Chapter 27

 

Arianna rolled onto her stomach, folding her arms on top of Caleb’s chest. To the west, the sun melted into a lava ball as it sank toward the horizon. A breeze perfumed with honeysuckle and clover rippled the grass. Ten feet away, Ranger stood with his head bowed, lazily cropping dandelions, his reins looped around the trunk of a sugar maple.

It had been a long day, exhausting for all of them. Sometime around four o’clock, Caleb and Rick had wandered inside. With a little coercion, Rick had agreed to stay for dinner, an opportunity that had given them all a chance to interact. He’d been curious to see the modifications made to the home he’d built, especially intrigued by the luxury updates to the kitchen and master suite. Arianna had found it fascinating, watching him walk room to room, moved by memories. He’d shared a few anecdotes. How Isabel had fussed until she’d found just the right fabric and pattern for the drapes in the dining room, now long gone; how Caleb had enjoyed sliding down the staircase banister as a child, until his mother, fearing he’d hurt himself, had insisted Rick make him stop. Ari had laughed over that one, especially when Wyn challenged Caleb to demonstrate the technique and, relaxing a bit, her overly correct lover had obliged.

Afterward, they’d moved to the parlor, still in disarray from Caleb’s violent transformation. Noting the damage, Rick offered to send a contractor around in the morning to replace the window and begin repairs. Caleb had consented awkwardly, uncomfortable at having his father see what he’d done.

By the time seven-thirty rolled around, Rick said his good-byes and prepared to leave.

“I don’t want you to go,” Arianna overheard Caleb say as the two men stood in the front hallway. Her curiosity got the better of her and she peeked around the corner.

“We’ve still got time, Caleb,” Rick replied with a gentle smile, so unlike the Rick Rothrock she remembered. “And now that I know about you, there are things I need to do. Business matters I have to address.” He gave Caleb’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze. “I promise I’ll still be here tomorrow when you wake up, if that’s what has you worried. I’ll call you and we’ll make arrangements to get together.”

“How do you know you’re going to be here?” Caleb persisted, frowning irritably. “Because of some ancient rock buried under the house? What if I don’t want to risk our relationship on a chunk of stone?”

“Caleb.” Rick’s voice had been stern. “Don’t discredit your mother’s beliefs. How else do you think it’s possible you and I are standing here, having this discussion in this century?”

Caleb lowered his eyes.

Arianna had leaned forward, hoping to catch more when Wyn pointedly cleared his throat behind her. She flushed, embarrassed to be caught eavesdropping. She was about to make an excuse when Wyn suggested they’d be able to hear better by moving to the opposite doorway. Unfortunately, by that time Caleb and Rick had stepped onto the front porch. In a matter of minutes, the sound of Rick’s Porsche could be heard fading down the driveway.

Caleb looked grim when he walked back inside. He disappeared into the rear bedroom, emerging moments later with a blanket tucked under his arm. Uncertain what he was up to, Arianna hesitated in the hallway, watching as he detoured to the dining room for a bottle of wine and two crystal glasses. Within seconds he was back, catching her arm and steering her toward the rear door.

“Where are we going?” she’d sputtered.

“Ride,” he said simply. “See if you can find something to put the wine and glasses in. Grab a corkscrew too. I’ll saddle Ranger and meet you at the barn.”

And so they’d gone riding, her first experience snuggled against him on horseback. She’d been uneasy but eventually relaxed, wrapping her arms around his waist, her cheek pressed to his back. She loved the way his body moved and flowed in communion with the chestnut, his spine ramrod straight, every other inch of him fluid muscle. The breeze scattered his hair and sent it streaming back from his face, white-gold and coin-bright to mingle with her midnight tresses.

When they eventually stopped on a grassy embankment bordered by trees, he’d spread the blanket on the ground, angling it for a perfect view of the setting sun. They shared a glass of wine, discussing Rick’s visit, but words soon gave way to the urge for touching and kissing. Caleb kept the mood light and romantic, yet she sensed his need for deeper intimacy. Eventually, he sprawled on his back, one arm pillowed under his head as he stared up at the sky. With his free hand he traced his fingers lightly down her spine.

Arms folded comfortably on his chest, she watched his face. “I think I should go home tonight, Caleb. You’ve been on overload the last few days.”

His eyes narrowed. “I don’t want you to leave.” The same words he’d said to Rick. “Not tonight, Annie. I want you to stay with me.”

She wanted to stay. The thought of a night without him made her heart ache, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t astute enough to realize something was wrong. “Why is tonight so important?” Freeing one hand, she brushed the bangs from his forehead. “You look tired. You should rest.”

“I’ll rest better with you in my bed.”

She shivered, pleased by his possessiveness. Coming from any other man, she would have objected, but Caleb crossed lines others weren’t permitted to tread. “Something’s bothering you.”

He grunted. “A lot is bothering me.” Exhaling, he shoved a hand through his hair. “Did you ever wonder how Weathering Rock got its name?”

She blinked, surprised by the odd choice of subject. “Rick told me your mother picked it, but that it was a long story.”

“Not so much long as unusual.” He rolled onto his side to face her. “My mother’s people were Scandinavian, from Norway.”

“As blond as you are, that doesn’t surprise me.” She grinned, fingering a strand of his hair, tinted platinum beneath the dying sun. “Lauren told me Rick is half Danish on his mother’s side. His grandfather came through Ellis Island in the early nineteen hundreds. He and your mother must have made a handsome couple.”

