Chapter Six

 

It was not pleasant, what she had to do. But she had no choice. She waited until she was sure Adam had left, until she heard the sound of his car driving away, and then she went up to the bedroom, lugging her equipment downstairs and through the double doors into the study. She spread a drop cloth on the floor, and set the tripod atop it. Then she stood the canvas up. She’d donned a smock for the occasion, and she pushed her sleeves back automatically. And then she stood poised, and still, and silent. She focused on the painting above the mantel. Not just with her eyes, but with her very soul. And she waited.

As always, it happened. Her hands chose a color, and squeezed a daub of it onto the palette. She didn’t look at the tube of paint. Her gaze never wavered from the painting as she sought to cling to that state of soul-deep concentration she had to achieve in order to work. Without looking away, she grabbed another color, and squeezed it beside the first. She dipped her brush in one, and then the other, and then back again, and she rolled the bristles against the wood until she felt the mixture was just right. Her eyes still on the painting, she lifted her brush.

With the first stroke, she heard Sister Mary Agnes’s voice, rustling like dried leaves in a wind, reading the Fairytale aloud as she had so often.

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, two princesses were born. No ordinary princesses, though. These babies were special. These babies were fay.

Brigit caught her lips between her teeth as they silently mouthed, “And that means fairy...” She bit down harder, and tried to tune the memories out. She needed to focus. But her hands continued wielding the brushes as if operating without her control, and the voice in her mind went on, skipping ahead.

Father Anthony found you and another tiny girl sleeping at the altar one morning. And each of you had a book just like this one.

It wasn’t real, Brigit told herself. It was a fairytale.

One with the name Brigit inside, and the other with the name of Bridin.

“And what happened to Bridin,” Brigit allowed herself to whisper. “What happened to my sister?”

Ridiculous. It was a fairytale, and there was no more to it than that. A story Sister Mary Agnes had used to give her comfort. Arid why was she thinking about the nonexistent Bridin so much just now, anyway? While thoughts and questions about the mysterious twin popped into her mind every once in a while, and always had, lately she’d been besieged with them. It seemed Bridin, real or make-believe, was a constant presence in Brigit’s mind these days. Why?

The painting. Something about this painting. God, it was all tangled up with her disjointed memories and that stupid fairytale she was beginning to wish she’d never heard! Sister Mary Agnes should have known better than to fill a child’s head with fantasy and tell her it was real. Didn’t she realize how confusing it could be?

Her hands moved faster, brushstroke upon brushstroke coating the canvas. Her arms worked furiously, and a thin sheen of sweat coated her forehead.

Confusing? No, it was maddening! Because Brigit had never known exactly where to draw the line between the story and the actual facts of her own life. Had her mother really died, for example? And had her father only given her up when he, too, was about to lose his life? Had there ever really been a twin sister? Or was all of that just part of the fairytale Sister Mary Agnes had passed on to her?

She hadn’t let those questions surface with this much insistence in years, because they only brought frustration. Her files were sealed. She’d never know. There was no way she’d ever know.

She blinked then, and her flying hands slowed a bit.

Maybe there was a way. Why hadn’t she considered it before? Adam would know. He was an expert in fairytales, wasn’t he? He’d published books on the subject, taught classes at the university. He probably knew every fairytale ever told. And she already knew he’d heard of hers. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have likened this painting to the forest of Rush. Where else would he have got that name? The fact was, he’d probably read accounts of the fairytale she’d always thought of as hers alone. And he would know. He could likely even tell her its origins, and point out hidden symbolism in the words. But most importantly, he’d know whether the twin sister was, indeed, just part of the story.

But how could she ask him? She certainly couldn’t tell him the truth. That she, orphaned Brigit Malone, who’d taken the last name of a homeless old man because she hadn’t had one of her own, had once believed herself to be the daughter of a fairy princess. He would laugh her right out of the house. And she couldn’t show him the book. Not now. She’d already told him she’d never seen this painting before. If he saw the book, he’d know that was a lie. Though the illustration in her book and the painting on his wall were different, they were also, obviously, the same. And she’d pushed his tolerance for lies too far, already.

She could ask him about the story, though. And since she was so bad at lying, she’d keep her version of things as close to the truth as possible. Without making him think she was totally insane, anyway.

She brought her gaze down, away from the painting on the wall, and focused on the canvas in front of her.

Perfect. She’d captured the background. The stunning blue of the sky and the silvery shapes of castle towers in the distance, hazy and unfocused. So a viewer might wonder if they were real, or just shapes in the clouds.

