A long silence greeted his question. “Sometimes music is helpful when relearning a task,” she told him carefully.
“I thought unicorns didn’t lie,” he shot back.
Another pause. “We don’t. I haven’t lied to you.”
“What is that song? And why are you singing it?”
She sighed as if he had broken her heart. “Don’t you recognize it?”
“Not really. Should I?”
“You taught it to me.”
“Oh.” He put the last spoon in the cutlery cup, feeling as exhausted and sweaty as if he had walked a hundred miles.
“Okay,” Samantha said. “Fill the sink with fresh soap and water. The counters are disgusting. Wipe them down.”
“Slave driver,” he muttered.
“That’s my job. Wring out that cloth and leave it to dry. What about the garbage?”
“Sandy said she would take care of it.”
Samantha opened the door of the lean-to. “The garbage cans are out here. Let’s get rid of that bag under the sink. Sandy can haul the collection to the dump.”
They returned to the front porch. He eased himself gratefully into his rocker.
“We still have to tackle the bedroom and bathroom,” she said. “You deserve to live in clean, organized surroundings, Rafael.”
“Why?” He hadn’t meant to say that.
She pounced. “Because you are worthy of a normal life. Because neatness and order were once as natural as breathing. I suspect that your messy surroundings are self-punishment. It has to stop, Rafael. Today.”
“You don’t act like my other therapists,” he grumbled. “What happened to validating my feelings?”
“I don’t validate negativity or self-pity, D’Angelo. I call ’em like I see ’em. You’re one hot mess, and you have to treat yourself better.”
“Huh.”
“I’m going to put on a load of wash. There’s a clothesline out back. We’ll hang up the laundry together.” She left.
The towhee began to scream again. Another intruder had invaded the songbird’s space. Or the same one. The front porch no longer seemed pleasant and dim. Without Samantha’s presence, it seemed desolate. Like his life. Shift on a stick. That woman was a shift disturber. She had stirred up stuff better left alone.
Thumps and bumps suggested she was changing his sheets. The ancient washer began to bang as the generator that ran it kicked in. Samantha did not reappear. Water ran. Was she showering? The smell of some powerful cleaner wafted out the screen door. No, she was cleaning the bathroom. Even though she wasn’t a housekeeper. Or a nursemaid.
“Your bed’s made. Your bathroom is picked up. The laundry hamper is in your bedroom closet behind the curtain. Use it. Make your bed in the morning. Shave.” She didn’t sit down.
“Are you going?”
“When you’ve eaten something. And we’ve hung out the wash. You’ll have to bring it in when it’s dry. It won’t take long with this breeze.” She moved away from the doorway.
He followed her back into the kitchen.
“What do you want to eat?” she asked.
“Whatever.” It didn’t matter. He had no appetite anyway.
“You have to choose.” She was implacable. “Open the fridge and find a meal and the container of salad.”
She ordered him around until he was seated at the table with a bowl of greens with a couple of scoops of chicken salad on top. She pulled out a chair and joined him. Rafael fiddled with the cutlery. He didn’t want to eat in front of her. Too messy. Too embarrassing.
His phone beeped. He froze. Where were his meds?
“Sit. Eat. I’ll get the pillbox. We need to go over the order anyway.” Then she was back handing him two pills and a glass of water. Her chair scraped as she resumed her seat. She sighed.
“What now?” he barked.
“You should be monitored. Your mood and behavior noted. To see what immediate effects the drugs are having on you.”
“I thought unicorns could read auras,” he said around a mouthful of salad.
“Sure we can. But I get my best reading from direct contact.”
“But you won’t touch me.”
“No. At least, not today. Maybe I can bring an aura reader out here,” she mused.
“Just like that?”
“On West Haven, aura readers are a dime a dozen. The trick is getting one who is powerful enough to be able to diagnose.”
“Huh.”
“Mystic Bay is home to lots of talented sensitives with psi gifts of all kinds,” she informed him absently. “But you know no two people have the exact same talent.”
