“Okay,” she agreed. “Are you hoping you’ll get a prediction of when Cole will propose?”
“This time,” Jackie said lightly, “I’m not so much interested in my future. It’s yours I’m wondering about.”
Chapter 5
The carnival was like most that Michele had seen in the States. There were a few rides for children, a number of exhibits and games, and the place was packed. The only obvious difference was that the carnies here called out to customers in three languages. Most of the patrons were tourists, a large majority American, all clearly willing to accept the games as honest, the exhibits as containing at least a reasonable facsimile of what was so luridly painted on the outside of the tents, and the rides as safe.
Mrs. Fortune’s tent was surprisingly subdued, given its atmospheric background. It was a soft violet in color, and boasted only a sign in Old English script above the tent flap promising that tarot readings were conducted inside. Outside and to the right of the opening stood a man, and he made no effort to try and entice the milling tourists to enter the tent. He merely studied the crowd, occasionally smiling or nodding if someone looked his way.
Jackie, who had no interest in anything other than a possible glimpse into her friend’s future, had Michele by the arm and was leading her inexorably to the tent.
Michele had accepted her fate, but as they drew near the man outside the tent, she found her whole attention focused on him. He was certainly a fascinating-looking man. He was extremely large, for one thing, his formal white suit tailored exquisitely on a frame that didn’t seem to hold a bit of fat. And he was, Michele thought, very old, even though his erect posture held the years at bay. He had a healthy thatch of snow-white hair, a full white beard, and dark eyes that shone benignly and contained a friendly, tolerant wisdom. Elegant hands were folded casually over the top of a gold-headed cane, which he used to lift aside the flap of the tent.
“Ladies.” His deep voice was rich in tone and incongruously gentle for so large a man.
“How much?” Jackie demanded without preamble.
“You have a card?” he murmured. When she produced it, he added softly, “One free reading, then.”
“Yours,” Jackie told Michele, and pulled her friend inside.
Experienced in the various trappings of fortune-tellers, Michele was surprised by the interior of the tent. There were no velvet hangings, no burning candles or incense, and no peculiar statuettes or symbols lying about. There was only a comfortable couch on one side of a low, plain, glass-topped table, with a chair on the other side. And bare tent walls.
The woman who rose from the chair at their entrance was also something of a surprise to Michele. She was petite and delicate. Instead of the usual gypsy-type draperies, she wore a very modern and tasteful ruby-red dress that enormously flattered her snowy hair and milky complexion—to say nothing of a still-splendid figure.
“Welcome,” she said softly, her voice low and sweet.
Jackie shoved Michele forward and waved her card. “My friend’s come for her reading.”
“Please sit down,” Mrs. Fortune invited, seating herself gracefully in the chair.
Michele sat, with Jackie beside her, and watched as Mrs. Fortune leaned forward to open a carved wooden box at the side of the table. The woman seemed to hesitate only an instant, then drew out a deck of tarot cards wrapped in cloth. She unwrapped the cards and set the cloth aside, then held the deck out to Michele. “Cut the cards, please.”
Obeying, Michele studied the woman curiously. She was absolutely lovely, her face totally unlined even though Michele felt she was very old. Her eyes were a vibrant green, so unusual a shade that they seemed iridescent, their depth and clarity curiously compelling.
Michele had a sudden and rather unnerving impression that if any mortal human had been granted the ability to open a door into the future, this woman had. She had remained purposefully silent and sat very still, all too aware that many so-called clairvoyants were adept at reading body language and listening to subtle changes in voice as they skillfully guided their “clients” through the practiced fakery of what was called in the craft of a professional seer a “cold reading.”
But the beautiful old lady didn’t even glance up, and she never once asked Michele anything. She laid the tarot cards out on the table slowly in a complicated pattern, studying each one in silence for an instant before placing the next. When the pattern lay complete, she began speaking in her soft, clear voice, her tone holding no drama or mystical theatrics. One delicate finger lightly touched each card as she interpreted it.
“Your past. You are descended from a very old line, their roots in the dark Celtic moors. In your veins runs the hot blood of a warrior strain, and in your soul is the knowledge of a terrible conflict you were born to resolve. An unexpected meeting cast all that you feel into chaos. There is a man you cannot trust, yet cannot turn away from.”
Michele didn’t stiffen, but only because she was concentrating fiercely on remaining motionless. Still, she could feel her pulse quicken, and the hands clasped together in her lap were cold.
The old lady went on without looking up. “Your present. You stand between enemies. Old, old enemies. All around you are the shifting patterns of things seen—and unseen. Events set in motion by your blood, but not by your hand. Old hurts must be avenged; the need for revenge is a terrible hunger, a dreadful thirst, and it must be satisfied. Danger is everywhere, a trusted voice, a strange but familiar face, eyes veiled against you. You feel great doubts and fears, but great passions as well. You risk much. Star-crossed lovers.”
Michele heard Jackie gasp, but she herself remained utterly silent. She had a peculiarly detached feeling, staring at that delicate hand as it moved lightly from card to card, and listening to the soft, relentless voice.
