Forever and Always Read online

  Apologizing profusely, I knelt to clear up the broken glass. Angry at my clumsiness, Delphia pushed a buzzer on the wall and called the maid. When I stood up, Linc nodded to me. Ingrid had drunk her drugged liqueur.

  Ten minutes later everyone was sleepy, so we were hurried off to bed. Delphia said she’d send some warm milk up to me and hoped it would help me sleep. For how long? I was tempted to ask.

  Once in my room I covered the two cameras yet again but didn’t dare disable the microphones for fear I’d raise an alarm, then I dressed. It was eleven when Linc hove himself over my little balcony and entered my room. I put my finger to my lips for silence and we left the room together. As we walked, Linc put his hand on my shoulder so I could feel his thoughts about how much he liked me in my black cat suit. He made me laugh because he was so happy to no longer feel, well, other than himself.

  Once we were in the hall I knew we were safer—not safe, but safer. Since the break-in in the basement had been found, I knew that the vigilance of the house had increased.

  “Let me guess,” Linc whispered.

  “There’s something in that ball that Ingrid has and I mean to have it.”

  “Find her room and I’ll subdue her. All night if I have to.”

  He made me laugh as I began to tiptoe down the corridor in search of Ingrid’s room. I knew she hadn’t left the house; I’d made sure of that. Linc and I crept about as I touched one door after another.

  At one door I jumped back.

  “What?” Linc whispered.

  “It’s Amelia’s room and she’s still in there.”

  “Still? What does that mean?” He halted. “Not that Amelia.”

  “Yes, that one.”

  “She’s dead, but she’s still in there. Why didn’t I know that?”

  It wasn’t until we reached the attic floor that I felt Ingrid and whatever was inside that ball.

  I knew she was asleep and the ball was inside her room. It was pulling me as though it were a magnet and I a piece of steel. The door was locked. “Too bad Pappa Al isn’t here,” I said, leaning against the door, frustrated.

  “Follow me,” Linc said as he tiptoed down the hall. When he reached a window seat, I knew what he was going to do.

  “It’s too dangerous,” I said. “You can’t—”

  There weren’t any alarms on the windows on the top floor so Linc opened it to climb out onto the roof. Pausing, one leg out, he said,“How about a good-bye kiss?”

  “I’ll kiss you if you die in my arms.”

  “That’s encouraging,” he said as he disappeared onto the roof.

  I climbed onto the seat, stuck my head out and used all my power to guide him and his feet as he inched along the very steep roof. There was a place where the gutter was loose and he nearly fell, but I concentrated hard.

  “You wanta back off on that?” Linc said across the roof between us. “You’re making my head hurt.”

  “Sorry,” I said and tried to calm myself. My father and I had worked on ways I could calm myself so I wouldn’t inadvertently hurt people. Making Linc’s nose bleed had been the first violent thing I’d done since the witches in the tunnel.

  When Linc held on to the frame of the dormer window and pointed inside, I knew he’d found her. He pantomimed sleeping. For a second I panicked. What if her window was locked? But it wasn’t and Linc easily opened it and slipped inside.

  I pulled my head back inside and tried to guide him through the room. I knew there were no cameras in the room.

  Suddenly, my eyes flew open. She was awake! Worse, she’d seen Linc. My mind whirled with the problems this would cause. Would we ever find Linc’s son now? Would I—?

  I needn’t have worried because, soundlessly, without a word, I knew that Linc had slipped into bed with her and he’d already started making love to her.

  There were times when I really and truly hated my ability. I could see the two of them as clearly as though I were in the room with them. They were languid lovers, slow, sensuous. Linc loved women and he gave them what they wanted. If they wanted fast and hard, he delivered.

  Ingrid wanted slow, sensual. Maybe it was because I’d spent so much time with Linc or because we were connected in some way, but I could feel what he felt. Heavens! I could feel what she felt, too.

  I closed my eyes for a moment and leaned back against the wall. I’d hardened myself against sex over the last year. I’d refused to allow myself to remember Adam’s hands on my body, his mouth on my skin. I wouldn’t even let myself remember the warmth of him, his skin nearly as dark as Linc’s.

  But now, connected to the couple making love on the other side of the wall, I could feel Adam, feel his mouth on my breast, his hand kneading. I could feel his lips on my stomach, his hands on my thighs, moving upward, stroking, caressing, driving me mad with desire. When he entered me, my legs grew weak and I slid down the wall, feeling him, smelling him.

  “Adam,” I whispered,“my Adam.”

  For a moment I sat there, my legs spread in front of me, feeling my husband’s caresses as though he were with me. I could feel every move that Linc and the blonde woman were making, her hand on his skin, curving over the muscles of his chest, down his washboard stomach. Since I’d met him I’d refused to look at the beauty of Linc, refused to acknowledge his rampant sexuality, but now…Now it was as though it was me in that bed with him. I was the one stroking his thighs, running my hands over his buttocks. I was the one with my arms open to him, longing for him to enter me.

  “Could this be classed as adultery?”

  My eyes flew open and I was embarrassed. I closed my legs, closed my mouth that had been open to kisses, and tried to stand up, but my knees were so weak I stumbled.

  “Who are you?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

  “Oh. You,” I said. It was Devlin—or at least that was the name that had been put into my head. This time he was dressed in full Highland regalia, from brogues to a ribbon pulling his long gray hair back. “What do you want?” I sat down on the window seat. I was embarrassed to have been seen in a lustful fantasy, but also angry to have had it interrupted.

  “This is a philosophical matter,” he said, his hands behind his back and pacing. “Is it adultery to be in bed with a man who isn’t your husband if you only do it with your mind?”

  “Of course not.” I tried to smooth my hair and wished I had on more clothes than a silly little cat suit. I crossed my arms over my chest as my nipples were still hard. I could still feel what Linc and Ingrid were doing just on the other side of the wall from me, but it was fading from my consciousness. I could tell they were going to be at it for hours and I wanted…I wanted to weep with envy.

  “Who are you and what do you want?” I snapped at Devlin. “And why were the slaves so afraid of you?”

  “They know their master,” he said.

  “Your ego is without limits.”

  “Why isn’t something as tiny as you afraid of me?”

  “Little body; big mind,” I said. I could feel the rhythm of Linc and the woman.

  “Now who has the ego?” Devlin said, but I could see he was pleased with me. He sat down on the seat beside me, which was disconcerting because his body overlapped mine by half a foot. I moved over.

  “How galling life must be for you,” he said in a chummy way. “To have the power of your mind yet have to hold back. Tell me, how much of it do you use? Fifty percent?”

  I couldn’t help it but I began to relax. This man was dead; he was a ghost. And even at that he was a weird ghost, changing his see-through body whenever he wanted. In other words, here was a man/thing who was stranger than I was. “About ten percent,” I said. “Shall I experiment on you?” A couple of times I’d dealt with angry ghosts who didn’t want to leave a place. I’d always won.

  “Shall I show you what I can do?” he asked companionably.

  I didn’t want to see what he could do, but I also felt that he didn’t want to see what I could do. My father said that