Midnight Rose (25 page)

“I can’t find Jude,” she told the older woman when Martha’s sleepy voice answered the phone. Then she burst into tears.

“Technically he’s only been missing a couple of hours,” the deputy said evenly as he escorted her and Martha out the glass doors of the sheriff’s office. “We’ve got three squad cars in town looking for him.

There’s nothing more you can do. Just go on home in case he turns up there.” Martha’s pale, tight features seemed to collapse. “And in the morning, if he hasn’t been found?” “Then we’ll file a missing person’s report.”

Kate hadn’t thought she could cry anymore, but a fresh deluge of tears welled up and she shook her head, unable to respond.

“We’ll take the Audi and leave my car here,” Martha said, clutching Kate’s hand between her icy ones.

“I’ll drive.”

The ride back to Sister Oaks was utterly silent and brimming with distress. Martha didn’t offer Kate any words of comfort, and Kate couldn’t have stood it if the older woman had tried. It was her fault Jude was lost. No one could change that.

One thing was sickeningly certain; if Jude was lost, all would be lost. Gideon would never forgive her.

She’d never forgive herself. The tenuous framework of her new life would splinter and collapse.

“I should call Gideon,” she told Martha in a choked voice as the Audi turned onto the gravel road leading to the estate.

“Not until morning.” Martha glanced at her, then retrieved a packet of tissues from inside the console and handed them to her. Silence fell between them again.

Sister Oaks sat like a black monolith against the star-spangled sky. A single light blazed on the second floor, reminding Kate of the gothic novels on her grandmother’s bookshelves. In this sinister tale, Kate was the hapless heroine standing before the haunted mansion. She wanted to flee like the heroines on the covers of those paperbacks, run and run and never look back.

But as she climbed from the Audi and followed Martha toward the house, a strange calm settled over her anguish. She couldn’t flee. The house took care of its own, reined its family to it with an inexplicable force. Even if she tried to leave, Kate knew she was destined to return again and again, drawn to the house, drawn to the man and the boy and the magic.

As they started up the front steps, a figure emerged from the entry shadows, and Kate’s knees wobbled beneath her.

Jude.

“You’re not allowed to talk, so don’t even open your mouth.” Kate paced before the teenager, too infuriated to note the strange chill that hung in the sitting room. “How could you just run off like that? I told you, no going off with strangers.” “They were kids,” he began, but the withering look she cast him shut him up.

“I don’t care if they were monkeys. You didn’t know them. You didn’t know where they were taking you, and when the time came for you to get out of there, you couldn’t get back to meet me because you didn’t know where the hell you were.” The sound of footsteps crossed the foyer and Martha appeared at the edge of the sitting room. “I called the sheriff’s office and let them know everything’s fine.” “But truthfully everything’s not fine.” Kate paused in front of Jude and stared hard at him. “I trusted you. I gave you a chance to keep your word, to be responsible, and you blew it. You completely blew it.” Jude squirmed in the corner of the sofa and rolled his eyes. “Kate, I already said I’m sorry. What else do you want me to say?” “Nothing. I don’t want you to talk. I want you to go upstairs where I don’t have to look at you, and in the morning, maybe, maybe if I’ve cooled off, I’ll ask you what really happened.” He stood and hesitated. “So I can go?” “Go.” She shooed him from the room and gave Martha a bleary-eyed glance. “My God. Gideon’s going to have my head when he finds out about this.”

For the first time in days, Martha smiled at her. “He won’t be happy, but what’s done is done. Jude’s safe, and that’s what matters. Now you get some sleep. I’ll lock up the house.” Kate resisted the urge to hug her. “Thank you for everything. I know you think I was mindless to let Jude go off like I did. And it was incredibly stupid of me. But I just wanted him to know what it’s like to step outside his prison of an existence. Just for a little while. And I was so stupid. I thought I understood kids, but I was wrong.” “I think it’s done him good.” Martha patted her shoulder awkwardly as they walked toward the staircase. “You don’t worry about Jude. Let Gideon deal with the boy when he comes home. You’ll be busy yourself, dealing with Gideon.” Kate grasped the banister and hesitated. “How angry will he be with me, Martha?” For a long moment, the older woman considered the question. Then she leveled a look at Kate and said, “He’ll be hot. But then he’ll forgive you and see your reasoning, because that’s what a man does when he’s in love.” Kate tried to reply, but poignant emotion grabbed the words from her throat. She simply nodded and waved a hand as she started up the stairs.

