a starlight glow. The elder woman sat straight and tall with a strength that belied her age.
She stood and Taryn saw she was armed, a short sword and a dagger at her left hip. Embroidered on her robe Taryn recognized the symbols Lauren had seared onto his chest. Oak, holly, ivy interlacing circles, a flame above water…
“Who are you?” the woman asked.
“I am Taryn, Bringer of the Light.”
“Do you accept this sacred duty?”
Taryn was brave in her dream. Knowing the right way, she didn’t hesitate. “I do.”
Suddenly the words came to her as if she knew them all along. “I pledge my heart, my mind and my life with the strength of the oak, the fidelity of ivy and the protective magic of holly, that I will travel the path of the old ways. I will bring the wisdom of the Goddess to light so her people may share her knowledge. I pledge to protect her legacy from those who would use it for evil purposes. I have so sworn. So mote it be.”
A searing pain burned hot through her core, radiating out to her extremities, centering on the soft skin of her inner left wrist.
“So mote it be.” The three women and the wizard said in unison.
“What do you want Bringer of the Light? What do you require to fulfill your destiny?”
The universe was quiet, keeping her secrets for the span of a heartbeat. Taryn’s vision blurred, she became lightheaded as the air around her thinned. She heard the wizard’s staff hitting the earth three times. The answer flowed through her, taking away the pain from her wrist and the heaviness from her chest.
“Love, my lady. I require love.”
Taryn saw the old woman smile. The younger women joined her and suddenly they melded into one. Taryn approached looking into what may have been a mirror only the image before her was dressed in the old woman’s robes.
She’d chosen the right path and she’d met herself along they way.
Taryn awoke in a cold sweat. She sat up quickly, throwing off her summer weight quilt. She turned on the table lamp and stared at the clock. Exactly three minutes had elapsed since she started counting in Japanese. Calming her breathing, she closed her eyes and pulled her sweat dampened hair from her scalp. “Calm down, woman. It was only a dream.”
Her heart beat painfully as if she’d just been hit in the chest by an oak staff. She looked down at her body. Naked. No blue and white robes. She sighed, half relief, half disappointment.
Taryn looked at her left wrist. A long healed burn the size of a quarter lay over her pulse. A circle of oak, ivy and holly surrounded a well and a floating flame. There was a Green man above and a triple spiral below. She traced the spiral with her right index finger.
She felt no pain, only certainty.
Taryn got up and slid into her slippers and the silk robe Reed had given her, royal blue trimmed in white. She turned off the lamp, exited the big house, and took the moonlit path to Jesse. Losing her robe and slippers, she eased in beside him.
In a year, maybe two, she’d recognize the small creatures who danced in the moonlight with her. For tonight, finding her life’s purpose and her heart was enough.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Jesse felt her the second she slipped into bed. He knew it was her when she came through the front door, since Henry had outfitted both houses with DNA scanning devices. Hi tech security that was not yet available even to domestic surveillance agencies that existed only as letters in the ether of government acronyms. Anyone not pre-programmed into the system set off a silent alarm. When turned on, anyone who was programmed in had their identity appear on a device smaller than the smallest I-pod. Jesse had the system running since Taryn left, hopeful for her return.
He said nothing when she snuggled up next to him, which took a supreme act of will given that she was warm and naked.
He tried to control his breathing, which was much too shallow for sleep, but Taryn didn’t seem to notice. When she pushed her backside into the cradle of his groin and gently placed his right arm around her, pushing up her ample breasts, he came close to groaning. He bit the inside of his cheek, tasting blood.
Sighing, a sound that he wanted to suck into his soul, she was sound asleep in seconds. Jesse spent the night wide awake, savoring the soft feel of her body, trying to figure a way to keep her from ever leaving again. Just before dawn he closed his eyes and let his mind drift. He’d come to the conclusion in the night that there was nothing he could do to keep her here if she didn’t want to stay. Aside from loving her, he couldn’t think of one way to ensure she’d want to. He’d allowed himself to want little in this life, since he watched his father shoot himself and his mother with the poison that killed them both. The orphan of drug addicted deadbeats expected little, and as a rule received even less.
