| |
Echo sat through the funeral service, trying to ignore the sounds of heart-wrenching sniffling she heard coming from all around her. Attending the service with Alexis had been a complete mistake. Everything reminded her of James’ death.
She raised her eyes and saw a large screen hanging behind the minister. Oh, no. The breath caught in her throat. Surely, they would not show home movies. Ann had been a television news reporter. Please, please don’t show a newscast, she silently prayed as she planned an escape plan, just in case.
Suddenly, the service was over, and the congregation stood to leave. “We made it,” Echo whispered, squeezing Alexis’ arm in a reassuring manner.
Leaning over close to Echo’s ear, Alexis said, “Not yet. We have to make it through the meal. That will take about an hour.”
How could she stand any more of this funeral? Trying to keep the grief from surrounding her, she concentrated on a historical novel she was reading at home. Echo looked around at the mourners attending the funeral as they walked into the meeting room. The men were dressed much the same: dark suits, somber ties, and white shirts. The women wore brighter colors that kept the assembly from appearing too solemn.
Widower Paul McGuire stood in the middle of the room shaking hands with his friends and acquaintances as they filed by him, offering their condolences.
Uncomfortable in their attempts to console the grieving man, their faces barely hid the guilt and relief that it was he, and not they, who had lost a loved one.
Watching him closely, she moved slowly toward Paul. She wondered how everyone would feel if they knew Rand suspected him of killing his own wife. Despite her dislike of the man, she felt she at least needed to express her sympathy over his loss.
As she stepped forward to speak to him, someone bumped into her, knocking her into Paul McGuire’s chest. Echo put out her hands to prevent herself from falling against him. As she touched Paul’s lapel, a snapping, painful shock rushed through her body. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation. It was threatening. She had felt nothing like it. Echo looked up into his spooky eyes, their color so light it made his pupils appear huge. She tried to look away, but she couldn’t—her gaze was held captive.
Her knees trembled. She started to fall, but Paul grasped her hands in his. Acid filled her mouth. She stared at his shoes and tried to ignore the evil vibes pouring from him.
Brutal and depraved.
There was no other way to describe him.
His hands were cold and clammy. As they touched, she felt electricity emanating from him, filling her with a terror she hadn’t felt before. She fought back an involuntary shudder.
“Paul, I—I’m terribly sorry about Ann,” she mumbled, barely able to get the words out.
She felt as if her hands were burning as she tried to pull them out of his grip. A pulsating pain ripped through her hand. Looking at her fingers encased in his, she envisioned them becoming a mere strand of ash. She had to say something to this man so she could escape from the nauseating hold he had on her—and soon. He gave her the creeps!
“I must...go,” Echo gasped in agony, as a torturous jolt of pain ran up her arm. She tried to pull her hand free from his grasp, but her ineffective movement seemed to weaken her. Her knees knocked from the fear. His eyes and touch seemed to drain the strength from her body and soul. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she forced herself to look back to his face. Instead of the raw grief she expected, she found a flat, hard, passionless expression in his eyes. A violent tremor rocked her. His pale eyes stared back with a steely glint reminiscent of icy snow on a frigid January morning.
“So soon?” he asked as he smiled at her, his lips pulling into a thin line. There was no mistaking the lust on his face.
Thump, whoosh.
Thump, whoosh.
There was that sound again, battering her with its force, moving closer as the sound neared. Realizing the sound came from within her, pain radiated through her body, spilling over in pounding waves of anguish, grief, an agony so strong it threatened her control over consciousness. She couldn’t move, could barely breathe. Early summer sunshine poured in through the windows, but she didn’t feel its luminous warmth. Paul McGuire pulled the heat from the room. Echo dragged her gaze from his frosty stare and looked around the church assembly hall. People milled around eating, visiting, and sharing their grief at the loss of beautiful Ann McGuire. No one noticed Echo’s panic.
Thump, whoosh.
Thump, whoosh.
From where was that sound coming now? It pulsated in the distance, sounding so familiar but so strange. Her heart hammered in her chest, and she became dizzy, and the room felt as though it tilted under her feet. Suddenly, she recognized the sound. It was her own blood thundering in her ears.
Would she faint? No, she didn’t think so—this felt different. Paul McGuire’s eyes, hooded and hawk-like, studied her with curious intensity.
