In His Keeping (Slow Burn #2) (16 page)

“Lie down and try to get comfortable. I’ll make sure Doctor Carey gives you something for pain when you get to the clinic.”

She nodded, the slight movement sending shards of pain splintering through her skull. Maybe she did need medical help. This was new territory for her and she had no idea if this was a normal result of using her powers or not because she’d never
tested
them.

“I hurt,” she said quietly, conveying in those two words a wealth of emotion she could no longer suppress.

Beau cupped her face ever so gently in his palms and leaned in to press his forehead to hers. Like the kiss he’d pressed to her wound earlier, there was nothing sexual about the gesture and yet it was so intimate. Poignant. With those two touches, his mouth and now merely resting his forehead against hers and their breaths mingling, her heart swelled in her chest and she was nearly overcome with how reverent every touch, every action was that came from him.

“I know, honey,” Beau said just as quietly. “I can’t even imagine the pain you must be in and how exhausted, worried and sick at heart you must be. But do this for me. Take care of
you
first, okay? Let Doctor Carey at least ease your physical pain. The emotional pain will be much harder to bear, but you’re strong, Ari. You have me. From this point forward, consider me your constant shadow. You will never be out of my eyesight unless I have men I absolutely trust surrounding you. You are not alone. And you
will
get through this.”

Tears burned her eyelids and she blinked rapidly even though the slightest movement sent a jolt of pain through her head, echoing and re-echoing through her fragmented mind. Overcome and unable to possibly put to words what was in her heart, she instead curled her fingers around his hands cradling her face and she pulled them against her chest so he could feel the thud of her heartbeat. So he’d know the effect his solemn vow had on her.

He surprised her by brushing his lips, like the soft tip of a feather, over her brow and then drew back in a swift, jerky motion as if pulling himself back into awareness and the reality of the moment. He frowned but then seemed to make a concerted effort to school his features, but Ari couldn’t help but feel as though he’d rejected her in some way.

She turned, as had he, so he couldn’t see the flash of hurt in her eyes that she was sure was evident. Her parents had forever told her that her eyes always reflected her every emotion, her every thought. They’d laughingly told her she was utterly transparent and that it was a good thing she was inherently honest, because it was impossible for her to tell a lie and not be caught out.

She sighed, the flutter of warmth in her chest turning to a dull ache as she leaned over on her uninjured side across the backseat of the SUV. Frowning, she lifted her head when the door by her head opened and then gentle hands carefully lifted her head and a pillow was slid underneath her neck so she wasn’t lying at an awkward angle.

Hot and cold. Beau Devereaux was a puzzle she couldn’t decipher, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. One minute he was exceedingly tender, protective,
demanding
when it came to her care and well-being. The next he was stiff, withdrawn and looked as if he regretted so much as touching her.

She was too mentally and physically exhausted and drained to figure out the riddle of Beau’s dual personality. She closed her eyes, reaching for something warm and comforting, anything to ward off the sharp pain and the dull roar in her ears and the constant fear and worry for her family.

It suddenly struck her, that without her parents, she was utterly alone in the world. Her parents had lost their parents at a relatively young age. Her mother had been working her way through college when she’d met Ari’s father. He was ten years older, had already amassed a fortune and he’d swept her mother off her feet in a whirlwind romance that had resulted in their marriage in a matter of months.

She had no grandparents. No aunts, uncles, cousins. There was simply no one but her and her mother and father. It was why they were so close. Her father had always said that their family was all he could ever ask for, more than he’d ever hoped for, and considered his wife and his daughter the two most precious gifts in his life.

Her eyes squeezed shut even tighter as sadness overwhelmed her. Then she immediately castigated herself for the feeling of loss that had fallen over her. She wouldn’t give up hope. Hope was all she had and when she gave that up, she was well and truly lost.

She clung tenaciously to the promise Beau had given her more than once. Her father had chosen him. To a man who trusted no one, it had to mean something that he would entrust his daughter’s safety to the Devereauxs.