His life became the exception to that rule. That was because fate had sent Reed to him. Still, that frightened twelve year old boy, with his twelve year old view of his place in the world, still lived in the deepest and darkest part of him. He’d like nothing more than to banish that little boy’s pain. Nothing in his life so far could completely eradicate it. Not money. So he gave every penny over a million away to people it did matter to. Not his gardens, although, they brought him great joy and a sense of purpose. Not even this family that fate provided for him. They gave him all the love they had and they healed most of his heart and all but the smallest bit of his soul. His family was his life. And life was good, great even.
Yet, he knew it would be even better if Taryn wanted to be a part of it. He pulled her tighter and kissed the top of her head, enjoying the peppermint and rosemary scent of her shampoo, the words: Tomorrow is promised to no one, echoing through his head.
Then I will enjoy this day and this moment while it lasts.
…
Taryn smiled at Jesse’s snore. There were dark circles under his eyes shaded by his extraordinarily long and thick black lashes. In repose, Taryn studied him. Jesse looked younger in sleep, more vulnerable. Taryn smiled at the thought. Nothing about him was vulnerable when he was awake, piercing her heart with those deep blue eyes so full of earthy promise and…love.
Taryn eased herself from the bed, gently lifting his arm from beneath her breasts. He grumbled and rolled over, but didn’t wake. Putting on her robe, she went to the kitchen to make breakfast. Magnus and Seamus were already at the table eating eggs, mushrooms and tomatoes on toast and some strange sausage.
“Um. That smells so good. What kind of sausage is that?”
Magnus answered through a full mouthful. “Dad found these in the grocery. They’re called Macski’s Highland Haggis Links. Haggis in a link.” Magus smiled. “And they taste brilliant. Try one.”
Taryn took a bite from Magnus’s fork. She was dubious but willing to give it a go, since she awoke feeling particularly courageous today. “Ooh, that’s good.”
Seamus got up. “I’ll make you a plate and one for the lad too, but you’d better be eatin’ yours down here. That boy doesn’t eat meat and he won’t be thankin’ you for eating Scotland’s finest in his presence, even if it’s made in Wisconsin.”
Taryn ate two more of the haggis links, a plate of eggs, a piece of toast with fried tomatoes and mushrooms and three cups of the strongest black coffee she’d ever had. She finished every morsel on her plate, feeling simply marvelous, strong as an ox and ready to face the sleeping dragon.
She grabbed the tray Seamus made for Jesse, complete with pot of tea and a small vase containing a trailing piece of ivy and a cluster of pansies. She raised an eyebrow at Seamus who grinned unrepentantly. “Ivy is for fidelity and the pansies for easing the heart. You’ve given him a merry chase thus far and it’s time to be showing him your heart is true.”
“And how can you be so sure my heart is true, Seamus?”
“It’s shinin’ in your eyes, lass. Hard to be hidin’ the truth in your soul.”
Taryn blew him a kiss and headed back to Jesse as fast as her breakfast laden arms would allow. Jesse was sitting up in bed, an unreadable expression on his face, long mahogany hair curling at his shoulders, perfectly mussed and twice as appealing as she’d ever seen him. The covers at his hips barely concealed the rest of him. He looked like he’d been sitting like that for quite some time, waiting for her. Taryn felt her face flame and her smile falter under his uncertain stare.
“I thought you’d left, again.” He said in a flat voice.
“Only to get you something to eat. Actually Seamus made the breakfast. And the tea. He even brought you flowers.” Taryn was aiming for a joke, but her levity feel flat. Whatever was eating Jesse wasn’t going to be easily dismissed or glossed over. Taryn approached the bed much more cautiously than she’d taken the stairs to get here. Jesse watched her every move. Not helping or hindering the process.
Taryn set the tray on the large table in the middle of the room, poured Jesse a mug of tea and delivered it to him, leaving the rest of the tray. He took the mug and then set it aside without trying it.
