by Anne Manning
"He's hurt, Annabelle."
"I don't see any wounds on him. You're the one in the hospital."
Erin glared. "That's only because everyone thinks I'm crazy."
Well, aren't you? Annabelle wanted to scream at her. Not only was she ignoring the obvious--Lucas only wanted to keep her quiet about his unreliability--but now she was trying to protect him.
"I'm going to get the guards." Annabelle got off the bed, determined to do the right thing, even if Erin hated her for the rest of her life.
But she didn't get to the door.
Lucas bolted upright in the chair, his eyes wide.
"Saints in Heaven! Not him!"
Erin grabbed his hand as he stood up.
"Don't leave me again, Lucas. If you'll just tell them what happened, they'll let me out."
Lucas knelt by the bed and took Erin's hands between his own.
"I promise you, Erin, my love, I'll be back. But I need to regain my strength. If he tracks me here, he'll find you." He turned and once more he fixed Annabelle with a stare. "You have to help us, Annabelle."
"No way, José." Annabelle crossed her arms and returned Lucas's stare full measure.
He rose and came to her, towering over her.
"Listen to me, now," he whispered harshly, his exotic accent becoming more pronounced with his heavy breaths. "He's coming for me."
Was he as nutty as Erin was? Maybe there was something in the water. Maybe they'd participated in a psych experiment gone awry.
"Who's coming for you?" Annabelle asked, her anger melting into concern.
"My brother. And if they sent him, they'll be wantin' Erin, too."
"For what?"
Lucas closed his eyes tight, as though warding off some horror. Annabelle felt her own skin pucker with goose flesh at the dread marring his face.
"For lovin' me."
"What in the world?"
"I don't have time to explain, Annabelle. But my kind aren't supposed to mingle with your kind." He rested his forearm on the rolling table at the foot of the bed. "It's my fault, I own, but I couldn't help myself. I love her. I don't want anything to happen to her. Please, help us."
His eyes, already bright before, burned now. She didn't know why, but she believed he believed. And whatever he believed frightened him enough to spill over onto her, too.
"What do you want me to do?" she asked.
* * * *
The trail was clear until Gaelen arrived back in Chapel Hill, then it faded as he neared an older, well-established neighborhood on the east side of town. Gaelen knew the area well. Several of his colleagues lived here in the comfortable seventies-style homes nestled among towering pines.
He followed the last remnants of the trail into the neighborhood, back to the last street in the development. The trail disappeared as it led him around to the back of sprawling, one-story house sitting on a lawn manicured to the consistency of a putting green.
Gaelen unsquooshed by an open window at the back of the house.
"Ach, Lucas," he whispered, recognizing in his marrow the traces of his brother's blood on the windowsill.
Raising his leg over the sill, Gaelen climbed in. He stood quietly, letting his eyes adjust to the dark and listening for the sound of another person.
A gentle snore echoed through the hallway. He followed the sound to a bedroom at the back corner of the house and peeked around the door. A woman lay alone in a king-sized bed, one slender arm resting across her forehead. Her mouth hung slightly open, a soft growl marking each breath.
Gaelen approached the bed, wondering if this was Lucas's human girl.
Snort, snuffle.
Gaelen froze by the bed, his own breath suspended until the woman once again breathed rhythmically. There was enough trouble without letting himself be seen.
Kneeling by the bed, Gaelen leaned close to the woman's face. This close, he could see she was a mature woman, probably nearly fifty human years. A wry smile twisted his mouth. Lucas's tastes tended toward the more tender, younger women, but this one was very attractive for her age. Some familiarity in her face made him study her more closely. He knew he'd seen her before, but couldn't place her. Her auburn hair spread out on the pillow underneath her head, creating a halo of warm color glowing in the dim light.
A smile flitted across her mouth, softening her gentle features even more.
Gaelen reached into the woman's mind with his own and, finding trust there, gently probed for her name.
"Ah, Susan. What a lovely name. I am Gaelen."
"Hello, Gaelen," the woman said, her voice rough with sleep, her eyes still closed.
"Susan, do you know Lucas?"
"Yes."
"When was the last time you saw him?"
