Chapter
Twenty-one
“Aflu? This was all
because of a flu bug?” Zoey was incredulous. “The last thing I
remember is sitting in the council meeting and the next thing I
know, I’m being drowned in a cold shower.” She’d elbowed her way
out of that shower in a fury, ran straight into Lowen as he came in
the front door of the clinic and all but demanded that he take her
home. Immediately. He’d compromised by taking her to his clinic
first, where his wife had made her a soothing tea and found her
some dry clothes.
Lowen nodded as he leaned over Zoey. He
pumped up the blood pressure cuff and applied his stethoscope to
the inside of her elbow. “No problem here,” he announced as he
ripped off the cuff. He turned his attention to her eyes, fingering
the lids open wide and shining a penlight into the pupils. She
winced.
“Light still smarts?”
“Oh yeah.”
He put the light away. “You told me you
came down with the migraine from hell to
start with. Your pupils match. No broken vessels in the retinas
either, but the surface of your right eye is mightily bloodshot,
which can be symptomatic of a real thumper. You took
medication?”
“Twice, but it didn’t
help.”
“Hmpf. Headaches sparked by a virus
seldom respond to conventional treatments. I’ll have George at the
drugstore send over something else. Head still hurt?”
“Yeah. At least it’s down to a dull
roar. Now the rest of me feels like crap.”
“I’ll bet it does. Get some solid
rest.” He pointed his finger at her. “Real
rest, hear me? Lots of fluids. I’ll write you a note for work. Bev
will drive you home and I want you to stay there.”
“Okay, but the shower
thing—”
“Still ticked over that, are you? It
was damn fine first aid in my book. Connor says you were
dangerously feverish. Christ, your temperature was still 102 when
you got here, and it’s not normal yet. Combined with a migraine,
I’m not a bit surprised you passed out. You’re lucky you weren’t
alone when it happened.”
“Okay, okay,” She could accept that.
And she could almost accept that Connor had taken her to an
animal clinic. Habit, she supposed. And
probably the closest available shower stall. “You seem to have a
lot of respect for Connor’s medical skills.”
“More than I have for most human
doctors, frankly. But if it’s credentials you need, I suggest you
check the wall in his waiting room sometime. He’s got more than
veterinary science diplomas up there.”
She would be certain to do just that,
but right now she wasn’t concerned about Connor’s qualifications.
“Actually, I’d like to ask you about his mental
health.”
Lowen stopped writing on the
prescription pad and stared at her. “Connor’s mental health?”
“I don’t think that’s such a strange
question. I have reason to wonder if he’s prone to delusions,
hallucinations— anything like that. He’s told me some pretty
disturbing stories.”
“Stories,” repeated the doctor. “So I
take it you don’t believe whatever he’s telling you?”
“Well, of course not!”
“Have you ever known Connor to
lie?”
“Look, I’m sure he believes what he’s
saying and that’s why I need a professional opinion—”
“You care about him?”
Why was he giving her the third degree? “Look, Connor says he can become a
wolf for God’s sake. All the caring in the
world doesn’t make that normal!”
“Normal,” Lowen snorted, ripping off
the prescription sheet and handing it to her. “Young lady, the
older you get, the more you realize that normal is just a word somebody made up. But since you
asked for my professional opinion, here it is—there isn’t a damn
thing wrong with Connor Macleod.”
Zoey sat there, openmouthed, as the
doctor left the room. She didn’t even notice Bev behind her until
she spoke.
“I’m sorry, dear, but Lowen tends to be
rather direct.”
“Yeah, I get that. Well, at least I
don’t have to waste time wondering what he’s
thinking.”
Bev chuckled. “No one does. I’ve warmed
up the jeep if you’d like to go home now.”
“Thanks, I’d really appreciate the
ride,” said Zoey and stood up. She still felt a bit shaky, but
better than when she’d come in. No wiser, however.