“And you, what have you brought?” His voice said her answer didn’t matter one way or the other. The pulsing vein at the side of his neck, his flared nostrils and the slight narrowing of his navy eyes told a different story.
“The only thing of value I have. Me.”
He swallowed, the vein in his neck swelling with more blood as his heart forced it to flow faster through his body.
“For how long?”
Taryn paused. Her hands, shaking not with fear but anticipation, went to the belt of her robe. She untied it, eased her shoulders up, allowing it to fall from her body and pool at her feet, never once taking her eyes from his.
“For as long as we both draw breath.”
The resting dragon was upon her before she could blink. His voice and his grip no longer calm. “Not long enough.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
The drive to Lake Geneva from Potter’s Woods was over almost before it began. It seemed to take longer to load the various hybrids and the diesel SUV that Jordon insisted on driving. Jordon spent the twenty minute drive detailing the latest program he was funding, apparently with Jesse’s extra monthly cash-flow. They were set to make the first car engine that would run on sunlight and methane gas. Every landfill in existence produces methane around the clock and Jordon was working on a system of collection and delivery of that gas, as well as an engine designed to efficiently operate on it.
By the time they pulled into the town of Lake Geneva, Taryn learned that not only was Jordon not slow witted, he was scary brilliant. He also cared deeply about the causes he personally funded and those he oversaw as a member of the Reed Mohr Foundation. His uncle, William Bennett, created the foundation in Reed’s honor, because he thought she cared so selflessly for others. People who care and are willing to act to create the world as they envision it can make a difference, no matter how small, William had said. Then he put his money where his mouth was and put Reed in charge of a foundation meant to change the world. William was a big thinker and an even bigger doer.
Taryn hadn’t looked at the world as if it held only possibility until she came to Potter’s Woods. She was stronger now. Happier too. And with the help of her father, she now knew her purpose.
Since no one had tried to shoot her in weeks, life was good. So why Jordon was talking non-stop about family history while Reed was unusually quiet, Henry was even more vigilant than normal and Jesse’s usual calm was replaced with tense hovering, wasn’t making a whole lot of sense to Taryn.
Just this morning, after the most erotic encounter of her life, he’d slipped a ring on her finger that, for a low key man, was unabashedly romantic. It also weighed enough that she couldn’t forget it was there. The center diamond was a three carat cushion cut vivid yellow diamond housed in eighteen carat yellow gold. On each side of the hand carved platinum shan
k sat a carat and a half heart-shaped ruby set in rose gold. She would have told him it was a bit much, but then he told her why he chose it, weeks ago.
The yellow is the color of the sun and the rubies are the color of my heart. You are my heart and my sun.
Taryn looked down at the ring. She was never taking the over-the-top bling off. His sun and heart metaphor gave her an idea to talk to Mari about. After Jesse shocked her senseless with his gift, he gave her a complete set of plans for the James Campbell Center. He’d ensured that it wouldn’t be a wing added on the Celtic Studies Building, but an entire center devoted to myth and its application for everyday life.
Taryn didn’t think he was trying to bind her to him. He’d done that already with his mind, his body, his heart and most importantly with his spirit. That part of him she’d loved instantly. The rest took time, proximity and courage to achieve. Jesse wasn’t above using everything at his disposal to keep her. He’d said so. She believed him. How was she ever going to convince him that it wasn’t necessary? She’d love him for being who he was, an organic gardener, and not the heroic-black-motorcycle-riding-knight-with-the-romantic-soul who just happened to garden. Was it necessary that she convince him of anything?
Yes. Jesse needs to know he’s worth loving for who he is, not for the things he’s able to give.
Taryn had no clue how she was going to do that after demanding, and receiving, a building with her father’s name on it and a ring worth more than her house. She certainly couldn’t give back the ring without breaking his heart. Perhaps she could start by holding his hand.
Taryn reached out and placed her right hand in Jesse’s left, entwining her fingers with his. He was startled at the gesture but then relaxed when she smiled and said, “It’s going to be alright.”