Page 21

Had guilt always been such a powerful force in her life? It was one of those questions that kept Syrie awake at night.

She lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, wishing she could turn off her overactive mind. She had an early shift tomorrow at the restaurant, and if she didn’t get to sleep soon, she was going to be one very tired woman before she left work.

Logic did nothing to help. Her mind still wandered back to Patrick, forcing her to confront the day all over again, playing everything through her mind for at least the hundredth time.

All through dinner, through all the accolades for the wonderful job she did on the cake, she had waited for Patrick to speak up. Waited for him to claim the credit he deserved. Even when she’d made her one, admittedly feeble attempt to direct some of the praise toward him, he’d placed it all back in her lap. Hardly the actions of the arrogant, egotistical man she’d always pegged him to be. The evening, the whole day, left her with no choice but to re-evaluate her original opinion of the man.

More than anything, she hated being wrong. Almost more than anything. She hated being wrong and being the bad guy most of all. And when she considered the way she had acted toward Patrick on more than one occasion, it left her feeling like the bad guy. True, he’d been way out of line on the night he’d kept her from going out with Gino. But, in retrospect, he had been right about what she had intended to wear.

What he hadn’t known, what she never would have admitted to him, was that a big reason for her choice of clothing that night had been to see if she could make him jealous.

“Stupid,” she muttered, feeling her cheeks heat at the memory.

She was much too old to behave in such an immature manner. That was behavior she’d expect from some tender young thing suffering through the throes of her first crush.

“Stupid,” she said again, sitting up in bed and staring out the window into the night.

Stupid was right. It wasn’t like she had feelings of any sort for Patrick.

Or did she?

She closed her eyes tight, struggling to replace the image of him with the one of the shrouded figure from her dreams, but her effort was useless. No matter how hard she tried, it was always Patrick’s face, Patrick’s eyes, that looked back at her from the depths of that hooded cloak.

Maybe that was because she could hear him banging around in the bathroom right now.

With an annoyed huff of breath, she swung her legs out of bed and stood, hesitating for only a moment to reconsider what she was about to do. No, she might as well get it over with. It wasn’t like she was going to get any sleep anyway. Maybe if she thanked him for what he’d done for her today, she could get him off her conscience and get some rest.

At the bathroom door, she paused again, fitting her ear up to the wood to try to determine whether or not he was still inside the little room. The muffled sound of water turning on and off filtered through the door. No question, he was still in there.

Last chance to change her mind and scurry back to her bed like some frightened mouse.

“I am no mouse, frightened or otherwise,” she muttered, and knocked.

“Aye?” Patrick called out. “Come in if you like. The door’s no’ locked.”

Of course it wasn’t. Not that she could really complain to him on that account, since she’d done the same thing herself this very day.

A cloud of warm, moist air greeted her as she opened the door, and only then did she regret not having asked him whether or not he was decent before she entered. As it turned out, he was, though only by the loosest of definitions.

“Did you want something of me?” he asked, wiping a small towel over his face to remove the remains of shaving cream.

Was he kidding? He stood there, towel in hand, bare feet and bare chest. Her gaze fixated on one single drop of water rolling down the center of that bare chest, like rain down a carved ravine. Did she want something of him? What she was wanting at the moment couldn’t be discussed in proper company. At least he had jeans on, though the top button was undone and they seemed to simply rest on his hips, in danger of falling at any moment. Thank the Goddess he wore something.

She barely had time to register the words that had just run through her mind, let alone question them, before he spoke again, sending all her thoughts tumbling around until she could barely form a response.

“I do enjoy the razors they have now. It’s a fair, smooth feel they leave on yer skin, is it no’? Here,” he said, catching up her hand and lifting it to his cheek. “Feel for yerself. It’s nice, aye?”

“Nice,” she managed to answer, though the words did their best to stick on her thickened tongue.

More than nice. Once he released her hand, her fingers clenched into a fist at her side so she wouldn’t test the feel of his bare chest, too.

“You’ve yet to tell me what it was that brought you in here,” Patrick said, his attention seemingly focused on tidying up the sink. “There was something, was there no’? I doubt you came in for no reason but to admire me shaving.”

“There was,” she agreed, though she was doubting it herself at the moment. “I wanted to thank you for all your help today. The cleaning, the company, everything. And though I’ve no idea how you made that wonderful cake appear, I’m grateful to you for it.”

Maybe that nasty streak of guilt would be put to rest now and she could get some sleep.