The world in the painting was a magical place. A place that couldn’t exist, except in the vivid world of imagination. The artist’s. And Sister Mary Agnes’s. And even her own.

A shame...such a shame...a place like that couldn’t be real.

 

***

And when she looks into your eyes, sir, you’re helpless to disagree. A man will grant her every wish, answer her every query, for his will melts under the power of her stare.

Adam closed the book and sat at his desk, staring down at the leather binding. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear the author was describing Brigit Malone. The woman who’d taken up residence in his house...and more importantly, in his mind.

He shouldn’t be thinking about her. Okay, he should be, but he should be thinking about what she could be up to, rather than what she looked like naked. The slender length of her limbs and the lightness and grace of her every movement. The spirals of hair curling against petal-soft skin. Those eyes. Those breasts. That glittering pendant dangling in between.

Adam groaned under his breath. Dammit, he was a fool. What he ought to be thinking about was the little detour he’d taken on his way in to work this morning. The one that went past her house, out on Sycamore. It had been a simple task to look for her address in the phone book. Simpler yet, to take a run by the place.

There was no sign of any construction going on in the neat white cottage. No sign at all. But that shouldn’t have surprised him. He’d known she was lying about that from the second the words had left her succulent lips.

He pulled his car onto the roadside, and went to the front door. Breaking and entering would have been the last thing Adam Reid would consider doing, under normal circumstances. However, things were far from normal between him and his houseguest. He had to know about her. He couldn’t help himself.

First he knocked, just to be sure no one was home. And then he peered through the window, cupping his hands on either side of his face to block the morning sun.

And a merciless hand gave his guts a ruthless twist. Because he spotted ordinary tilings, ordinary furnishings and a small television. But then he saw the other things. The telltale signs. The brown leather work shoes on the mat beside the door. Size eleven or so, he figured. The soft brown flannel shirt. The man’s CPO jacket on the coat rack.

He didn’t walk off the porch, he staggered from it. And only when he’d stood braced against the Porsche, gasping for air, had he noticed the damned mailbox. “Malone, R. F & Brigit.”

A man. She lived with a freaking man. And they shared the same last name.

Jesus.

“Jesus,” he muttered again now, as he sat at his desk, remembering. Wondering if R. F. Malone was the same man he’d heard her talking with on the phone last night. How the hell had he let himself fall into this? He was tangled up with a married woman. And he was so goddamned hot for her he couldn’t think straight. She had some kind of hold over his mind. Maybe it was deliberate, all part of whatever scheme she was hatching. He didn’t know. Until now, he’d thought he could let her stay until he found out.

Now though, he wasn’t so sure. He had a feeling the best thing to do would be to go home, right now, and throw her out on her ear.

Home. Yeah. He’d had a plan when he’d left there this morning. He’d intended to be back by noon, but he’d lied to her, deliberately told her he’d be gone all day long when he’d had every intention of arriving early, surprising her. Catching her red-handed...

Doing what, he wondered? Somehow, lifting the silver seemed beneath her.

Anyway, his well laid plans had gone to hell when old man Sneichowski had called a staff meeting, and made it a priority. Adam had no choice but to attend. This job was too damned important to risk incurring Sneichowski’s wrath.

Brigit put away her paints, cleaned her brushes, and carried the canvas upstairs to hide it in the back of the huge closet again. She managed to clean up the breakfast dishes in record time, but she hesitated at the idea of going into Adam’s bedroom. The idea was so disturbing...Why?

Grating her teeth, she told herself that a little housekeeping was the least she could do to make up for what she was going to take from him. She stiffened her spine, and walked down the broad hallway, past her own room, looking over the gleaming hardwood railing on the right, down into the study below. Her gaze lingered on the painting for a moment too long. She turned at Adam’s bedroom door, put her hand on the knob, and walked in.

And then she became lost in sensations. Because his scent lingered here in this place. Subtle. But here. Surrounding her, touching her skin.

The rumpled bed drew her gaze, and she moved toward it, unable to stop herself. She put her hands on the wrinkled sheets that bore the imprint of his body, and imagined she could still feel his warmth there. That bed, with its covers flung back, looked incredibly inviting.

She stopped herself from crawling into it. Barely. It took longer than it should have taken for Brigit to realize what was happening. That wanton inside was in the driver’s seat, running the show, acting out her carnal fantasies. Whispering how erotic it would feel to strip to the skin and slide between the sheets that had so recently been wrapped around Adam’s flesh. Brigit put an end to that at once, stiffening her spine and strengthening her resolve. She pushed that other one into her cell and closed the door. And then she efficiently made Adam’s bed, refusing to pay any attention to the images of him in it, of the two of them in it together, that hurtled through her mind.