Had he known of Ramie’s psychic powers? Had that been why he’d been certain that Ari would be well received by Beau or Caleb? But no, Ramie and Caleb hadn’t been together that long. And her father had exacted her promise three years earlier, when she’d graduated from college an entire year early.

A frown tugged at the corners of her mouth even though her eyes remained closed. What was her father’s connection to the Devereauxs? Beau didn’t appear to know her father and if Caleb did, he hadn’t acknowledged it in any way, nor had he looked at her with any sign of warmth, such as would surely be the case if her father was a friend or acquaintance of his. Unless Caleb had no liking for her father, but no, that couldn’t be right either, because her father would never trust this man with her safety if there was any discord between them.

She sighed, her head hurting more as she sorted through her chaotic thoughts. A warm trickle slid over her lips and she immediately lifted her hand to wipe the blood away in hopes that Beau wouldn’t see it. Her eyes fluttered open only to see, to her surprise, that Beau was in the passenger seat of the SUV and Doctor Carey was driving. And Beau was looking directly at her, a deep frown furrowing his forehead.

“What the hell are you torturing yourself with this time?” he demanded, though he kept his voice low, perhaps in deference to her headache.

“I was just trying to sort out everything,” she murmured, sliding the sleeve of the thin T-shirt she wore once more over her nose to remove the remainder of the blood smear.

So much for changing into clothing that wasn’t bloodied in an attempt not to draw attention to herself.

“That is for
me
to do,” he said in a firm voice, fitting his piercing gaze to her as if willing her to yield to his unspoken command to let it go.

How could she simply “let it go”? How could she just stand idly by, hiding, while someone else—a stranger—headed the search for her parents? And why weren’t they calling in the police? There were too many questions unanswered. Questions she hadn’t asked Beau. Hadn’t had time to ask, she acknowledged.

Everything had happened so quickly. Her visit to his office and then everything had gone to hell. Literally. They hadn’t had a single moment to sit down and focus on the matter of her missing parents. Beau hadn’t had the opportunity to question her or even ascertain simple facts like her parents’ names, their address, any of their background and history.

What seemed an eternity to Ari was in fact only a few short hours, and furthermore less than twenty-four hours had elapsed since her parents simply disappeared.

God, had it only been yesterday? She automatically glanced at her wrist where her watch—a gift from her mother—had always been, but it was gone now, and Ari didn’t even know when, where or how it had been wrenched from her wrist.

“What time is it?” Ari asked faintly, staring at Beau in question.

His brow furrowed, his expression blatantly questioning, as though he thought it the last question she’d ask. And maybe it did seem ridiculous when so much else was far more important. But for Ari, a lifetime had passed and suddenly it was all-important to know just how long it had been since she’d last seen her parents.

“It’s almost three,” Beau said in a gentle voice, as if speaking to a half-wit or someone who was poised to jump off a bridge and any wrong word would send her plummeting right over the edge.

God, her brains were scrambled. To have such idiotic, ridiculous thoughts when her situation—her parents’ situation—was so dire was . . . insane. Maybe she
was
crazy. Perhaps she’d simply snapped when she’d unleashed her powers after them lying dormant for nearly a lifetime.

Maybe it had caused her brain to short-circuit and the nerve endings were simply fried.

She heard an odd noise, and to her further humiliation, she realized it had been
her
.
Laughing
. A shaky hysterical-sounding shrill
giggle
, for God’s sake.

Beau gave up any attempt not to look concerned. He turned to Doctor Carey, a grim expression on his face, and said, “Step on it. She needs care
now
.”

“I’m okay,” she said faintly. “I was just realizing that though it seems like a lifetime has passed, it’s not even been twenty-four hours yet since I last saw my parents.”

“You are
not
okay,” he said in a tone that sounded suspiciously like a growl.

Did people actually growl? Oh God, there she went again. Ridiculous, random thoughts spiking through her mind, almost as if her brain was trying to protect her, wrap her in a protective bubble of mundane, senseless thoughts so she didn’t have to dwell on the awful reality of her situation.

