SHADOWLOVE--STALKERS (21 page)

“And when will that be, Chad MacFare?”

“When I have trained you, and say it is time, and to do that, I need you here—with me, training for hours…”

She frowned up at him, but her mind was working fast. “What would your father and—”

“They are gone already,” he interjected. “They were on their way to Africa. We have a school there for orphans, and they check in regularly to make certain the children are being well cared for. It is one of their grand passions.” He smiled as he said this last.

Shawna could see that he was immensely proud of his father and grandmother, and it softened all other resolves for reasons she didn’t have time to investigate.

She sighed heavily. She had been planning to run again. Now that his parents were safely out of the way, that might not be necessary. She gave in to the decision she had been playing with for any number of days. “Fine—here is the deal, take it or leave it. I will drive over here every single day and ‘train’ with you, although I can’t imagine what sort of training you mean to give me.” She put up her hand when it appeared he was about to interrupt. “Nevertheless, I agree to train with you. However, I need my boundaries—
my own place
.”

“I don’t like it,” he grumbled.

“It doesn’t matter—what
you
like or don’t like.” She touched his arm and a shiver danced right through her body; she immediately withdrew her hand. “I have likes and dislikes—and they come first. Besides, how would it look to all of Stockton if I moved in here with you?”

He gave her a rueful grin. “Do I care? Should
you
care? Besides, your grandparents will be here, remember? I am picking them up tomorrow.”

“What kind of arrangements have you made?”

“Suffice it to say that I did.”

“You are always saying that. It isn’t fair. You know so much about me…I know nothing about you.”

“If you come here to live and train, I will tell you something every single day about myself. How is that?”

“Something important—
that matters
?”

“Aye—something important, that matters. But it would be easier on us all if you would just move in.”

“Not yet—I don’t want people to make the connection between my grandparents and me, and they are bound to if I came here to live. Besides, what would I tell the squire?”

Chad MacFare gritted his teeth, and when he finally found his voice, Shawna was surprised to hear the level of irritation in it. “I don’t give a good…damn about what the squire thinks or doesn’t think.”

“Yes, well but I do. I committed to the lease—”

“I’ll pay the damn lease, Shawna…”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” Shawna’s eyes narrowed as she considered him. “Right—I proposed a deal. Take it or leave it.”

He moved in closer to her, and she felt her breath turn into short spurts. Why did that happen to her when he got too close? She stepped away from him. “Come on then…I need to get home. You can think it over and give me your answer later.”

“Ah, thirsty, Shawna?” His voice changed, and she could see the concern in his eyes. Hell, when he looked at her like that, it sent a thrill through her, softened her, and melted her heart. She lowered her eyes. She didn’t want to look at him and give herself away.

She shouldn’t be,
but she
was
thirsty. Perhaps it was because of the injury and subsequent healing? It had taken a great deal out of her—more than she realized. “Yes, Chad…as you pointed out—
half vamp here
.”

He inclined his head. “Right, but before we go, I want this settled. For the time being, I will allow you to stay in your cottage, but I have your word…starting today, we begin your training.”

She hesitated, wanted to retort that he hadn’t the ‘right’ to allow her to stay, or not stay, in her cottage. That was her right, and she couldn’t remember having given it away. However, she shrugged it off. “Agreed.”

* * *

Watching through the window as Chad drove off, Shawna felt a twinge of loss as his car moved out of view. She realized that she was beginning to rely on him but for what—
comfort
? Why? She couldn’t allow herself to do that.

Again the nagging voice in her head, whispering, shouting, telling her,
but
you need him
,
on so many levels
. She folded her arms across her middle.
No, I do not
. Need had to go hand in hand with trust, or it wouldn’t work. Could she trust him? Perhaps—but she had to know more about him, what made him tick, what drove him, what in fact was he? That was at the heart of the mystery that plagued her. Just what was Chad MacFare? Did it matter? She thought that it did.

She clicked off what she knew about him: One, he had a mastery of magic, but there was nothing of the sorcerer about him. Two, he was intuitive, and he suffered visions that gave him a glimpse into the past and the future. Those visions gave him a heads up. Three, he had an uncanny way of using his magic and his skills to get past her wards, call her on a phone that was shut off, and so many other things, like—how had he found her in the first place?

Those were the things she knew about him, and none of those things were comforting. Ah, yes, there was something else—
his family.

Were they as abnormal as he? Something about them told her instinctively that whatever he was, whatever he had in his genes…came most definitely from them.

Mystery—
she was left with the mystery.

Still, for six months she had been evading and running from Pentim Rawley, and Chad was certainly right about one thing:
she knew that she couldn’t do it much longer.
He was bound to find her.

She had skills that Pentim didn’t know about, skills that even the all-knowing Chad MacFare might not know about, but she wasn’t quite certain those skills would be enough to keep her from getting caught. And she couldn’t get caught. She couldn’t become one of them…she was terrified that Pentim might be able to ‘turn’ her.

She had always healed quickly. She couldn’t remember ever being sick. She was super-strong, she was super-fast, and her senses were when compared to a human certainly heightened, but she knew that the diseased blood already in her system could be used against her. She believed she wouldn’t have to die to be turned.

There were two questions about herself for which she had no clear answer. The first being, could she die in the normal way—from age? And if not, would she stay young for as long as she lived?