"Two days ago." She scratched her nose. Gaelen leaned back into the shadows, in case she woke suddenly. "He picked Erin up, and they went out." A frown creased her forehead.
Erin. He remembered Eochy mentioning that was the girl's name. Lucas's human girl. If he could find her, Lucas wouldn't be far away.
"Where is Erin, Susan?" he asked.
A sniff signaled her answer. "He hurt her."
"No, Susan. Lucas wouldn't hurt Erin." His certainty surprised him.
Susan shook her sleeping head. "I didn't think so, either." Another smile flitted across her mouth. "They are so lovely together." The smile disappeared, a bitter frown taking its place. "He hurt my little girl."
Erin's mother, he realized.
"Why did he hurt my daughter, Gaelen?"
"I don't know, Susan. But I do know he never meant to hurt her." The degree of trust Susan showed gave him the heart to ask her, "Can you help me find Lucas? He's in trouble. If I don't find him soon, he may be hurt before he can tell Erin he's sorry."
Susan shook her head. "No. I don't know where he is. Erin has been waiting for him since the aliens took him away."
Gaelen stifled a chuckle. Such a tale would go a long way to keeping this whole disaster quiet. Sensible people would laugh off any story smacking of things that couldn't be explained. In the privacy of her own conscious mind, Susan probably didn't think she believed it.
"Did Erin see where the aliens took Lucas?"
"No. They disappeared in a flash of light."
"Where is Erin?"
Susan sniffled again. "The hospital." A single tear slid from the corner of her eye.
Sensing her starting to waken, Gaelen withdrew from her mind, careful to place the suggestion that she'd had a lovely dream of a conversation with an incredibly handsome man about... He paused, trying to get just the right thing to leave with her.
Ah, he thought, perfect.
"Fireflies, Susan. The little point of light is a firefly flickering around in the dark."
She smiled. "I love fireflies."
"Yes, my sweet, I know you do." He raised her hand to his lips and kissed the back tenderly. "Goodbye, Susan."
"Goodbye, Gaelen."
Gaelen stood by the window and squooshed.
Next stop, the hospital.
Chapter Five
Annabelle sat at Erin's bedside, her sister finally asleep. Lucas's visit had calmed Erin more than all the Prozac in the joint.
Now that he was gone, though, Annabelle didn't know if she'd made the right decision. Helping Lucas was the same as supporting Erin in her delusion about him.
With a long sigh, Annabelle rose from the chair and went to the window. The hospital was on the southern edge of the university campus, but what had been a wide boulevard lined with important-looking brick buildings housing the pharmacy and public health schools on one side and the hospital and medical library on the other, Cameron Street had become overbuilt as the hospital complex had spread. Even so, Erin loved it here, even hoping to work in the UNC hospital itself when she graduated next spring.
Daddy would be happy, Annabelle thought. Vern was a Tarheel born and a Tarheel bred, and had stayed on at the university as an administrator in the athletics de
partment after his own graduation some thirty years ago. "Uncle Jumbo" they had called him, for his size and his appetite-both prodigious-and his memory, which never forgot a name or a face.
He was as tender as he was large, though. Never did one of Jumbo Tinker's athletes spend a holiday in their dorm room if they couldn't get home. The Tinker home was open. He played Santa Claus for children in the hospital, often buying the gifts himself. And people weren't the only recipients of Daddy's generosity. Annabelle thought of the dishes of milk he always left out. "For the fairies," he'd said, but she'd known it was for the stray cats in the neighborhood.
Annabelle turned from the window, arms wrapped around herself. Even a year after his death, she missed him so much, his droopy brown eyes, his ever-present smile, and his childlike wonder with everything.
Wonder Annabelle had once shared.
"Ummm."
Erin's muttered moan and smile as she twisted in her narrow bed caught Annabelle's attention.
"Lucas," she said, her eyes popping open. "Where is he?"
"He left." Annabelle sat down in the chair beside the bed. "He's waiting in my car, and I'm going to take him to the house when Mom comes back to stay with you."
"Oh. That's right." Erin glanced around. "I'm still in the hospital." She flicked her eyes to Annabelle. "I dreamed I was at home. Well, in my home, with Lucas. And two of the most adorable children you've ever seen."
