Love Everlastin' Book 3

  LOVE EVERLASTIN’

  Book 3

  by

  Mickee Madden

  * * *

  Smashwords Edition

  © 2011 by Mickee Madden

  ****************************************************

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover design by Mickee Madden

  * * *

  For Steve. May we see another 30 years together. For Denise, who I dearly miss. For my critique members, and for the readers. Thank you!

  * * *

  Glossary

  afeared/ afraid — afore/before — althegither/ altogether — anither/another

  aught/anything — bahookie/buttocks — brither/brother — canna/cannot

  corbie/crow — couldna/couldn't — craiture/creature — daith/death

  didna/didn't — dinna/don't / faither/father / haud yer wheesht/ / hold your

  noise — havena/haven't — ither/other — mair/more — mair'n/more than

  maist/most — mither/mother — na canny/unnatural — naught/nothing

  orra/odd — shouldna/shouldn't — thegither/together — verra/very

  wasna/wasn't — weel/well — willna/will not — winna/won't

  wouldna/wouldn't

  ***

  For information on up-coming e-books by Mickee Madden

  please contact her at: mickeemadden@charter.net

  Chapter 1

  Milky fog emanated from the still waters of Loch Ken and rolled languidly across the night-cloaked land. The dense chilling mist blanketed three months' worth of packed snow. In a little more than two weeks it would be spring. A time of rebirth and newness. A time of revitalization. The winter had been a particularly harsh one, wrought with one storm after another. Many anxiously awaited the passing of the season, but to one man, snow, rain or sunshine, he would never again feel anything but numbness. Physical and emotional numbness.

  Sitting half-frozen in his parked dark blue Audi, he vaguely acknowledged the deathlike nothingness threatening to consume him. His clenched hands lay atop his lap. Shaggy black hair and an unkempt beard and mustache framed his cadaverous-pale face. Dark circles punctuated the vacantness in his light gray-green eyes. Slouched in the front seat behind the steering wheel, his back to the door, he stared unseeingly at the frost-coated window on the passenger side. Sometime ago, ice had formed on the glass, cutting off most of his view of the house which loomed atop a hill on the opposite side of the road. He'd been staring at the place for several hours, trying to work up the courage to approach the inhabitants.

  It had taken him two months to get this far. The last hurdle, the actual act of forcing himself to get out of the Audi and climb the driveway and rap on the front door, seemed utterly beyond his capability. It was as if he had died shortly after parking on the shoulder of the road. His deep inner fears of further losing himself had vanished and had been replaced with numbness. His desperation to find emotional solace had dwindled beneath a suffocating shroud of numbness.

  His willpower had deserted him. Numbness. Even his anger was gone. After so long...gone. The numbness was all, the omnipresence of his existence. And since the cold had penetrated his meager clothing and his skin and his bones, he could no longer feel what he clutched in his right hand. The remnants had been so very important to him since last Christmas Eve.

  His only link to his wayward sanity.

  His heavy eyelids drooped, now covering half of his bloodshot eyes. He told himself he was slowly freezing to death, but he couldn't even summon up a modicum of concern, of regret. He'd walked away from everything. Lost all he had, including not only the respect of his peers, but his self-respect. With the Phantom no longer a threat to society, he should feel exhilaration, triumph, but Rose's death had taken the heart out of him. His soul, the very essence of the man he'd been, had been wrenched from the flesh-and-bone shell that now housed his pathetic remains. There was no going back. Not to the agency, his flat, or his unsympathetic family. He now knew that his psychic gifts had been leading him to this point for many years.

  Winston Ian Connery would cease to be this night.

  He would be found frozen to the seat, his unbuttoned black trench coat haphazardly draped on him. Eventually, when his identity was known, it would be said that this promising young man had unfortunately succumbed to exposure after falling asleep in his car. The highlights of his career would be mentioned. His family would lament their grief, when in fact he knew they would secretly be grateful the black sheep had passed on without further embarrassing them.

  No regrets. Except Rose.

  He would have gladly sacrificed his own life to have given her the chance to return to her husband and two small sons. They had wept at her passing, and psychically imbibing their grief had been the darkest, most shattering experience of his life.

  Winston's existence had been enmeshed with the lives of strangers for most of his life. He had experienced genuine emotion only through them. Loved, hated, feared and rejoiced only through others. Left on his own, he was but a shell. His lot in life had been that of a psychic conduit, but now that, too, was denied him.

  He'd come to Baird House on the slim hope its magic would save him, or at least grant him the ability to feel something of his own. But he couldn't bring himself to intrude. The inhabitants of the mansion had been through enough. It wasn't his place to ask them for anything, to ask anyone to help him. Not when he couldn't help himself.

  Releasing a thready breath, Winston drowsily watched vapors rise in front of his face. He tried to will his palm and curled fingers to acknowledge the texture of the rose petals against his skin, but he couldn't even feel his hand. His limbs had lost all sensation a while ago.

  Rose. Rose.

  She hadn't deserved to suffer as she had. If only he could have brought her here, to this house, to be touched by the magic he had witnessed Christmas Eve.