Not important now, and she rather thought one day soon, she might discover the answers. She sighed over the memory of Chad’s face, so close to hers, his lips on her lips…

She brushed this away with a scowl.

And yet a little voice argued with her in her head, telling her Chad MacFare was so much more than she knew. He might be secure in his sense of self, but perhaps he wasn’t quite as arrogant as she had first assumed? Perhaps, he was just what she needed?

Wrong question, she told herself as she immediately pictured his hunky self in her head and felt her eyelids get lazy.
Stop!
Can’t think about his kisses…

She sighed long and hard, and then she turned to the business of warding her cottage with the strength of black magic. She went to her chest of ‘tools’ and withdrew a crystal amulet, a device used in white magic, and moved towards the front door.

However, she was finding it difficult to concentrate. Chad MacFare’s face and touch kept infiltrating her thoughts. Also, there was the mystery that surrounded him and drove her crazy.

And what about that business last night with his father and grandmother? Why had their appearances fuzzed up right before her eyes? She hadn’t been sick, and that had never happened to her before!

There was something more to the McFares than met the eye, and she was going to have to get him to answer at least some of her questions.

He continually surprised her, like when he had jumped out of the car to open her car door and then had insisted on walking her inside and making a check of the place himself before he left. He had put a finger to her nose and reminded her that he expected her to return to Darby Gray by two o’clock. Then with a wink, he had left.

Just like that, gone. She had bolstered herself believing she would have to fend him off. She had believed she would have to gather her inner strength to tell him ‘no’ to any kissing attempt, and then, just like that, she didn’t have to stop him. He made no attempt to kiss her at all. Let down—
huge!

She shook it all off and concentrated on the job at hand, but first she needed a drink. She set aside the amulet and moved to the fridge, where she retrieved the disguised bottle of pig’s blood. She stared at it for a long time before finally draining it down. Throwing the empty container in the garbage, she sighed heavily. She was going to have to go into Inverness sooner than she had anticipated and purchase another gallon.

She took out some of the dried herbs she had stored in various containers on the kitchen counter and mashed them together in a small dish. However, when she went to retrieve the amulet, she stopped short.

It was glowing blue
.

Whoa!
What the hell was this? It had never done that before. When she reached for it, it seemed to hop into her hands and the blue glow vanished.

Shawna placed the crystal on the table and used the age-old chant her grandmother had taught her so long ago,
cosain—dhuine-mé-greill agus treilis.
Shawna really didn’t speak or read ancient Gaelic, but she knew the arcane chants for the various wards and all the white magic spells. Her grandmother had started training her in the art of white magic when she was just five.

This particular spell would keep out the force of black magic. So many people believed that black magic was more potent than white, while in reality it wasn’t. It used fear and illusion to its advantage, but it wasn’t stronger than the purity of soft white mana.

The crystal shot out a bright, razor-sharp light that splintered throughout the house, magnifying at each of the windows and then at both the front and back doors. Then without warning, it retracted its rays and seemed to pause as an image deep within its glass started to form. Shawna couldn’t make it out, but she saw the color blue grow stronger and then vanish.

She stood for a long moment wondering just what it all meant.

~ Fourteen ~

CHAD HAD A FEW sports cars in his garage. He had taken out the silver Jaguar to drive Shawna home. What was he doing? Trying to impress her?

As he arrived at the fork in the road that would take him either to Darby Gray or into town, he stopped. Did he really need to go to town and bother with the errands he had listed for himself? Maybe he should just head home and prepare the weapons room for his first ‘training’ session with Shawna.

The image of her face tickled him. He imagined her twinkling bright silver eyes, and that drew an unconscious smile from him. Then he recalled for the hundredth time how she had felt in his arms.

Her luscious breast in his hand, her firm, ski slope butt…

He had to stop this
. He had a raging hard-on, and it wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon if he allowed himself to constantly think of her. As he tried to forget that fully charged moment when he had removed her sweater and she was deliciously in his arms, he heard the sound of a powerful engine—a Bentley pulling out of the MacDunn driveway at his back.

He looked in his rearview mirror and smirked.
Damn if it wasn’t the squire himself
!

He didn’t like the man, and he had been more upset than he wanted to admit to himself when he had discovered that Shawna had taken lunch with MacDunn at his manor. No doubt, the squire was after her pretty little ass.

The notion drew a sneer out of him. Some might say it was the pot calling the kettle black, but Chad felt otherwise. He never took a woman where she didn’t want to go, and he never played with a woman’s feelings. From the start, he was up front with any woman he met and became involved with intimately.

He had heard many stories about the squire and his coterie of women, and none of those stories were pleasant. There were whispers amongst the society of Inverness about Squire Kenneth MacDunn. Those whispers hinted at his abusive behavior. He liked to rough his women up emotionally and physically.

There was a nasty streak in the squire that could be dangerous. Chad had sensed it on the occasional times they had bumped into one another. The squire had a dark side, and that fact had come as a surprise to Chad. He had never noticed it about the man before his mother’s death. He had always thought the squire just a quiet, perhaps unfriendly sort, but something in the man’s nature had gone terribly wrong—Chad was sure of it.

The sound of the squire’s powerful car played in his ears, and Chad realized he was getting closer. In fact, the squire would soon be riding his bumper. Chad made no attempt to move his Jag out of the way or increase his speed. It was a one-lane road and Chad normally did not behave like that, but the squire continued to provoke him by blowing his horn.