The breakfast dishes were washed and dried by the time he returned, and after giving her a long, hard kiss and the promise to come home as soon as he could, he was gone. Eager to explore the house, Rennie took a quick shower and wandered around for a while, admiring the structure and layout of the house as well as Mac’s impeccable taste in furnishing it.
He’d taken great care to keep the spacious rooms uncluttered, and if she had any concerns at all, it was his obvious obsession about keeping a clean house. Not that her house was much different, but she did have a tendency to leave her files spread out in the study until she was done with them and quite often had to do a search and rescue for her shoes because she’d forget where she kicked them off.
When she finished looking around, Rennie went back upstairs to make the bed and then returned to the kitchen to figure out what to make for dinner. She loved the house and how comfortable and secure she felt here. But more than anything, she loved the idea that soon this would be her home too and that making dinner for Mac and taking care of him would be a daily thing. In spite of the uncertainties hovering over them because of the Dalton case, Rennie couldn’t have been happier.
And then the tingling in her fingers started.
“Make it stop,” she whimpered.
She told herself she could make it go away if she concentrated hard enough, but already the tingling had worked its way up her arms. Rennie sat in the chair Mac had occupied during breakfast and buried her face in her hands. How could she ask him to deal with this for the rest of his life? How was he going to feel when they were having a meal together or making love and she suddenly started hearing anguished screams or sensing the terror of a murder victim? How many times would he be willing to watch her slip away from him before he grew tired of their life being put on hold? He would resent it and, eventually, he would resent her too.
She just wanted to be normal, to build a life with Mac and not be burdened by these restless spirits. But she was burdened by them, and Mac would be too. She loved him so much, Rennie wasn’t sure she could even go on without him, but it wasn’t fair to straddle him with a wife who wasn’t in control of her own mind or emotions. Unless she could master this and keep it from invading her life, she simply couldn’t marry him. Rennie rose slowly from the table, her heart so heavy it felt as though an anvil had been sewn inside her chest.
It was a good dream while it lasted. In fact, it had been her only dream. Her life had been nothing but shadows and nightmares and now she was being forced to return that hollow existence. As she made her way upstairs, an empty, aching sense of desolation dogged every step. Rennie dragged her suitcases downstairs and placed them by the door, nearly crying when she realized she’d left her purse up in Mac’s bedroom.
Somehow, being in his room was even more difficult than anywhere else in the house. Snatching the purse from the nightstand she retraced her steps, intent on fleeing the bedroom as quickly as possible, but there was something she had to do first. As much as it pained her to do so, she crossed the room to Mac’s writing desk and sat in the plush leather chair. It wasn’t fair to leave without trying to explain why she felt compelled to do it, and after searching the drawers, Rennie located a notepad and pen. The tingling was still there, along with the sorrow of a young boy, but at least it wasn’t Dalton, and the sensation was weak enough she knew she could hold it at bay for a while longer.
Rennie stared at the piece of paper. What could she say that would lessen the blow for him? In time, he would come to realize she had done what was best for him, but Mac would be hurt at first and it killed her to think of causing him pain. Finally, she simply wrote that she loved him with all her heart but couldn’t bear to watch them grow apart because of her inability to control this thing.
She would go away and learn how to manipulate it instead of the other way around, and then, if he still wanted her, they could try again. Rennie was crying by the time she finished the note and placed it on the kitchen table. She shoved the boy’s sadness away, resenting the intrusion, resenting the painful reminder that no matter what she did, she would always be different.
Chapter 11
Mac couldn’t wait to get home to Rennie. They’d gotten some very good leads as to Dalton’s whereabouts and he felt better about the case than he had in days. He’d sent several of his men to check things out, and with any luck they would have something solid by this evening. Right now, though, all he could think about was holding Rennie and tasting those sweet lips of hers.
It was hard to believe after all the years of keeping himself so aloof, so immune to getting emotionally involved with a woman, that Rennie could come into his life and have him dreaming of getting married and having children in a matter of a few days. He didn’t try to figure out how or why it happened; he was content just knowing it had happened and that soon he would make her his wife. She was a strong woman to have faced this psychic phenomenon alone, but now she had him and Mac silently vowed to do everything in his power to make it easier for her to deal with.
Anxious to be with her, Mac climbed out of his truck and hurried into the house, expecting to find her in the living room. When he discovered she wasn’t there, he checked the kitchen. His mood instantly darkened when he saw the piece of paper propped up on the table. Mac read the note, his gut wrenching at the thought of Rennie going off alone.
The paper slipped from his hand and fluttered to the floor. She must have had an episode while he was gone and got some foolish notion in her head that they couldn’t be together until she learned to control it. He was torn between worrying about her and being mad as hell that she’d left without talking to him first. Anger finally won the battle and he stormed out of the house telling himself he was going to wring her pretty neck when he found her.