When the job was finished she turned away, relieved. Her hands trembled. Her breaths came unsteadily. Her heart raced.

Swallowing hard, she bent to pick up his discarded robe. But as she did, she saw a fat book under his bed. And that made her pause.

Brigit licked her lips. She knew perfectly well she shouldn’t be doing this. She shouldn’t. But something drove her, probably the irreverent imp that lived in her soul, and she folded the robe to her chest with one arm, and reached for that book with the other.

An album, she saw as she tugged it out. A photo album. Her legs folded under her, and she pulled it into her lap. His terry robe ended up slung over one shoulder as she opened the cover and began studying photographs. Family photographs. And she knew instinctively that this album hadn’t belonged to Adam. It had belonged to his parents. There were baby pictures, dozens of them. And she knew by the golden hair and intense sapphire eyes—those wizard’s eyes—that they were of him. And later, school pictures. Year by year, she saw Adam grow. There was his kindergarten class photo. He stood proudly in the front row, beside a little girl with lopsided pigtails, and he must have been fighting that day, because he had a hell of a shiner.

And on the next page, a similar shot, this one of a cluster of first-graders. And again, he was easy to spot, because of the big, purple bruise high on one cheekbone.

Something broke inside Brigit as she continued turning pages. Something ached and cried, and an anger was born. She flipped the pages faster, and her throat closed off. Adam’s handsome young face appeared bruised in too many of these pictures. Here a shadow on his jaw. There a split lip. Here a tiny line of stitches in his forehead. One had his arm in a cast.

Confusion knitted her brows tightly, as she examined every page, until she knew the faces of Adam’s parents as well as she knew her own. And curiously, the bruises stopped showing up in Adam’s photos at about the same time his father stopped appearing in any of them. The last half of the book was filled with photos of a teenage Adam, and the young adult. Several shots of him with his mother. At his graduation from high school. From college. No bruises. No father.

The explanation was obvious. Tears filled her eyes, and she tipped her head to one side until her cheek rubbed against the terry robe on her shoulder. She inhaled, to smell him in the fabric. This was the source of all the pain she saw in his eyes, then. This was the wound that wouldn’t heal.

She could heal it. She knew she could, if he’d let her. Only...she’d have to injure him again before she finished, wouldn’t she?

“You enjoying yourself?”

She’d been looking forward to seeing him again, so she could ask about her fairytale. Only now, that was the farthest thing from her mind. She didn’t want to see him at all. Not like this. There was anger in his voice, and blazing from his eyes when her head snapped up and she faced him. But she understood that anger now. She knew about his old hurt.

And there really wasn’t a thing she could do about it, was there? No. Not when she’d come here to hurt him just a little bit more.

She closed the album, slid it back under the bed, and slowly stood up. “I’m sorry,” she told him. And she thought he must know it didn’t apply to her snooping.

She held his gaze, lifting one hand to swipe the tear from her cheek. The anger in his eyes flickered, lost power.

“You told me you were going to open up the shop today,” he said. “Why didn’t you?”

“I...got distracted.”

“I can see that.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she replied with a quick, guilty glance at the album under the bed. “The construction people called, and there were problems to be sorted out. Decisions I had to make.” She licked her lips. The lies were not flowing smoothly. Not easily. And his skeptical, piercing stare wasn’t making it any easier. “By the time I got everything sorted out with them, I just didn’t feel up to much of anything.”

 

Liar! he wanted to shout at her.

But that wasn’t all. There was more than her lies happening here. He’d expected to catch her up to no good when he’d come home. What he’d found, instead, had almost put him on his knees. She’d been curled up on his bedroom floor, absently rubbing his bathrobe against her satiny cheek, occasionally turning her nose to the fabric and inhaling, closing her eyes. She’d been crying. Staring down at something in that old album that had been under the bed since before Mother had died, and crying in silence.

Why?

She was lying, dammit. Lying about everything. Married, in all likelihood! He’d come here with every intention of telling her to leave. Go back to good old R. F., whoever the hell he was, and stay out of his life forever. So why wasn’t he?

She stepped closer to him. Closer still. And he only stood there, watching, waiting. She stopped when her body was so close to his there was barely space between them. He felt her heat, and more. A sort of tingling that seemed to leap from her flesh to his. As if she couldn’t help herself, she lifted one hand. When her fingertips touched his cheekbone, he sucked in a breath. But he didn’t move. Her touch traveled over his face, until her fingers skimmed the tiny scar on his forehead. And then she pressed her palms to either side of his head, tilted it downward and stood on tiptoe to press her lips to the very same spot.

