Chains of Ice (20 page)

Her hand hovered over his head, wanting to give him one farewell caress.

But she loved him. And she didn’t want to feel this way about him or any man. She pulled her hand back, and wished this love she felt could be as easily withdrawn. Trouble loomed between them, and it was a trouble of her own making.

Going to the cabinet, she looked again at the pile of letters sitting on top. They were from New York City, and the postmarks stretched back almost two years. The first ones, from the Gypsy Travel Agency, had been read, then stuffed back into their envelopes. Then came a series of unopened letters from the Gypsy Travel Agency. Finally, the latest envelope, still sealed, was from a name she recognized—Irving Shea, former CEO of the Agency and one of the men who had been adamant about removing her father from his position in the company.

Ever since, her father had cursed his name.

Yet he’d been willing to sell her services to Irving and the Gypsy Travel Agency. She had to wonder at his change of heart.

With her father, she always had to wonder at his motivations.

What had changed that now Irving himself approached John Powell? Was this because she hadn’t produced results in the time he had allotted?

Again she glanced at John, asleep on the bed.

He had an obligation to the Chosen Ones to finish his contract.

She had an obligation to the Gypsy Travel Agency to try to convince him it was the right thing to do.

Yet the unopened letters were a testament to how deeply he resented the commitment. And she had never seen reason to believe that love could overcome any difficulty. If anything, her parents had taught her that love could be withheld. Love could be wielded like a weapon. If Genny wasn’t careful, John Powell could hurt her as she had never been hurt before.

Opening the front door, she strode out into the crisp morning air—and stopped.

Under the tree, the lynx Lubochka called Nadja and John called Mama Cat sat waiting, her gaze fixed on the hut. Her eyes narrowed on Genny, demanding an accounting.

Genny sat down on the step.

The great cat strolled forward, smooth and graceful. Reaching Genny, she turned and sat beside her, and together they gazed across the panorama of forest and hills toward the Seven Devils.

“He’s okay,” Genny told her. “He was pretty sick. I guess you know that. But once he started releasing all that energy, he got better.” Once he’d started making love to her, he’d gotten magnificent . . . but Genny suspected the lynx knew that, too. “The scratches you gave him are almost healed”—Genny had never seen a recovery so miraculous—“although the scars will never disappear. No harm done, and John and I are both very sorry Brandon found your den. I swear, I don’t know how he did it. But I pray the kittens are safe, and when I return to civilization . . .” She was pierced by the knowledge that all too soon she would have to leave this wilderness, this forest, this man, this cat . . . these feelings, this freedom. Anguish made it hard to breathe.

But she had to leave. She had earned a degree and managed to earn a job offer. She had a father who depended on her. Duty inevitably summoned.

So she cleared her throat and continued to talk to the lynx as if the cat could comprehend every word. “When I return to civilization, I will do everything I can to protect you and your habitat. Eventually, in my own way I’ll be powerful. Just survive until I can come back. Promise me you’ll survive.”

The lynx leaned against Genny’s shoulder, leaned
hard
.

“Okay. Good.” Genny leaned back, giving support and getting it. “Do you know what he said to me? He said,
You don’t have to do anything except lie there while I show you what love is.
” It made her throat scratchy to repeat it. “That makes me really uncomfortable. He didn’t really mean love, did he? Because if I love him, well, that’s my problem.”

The lynx turned her head and looked at Genny as if she were spouting nonsense.

“I know it’s stupid to fall in love with a guy who spent two years dressed in furs and covered with hair, but I can’t do anything about it. They’re my emotions and I have the right to feel them. What I want to know is—was he saying that he loved me? Because if he does . . . I’m simply not used to that. I wouldn’t know what to do. I think I’d be afraid, especially because he’s so big and so smart and so . . . much.” Genny used her hands to indicate a man and a presence that overwhelmed her. “I do value myself. I do. But I’ve got issues. If John loves me and I love him, as long as I tell him I came to talk to him, I suspect we could work out the breach of integrity. But what do I do about my father? What do I do about the fact that I . . . since I’ve been here in the Ural Mountains, I feel as if I’ve found myself. I should be a forest ranger or at least a veterinarian. Can I force myself to go back to New York? Can I be my father’s savior
and
the woman John loves? I don’t know who I am!”

