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karma. Impossible information warred with undeniable feelings and became a dull headache at the base of her neck. But underneath it all was the question, burning and insistent. A question she couldn't dispel no matter how hard she tried, no matter how hard she concentrated.
Is he the one?
She didn't know. God help her, she didn't know. But she knew one thing, and it filled her with sadness.
If he was the one?her soul mate?it was too late.
Chapter Fifteen
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Viloula stood in the center of her cabin, alone. The sounds of the night filtered to her ears. Next door the party was just starting. From somewhere far away, some darkened edge of the canyon, came the hooting, lonely cry of an owl. Chilly night air closed around Viloula, pressed icy fingers around her bare throat.
She wished fleetingly, and not for the first time, that her mama were still alive. Genvieve would know how to interpret Viloula's strange, fitful visions, would understand her apprehension.
Something terrible was going to happen; she was certain of it. The moment she'd looked into Alaina's eyes, she'd seen the terrifying truth, heard the whispered words.
There would be a death....
She didn't question her knowledge, though she knew that others would. She had been taught since childhood to trust in her feelings, in the innate knowledge that remained hidden in the furthest reaches of her mind, seeping forward into the cold, hard daylight only when it must.
For generations, men?who had lesser access to these memories?had scoffed at such knowledge, labeling it women's intuition and discarding it as worthless.
But Viloula knew better, as had Genvieve before her, 183
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and innumerable generations of women before her. Intuition was knowledge, as certain as anything learned from any book and infinitely more powerful.
They had known each other before, she and Alaina and Killian, and now they were moving toward a danger, all three of them. A danger that couldn't be avoided.
There would be a death. . .,
Goose bumps crawled across Viloula's flesh. The time had come for Viloula to look into a place she'd studiously avoided all her life. A place that terrified her with its darkness, its uncertainty. A place where the past and the present and the future coexisted, a tangled web of lives over and lives yet to be.
She glanced at the small glass vial on her windowsill. Soon, when the camp fell once again into quiet, she would reach for it. And having once taken hold of the glass, there would be no turning back.
"Please, God," she whispered, her voice broken and throaty in the darkness, "let me have the strength to help her."
The strength to help us all ...
Everything was ready. It was time.
Lainie let out a heavy breath and glanced at the supplies at her feet. A ragged sack lay on the floor, its dirty sides bulging with supplies she'd gathered from the cabin, its mouth tied tight with a fraying scrap of rope. The canteen hung at her right hip; the wide leather strap pulled taut between her breasts and bit into the tender flesh at her throat.
Lainie went to the window and pushed aside the rough burlap curtain. The camp was empty, quiet except for the hum of raised voices and laughter coming from the drinking tent. Light seeped through the tent, silhouetted
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the crush of people moving inside. The tinny whine of a fiddle floated on the air.
Killian was in there.
She leaned forward a little, touched the tip of her nose to the cold glass. Her breath fogged the pane, turned the world into a hazy surreal smear. She wondered what he was doing, what he was thinking.
Yet, somehow, she knew. He was distant, untouched by the crowd of humanity swirling around him. Like her, he was always alone, no matter who was around him. It should have surprised her, the innate knowledge of a man she couldn't possibly understand, but it didn't. Viloula's words came back to her, filled her with a terrible longing. What if . . . soul mates ... a love that won't ever die .. .
For a second, it hurt to breathe. She could admit to herself, alone and in the dark, that she wished Viloula were right. She'd always wanted to believe in a fairytale love, wanted to believe it was possible. Long ago, before life crushed her spirit so completely, she'd believed in a million moments like this, in the hot magic of possibility.
Amazingly, she was beginning to believe in it again. And?naturally?it was too late. Sadness pulled at her lips, turned them down at the corners. Regret was a hard knot in the pit of her stomach.
She wished it weren't too late, wished she could have taken the time to see Killian one last time, look in his eyes. Maybe she would have seen the past, maybe she would have seen the future. And maybe she would have seen nothing but a dark reflection of her own confusing needs and wants.