"Erin," Annabelle moaned, "don't-"
"What's wrong with you? You used to be happy and laugh and have fun." Erin stared, making Annabelle uncomfortable. "You used to dream. I remember once," she smiled, "you saw a tiny man in the tool shed."
"That was a just dream."
"Oh, I don't think so. You talked about him for years."
Annabelle hadn't thought of that dream for what seemed like centuries. She'd been barely twelve and had just read Peter Pan to Erin. Again. Annabelle had just entered that hormone-driven romantic time, and she often imagined herself as Wendy. In her own private version, of course, Peter stayed with Wendy/Annabelle in London, and they grew up and got married and had many children and lived happily ever after. She'd cried when Tinkerbell drank the poison and clapped louder than Erin had to save the fairy's life.
Then one night she'd been sitting by her window, gazing into the spring night.
Annabelle smiled at the memory. "He wasn't tiny. As a matter of fact, he was taller than Daddy."
"Was he handsome?" Erin asked.
"Very," Annabelle said, warming to her topic, "with wheat-blond hair and eyes the color of the sky. And," she went on, telling Erin what she'd never told another soul, "he had these wonderful big wings that looked like gossamer and twinkled with blue and green light."
"Wings?" Erin whispered the word, then her brow furrowed. "You mean...?" Suddenly, her brow smoothed and she sat up toward Annabelle, her face full of mischief. "You mean, your dream man was a...a...fairy?"
The word was so unexpected, and had so many other connotations, it caught Annabelle off-guard, though she'd often thought the same thing.
Tonight, after the stress of hearing of her sister's tragedy and being drawn into God-alone-knew-what, the idea hit her funny bone, pushing aside all worry, fear, and tension, and dragging her spirits out of the tank. She laughed. And laughed. And laughed, until tears fell from her eyes, and she had to hold her sides to keep the stitch in her side from bending her double.
"Oh, Erin!" She dragged in a breath. "A fairy?" She sputtered. "Oh, I hope not! That would be such a waste!"
Erin's scream of hilarity was muffled as she dove face first into her pillow.
A knock at the door signaled a visitor, giving Annabelle and Erin time to stifle their howls to mere snorts. Annabelle hoped they hadn't been heard. She didn't want to end up sharing a room with Erin permanently.
She covered her mouth with her hand to mute her giggle at that idea.
"Excuse me, is this Miss Tinker's room?"
Oh, my, what a sexy voice, Annabelle thought. It was also familiar, honeyed with a hint of an accent. She turned to see if the figure matched the voice.
"Yes," Erin said, sniffing in a giggle, "I'm Erin Tinker."
"Miss Tinker, I'm so glad to meet you at last."
A man came into the room, dressed as one might expect a university professor to be, right down to the elbow patches of the tweed jacket he wore over his cream turtleneck sweater. Annabelle smiled and half-expected him to whip a pipe out of his pocket. "I'm Gaelen Riley, Lucas's older brother."
Erin's face shone with sudden delight. "Gaelen!" She reached out toward him. "Lucas has told me so much about you."
Gaelen Riley stood by the bed. As he bent to take Erin's hand in both his own, very large hands, the warm light burnished his wheat-gold hair. Funny, Annabelle had never though blond men appealing before.
"And he told me of you." Dr. Riley smiled. "If I'd known he wasn't exaggerating about your beauty, I'd have made it my business to meet you sooner."
Blushing prettily, Erin turned to draw Annabelle into the conversation.
"This is my sister, Annabelle."
He started to turn toward her, then froze for an instant before completing the motion. "Annabelle?" he said, even as his sky blue eyes twinkled.
Annabelle started working up a fine head of steam. Imagine a grown man thinking her name was funny.
Then she suddenly realized his eyes as he studied her were filled, not with humor, but confusion, then...speculation? And ... fear? No, that was ridiculous.
Their gazes locked and a bolt of recognition struck Annabelle right in her heart. I know him, she thought. Yet she knew she'd never met the man before. She tried to put off the familiarity to the fact that she'd heard his voice the day before on Lucas's answering machine. Even as she formed the thought, she dismissed it. She knew him from somewhere else. But where?