The lynx stood and brushed against Genny like a giant house cat.

Genny ran a hand over her fur, not so much giving comfort as seeking it.

Mama Cat looked into Genny’s eyes, placed her paw lightly on Genny’s knee, then strolled away, her tail moving in a hypnotic rhythm—and she disappeared into the forest’s shadows.

Genny pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, pushing back yet more tears, and wondered why everything felt so new, so raw, why the world looked fresh. . . . Determinedly, she ignored what she had already realized.

The world looked new because
she
was new. Inside and out, she’d been swept clean by John’s energy, pouring through her, reforming her, making her part of him.

He had used the word
love
, the one word she had longed all her life to hear, yet now she was torn by the weight of the expectations on her shoulders, and she almost wished he had never spoken.

She didn’t know what she should do. She only knew . . . she loved John, and the emotion was too raw to contain.

With a quick, longing glance at the hut, she started toward Rasputye. She wanted to get there and back before he woke up.

She knew exactly how to find the town, her newfound confidence in the woods likely a result of John’s teachings. She couldn’t have suddenly developed an inner compass, yet she moved swiftly, tirelessly. Her vigor was probably a result of the energy that had poured through her the night before. . . .

But she didn’t want to think about that.

She should discover whether Brandon had returned from their confrontation, whether Lubochka’s team was searching for him . . . or for her.

Possibly—in fact, probably—Lubochka didn’t care if Brandon had returned safely. Lubochka despised Brandon, and for good reason. For that matter, so did Genny . . . although she supposed she shouldn’t
hope
that Mama Cat ate him. The truth was, Genny knew Mama Cat had let him go, and she also knew he had made up some story about her and the lynx and told it to anyone who would listen.

Lubochka wouldn’t believe him . . . but would she worry when
Genny
didn’t arrive back at the inn?

Perhaps. But Lubochka was dedicated to the science of the lynx. Genny didn’t fool herself; Lubochka might be very pleased with Genny’s lynx sightings, but she would be just as displeased that Genny had taken time off, and wouldn’t give a damn that she had only done it to aid a sick man.

Although not sick at all now. As he had said, he sickened quickly and now he slept deeply, without fever or restlessness.

So if Genny’s timing was good, she could sneak into the inn without Lubochka seeing her.

She fervently hoped her timing was good.

As she approached Rasputye, she noted changes in the forest: dead branches broken out of the trees, flowers flattened by some unseen force. She reached the first house, and walked across a sheen of straw spread across the track like a golden carpet. When she entered the village, it seemed oddly empty, as if everyone had evacuated. One of the homes had had shingles from its roof peeled off. On another, the shutters dangled. She stepped on something that crunched under her foot, and realized it was a pane of glass, broken out of a window.

Later, Genny wondered how she could have let her happiness blind her to truth, but as she walked toward the inn, she thought only that a great wind had blown through Rasputye.

In a way, it had.

But really, who would have thought that John could project his power from so many miles away?

Genny slipped into the inn as quietly as she could; she didn’t want to meet anyone, to explain where she’d been.

No one was in the
traktir
, although she could hear voices in the kitchen, and she met no one as she climbed the stairs to the attic. There she gathered clean clothes and made her way back down to the bathroom.

As usual, the shower changed temperature constantly, the soap was harsh, and the towel was thin and rough, but after the events of the past thirty hours, being clean was glorious. Or perhaps she didn’t mind because last night had been awful and frightening, awesome and splendid, and now she was going back to John.

Despite her misgivings, she wanted nothing so much as to return to his side.

She dressed as quickly as she could in the military-type khakis with her ankle-height boots. She headed toward the stairway. If she could collect that meal from Mariana . . .

But a rumble rose from the
traktir
, voices speaking angrily, one over another, and Genny slowed, wondering what was going on. It didn’t sound like one of Rasputye’s nightly drinking parties.

And, anyway, it was morning.

But she’d found Rasputye to be an odd little village, a place out of time where housewives worked beside their thin farmer husbands, then cooked their dinners and at night told stories about monsters in the woods. Nothing they did should surprise her.

Mariana called out, bringing them to order, so it was a meeting of some kind.

Genny waited at the top of the stairs, thinking that once the meeting was in session, she could slip through the crowd and out the door.

Then Mariana said, “What are we going to do about John Powell?”