  Or had that been a dream?

  A spark of fear returned.

  No! Not a dream! Not a hallucination!

  When he attempted to verbalize a protest, only a croaking sound passed his lips.

  I have to know! he mentally cried, panic enlarging his eyes. It had to have been real! Laura Bennett. She should have died, but I saw....

  He gulped past the agonizing rawness in his throat.

  I know wha' I saw. I know wha' I saw, he silently chanted, a wild almost maniacal gleam igniting in his irises.

  Roses in the snow.

  Rose died. The bloody symbolism's there!

  Why can't I think clearly?

  Rose?

  You bastard bureaucrats! You let her die rather than trust me to help her!

  I found her, didn't I? It should have been up to me, you frigging hypocrites!

  Red tape.

  A bitter, caustic laugh boomed inside his skull.

  The world's being rent apart by numbers and red tape!

  The time's coming when we'll no' have names. "How good to see you Mr. 10583-67-991472. Wha' can I do for you this fine..bright...morn?"

  The magic has to be real! Sweet Jesus, don't take tha' from me, too!

  Anger made a miserable bid to heat his blood.

  He had to know for sure if he'd only imagined last Christmas Eve when Lachlan Baird had transformed a winter's night into somethi
ng from out of a fairy tale. All else in Winston's life could prove false right now, but not the significance of the rose he'd carried with him since the ghost's "miracle".

  Determined to banish his doubts before it was too late, he turned on the seat.

  Thought he had turned, when in fact, he hadn't moved at all. It suddenly struck him that he couldn't move his limbs. They were blocks of ice. Dead. Useless.

  Unbidden, tears brimmed his eyes.

  All the mistakes he'd made in his thirty-six years flooded to the fore of his mind. He winced. The cases he had solved, the lives he had saved, all paled in significance to the life of denial he'd led. No one had ever understood that his "gifts" had left him vulnerable. Had taught him he couldn't lead a normal life. Had taught him he couldn't ever hope of having anything more than what he already possessed.

  There would never be a woman with whom he could share his life.

  What woman would tolerate a man who would know their every thought, their every secret?

  And what woman could possibly love a man incapable of feeling his own emotions?

  He would never experience fatherhood. Even that biological proclivity was something he had only experienced through the tapped-into psychic byways of existing fathers he'd encountered.

  Since the age of three, he'd been little more than a breathing psychic machine—a highly evolved, intricately-designed conduit with which to decipher the human condition. His sole purpose revolved around the suffering of ordinary people. Ironically, without murderers, kidnappers, robbers and drug dealers, nature likely would have shelved him years ago—much as his parents had done for the sake of the family's reputation.

  "Anonymity," his father would say, "has its price." And that price had been to sacrifice his only son.

  To prevent friends and associates from learning of Winston's peculiar gifts, from the age of four to twenty-two, his parents had boarded him in one private school after another. If he hadn't happened upon the Shields Agency—a job in which his “gifts” were not only utilized but considered invaluable—he could almost believe he would still be in a classroom.

  Now he was learning a lesson of a different kind.

  A shudder coursed through him as he told himself it wasn't right to die this way. Not in this place. Not at this time.

  Is this wha' it's like for someone contemplating suicide? Teetering on the brink o' uncertainty? Wondering if their despair could possibly amount to something else? Something painless. Something tha' perhaps even felt...good?

  An agonized groan gurgled in his throat. It escalated into a strangled outcry when the door bracing his spine unexpectedly gave way. He pitched backward. In a blur of motion and confusion, his world went round and round, right-side up and upside down, leaving him with the impression that he'd been vacuumed into a spinning tunnel.

  He was vaguely conscious of someone trying to right him onto his feet, but his legs wouldn't cooperate. They dangled beneath him. Stiff. Unfeeling. Bent at the knees like the plastic molded legs on baby dolls. Words tried to penetrate the layers of befuddlement blanketing his brain. None passed his raw, cracked lips. He continued to sink deeper and deeper into a void of merciful oblivion, until at last his torment and pain were released within the inky blackness of unconsciousness.

  Unaware of the passage of time, sounds drew him from his safe haven. Soft voices spoken so as not to disturb him. The crackle and snap of flames rendering wood to ashes. There was also a backdrop of silence so full it seemed like a presence leaning over his shoulder, its chilling breath fanning the taut muscles in his neck and face.

  A sensation of pins and needles tormented his hands and feet, but the pain was not enough to equal the torment in his mind. He knew he was safe and secured within a dwelling, but he wasn't sure that he wanted to feel protected at the moment. He'd been on a direct path to self-destruction. So close, he believed he'd heard death's approach at the periphery of his mind.

  Against his will, his eyelids fluttered open. A blazing hearth a short distance away, first filled his vision. Waves of heat washed over him and he was surprised to realize that perspiration was trickling down his face. His gaze dropped to where his hands were clawlike upon his blanketed lap, the skin red and chafed and looking far older than his actual years.

  Finally, the pain in his hands and feet grew unbearable. He locked his teeth against a protest and breathed sparingly through his nostrils.

