Love Everlastin' Book 3 (30 page)

"Aggie! Aggie, forgive
me!"

He wept for some time to
come. Wept until his body could no longer bear the cold, nor his
conscience bear his ability to think.

Lachlan staggered toward the
house, thoughts of his store of Scotch giving him the stamina to go
on.

* * *

10:00 PM.

Winston couldn't sleep and
he couldn't stand the silence in the house. He was still in the
clothes he'd worn earlier, but had put on a bathrobe over them and
haphazardly knotted the tie at his waist. Staring bleakly into the
night, he stood on the tower with his forearms braced on a high
section of the crenellations. He wasn't looking at anything in
particular. Rather, he sought the solitude and the cold to better
clear his mind. He needed to analyze what was going on inside him.
Grieving for Agnes Ingliss didn't make sense. He'd hardly known
her. She'd wanted to pass over. What puzzled him the most was, he
was relatively sure what he was feeling stemmed from himself, but
that would mean he had an emotional core. Which was
preposterous.

Sighing deeply, he looked
off into the distance to his right. A few lights could be seen in
some of the buildings in the town of Crossmichael. So, perhaps
others were as restless as he. Why did he find that comforting?
Loch Ken was barely visible, striking him as resembling a wide dark
ribbon laid across the landscape. He tried to imagine how the lake
would look on a spring or summer night, with moonlight dappling the
water. Spring had arrived, but the weather mocked the official
advent of the season. He promised himself he would do something
completely out of character to celebrate the warming season when it
arrived. Perhaps plant a tree. An oak tree.

A chill of awareness slued
up his spine and he cut his gaze to the grounds in front of him. In
the distance was the oak tree near the main road. He sensed
movement and it raised his psychic hackles. His nostrils flared.
His eyes narrowed and his features pinched with tension. Soon, he
spied a figure walk around the rhododendron hedge and approach the
house. From his position five stories high, she appeared tiny and
but a silhouette against the stark whiteness of the ground. But he
knew it was Deliah.

Communing wi' nature, no
doubt,
he thought bitterly.

Twenty or so yards from the
house, she stopped and looked up at him. He couldn't make out the
details of her face, but he didn't have to. He had long memorized
her features and the set of each emotion they displayed.

Despite his resolve to purge
her from his system, a familiar ache manifested behind his breast.
His pulse quickened.

She entered the house and
Winston straightened, his hands remaining on the cold stones of the
higher level of the crenellations in front of him. If he stood on
the roof hatch, she couldn't push it open and intrude on his
temporary space. If he used his weight to bar her entry to the
tower, he wouldn't have to look into her eyes and wonder how many
seconds it would take before she weakened his resistance to touch
her.

He turned abruptly and
gasped when he saw her standing on the opposite side of the closed
hatchway. His heart seemed to rise into his throat and cut off his
oxygen. It wasn't possible she could have climbed to the tower in
less than a minute. Not possible that she could have opened and
closed the hatch without him hearing the faint creak of the hinges
on the cold-stressed wood planks.

Other bizarre factors
penetrated the haze gauzing his mind. The tower roof was bathed in
silver-blue moonlight—only the tower roof. Gazing upward, he saw a
portal in the cloud-clad sky, a portal through which he could see
velvet darkness bejeweled with stars. And the air surrounding him
was warm, caressing his exposed skin with the tenderness of a
lover's touch. Fragrances awakened his smelling sense. Spring
scents of flowers and trees and rich earth.

Clenching his teeth so hard
pain shot up his jawline, he turned his back to her and stared
blindly in the direction of the massive oak near the main road.
Feverishly, he wondered,
How does she do
this? Get inside ma head and create such illusions, I can't tell
them from reality?

Gulping down the
psychological solidity wedged in his throat, he heard himself
asking, "Wha' do you want?"

"Companionship."

Her dulcet tone tingled in
his ears, and he resented her for having such power over
him.

"I came up here to be
alone," he said, his vexation heightening.

"Aye, alone be wha' ye do
best."

