The Fall Of Shane MacCade - MacKade Brothers 4 Part 21

"Of course it does. It's obvious you're in love with him."

"Is it?" Rebecca managed to say, relatively calmly. "You're mistaking attraction, affection and a physical relations.h.i.+p for- h.e.l.l. Are you sure you're not psychic?"

Poor thing, Savannah mused, sympathizing with any woman who'd tumbled for a MacKade. Poor, lucky thing. "You're a fairly controlled sort of woman, Rebecca. You don't advertise yourfeelings on your face. But I see things." Savannah waved a hand.

"I'm an artist, and I have shamans for ancestors. You can chalk it up to that, or to the fact that one woman in love often recognizes another."

Rebecca looked down at her hands. "I don't know whether to be relieved or worried with that rundown."

"I like you. I don't like everyone. I'm selective. Actually, I didn't think I'd like you at all." Comfortable, she stretched out her legs again. "A professional intellectual, scientist, all those initials after your name. I got my high school equivalency when I was carrying Layla, and when Regan talked of you, all I saw was this enormous brain wearing horn-rim gla.s.ses."

The image had Rebecca snorting out a laugh. She'd come a good ways, she thought, when such a description brought amus.e.m.e.nt rather than pain. "If you sketch me that way, I'll hang it in my apartment."

"That's a deal. Anyway, I did like you. Do like you. If I'd sat down and tried to piece together the woman who would suit Shane, she wouldn't have been anything like you. And I'd have been wrong. The farmer and the savant." The phrase made Savannah grin. Poor Shane, she thought. Poor, lucky Shane. "In this case, it works. What are you going to do about it?"

"Enjoy it. While it lasts."

"And that's enough?"

"It's more than I've had before." There would be a price, of course, she thought. She was willing to pay it. "I'm a practical woman, Savannah." "Maybe. But how brave are you, and how dedicated? Are you really going to write a book, take all that time, put in all that effort, and leave out a piece of it? Your piece, and Shane's? Can you ignore that connection?"

Could she? Rebecca asked herself as she walked back to the farm through the woods. For the book, yes. She could and would do that for Shane. Personally, she'd accepted that the connection between them would remain with her forever.

Yet she could leave, would leave. It would hurt, but she would survive it. Intellectually, she knew no one really died of a broken heart. Emotionally, she suspected some could.

But it would be easier to live when she'd had love than it had been to exist without ever knowing it.

She knew her Greek tragedies well. There was always pleasure, and there was always payment.

Her bill, so to speak, was coming due, she knew. If Savannah could read her heart so easily, others would. Shane might, and then the payment could become too high to bear.

He meant too much to her for her to put him in an awkward position. She would have to start considering that first step away.

Tomorrow was the anniversary of the battle. She felt it important, even imperative, that she stay on the farm through the day, and perhaps the next. Then it would probably be best if she moved back to Regan's. A few days, a short transitory period before she went back to New York.

She stepped through the trees and looked at the farm. There was smoke coming out of the chimney from the living room fireplace.It was just chilly enough to warrant one. She could see the house itself, strong stone, painted wood, the silos and sheds and buildings.

It would, she realized, be almost as wrenching to leave the place as it would be to leave Shane. She'd been happier here than she'd ever been in her life. She'd found love here.

So she would be grateful, rather than regretful.

Walk away, a voice nagged in her brain,rather than risk.

Suddenly chilled, she rubbed her arms and began to cross the fallow field.

She saw the car zip up the curve of the lane and park at the side of the house. A quick, friendly toot of the horn, and the dogs were scrambling to greet the redhead who climbed out.

The air was clear enough to carry the woman's laugh to where Rebecca stopped. And the distance wasn't so great that she couldn't see Shane's lightning grin as he came around the side of the house to meet the woman.

Jealousy ebbed and flowed, ebbed and flowed, in a nasty, unpredictable tide as Rebecca watched them embrace easily. As the woman's arms stayed linked around Shane's neck.

Oh, no, you don't, she warned silently. He's still mine. He's mine until I walk away.

They stayed close together as they spoke, and there was more laughter, another quick kiss, before the woman stepped away and got back into her car. Shane ruffled both dogs, straightened, waved. Rebecca knew the moment he spotted her in the field, and began to walk toward the house again. The car darted down the lane between them, then disappeared around the curve.

"Hey." He tucked his thumbs in his front pockets. "How's Savannah?"