“It’s no’ me you have to thank for the baking of that cake. It’s Mrs. Whitman.”

Mrs. Whitman? Syrie couldn’t remember having spoken more than ten words to the old woman next door, and almost all of those were Mrs. Whitman complaining about something or asking for a favor of some sort.

“But how? Why would she do that?”

“It was easy enough,” he said with a shrug. “After the two days I spent helping with those damned bees of hers, she owed me. And, with no more than the promise of another day’s labor, she agreed to help. She’s quite the baker, actually. And quite the shrewd negotiator, too.”

Manual labor? He’d basically hired out his services for nothing more than a cake. A cake that benefited Syrie, not him.

“Why would you do something like that for me?”

He chuckled, a deep, soothing sound that rumbled up from his chest. “You have yer answer right there. Because it was for you. To make you happy. Do you no’ ken by now, mo siobhrag, I’d do anything for you.” Reaching out, he placed his knuckles against her cheek, his thumb strumming against her temple.

A simple contact, nothing more than his hand lightly stroking the side of her face. And yet it felt as if he held her fast, shackled to him by rope and wire.

Or maybe she only wanted to be shackled to him.

“It would be so easy to believe your words,” she said, her eyes captured by his as surely as his touch held her body captive.

“I speak only the truth to you,” he said, his eyes darkening as he spoke. “I could do nothing else. You may believe me.”

Believe him she did. With nothing more than his words for proof, she found herself falling into a deep chasm where nothing existed except her, him and the reassuring sound of his voice.

The same voice that whispered a string of nonsense words into her ear, soft and low, once she found herself in his arms. And then, somehow, his lips covered hers. A moment later, her hands roamed freely over the chest she’d imagined caressing since the first moment she’d seen him.

If she were ever to find herself in heaven, surely it would be exactly like this.

His hands slid down her shoulders, taking the straps of her nightgown with them. His mouth was on her neck by the time she felt the silky scrap of material pool on the floor at her feet.

“By Freya,” he moaned, his forehead against hers. “Yer the most beautiful thing that’s ever graced my life.”

She would thank him, if she could. Thank him and tell him how beautiful he was, too. If only she could manage to form the words.

But somehow all she could think of was getting his mouth back down to hers. Feeling his tongue as it traced a path over the outline of her lips.

His arm slid down her back, down, to rest behind her legs, enabling him to scoop her off her feet. Talented man that he was, he did it all without breaking the kiss she currently enjoyed.

“Yer room or mine?” he asked, his voice husky, breathless.

“We can’t,” she said. “If anyone were to come up and find either of us not in our room, it would look…”

She left it hanging, more annoyed with herself than anything else. Why did she care what anyone thought about what she did? Why couldn’t she just this once do whatever she wanted?

“No’ if they hear the water.” He stepped into the tub and, without shifting his hold on her, turned the water on. “Whichever room they come to, they’ll think we’re in the shower, aye?”

“And we are,” she murmured as he slowly lowered her to her feet.

The water, warm and comforting, poured down on their heads, running in happy little torrents down Patrick’s chest. Happy little inviting torrents.

She leaned into him, slowly lowering herself as she traced her tongue along one of those torrents. At his waistband, she stopped, her fingers fumbling with the button that blocked her path. His hands fastened around her upper arms, pulling her back up to stand, just before he returned the favor of torrent-tracing.

The pleasure of it all was surely going to drive her completely insane. When she thought she could stand no more, he rose to tower over her, smoothing her wet hair from her face as he pressed his now naked body against hers, her back easing up against the wet tile of the shower wall.

“I’ve waited for you my whole life,” he murmured as he entered her. “I’ve waited for this.”

Their gasps were identical echoes of one another. A moment to regain themselves and he lifted her legs to clasp around his back. She gave herself over to the sheer intensity of feeling as he withdrew and entered her again, repeatedly, going deeper with each thrust.

She missed the beginning of his release, already lost in the throes of her own. It was like standing on a precipice, peering out into the most beautiful valley she’d ever seen. And when she tipped over the edge, she was flying, destined for a perfect landing.

Patrick had said he was searching for his future, his destiny. In this moment, their bodies locked together, she knew she’d found her own.

In that moment of realization, her mind exploded into a miasma of colors and shapes, pulsing around her, demanding her attention. Sounds, feelings, vague but insistent, they pummeled against the inside of her head as if in a mass hysteria of exodus. Colors, shapes, sounds and feelings, building in intensity. Colors, shapes, sounds, feelings and, all at once, memories, tumbling over one another in their haste to return to the place they belonged.