  "I don't like this, Roan," a woman whispered, just loud enough for Winston to make out her words.

  In a slightly louder tone, a man replied, "Give it a while. If he doesn't come round soon, I'll fetch the doctor."

  The woman sighed deeply, impatiently. Winston could feel her gaze on his back and he sensed her reluctance to have a virtual stranger within her home.

  Winston lightly frowned as he studied the light blue and deep purple plaid of the lap blanket covering his legs. The MacLachlan plaid was red and blue, the clan badge, a castle. For the life of him he couldn't remember which clan blue and purple represented, and the fragment of lost memory annoyed him.

  No, no' MacLachlan. No' the clan at all. Baird. Lachlan Baird.

  "How are you feeling?"

  The woman's soft tone drew his gaze to his right. He stared into vibrant green eyes that not only betrayed the extent of her concern for him, but also her wariness. When he tried to speak, he discovered his raw throat was incapable of releasing anything but a raspy croaking sound.

  "Darling, fetch him some Scotch."

  The woman Winston knew to be Laura Bennett, straightened from her bent position and looked off to her left. "I think some hot tea—"

  "Laura-lass," Roan Ingliss said with a hint of impatience, "a Scotsmon knows how to take care o' his own."

  "Fine. Then you get it."

  Her stubbornness brought a hint of a smile to Winston's aching lips. From the corner of his eye, he saw Roan Ingliss—new laird of Baird House—leave the room. Laura drew up another winged-back chair and seated herself to Winston's right. He watched her askance as she stared into the flames for a time, her expression unreadable. Winston realized his presence had caused a rift between the couple.

  It had never been his intention to cause anyone a problem. Quite the opposite. He'd slithered away from his former life, sparing everyone who even remotely knew him, the embarrassment of seeing him retire from the world. He certainly hadn't parked across the street from Baird House to cause a problem for the residing couple. Not only hadn't he elicited their help, but he was perplexed that they had somehow rescued him from his own stupidity.

  Finding Laura's gaze riveted on him, gave him a start. The heat of a guilt-based blush surged into his face and he looked away.

  "Don't you think there's been enough deaths here to last us a lifetime?" she asked, an edge to her tone which made him inwardly shrivel. After a moment, she added, "A nod will suffice, thank you," and it, too, was delivered scoldingly.

  He nodded then gulped past the rawness in his throat.

  She sighed, its sound carrying a note of dismay. "I remember you. You were here Christmas Eve."

  Again he nodded, but this time he forced himself to look at her. She was still watching him with an analytical glint in her eyes, a maternal look that reminded him of his grandmother who had died nearly twenty years ago. He found himself wishing he could return to those days, if only briefly. Katherine Theresa Connery had been the only person in his life to have understood him, and to have accepted him, strange gifts and all. The letters she'd written to him over the years were in the trunk of his car. They remained his only true treasures.

  Them and the rose petals.

  "Here."

  Roan's deep voice caused both Winston and Laura a start. While she delivered the laird an exasperated look, Winston hungrily fixed his gaze on the proffered brandy snifter.

  Scotch in a brandy snifter?

  It didn't matter. The golden whiskey which filled half the glass seemed to wink at him. He felt it beckon to him to
experience its promised warmth, taste its promise of liquid stamina. He attempted to lift his right hand, but the maddening prickling sensations weighted all four of his appendages.

  "I'll do it," Laura said. Taking the snifter from Roan, she tipped the brim to Winston's lips. He attempted to take too large a swig. The Scotch went down his throat, burning tissue and making him cough. Behind him, he heard the laird laugh low, and Winston's temper surfaced. But again when he attempted to speak, only garbled sounds emerged.

  "Sip it," Laura chided.

  She tipped the brandy snifter again to his lips. This time, Winston took meager sips. The burning in his throat continued for several seconds then finally the pain dulled to little more than scratchiness. He sipped and sipped while unconsciously flexing his fingers and toes. The Scotch settled poorly in his stomach but undaunted, he stayed with it until he'd downed the last drop. By the time Laura lowered the snifter to her lap, he was alert and beginning to feel his blood flow through his hands and feet.

  "Are you up to something to eat?"

  Winston shook his head then almost immediately nodded when it occurred to him he couldn't remember when he'd last eaten. He didn't need to compound his weakness with a hangover.

  "The stew's still on the stove," Laura said, rising from the chair. "Roan, you want anything?"

  "No. Thanks."

  Winston stared down at his hands as the laird lowered himself onto the chair Laura had occupied. For a time, silence hung in the air between them.

  Clearing his throat, Roan braced his forearms atop his knees. "I didn't mean to handle you so rough, but I bloody weel thought you were dead—frozen on the front seat o' yer car!"

  Winston offered an apologetic look.

  "Look...Mr. Connery, I didn't recognize you at first. I rummaged through yer wallet once I brought you inside."

  Roan's light brown eyes—amber in the firelight—narrowed broodingly. He reached out and took something from Winston's lap. A moment later, Winston was staring at the shriveled, dried petals of the rose he had plucked Christmas Eve, the petals he'd been clutching for more hours than he could recall.