This was true. “Maybe you should wear surgical gloves,” he joked.
“Maybe I should.” She hesitated. “But not today. Eat up. The laundry is almost done.”
She made him wash his plate and glass before they carried the laundry out to the clothesline. Someone had kept the trees cut back so the sunlight hit the line. He blinked and squinted. And swore.
“Light sensitivity?” she asked thoughtfully.
“Yeah. The doctors are baffled. It’s a nuisance.”
“Hmm. Clothespins are to your left. I left the sheets for Sandy. These are your shorts and T-shirts.”
It didn’t take that long, although she was careful not to touch him.
“Set your timer for two hours and bring them in if they’re dry. Before bed anyway or they will get damp with dew. And fold them and put them away.” She seemed to be enjoying ordering him around.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Now I go home.” She drew in a deep breath and let it out in a gust. “I’ll come back tomorrow. I’ll expect to see your bed made and your towel on the rack.”
“So you’re taking the job?”
“Yes.”
“What about Carmody?”
“You show some improvement, and we’ll discuss a visit.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Samantha~
And just like that she plunged her patient into despair. His life force, already weak, ebbed so low he swayed. Unthinkingly she reached for him to prevent him from falling. The psychic pain was worse than before. But weirdly more bearable – as if she had become acclimatized to Rafael’s inner turmoil.
She eased him into a chair and tucked her abused hands in her armpits. A confused melange of images played in her mind, while she observed him with clinical detachment from a safe distance with her back against the fridge.
“Sorry,” he muttered. He was supporting his head with his hands. Even his voice was faint.
“Headache?” she asked.
He whistled. Not exactly at her. Not a wolf whistle. Just a burst of sound. It bounced off of her and he turned his head to face her. He was using sound to locate her. Hmm.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes. No.” She looked at her burning hands. Flexed them. They were stiff, and painful. But they worked. “I’ll be all right.”
“You don’t have to be afraid of me. I didn’t touch you – you touched me.”
This was true. “It’s just that the shock overpowered me,” she tried to explain.
His aura was the weirdest color she had ever seen on anyone, sensitive or not. Rafael’s did not present as an immortal’s ought to. It pulsed so weakly that she feared it would flatline and blink out. And the color was just wrong. She had no vocabulary to describe it, even to herself. But where it should have been a vibrant paranormal glow, it was the opposite. The black hole of auras.
Compassion overcame fear. She approached him. Pulled another chair beside his. “We have to do something,” she whispered. “You’re dying.”
His head came up. His blue eyes flashed. His aura strengthened. “You can tell?”
“Sure. Your life energy is lower than I’ve ever seen on a living person.”
He laughed bitterly. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” Why was she whispering? Crap. She had hushed her voi
ce in the presence of death. “But if this keeps up, you will die.”
He laughed again. His eyes pierced her. She was convinced that he could see her. After a long silence, he said, “You’ll have to marry me.”
What on earth? “Explain yourself,” she said. There was no way she was marrying anyone so disturbed.
He drew a shaky breath. “When I die, my trust fund rolls into the D’Angelo fund, unless I’m married. If I am, my wife and our children scoop the lot. We need to get married before I die.”
“Unicorns don’t marry for money,” she said gently.
“Do they marry to take care of their kids?” he asked fiercely. “Or to put the dying at ease?”
The ring she still wore under her clothes burned her skin. “Maybe. But it doesn’t seem right. Marrying someone I can’t bear to touch for mercenary reasons. Unicorns are not gold diggers.”
“I wouldn’t suggest it,” he ground out, “If there was any other way to provide adequately for Carmody. But there isn’t. My cash reserves are not enough to take her to adulthood, pay for college, and so on. But my trust fund provides a sizable monthly stipend.”
For which read a handsome payout. It was tempting. Already there were things that she had to deny Carmody. But marrying a dying man for money did not sit well with her unicorn heart.
“Weren’t we engaged?” he asked carefully. “Before I mean.”
“Yes. You gave me a ring.”