He knew she wouldn’t go to a hotel and she had no close friends or family so the only logical place to look was her house. It could prove to be disastrous if one of the neighbors spotted her, especially since the papers had just announced her death to the entire city. And what if someone decided to let the media in on it and they showed up at her door? If it hit the papers that Rennie was still alive, she was in danger from Dalton again, and that scared the hell out of him.
Mac tore into her driveway and cut the engine, fuming as he headed towards the back side of the house. It wouldn’t do to have the neighbors witness him pounding on the front door, or see her opening it. The broken windows were boarded up, and though he could easily yank them off in his current state of mind, he didn’t relish the idea of crawling through them again. Instead, he rapped loudly on the back door and waited impatiently for her to open it.
Rennie cringed when she heard the hard, angry raps, and though she was genuinely happy to see him when she peaked out the curtain, she didn’t open the door.
“Why are you here, Mac? I told you I needed time alone.”
“Open the door, Rennie, I’m not going to carry on a conversation with a piece of wood between us.”
“I don’t want to talk. Please…just leave.”
Mac tried to control his temper but her refusal to let him in only added fuel to the fire. His voice was low and even, but there was no mistaking the dangerous undertone.
“I managed to get in without using the door before, honey, I’m not afraid to do it again.”
There was a moment of hesitation before he heard a soft click as she flipped the lock and let the door swung open. Mac’s eyes were blazing as he brushed past her and waited for her to shut the door.
“Just what the hell were you thinking taking off by yourself?”
“I thought it would be better for you…”
“Better for me? How could it be better for me to have you gone?”
Fighting back the sting of tears, Rennie launched into the explanation she’d been practicing since leaving his house. “I can’t expect you to put up with the things that happen to me, Mac. I can’t control it. I tried but I couldn’t, and I don’t want you to get tired of me
. I just couldn’t take it if you resented marrying me.”
Crossing the room in two long strides, Mac pulled her into his arms. “I thought we’d already gone over this, Rennie. I walked into this relationship with my eyes wide open and knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but it didn’t matter because I was falling in love with you. I know your family ran out on you because of your psychic ability, but that is not what I’m going to do.”
She shook her head. “You don’t know how disruptive it can be. It’s emotionally draining and I get tired of it myself so I know you will too, and then what?”
Mac pulled her closer. “Then we’ll take another trip to Disneyland and leave it behind us for a while. I’m not going to leave you, Rennie, and I am not going to let you leave me.”
She lifted her eyes to his, the relief so enormous she could have cried. “You’re not mad at me?”
“Maybe just a little,” he admitted. “Promise you won’t ever run off like that again. We belong together and I won’t tolerate being shut out or pushed away. If something is bothering you, I expect you to come to me so we can talk it out, do you understand?”
“But, what if…”
“What if you get tired of me? What if you can’t handle me being called away in the middle of the night? What if we’re dining out or in bed making love and I’m needed at the station or have to go out to investigate a crime scene?”
Rennie smiled up at him. “That’s exactly what I was thinking about myself. It seems a life together is destined to be filled with interruptions.”
“I suppose it is, but the good news is we can always pick up where we left off.” Mac looked into those beautiful blue eyes and knew he would never find happiness again if she left him. “I need you, Rennie,” he said softly. “I’ve never said that to any woman before. I don’t care if there are a million interruptions a day as long as it ends with you in my arms where you belong.”
“Now look what you’ve done,” she sniffed. Tears glistened in her eyes and her lips began to tremble. “I need you too, Mac. When I left I thought I was strong enough to see it through, but the truth is I never even unpacked my bags. I guess it’s just hard for me to believe that a man like you could really fall in love with me.”
Mac laughed. “Sweetheart, I think you’re in for a very rude awakening. I have four brothers and a sister, as well as a multitude of friends, who will attest to the fact that I have a very bad temper and am nearly impossible to live with. I’m hard headed, opinionated, and I don’t like it when I don’t get my way. As my wife, you’ll be expected to keep the house in order, have my meals ready when I get home, and of course, be willing to tumble into bed any time I feel the urge, which will be quite often.”
“I’m sure,” she smiled knowingly; the man was insatiable. Maybe to other women it sounded demanding and a bit chauvinistic, but to Rennie it sounded positively divine.
“Now that we have that settled,” Mac said, “there’s another little problem that needs to be addressed. We’ll be lucky if no one saw you coming in so it’s best that we wait until after dark to leave. Of course, we won’t be able to turn on any lights in case the neighbors see and decide to call the police.”
“But it’s my house! The police can’t do anything about me being in my own house.”
“Rennie, no one knows you’re alive. If the police come to investigate, how long do you think it will remain a secret?”
“Oh, I didn’t think about that.” She pressed herself a little closer. “There’s at least two hours until night falls. Any suggestions as to what we could do to pass the time?”
Several suggestions came to mind; all of them ending with Rennie’s exquisitely naked body writing beneath him. There wasn’t a woman in the world that excited him the way she did. Two hours wasn’t nearly enough time to do the things he wanted to do to her, but it was a good start.
***
“We just missed him,” Ryan told Mac when he called later that night. “We had a good, solid lead but someone must have tipped him off.”