“Your future. You will feel torn between what was and what must be. Two paths lay before you, one leading to the destruction of all you hold dear, the other leading to a triumph of the heart and the spirit. Neither way is without pain. Neither way is without tragedy. Even now, the events set in motion entangle you and all you care about; even now, the seeds sown decades ago grow twisted to bear a dark and bitter fruit. You cannot change what must be, but only preserve with your own will a hopeful future. The confusion of heart against mind is a battle you must fight and win if you are to find contentment. You must abandon much to win all. You must find courage in the truth you feel, for that alone will show you the way.”
The old lady looked up then, her vibrant eyes darkened with compassion. Gently, she said, “It was always intended, child. Always meant to be. You were destined to love the enemy of your family.”
Michele gazed into those sympathetic eyes, and she could almost feel them looking into her soul. “I don’t believe in fate,” she whispered.
“Yes, you do,” Mrs. Fortune said quietly. “You’ve always known what he could be to you.”
Michele didn’t remember rising or turning away. She didn’t remember walking from the tent. She just found herself outside, walking steadily beside a very silent Jackie, and when she heard her own voice shake she wasn’t surprised. “Did you arrange that? Pay her to say that?”
“No.” Jackie was too subdued to take offense. “If I had—she wouldn’t have said what she did. The last thing I wanted to hear was that you were fated to love Ian Stuart.”
“I don’t believe in fate,” Michele repeated.
“Are you in love with him? Michele? Are you?”
“Yes.”
—
“That appears to have gone rather well,” he said, coming into the tent.
She looked up from the cards still lying in their pattern on the table and stared at him. Her vibrant eyes held a speculative gleam. “Cy, what happened to the stacked deck?”
Mildly surprised, he said, “Wasn’t it in the box?”
“No.”
“Well, no matter, sweet. You were able to follow the script, after all.”
&nb
sp; “I wasn’t following a script.”
“No?”
“No. I read the cards just the way they fell. Each had only one possible interpretation.”
He looked down at the pattern on the table, then back at her. In the depths of his benign eyes was a tiny smile. “Now, fancy that,” he said placidly.
She shook her head slightly and leaned forward to gather up the cards. Conversationally, and as if to herself, she said, “I don’t know why I’m surprised. After all these years, you’d think I would have become accustomed to it.”
“To what, love?”
“Your witchery.”
Cyrus Fortune folded both elegant hands on his cane and looked at her with a tender smile playing about his firm lips. In a sedate tone, he said, “She cut the deck. You dealt the cards and read them. How could I have possibly controlled that?”
A soft laugh escaped her, the sound tinged with love and wonder. “You didn’t control it. You simply knew it would happen just that way.” Then she sobered and looked up at him gravely. “Cy, if you had arrived on time thirty-five years ago…”
“Those two people would not now exist.”
“Could you have ended it then?”
He hesitated. “There was a chance.”
“I think you were right when you told me everything happens in its own time,” she said. “And this is the time. They were meant to love.”
“Yes.”
“It isn’t over, is it?”
“No,” he said gently. “It’s just beginning.”
—
“Have you told him?” Jackie asked in a strained voice.
They were on the terrace of the hotel having a late lunch—or were supposed to be. Neither had done more than pick at her food, and both had been virtually silent until now.
Michele shook her head. “I want to. I’ve wanted to a dozen times. I just…somehow, I haven’t been able to say the words.”
“It was bad enough thinking you just had to have some insane fling. But this…”
“Don’t you think I know?” Michele’s voice was unsteady despite all her attempts at control. She looked at her friend, her emotions confused and uncertain. “Jackie, I didn’t go looking for this. It scares the hell out of me, what Dad and Jon are going to do when they find out.”
“Do they have to find out?”
“It isn’t just an affair!”
Jackie looked away, finally, from her friend’s glittering eyes. “All right. What does Ian say?”
“We’ve tried to talk about it. But there aren’t any answers. No matter what we do, this is going to have a terrible effect on our families. The tension between them has never been stronger. Our fathers are competing for that big contract, both of them pushing to get their current projects finished. I don’t know what’s going on in Atlanta now, but Jon was convinced the Stuarts had paid off some of the inspectors, bribed them to stall the project.”
“They’ve done it before,” Jackie said flatly.
“Have they? That’s the worst part of this feud, Jackie, and you’re blind if you can’t see it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing’s ever proven. Accusations on one side, denials on the other, over and over. But it’s a private battle. Oh, half the South knows about it, but it’s still private. We don’t go to court, don’t gather evidence to present to a jury. That isn’t the way it’s done. We just sling mud back and forth, and go on hating because it doesn’t end.”
Jackie was silent for a moment, then shook her head and met Michele’s gaze with a stubborn glint in her own. “All I know is that you can’t stop it. You heard what Mrs. Fortune said. Choose the wrong path, and you’ll destroy everything you care about. And it doesn’t take a clairvoyant to tell either of us that the wrong path is any kind of relationship with Ian Stuart.”
Michele drew a short breath. “She also said I was destined to love him.”
“She didn’t say he was destined to love you.”
That hurt, all the more because Michele felt so vulnerable and because the horrible, dark suspicions just wouldn’t go away. There was a part of her that believed Ian cared about her, that it wasn’t just passion, but so much had happened between them so quickly that she felt raw and unsure.