Memories of everything. Who she was, how she’d gotten here, all of it. She could clearly see her life before she’d come to this place. Wyddecol and the Temple of Danu, Castle MacGahan and all the people she’d left behind. All the people she cared for. And towering over it all, with eyes of piercing blue, stood Patrick.

She looked up into the concerned eyes of the man who held her in his arms.

She remembered everything.

She remembered Patrick.

* * *

“I know you,” Syrie murmured, tears pooling in her eyes to mix with the spray of the shower running down her beautiful body.

Patrick thought his heart might well burst from the love he felt.

“I should hope you know me,” he said, forcing a grin to break the tension of the moment. “After what we just did, I’d no’ like you to think of me as a stranger.”

“No,” she said as she shook her head and brought her hands to rest on either side of his face. “I know you. I remember you. I remember me. I remember everything.”

His vision misted over as he realized what she was telling him, and he drew her close, crushing her to his chest.

His Syrie was returned to him.

He held her until the temperature of the water changed so that it was as if they stood in a mountain stream rather than a hot spring, and Syrie began to shiver in his arms.

Reluctant to let her go, Patrick reached down and turned off the water. With one hand still clutching her arm, he pulled one of the big towels from its rack to wrap around her before lifting her out of the tub and carrying her to his room. He left her sitting on the stool in front of the big mirrored dresser to go back for her robe. When he returned, he found her using the towel in an attempt to dry her hair. He held the robe for her to slip her arms into and then wrapped his plaid around his own waist before he reached into the top drawer to pull out the comb he’d carried with him to this time. Syrie’s comb.

“Where did you get that?” she asked, her eyes meeting his in the reflection of the mirror.

“Yer room at Castle MacGahan.”

He didn’t add that he’d been wild with grief and fear, searching desperately for any clue as to where she’d gone.

“How did you find me?”

“Orabilis.” That name should explain well enough, though perhaps he wasn’t giving all the credit due. “And Editha Faas.”

Syrie nodded thoughtfully, her eyes once again capturing his in the mirror. “You were aware of where you would have to come to find me? When you would have to follow to?”

It was his turn to nod. “I was.”

“And you followed me anyway.”

It wasn’t a question any more than he had questioned whether or not to come after her.

“I would follow you anywhere, mo siobhrag. Anywhere in the world. Anywhere in time.”

“You’d do all that,” she said with a smile lighting her eyes. “But you won’t cease from calling me an Elf.”

Apparently her memories of the old language had returned with all the others. Interesting she didn’t comment on his having referred to her as my Elf. He should pursue that. Should question her.

If he didn’t fear her answer.

But he had no reason to fear, did he? Hadn’t Orabilis told him she would regain her memories only when she fell in love with him again? Her memories had returned, so it stood to reason…

Still, he doubted. Doubted that he, the unworthy third son, should find the good fortune to have a woman such as Syrie return his love.

“Are you ready to return home with me?” he asked, hesitant to face his real question.

Syrie reached up to place a hand over his, stopping him as he drew the comb through her hair. “I’m not sure I want to go back, Patrick. I have a place here. Friends. A new family. A home where I’m wanted.”

“Yer wanted in yer own time, as well,” Patrick said quietly, the fear growing in his heart.

“Where would that be that you think I’m wanted? I’m but another mouth for your brother to worry over feeding at Castle MacGahan. Certainly not even you could think that I’m wanted in Wyddecol. My people have made it abundantly clear they don’t want me there.” Syrie shook her head as if to deny any protest he might make and slipped the comb from his fingers to run it through her hair. “No. I think maybe it’s best if I go on being Syrie Alburn, the girl with no memory.”

“You’ll no’ be safe here, Syrie. The Fae willna leave you in peace. No’ with yer memory returned. Yer too great a danger to them, no matter what time yer in.”

“Ridiculous,” she huffed. “They threw me away. They wouldn’t have done that if they considered me a threat. They could not care less about me. And I’m not needed at Castle MacGahan any longer, so I’ll stay here where there are people who care about me. People I might be able to help in some way.”

“You were no’ a threat without your memory. No’ a threat before I came after you. But you remember now. Now you are a threat to them.”

His explanation wasn’t at all what he wanted to say. What about me? he wanted to ask. What about us?