Her hand automatically went to her nose just to see if she was bleeding again. Beau, damn the man, never missed anything, and his gaze was sharp as he too looked to see if there was any sign of blood.

To her relief, her hand came away with only remnants of already dried blood from earlier and nothing fresh. Too bad the pain hadn’t ebbed like the blood had. She put her palm to her forehead, pressing inward as if to someway ease the overwhelming pressure. The top of her head literally felt like someone was trying to pop it like a pimple and that at any moment it would simply give way and explode from the top.

“Tell me about your mother,” Beau said softly. “Is she as beautiful as you are?”

She stared back at Beau in bewilderment for a moment before she realized what he was doing. He was distracting her from the chaos swirling in her mind and trying to center her thoughts on something good. And then his choice of words sank in, and something in her chest softened, warmth spreading soothingly through her veins.

Her smile was automatic, as it always was when she thought of her mom. For a brief second, an image of her mother, smiling and beautiful, flashed in her mind, temporarily giving her a respite from the pain and darkness that had seemed to permanently settle in the deepest recesses of her soul.

“She’s the most beautiful woman in the world,” Ari whispered. “Warm. Loving. Always smiling and happy. And the way my father looks at her. Like she lights up his entire world. And the way she smiles at him when he looks at her that way. Theirs is a love I thought only existed in romance novels, but I’ve lived with the reality of two people who love each other with all their heart and soul, who both love me. Unconditionally.”

“Who do you get your eyes from? They’re such an unusual color. Or rather colors plural,” he amended. “I’ve never seen anyone with eyes like yours.”

She stared at him, momentarily without words. Then she frowned, drawing on the image of her mother and her father. She sent Beau a puzzled look because she’d never considered where her eyes had come from or who she’d inherited the unusual kaleidoscope of colors from.

“Neither,” she said honestly. “I assume perhaps one of my grandparents, but I don’t know. They died—both sets—before my parents were even married. And they were both only children. No family. Kindred spirits, my father always said. Two halves of a whole, alone in the world until finally finding one another.”

She ducked her head self-consciously because spoken aloud by her and not said in the reverent tone with which her father spoke of his wife, it seemed contrived. Something she’d made up or some lame attempt at poetry.

Beau surprised her. “That’s a beautiful sentiment. It’s too bad more people don’t feel that way about the person they choose to spend their life with. Or at least a portion of it.”

She frowned at the last part. “You don’t believe in forever?”

He shrugged. “I guess I’ve just never met someone who made me
want
forever.”

His matter-of-factness didn’t surprise her. He was a man after all. They often didn’t think in the same ways women thought. She shouldn’t have even wasted a frown over his brisk, no-nonsense view of relationships. She had quickly learned that her father was . . . well, he was one of a kind and not because he was her father and she put him on a pedestal as some daddy’s girls did.

She saw the adoration in his eyes every time he looked at his wife. Saw how openly affectionate he was with her when he was grim and cold to the rest of the world. She’d never realized how other people viewed her father until she was older and was more cognizant of the differences between her father, when he was home with his “girls,” as he termed them affectionately, and when he was outside their sanctuary.

But he also didn’t give one damn who knew that he was, in effect, at his wife’s feet. While it might seem that he was the dominating force in their relationship, Ari knew for a fact that her mother held all the power and that everything her father did was for her mother. And for Ari.

“Feeling better?”

Her frown of concentration disappeared at Beau’s question and her lips softened into a smile, one of thanks for even the brief memory of all the good things in her life. And in fact, the pain and pressure in her head had lessened. It was still there. Still quite painful, but it no longer felt like it would explode at any second or that she was a ticking time bomb primed to go off.

“Yes, thank you,” she said in a husky voice, laced with emotion. “I needed that moment of happiness. It gave me a much-needed boost of hope. Because without hope, I have nothing.”

To her surprise, the vehicle came to a stop. She hadn’t even registered them slowing and turning into the parking lot of a one-story building that sported the name of a medical clinic.