"Fine. I had a chance to look at some of her paintings. They're wonderful."

"Yeah." With his instincts warning him to proceed with caution, Shane tried to read Rebecca's face. "Ah, that was Frannie Spader.

You met Frannie."

"I thought I recognized her." Because they wanted attention, and because it was a good ploy, Rebecca bent to pet the dogs.

"She just dropped by."

"So I saw. I want to transcribe this interview."

"Rebecca." He touched her arm to stop her. "There's nothing going on here. She's a friend. She stopped by."

It was pure self-defense that had her arching a brow. "Why do you feel you have to clarify that?"

"Because I- Look, Fran and I used to be... We used to be," he finished, furious with himself. "Now we're not, and haven't been since...well, since you came to town. We're friends."

Oh, it was satisfying to watch him squirm. "Do you think I require an explanation?" "No. Yes." d.a.m.n it. He imagined himself strolling along and coming across Rebecca hugging another man. Someone would have to die. "I don't want you to get the wrong idea, that's all."

"Do you think I have the wrong idea?"

"Will you cut that out?" he demanded, and paced away, then back again. "I hate when you do that. I really hate it."

"When I do what?"

"Make everything a question. How do you feel, what do you think?" He whirled back to her, eyes shooting sparks of temper.

"d.a.m.n it, if you had a question, it should have been 'What in the h.e.l.l were you doing kissing another woman?'"

"Do you feel a show of jealousy would be appropriate?" When he only scowled at her, she shrugged. "I'm sorry I can't accommodate you. Clearly, you had a life before I came here, and you'll have one after I'm gone."

"That's it. Throw the past in my face."

"Is that what you think I'm doing?"

He snarled. "Can't you fight like a regular person?"

"When there's something to fight about. Your friends are your business. And as I have no idea how many of those... friends I might run into every time I go into town, it would be remarkably unproductive of me to worry about it."

His brain was screaming out for him to let it go, but his mouth just refused to obey. "Look, Rebecca, if I'd slept with as manywomen as some people think, I'd never have gotten out of bed.

And I haven't had s.e.x with every woman I've gone out with, either. I don't- Why the h.e.l.l am I telling you this?"

"That was going to be my next question. And, in my opinion, what you're doing is projecting-your feelings, your antic.i.p.ated reaction to a situation, onto me. Added to that is a sense of guilt, and annoyance resulting from that guilt. In transferring the annoyance from yourself to me, you-"

"Shut up." His eyes as volatile as a storm at sea, he grabbed her face in his hands. "She came by to see if I wanted to go out later.

I told her no. She asked if I was involved with you. I told her yes, very involved. We talked for another minute, she said she'd see me around. That's it. Satisfied?"

Her heart was tripping lightly, quickly, in her chest. But her voice was cool, and faintly curious. "Did I give you the impression that I was dissatisfied?"

His eyes narrowed, flashed. Rebecca found it very satisfying.

Almost as satisfying as his frustrated oath as he turned on his heel and stalked away.

Nice job, Dr. Knight, she told herself. She didn't think Shane was going to be kissing anyone else for a while. Humming to herself, she strolled into the house.

She really did have work to do, she thought, and patted one of her video monitors as she pa.s.sed. Butshe could take just a moment to savor the sense of smugness.

The poor guy had been so predictable. Cla.s.sic reactions. Alarm at the thought that something, however innocent, could be interpreted badly. The added weight of his infamous career as aladies' man. Not a womanizer, she mused. One day she might explain to him the difference between a man who loved and appreciated woman and one who used them.

And then, she thought, snickering on her way to the kitchen, his sense of unease, then irritation at her reasonable reaction. Direct hit on the ego.

It was so much more interesting to study the games men and women played with each other when you were in the middle of the field than when you were observing from the stands.

She might just do a paper on it, she mused, going to the window.

Once she'd carved out enough emotional distance. By then she would know not only what it was like to fall in love, to be in love, but what it felt like to lose at love.

One day she might find the courage to ask him what she had meant to him, what the time they had spent together had meant to him in the scheme of things. Yeah, she thought, amused at herself. She might find the courage for that in a decade or two.

Telling herself it was now that mattered, and wondering if the little incident would garner her more flowers, she decided to try her hand at cooking dinner solo.

It was really all just formulas, after all. And she had Regan's formula-no, recipe, she reminded herself-for fried chicken in her bag. Digging it out, she read it through once and committed it to memory. Since Shane's kitchen didn't run to ap.r.o.ns, she tucked a dishcloth in the waistband of her slacks, and got down to some serious experimenting.

