And again, with a can of beans that flew out of the cupboard and ended upside down on the stove because she’d been thinking about cooking dinner.
But she didn’t start to panic until Robbie came by to deliver the groceries and she heard his thoughts in her head. She stood in the middle of the kitchen, clutching a container of tomatoes with her heart thundering in her chest. She tried to set the tomatoes down but there was something odd about her hand. She looked and saw one dark claw extending from her finger.
She screamed and ran into the bathroom, slamming the door.
Ten minutes later she heard Marge's voice.
“What happened, Robbie?”
“I don’t know, love. We were in the kitchen talking. I was helping her put the groceries away and she started screaming. I followed her, knocked, but she won’t come out.”
“Should I talk to her?”
“Someone has to.’
“Are you sure about what you saw?”
“I’m sure.”
Their voices resumed twenty minutes later.
“She won’t talk to me but I can hear her crying.” That was Marge; Lexi recognized the motherly concern.
“Keep trying,” Robbie said. “I’ve called Arsen. He said it could take time to get here.”
No, Lexi thought desperately, not Arsen. She didn’t want him to see her like this. She started to panic again, looked around. The window was too small to squeeze through and Marge was outside the door. No easy escape. Maybe she’d just imagined that claw extending from her hand. Her fingers all looked normal now. But Robbie had seen it too, and she knew that was why he’d called Arsen.
“I’m frightened,” Marge was saying, her voice starting to waver.
“She’ll be all right, love. She just has to remain calm.”
“I knew it wouldn’t be easy with that damn blood bond. Can’t you go into her mind and try to help?”
“Not without permission—that would make it worse. Just keep talking to her. Keep her calm.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
It was dark outside when Lexi heard the voices again. She’d lost all sense of time, shrank back into the shadowed corner as the door unlocked with a smooth snick. Christan stepped inside. He took one look at her tear ravaged face and dropped to his knees.
“Come home, cara,” he said, his voice shaking. “Please… let me take you home.”
Lexi shook her head, trembling. “I’m afraid.”
“You have more courage than anyone I have ever known. Please, cara. Fight for me as hard as I’m fighting for you.”
His voice was raw. She saw the fear in his eyes, black pools. Fight for us, she’d said to him in Zurich. It was all he was asking of her now.
“I’m changing.”
“Then we’ll change together.” He stretched his arms wide and she didn’t hesitate. He scooped her up, held her tight against his chest while she pressed her face against his throat and cried. He crooned as if she were a small child, rocking her back and forth until she calmed enough that he could loosen his hold to stroke her damp hair.
“Sei la mia vita,” he whispered.
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means you are my life, cara. The other half of my soul. I am only half a man without you.”
“You only think that because she made you think it.”
“Sono passo di te.”
“You have to stop speaking Italian or else I’ll have to remember it and my memory isn’t that good.”
“Lo scelgo te. Solo tu,” he whispered against her throat.
“You just think you can sweet talk me into cooperation using words I don’t know.”
“Cucciola, I can’t wait to see you naked. I could have said that in Italian, but those words, cara, I want you to know.”
He kissed her then, with such heat she was burning. His arms tightened and he rose strong and fluid to his feet, smelling of sunshine and wild sweet oranges. His voice, so deep in his throat she trembled.
“Let me take you home.”
“I can’t go back there.”
She felt him shudder. “I would never take you back there.” And she knew he felt the same grief she did. They could never go back to a villa that once held such promise, a place where they’d loved, where she’d stomped delphiniums in the sun. She curled her fingers in the midnight of his hair.
“Wherever you are, that is my home.”
“We’ll go to the mountains. Arsen’s compound.”
“Can I have my same cabin?”
“You liked that bath, didn’t you?”
“And the fireplace. That flicky thing you did with your hand.”
She heard him laugh. “I’ll arrange it with Arsen.”
“He’s a good friend.”
“Yes, he is.”
CHAPTER 40
Wallowa Mountains, Oregon
Within three hours, they were safe at the compound in the Wallowa Mountains. Christan hadn’t given her time to change her mind. He’d tossed her clothes from the closet to the bed with male efficiency, and Lexi hadn’t bothered to complain. She’d simply refolded everything and filled a suitcase. Marge assured her that the cottage would be closed up and the food donated to the food bank, while Arsen called ahead to the chef. A light meal was waiting at the main lodge when they arrived. But neither Christan nor Lexi felt hungry. Lights and temperature controls for each cabin could be accessed through smart phones, and when Christan tugged her by the hand and they walked along the path, she could see the warm glow of welcome through the trees.
Snow still covered the ground. The moon was high and the sky was clear. Christan wrapped his arms around her waist and held her close as they counted the first five stars twinkling to life in the sky.
“Why did we start this tradition?” Lexi asked, gripping his wrists, burying her fingers to escape the cold.
He kissed the top of her head. “You wanted something we could share no matter where I might be.”
“Did you leave often?”
“Yes.” His arms tightened. “It was not unusual for men to leave during those centuries. There was always a war somewhere.”
“When did we do it?” she asked, with drowsy curiosity. “What lifetime was it, when we came up with the tradition?”
“The first.”
“And each lifetime after that?”
“For some reason, cara, it was always your idea. It was how I knew.”
“Who I was?”
“That some part of you remembered who I was.”
Lexi shivered, and gently, he urged her up the three small steps to the cottage porch, led her through the door. While he stopped to wipe up the snow they’d tracked in, Lexi glanced around. The cabin was as perfect as she remembered. A fire was blazing in the fireplace. The glass jar filled with pine cones now had fairy lights and created a magical glow. She picked up the mohair throw she’d folded over the end of the couch the day she left.
“It’s lovely.”
“Arsen didn’t change anything—other than adding the lights to the pine cones,” Christan said with male uncertainty. “I think those are new.”
“It’s perfect.” Lexi walked closer to the fire, awkward now they were alone. “How long do you think the snow will last?”
“I’m not a weather man, cara,” he teased, tossing the towel aside. Lexi shifted beneath his gentle amusement, studying the smooth round rocks that framed the fireplace.
“I’d just forgotten, that’s all. How cold snow can be.”
She felt him step behind her, let him loosen her fingers where she clutched her coat like a virginal bride.
“Are you having a moment of doubt, cara?”
“I can’t really go back, can I?”
“No.”
“I mean, even though Arsen virtually rebuilt my cottage, I could still tell.”
“I knew you would.” His fingers slipped under her hair, stroked across her nape, moving lower to ease the tension from her upper back. “Someday, maybe you can have another cottage.”
“Yes. Someday.” She tipped her head forward but he had already moved away. She missed his touch immediately.
“Would you like me to leave?”
Her heart clenched. “No.”
Slowly, she turned to face him, studying the unyielding power he held in check, waiting. She remembered the way she loved him. Had always loved him. She was lost, with no words she could say that would break this moment of sharpened awareness. The distance that remained between them, that sense of separation, hit her with a fierceness that was both helpless and tender.