Dr. Riley seemed to be having the same reaction. In the deepening silence, his eyes mapped her face, seeking. He tipped his head and squinted. Then his eyes moved down. Her entire body warmed under his examination.
Erin cleared her throat, reminding them they were not alone.
* * * *
Gaelen recovered first. "A delight, Miss Tinker," he said, breaking his gaze from hers reluctantly.
It couldn't be. He shook the eeriness of recognition from his head. It couldn't be the same girl.
But she did have the same warm brown eyes, the same long, chocolate brown hair hanging softly over her shoulders. However, everything else had changed. No longer was she long-legged in the gangly way of a filly. No, sir, there were curves and...
He snapped himself out of his stupor.
"I'm sorry, Miss Tinker. I don't mean to stare, but..." He struggled for words. "I have the overwhelming feeling we've met before. Were you a student at the university?"
"No," she said, her voice weak, as though she, too, were affected by their meeting. "I went to St. Mary's in Raleigh."
"An excellent school."
"But I grew up in Chapel Hill. Our father was an assistant athletic director at the university."
Realization dawned. Of course, that's where he must have seen her, at some university gathering. "Jumbo Tinker?" At her nod, he forced a sad smile. "Let me offer my condolences. He was a fine man and I was pleased to know him."
"Thank you," she whispered.
Thank Bridget. Being Jumbo Tinker's daughter explained a great many things, not only her familiarity, but also the feyness he'd sensed about her. In the few seconds of their silent communion, she'd scared the hell out of him.
In self-defense, Gaelen turned back to Erin, relieved the mystery of Annabelle Tinker had been explained.
"I had expected to run into Lucas. Has he been here?"
Erin's wide eyes darted to her sister. Her mouth worked as though she was trying out different answers. Gaelen followed her pleading glance at Annabelle. He watched the colors radiating from her. Her aura glowed cool blue, fading and recharging as a copper-r
ed. He hid his smile. She was about to lie.
"He was here, but he had to leave," Annabelle's hurried explanation cut Erin off.
She knows where he is, but she doesn't want to tell me. Why?
"Did I just miss him, then?" He turned back to Erin. "Too bad, for I haven't seen Lucas for awhile. The reports of your experience have me somewhat uneasy about him." He weighed his words. "Erin, is Lucas all right?"
"Of course," Erin said, her voice a little too loud. "Why wouldn't he be?"
"Well," Gaelen said with a little chuckle, "the story is all over town that he disappeared. Poof." All humor vanished from his voice. "Did he truly leave you out by the lake alone?"
"Yes, but, he--"
"What Erin is trying to say, Dr. Riley," Annabelle broke in, "is she and Lucas had a little tiff, and yes, in his anger, Lucas did leave her for a time, but it was a misunderstanding only. Right, Erin?"
She gave Erin such an exaggerated, wide-eyed you'd-better-go-along-with-me look Gaelen almost laughed out loud.
"Oh! Oh, yes." Erin nodded furiously. "Right."
"Then how did you end up in the psychiatric ward of University Hospital?" Gaelen asked, thinking he'd painted the two ladies into a corner.
Erin gulped and looked to Annabelle for help. Gaelen followed her gaze. Annabelle's eyes sparkled and she put on a smile. Silver had replaced copper-red, creativity replacing deceit.
Oh, this one is quick. He waited in delicious anticipation of what she'd come up with. He wasn't disappointed.
"Erin is rather spoiled, you see." Annabelle raised a warning eyebrow to Erin who was about to protest this slander. "When Lucas wouldn't agree to marry her immediately, she pushed him out of the car and locked the doors and refused to let him back in. Lucas went to get help to open the car. Erin worked herself up to such a state that her screams and crying brought the police. When they couldn't get anything out of her, they brought her here."
Out of the corner of his eye, Gaelen saw Erin's eyebrows knit together in silent, impotent rage.
It was such a bravura performance Gaelen had trouble playing along. But Annabelle wasn't finished.
"She'll throw a tantrum over nothing, and this time poor Lucas was on the receiving end."