Out of the Dark (The Brethren Series) (21 page)

“I admitted that about an hour ago, after you tried to crush my balls with your bare hand, yes.”

“What are you doing?” she demanded, feeling a bright mix of panic-stricken alarm and sudden, undeniable excitement when he reached for his belt and began to unbuckle it.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he replied. Another wink, and he added: “In case you want to call your boo back or anything
there, shorty.”

The excitement withered.

“He’s
not
my boo,” she told him, glowering, snatching her phone in one hand and the Cadillac keys in another. “And I’m leaving now.”

“You can’t,” Aaron told her pointedly. “The brakes are out on the truck. You can’t drive while trying to focus on controlling the brake calipers at the same time. It’s too much.”

Her brows furrowed even more. “Want to bet?”

“Look, just give me a few minutes. Let me get a shower. I’ll go with you. I told you—I need to get my gun out of my rental car.”

“I told
you—
I’m not letting you anywhere near my family. And I’m sure as hell not letting you get your hands on a weapon.”

With a s
igh, he crossed his arms again. “If you try to drive that truck into the mountains by yourself, you’re going to get yourself killed.”

He was right and she knew it. Worse,
he
knew it. And worst of all—he knew that she knew it.

Goddamn it,
she thought with a scowl. But just when she couldn’t think of a way out the conundrum without admitting defeat, an idea occurred to her.

She called Eleanor.

“Something’s wrong with Mason’s truck,” she told Eleanor on the phone. “I think the brakes are going out.”

“Oh, no!” Eleanor sounded genuinely distressed, and Naima felt bad for worrying her.

“It’s alright. I was able to drop Augustus off without any problems and get back to town from Carson City. But I’m afraid to take it up to the compound, especially in the dark. I’m at the Heavenly Motor Lodge, do you remember?”

“Where we first found Tessa and Rene? Yes
, of course.”

“Would you mind to come and pick me up in the morning? You can use my car. I left the keys hanging
on a little hook right inside my front door.”

“I’d be glad to, darling,” Eleanor said. Then, after a moment—because she knew damn good and well that Naima wasn’t at the motel alone—
she added tactfully: “I can come tonight, if you need me. I overheard Phillip saying something about going through Michel’s will as soon as possible tomorrow. You should be here for that.”

Michel’s will.
The thought of it—even the sound of it—seemed heartbreaking and strange. And Naima knew that Eleanor didn’t need to be out driving in the dark, especially on the winding, curving roads leading from the compound into town. The blood-borne illness from which she suffered had left her, among other things, chronically anemic—and perpetually weak, prone to spells of vertigo and fainting as a result. It probably wasn’t a good idea to ask her to drive in the broad light of day—especially considering Naima couldn’t remember an occasion in which she’d actually seen Eleanor drive
anywhere.

“Augustus would kill me if something happened to you,” she said. “So, no. But thank you. I’ll call you when I’m up in the morning.
Tell Phillip he’ll just have to wait.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Aaron knew Naima was crying even before he turned off the water in the
shower and overheard the soft sounds of her muffled tears from the other room. He wasn’t spying on her; not deliberately, anyway. Ever since they’d reached the motel, he’d kept his mind at least partially open to her, even though she was unaware of it. In part, he maintained this mental “eye on her” because she’d caught him completely off-guard in the truck when he’d kissed her. He’d misread all of her body language, misinterpreted the rapid increase in her heart rate and respirations as passionate interest, had completely misjudged her. He wanted to avoid any such
faux pas
in the future.

If the truth be told, however, the primary
reason he tracked her telepathically was because for some reason, he liked the sensation of her. From the time he’d woke up in Boston, recovering from his accident, to present day, Aaron had spent most of his life alone. He’d always thought he preferred things that way, but all at once, he found himself no longer so certain.

Because Naima feels so damn good in my mind,
he thought, wrapping a towel around his waist and using another to mop at his dripping hair.
So…
right
. Like she’s supposed to be there.

He’d sensed her sorrow while he’d been rinsing off, and as he stepped near the door, canting his head slightly, he could hear her weeping. Like before, in her living room, her tears touched someplace visceral within him. The sound of it, the awareness of her pain, caused him to physically ache. It made him want to go to her; some basic, primitive urge to gather her into his arms, comfort and protect her. He had no idea where this compulsion had come from, but it was powerful just the same
, almost irresistible.

Thus, wearing only the towel, still pretty much sopping wet, Aaron opened the bathroom door, letting a rush of steam escape. He saw her at the table by the window, her head tucked down on her arms and resting on the table. She didn’t look up when he
approached, but her body stiffened, and he heard her sniffle fervently as she struggled to compose herself.

“Are you alright?” he asked, stopping short of actually reaching the table.

She lifted her head, but wouldn’t look at him. Directing her gaze toward the window—despite the fact the curtains were drawn and there was nothing to see—she nodded. Her jaw was clenched so fiercely, he could see the indentation in her cheek. She sat with her spine ram-rod straight, and with the blade of her hand, swiped quickly at her tears. “I…I’m fine,” she said, her voice hoarse.

“Are you sure?” he asked uncertainly. God, the need to go to her was strong, damn near overwhelming. He had to remind himself the last time he’d acted impulsively with this woman, however, she’d nearly castrated him.

“Yes.” Still she stared at the curtains. “Thank you.”

Aaron stepped closer to her, then squatted, lowering himself to her eye level. Cautiously, he reached out and draped his hand against her
s, hoping to God she didn’t haul off and clock him or something in response. “You’re thinking about your grandfather,” he said because this was what he sensed foremost in the periphery of her thoughts—a jumbled mass of memories of Michel.

