“He’s one of a kind,” Shane commented mildly as the deputy’s voice faded away and the doors slammed on the squad car. He lit a cigarette and sighed a stream of blue smoke into the night air. “Thank God.”
“Thank you for helping, Mr. Callan,” Rachel said, wrapping her arms around herself in a vain attempt to ward off the damp chill of the night as it seeped through her T-shirt and into her skin.
Shane just shrugged as he pushed himself away from the post. “That’s what friends are for.” His cool gray eyes slid from Rachel to Bryan. “I’ll see you back at Keepsake?”
Bryan nodded. “Later. Thanks for the hand.”
“You made my day,” Callan said dryly, shooting his friend a handsome grin. He trotted down the front steps and disappeared into the night.
“He’s an intriguing man,” Rachel said, more to fill the uncomfortable silence than anything. Bryan was standing less than five feet from her, and yet he felt as distant as the moon-and as cool.
“I have to go pack.” He turned stiffly toward the door.
“Would you like a cup of coffee first?” she asked, stalling for time. She felt like a coward for the first time since she’d stood up to her mother five years earlier.
“No.”
The blasted man wasn’t going to make this easy for her, was he? She swallowed a little more of her pride and tried again. “I’d like to hear the whole story behind the gold and Porchind and everything.”
“Does it matter?” Bryan asked, giving her a sharp look. “The gold is yours. I wouldn’t think you’d care how it got there.”
Rachel sucked in a breath at the blow. “That’s not fair.”
Bryan steeled himself against the hurt he’d caused her. She had dealt her share of it earlier. He gave a careless shrug of his broad shoulders. “Well, as I’ve been told time and again,” he said, a sardonic smile twisting his mouth, “life isn’t fair. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”
“Bryan.” Rachel abandoned all pretense of subtlety or pride and grabbed at the sleeve of his sweatshirt as he started through the door. She looked up at him with pleading eyes. “I don’t want you to go.”
“That’s not what you told me this afternoon,” he said, his expression carefully blank.
“Things were different this afternoon. I was upset and angry and-”
“And now you’re rich?” he suggested sarcastically.
Rachel took it on the chin and plowed right ahead. “I won’t have to sell the house. I won’t have to worry about the kind of care I can provide for Mother. The gold changes everything.”
He gave her a bleak look. “Does it?”
“Bryan, I love you,” she said, the beginnings of desperation coloring her voice.
Instead of filling with joy, his earnest blue eyes only grew sad behind his glasses. “And it took something as solid, as tangible as gold to get you to trust in that love, to get you to believe it can work and last,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t worth taking a chance on before, but now, since you’re rich, what the heck? How is that supposed to make me feel, Rachel?”
She didn’t answer. She knew how it made him feel. That same horrible, hollow feeling was yawning inside her. At that moment she would have given the lion’s share of the gold to be able to take back everything she’d said to him that afternoon.
“Love can’t be contingent on financial security,” Bryan said gently. “It can’t be contingent on anything at all. Tell me what happens when the gold runs out? Will you stop believing? Will it no longer be sensible or practical to be in love with me? The vows say for richer or poorer, Rachel. For better or worse. In sickness and in health. They don’t say anything about convenience. I sat by and watched someone I loved die. Do you think that was easy or convenient or fun?”
“No,” she whispered, tears clinging to her thick golden lashes.
“No,” he echoed softly, his eyes shadowed with remembered pain. “I won’t stay here because it’s suddenly become easy for you to love me, Rachel. There are lots of times when love has to subsist on nothing more than hope and a belief in magic. When you’re ready to believe that…” His words trailed off on a tired sigh, as if he had already given up on the idea. “Ill leave you the number of a Mr. Huntingheath in London. He knows how to find me.”
He turned then and went into the house. Rachel’s hand fell to her side. Her fingers closed around the memory of touching him, and she raised her fist to press it to her mouth. She watched Bryan go up the grand staircase, but she made no effort to stop him. She wasn’t sure if she had the strength or the right to. Instead, she went to the study and curled up in the corner of the leather love seat to think.
To her left, amid the dark bricks of the fireplace, the exposed bar of gold gleamed dully in the soft light. She stared at it dispassionately. It was the answer to all her prayers save two: It couldn’t bring her mother’s health back, and it couldn’t keep Bryan from walking out on her.
What was it worth, then? Nothing. Less than nothing. It would pay her debts and secure her future, but her future would be empty without Bryan and the magic he brought to her life.
Bryan folded his shirts mechanically. Packing was a routine that had long ago become automatic to him. His hands knew what to do. His mind was free to wander.
He had no taste for a trip to Hungary. The work might prove to be a good diversion, but he could dredge up none of his usual enthusiasm. Maybe he would go home first and visit his parents or take a trip to Connecticut and spend some time with his brother J.J. and Genna and their kids.
But thoughts of family only sharpened the ache of loneliness inside him. He wanted a family of his own. He wanted a wife and children and a home he wouldn’t be a visitor in. For the second time in his life he had had that kind of happiness within his reach, and again the rainbow had eluded his grasp.
It hurt. Maybe it hurt worse because he believed so strongly that wishes could come true. Maybe Rachel was right in expecting the worst from life. At least then you couldn’t be disappointed when that was what you got.
Rachel. He loved her. She loved him. But she wasn’t willing to believe in magic, and he wasn’t willing to settle for less.
“Being a bit hard on the girl, aren’t you, Hennessy?”
Bryan looked up at the sound of the cultured British voice. His gaze went to the cracked mirror above the dresser. In the reflection of the room he could see himself and a shadowy figure standing some distance behind him, near the armoire. The man was tall and slender, an elegant figure in formal attire; a pale, thin man with the insolent bearing of aristocratic breeding. His hair was combed straight back. His suit was immaculate, his bow tie just slightly imperfect-the mark of a true gentleman of his day.
“Archibald Wimsey, I presume,” Bryan said, not exhibiting the least sign of surprise. “I was wondering when you were going to come out of hiding.”
“Hiding?” Wimsey frowned but chose not to challenge the remark. “Work to be done, don’t you know, dear fellow. Couldn’t be the life of the party what with all these good deeds to do, now, could I?”
“Good deeds?”
Wimsey leaned against the armoire as if the thing could actually support his translucent form. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his trousers and scowled up at the ceiling. “I’ve been stuck in this wretched house for fifty-nine years, waiting for some great humanitarian act to perform so I could go on to a more appropriate afterlife. Fifty-nine years! Rather the ultimate story of a house guest overstaying his welcome, eh?”
He dropped his gaze back to Bryan and shrugged. “I wasn’t inclined to muck up my chances by showing myself to one and all just so you could get your name into some bloody obscure pseudoscientific journal.”
“In fifty-nine years you haven’t had a single opportunity to redeem yourself?” Bryan asked dubiously.