Although her words were a
jab, her tone held no animosity, which was another facet of her
that irked him. She had the maddening ability to remain calm when
his insides were afire. An occasional glower or a chiding seemed to
be the extent of her temper. That wasn't normal. Hell, when he was
in the mood for an argument, he wanted a fair return. Word for
word. Anger for anger. Blow for blow if it came to it, although he
couldn't imagine ever raising a hand to a woman or child. He wasn't
in the mood to deal with passivity or sweetness. Shouting might
purge the tension viciously knotting his insides.

"Up to your jaunts again?"
he asked sarcastically, determined to bait her into either an
argument, or leaving him alone.

"No. I was up here earlier
and thought I saw the glow o' a fairy ring down by the oak. Alas,
twas only ma saddened heart havin’ a wee bit o' fun wi'
me."

Turning his head, he cast
her a petulant glare. "A fairy ring? I suppose you believe in
Santa, too?"

"I believe in all things
good and natural. Unlike ye, Winston Ian Connery."

Ah,
he thought,
she is looking for a
fight. Whenever she uses ma whole name, wha' little temper she has
is near the surface. Fine, lass. I'm game.

But he realized he had
stared at her too long, for the moonlight served to enhance her
loveliness, and the sight of her pierced him to his soul. Her eyes
were like fiery sapphires in a sea of porcelain skin. Dark, pouty
lips slightly parted in what he construed to be an open invitation
to be kissed. Button nose and soft dimples in her cheeks. The
graceful lines of her throat swept into proudly held shoulders. A
full-length dark blue robe was tied at her waist, the Vee in the
front revealing a small portion of her nightgown and just enough of
the swell of her breasts to make his blood sing with need. As
usual, her hair was unbound, the glossy strands reflecting the
moonlight in such a way he could almost believe the light shone
from within her.

Turning his head, he lowered
his chin to his chest and closed his eyes. This was not going as
he'd hoped. She was beating him without a fight. Getting inside him
without effort and winning the battle before it had really
begun.

He realized she was standing
next to him when she said, "We should be comfortin’ each ither, no'
tryin’ to compound our woes."

Lifting his head, he looked
askance at her profile. She was staring off into the distance, her
chin lifted as if she were braced for whatever he could verbally
toss her way.

"Tis empty here wi’ou'
Aggie," she said on a sigh. "So long be she a part o' this house, I
canna imagine never hearin’ her voice again."

"She's where she should be,"
he said dismissively.

After a moment, Deliah
turned and rested her right forearm on the tower wall. "Is this how
ye manage no' to feel pain, Winston? Pretend naught bothers
ye?"

"I believe I told you I
wanted to be alone." He looked into her eyes, his own hard and
unyielding. "Shall I leave, or will you?"

She studied his face for a
time, her expression unreadable.

"Ye enjoy bein’ cruel, dinna
ye? It must be comfortin’ to know ye have the power to hurt ithers
wi' a word, a glance. Does it make ye feel protected, Winston? Does
hidin’ behind yer mental walls help ye to ignore the tragedies and
joys o' life? I dinna think so."

Turning and placing his left
forearm atop the wall, he scowled at her. "Little Miss Saint, are
we?"

"No' ye," she chuckled
without mirth. "There be naught saintly abou' ye, Winston Ian
Connery. And I wouldna be testin’ the waters for a fight if I were
ye. Ye be ou' o' yer element wi' me."

His black eyebrows arched in
a challenge. A warm breeze tousled his hair and his outgrown bangs
fell across his face. Swiping them aside, he countered, "Is tha'
so?"

She nodded.

"Deliah, may your delusions
comfort you."

A hint of a smile glimmered
in her eyes. "When ye be in a snit, yer Scottish tongue awakens. It
pleases ma ears."

"Oh, I aim to please," he
said, his tone heavily laced with sarcasm. He continued, now
affecting a thicker Scottish burr and some of her speech
mannerisms. "Tell me, Deliah-lass, wha' be the real reason ye didna
permit we sorry mortals the privilege o' seeing the Light? Be it ye
have mair to hide than even ma futile imagination can conjure
up?"

