Everlastin' Book 1

by Mickee Madden

  She squeezed her eyes shut as the pain became unbearable. The aspirins were in her bedroom on the third floor. If she could only see her way to her room—

  With her second step, she fell to her knees. The pain in her head magnified as unconsciousness began to lower its curtain on her.

  “Lachlan!” she gasped. Fighting with what little strength she had left, she began to crawl toward the staircase. “My head.... Lachlan, please, my aspir—”

  She collapsed in a heap. Rolling onto her back, her arms angled out from her body, she stared dully into the darkness trying to rescue her from the pain. It was senseless to fight unconsciousness, but instinctively, she resisted it with all her willpower. The pain had magnified to such a degree that she was becoming less conscious of it.

  But the fear was ever present.

  Migraines.

  She'd procrastinated in seeing a doctor to see if the headaches were caused by the fall she'd taken down the stairs, or an allergy to something she was ingesting. But the headaches had never been this severe.

  Not until her arrival in Scotland.

  They had worsened because of stress.

  The long flight.

  The time difference.

  Carlene going away the same day Beth arrived.

  Lachlan.

  Everything was a possible factor.

  “Lachlan,” she whimpered drowsily, her fingers kneading the rug beneath her.

  Tiny lights appeared above her face. It hurt to focus on them, but she couldn't bring herself to close her eyes and shut them out. Tiny dancing lights. They began to move in a circle above her, gyrating faster and faster, making her dizzier as seconds passed. Her arms and legs were weighted. She couldn't move. She wanted to cry but no tears came.

  Then she became aware of a breath-robbing coldness hovering by her. Something within it moved close by her then she felt an icy kiss pressed to her brow.

  Now she was hallucinating, a new facet to these terrible headaches.

  I'm here, whispered a voice inside her head. Sleep, Beth. You'll feel better in no time at all.

  Her heavy lids closed but her mind was vitally alert. “I c-can't m-move.”

  I know. Tis a frightenin' thin’ ye're goin' through. But it'll pass. Trust me.

  “Trust you?” she croaked, her voice growing weaker. “I want to...to....”

  Kick me a good one in the bahookie. His laugh was like a caressing whisper in her skull. Tomorrow, love, and every morn efter. For now, put yerself in ma care. Sleep, darlin'. Sleep deep and peaceful.

  Beth gave into unconsciousness. She was not aware of invisible arms lifting her, or of them carrying her to her bedroom and gently laying her atop the bed. Her sandals were removed and placed on the floor. The quilt was drawn up over her and lovingly tucked beneath her chin.

  Then a long, shuddering sigh filled the room.

  Sleep deeper, darlin'. I'll no' leave yer side till I know dreams o' me are keepin' you safe.

  Two logs rose into the air from a wrought iron stand alongside the fireplace. The screen moved aside. The logs glided into place on the firedog. Within seconds, a fire roared within the sole heating unit, and the screen slid back into place.

  When the chill was out of the room and Lachlan knew Beth was fast asleep, he permitted the void, the limbo of total grayness, to call him back.

  ***

  She awakened in the middle of the night to a low fire in the fireplace. Disoriented, she stared at it until she finally got her bearings.

  “The migraine,” she murmured.

  With the unsteady fingers of her right hand, she brushed aside the curly strands of hair clinging to her moist brow. The back of her head and neck were numb. Oddly, there was a little numbness in her left arm and leg.

  “That was a doozy.”

  Lachlan.

  The thought of him brought her slowly up into a sitting position. She had dreamed they were having the picnic again, in that same place among the hills, beneath a tree. She could still hear his voice and laughter in her ears, and recalled almost too vividly the touch of his hand, the gentleness in his gaze—

  The smell of food.

  She looked down at her grumbling stomach and made a wry face.

  Lighting one of the candles on the mantel, she made her way down to the kitchen, favoring the weakness remaining in her left leg. The uncanny quietude of the house seemed always more so at night, but she refused to give in to her fears. To do so would only invite another headache.