Suddenly, she detected a tiny pinpoint of warmth over her right shoulder. As it drew closer, the sensation of heat swirled, building a cocoon of silken strands of warmth around her. Along with this comforting peace came a dreadful awareness—she could not move. Her body felt as solid as any. She drifted into a dream-like state as the panic and fear dissipated momentarily. Closing her eyes, she drifted with the new, incredible feeling, the sensation of floating. Slowly, opening her eyes, terror again took over.
She was surrounded by warm, clear water alive with muted colored coral, schools of turquoise and yellow fish zigzagging through the water. It gave her the feeling she’d stepped into a child’s coloring book.
This can’t be happening, she thought. But she found it impossible to snap out of the eerie trance. A cold and dreadful feeling passed over her as she realized the scene playing out in front of her had come from touching Paul McGuire. Worse than that knowledge was the astonishment that she was seeing everything through Ann McGuire’s eyes.
Paul’s colorless, forbidding eyes stared back at her from behind goggles, amplifying their size. The breathing apparatus lodged in his mouth, releasing air bubbles into the water surrounding them as he exhaled. Reality swept over her. She jerked her hand from his grasp, spun on her heel, and pushed her way through the crowd toward the door leading outside the church. Echo knew Paul’s eyes followed her backside as she walked toward the door.
Enough! The word pounded through her mind with each step she took.
“What’s the matter, Echo? Are you ill?” Alexis asked, stopping her before she could go through the door.
Echo swallowed with great difficulty. “N-no. It must be funerals in general. I don’t deal...can’t deal with them.”
Alexis, tall and lithe, hugged Echo. “I’m sorry, hon. I should have realized how hard it would be. You’re remembering your husband. You can’t be over the trauma from that.”
Oh, my head aches. What has happened anyway? Has this funeral tossed me back into the muddled emotions surrounding James’ death? Surely, I’m losing my mind. Yet, the vision seems so real. She shuddered. The most frightening aspect of it all is that I can feel Ann’s spirit somehow has inexplicably linked me with her own.
“Let’s go outside and get some air,” Alexis said. “I think if I smell roses for another minute, I’ll just pu...”
“Lex, please! I don’t feel well as it is!”
The door opened without a whisper as Echo pushed on the polished oak. In contrast to the heavy, dead air inside the church, spring air poured through the opening, bringing the fragrance of fresh cut grass. She breathed deeply, hoping to clear the ringing in her ears. She hadn’t eaten breakfast, and the cloying smell of roses and incense mingling with the smell of food inside the church was making her feel nauseated.
“Why do they hold the funeral dinner at the church?” she asked no one in particular. Her palms felt clammy and her hand trembled as she wiped the beads of perspiration from her forehead.
Alexis took her arm, steering her toward a cement bench set in the shade of a tall cottonwood tree.
Echo dropped onto the cool bench. “Funerals. They make my skin crawl,” Echo groaned as she smoothed back the stray hairs that refused to stay in the French braid.
“Mine, too. I’ve always thought it strange to have dinner at the church immediately after the funeral,” Alexis said as she sat next to Echo. “Are you going to be all right?”
“I haven’t eaten since around this time yesterday and I’m famished, that’s all.” Echo tried to reassure her friend of many years.
“Okay, but I think you need to get out of here.”
“No way. I offered to attend this funeral for your sake. Ann was your friend. I feel embarrassed acting this way when it’s you who needs my support.”
Alexis smiled softly, her peachy complexion glowing in the bright morning light. “Your problem keeps my mind off the grief.” She looked over her shoulder, her hair cascading in a fall of curls. “I wonder where Randall is? It’s a good thing I was helping you out at the desk yesterday, or I wouldn’t have recognized him. Have I changed that much since I graduated?”
Smiling, Echo remembered the painfully thin girl with straight brown hair and thick, dark-rimmed glasses from school. “Changed? I think a little here and there.” Laughing, she stood, brushing at her skirt. “Come on, Lex, let’s go eat. I need something before I make a complete fool of myself and faint. There’s a long line already forming.”
Re-entering the church, they walked to the large room. The closer they got to the long tables of food, the more Echo’s stomach rolled. She realized she could not eat the heavy food even before a matronly woman handed her a plate of waterlogged chicken and noodles.
Followed by Alexis, she gingerly made her way toward the three long rows of tables at the back of the room. As she passed an older couple devouring sandwiches, her stomach growled with hunger. A sandwich was exactly what she needed.