Somewhere in the night, she dreamed. Of Gideon and his mirror-image son, of losing Jude to the shadows, of yellow, flickering eyes watching from every corner in every room. A thousand phantoms drifted through the halls of Sister Oaks, breathed life into its walls, granted it a thundering pulse that shook the foundations with each rhythmic surge. The voice that spoke so often to Kate came more clearly now. A female’s words, the house’s voice, warnings and whispery promises twisted together, so that in the end, as she rose toward consciousness, Kate could only distinguish one final assertion.

The blood of Xanthia will deliver the darkness of death, and it will come like a slow oppressor, visiting much agony upon the perpetrator until the end, when God and soul shall be forever parted.

In the morning, she sat on the edge of the mattress and searched her memory for the cryptic words, but they had slipped from her grasp and vanished.

The moment Gideon stepped off the boarding ramp and into the airport terminal, he spotted Kate waiting in the crowd, brown eyes searching. She waved when she saw him, her cheeks flushed, smile more beautiful than he remembered.

The sight of her slammed into him like a runaway train and sent his heart tumbling in his chest. He was a fool in love, and it was the real thing. Not some flashin-the-pan, fleeting crush. Not some filmy affair. He wanted to wrap around her, bury himself inside her, breathe her in. She’d given him back a vestige of humanity, and the small blue box in his pocket held the single most profound symbol of his gratitude.

He edged between passengers, his gaze fixed on the slender, chestnut-haired woman waiting for him.

He’d have to tell her what he was, of course. How he lived. How death would never cross his path, and how long he’d searched for an end to his curse. But not now. Not just yet. In the calm before the storm, he would grasp at joy and pray the truth wouldn’t rend the ties that bound him to Kate’s heart.

“Hi,” she said when he reached her. Her voice sounded level and cool, but her arms trembled as they wound around his neck, and tears sparkled on her lashes.

Laughing, Gideon brushed the moisture from beneath her eyes and bent his head to kiss her. “God, I missed you.”

“Don’t ever leave me again,” she said shakily.

“Never. Next convention, you’re coming with me.”

In the parking lot, she tossed him the keys to the Audi and he slid behind the wheel, adjusting the seat to accommodate his long legs.

“Who’s been listening to Reggae?” he groused, slipping the CD from the stereo to replaced it with Debussy.

She smiled. “Jude. Two nights ago.”

“How was his venture into Putnam?”

Kate hesitated, her gaze intent on his profile until he finally glanced at her. “Did something happen?” Before she could answer, they arrived at the parking booth and Gideon lowered the window to pay the attendant. Then he closed it and accelerated, the Audi purring softly beneath them.

“Spit it out, my darling Kate. What kind of trouble did my son find in our one-horse town?”

“Maybe I should let him tell you about it.”

Gideon frowned. “He’s okay, isn’t he?”

“He’s fine.” She grasped his hand over the leather console. “He disobeyed my instructions and went off with a group of kids he met at the Jupiter Drive-in restaurant.” “He ran away from you?” A dark sizzle of anger burned away his good humor.

“Not exactly. I dropped him off at the restaurant where all the kids hang out, and told him to meet me in two hours. He’s perfectly capable of acting responsibly. But he didn’t show up when he was supposed to, and I panicked.” Gideon stared at her, then back at the road, incensed. “Let me get this straight. You turned him loose in Putnam without any supervision?” Instantly Kate’s posture stiffened and she released his hand. “He’s fourteen, Gideon, and bigger than most college students. I trusted him. I counted on him to be responsible—” “And clearly you made an error.” His fists gripped the steering wheel. How could he convince her that they couldn’t be protective enough when it came to Jude without spilling the truth? He wasn’t at all certain Jude could be trusted in a group of hormonal, fun-loving teenagers with hot blood flowing through their veins. One beautiful girl looking at him the wrong way could introduce the boy to his first taste of bloodlust, and Jude would be sideswiped, confused, maybe frightened by the ferocity of it. Someone could have gotten hurt—and it wasn’t necessarily his son Gideon worried about.