  A tomato, lettuce and ham sandwich and a large glass of milk quelled the ache in her stomach. All the while she ate she peered about the kitchen, halfheartedly studying the shadowy recesses that lay beyond the perimeter of the candlelight's soft, flickering glow. She wasn't sure how she knew it, but Lachlan wasn't in the house. That was all right, she told herself. She was getting used to being alone. Sometimes it was less complicated than being in his presence.

  She needed to get away and try to put everything in perspective. Lachlan would have to understand it was important to her that she know without a doubt that his love was not mere infatuation. And she needed to sit back and analyze her feelings toward him. The atmosphere in the house, her vulnerability, the strong attraction she felt toward Lachlan, didn't necessarily add up to love.

  Maybe she was expecting too much.

  Feeling drained, she tidied up the kitchen. She was at the far end of the secondary hall when she heard a sound from within the parlor. Opening the door, she was first aware of a roaring fire in the hearth. The room was warm and cozy, owning of none of the damp chill she'd felt in the kitchen.

  “Lachlan?” she called, placing the candle in an empty holder on the mantel.

  Her gaze lifted to the portrait above the fireplace, and her nose wrinkled expressively. There was no disputing Carlene's talent as an artist, but the painting unnerved Beth. It was definitely her face on the canvas, but Carlene had added elements of color and refinement that Beth didn't see in herself when she looked in the mirror. The face and bearing of the woman above her was that of someone in love with life and nature, a woman who had never known pain or suffering or sacrifice.

  “I'm not you,” she whispered, an ache in her heart because she was not that person Carlene had portrayed.

  A sharp pain snapped in the back of her neck, setting off an explosion in her head. Her eyes widened in fear. She swayed on her feet. Bursts of colors flashed before her fading vision.

  “Oh God,” she whimpered. Not another attack so soon!

  She could feel the blood in her veins slowing with every loud, strained thud of her heart, its beat lessening, winding down, warning her that the mechanics in her body had reached a crucial point.

  Pain radiated through her chest and down her left arm. Her left leg went dead beneath her then the arm became leaden and impossible to move from her side. She struggled to catch her breath, her lungs afire with the strain.

  Something cold and feathery passed through her. Her heart was given a jolt, a surge of energy. She could hear the organ's beat strengthening, crescendoing in her ears.

  Stifling a cry, she gripped the mantel with her right hand and closed her eyes for a moment. A fey coldness swept around and through her, again and again. A draft, she reasoned, but every nerve in her body was throbbing from the experience. She was dimly aware of pain trying to make itself known to her consciousness, but her concentration was on the tides of coldness lapping against her, swelling over and crashing down on her.

  Something brushed against her ankles, her calves. Startled, she gaped down at the hemline of her skirt as it swayed to and fro against her legs.

  Her breathing quickened, wheezing through her constricting throat. She wanted to run and climb beneath the quilt on her bed and pull it over her head to shut out the madness. But her legs felt too heavy to move.

  The house is drafty, but this—

  Another explosion of pain ensued, this time in the back of her head. Her legs began to give out from beneath h
er as a curtain of darkness descended over her mind. But then the coldness slipped within the entire length of her body, filling her completely and reawakening her senses. Revived once again, she homed in on what seemed like a chilling, invisible hand moving up along her inner thigh.

  Gasping, she clenched the mantel's edge so tightly her knuckles turned white. The unearthly cold set off the beginning of a sensation that was igniting something fierce and hot within her loins. The caresslike phenomenon climbed higher, so gentle, so enchanting, so purposeful. Her body quivered, and she gasped again as her skirt began to lift to her hips.

  Tears sprang to her eyes, but it was a near-hysterical laugh that gurgled from her throat as she bit into her lower lip and dipped her head back. Although a frosty mist enveloped her, she was beyond feeling the bite of its coldness.