“Where’d they get that?” she whispered over her shoulder to Alexis. The paper plate was limp and soggy from the pasty noodles heaped onto soupy mashed potatoes. Grease dripped off the edge of the plate, and onto her new, dark blue heels, congealing on her instep.
“Oh! Look at this, will you!” She stamped her foot hard against the floor, hoping to loosen some of the grease. “These shoes are new!” Echo cried, her voice louder than she had intended.
“Be quiet!” Alexis growled, frowning at her. “This isn’t the place to shout.”
“But...” Unexpectedly, a creeping sensation inched along her spine. Turning her head, she saw Paul staring at her, his eyes narrowing as he studied her intently. Echo looked around for a seat out of the line of his sight. She did not need another encounter with him again today, she thought, as she led Alexis toward a set of chairs behind a column. She had to get something to eat before she fainted. Where had they placed the sandwiches?
A woman wearing a tacky, bright red dress leaned toward a group of women as she talked with grandiose hand movements, drawing Echo’s attention as they passed her.
“There!” Echo saw the smaller buffet table as the woman moved out of her line of vision.
“There what?” Alexis asked.
“I found the sandwiches,” Echo said, as liquid streamed over the edge of her plate. The artfully placed sandwiches sat near a bank of windows on the far side of the room. But before she could get any more food, she had to do something with this paper plate. It was disintegrating at a rapid pace. “Do you want me to bring you back something?” she asked Alexis as she stood.
“If they have turkey, I’d take one of those. If not, I’m fine with...” Alexis grimaced as she pointed to her plate “...this!”
“Alexis! I haven’t seen you in...let’s see...it’s been...years since we graduated.” The plump woman rushed up to Alexis and dropped into Echo’s recently vacated chair.
Leaving Alexis occupied, Echo wound her way through the crowd, her destination a trashcan placed at the end of the buffet table. With food this awful, the location is perfect, she thought, as she wondered what a health inspector would think of garbage and food occupying the same space.
Her gaze swept the room. She saw no one watching as she dropped the disgusting mess into the plastic-lined can, then nonchalantly ambled toward the sandwich table. She hoped no one could detect the slight squishing sound coming from her shoe where the grease had run down into her arch.
She couldn’t help herself; she glanced toward the crowd gathered around Paul. The look on his face, a mask of pain and grief, seemed quite benign—as long as she didn’t make eye contact.
Working her way toward a stack of cheap paper plates, she soon stood near her objective. Reaching out to take a triangular section of sandwich, her hand collided with someone reaching for the same sandwich.
“Excuse me.” Jerking her hand back, she apologized absently. She’d absorbed too many feelings through that hand today. She couldn’t stand any more physical contact with anyone right then.
“That’s okay.” Rand’s deep voice swept over her, sending a tremor of excitement through her body.
She looked up into brilliant golden-colored eyes. Her stomach fluttered in response.
Echo blushed. He had heard her call him a sexy Greek god! Tearing her wide-eyed gaze away from his, she looked back at the sandwiches, snatched two—one for herself, and another for Alexis—and dropped them on the paper plate.
“Are you going to eat those or toss them into the trash like your last plate of food?” Rand teased.
Just her luck! Of all the people in the room, it had to be Rand who caught her getting rid of the unappetizing food. “I...well, I couldn’t make myself eat those watery potatoes,” she said. She turned to look at him, smiling. “Besides, I’ve lived most of my life on a ranch, and with my upbringing, it’s nearly sacrilegious to eat chicken.” Luckily, the sandwich she showed was roast beef.
His golden brows rose. “And the turkey sandwich?”
She lowered her eyes to the plate. “Oh, that’s for Alexis. I can’t help it she was raised in town.”
Laughter, low and smooth, rumbled from Randall Halstead. His full lips curved into a pleasant smile. “In that case, enjoy your lunch. I’m amazed you have such an exquisite figure.” He filled his plate, then turned and walked away.
Digging into a bowl of chips, Echo watched Randall. He looked so confident, so masculine. She wasn’t the only woman noticing either, judging from all the women whose looks were following him. Smiling slightly, she walked back to a vacant chair on the other side of Alexis and sat with a sigh. It felt so good to get the pressure off her tired feet. “Here.” She offered the sandwich to Alexis. “Just like you requested...turkey.”
“Sorry, but I have to eat,” Alexis said to the prattling woman who was sitting next to her, “before I go to work at the truck stop. I’m on duty in—” She looked at her watch. “—thirty minutes.”
“On duty?” the heavyset woman asked.