She didn't know. Would never know.
Frowning, she stepped back from the window and let the curtain shudder back in place.
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Unfortunately, it was time to go. She had no choice. Viloula hadn't come up with a way out of here, and Killian obviously wasn't going to help her.
As usual, everything was up to Lainie. And she wouldn't let Kelly down. Straightening, she went to the door, grabbed the latchstring, and pulled the door open.
"Pssst. Skeeter," she hissed through the barely open door. "Psst."
The scrawny cowhand scratched his butt and looked around. "Huh?"
Lainie cracked the door open a little wider, enough so that he could see her. She pasted a sugary smile on her face. For this plan to work, she had to be what she'd rarely been in her life. Feminine and helpless.
"Oh!" he said, his voice spiking up an octave. "It's you."
"Skeeter, I seem to have misplaced my compass." She said it airily, as if she were a lady who'd just dropped a handkerchief. "Would you mind getting me another?"
"Whaddaya need a compass for?"
"I'm practicing for the Olympics."
His face creased slowly into a frown. She brightened her smile and tried to look as vague as possible. "Surely you know what the Olympics are...."
He puffed up, threw his narrow chest out. "Course I do."
She nodded. "Then you'll get me the compass?"
He dug into his baggy pants pocket. "Actually, I got one right here. You c'n borrow it iffen you want."
She reached out, closed her fingers around the compass, and snaked her find back. "Thank you, Skeeter. You're a real gentleman." She started to close the door, then stopped. "You know, Skeeter ..." She batted her
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eyelashes and brought a fluttery hand to her throat. "I'm sorely parched."
He brightened. "You, too? Hell, I'm thirsty as a dead dog on a summer day."
"The problem is, Killian took the only bottle of whiskey. Maybe you could run on down to your place and get us something...."
He cast a furtive glance sideways. "I dunno. The boss tole me to stand here."
"You could come right back. I wouldn't tell him you left. I swear I wouldn't."
He glanced down the deserted street. "It ain't far to my place. I could be back in a second."
"Who'd notice an itty bitty slip of time like that?"
He looked down at the drinking tent at the end of the road, then at his own tent half as far away. "Okay," he whispered, leaning close. "I'll get us a bottle and be right back."
She licked her lips and smiled. "I can taste it already."
Skeeter dragged his hat lower on his head and started for his own tent, moving cautiously, jumping at every shadow.
Lainie spun into high gear. She grabbed the knapsack she'd packed and the full canteen and slung them over her shoulder.
She poked her head out the door. The coast was clear.
With a sharp, indrawn breath, she ran for the tunnel. The supplies on her back clanked with each pounding step, her heartbeat hammered in her chest.
She plunged into the tunnel and skidded to a heaving stop. Darkness curled around her,
black and suffocating.
She reached into her canvas bag and pulled out a candle, lighting it. The candle cast weary gold light along the sandstone walls, but even with it, she couldn't
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see more than a foot in front of her face. In her shaking hand, the light danced and writhed in snakelike patterns on the damp stone.
Slowly she crept down the black pathway. The dank smell of a place unseen by the sun clogged her nostrils. She dragged her fingers along the rough sandstone wall and kept moving forward.
She didn't care how scared she was, how lonely she felt. This was the only way out, the only way back to Kelly.
She'd find her way back or die trying.
Good-bye, Viloula. She focused her thoughts on the words, tried to send them through time and space to the old woman. It was all she could do, and she wished it were more.
Good-bye.
Killian stood at the rear of the tent, his hat drawn low over his eyes. A half-empty bottle of whiskey sat on the floor in easy reach. Something about him?his eyes, his stance, something?must have warned people to stay away from him, because not a single person came near him.
Raucous laughter and hoarse voices exploded in the small tent; the pungent smell of unwashed bodies was almost overpowering. People were a blur of movement all around him, dashing, shoving, jostling their way to a makeshift dance floor. In the corner, Purty played the fiddle?poorly. The whining screech of the bow on loose strings vibrated above the din.