"Ye are mockin’ me," she
said with a sigh.

"Ye be bloody right, lass.
Short o' conkin’ ye on the head, wha' will it take to get ye to
leave me alone?"

"Truth, spoken from yer
heart."

Her softly spoken words hung
in the air like a rain cloud about to burst. Winston turned
sideways to her, his jawline taut, short gusts of air channeling
through his nostrils.

"Ye be so perplexin’," she
said in a tone of resignation. "I dinna grasp hostility. Ma clan
knew naught o' war. We dinna raise our voices or our hands to one
anither. And tis no' our way to hold a grudge. Aye, we too often
disagreed amongst ourselves. And we were no' guiltless o' an unkind
word now and then, but we judged no' the differences in
ithers."

Sighing deeply, she dreamily
stared off into space. "Ma brither was ma joy back then. No' a mair
handsome lad have I seen. Och, and so charmin’, he was. Ma sisters
and I thought we blessed to have been given a brither so fair o'
face. He could melt mornin’ dew wi' a glance."

She swallowed convulsively
and went on, "His charm was his downfall, though. And ma clan’s. Ma
kingdom's.

"I keep wonderin’, Winston,
how it all came to end as it did. How could ma brither have
forgotten our ways? I had eften heard ma parents talk o' the
changes in him since his first meeting wi' Lady Lindsay, and how
her husband's wrath would one day touch us all. I was no' concerned
wi' anythin’ but ma brither's happiness. He was different than
maist o' us. Different in how he viewed life, and wha' he wanted
for his future.

"Once, he returned from Lady
Lindsay's bed in such a snit, he hardly seemed like ma brither
a’tall. His hands were clenched and when I asked him wha' was
wrong, he shook one o' them at me. I'd never seen fury as I saw in
his eyes tha' night. I've never understood wha' could have induced
him to feel such anger tha' he would want to vent it on someone
else." She sighed wistfully. "At least I didna understand till
meetin’ ye."

Winston jerked in surprise
and released a terse laugh. Her gaze crept around to pensively
regard him.

"So...it amuses ye to rile
me, does it? Would I be mair o' a womon if I slapped ye in the
face? Would such an act make me mair human in yer eyes?"

Scowling, he admitted,
"No."

"Then why provoke
me?"

"I don't know."

Nodding, she gazed off in
the direction of the oak again. "Ye will never accept no' knowin’,
will ye?"

"Wha' exactly are you
referring to?"

"Ye know exactly wha'," she
said peevishly, casting him a harried look.

"You spoke o' parents," he
said, his gaze dropping to the vicinity of her midriff. "Were you
hatched?"

Flabbergasted by the
question, she drew back with her eyes wide in disbelief.
"Hatched?
Hatched?"
She shimmied and released a groan of frustration. "Ye are
beyond provokin’ me!"

"Am I?" he asked with a wry
grin.

"Ye have no concept o'
nature or magic, do ye?" she sputtered, her beautiful eyes
snapping, her shoulders held tautly back. "Ye only accept wha' ye
deem normal, but I be mair normal than the likes o' ye!"

"I have a belly button," he
said airily. "An inny."

"Inny, sminny! Ye have an
inny brain, too, but I wouldna be braggin’ if I were
ye!"

"Explain an inny brain."
Although he said this with humor, his eyes were narrowed on
her.

"Inny bein’ wee and closed
off!"

He nodded
obligingly.

"When we clans are blessed
wi' wee ones, tis from the purest love," she huffed, her chin
angled up in defiance. "No, we dinna come from the womb o' one
anither, but from the womb o' MoNae's magic. Spouses must be pure
o' heart to be blessed wi' children, and ma parents' love produced
seventeen!"

"There are seventeen o'
you?" He glanced heavenward. "That's so comforting to
know."

When he looked at her, he
was chagrined to see tears welling up in her eyes. He'd gone too
far, this time, and he didn't know how to rectify the hurt
emanating from her trembling form.