by Rebecca York
“Or course.” Quinn put the letter into her fanny pack. Four horses were waiting in the courtyard.
She embraced Griffin, then mounted. As they rode out into the city with two soldiers escorting them, she saw that Caleb wasn’t entirely comfortable in the saddle. But by the time they reached the gate, the ability seemed to have come back to him.
To Quinn’s relief, the journey back to the portal was uneventful.She and Caleb dismounted several hundred yards away so the soldiers wouldn’t know the exact location.
They thanked their escort, left the horses with the soldiers,and waited until the men started back to the city beforewalking into the cave.
Quinn stopped short when she saw the opening was stuffed with branches and brush. And she sucked in a breath when she realized she could tip her head and see through the membrane between the worlds.
Wondering what she would find, she made her way through, pushing the obstruction aside as she went.
They emerged into a gray dawn. And as they walked down the hill toward the Marshall house, a wolf that Quinn didn’t recognize stepped into their path, bared its teeth, and growled at them in warning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Quinn stopped short, staring at the wolf, wonderingwho he was. Not Ross or Logan.
Caleb stepped in front of her, making his own growling sound deep in his throat in response to the challenge. He could do that. But because he couldn’t change, he’d just made the situation a lot more dangerous for himself. What was he going to do if the other wolf attacked?
She caught his arm. “Don’t!”
“It’s one of them.”
“Yes. But he doesn’t know us. Let me handle this.”
“No.” He kept his gaze firmly on the wolf. “I am Caleb Marshall, the cousin Aden killed. I assume you heard about that?”
The wolf nodded.
“Probably you’re thinking, ‘Funny he doesn’t look like one of us.’ But you also know I’m in another body—of a man who was buried alive in the woods.”
The wolf pawed the ground and nodded again.
“When I was detached from the body,” Caleb continued, “I was able to communicate with the previous owner. He gave me some information you need to have.”
The wolf nodded once more, then backed away and disappearedbehind a nearby tree.
“He’s going to change,” Quinn said.
“I know what the hell he’s going to do!”
“Yes,” she murmured, then more softly, “Sorry.”
Moments later, a dark-haired man wearing only a pair of sweatpants stepped back into view.
“I’m Jacob Marshall, Logan’s younger brother.” While he spoke, he kept his gaze on Caleb as though he expected trouble.
Caleb stood stiffly beside Quinn, but he didn’t make any threatening moves, and she was thankful for that.
“What are you doing here?” Caleb asked.
“I should ask you the same question. I thought you promisednot to come back.”
“Quinn brought me because I agreed not to try and rip out anyone’s throat.”
Quinn winced. Was he hoping to start a fight?
“Your turn,” Caleb challenged.
“We’ve been guarding the portal to make sure nobody came through—except you. We were getting ready to send Rinna and a team in to look for you.”
Quinn sucked in a sharp breath. “Rinna! I can’t imagine she wants to go back there. Even though she knows Falcone, the man who raped her, is dead.”
“She knows her way around. And Zarah can’t do it.”
“I’m sorry you were even thinking of it. You were worried about us?” she asked.
“Yeah. And we’ve got another problem, too.”
“Oh yeah?” Caleb said.
“Give me a minute. Let me get my shoes and shirt,” Jacob said, walking back to the tree where he’d left his clothing.
When he was dressed, Quinn said, “You don’t have to stay here guarding the portal. Nobody but us is coming through.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Baron—the guy who was challenging Griffin— is dead, and his men have enough problems without looking for the portal.”
Jacob nodded. “Then I can go back with you. The others will be glad you’re here.”
“Okay,” Quinn answered, relieved for the moment.
“Why?” Caleb asked.
“Let’s wait until we get there.”
They walked quickly down the hill.
Caleb was silent.
Quinn said, “We haven’t met before.”
“I came to help,” Logan’s brother answered.
Quinn gave him a sidewise glance. Like the rest of the Marshalls, he was tall and dark and trim.
When she saw Logan’s house, Quinn felt her stomach clench. She had broken her promise. But Jacob had made it sound all right. She hoped it was.
She wanted to tell Caleb to wait outside, but she cut him a glance and saw that he looked as tense as she felt. If she went in without him, he would only stand out here stewing. So when Jacob opened the front door, she followed him inside. . . with Caleb right behind her.
Everybody was in the kitchen, and she wanted to warn them to go easy on Caleb. But there was no chance of saying anything now.
As soon as they stepped into the room, Zarah’s body went rigid, her total focus on Quinn.
“Is he all right?” she breathed.
“Yes. Griffin’s fine.”
Zarah jumped up and crossed the room, hugging her tightly. “Thank you. Thank you so much,” she said in a choked voice.
“He loved the pictures of you—and the sonogram of the baby.”
“That sonogram is a miracle,” Zarah said, her voice cracking.She waited a moment, then drew back. “I’m being so selfish. How are the two of you?” She looked from Quinn to Caleb and back again.
Caleb shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“We’re fine,” Quinn answered. “And I have a letter for you—from Griffin.”
Zarah took it in her trembling hand. “Would you excuse me? I need to read it.”
