Whispers in the Dawn (21 page)

“She doesn’t hear you, sir,” Harley offered.

“Horse’s patootie. She hears everything I say. I have no doubt about that.” He turned to his niece and smoothed the top of her hand. “Listen, I read about what you did on that space station. Agent Harley made no bones about how you saved his skin, along with those of the innocent. We didn’t even know how much danger we were in from that Murrach guy. But nothing to fear from now on, little one. He’s gone and your man’s waiting here for you to wake up, just as if you were Sleeping Beauty. Plus, he wants to marry you. So you see, your uncle remembers some of the fairytales you came home and told him when you were no higher than a cricket. And let me say to you, this man, he loves you more than words will ever express. So now, girl, you gotta wake up and give me some little pattering feet to keep my heart ticking. I got kind of addicted to having you little ones around.”

Brody coughed, but Jason said with a hint of levity, “And he isn’t getting any younger, either.”

Harley couldn’t help but smile at the old man’s plucky spirit. Odessa had the same gutsy nature. She’d let nothing deter her from standing up for herself, especially if she believed she was right.

“You should try to convince her to wake up and get better, not get pregnant right away,” Brody protested.

“Rubbish. She’s right there somewhere.”

Brody shrugged and muttered, “Have it your way.” He walked over and stood beside Harley. “I’m sorry. He always says what’s on his mind.”

“Only way to be in this world, son. Especially at my age.”

Harley liked the old man’s forthrightness. “I’m afraid the helmet disconnected some of her synapses.”

“Sounds like a Joanna Petrocheeni movie to me,” Uncle Peter murmured. “What are these synapses?”

“It’s the point from which a nervous impulse passes from one neuron to another. It’s the physical aspect of how we think,” Harley replied, rubbing his temple. Exhaustion was beginning to set in.

“How did she know she could talk to Uncle Peter through the helmet?” Brody asked.

Harley shrugged. “My guess is she loved him enough to be able to communicate with him at a distance. The helmet amplified her thoughts enough to enable her to communicate.”

“I understand the technology wasn’t ready to be tested on humans yet.” Jason sat on Odessa’s bed and held her free hand.

“No.” Harley shifted from one knee to the other. He had destroyed all the helmets himself, and he doubted any scientist could replicate them. Why did technology that was meant for good always become tools for men like Pardua?

The old man got to his feet and shuffled out of the room. He seemed to have aged by twenty years from the time he had arrived to visit his niece. Harley felt sorry for him. They could be in for a long wait for Odessa to come out of the coma, but he was willing to bide his time.

“I don’t think Uncle Peter will want to stick around long,” Jason said to Harley. “I’m going to take him home, otherwise he’ll start walking and it’s quite a ways. Would you care to come with us? Uncle makes apple pie which is the talk of the town, and we made up a room for you.”

“Thanks. But I’ll wait some more. Maybe today she’ll come home for good.”

Jason nodded in acceptance and Brody left the room with him. Their anguished looks stabbed at Harley all over again. If Odessa didn’t wake up soon, what would happen to Uncle Peter and his nephews? He surmised they would support each other.

Harley knelt down beside the bed in the spot Uncle Peter had vacated. Odessa’s family was going out of their way to include him, although Uncle Peter had a rough spot here and there.

Harley took Odessa’s hand, the same way he had done so many times in the past few months. “Odessa,” he whispered, “your family is a hoot. If not for me, will you wake up for your Uncle Peter? I swear he aged twenty years just in the time he spent visiting you.” He knew he shouldn’t have told her that. He didn’t want her to feel guilty.

“I know that,” came the softest of hoarse whispers.

Harley jumped to his feet as she struggled to open her eyes. To his utter disbelief, she blinked open the sapphire jewels, and gazed on him with tenderness. Joy, an emotion he had thought he would never possess again, made him want to find wings and fly.

“I can’t believe it. You’re awake,” he murmured, feeling a wreath of a smile light his face.

Odessa tried to sit up. “Promise me one thing.”