Alexis nodded, then smiled. “I run the cashier desk.”
“I did not know! I thought someone told me you worked at that new hotel.” The woman looked confused.
“Oh, I do. That’s on my days off,” Alexis explained. “I’m divorced and have two teenage daughters to keep dressed and fed!”
“Well, don’t let me keep you.” With that, the woman stood. “Echo, I’d like to see your hotel sometime. But we don’t get to Sage very often. Usually, Sam and I go over to Casper for all our business.”
Echo’s eyebrows drew together. “Sam?”
“Sure. Don’t you remember? Sam Collins and I got married right after high school. Now we have two teenagers to chase after.” The woman took a step, then turned back. “I’m so happy to see you two again. It’s been a long time.”
“I hope we meet again, too—” Echo stopped, unsure of the woman’s name and too embarrassed to ask. “—during better circumstances.” The unknown woman walked away as Echo turned toward Alexis. “Who was that?” Echo asked in a whispered tone.
Alexis bit on her lips to suppress a giggle. “What? You don’t recognize svelte, beautiful Edie? The prom, homecoming and anything-else-she-wanted, queen?”
“You’ve got to be kidding!” Echo asked in wonderment. “That was Edie Scott?”
“I can’t get over it either. She used to be so beautiful!” Alexis took the sandwich from Echo’s hand.
Shaking her head, Echo whispered, “We all change, you know.”
Chomping ungracefully into the sandwich, Alexis chewed thoughtfully, her eyes surveying the room, then swallowed. “Speaking of people we once knew, where’s Randall? You’d think he’d be by Paul McGuire’s side.”
The room buzzed with conversation. Looking around the room, she recognized only a few individuals. She still couldn’t put names with faces.
“Let me take your plate, Lex. I need to move around. I can’t take sitting any longer.” Standing, she grabbed Alexis’ empty plate, brushed a few crumbs from her short navy skirt, and walked across the room. As she dropped the plate into the trash, she noticed noodles and paper plates heaped nearly to the top of the can. So, she hadn’t been the only person to discard the inedible dough. What would Rand think of that?
The muscles in her neck tightened painfully and a headache played at her temples. At least the nausea had faded, and she didn’t feel as if she were perched on the edge of fainting. She really wanted to leave; she’d had enough grief for one day. Glimpsing her watch, she sagged. Oh, this dreadful headache.
If she didn’t do something about it then, she’d be terribly ill before the evening. She walked down the hallway, out into the sunshine, past a group of men clustered together behind an extended, decorative wall puffing cigarette smoke into the air. The thick haze hovering in the still air floated toward her like fragments of the men’s conversations. Then, as it rose higher above the wall, the wind caught it, whirling it away.
Echo saw Paul standing among the group. She could feel his gaze on her. The breeze caught the loose wrap of her skirt, flipping it high on her thigh before she could pull it back into place, and she felt him eyeing her exposed flesh. Bile rose in her throat. This whole situation seemed sickening and disrespectful. Her temper flared through her with flashes of red. Didn’t he care why they were all here? This was his wife’s funeral, after all!
Spinning on her heels, Echo walked back inside the church. The pain in her feet and head pounded in unison. She just wanted a quiet place to sit for a moment. A place far away from the droning voices in the refectory. Seeing the doors that lead to the chapel were still open, she slipped inside.
Solitude.
There wasn’t any other place in the church that seemed more serene and spiritual. After her experiences today, all she wanted was for the holy essence to fill her soul and wash away the defiled feeling lingering there. Echo allowed the reverence of the room to soothe her as she walked toward the altar at the front of the room and slid into a padded pew. Dropping her head, she closed her eyes. What an awful day. Busily renewing old friendships from high school, most of the funeral attendees seemed to think more about themselves than Ann McGuire. Her heart turned slowly in her chest. All those virtuous, eulogized words about Ann had sounded honest as they’d rolled from their lips, but when the mourners exited the chapel, they had forgotten all about her.
The polished wooden box containing Ann’s ashes sat on the altar. Forgotten and alone.
How sad. Echo had seen her on the ten o’clock news. She had been beautiful and vibrant. Death had reduced a vital woman to a concentrated essence that fit into a small container. Echo reprimanded herself for becoming so morbid. Feeling better, she stood to leave. Feeling sorry for herself did her no good at all.
“Are you okay?”
She recognized the smooth voice that filled her senses. Rand stood in the doorway looking at her.