Nora Roberts - Blood Brothers

“Don’t get used to the service.” She glanced over as she poured out coffee. “We should get an early start on Friday, don’t you think? Like dawn?”

“Yeah.” He touched her cheek with his free hand. “We’ll head in at first light.”

SINCE HE’D HAD GOOD LUCK WITH QUINN, AND gotten lunch out of it, Cal decided he was going to speak his mind to Gage next. The minute he and Lump stepped into the house, he smelled food. And when they wandered back, Cal found Gage in the kitchen, taking a pull off a beer as he stirred something in a pot.

“You made food.”

“Chili. I was hungry. Fox called. He tells me we’re taking the ladies for a hike Friday.”

“Yeah. First light.”

“Should be interesting.”

“Has to be done.” Cal dumped out food for Lump before getting a beer of his own. And so, he thought, did this have to be done. “I need to talk to you about your father.”

Cal saw Gage close off. Like a switch flipped, a finger snapped, his face simply blanked out. “He works for you; that’s your business. I’ve got nothing to say.”

“You’ve got every right to shut him out. I’m not saying different. I’m letting you know he asks about you. He wants to see you. Look, he’s been sober five years now, and if he’d been sober fifty it wouldn’t change the way he treated you. But this is a small town, Gage, and you can’t dodge him forever. My sense is he’s got things to say to you, and you may want to get it done, put it behind you. That’s it.”

There was a reason Gage made his living at poker. It showed now in a face, a voice, completely devoid of expression. “My sense is you should take yourself out of the middle. I haven’t asked you to stand there.”

Cal held up a hand for peace. “Fine.”

“Sounds like the old man’s stuck on Steps Eight and Nine with me. He can’t make amends on this, Cal. I don’t give a damn about his amends.”

“Okay. I’m not trying to convince you otherwise. Just letting you know.”

“Now I know.”

IT OCCURRED TO CAL WHEN HE STOOD AT THE window on Friday morning, watching the headlights cut through the dim predawn, that it had been almost a month exactly since Quinn had first driven up to his house.

How could so much have happened? How could so much have changed in such a short time?

It had been slightly less than that month since he’d led her into the woods the first time. When he’d led her to the Pagan Stone.

In those short weeks of the shortest month he’d learned it wasn’t only himself and his two blood brothers who were destined to face this threat. There were three women now, equally involved.

And he was completely in love with one of them.

He stood just as he was to watch her climb out of Fox’s truck. Her bright hair spilled out from under the dark watch cap. She wore a bold red jacket and scarred hiking boots. He could see the laugh on her face as she said something to Cybil, and her breath whisked out in clouds in the early morning chill.

She knew enough to be afraid, he understood that. But she refused to allow fear to dictate her moves. He hoped he could say the same as he had more to risk now. He had her.

He stood watch until he heard Fox use his key to unlock the front door, then Cal went down to join them, and to gather his things for the day.

Fog smoked the ground that the cold had hardened like stone overnight. By midday, Cal knew the path would be sloppy again, but for now it was quick and easy going.

There were still pockets and lumpy hills of snow, and he identified the hoofprints of the deer that roamed the woods, to Layla’s delight. If any of them were nervous, they hid it well, at least on this first leg of the hike.

It was so different from that long-ago day in July when he and Fox and Gage had made this trip. No boom box pumping out rap or heavy metal, no snacks of Little Debbies, no innocent, youthful excitement of a stolen day, and the night to come.

None of them had ever been so innocent again.

He caught himself lifting a hand to his face, where his glasses used to slide down the bridge of his nose.

“How you doing, Captain?” Quinn stepped up to match her pace to his, gave him a light arm bump.

“Okay. I was just thinking about that day. Everything hot and green, Fox hauling that stupid boom box. My mother’s lemonade, snack cakes.”

“Sweat rolling,” Fox continued from just behind him.

“We’re coming up on Hester’s Pool,” Gage said, breaking the memory.

The water made Cal think of quicksand rather than the cool and forbidden pool he and his friends had leaped into so long ago. He could imagine going in now, being sucked in, deeper and deeper until he never saw light again.

They stopped as they had before, but now it was coffee instead of lemonade.

“There’s been deer here, too.” Layla pointed at the ground. “Those are deer prints, right?”

“Some deer,” Fox confirmed. “Raccoon.” He took her arm to turn her, pointed to the prints on the ground.

“Raccoons?” Grinning, she bent to take a closer look. “What else might be in here?”

“Some of my namesakes, wild turkey, now and then-though mostly north of here-you might see bear.”

She straightened quickly. “Bear.”

“Mostly north,” he repeated, but found it as good an excuse as any to take her hand.

Cybil crouched by the edge of the pool, stared at the water.

“A little cold to think about taking a dip,” Gage told her.

“Hester drowned herself here.” She glanced up, then looked over at Cal. “And when you went in that day, you saw her.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I saw her.”

“And you and Quinn have both seen her in your heads. Layla’s dreamed of her, vividly. So…maybe I can get something.”

“I thought yours was precog, not the past,” Cal began.

“It is, but I still get vibes from people, from places that are strong enough to send them out. How about you?” She looked back at Gage. “We might stir up more in tandem. Are you up for that?”

Saying nothing, he held out a hand. She took it, rose to her feet. Together, they stared at that still, brown surface.

The water began to beat and froth. It began to spin, to spew up white-tipped waves. It roared like a sea mating with a wild and vicious storm.

And a hand shot out to claw at the ground.

Hester pulled herself out of that churning water-bone white skin, a mass of wet, tangled hair, dark, glassy eyes. The effort, or her madness, peeled her lips back from her teeth.

Cybil heard herself scream as Hester Deale’s arms opened, as they locked around her and dragged her toward that swirling brown pool.

“Cyb! Cyb! Cybil!”

She came back struggling, and found herself locked not in Hester’s arms, but Gage’s. “What the hell was that?”

“You were going in.”

She stayed where she was, feeling her heart hammer against his as Quinn gripped her shoulder. Cybil took another look at the still surface of the pool. “That would’ve been really unpleasant.”

She was trembling, one hard jolt after the next, but Gage had to give her points for keeping her voice even.

“Did you get anything?” she asked him.

“Water kicked up; she came up. You started to tip.”

“She grabbed me. She…embraced me. That’s what I think, but I wasn’t focused enough to feel or sense what she felt. Maybe if we tried it again-”

“We’ve got to get moving now,” Cal interrupted.

“It only took a minute.”

“Try nearly fifteen,” Fox corrected.

“But…” Cybil eased back from Gage when she realized she was still in his arms. “Did it seem that long to you?”

“No. It was immediate.”

“It wasn’t.” Layla held out another thermos lid of coffee. “We were arguing about whether we should pull you back, and how we should if we did. Quinn said to leave you be for another few minutes, that sometimes it took you a while to warm up.”