“No, don’t sit up until I get the doctor. But I’ll promise you anything.”

“That you won’t make me wear a helmet again.”

He reached out and brushed her hair away from her cheek. “No, never again if you don’t want to. But you have to promise me one thing too.”

She flashed a weak but mischievous smile. “I think I know what you’re going to ask.”

“You do?” he teased, and kissed her lips gently.

“You’re going to make me promise to marry you as soon as possible.”

“Have you been reading my mind?”

She motioned for him to lower his head. “You told Uncle Peter I couldn’t hear him. He told me I should marry the most wonderful man in the galaxy and beyond. His words made me come away from all those voices.”

“You could still hear them?” Harley asked in astonishment.

“Yes, but they were getting fainter and fainter. They were nanobots, weren’t they?”

“Yes, princess. They were. They wear out without a fresh supply to feed on. When you told me you were hit by a bullet, why didn’t I find any evidence of the injury?”

“Roland made me wear a helmet on the
Drifter
once. I don’t like wearing hats or helmets or anything, and I told him so. He wouldn’t listen. I still don’t remember exactly what happened while I had the awful thing on. Apparently there was something inside it that gave me the power to heal extremely quickly.”

“The nanobots,” they said together.

He smoothed her cheek with the back of his hand. “You might have heard this already, but I love you more than words can say, and I would give you the moon on a silver platter if I could—”

She hushed him by melding her lips with his. She was home at last and in his arms.

Also available from this author at Total-E-Bound Publishing:

Naked Art

Aurora Rose Lynn

Excerpt

Chapter One

The manor house’s outlines were eerie in the overpowering darkness as Paige Blackmoor pulled the car to a stop at the front entrance. A bolt of lightning illuminated the manor’s high roof for a brief second before pitch dark descended again. Thunder cracked through the air. Apart from the rain, there were no other sounds. She had a sense of déjà vu that warned her she had been here before, but to her recollection, she had never been in the area. The impression stayed with her, frightening her more than the day’s happenings had.

She gritted her teeth and decided to leave the headlights on. Those comforting orbs of yellow light kept her from turning the car around and racing down the unfamiliar, winding road. She needed this job, and although the circumstances appeared strange, Paige felt reassured that good things did happen to those who waited long enough. It wasn’t every day a woman got a job in a ritzy place—even if it was only maid’s work.

She bent her head over the steering wheel and looked at the manor, able to discern only a dim outline. Earlier that morning as she’d sipped her black coffee and read the classified section in the newspaper, her gaze had landed on the perfect employment.

Maid wanted at Rosebury Manor.

Excellent salary, benefits and room and board.

Only serious woman need apply.

The misuse of ‘woman’ rather than ‘women’ had immediately caught her attention but she attributed the mistake to a copyeditor being asleep on the job.

Paige had almost spilled her coffee into her lap as she’d pushed back the chair from the kitchen table and ran for the phone. The job had sounded so perfect, she couldn’t have let someone apply ahead of her. With shaking fingers, she’d dialled the number and asked for the person named in the ad. The person had asked what her name was and had said, with a great deal of repressed excitement Paige couldn’t fail to hear, that the job was hers as long as she arrived at Rosebury before eight p.m. that day.

It had meant a bustle of activity, but she’d managed to get everything cleared with the apartment manager from whom she rented her small bachelorette. Now she was here, irrationally afraid of the surrounding night and what might be waiting for her. After she had made the call to Rosebury and returned to the newspaper and her coffee, she had searched and searched for the ad, but was unable to find it again. Any number of reasons why she hadn’t been able to came to mind, but the most prominent one was that the ad had simply vanished. The whole day had been filled with apprehension as she’d remembered the ad’s misspelling, the manner in which she had been hired on the spot and not even asked for a résumé, and how the ad had disappeared as if into thin air.

Now that she was actually parked next to the manor, her instinct to flee fought with her good sense, which was telling her she was imagining this whole scenario.

Rain pelted the car’s roof.