“So in fact we’re still engaged,” he said with a gallant attempt at flippancy. She could tell what this conversation cost him emotionally.
A unicorn always does her duty. Rafael was dying and she knew how to prevent his death. Whatever the cost. She had to act. Samantha put out a hand deliberately and laid it over his heart. Ignored the waves of horror and agony rippling through her mind and body.
She tweaked his life force as best she could, sent some of her own ebbing psychic energy to strengthen his. Her shirt was damp when she took her hand away.
At least the prolonged contact had numbed some of the pain. Still, her right hand wouldn’t close. The elbow functioned after a couple attempts, although the wrist remained paralyzed. She cradled her arm and hand against her body, breathing through the nightmare she had tapped into.
Flames exploded. The earth shook. The air boomed. A man screamed like a soul in torment. Fire burned her skin, her soul, her heart, to ash.
She forced her eyes open. Rafael too was bathed in sweat. His face was rapt as if he saw some wonderful vision. But his breathing was harsh and his face paler even than when she arrived. The pallor of a prisoner. The pallor of death. However, his aura was healthier than it had been before she touched him. Not healthy. Just improved. He was still dying. But his death had been deferred.
His eyes opened. Blinked. “What was that?” he demanded in a stronger voice.
“I adjusted your life energy,” she said.
Weariness fell on her like a cloak. She had used a boatload of psychic energy. And now she had to suffer the consequences. She needed food and sleep before she would recover. Not necessarily in that order. She had been tired before after helping psych patients. But not like this. She was due to crash. She had max ten minutes before she collapsed.
That whistled breath blew over her again. “What’s the matter with you?” Rafael cried.
“Fatigue. It takes a lot of energy to do what I just did.” Her voice was a husky stutter.
“Huh.”
She dragged out her cell phone. Hit speed dial. The world had already begun to blur at the edges.
Claudia answered at once. “Hey, how’s it going, Samantha?”
“I overdid things with my patient. I have to rest. I can’t pick Carmody up until tomorrow.” The words fell over themselves as the gray fog seized her mind.
“No problem. Carmody and Jimmy had a good time and are now curled up asleep. I was going to ask if she could stay over anyway.”
“Thank you.”
Samantha had just enough energy to stagger to the couch and lie down. Rafael’s euphoria and terror followed her down into sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Tidewater Inn
Robin~
“Calm down, Araminta,” Robin said into her office phone. “I can’t follow you.”
Araminta Belfast huffed. “Unicorns are always calm.” Her voice was a throttled shriek.
“Of course they are,” Robin soothed. “What seems to be the problem?”
“Samantha hasn’t returned from the Reynolds’ cabin!”
Gordon’s plan was working! “Dear me. Whatever was she doing out there?” Robin asked innocently. She did innocent very well, if she said so herself.
“Virginia Peterson took it upon herself to send Samantha to look after that, that, hunter who’s renting it.”
Robin kept her smile out of her voice. “Did she? I understand Major Ardee is a sad invalid. A wounded veteran. Gordon Sullivan asked Virginia to make a house call. I believe he is now her patient. Sending him an RN seems entirely appropriate.”
Araminta made a genteel noise that indicated some combination of disbelief and horror. “Well, Samantha didn’t come back from there, and she didn’t pick up Carmody.”
“From daycare?” For half a second, Robin was concerned.
“From Claudia Peterson’s.” Araminta’s outrage transmitted clearly. “Carmody is sleeping there.”
“I don’t know what you expect me to do about Carmody’s sleepover, Araminta. If Claudia and Ryan Rutherford are comfortable with a houseguest, what on earth business is it of mine?” Or yours? But it wouldn’t help to say so. Although, keeping Araminta wound up seemed like a fine adjunct to their scheme.
“Robin Fairchild, you know perfectly well that Jimmy is a hybrid!”
“He is. And destined to be a great healer like his grandmother,” Robin responded pleasantly. “Perhaps greater.”