There isn’t a damn
thing wrong with Connor Macleod. She wondered about Lowen’s
words all the way home.
It was 6:45 A.M. and her head swam with great pounding waves of
pain. Damn migraine. Damn stupid stinking
migraine. This one had been building for two days, ever
since she’d been home. It might even be the same migraine from the
night of the village council meeting. It wouldn’t be the first time
a skull-splitter had fooled her into thinking it had left, only to
ambush her again later. The change in weather might have triggered
the migraine too. The overcast sky was iron gray, and there were
reports of thunderstorms in the foothills with unusually heavy
rains. A far distant dam on the Peace River had been forced to
discharge water, and Zoey had called the sports reporter to
investigate reports of flooding upstream.
As for herself, she wasn’t going
anywhere. Her stomach roiled with nausea and moving was out of the
question. Zoey laid her head gingerly on the little bistro table in
her kitchen and closed her eyes, grateful that she wasn’t at the
office. Wishing she had the energy to put herself to bed now that
she’d finally finished the front-page story.
Officials hadn’t released enough
details for a thorough report in last Monday’s paper. Now she had
something to work with, and work she had. Zoey had put in hours on
the Al Menzie article, and several others related to it, less to
please her publisher and more as a matter of professionalism.
Menzie had lived alone and had no relatives in the area, but he had
farmed that same spot for 53 years. Long enough to have accumulated
a lot of friends, neighbors, and acquaintances, most of whom would
be reading the newspaper. She had wanted every detail to be both
accurate and sensitive, and had written and rewritten everything
into finely polished pieces.
The fact that the task had kept her
mind off Connor for whole minutes at a time was a
bonus.
Maybe I could nap or
something right here at the table. Maybe I’ll wake up in a couple
of hours and my headache will be gone. Maybe I’ll sprout wings and
fly. She knew that the pain in her head would stand between
her and sleep, just as it had much of the night even though she was
exhausted right down to the bone. What little sleep she’d snatched
hadn’t been rewarding. Whenever she had nodded off, she’d dreamed
again of a great grizzled wolf attacking poor Al Menzie—and then
stalking her.
Damn wolves. Thinking about them
naturally led to thinking about Connor. If she was honest with
herself, she missed him. A lot. So much so that sometimes she
almost didn’t care if he thought he was a wolf. And when Zoey
caught herself thinking things like that, fear and anger grabbed
her by the throat. Fear that her heart was no longer her own, and
anger that she had let it happen, that somehow she had lost
control. You’d think I’d be mad at Connor, but
instead I’m just mad at me. Why is that? I should be furious
with him, the way he’s insinuated himself
into my life, the way he’s pulled all these emotions out of me. I
probably wouldn’t even have this damn headache if it weren’t for
him.
“It’s all your fault, Connor Macleod,”
she muttered into the place mat.
“Probably.”
Zoey nearly fell off her chair in her
scramble to sit up, the pain in her head screaming at her for
moving so fast. She put one hand to her stomach to hold it in
place, the other hand to her pulsing temple, and blinked to try to
focus through the rush of agony. Connor was leaning in the glass
doors to the balcony.
“Sorry to startle you, honey. I thought
you were asleep until you spoke. Are you all right?”
“Actually I was having a near-death
experience, but it wasn’t as pleasant as I’d been led to believe it
would be.”
He didn’t laugh. “Another migraine,” he
guessed. “A bad one too. I can see it from here. Will you let me
help you?”
“I already took something for it. I’ll
be fine, thanks. Now what the hell are you doing here?” The pain
prevented her from achieving much of a glare, and it was hard to
feel assertive from a sitting position, but she worked at it.
“Since when do you just walk into my place? And did you
climb or something?”
“Since you haven’t answered your
e-mail, your text messages, your phone, or your door, I was
concerned.”
“I’m sure your pal Doc Miller told you
I’m supposed to be resting.”
“Ha. Nice job of that. I ran into Ted
Biegel today. He told me all about your articles, so I know you
haven’t been taking it one bit easier than usual.”