Killian watched the action without seeing it. He stood stiff and unmoving, his body held rigidly in check. At his sides, his hands were balled in tight fists, ready.
He wanted to punch something, someone, anything.
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Anything to release the anger that seethed beneath the surface, made him feel restless and uneasy and tense.
He didn't know what to do, how to exorcise the emotions that swirled through his mind like a hot, red mist. He wasn't used to feeling this way. Hell, he wasn't used to feeling at all anymore. For years he'd been cold and calm. Always calm.
Now he was anything but calm. It felt as if there were a bomb inside him, sitting heavily in his gut. Tension radiated beneath his skin, tightened his muscles until they ached.
He leaned back against the sagging canvas wall and forced out a steady breath, trying to bring his raging temper under control. But no matter how hard he tried, or how much he drank, he couldn't forget.
Help me, please . . .
Her soft-spoken plea came back to him, hitting with the force of a hammerblow. He winced, felt a sharp pain in his chest. He yanked up the whiskey bottle and took another long, dribbling drink. He wanted?needed?to get rip-roaring drunk. Anything to make him forget what she'd asked of him, and how he'd felt when she asked it. But he couldn't forget; that was the hell of it, that was the reason he stood here, alone in the middle of a crowd of people, his emotions a turbulent, seething boil in his head. For a second, when he'd looked down into her watery, desperate eyes, he'd wanted to help her.
As if he could. Christ.
He told himself it meant nothing, that stupid, useless desire to help her. Hell, he would have said?or thought?anything right then, anything to make her stop looking at him like he was a goddamn hero.
But deep down, he knew the truth, and it scared the hell out of him. He'd wanted to reach out to her, to offer a side of himself he'd thought he'd discarded a life-
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time ago. Something about her brought out a renegade remnant of the man he'd once been, once thought he'd be forever. The man who believed in love and honor and commitment; the idealistic lawman who was going to save the world and make it a safe place for innocent people.
It had ruined him, that idealism. When he lost it? buried it in a lonely grave in a nothing little town?he'd been left with only a searing emptiness, a dark-edged regret. He'd spent years running from everything and everyone, trying to escape from the hatred eating inside his heart like a cancer. But there'd been no escape, not from himself.
Now those days were a hazy blur for him. He could barely remember what it felt like to actually want something, to care about something.
Until he looked at Lainie. Then he remembered it all in blinding, aching clarity. He remembered the pride he'd once taken in wearing the badge of a Texas Ranger, remembered the dreams he'd once held so close.
At the thought, he felt another surge of anger. He grabbed the bottle of whiskey and took a long drink. The alcohol seared his throat and filled his stomach with fire. He winced, wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
Didn't she know? She knew so goddamn much about him, about his life and his past. She had to know what a failure he was as a man, what a loser.
So why would she ask him for help?
And why would he want to try? He knew better. Jesus, he knew better. He didn't know which scared him more?the desire to help her or the realization that he couldn't.
Every time he'd ever tried to help someone, he'd failed. Utterly, miserably. He wasn't any good at it.
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People who counted on him died. It was as simple?as horrifying?as that.
Help me, please . . .
With a bitten-off curse, he shoved away from the wall and surged into the crowd. He had to do something to get his mind off her. If he didn't, he was going to explode.
"Killian!" A trilling female voice punched through his thoughts, brought him up short.
He glanced to the left. A woman pushed through the crowd toward him, her mammoth breasts leading the way like a pair of bowsprits. Loose swells of sweaty cleavage jostled with every step. Right in front of him, she stopped, cocked her head, and gave him a seductive smile. "Ye're mighty unsociable-like tonight, Killian. Like always."
A bitter smile curved his mouth. This is what he needed. Fast, furious, impersonal sex. A good romp that would keep his body so busy, his mind would shut down.
He grabbed the whore and drew her close. With a throaty laugh, she stumbled toward him and tilted her face for a kiss. "Ooee! The girls ain't gonna believe this," she purred, smearing herself against him.