“Of course,” Rinna said, then swung her gaze toward Caleb, who looked like a statue that had been hit with a hammerand was going to shatter into a thousand pieces. “Welcometo our house.”
He gave her a doubtful look. Quinn watched as she crossed to him and embraced him. As she did, Logan looked like he was ready to spring across the room if Caleb made any threatening moves.
He stood stiffly for a moment. Then his hands came up and clasped Rinna.
When she stepped back, his eyes were bright. After a moment,Logan came over and held out his hand. Caleb shook it.
Jacob and Ross did the same.
“I’m glad you made it here,” Logan said.
Caleb nodded tightly. Probably in a million years, he hadn’t expected anything like this from the Marshall family. No, make that seventy-five years.
Taking a step closer to him, Quinn reached for his hand and clasped it. Maybe this really was going to work out okay.
“We’re glad to meet you,” Ross said. “It took guts to walk into this situation.”
Caleb answered with a little nod.
“We’re hoping you can help us,” Ross said.
“With what?”
“We need information about Colonel Jim Bowie,” Ross said. “He’s running some kind of militia group out in FrederickCounty.”
She felt Caleb wavering on his feet. He looked like he was about to fall over, and she clasped his hand more tightly—knowing why he was reacting. She’d heard him say that name when Pamina was trying to forge the connection between his mind and body. And now Ross was asking about the same man.
Caleb braced his shoulder against the wall, breathing hard. Sweat had broken out on his forehead. “Actually, he’s the bastard who ordered me killed. Well, not me. Wyatt Reynolds.”
Ross watched him closely. “How do you know?”
“Because Wyatt Reyn
olds told me.”
“You’re talking about the man who was murdered?” Ross asked.
“Yes.”
“You have his memories?”
“Some. Sometimes.” As he spoke Caleb crossed the room and sat down heavily at the table.
Rinna ran water from the tap and handed Caleb a glass. He took a gulp. “Thank you.”
“Bowie must be an assumed name. There are no records of the man before two years ago. What else do you know about him?” Ross asked.
“He was a . . . monster,” Caleb answered. “Strict with his men. If you joined his organization, you conformed to his rules. And he’s planning some big operation—soon.”
“What the hell is he going to do?” Logan pressed, then softened his tone. “Sorry.”
Caleb shook his head. “I wish I knew.”
“Too bad,” Ross muttered. “We’d like to know why he killed Reynolds.”
“He was a spy,” Caleb said. “I remember that much.”
“Who was he working for?” Ross asked.
Caleb’s brow wrinkled. After a long moment, he said, “I don’t know.”
“We need to jog your memory.”
“How?”
“Maybe I can help,” Zarah said from the doorway.
Caleb looked up, seeing the anxious faces around him. He had said he didn’t want to have a psychic work on him, and Quinn waited tensely to see what he would say now that he saw how much these people needed him.
“If you give us a little privacy,” he said in a low voice.
“Of course,” Rinna answered.
“We can use my bedroom,” Quinn offered, then wonderedif he’d ask to do it somewhere else.
But he only nodded.
She let out the breath she was holding, but she was worriedenough to ask, “Can I come with you?”
“Yes,” he answered, his voice barely above a whisper.
While the others waited in the living room, she, Zarah, and Caleb went downstairs.
“Lie down and get comfortable,” Zarah said to Caleb, then went to fetch her lamp.
Caleb stretched out on the bed, and Quinn brought in an extra chair from the family room. Then she sat on the side opposite the door.
Caleb lay with his body rigid, his hands clasped across his middle, as though he needed to hold on to something. Quinn wished he’d reached for her hand instead, but she wouldn’t force him to turn to her.
When Zarah came back, she sat down in the chair on Caleb’s other side and lit her lamp.
Quinn tried to quiet her own nerves. But she was worried about what was going to happen now. Surely nothing like what Pamina had done.
She stole a look at Caleb’s rigid face and wondered what he was thinking.
Zarah looked down at him and smiled. “I’m going to lend you my energy and the energy of the flame—to strengthen your memories.” She flicked a look across the prone man. “It will help if you have Quinn’s energy, too.”
Quinn thought that was probably true. She also thought Zarah had felt the strain between herself and Caleb and was trying to bring them closer together.
She waited with her breath frozen in her lungs, then heard him swallow hard before muttering, “Okay.”
She closed her eyes, telling herself his reluctance wasn’t a rejection. Then she heard Zarah’s voice again,
“Quinn, take one of his hands.” Grateful to be included, she did as her friend asked and felt Caleb’s hand quiver. She wanted to ask him what he was feeling, but she kept the question locked behind her lips.
Still holding the lamp, Zarah took his other hand with her free one. She made a humming sound, but didn’t speak for several moments. Finally, she murmured, “I feel the man who was in this body. You said his name was Wyatt Reynolds?”
“Yes,” Caleb said in a strained voice. “Is he still . . . insideme?”
Quinn’s breath caught as she waited for the other woman’s answer.
After a few moments, Zarah whispered, “No. He is like a flickering shadow, dancing on the walls of a cave in the fire-light. . .” Her voice trailed off, then she exclaimed, “Oh!”
