Chapter Eleven #3
She understood why he had worn his gloves, but she hoped that they could somehow overcome that, because she certainly wanted to touch him.
“If you need anything at all, I’m down the way, on the other side of the balcony.” Daniel stepped back as if he sensed her slightly steamy thoughts. “There are stairs on that end that lead down to the kitchen, if you need a snack or a drink or something.”
“Thank you,” she said, trying not to convey anything beyond what her words and smile expressed.
His gaze rested on her mouth for so long that it felt as if his lips had brushed hers.
She tried not to react. One stray thought, one hint of the attraction she was feeling, and he could be in her arms. But she resisted.
If he touched her, it would have to be his feelings, not hers, urging him forward.
“You’re welcome,” he said. Then he was gone, shutting the door quietly behind him.
Standing in the middle of this cozy nest he had tucked her into, she realized that it wasn’t fair to expect him to tell her about his ability unless she was willing to tell him about hers.
You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.
She dug out her toiletry bag, determined to at least rinse off the road dust, and went to find out what he had meant about the bathroom.
He was right. Between the claw-footed bathtub and white wicker shelves full of towels, it did look Victorian. But the rainfall showerhead and pull-around curtain confirmed it was thoroughly modern.
One long, luxurious shower later, she pulled on her favorite nightshirt and climbed into bed. She turned off the lamp and drifted off, pleased to note that she no longer smelled anything like burned RV.
Daniel buried his face in the cool pillow, taking in the subtle scent of the herbal soap Ouida used on everything, trying to forget the way Mel smelled.
In Italy, she’d smelled of meadow grass and honey, but tonight she’d smelled like the misty fog that wreathed the mountain, with a hint of wood smoke.
If he could coax her to try one of Ouida’s biscuits with some of his honey, then he might find out later how that would taste on her lips.
Butter and honey, like the color of her hair.
Sweetness and light, like the expression on her face as she had jumped from her car.
That look of undisguised joy had washed right through him.
Only later, when the RV fire had been brought up, had he remembered that her life was still in danger.
Maybe the last dream he’d had hadn’t been a real vision.
Maybe he’d become so obsessed with his visions that he’d invented one.
Mel only appeared because he was worrying about her arrival.
Maybe it wasn’t a pregnant Mel he’d seen in his arms. Maybe it wasn’t her petite form he’d carried in those blankets.
But it was. He knew it. Once again, his visions had shown him the end of a relationship that hadn’t even begun. The plague that lurked in the future was not only going to take his unborn child, but Mel as well. And he hadn’t even had a chance to fall in love with her yet.
“Dammit.” It was Diana all over again. And he would have to make sure, just as he had with Diana, that the future he had seen would never happen.
It would be easier this time since they weren’t even a couple yet. He would be a cordial host, answer whatever additional questions she had for her article, show her around the mountain, and send her on her way. No romance. No trauma. No drama. No baby to lose.
No Mel dying in his arms.
He turned over yet again, yanking the tangled covers with him.
No one in his arms at all, ever. He wasn’t going to put himself through this again.
If he had to build a cabin deeper in the woods and become a damn hermit, he’d do it.
Hell, he didn’t have a job anymore and wouldn’t be able to hang on to one in this condition.
Based on what Grace had told him, isolating himself might be the only way for him to survive.
But that was surviving, not living. He wondered if this ability was seated somewhere in his brain, and if some skilled surgeon could find it and cut it out, like the malignancy it was. He could be free of this… this…
Gift.
Even Grace could not be certain these gifts were completely benign. Unexplained. Preternatural. Part of some great design set in motion ages ago, if Granny Lily’s cryptic notes were to be believed.
If you thought about it, that made the whole thing even more disconcerting. Were they cogs in some ancient machine? Witless tools of some…
Some who?
Some what?
Pops had called her the Mother when he repeated the stories his Papaw had told him.
Granny Lily, in the journal that Grace had found last year, said the people had “called her by many names.” Both of them had talked about the old magic.
Pops’ stories were only echoes of much older tales, gentle explanations of the honeybees’ dance, or of fireflies flashing in unison. Nothing foreboding—just awe-inspiring.