She released him then and hurried from his room. He heard her car start up seconds later. And then it roared away, down the drive, fading in the distance.

What in the name of God was going on with her?

Frowning, Adam wondered just what there was in that old photo album that had got to her so much. And though his family history was something he tended to avoid like the plague, he reached for the album now, flipped it open, and scanned the pages, trying to see the photos through Brigit’s eyes.

And then it hit him. The bruises. The way she’d touched his face, kissed that scar on his forehead.

Ah, hell, she knew.

He heard her car pull in hours later. Hard not to, as noisy as it was. A tide of relief washed over him, that he’d chosen the perfect time to be away from the house. Sitting out here, on the cliffs. Telling himself that he shouldn’t be so mortified she’d learned about his secret. Hell, it didn’t make him less of a man, did it? He’d have fought back, if he’d been older. Hell, he’d have probably killed the old bastard.

It was the thought of her sympathy he couldn’t stand. He’d rather have her take him for whatever meager assets he still had, than to call her scheme on account of pity. He couldn’t handle that.

Nor could he look into her eyes knowing she’d seen those photos. Not yet, anyway. So, like a coward, he’d come out here to hide from her. He sat staring down at the roiling waters of the lake, waiting for the storm she’d predicted to move in. She’d been right about that.

So in tune is she with nature, that even the weather cannot hide its face from her seeking eyes. Whatever she wishes to know is eventually revealed to her. Such is the nature of the fairies.

He shook his head at the utter nonsense reverberating in his head. Passages from that Celtic text. He’d been reading it too much. Determined for some reason to get through every page of it as soon as possible.

As if it were anything but another tale to add to the collection.

“Adam?”

He didn’t turn. He only went stiff at the sound of her voice. “How did you know I was out here?” If she gave him some mystical answer about just knowing he was going to scream.

“I looked for you in the study. Saw you through the windows.”

“Ah.”

“I came out here to apologize. For going through your album before. It was...it was wrong. I’m sorry.”

He said nothing, but a second later she was sitting beside him on the flat stone ledge that jutted out over the lake’s rocky shore. “The view from here is incredible.”

He turned to look at her, then. Surprisingly enough, there was no pity in her eyes. No hint of the secret she’d discovered. No sign she’d use the knowledge against him. He saw acceptance in her eyes, instead. Maybe understanding. Nothing more.

The incoming wind whipped tendrils of her hair loose. He wanted to undo the braid that held those satin locks captive. He wanted to pull her glasses off and set them aside so he could really look into her eyes.

“There’s a storm coming, you know,” she said, turning her face into the wind. And almost as if she’d read his thoughts, she took the glasses off and set them down.

“I know.”

She nodded.

“She hated storms,” he said, and it was as if the words just leapt from his tongue without permission.

“Your wife?”

He met her eyes, wondered how she saw things even he didn’t see. “Yeah.”

“Has it been...very long?”

Why was it, he wondered, that whenever he spent time with Brigit, he wound up answering questions he’d have decked anyone else for even daring to ask him. “Almost a year since she walked out. Along with my best friend, and most of my money. One big happy family.” He continued staring out at the whitecaps, and the foaming lake. And he heard her thoughtful sigh.

“No wonder you’re bitter.”

“Not bitter...just a little poorer. And a lot wiser.”

“Wiser? In what way?”

“I know better than to trust again,” he said, and he knew she’d disagree. She needed him to trust again, didn’t she? She needed him to trust her, if she was going to pull off whatever it was she was planning.

“That’s a hard line to hold...a lonely way to live.”

“Lonely is better than used, Brigit. Besides, who the hell is there to trust, hmm? Who would you suggest I start with? You?”

She met his eyes, held them steady. “No. Not me.”

He studied her face. So perfectly lovely. So open and honest. So goddamn deceiving. Sitting there in the darkness with the wind in her face, telling him not to trust her. What the hell was it about her, anyway, that drew him so much?

“I get the feeling,” she whispered, tilting her head and raking his face with her eyes, “that this bitterness started long before your wife left you, though. I get the feeling it started a long time ago. In your childhood.”

He lowered his chin to his chest. So she wasn’t going to let it go after all. “The only thing I learned in my childhood, Brigit, was not to believe in fairytales.”

She laughed, but it was a sad sound.

“What’s funny?”

She reached up to tuck a loose lock of hair back into place, and he caught his own hand lifting, reaching out, as if to stop her. Or to tin-twist her hair and watch the wind shake it loose. He stopped himself in the nick of time.