  Pulses were detonating in every part of her body, maddening, awakening sensations that held her captive. Stroking hands and kisses could be felt on every part of her body. She groaned, the cords in her neck distending as her head dipped back even lower. Her hair whipped about her face. Breaths of air moved across her throat, lingered at her lips, then shifted and ran down her spine, her buttocks, and the back of her thighs.

  Phantom teeth playfully nipped at one ankle, then the other. Hands, like smooth ice, moved over her calves.

  Panting, she locked her teeth. Kisses moved up one leg in circles and on one inner thigh.

  “Oh God,” she sobbed.

  She experienced a probing movement along the crotch of her panties. For a fleeting moment, her mind revolted, but then the fey stimulus swept her into a fiery responsiveness that shunned her instinctual inhibitions. Nothingness touched and caressed her, kissed and pampered her, awakened and demanded her gratification.

  Nothingness?

  She'd never felt so alive! So aroused!

  A searing, quivering sensation of liquid fire burst inside the valley of her thighs and spread to the very ends of her fingers and toes. She cried out at its startling swiftness. Her legs began to tremble, threatening to give out beneath her. The climax was more powerful than anything she'd ever experienced. Even its aftermath sensations were robbing her of strength.

  Her brow beaded with perspiration, Beth slowly turned her head and looked through glazed eyes at the candle on the table. It seemed a very long ways off in her state of mind.

  Breathing heavily, she momentarily laid her brow between her hands on the mantel. The coldness had vanished as unexpectedly as it had arrived.

  Summoning up a reserve of strength, she snatched up the candle. Cupping her hand in front of the flame, she staggered from the room. When she arrived at her bedroom, she stopped but a moment to notice that there was no light beneath Lachlan's door then hurried into her room. Placing the candle back on the mantel, she sprinted across the floor and flung herself atop the bed.

  She was beneath the covers, about to lie down, when she noticed that the fire in the hearth was well-stoked.

  Not again!

  A whimper rattled in her throat as she rested a cheek upon her pillow. This was surely madness, and it frightened her. A single tear escaped the corner of her eye and puddled on the side of her nose. She swiped it across her cheek with the back of a hand and pulled the top covers up over her head.

  She was cold, colder than she ever believed was possible in a human being. Her blood was like ice; her heart was racing as if was about to explode. She was conscious of pain, but it was a surrealistic rendition of what her logic told her it should be.

  One way or the other, she was going to find a telephone in the morning, and she was going to have her return tickets changed.

  She had to get away from Baird House before she lost herself within it.

  If it wasn't already too late.

  Chapter 7

  Beth's eyelids opened fractionally. From the window across the room, a bright shaft of sunlight filtered through the panes to fall across her bed.

  It was morning.

  Yawning, she ran her fingers through her hair, lazily scratched her scalp and opened her eyes fully. She felt more rested than she had in years. Sitting up, she peered about the room through an expression of utter contentment. The usual growling of her stomach wasn't there to nudge her to seek breakfast. She didn't feel hungry at all.

  The top covers were flipped aside and she swung her legs over the side of the bed. She was about to slide off the mattress when she noticed she was still wearing yesterday's clothing. A little chuckle at herself died in her throat as memory of what had happened in the parlor last night came home with shocking clarity.

  “It was a dream,” she murmured, her expression growing stormier by the moment. “A very real—creepy—dream.”

  A far off sound distracted her. Looking at the window, she concentrated on what the low, intermittent buzzing implied. Then it struck her. The new groundskeeper!

  What was his name...?

  Borgie!

  Her heart began to race. The sound could only mean he was working on the grounds. It also meant she had a means to get into town and find a telephone.

  Fueled by a sense of desperation, she hurriedly splashed water on her face, brushed her teeth and ran a brush haphazardly through her hair. Then, lacing up her sneakers and tucking her purse beneath an arm, she lit out of the room as if the devil was at her heels. The stairs passed swiftly under her feet. Hugging her purse to her breast now, she turned left on the first floor landing and beelined for the door.

