Forever: A Novel of Good and Evil Love and Hope Read online

  Again, there was a long silence.

  If Darci and Taylor Raeburne hadn’t looked so much alike that he was sure they were related, Adam wouldn’t have dared say what he did next. “Yesterday, a man pulled a gun on us, and Darci, your daughter, used her mind to stop the man—and me—where we were standing. Both of us were paralyzed. Until she sneezed and broke the connection, that is.”

  There was no hesitation before Raeburne spoke. “I’ll be there as soon as I can get there.”

  “We’re staying at—” Adam didn’t finish the sentence because the phone went dead.

  Putting down the phone, Adam looked at Darci, and from the expression on her face, he didn’t know if she was going to laugh or start crying.

  You really think he’ll like me? Darci said to him in her mind.

  “Yes,” Adam answered. “I really do. Look, why don’t we drive down the highway today and do a little sight-seeing? Unless your father can get here on a broomstick, we have hours before he arrives.”

  Darci didn’t so much as smile at Adam’s attempt at humor. Instead, she looked at him hard. “If you want us to leave here today, then you have a reason. What are you really after?”

  “To get us both away from here for a few hours. To get our minds off this whole thing.” Darci was staring at him so hard that he knew she didn’t believe a word he said. Adam threw up his hands in surrender. “Okay, so sue me. I want to get you away from here. I can’t imagine why. Unless it’s because someone wants to kill you. Or maybe they want to kidnap you and use you because you can do astonishing things with your mind. You have an unbelievable power, but you seem to have no idea how dangerous it could be in the wrong hands. You— Oh, the hell with it!” he said. “Get your coat. And don’t you dare tell me not to curse. If we live through this, I may take up cursing as a hobby.”

  Darci didn’t hesitate but ran to the closet and got her jacket. Ten minutes later they were in the rental car and on the highway.

  12

  “SO WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO?” Darci asked when they were alone in the car. “What’s to see around here?”

  “I don’t know,” Adam answered. “I just want a break from computers and research books. It’s been too much of ...well,too much of everything.”

  “You mean, you’ve had too much of me, don’t you? Me and my relatives, Putnam relatives, and now my father.” She said the last word at a lower pitch. She still couldn’t comprehend the idea that she was soon going to meet her father.

  Adam’s laugh brought her back to the present. “I haven’t been so entertained in all my life. If someone made up that town of yours, no one would believe it. Why don’t you quit worrying about meeting your father and look at the scenery? It’s beautiful in New England in the autumn.”

  Instead of looking out the window, Darci opened the glove compartment and looked inside. “What makes you think that I’m concerned about meeting my father?”

  “How many nails have you torn off in the last hour?”

  Darci curled up her fingertips out of sight.”I always tear at my fingernails. Nervous habit. It doesn’t mean—”

  “Ha! You file your nails every night. They’re always perfectly shaped into little pink ovals with not a ragged edge on them. And they’re—” He broke off because Darci was staring at him in speculation. “What is that!” he snapped when she pulled something out of the glove compartment.

  “It’s a map of Connecticut,” Darci said, smiling as she opened it. “You like my fingernails, do you?”

  “Why are you looking at a map?” Adam asked, frowning. “I know this area. You do not need to look at a map.”

  “What is wrong with my looking at a map?” she asked, starting to look up at him, but something on the map caught her eye.

  “What’s wrong?” Adam asked quickly.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” she answered quietly, her eyes fastened to the map.

  “How about if we go to Bradley?” he said loudly. “It’s a pretty little town, and I believe there are some nice antique shops there. Do you like antiques?”

  “I like you, don’t I?” Darci said distractedly, still studying the map, her fingers tracing the distance from Bradley to another town.

  “Very funny,” Adam said. “What is it that you’re so enthralled with on that map?”

  “Nothing,” she answered quickly, then folded the map and put it back into the glove compartment. “Bradley’sfine with me. In fact, since it’s straight ahead, I could almost believe that’s where you planned to go.”

  “Caught,” Adam said easily. “I’ve been there before, so I know it’s pretty. It’ll be good for us to have a whole day with nothing whatever to do with witches, and....”

  Darci didn’t hear the rest of what he was saying because she was looking at his profile and concentrating. All she needed to do was to get rid of him for a few hours. If she could make him want to go off by himself for a while....

  “Stop it!” Adam said without taking his eyes off the road. “I didn’t notice it at first, but when you do that, I get a tiny pain under my left shoulder blade. It’s not really a pain, just a feeling, but it’s enough that I know when you’re . . . when you’re trying to manipulate and control me,” he said, giving her a glance that told her what he thought of her action. Then, giving her a fierce glance, he said, “Your ‘sacred word of honor’ doesn’t mean much to you, does it?”

  Darci smiled, unperturbed at his attempt to make her feel guilty. “I didn’t do anything. But it seems that when I think about things really hard, you feel it. Maybe you are psychic. Anyway, that tiny pain you feel, I can make it a lot worse. I can even give you a headache. Wanta see?”

  “You do and I’ll make you sorry,” he said instantly. Turning away to look out the window, Darci hid her smile from him. It was odd, it was awful, and it was wonderful, all at the same time, to have someone know what she could do. But it was nothing but . . . delicious to have someone know and not think she was a freak—the thing she’d always feared and why she’d never told anyone about what she could do. She knew that the people in her home town considered her “different” even though they hadn’t an inkling of the depth of the truth. Over the years Darci had almost convinced herself that what she could do, anyone could. But now it was out in the open and this man who knew about her was acting as though her “power” was something almost normal.

  Within minutes, they were in Bradley, and Darci could see that it was indeed a pretty little New England town, especially since it was all dressed up in autumn leaves of fabulous colors. There were several quaint little shops that she would have loved to visit, but she knew she couldn’t. After she’d looked at the map and seen a name that jumped out at her, she’d known that there was something else she had to do today.

  Adam parked the car on the street, and they got out. “I have to go to the ladies’ room,” Darci said abruptly, then, before he could say a word, she ran across the street to a gas station.

  Annoyed, because she had again ignored traffic, Adam remained on the opposite side of the street and waited for her. Looking at his watch, he saw that time was moving quickly, and he knew he needed as much time as he could get to do what he had to today. But now he was wasting precious minutes while he waited for Darci to—

  Good heavens! he thought as he looked across the street. What was she doing now? She was standing by the pumps talking to a young man who was putting gas in a customer’s Volvo. Did she have to talk to every person she met? he thought, annoyed. Couldn’t she—?

  No, wait, he thought, this was good. He looked at the boy she was talking to. He looked to be in his twenties and was passably good-looking. Could Adam make Darci believe that he was jealous of such a child? No, she’d never fall for it, he thought. She’d never in a million years believe that he, Adam Montgomery, would be jealous of that scrawny, bad-complexioned boy.

  But as Adam again looked at his watch, he knew that he didn’t have time to come up with another reason to start an argu