Mac swore under his breath. “He’ll go to ground for a while. Dalton must have friends helping out or he wouldn’t be able to move from place to place without someone spotting him. Send Michael out to the neighborhood Dalton was last seen in and see what he can find out. I’ll be in early tomorrow and want the task force ready to report what they’ve got by eight o’clock.”
“What about Rennie?”
“What about her?” Mac said sharply. “She’s out of it and that’s how I want it to stay.”
“Mac, I know you want to keep her safe, we all do, but if Dalton has gone underground he could slip away before we even know he’s gone. She might be able to point us in the right direction. Right now we have nothing.”
“I said she’s out of it and I meant it. My God, she almost died the last time she linked with him. Do you think I’m going to allow her to take that chance again? No, we get Michael out there and hope he comes up with something.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then we get more men out there.” Mac rubbed his eyes tiredly. He knew he was being a hard ass but he couldn’t help it where Rennie was concerned. “I’ll talk to you in the morning, Ryan. We’ll discuss our options then.”
He’d gotten the call when Rennie was in the shower and had taken his cell phone down to the living room so she wouldn’t overhear anything. As he turned to head back upstairs, Mac realized his effort was in vain because she’d apparently been standing in the doorway for a good portion of the conversation. He saw it in her eyes, in the stubborn tilt of her chin. He started shaking his head before she even had a chance to speak.
“No, absolutely not.”
“Mac…”
“I mean it, Rennie. We’ll find him without you.”
“Just hear me out before you say no. Dalton thinks I’m dead, right? So, if I linked with him now, what do you suppose he will think is happening?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Mac snapped.
Rennie continued with an indulgent smile. “He’ll think I’ve come back to haunt him. If I can spook him, Dalton won’t try to pull me back in because he’ll be afraid to hold the connection. If I’m right and he panics, I might be able to get a fix on where he’s at while he’s distracted by the fear that I’m reaching out from the grave.”
“No,” he remained firm.
“Mac, please. This isn’t only about me, it’s about some poor, helpless young woman who could get hurt or murdered if we don’t find him soon. He’s already had a few days to heal, and he was cheated out of killing me personally. We both know he’ll be looking for a way to vent his rage after missing an opportunity like that.”
“He won’t panic,” Mac insisted. “He’s managed to avoid getting caught for years, which means he knows how to hold it together when things get too heated. Even if you do convince him you’ve come back from the dead to haunt him, what makes you think that will faze him at all?”
“Come on, Mac, you were a pretty big skeptic before I came along. Wouldn’t it spook you just a little to hear someone’s voice or feel their presence if you knew they were dead?”
“That doesn’t mean you’ll be able to locate him.”
“My God, you really are hard headed! I admit it might not work, but what if it does? Isn’t it worth it to know he won’t be able to hurt anyone else? You don’t know the horrors Angel went through, or the unspeakable things he had planned for her. Did we save her only to sacrifice someone else?”
“Damn it, Rennie, stop trying to change my mind!”
She crossed the room and put her arms around his waist. “You’ve already changed your mind. It will be okay, I promise. As long as you’re with me, he can’t hurt me.”
Mac crushed her to his chest. “You don’t know that,” he said fiercely.
“I do know that. You called me back before, you can do the same if it looks like he’s gaining control.”
He hated to admit she was right and he
hated it even more that he was going to have to let her link with that monster again.
“One stab at it, that’s all I’m giving you,” Mac warned. “Where do you want to do this?”
“I heard you say Dalton was moving from place to place so I assume you know at least one of his hideouts. We’ll start there and see where it leads.”
“We’ll go in the morning after the task force meets.”
“Why wait? We could start tonight and…”
Mac’s lips set in a determined line. “Tomorrow, and that’s final.”
Rennie gave up the argument. She didn’t have to ask why he wanted to wait; she could feel it in the trembling of his body. He needed this night with her, to know that at least for now she was safe. Maybe she needed it too. Being with Mac, knowing how possessively he would make love to her tonight, would give her the strength she needed to take on Dalton.
She pulled away from him and slipped her hand into his. It was a long time before sheer exhaustion forced them to stop making love, and even then Mac kept her pressed close by his side, but Rennie didn’t mind, she didn’t mind at all.
***
Rennie rode with Mac to the station the next morning. Because there were a number of police officers at her house the night they thought she had died, he insisted she pull her hair up and wear a hat, as well as a pair of dark sunglasses. She’d done as he asked, although no one seemed particularly interested when Mac ushered her through the department, and only Ryan gave any indication he knew who she was when they passed by.
It was early still, and the task force wasn’t scheduled to meet for another thirty minutes. While Mac went over a few of the other cases he was working, Rennie passed the time sipping the coffee he’d brought her and watching him over the rim of her cup. It took her a few minutes to realize why he was flipping the gruesome crime scene photos over instead of studying them, as she would have expected him to do.
“It’s not that I can’t stomach looking at the photos,” she said. “It’s just not…necessary.”
WHISPERS TO THE HEART Page 14