It was actually soothing, she discovered as she coated chicken with herbed flour. At least on aca sual level.She imagined that ifanyone had to plan and cook and deal with the time and mess every day, day after day, meal after meal, it would be tedious.

But, as a hobby, it had its points. If she could just keep this particular hobby from becoming a vocation, as so many of her others had, she'd be just fine.

When she had chicken frying in hot oil in a cast-iron skillet, she stepped back and congratulated herself. It smelled good, it sounded good, it looked good. Therefore, according to basic laws, it should taste good.

Wouldn't Shane be surprised, and perhaps even more baffled, when he came in and found dinner cooking?

It was milking time, she thought, poking at the crisping chicken with a kitchen fork. And night was coming earlier, as the days shortened toward the still-distant winter....

Would she see the camp fires burning if she looked out the window? The soldiers were so close, close and waiting for dawn and the battle.

She wished John would come in. Once he was in and the animals were settled, they could shut up the house. They would be safe here. They had to be safe here. She couldn't lose another child.

Couldn't live through it. Nor could John. She pressed a hand over the one covering her womb, as if to protect it from any threat, any harm. She desperately hoped it would be a son. Not to replace the one they'd lost. Johnnie could never be replaced, never be forgotten. But if the babe she carried was a son, it would somewhat ease the worst of John's grief.

He suffered. He suffered so, and there was no comfort for it. She could love him, tend him, share the grief, but she couldn't end it.The girls tried, and G.o.d knew they were a joy. But Johnnie was gone. Every day the war went on was another painful reminder of that loss.

Maybe it would end here. She turned the chicken in the pan, as she'd done so often in her life. Would that be some sort of justice, for this horrible war to end here, where her son had been born?

Was the man who had killed her son out there, right now, sitting, waiting, in the Union camp? Who would he kill tomorrow? Or would it be his blood that would seep into the land she had walked over for so many years?

Why wouldn't they go away? Just go away and leave the living in peace with their sorrows....

Hot grease popped out of the pan and seared the side of Rebecca's hand. She barely felt it as she staggered backward.

Emotions, thoughts, words, sounds, reeled in her head.

Possession, she thought, dimly. This was possession. And, for the first time in her life, she fainted.

Primed to fight, Shane burst through the door. "And another thing-" he began, before he saw Rebecca crumpled on the kitchen floor, before his heart stopped.

He streaked forward, dropped down beside her to drag her into her arms. "Rebecca." His hands were running over her face, chafing her wrists. "Rebecca, come on now. Snap out of it."

Terrified into clumsiness, he rocked her, kissed her, begged her.

Until her eyes fluttered open.

"Shane." "That's right." Relief poured through him in a flood. "Just lie still, baby, till you feel better."

"I was her," she murmured, fighting off the fog. "I was her for a minute. I have to check my equipment."

"The h.e.l.l with your equipment." It was pitifully easy to hold her in place. "Do as you're told and lie still. Did you hit your head?

Are you hurt anywhere?"

"I don't... I don't think so. What happened?"

"You tell me. I walked in and you were on the floor."

"Good Lord." She took a deep, steadying breath and let her head rest in the crook of his arm. "I fainted. Imagine that."

"I don't have to imagine it. You just scared ten years off my life."

Now, naturally, there was fury to coat over the fear. "What the h.e.l.l are you doing fainting? Did you eat today? d.a.m.n it, you never eat enough to keep a bird alive. You don't get enough sleep, either. Down four or five hours, then you're up prowling around, or clacking away at that stupid computer."

He was working himself up into a rare state, but he couldn't stop.

"Well, that's going to change. You're going to start taking care of yourself. You're nothing but bones and nerve. Didn't they teach you anything about basic bodily needs in those fancy schools? Or don't you think they apply to you?"

She let him run on until her head stopped spinning. He was ranting about taking her to the doctor, checking her into the hospital, getting vitamins. Finally, she held up a hand and put it over his mouth. "I've never fainted before in my life, and since I didn't care for it, I don't intend to make it a habit. Now, if you'll calm down a minute and let me up, the chicken's burning."

He said something incredible and unlikely when applied to burning chicken, but he did haul her into a chair. Moving quickly, he flicked off the heat. "What the h.e.l.l were you doing?"

"I was cooking. I think it was going to be fairly successful, too.