  Lachlan stepped into the hall from the kitchen in time to see a figure slam open the doors to the front of the house and run into the morning mist beyond. It took several moments before the scene registered in his mind then a look of consternation ravaged his features.

  The tea towel in his hand fluttered to the floor.

  “Beth! No, Beth! Come back!”

  Muttering a string of Gaelic invectives, he ran after her, but the instant he tried to pass the threshold to the greenhouse, he felt himself slammed by an invisible force. He staggered back several paces, incredulity deeply carved on his handsome face. He couldn't begin to imagine what he'd walked into until he looked down at himself and realized he was fading. At that moment, he didn't possess the energy to break through the sepulchral boundaries of his nether world existence.

  Fury mottled his features. His fiercely brooding dark eyes looked in the direction Beth had gone, and desperation quaked through the remaining fibers of his being.

  The sound of the hedge trimmer harshly echoed through the house, growing louder by the moment.

  Borgie. Beth was running to Borgie for help.

  Oh, sweet Jesus, wha’ have I done?

  “Come back!” he wailed. “You....”

  The last word eerily reverberated in the hall as he completely vaporized. But an aftermath of his emotional turbulence lingered. Touched upon by the rage of his momentary helplessness, brass urns and knick-knacks, wooden figurines and display tiles braced up on the mantelpiece, began to whip through the hall and bang one wall after another.

  * * *

  Beth was only dimly aware of the commotion behind her. Locked onto the sounds of the hedge trimmer, she ran through wet grass and brush with all the force she possessed.

  No one was going to stop her from getting on the next flight to the States—not Agnes, not Borgie, not Carlene or David, and especially not Lachlan!

  If she had to get down on her knees and beg Borgie to take her into town, she was determined to do just that. And if he refused, she would walk until she found a telephone.

  The loud bussing sound cut abruptly.

  She staggered to slow her breakneck run as the stillness of her surroundings filled her once again with a terrible sense of isolation. Panic formed a fist in her throat. Tears sprang to her eyes. Stopping amidst the fog-mantled row of rhododendrons along the private access road, she anxiously searched for a sign of the groundskeeper.

  Not again! she mutely lamented.

  People couldn't just vanish! She
was closing in on the sound just a moment ago.

  “Mr. Ingliss?”

  A cry from a peacock perched atop the highest rooftop of the house, caused Beth to flinch. She glared in the bird's direction, a pulse drumming wildly beneath every part of her skin. “Mr. Ingliss! Are you here?”

  Heaving a sigh of frustration, she walked along the row of flowering hedges, stopping short when a peacock suddenly appeared in front of her and fanned its tail feathers. The bird’s appearance was startling enough, but the fact that it stood determinedly in her path, brazenly staring at her as if issuing a silent challenge, sent a chill clawing up her spine.

  “Braussaw, right?” she said nervously, her throat parched, her breathing shallow. “Go away, bird.” She shooed it with a hand and tried to step around the animal. Again it moved, blocking her way. “Go away!”

  Braussaw released a deafening cattawal.

  “Mr. Ingliss! It's Beth Staples. I need to talk to you, please!”

  She clutched her purse more tightly as she peered forlornly down the narrow decline of the private road stretched out before her. Her heart thumping wildly, she looked down at the peacock and drew in a long steading breath. She eased her purse into her right hand and cautiously held it out.

  “Go away, Braussaw. Shoo! Don’t make me hurt you.”

  Braussaw stared, unruffled.

  How far is it to town? Surely I can walk there without getting lost.

  She was wearing her best walking shoes. Her sneakers.

  I can do this, she thought, slowly turning to her right.

  Borgie Ingliss stepped out in front of her from between two of the rhododendrons bushes. Beth squealed in surprise. Chagrined with her reaction, she clamped a hand over her mouth. The man across from her grinned in an unpleasant, crooked manner as he tipped his head in greeting. Amusement danced in his eyes. The idea that he was inwardly laughing at her nervousness caused her to bristle, and it was all she could do to compose herself.