He made the fatal mistake of looking at her. Heavily made-up blue eyes blinked up at him sleepily, but he didn't even see them.
He saw Lainie's sad, hazel eyes instead. The image of them, desperate and sheened with tears, was like a blow to the heart. Stark, ice-cold fear rushed through him. Jesus, she was inside him. He couldn't get away from her sad eyes and pitiful request.
He stumbled back from the whore without mumbling a word. Clutching the whiskey bottle, he took a long, burning draw and slipped through the crowd.
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The canvas door beckoned. He ducked his head and ran for it. He got halfway across the tent before he realized what he was doing, where he was going.
He'd been going to Lainie.
The thought slammed through the alcohol-induced haze and brought him to a dead stop. He stood in the center of the crowd like a fool, reeling and drunk, his mind unable to release its grip on Lainie and her sad, sad eyes.
He groaned quietly and bowed his head. Jesus, there wasn't enough alcohol in the world to make his problems go away. Not this time. He could drink from now until Sunday and he'd still be thinking of her.
You know what that's like, Killian, coming home to an empty house... .
He winced at the memory of her observation, so damned intimate. When he'd looked down at her then, he'd felt as if he were falling into the dark pool of her eyes. And there he'd found a warmth, an understanding he couldn't imagine. He'd thought?fleetingly and with longing?that she knew what it felt like to be kicked in the teeth and still go on. Knew what hell it was sometimes, how much willpower it took, just to keep living.
He walked slowly to the door and went outside, heading for the barn. There, he leaned against the wall and slid slowly to his butt, drawing his legs close. The black, black night curled around him, stars flickering overhead. Music and noise and laughter drifted on the slight br
eeze, muffled and low. The party was right there, not more than fifty feet away, and for the first time in years, he felt achingly alone.
He banged his head back against the wooden wall and let out a harsh sigh. He had to get away from her and stay away from her. Otherwise ...
He shuddered at the thought of otherwise.
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If he didn't get away from her, she'd keep asking him for help, keep whittling away at the shell he'd worked so hard to create. Surprisingly, she'd found a weakness; one he hadn't even expected. Somewhere, deep inside him, was a remnant of the lawman he'd once been.
It was the most terrifying realization he could imagine. Because he might want to help her, might even try, but in the end, when the chips were down, he wouldn't be there for her.
And he couldn't survive failing someone again. Not again.
"Oh, no." Skeeter poked his head through the half-open door to Killian's cabin and dropped the whiskey bottle. It hit the hard-packed dirt at his feet with a thud. The sharp, pungent smell of alcohol wafted upward. "I'm a dead man."
She was gone.
His knees started knocking together. He swallowed convulsively, licking his paper-dry lips. Killian wasn't going to be happy. Not happy at all.
Skeeter bent down and retrieved the fallen bottle. It was still more than half-full. He eyed the sloshing amber liquid, smelled its familiar sweetness. And suddenly he was desperately thirsty.
He wiped the glass mouth and took a long, gulping swallow. Then another, and another.
Finally he pulled back and looked at the bottle. He could go get Killian now, or he could get drunk first. Either way, he was in a world of hurt.
There was no contest. Skeeter leaned against the cabin door and folded downward. His butt plunked on the cold dirt, his knobby knees came up like twin mountain peaks.
Drunk was better.
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He drank the remainder of the bottle in fiery swallows, then staggered to his feet. A slippery laugh escaped him. He clamped a bony hand over his mouth and tossed the bottle away.
He pushed off from the cabin and stumbled down the street. Halfway to the drinking tent, he started to sing. A laughing, nothing little ditty about whores and drawers. He burst into the drinking tent with a flourish.
"Hey, Skeet," said a barrel-chested woman who looked like his father. "Where ya been?"
He gave a yelp and skedaddled sideways, muttering something about Killian.
Killian. Suddenly he remembered, and a cold wash of fear almost sobered him. He staggered through the crowd, clearing his way by pushing aside people even drunker than he was.