Drawing in a deep, steadying breath, she turned to look at him. But as soon as she met his gaze, any semblance of defiance, denial or composure she may have mustered immediately withered. Her eyes flooded with fresh tears, and her bottom lip trembled in mutiny against the tight, fierce line of her mouth. “Yes,” she whispered, as if afraid to speak louder because if she dared, she’d lose control completely and break down in sobs.

“You told me earlier that he’d helped me once, when I was a boy,” Aaron said, keeping his voice deliberately soft and gentle. When she nodded, he said, “Would you tell me more about that?” With a smile, he added, “You could be my memory.”

She managed a
nod and a clumsy smile in return, even though her tears still threatened to fall. When she spoke, her voice was strained and soft at first, but gradually, as her recounting progressed, it grew stronger, less tremulous, less pained.

“You were the sorriest, skinniest white boy I’d ever seen,” she told him with a small laugh. “I never would have thought you were from one of the clans. I remember feeling almost disappointed when you told me your name, because I’d made up this whole fantasy in my mind about you being the son of some distant frontier pioneer who’d been abducted by the Indians.”

He chuckled, brow raised. “Indians?”

“Oh, yeah. I had the whole thing down in my mind—your father had been killed, your mother scalped, and you and your baby sister stolen in an Indian raid.”

“I had a baby sister?”

“In my version, you did,” Naima said, and this time, when he laughed, she laughed with him, more natural, less forced. “I imagined you’d come up with some wily escape plan and made it clear to Michel’s farm without them even having realized you were gone—and that you planned to go back some day to rescue your sister.” She laughed again, then wiped her eyes. “You can imagine my disappointment, then, to learn you were just a plain old Davenant—a Brethren, same as me.”

To his surprise, she spread her fingers beneath his hand, allowing his to slip through the spaces left in between, their hands intertwining. To his even greater surprise, she then gave his fingers a gentle squeeze.

“Michel looked so sad when he saw you,” she murmured, her gaze growing distant and wistful. “I think he must have known…what had happened to you, your father beat
ing you, was nothing new. And you were so polite…I remember that. I think you were scared to death of him, and you were so quiet while he worked, stitching you up. You never cried out, not even once.”

She turned to look at him. “He drank a lot the night he brought you home. When we got back to the great house, I remember it. He stayed up very late, all alone in his study, drinking. My room was on the first floor, near the back, behind the stairs. I shared it with my mother, and after she’d gone to sleep, I got up and tiptoed down the hall to see him. I thought he’d fuss at me for being up, but he didn’t. He…” Again, her eyes took on a far-away sort of cast, and through her mind, he could see her memories clearly.

He didn’t fuss at her. When he saw her in the doorway, he smiled.

“What are you doing up so late,
mon lapin?”
Aaron heard Michel say through Naima’s mind. “It’s well past time for all little rabbits to be in their beds.”

Aaron could see him, too; a strong, lean, handsome man seated in front of his fireplace, cast in the orange glow of light from the hearth’s well-stoked bed of coals. He wore no jacket or cravat; his shirt sleeves had been turned back to his elbows, and he cradled a half-empty tumbler of amber-colored liquor in his hand.

“Well past time for all
big
rabbits to be there, too,” Naima had replied pointedly, making him tip his head back and laugh.

“So it is,” Michel conceded, and then he’d
patted his thigh in invitation. Naima had scampered across the room to join him, climbing nimbly up into his lap and snuggling herself in comfortably.

“You’re thinking about that little boy, Aaron Davenant,” she said.

“I am, yes,” Michel admitted, his smile growing forlorn.

“Why’d his father beat him so,
Papi?
” she asked, using a French term of endearment for her grandfather. “Was he bad?”

Aaron flinched at this
. From the moment Naima had first told him of this memory, he’d wondered what he had done to piss Lamar off and make him beat him so badly he’d needed stitches.

“Oh, no,
petit,”
Michel told Naima, setting aside his drink so he could stroke his hand kindly against her headful of tumbled curls. “There’s never just cause for a grown man to hit a child so brutally.”

“You spank me,” Naima said, brows pinching.

“Yes, and you’re naughty when I do, so you have it rightly coming,” Michel replied. “And they’re more for scaring you into proper manners than are meant to hurt you.”

Naima had looked thoughtfully at the smoldering logs in the fireplace at this, because yes,
as her young memory had served—and continued to serve—whenever Michel had spanked her, it had scared the wits out of her—more from the anticipation than any true pain.

“Lamar beat that poor boy as he might have an animal,” Michel said softly. “And yet I…I delivered him home.”

Naima had petted his arm with her little hand. “You did your best by the boy,” she told him, recounting words she’d overheard his friend, Auguste Noble, say to him earlier in the evening, when he’d joined Michel for a time in drinking. “Lamar would have just gone to the Council otherwise and they’d have made you give him over.” Then, sadly, she added in a soft voice, “But I wish he could have stayed here.”

“Oui, petit.
So do I.”
Michel’s gaze, too, had returned to the fireplace, and Aaron sensed that Naima had become nearly forgotten to him; his eyes had taken on a melancholy, distant sort of look. The sudden tears that glistened came as a surprise to Naima—and to Aaron.

He wept for me,
he thought, startled, as through Naima’s memories, he watched the slow progression of tears rolling down Michel’s cheeks.

“Que Dieu me pardonne,”
Michel had whispered.
May God forgive me.

“It wasn’t long after that I was…taken away,” Naima said as Aaron withdrew from her mind, feeling intrusive all at once. She hadn’t noticed his trespass, however, and again, her hand closed gently against his own. “But he talked about you nearly every day,
how he wanted to ride over to your father’s farm to check on your sutures. I always knew he really meant to make sure Lamar hadn’t beaten you anymore. Augustus would talk him out of it every time, told him to let things lie. I think he hoped it would all just sort itself out with time. And maybe Michel hoped for that, too.”