“Hey, I stayed home, didn’t I? So now
you’ve seen me, you know I’m alive, you can leave.” She meant to
say it casually, flippantly, but it didn’t come out that way. In
fact, the words almost didn’t come out at all. In spite of the pain
in her head that was almost blinding her, the pain in her heart was
much worse.
He sighed. “I don’t know what you took
for that head, but it’s not working. I can see you haven’t been
sleeping much either. And don’t”—he pointed
at her, and his voice took on a warning note—“say you’re
fine one more time or it’s really going to
piss me off.”
Abruptly he was standing by her chair.
She hadn’t even seen him move. “Don’t touch me,” she ordered, but
it came out as a whisper.
“I need to help you with this, honey.
Do you think I’d hurt you? Are you that afraid of me?”
It was the right button to push. “I’m
not afraid of you. I just don’t need—” Zoey hissed as Connor’s
large, powerful hands gently cupped her pounding head. Long, strong
fingers rested lightly over pulse points. She shivered as her
vision swam, as the pain reared up in a searing wave. For a
fleeting moment she thought she would faint.
“Steady, baby. Just breathe.” Connor’s
voice was both a balm and an anchor. “Breathe with me, okay? Nice
and slow. One, two . . . .”
She gasped in a shuddering breath, then
let it out. Did it again. There was an odd warmth spreading from
Connor’s fingers. It seeped into her skull, smoothed the jagged
throbbing edges of the migraine. Miraculously, the pressure eased,
the roaring waves of pain began to recede. His fingers were gentle
as they combed through her long russet hair, uncovered the back of
her neck.
“Hell of a knot here, little falcon.”
He circled it lightly until the tension slipped away, then ran his
hands along her shoulders, and planted a kiss on the top of her
head.
Zoey opened her eyes slowly. The light
didn’t stab at her. She turned her head from side to side,
cautious, testing. And blew out a breath. “God, that’s better.
That’s a lot better. I feel almost human.”
She eyed him warily. “How did you do that?”
“You sound like I used black magic.
It’s just a skill. The lady at the health food store over on Third
can do the same thing. It’s a matter of shifting energy, balancing
it.”
She’d heard of it, although she hadn’t
experienced it before. “Thanks. Whatever it was, it did the trick.
I appreciate it.” Something twigged at her memory.“What was that
you called me?”
“When?”
“A few minutes ago when you were
working on my head.”
“Oh. Little
falcon.”
“I see. I’ve been demoted from
honey to a predatory bird?”
“It’s not—well—” He looked almost
sheepish. “I’ve been calling you little
falcon, at least to myself, from Day One. It’s the first
thing I thought of when I saw you on the roof of your truck. You
were soaked and frozen and scared but still ready to take me on if
I so much as breathed the wrong way. That ferocious look in those
amber eyes of yours reminded me of a falcon that was brought into
the clinic once.”
“Still doesn’t sound like much of an
endearment.”
“Trust me, it’s a compliment. I was
very impressed with the courage and tenacity of that angry little
bird.” He held out his left hand and turned it just so. “See? I
still have a scar on my thumb.”
“How sweet. And this reminds you of
me?”
“You’re brave and strong and beautiful,
just like the falcon.”
There was nothing but sincerity in his
voice. She studied his face, his eyes, and was startled to see them
drawn and exhausted. Apparently she hadn’t been the only one
missing sleep. A stray lock of dark hair hung over one of his eyes
and she found herself wanting to smooth it back. She’d been ready
to tell him to leave, plead her need to sleep and send him away.
But she couldn’t make herself do such a thing now.
Perhaps he sensed the change because he
pressed his advantage. “We need to talk, Zoey. We need to set
things right between us.”
“I know it,” she said quietly,
realizing there was no sense putting off the discussion any longer.
