“How did you know?”
She screamed and jumped, scrabbling away from the rock. In her anguish, Matthias had snuck up on her. He stood on the path where it opened into the clearing, watching her, his eyes unreadable behind his sunglasses.
She shook her head and sobbed. “I don’t know!”
In three quick strides he was at her side and dropped to his knees, gathering her to him, holding and comforting her.
“I don’t know, Matthias, I swear. I just…It was instinct. I just followed the road and thought about flowers and she had them and then the road again and the gate…” She sobbed against his shoulder as he held her.
“It’s okay,” he said, spying the flowers on Sarah’s stone. “It’s all right.”
They sat there for a half hour with Taz in his arms. When she cried herself out, she looked at the markers. “I’m losing my mind,” she whispered.
“No, my love, you’re not.”
She nodded. “I am. How else do you explain it?”
He laughed, kindly. “I’ve been thinking about this task for the past few days. I wasn’t sure how to tell you, so I didn’t say anything. Obviously you sensed my thoughts.”
She sat up and looked at him. “Really?”
He pulled out a handkerchief and gently wiped her eyes. “I’m sure of it. I thought I had concealed it from you, but obviously I hadn’t.”
He removed his sunglasses and she studied his eyes. “Matthias, I heard a voice. Telling me what to do, where to go. It was intelligent, it wasn’t just a memory or an overheard thought. I keep hearing a voice.”
“Your intuition again. It simply put it into a context you could understand. Cara, you’re not losing your mind, I promise. We discussed this. You’re simply learning how to control your powers.”
She looked at the markers again, still not convinced, but hopeful. Was that all the phantom voice was? It wasn’t a voice, it was just stray signals from others?
“Taz, why not tell me you were coming here?”
She shook her head again. “I swear, I didn’t know. That’s what I’m trying to tell you! I just felt that crawling out of my skin feeling again, like something in my brain pounding at me and it wouldn’t shut up until I did it.” She looked around. “And I ended up here.”
“How did you open the gate?”
She looked at him, her irritation taking over. “Read my fucking lips. I. Don’t. Know. I don’t know. Idon’tknow. I. Do. Not. Know! I held the lock and I just felt what the combination was, like there’s this voice in my head telling me what to do!”
“Okay, okay.” He gathered her to him again, trying to calm her. “It’s okay, Taz.”
Taz followed Matthias back to London and they stopped for a private late lunch. He didn’t push her, sensing from her quiet desperation that she was having another setback. He couldn’t force her recovery, couldn’t tell her to simply suck it up. He had no experience dealing with someone of her strength—there had never been anyone of her strength—and prayed the events in Yellowstone and explosive revelations hadn’t done permanent damage to her psyche.
Later, back at the hotel, she walked down the hall to her dad’s room. Tim opened the door at Taz’s soft knock and silently welcomed her in. He sat on the bed, and she curled up next to him, resting her head in his lap.
Thirty-five, and while one of the most formidable attorneys he’d ever seen, she was still very fragile ever since her true nature was disclosed.
“I’m losing my mind, Dad.”
He stroked her hair. “No, sweetheart, you aren’t. Matthias told you, it’s most likely things you picked up and didn’t realize it. You’re still adjusting.”
“This isn’t adjusting. This is losing my fucking mind.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want these freaky powers. I want a normal life, a normal marriage. I don’t want the bullshit.”
Her logical mind struggled to make sense out of something she still hadn’t emotionally dealt with.
“I have no words of wisdom for you except that you aren’t losing your mind, and Matthias loves you more than life itself. Once we get home, the two of you need to spend several days alone, maybe weeks. You need to stay at the house and let him work with you, perhaps even work with Tobias for a while, let them help you. There is so much you don’t know, possibly many things we don’t even know about your abilities. If you insist on stubbornly trying to maintain a status quo that is nonexistent, it will rip your sanity apart.”
She shuddered in his lap. She wanted to tell him about the spoon moving, then thought better of it. “I hate this.”
“I know you do, sweetheart. This is why Matthias wanted to take his time. He wanted to avoid all of this.”
“I don’t know what to think anymore. I want my life back. I want control over my life.”
He laughed. “Sweetheart, haven’t you figured that out? Control is just an illusion. Look at Matthias, all his years of plans sent straight out the window in a heartbeat over Caroline’s doing. We have no control over our lives, truly, just in how we respond to what life throws at us. We must survive, protect those we love, and hope for the best.”
She was quiet for many long minutes. “Do you have any family?”
“Other than Albert?”
She nodded.
“Our mother is still alive, although I haven’t spoken to her in a couple of years. Not the easiest woman to get along with, I’m afraid. We have a sister, but she is off somewhere in Patagonia, I believe, last I heard. My father has been dead many years, obviously.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said softly.
He stroked her cheek. “I have lost love before, sweetheart. And yes, it still hurts. I learned to move on and before I knew it, life continued.”
“Have you had any relationships lately?”
“No, love, not for many years. I haven’t felt the need. Besides, I had a very active little girl who needed me and kept me extremely busy.”
She laughed. “Yeah, well, at the rate I’m going, you won’t be back on the dating scene anytime soon.”
“Taz, I will always be here for you, as long as you need me. You are my little girl, and you always will be. You’ll always be that beautiful, chubby baby I first met so many years ago. I could not have asked for a better flesh-and-blood child of my own.”
“I don’t want to do this tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“I’m only doing it because of Rafe,” she whispered. “I owe it to him. She has to be punished for what she did.”
He stroked her hair. “I know, love.”
“He loved me, Dad,” she whispered. “He died for me. Because of me.”
“Not because of you.”
“Yes, because of me. He was there because of me. He was there to help me. I owe him.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t view it like that, sweetheart, but if it makes you feel better.”
She quietly lay in his lap for another twenty minutes. He stroked her shoulder, waiting her out, knowing she would sit there until she felt grounded again. This wasn’t the time or place to tell her why she felt like that after their talks throughout the years. It was one of the many things she must learn. She was attuned to him because they were bonded through their relationship, but it was a skill she could consciously tap into if she so chose, and she must learn how to do it with Matthias. He would be her husband, and he was even more powerful in that regard.
Eventually, she sat up and wiped her eyes.
“Better?” he asked.
She nodded. “For now. Until the next load of insane crap is special delivered into my lap via UPS.”