“Yes,” Bryan agreed, “and I love you for it. But I’m a big boy, now; I can take care of myself-more or less”
Faith didn’t look the least bit convinced as she opened the door and slid behind the wheel of her car. “You need a haircut, big boy.”
A wry grin twisted Bryan’s mouth as he ran a hand back through his hair. He was going to have to write himself another note. He bent and kissed Faith’s cheek through the open window, then handed her a little blue flower he had produced from thin air. Faith tucked it into a buttonhole on her white oxford shirt and looked at him with an expression as earnest as any he could have mustered.
“Please be careful with your heart, Bryan. You give it so easily. I’m not saying Rachel isn’t worthy of it. I’m just afraid that maybe you’re falling in love with her because she needs someone to take care of her and you’ve run out of people to look after.”
“That’s not it,” he said evenly, though he suspected he was fibbing a bit. He did want to look after Rachel, but caring was a part of love. Besides, kissing her this morning had had little to do with her plight and everything to do with the way she felt in his arms.
Faith sighed and told him good-bye. He stood in the yard, watching as she drove down the long driveway, a pensive mood settling over him. He had a lot to think about tonight-Rachel, Porchind and Rasmussen, the possibility that Wimsey had showered those two with disapproval over their opinion of ghosts.
A mournful wail drifted to him on the cooling breeze. He snapped himself out of his musings and listened, holding his breath. The sound came again, faint but real, and he turned and jogged off across the lawn toward it, not at all sure of what he might find.
Addie wandered through the maze with no idea of where she was. All around her were high wild bushes, their branches tangled into an angry mass with leaves that rattled at her in the wind. They towered over her, casting a sinister shadow across the narrow, weed-choked path.
She had left the house because she was angry and frightened and she had thought the fresh air might clear her head, but she had promptly become lost. She had no idea how long she had been gone. It seemed like hours had passed. She had no idea of how far she had wandered. All she knew for sure was that she was cold and that Rachel was going to sell her home and make her move to a place where nothing would be familiar.
She had overheard her daughter’s conversation with those strange little men and her argument with Hennessy afterward. She had thought about confronting Rachel, but fear of the future had overwhelmed her, and she had run away instead. Her forgetfulness wasn’t such a terrible thing here in Anastasia, where people knew her, and in Drake House, where things were usually familiar. But to go to a place where everything would be strange, where there would be no memories at all to draw on, where she would have to learn new faces and new ways of doing things…
Tears welled up in her eyes and in her throat, choking her as she stumbled along the path, her garden boots catching on the rough ground. How could Rachel betray her this way? How could the daughter she had sacrificed so much for treat her so badly?
Addie stopped and looked around her, her eyes wide with fright. No matter which way she turned, everything looked the same. She pressed her bony hands to her cheeks and sobbed aloud as she sank down on a cracked stone bench.
Suddenly a man burst through the shrubbery. She looked up at him, terrified, and sobbed again.
“Addie,” he said, stopping in his tracks. He was out of breath and his hair was disheveled. “Are you all right?”
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“It’s me, Addie. Bryan Hennessy.”
“I don’t know you,” she said vehemently, swatting at him as he came nearer and knelt down at her feet. “I don’t know you. Go away! Go away or I’ll scream!”
“It’s all right, Addie,” Bryan said in a soft voice. He never broke eye contact with her as he reached out and captured one of her frail hands in his. “It’s all right. It’s me, Hennessy.”
“I don’t know you!” she shouted, panic rolling through her like a tidal wave as she stared at him. She fought the horrible fog that clouded her mind, searching for a memory of this man’s face. A part of her thought she should know him, which only made her more desperate to find something there that she couldn’t quite grasp. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she slumped on the bench in abject misery, mumbling, “I don’t know you. I don’t know you.”
Bryan settled himself on the bench beside Addie and pulled her thin, trembling body into his arms. Cradling her against him, he stroked a big hand over her hair, and, rocking her gently back and forth, he began singing to her. It was a soft, sweet song he’d learned in Scotland about a girl named Annie Laurie, who was fair and lovely with a voice like a summer wind’s sigh. His voice rose and fell with the melody, and trembled a bit as he ached with Addie’s pain and confusion. But he sang on, the gentle notes coming from his heart, just as they had when he’d held Serena and sung to her.
Rachel stood at the edge of the clearing in the maze, her body shaking. She had gone into the house, intending to speak with Addie about selling the place, but her mother had been nowhere around. She’d run out into the yard to get Bryan to help her look for Addie, and the sound of crying had drawn her to the overgrown maze.
She stood there now, unable to move or breathe. She stared at the scene before her: Bryan, his eyes closed, but a lone pair of tears escaping the outer corners, holding her mother and singing to her; and Addie rocking back and forth within the embrace of his strong arms, crying.
“It’s all right, Addie,” Bryan murmured, kissing the old woman’s temple. “It’s all right if you don’t know me. I’ll still help you.”
It struck Rachel then. As she stood there with her defenses stripped away by raw emotion, with her heart laid bare and the truth confronting her with nowhere for her to hide. She was in love with Bryan Hennessy. And it wasn’t a question of whether or not he was the kind of man she needed, it was a question of whether or not she deserved to have the kind of man he was.
EIGHT
“Is Addie asleep?” Bryan asked, looking up from the papers he had spread out on the desk. A small brass lamp illuminated his work area. The only other light in the room came from the fireplace. Shadows jumped on the dark paneled walls.
“Finally,” Rachel said on a sigh. She leaned a hip against the desk and allowed her shoulders to sag beneath the weight of her worries. “She wouldn’t let me in her room, but I managed to peek inside once it got quiet. She wore her garden boots to bed. I could see them sticking up under the coverlet. I wanted to go in and take them off for her, but I’m sure she would have hit me in the head with a rock and called the police.”
Bryan frowned. “Back to square one, eh?”
“I’d do handsprings if we were that far along,” Rachel said dryly. “I tried to explain to her that selling the house is the only practical thing, but she didn’t want to hear it.” She held up a hand as Bryan opened his mouth to speak. “Please refrain from saying you told me so. In fact, a change of subject would be warmly welcomed.”
“You’re an absolute vision in that dress.” He gave her a wicked smile and forced all thoughts of the mundane from his mind.
Rachel beamed as if his words had injected new energy into her. She was wearing the beaded burgundy gown, the same gown that had so mysteriously appeared on her bed that first night she’d had dinner at Drake House. Addie claimed it was Wimsey who insisted they dress for the evening meal, but Rachel didn’t see the difference. It was Addie who became upset if she showed up under-dressed, so it was Addie she dressed for-most nights.