Asking those questions would mean giving up any pretense of pride. Asking would mean opening himself up to the possibility of the greatest rejection, the greatest pain he’d ever encountered. And yet asking was the only way he would know for sure.

“Syrie,” he began, getting no further, thanks to a bloodcurdling scream from downstairs.

“Ellen,” Syrie breathed, her eyes wide with fear as she surged to her feet.

He was already headed out the door and down the stairs with Syrie following closely on his heels.

It took only a second to absorb the meaning of the scene awaiting them in the living room. Ellen held a lamp in front of her, brandishing it like a weapon to keep the stranger with a long knife at bay. Blood dripped from her arm but she seemed unaware of the wound, her eyes flashing with each swing she took at the wild-eyed man.

“Call Danny,” she yelled, not taking her eyes off the man. “Come into my home, will you? Threaten my friends? I don’t think so.”

As if Patrick had any intention of waiting for Ellen’s brother in a situation like this! He was vaguely aware of Syrie grabbing the telephone as the bright haze of battle settled around him and he charged the intruder. His body hit the man like a battering ram as he grabbed the wrist of the hand holding the knife. The two of them crashed against the wall and slid to the floor, Patrick on top of the smaller man. Patrick forced the hand holding the knife into the air and then slammed it to the floor, sending the knife skittering across the wood as the attacker’s fingers splayed wide.

Beneath him, the intruder kept up a litany of words, repeating them over and over, as if he were unaware that whatever he’d planned to do, it certainly wasn’t going to happen now.

“Find Elesyria. Destroy. Find Elesyria. Destroy.”

Patrick lifted himself off the man’s body long enough to flip him over onto his stomach and pull his arms up behind him. There, he waited, his knee in the man’s back to make sure the bastard didn’t try to follow through on the threat he continued to repeat.

“Danny’s on his way,” Syrie said, hurrying to Ellen’s side. “It’s all going to be okay now. Let me have a look at that arm.”

“Sonofabitch,” Ellen spat out, her breath coming in great heaves. “Thought you could come in here and attack my family, did you? Not in this lifetime, fella.”

As if the statement took the last of her strength, Ellen let the heavy lamp drop, shattering at her feet, before Syrie led her over to sit on the sofa.

With the man still squirming under his hold, Patrick looked toward Syrie, catching her frightened gaze.

“Everything is going to be okay now,” she said again, as if to force the statement to be truth.

“You ken as well as I do, yer wrong on that count,” he said. “He’s no’ the first and he willna be the last. They’ll continue to come. There will be even more of them now that you remember.”

Syrie’s expression blanked as she nodded her acknowledgment of his words. Her hands busily worked at wrapping a towel around the wound on Ellen’s arm. When she’d done all that she could, she rose to her feet and disappeared upstairs.

Outside, the whine of a police siren shattered the quiet night, while red and blue lights flashed through the window, creating a colorful show on the walls.

Danny had arrived with reinforcements. They swarmed into the small room, relieving Patrick of his perch, freeing him to go after Syrie.

He found her in her room, dressed in a gown he remembered all too well from the few times he’d seen her wear it. A gown of green flowing material he had not one single doubt had its origins in Wyddecol.

“What are you doing?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“You were right,” she said, tears glazing her eyes. “I can’t stay here. Not now. Not if it means putting my family here in danger.”

“What do you want to do?” he asked. “It’s yer call. You’ve only to tell me your wish.”

“I want to go after them,” she said, her chin lifted. “I want to make them pay for what they did to Ellen. Make them pay for what they did to the Goddess. Make them pay for what they did to me. But how can I? I’m only one woman.”

This was not the Syrie he knew. Not this broken, unsure woman. His Syrie would never admit defeat. Never allow anyone to shake her confidence in herself. She was still in there. He knew she had to be. He had but to drag her out and expose her to the light of day.

“One woman.” Patrick snorted, pleased to see surprise replace the defeat in her expression. “You ken as well as I do, yer so much more than that. Yer a powerful Fae who takes a backseat to none. That’s why they’ve come after you. It’s the power you wield they fear.”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, sounding for all the world like a lost child.

“You do know. And as to being alone, yer no’ that.” He crossed the room to fold her in his embrace. “You’ll never be that. No’ for as long as I draw breath.”

“Oh, Patrick,” she said, searching his eyes as if she thought to find herself in there. “I think you just might be the best thing that ever happened to me.”

That was only fair. Because Syrie was definitely the best thing that had ever happened to him.