“What did he say when you found him?” he demanded. “Did he do anything?”

“No, Gideon. He was fine. They gave him a ride home while Martha and I drove around looking for him. We met him back at Sister Oaks. Really, in hindsight, it wasn’t such a big deal.” “But it could have been,” he said tightly. “He was at the mercy of those kids. What if they hadn’t brought him home before daylight? What then? God, Kate.”

“I’m sorry,” she said in a wooden voice, face turned toward the window. “You have no idea how much.”

Gideon sighed, rubbed at the tension knotting in his neck. They rode in silence thick with disquiet, and she didn’t look at him again.

When they reached Sister Oaks, Kate climbed out of the passenger seat, shut the door a little too firmly and started toward the house, her steps unsteady in the darkness.

“Kate, wait a minute.” He left the driver door open and caught up with her, his anger tempered by regret. He’d lashed out at her, when she’d merely acted out of kindness and sympathy, tried to show Jude a little independence. “Do you understand that so many things could go wrong with him out of our sight?” “But what happens when he gets older? It’s not fair to him. You can’t hover over him forever.” Gideon shook his head. “You don’t understand.”

“Then make me.” Anger flashed in her brown eyes, tiny amber sparks only his preternatural vision could distinguish. “If you love me so much, quit keeping me in the dark. Not just about Jude, but about everything. Your past. Your friends. You can’t expect me to accept the excuses you give for some of the stuff that goes on around here. I’m not blind!” “Now’s not the time to do this, Kate.”

“There’s never a good time, is there, Gideon?”

“No.” Irritation flared within him now. “I won’t fight with you, either. Not with Martha and Jude waiting right inside.”

“Too late. I’m already upset and you can’t fix it. I’m sick of it! Nothing you can say or do will smooth over this, Gideon.”

“Want to bet?” Driven by frustration and repressed need, he pressed her up against the side of the house and searched for her mouth in the darkness, his hand sliding beneath her loose sweater. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and he groaned as his hand closed around one tight nipple.

“Don’t,” she snapped, but her lips opened readily when he kissed her, wet and hungry, and in return her hands threaded through his hair, her tongue lashing around his as it thrust inside her mouth.

Lust flamed between them, incinerating the irritation from a moment before. And with it came a low, rumbling threat that caught Gideon completely off-guard. Weeks had passed since he’d last felt its approach, so how…?

Anger mixed with passion. A poisonous combination. Ah, God. The muscles rippled along his spine, warnings of the change to come.

As her palm slid down between them and molded his erection through his jeans, he grasped her fingers and jerked them aside. “Wait.”

“I want you so badly,” she whispered, mouth at his ear. “And you just make me crazy angry. How can I feel so many awful emotions at one time?”

“Something to do with love,” he said with a terse smile.

Get her out of here.

Pulling back, he forced himself to calm, straightened the front of her sweater and pressed his lips to her forehead. “I need a minute to cool off. Go on in. I’ll grab my bags and be right behind you.” In the silent shadows of the garage, he dug frantically through his duffel and withdrew a small Thermos filled with blood. He used it during his travels to avoid having to explain anything to the airport authorities, and now his hands shook as he wrenched open the lid and held it to his lips.

Somehow, between anger and lust, the monster in him had stirred, and he fed it in huge, hungry gulps, praying it back to its hiding place, and painfully uncertain that he could quell it this time.

Fifteen minutes later he walked slowly across the lawn, exhausted from the battle taking place within his physical being. All he wanted now was to fall into his bed and lose himself in dreamless sleep, but he still had to face Martha and Jude, and how could he possibly hold Kate at arm’s length when just the sight of her, just the drifting scent of her perfume nearly brought him to his knees?

Martha met him at the top of the kitchen stairs. Her warm smile quickly faded when she recognized the distress in his features. “What is it?”

Instead of answering, he dropped his bags and said, “Where’s Jude?”

“Upstairs doing homework. Gideon, are you all right?”

“Fine as always.” He waved off her concern and headed toward the foyer, his pulse thudding a heavy rhythm through his body.

When he reached Jude’s room, the door was open. Gideon didn’t make a sound, but Jude sensed his presence and swiveled on his desk chair to stare at him. “Hi.”