With a white-knuckled hold, Paige gripped the steering wheel as another bolt of lightning shredded the black sky and lit up the manor and the surrounding tall pine trees. She had been here before, her subconscious warned her. What else could she do but march up to the front door and let the housekeeper know she had arrived? If the job didn’t work out, she was resourceful enough to find another job and place to live. She needed the job. Should she check her makeup? Even with the overhead light, she had no way to see if her faint pink lipstick was smudged.

With her resolve in place, she cut the headlights, threw her purse strap over her shoulder, opened the door and dashed for the manor before she could change her mind. She tried to avoid the mud puddles as the rain poured down on her. The end result was her flat black pumps got soaked with water. She lifted the old-fashioned knocker and pounded on the door. The massive wooden door opened. Soft light surrounded her.

A plump woman, wearing a severe, ankle-length black uniform, confronted her with a heavy frown. “What do you want?”

“I called earlier today about the maid’s job,” Paige replied, refusing to be intimidated.

The woman appeared to have been pretty at one time, but age and the effects of gravity had altered that. Now she was rather plain and homely.

“Oh. It’s you then. Come in then. Don’t stand out there waiting for Halloween. I’m Mrs Whittaker, by the way.”

The woman drew open the door just wide enough that Paige could squeeze in. The door slammed shut. Paige jumped.

“My, aren’t you a tad nervous?”

Paige wasn’t willing to admit she was. “No. It’s been a long drive, so I’m a bit tired,” she said, hoping her honesty wouldn’t offend the housekeeper and make her lose this job.

“Come into the kitchen and dry off. You look like a drowned church mouse. I’ll make us a cup of tea.”

The housekeeper turned and strode into the house. The bow of her frilly white apron was tied to perfection at her waist, giving Paige the impression the woman valued strict order. Her once black hair, now streaked with grey, was pulled up into a tight bun. Her black shoes were flat and looked as if she had bought them in the five and dime store.

Paige followed her through a luxuriously appointed hallway and down a long corridor. Her feet squished in her shoes. Doors were partially open on both sides, giving her the impression that she would have quite a bit of cleaning to do in this place. Which was fine by her—she was used to hard work.

“Sit yourself down,” the housekeeper said on entering a bright kitchen, as old-fashioned as the knocker on the front door had been.

There was a gas stove, cast iron pots and pans and very little in the way of modern appliances except for the refrigerator, which hummed softly. The aroma of fresh-baked bread filled the room, making Paige’s mouth water. The windows above the white porcelain sink were open and a pair of lace curtains fluttered in the wind. Potted rosemary, thyme and mint took up the generous windowsill space.

“That damned ghost.” The housekeeper grunted the words as she leaned over the sink and slammed the casement windows shut. “He always wants to peek in and see what’s up. Like I’d have my skirt out of kilter just so he can take a quick look.”

“Ghosts don’t exist,” Paige said, astounded. She seated herself at the table and noted the sugar bowl, creamer, and a crock of what looked like freshly made butter in the centre of the table.

What had she got herself into with this crazy woman? Didn’t ghosts, if they existed at all, have anything better to do than peep under her dress? She repressed a belly laugh of amusement. There were all kinds of people in the world, and for now she would have to put up with an old woman who believed a ghost was interested in scrutinising her panties.

The housekeeper bustled about, apparently the type of person who couldn’t stand still for even short periods of time.

“Sure they do, hon. It’s just a matter of connecting the real world with the spiritual. Sometimes, humans are just too blind to see what’s right under their noses.”

She opened the oven, allowing Paige to see two perfect loaves of bread baking. The housekeeper pulled on a pair of red and white chequered oven mitts and lovingly withdrew the bread, placing it onto racks on the counter next to the stove.

Paige thought back about the newspaper ad and how, after she had phoned, the ad had disappeared as if it had never been there to begin with. She brushed a stray strand of hair from over her left eye and shrugged. Ghosts weren’t her problem, and if the housekeeper wanted to make them hers, that was no hair off her chest.