“What?” Quinn gasped.
“He lost his wife—and lost the will to live. That’s so sad.”
Quinn heard the emotion in her friend’s voice, and her stomach clenched. What if Zarah had learned that Griffin was dead? Would she give up? No, she couldn’t. She had his child inside her.
“He told me that,” Caleb said.
“You talked to him?”
“A little. When I was . . . separating from this body. I know he took a dangerous job because he didn’t care what happened to him.”
“He was spying on a militia group,” Quinn said, then clamped her lips shut as she wondered whether she was supposedto butt into the dialogue.
Zarah leaned over Caleb. “Can you tell me who Wyatt Reynolds was working for?”
When Caleb didn’t answer, she began to hum again in a low voice. Was that part of the process in this kind of ceremony?
“Concentrate. It’s very close to the surface of your mind,” she whispered.
Caleb squeezed his eyes shut, his focus turned inward as his body moved restlessly on the bed.
When his lips parted, Quinn tensed. “Jerry . . .” he said in a faint voice.
“Jerry who?” Zarah asked.
Quinn felt her heart pounding. She could see that this probing was taking its toll on Caleb. Was it going to hurt him? Make his body and his mind separate again?
But Zarah pressed on. “Jerry who?” she asked again.
“I don’t know!”
Quinn could feel energy flowing around the room, pumpingitself into Caleb, and she knew he could feel it, too—by the way his body shifted on the bed and he swung his head back and forth.
She knew Zarah was directing the flow of the energy. And she suspected it was hurting him. Physically and mentally.
She glanced across him at Zarah, and her face was a study in concentration.
Caleb made a strangled sound; his fingers tightened painfully on Quinn’s. Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead, and his shirt stuck to his chest.
“Stop,” she begged, addressing herself to Zarah. “You’re hurting him.”
His breath was coming in gasps now.
“Stop,” Quinn said again, this time more urgently. “He can’t take any more.”
On the bed, Caleb’s body jerked, and then he went absolutelystill.
WHILE the men were having their noon meal in the mess hall, Colonel Jim Bowie ate alone in his quarters. He was living in the old farmhouse that had come with the property, but he’d fixed it up so that it was a very comfortable retreat from the pressures of his job.
He had a plate of the same food. But he didn’t want to be distracted by their conversation. He had so many responsibilitiesduring the day that he needed this downtime to unwind.
As he ate, he was reading one of his favorite passages from Thomas Jefferson. The one where he said that the tree of liberty is nourished by the blood of tyrants and the blood of patriots.
That was part of Bowie’s personal creed. He could see what was wrong with this damn country. And see how to cure it. The government needed a jolt, and he was going to give it to them.
Sometimes, when he was in a reflective mood, and he thought about the important men who had shaped history, he imagined that he had been one of those early patriots who had prodded the colonies into separating from the tyranny of George III. He could imagine himself back then, in 1776, shouting down the pussies who wanted to stay tied to England.
And maybe he’d even been there in 1787 when they’d crafted the Second Amendment, the one that prohibited the government from infringing on the rights of the people to keep and bear arms.
A lot of modern liberals and conservatives both had forgottenall that. Or maybe they were too scared to act. Well, he’d force some steel into their spines, then he’d fade into the background—ready to do it again if need be. A
lot of his men were going to die soon. But they were expendable. He’d find new recruits for the cause, even if they didn’t have the intellect to follow his logic.
He already had his new identity picked out. Sam Houston,another patriot in another war.
He would . . .
The barking of the dogs interrupted his thoughts and he went very still, listening.
Since finding out Wyatt Reynolds was a traitor, he’d been on the alert.
Unholstering his Sig Sauer, he stood up, ready to see what had disturbed the animals.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Quinn clasped caleb’s fingers as she bent down, cupping her other palm over his damp forehead.
She looked accusingly at Zarah. “What have you done to him?”
“It wasn’t me. It was him. He was trying really hard, and I knew he didn’t want to stop.”
“But he should have. What if he . . . what if he left the body again?” She heard her voice rise as she said the last part. With her heart blocking her windpipe, she hovered over Caleb, clasping his fingers. For a long moment, he lay still as death, his skin pale and clammy.
Zarah touched his cheek, murmuring something low and urgent.
At first, nothing changed, and fear clawed at Quinn’s insides.Then he dragged in a shuddering breath.
“Caleb!” she exclaimed.
His eyes blinked open and focused on her.
“Quinn.” He looked like he was glad to see her, and her heart turned over.
Heedless of what Zarah might think, Quinn bent to him, held him tightly, and his arm came up to wedge her against his chest.
She felt a surge of hope. He might say that he didn’t think their relationship could work. But when his mind was unguarded,he reached out to her on a very basic level. That was something. And she would build on it.
In the next moment, she wondered if he would give her the chance. Easing away, he sat up and ran a hand through his hair. He looked like he was concentrating really hard.
“Jerry,” he said again. Then, “It’s Jerry Ruckleman.”
“You got his name!” Quinn breathed.
“But that’s all. I still don’t know what Bowie is planning to attack.”