“Not funny, ironic. Fairytales were the only thing I did believe in.” The wind blew a little more of her hair free again. “I wonder which is worse,” she said softly, thinking it through out loud, he thought. “Believing so strongly and having the fantasy shattered? Or never having the chance to believe at all?”

She reached up to push the hair into place again, and this time he covered her hand with his own, stopping her. And she turned her head, met his eyes. So much pain there. And he had to know. He had to.

“Tell me,” he heard himself whisper, and the sound of the words was swallowed up by the wind, but he knew she heard them all the same. “Tell me what you believed in so strongly. I really want to know.”

She lowered her chin to her chest. “If you’ll talk to me about what you learned not to believe in,” she replied.

Watching the way her lips moved nearly did him in. But he blinked and gave his head a shake. “I don’t talk about that,” he told her. “Not to anyone, Brigit. Don’t ask me to.”

“Do you talk about your father, Adam? Do you talk about what he did to you?”

He wanted to look away, and he couldn’t. “No,” he said. “Because it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“He hurt you. He’s still hurting you. That matters.”

“Not to me, it doesn’t.”

“To me, then.”

Adam closed his eyes to block out the sincerity in hers. He wasn’t going to talk to her about this. He wasn’t. He...

“You know, they say abused kids can grow up to be abusers.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “I’ve heard that.”

“But not necessarily, you know?”

“Of course not. Lots of abused kids grow up to be wonderful parents.”

“You know why?” Why? Good question, he thought. Why am I blurting my most secret feelings to this woman? This stranger? And yet his mouth kept right on moving. “Because they know what a little kid longs for in his heart. They know how bad it is for a kid to go without the one thing he craves. All it takes to put a kid right in paradise, is for his parents to love him, Brigit. It’s so damned simple. Why can’t more adults see that?”

He felt her hand covering his where it rested on the stone.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Maybe they’re blind.”

“They are. I’ll tell you something, Brigit, when I have a son, I’m going to love him with everything in me.” He opened his eyes, saw her staring at him, and saw her tears. “Don’t pity me.”

“I’m not. I’m jealous of you.”

He lifted his brows.

“You’ll be a wonderful father, someday, Adam,” she told him. “Your children will be lucky, and beautiful, and your family, deliriously happy. I envy that. I really do.”

No pity. No poor baby routine. Maybe it was okay that he’d opened up to her a little bit. Maybe having her validate his fondest dreams would make them more real, more possible.

Or maybe she’d throw them right back in his face someday. He’d forgotten her lies for a few minutes, hadn’t he? And somehow she’d tricked him into sharing his oldest pain with her. How had she done that?

“I don’t want to talk about me anymore,” he said, looking away from her.

“All right.”

His relief was intense. Almost as if, had she insisted, he’d have had no choice but to go on with the conversation. To tell her every secret he had. Which was crazy, of course. She was still looking at him, still searching his eyes. And when he looked into hers he couldn’t stay angry over her supposed invasion of his mind. Instead he fixated on her mouth, and decided if she didn’t start using those lips to talk with, he was going to find another occupation for them.

“Tell me,” he coaxed, drawn into her eyes and stuck there like a fly trapped in a spider’s web. Saying whatever foolish words popped into his mind, because he was too entranced by her to censor himself. She was spinning some kind of magic, damn her. And he was eating it with a spoon. “Tell me about the fairytales you believed in.”

She smiled very slightly, not smugly. Maybe it was more of a self-conscious smile. “I wanted to tell you anyway. So that maybe, you could tell me where the story came from. There are parts of it. . . parts that are important for me to understand.”

“I will, if I can.” Anything, he thought vaguely. Right now—out here with the dark clouds skittering over the half moon, making shadows on her face, and the wind coming off the lake, whipping more tendrils of her hair loose until they reached toward him, caressing his cheeks like loving fingers—right now, he’d do anything she asked of him.

She leaned back, hands flat on the ground behind her, and her legs stretched out in front, one crossed over the other at her ankle. She wore no stockings tonight. Her lean legs were bare and smooth and tempting him to touch. To taste. He realized she was barefoot. And he thought about kissing her again, from her toes to her hips. He fought the impulse with everything in him.

God, she was beautiful. Like an angel. Or something else ethereal and elusive and mysterious. Something you could glimpse and observe and long for, but too precious ever to hold.

But he wanted to hold her. He wanted it so much he couldn’t look away. Utterly mesmerized by her eyes and the deep, sultry sound of her voice, he listened to her as she began to tell him her story.

Her eyes focused on the roiling lake. But her gaze was turned inward as she began, “Once upon a time...”