She rose carefully, relieved that she was no longer dizzy or
nauseous, and followed Connor to the living room. What he could say
to make things better, she couldn’t imagine, but she was praying
fervently he would come up with something
she could accept. Because she’d tried to imagine a future without
him in it, and it was a bleak and aching void. She wrapped her arms
around herself as much for comfort as to defend against such a
prospect.
“Come sit down, honey. I have a lot to
say and you need to be comfortable.”
“What I need is
a damn good explanation, Connor.”
“I have one. Come and
sit.”
He patted the cushion next to him, but
she chose the far end of the couch instead. She didn’t trust
herself to be too close—it would be far too easy to melt into his
arms, to start kissing him and not stop. She needed to hear what he
had to say first. She resisted the silly impulse to clutch a throw
pillow in front of her like a shield.
“I’m sorry I didn’t handle things well
the other day,” he said.
Relief flooded through her. He was
apologizing. Things were going to be okay—
“I’ve been thinking a lot about what I
might have done differently, but there just wasn’t enough
time.”
“I guess I left too soon.” She could
meet him halfway. “I was really upset.”
“I know you were, and I’m sorry it had
to be that way. There’s even less time now.”
“We’ve got lots of time. We can take
all the time we want to work this out.”
He shook his head. “There are only two
weeks before the full moon.”
Full moon? She
jumped to her feet. “No way, not this crap again. Don’t you
dare—”
He was off the couch and had hold of
her upper arm in a flash. “No, don’t you
dare. This time, you’re going to listen.” His eyes had gone dark
with barely repressed fury. “Just because you don’t understand
something, it doesn’t make it any less true. Do you think I’m
getting off on this? Do you think I’ve made all this up so I can
get my jollies by torturing you with it? I wish like hell I had
buckets of time to ease you into this gradually, but I don’t. Or
more accurately, you don’t. Whether you like
it or not, whether you believe me or not, your life
is on the line. You’ve got to trust me and let me help
you.”
Zoey studied the man looming over her.
His anger made him seem even larger than usual. There was no
possibility of getting her arm back—he wasn’t hurting it, but until
he relaxed his steel grip, she knew she wasn’t going anywhere.
Still, she wasn’t afraid of him, not yet,
anyway. It was his delusions that were terrifying her. “Why are you
doing this to me? Why are you telling me these things? I don’t
understand, Connor.”
“I’m telling you the truth. Feel it,
read it in my mind. You have enough of a psychic gift to at least
sense it if you’ll let yourself.” He let go of her arm and began to
pace the apartment. Told her the story all over again. He was able to become a wolf. She was going to become one
too.
It didn’t sound any more plausible to
Zoey the second time around. Or the third. Or the fourth. She tried
hard to wrap her head around what he was saying, tried to look at
it symbolically, metaphorically, in fact, every way she could think
of. Except literally, of course, although Connor kept insisting she
should take it that way. Finally she buried her face in her hands.
Her head was pounding again, she was tired beyond belief, and her
heart felt as if it had been ripped out by the roots. She loved
Connor Macleod more than she’d thought possible to love anyone—and
some terrible mental illness was standing between them like an iron
fence. A movement caught her eye and she pushed her hair out of her
face with her hands and slumped to sit on the floor with her back
against the couch. She watched bleakly, too miserable to even be
curious, as Connor abruptly shoved the coffee table to one side.
For a moment he just stood there in the open space, holding her
gaze with those pale gray eyes that moved her so. And then a flash
of green fire appeared in their depths.
Zoey had been on a golf course once
when a lightning bolt struck just yards away, an explosion of light
and sound and raw power that had shaken the ground beneath her. She
could feel something like it now, right here in her living room. A
sudden sensation of static electricity, the lifting of the hair on
her neck, the ozone whiff in the air, a thrum of power that
vibrated bone-deep. . . . She was about to warn Connor, when
suddenly he wasn’t there anymore. In his place stood an immense
wolf, bright sparks of static crackling in its fur.