But the last pages of Granny Lily’s journal, written just before the turn of the last century, seemed to contain cryptic and prescient warnings about the destruction of the earth’s environment.
And tonight, the future had seemed to reach into the present to tell him to trust something he could neither prove nor measure. It had shaken him more than he was willing to admit.
Nick had summarized it well. Call it magic, call it super science, call it Dave. It’s nothing we can comprehend at the moment. And then “Dave” had proved his point.
Until tonight, Daniel’s dreams and visions had been his alone. He could write them off as some aberration of blood vessels or his memory playing tricks on him. Some part of his brain that was supercharged and able to see long chains of causality and predict events, maybe. Weird, but natural.
Then, somehow, Nick had gotten dragged along on one of his visions, and Daniel knew all those carefully constructed theories of his were so much hogwash.
Nick was right. It didn’t matter if it was natural or preternatural.
It was so far removed from the norm that, by any other name, it looked like magic.
Someone had said something like that once, something about advanced technology looking like magic, depending on who was looking.
Though she was skeptical and cautious, Grace thought these gifts were part of some kind of intervention.
A plan. Something to help the world, maybe even save it.
She and Nick, both as levelheaded as they come, had continued to search through Granny Lily’s belongings, looking for clues to the direction this intervention would take.
Daniel rolled over, his thoughts as tangled as the sheets now.
It seemed na?ve, like believing in Santa or the tooth fairy.
Or Pops’ story about how fireflies were stars that had come down from the sky to listen to the Mother sing, and how they’d been trapped here when She had gone silent.
How, now and again, the fireflies remembered that song they’d heard long ago and flashed together in harmony.
Daniel had seen it happen a few years ago right here on Woodruff Mountain—fireflies on the trees and grass and underbrush, and in the air, flashing in unison with some rhythm only they could hear.
He and Jamie had been on the lookout in that same spot on the mountain every June but had never seen it happen again.
Jamie had even written a paper on it for school.
Maybe they would show up this year. The whole phenomenon would make a great article for Mel.
Mel…
Mel was right across the balcony. Just a few steps away.
He would have to keep her at arm’s length for the duration. He wouldn’t risk her heart or his, and he wasn’t about to risk her life.
Just a few steps away.
He remembered the touch of her silky skin under his palms, the cream and chocolate taste of her mouth, the smell of her hair, those breathy little moans she made, and the way her fingers tugged through his hair. Had that happened, or was it another dream?
Daniel tossed again, pulling the pillow with him and flipping it. The cool cotton did nothing to chill his heated thoughts.
He thought about dragging himself out of the bed and taking a cold shower. Then he thought about going downstairs and opening another bottle of wine.
Think about the fireflies. Like counting sheep. Fireflies flashing on every available surface. Flash, flash, flash, flash. Pause. Flash, flash, flash…
“You’re inviting me to go out and watch a firefly courtship ritual? Is this an insect joke?” Mel settled onto the blanket. “If it’s not, it is about the most original excuse I have ever heard to lure a woman into the woods.”
“I don’t need an excuse,” Daniel said, standing over her. “I pick up my woman and sling her over my shoulder before I carry her off into the caves.”
Mel tilted her head, looking at him upside down. “Oooh. I am all tingly inside. Are we doing the I-sprained-my-ankle-you’ll-have-to-carry-me thing tonight? Or the is-that-a-poisonous-snake-over-there thing?”
He knelt on the blanket beside her. “Bored already, Mrs. Woodruff?” he asked. “I was working on this whole new thing involving honey and—”
Mel leaned over to kiss him. She had intended it to be a quick peck, but he plowed his fingers into that short hair and deepened the kiss.
He would never tire of kissing this woman. Feeling her lips, soft and warm beneath his, opening to him so eagerly. Hot and sweet, like Ouida’s spice cake with cream cheese frosting.
Daniel pulled away. “Whipped cream,” he finished.
“Sounds sticky.” She brought one finger to her mouth as if she was licking it off.
“Not when I’m finished,” he said, his voice husky.
He watched her eyes darken as she stuck out her tongue and ran it slowly over her lower lip. They had perfected this game, and he loved it.