“How do we know that Ardee hasn’t done something to her?” Araminta sniffed. “It’s not like Samantha to abandon her daughter, much less spend the night with a stranger. Particularly a hunter. A single hunter.”
“What does Parsifal say?” asked Robin. Parsifal was Araminta’s husband.
“He thinks it’s utterly scandalous too. No Belfast has ever shamed her family like this. Samantha doesn’t pick up her cell phone. We think he’s holding her prisoner.”
“Then you should have called the sheriff,” Robin pointed out.
“Walther Babcock is still on Hyde, and Slim would only say that he’d send a deputy in the morning,” Araminta wailed.
“Then you will just have to thank your lucky stars, Araminta, that Claudia is taking good care of Carmody tonight. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow ourselves. Sheriff Babcock took the police launch to Hyde Harbor. And before you ask, it’s Friday evening. Gordon has a supper cruise and the Nightingale won’t dock until after dark. We can’t expect him to navigate that coastline in the dark, and then tackle the staircase up the cliff face with just a flashlight.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Reynolds’ cabin
Rafael~
Samantha’s erratic footsteps trudged out of the kitchen. She went only as far as the sofa. The springs creaked. She drew a shaky breath. More creaking. Then her breathing evened out. Had she just fallen asleep without a word of explanation? She had claimed to have used a lot of energy, and falling instantly asleep certainly suggested a huge energy suck.
He, on the other hand, felt better than he had in ages. Hungry. Thirsty. Energized. Ready to run down those switchback stairs and back up again. But first he had to eat. There was some sort of stew in the fridge. He ate it straight from the plastic box. Miss Persnickety Unicorn would probably disapprove. But it meant one less thing to wash up.
He ate half the container before he got to the table. It was thick with meat and chunks of vegetables. It would probably be tastier hot. But he didn’t care. He was ravenous. It tasted just fine cold.
He drank glass after g
lass of cold, sweet, well water. Why had he not noticed before how delicious the water up here was? The water in the Garden of Eden would not have tasted better.
After he had washed his spoon and the plastic tub and refilled his glass, he limped into the living room. Even his limp was less pronounced. The knee did not feel one hundred percent, but it didn’t feel as if the Spanish Inquisition were probing it with red hot needles either. Worked for him.
He eased down onto the armchair facing the sofa. Samantha slept on. Her breathing was shallow but uneven. And even with the coffee table between them he could feel the chill coming off her. He found a blanket and spread it over her, careful not to touch her.
He was too restless to just sit. But he didn’t feel right leaving her. She had said she was exhausted. But this sudden sleep was more than exhaustion. Was she in some sort of coma? Ought he to be calling Sully or Dr. Peterson? Or should he let her sleep?
He didn’t exactly decide. He just shifted into phoenix. Unconsciously. As if he was an out-of-control youngster shifting whether he planned to or not. At least he had taken lesser phoenix. This tiny cabin would not contain his massive greater phoenix. He would probably be safe enough if he just perched on some doorframe.
Taking phoenix felt weird after so long. The residual pain in his left knee vanished. He hopped upward and flapped until he came to the Welsh dresser in the living room. George Washington! He could see. Not with his normal vision. But with his paranormal sight. This was not the usual hyper-sharp focus of his phoenix vision. It was a softer perception where a paranormal color palette entirely replaced his ordinary vision.
The outline of the couch was fuzzy. Samantha was a long lump under the blanket he had draped over her. Her right arm was stiff under the blanket, but her left clutched something in a tight fist. A stainless-steel chain suggested it was her dog tags she clasped. Her hair glowed weirdly. It was no color he had a name for, but it certainly was bright.
He wished he could make out her features properly. But Samantha’s face was just a pale oval surmounted by that luminous hair. However, there was nothing wrong with his other senses. She smelled distressed. But not even her distraught condition could conceal her basic female fragrance. She smelled like a sex goddess. Like the first woman – or the last.
Fated for the Phoenix: A Shifters in Love Fun & Flirty Romance (Mystic Bay Book 5) Page 10