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“Goddammit, Lillian!” He launched himself down the steps…running, running, running away this time.
* * *
Nathan walked blindly because he would not allow himself to see. If he did, the sick, twisted sense he’d developed would follow her. I should go home, back to my tools and granite, away from this God-awful pain.
Yet he didn’t want that at all.
For decades, the chisel and rasp had been at his service, but now he must employ fortitude and strength. Many years had passed since he’d called upon such character traits. Had they been lost or simply lay dormant?
In a way, he felt like a great sleeping bear, a wild thing. Lillian’s Call had awakened him, ready to be tamed and answer to love.
He paused at the sight of a low wall of dry-stacked stone. He smoothed his palms over the gritty material for the sheer familiarity of touching stone.
Darkness had descended. The North Star winked against a rich midnight sky, urging him to follow it through the gates of Lake View Cemetery. His heart was in his mouth.
She had strolled through these grounds with John LeClair, snuggled warmly against his side, her breast brushing his arm.
Nathan jammed his fingers into his hair, fighting away the images. He hunched his shoulders against the pain gnawing at his heart and wove through the paths of sleeping monuments— crosses and small square stones, spires and arches. The wind quickened, adding its voice to the drum of his heart. He tried not to think of Lillian with John LeClair, of his mouth dropping to hers. He searched upward for the North Star and inhaled sharply.
His own work stood beneath that blinking beacon, and Lillian’s steps led to it. The granite goddess stood in the sea of night, bobbing among other rock vessels.
He closed his eyes and let the Visions seduce him. Flipping her, exposing her curving spine, the flowering vine tattoo dipping into the hollow of her lower back. A single bead of sweat breaking free from her hairline, cutting a path through the inky lines.
His fingertips grazed the draperies of the monument he had created. A shock shot straight to his core, like touching the church pew.
He saw Lillian leaning against the stone figure, her face obscured by darkness, tears streaking her cheeks as she had Visions of him and the feather mattress. His mind spun with darkness, the rough chafe of tweed, sodden steps and the softest weeping.
Resting his forehead against the cool stone memorial, he drank in huge gulps of lavender-scented air. Her quiet sobs were balm to his sore heart, because now he knew she felt as torn by the Visions as he did.
John tucked Lillian into the luxury rental car and fastened the seatbelt around her. The streetlights were a brilliant blur as they sped away from Seattle. The drizzle sent a glare from the streetlights on the asphalt.
“Are you all right?” Her voice cut through the darkness. His face was in shadow, but when she took his hand, she felt the vibration of his anxiety.
The tires on the wet roadway sounded like tape placed on a surface and torn off again. The noise grated on her. “We don’t have to continue this journey. We could go home.” She thought of the library of their Virginia home, a cozy fire on the grate and her head in his lap as he read aloud to her.
“No,” he said. “I want this. And I promised to show you a fabulous time on the next leg of our journey. Please forgive me for the past few days, Lily.”
She fidgeted beneath his level gaze. “It’s nothing of your doing. Let’s not speak of it. Why don’t I sing for you?”
He straightened with a nod. She fiddled with the radio until she landed upon some Rogers and Hammerstein she knew from years past.
As the car streaked through the night, Lillian sang. She tried not to stare at the way the bluish lights of the dashboard turned John’s hands into something distorted and frightening. The eerie glimmer streaked up his forearms and disappeared into shadow.
A flash of blond hair rippled past her vision. Her voice faltered. She blinked.
The scent of leather was in her nose, the taste of scalding black coffee on her tongue, and agitation burned her chest—an emotion which was not her own. “John, stop the car.”
He tore his gaze from the road. “What’s wrong, Lily?”
“Stop, John. Here. Anywhere.” Her fingernails dug into her knees, snagging her pantyhose. She squeezed her eyes against the inky blue lightning bolts sparking behind her eyes. Their trace imprinted on her brain and she saw the white-hot negative of them.
Oh, God, please stop.
“Honey, tell me what’s going on,” John demanded.
She grabbed the wheel and jerked it, sending the Cadillac careening toward the guard rail.
“Lily! What has come over you?” He whipped the vehicle onto the roadway before it struck. She’d almost welcome the shriek of steel-on-steel if it obliterated the rasp of his breath in her ears.