It’s just a dream.
“Yum.” She leaned back on her hands and let her gaze slide down his body. “If you keep up this whole food fetish thing much longer, your woman will be entirely too heavy to sling over your shoulder.”
He bent to take in the scent of her hair. Damn, he loved the way she smelled.
She stiffened and sat up, nearly knocking him over as she pointed. “Oh! I saw one!”
He turned and saw a flash in the blackness.
“They’re early. Turn off the lantern,” he said.
She reached for the light they had used to find their way here and switched it off, leaving only the starlight that filtered through the trees. Daniel settled behind her on the blanket, putting his legs on either side of her and leaning over to wrap himself around her, his chin on her head.
“That’s right, show your dominance by smothering and squishing me,” she squeaked. “I must warn you. My husband is teaching me aikido, and I can throw you into that tree over there.” She squinted into the darkness. “If that is a tree over—Oh!”
There was another flash. Then an answering flash. Then several more. Then the show really started, like thousands of tiny Christmas lights draping every conceivable surface and flashing, at first randomly, then syncing into unison, lighting up the clearing.
Mel continued to exclaim in surprise as the show went on, flashing and pausing and flashing again. People lined up over in the Smokies for hours to see something like this, and here they were with their own private show. It felt rather selfish.
Perhaps it would be their secret for a while. Eventually, he would let everyone at the farm and their guests in on it. Grace, of all people, deserved to see this.
Mel’s lips brushed his chin and he lowered his head to capture her mouth.
A very nice dream, but…
But Grace was busy with the baby. She could wait for a few years.
Cupping his fingers around her face, he felt wetness on her cheeks. “Hey, you okay?” He wiped at the moisture with his thumbs.
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Daniel smiled. “I beg to differ, Mrs. Woodruff.” He captured her lips again, and she made a giggly gulping noise.
“I love you so much.” She twisted around in his arms, pushing him onto the blanket and sitting on top of him, somehow managing to kiss him while her hands grappled with his shirt buttons.
He tried to keep his head about him, reaching for the button at the waistband of her shorts, but she smacked his hands away, breathing hard, and he surrendered, loving his little dynamo of a wife more than he thought possible.
She pulled his shirt open and splayed her hands on his chest. Then she bent over and kissed him, stretching her petite form sensuously on top of him.
It was his turn to groan as she licked at his lips and ran her tongue along his teeth while her fingers drifted down his ribs.
Two could play at that game. He slipped his hands under the hem of her camp shirt and touched the bare skin of her rib cage, feeling her intake of breath as he slid his hands up.
He tugged at the lacy edge of her bra. “I told you to quit wearing these things.”
But this can’t happen.
She captured his bottom lip with her teeth. Her fingers were busy at his waistband. “You’re not the boss of me.”
He sometimes wondered who was dominating whom in this relationship.
He stopped thinking when she leaned over him, lit by starlight and the pulsing lights of the fireflies, absorbed in their own sensuous ritual.
“Mel,” he croaked, reaching for her. The cool weight of her moonstone slid across his chest and made his muscles quiver and hum. Then she kissed him thoroughly and giggled before leaning back with her hands on his thighs and gazing up at the sky.
“They’re up there too,” she said, her face lit softly by their flashes.
“And you, my love, are goddess of the fireflies.”
She giggled again and leaned in to kiss his nose. He shut his eyes as her lips moved to caress his eyelids. She was his own personal goddess, and he was worshipping her in this enchanted glade surrounded by the flashing lights of thousands of fireflies.
This cannot happen.
Even with his eyes shut, he could sense the radiance of the fireflies, absorbed in their own wild mating, creating the next generation that would return to light this clearing again and again.
He opened his eyes and wondered if he and Mel would do the same tonight.
No more. I don’t want to see this.
What would a child of theirs, conceived in the brilliance of this unbelievable display, be like?
Mel will die having that child. Shut it off now.
Then he saw the blank edges surrounding the hectic phosphorescence, swallowing up the light.
It’s just another ending. Another damn ending.
Shut it OFF!
The dancing lights winked out.
Daniel groaned as he woke to agonizing pain and nausea. “Damn it all to hell.”