“Forbidden fruit,” Jackie said in a taut voice. “Maybe he wanted a taste, too.”
“He wouldn’t risk so much for that,” Michele whispered. “Not simply that.”
“What’s he risking? His father wouldn’t disown him,” Jackie said, unknowingly echoing Ian’s own words. “He’s an only child, an only son. Besides that—maybe his father thinks that’s all a Logan woman’s good for. He might not give a damn that Ian’s slept with you; it’d only give him something new to taunt your father with.”
“Don’t.”
Jackie looked down, knowing Michele was on the ragged edge and hurting. “I don’t want to keep saying such things. But you’ve got to face the fact that you’re risking everything. Your father and Jon could never accept Ian as your lover. Never. Michele, they’d rather see you dead.”
Michele got up from the table and walked away. She was moving, blindly, hardly aware that she was retreating to her room like a wounded animal seeking its burrow. She desperately wanted Ian, wanted his arms around her and his body hard against hers. She wanted him to push away the darkness that seemed to be closing in on her, the confusion and pain.
Her friend’s statement that both her father and brother would choose to see her dead rather than in the arms of the man she loved was a terrible thing to hear. But worse than hearing it was the devastation of believing it was true.
“Michele?”
“Leave me alone, Jackie.” She was standing by her balcony doors, staring out.
“We can go home,” Jackie’s voice was pleading. “Today. Nobody has to know. Things can be the way they were—”
“Nothing can ever be the way it was.” That was the only truth she was utterly certain of. Nothing in her life would ever again be as it had been.
“Look at what he’s done to you already. You’re so brittle, a touch would shatter you into a million pieces. This is tearing you apart. No matter what you do now it’s only going to hurt you. Michele—”
Michele jerked around, but whatever she would have said was lost as the phone rang loudly. She drew a breath to steady herself, then went to the bed and sat down as she lifted the receiver. “Hello?”
“Michele.”
She felt suddenly cold, a tremor of fear chasing down her spine. Her father never called her like this, not unless something had happened. “Dad? What’s wrong?”
“Jon’s been hurt.” His voice was flat. “Early this morning at the building.”
“How bad is it?” She was terrified of hearing the answer, more terrified of not hearing it.
“I don’t know. They haven’t been able to tell me anything definitive yet. He was barely conscious when they brought him in, but he managed to say who was responsible.”
“Responsible?” The coldness spread through her body. “It wasn’t an accident.”
“No, it damned well wasn’t,” her father said, his control slipping and allowing the harsh and malignant feelings he was experiencing to sound in his voice. “Jon caught a saboteur, Michele, red-handed. He managed to choke the truth out of him before the bastard’s handiwork brought a wall down almost on top of him.”
Michele couldn’t have asked; she didn’t want to hear. But her father was going on in a voice vibrating with hatred and filled with utter certainty.
“The son of a bitch thought he’d keep suspicion off himself by being out of the city when it happened, but his hired gun couldn’t talk fast enough. Ian Stuart planned it all weeks ago, then called yesterday and set his man to work. If Jon hadn’t gotten a tip and gone out there, the damage would have been ten times as bad.”
“No.” She thought she said it aloud, but her father apparently heard nothing.
“Come home,
Michele.”
“I’ll be on the next plane,” she murmured.
“The car will meet you.”
Michele hung up the phone, vaguely surprised to see that her hand was steady. She felt hollow inside, all her emotions numbed and still.
“What’s happened?” Jackie demanded anxiously. “You’re white as a ghost.”
Tonelessly, Michele repeated the conversation. “I have to go home,” she finished.
“Start packing. I’ll call the airline. And I’ll pack, too. I’m going back with you.”
Michele didn’t try to dissuade her friend. The next two hours passed in a blur, and it wasn’t until they were on a plane bound for Atlanta that the numbness retreated and left her feeling emotionally battered and so confused she could barely think.
Ian? No! It couldn’t have been him. It was all some horrible mistake; it had to be. There had to be another explanation for what had happened. He’d said he wouldn’t fight her brother, that Jon could hate him to hell and back and he wouldn’t fight him. Could he have lied about that and made her believe him? Could he have held her in his arms with a desire she knew was real while plotting coldly against her family?
She didn’t want to believe it, couldn’t believe it despite her father’s certainty and her own agonizing doubts. How could she love a man capable of such treachery? There had to be another answer…
“Michele?” Jackie’s voice was tentative. “You couldn’t have known Ian would—”
“I don’t know that he did.”
“But your father said that man named Ian as his employer.”
“Then it’s his word against Ian’s, isn’t it?”
There was a moment of silence, and then Jackie said, “You must believe it. You didn’t leave a message for Ian.”
Michele kept her head turned away, directing her gaze out the window even though she saw nothing. “No, I didn’t leave a message. I just ran like a coward. Afraid to face him.”
“What could he have said if you had stayed to face him? That he didn’t do it? Of course he’d say that. Michele, this time somebody got hurt. Jon got hurt. And Lord help the Stuarts if he was hurt badly.”