“She was beautiful,” Caleb agreed. “I think half of my father’s friends were in love with her, but she only had eyes for him. She was an educated woman, but superstitious too. My father told me when he was digging the foundation for Weathering Rock, he unearthed a large stone inscribed with runes. My mother took one look at it and panicked.”

“Runes? You mean like magical writings?”

“Of a sort. She called the stone a ‘weathering rock.’” He shrugged. “I don’t know a lot about her culture, but I know in ancient times the Nordic people inscribed swords and rocks with runes, thinking it passed power into the objects they marked. In the case of a sword, it gave the wielder greater strength in battle. Rocks and boulders were used as perimeter markers, protecting anyone who dwelled within the boundaries. The particular rock my father unearthed bore testing runes. My mother believed it was proof her people visited North America in the first century and that to remove it from the ground was bad luck. She believed it was a conduit, responsible for bringing people together who were soul mates, like her and my father. It forced them to weather the challenge of being from different centuries, testing the strength of their love. She insisted my father leave the rock in the ground. To this day, it’s buried somewhere under the foundation of the house. My father thinks it’s the reason I’m here.”

Arianna wasn’t certain she understood. “It’s testing you?”

“Yes.”

“About what?”

With a noisy exhale, Caleb rolled onto his back. “Arianna, my father told me I never return home.”

A small tremor started in the pit of her stomach. “I don’t understand.” But she did. She was simply too terrified to acknowledge it with words.

Caleb said it for her. “Either I stay here, die, or get sent to some other time, but I never make it back to my own era. My father believes the weathering rock was inscribed with specific runes to trigger ball lightning. That’s why the lightning is confined mostly to this area. When it happens, it opens a portal through time. The lightning shower at Lauren’s party was triggered when he and I first met. Past and present colliding. He thinks the rock was responsible for uniting him and my mother, reaching through time to do it.” Wetting his lips, he met her gaze. “And he thinks it’s doing the same for you and me. Bringing us together because we were meant to be united, not separated by centuries.”

“Caleb.” She couldn’t breathe. It was as if someone had shoved her head under water. She’d been terrified she’d lose him, that he would be snatched away from her in a shower of ball lightning, sent back to his own time. To hear him talk so candidly brought all those fears crashing over her again.

Did he truly believe what he said, that they were destined to be together? Was it possible they had a future in the present? And wasn’t it incredibly selfish of her to be happy that he might be forced to stay when his family and loved ones waited in the past?

“It’s all right, sweetheart.” Sitting up, Caleb caressed her cheek. “I want to stay with you. I’ve been torn for a long time, but I know this is where I belong.” He brushed his lips over hers, sealing the pledge with a kiss. “We have to be realistic. Just because I never make it back to my own time, doesn’t mean something won’t happen to keep us apart. I still have to face Seth. Any number of things could go wrong.”

She shuddered. “Don’t talk like that.”

“What would you rather I say?” He slid his hand behind her neck, threading his fingers into her hair. “That I love you? That I think I’ve always loved you?” His mouth curved in a soft smile. “I couldn’t tell you that before, because I wasn’t sure of my destiny. I still don’t know where it’s going to end, Annie, but I do love you, and at some point in the future, I intend to make you my wife.”

Arianna gasped. His declaration of love made her heart soar. To hear him propose marriage sent her senses into a tailspin. She’d been hoping for a ruby and he offered a diamond. She tried to squeak out a reply, but couldn’t force anything sensible past her lips.

Caleb looked uncertain. “Am I pushing too fast?”

She flung herself into his arms. “No!” Tears of joy sprang to her eyes. “I love you, Caleb, and I take back what I said. There’s no way on God’s green Earth I’m going to bed without you tonight.”

Laughing, he rolled her beneath him, bending to nuzzle her ear. He slipped his hand beneath her blouse, his fingers cupping her breast through the lacy pink silk of her bra.

“Annie, did we just become betrothed?”

It seemed like a fairytale. “I think we did.”

“It’s not how I envisioned it. I promise I’ll do it proper with a ring.” He hooked a leg over her thigh, inching her knees apart. In the next instant, his mouth was on hers, his kiss warm and tender, the intimate sweep of his tongue pushing her toward delirium. He drew back slightly, just enough to nip the corner of her mouth, then dip his head to breathe into her ear. “Tonight all I can give you is my love, but I pledge it forever.”

Her heart felt like it was going to burst. She didn’t care about rings or fairytale visions of the perfect lover on bended knee. All that mattered was that he had professed his love.

For eternity.

* * * *

“You did what?” Wyn’s brows crimped in a heavy frown.

Ignoring the flatness of his tone, Caleb tipped the open bottle of Merlot he’d carted inside and topped off Wyn’s glass. Arianna had disappeared upstairs, hunting her hairbrush to freshen up after their ride. Eager to share their news with his nephew, Caleb had snagged a glass for Wyn and chased him down in the den.

“I got engaged.”

“To your horse, I hope.”

“That’s not amusing, Winston.” He edged the bottle aside, depositing it on a lateral file cabinet before retrieving his own half-empty glass. Not even his nephew’s carefully voiced skepticism could dampen his spirits. “When Arianna comes downstairs I expect you to be suitably elated.”

“Caleb. Seriously.” Wyn leaned back in his desk chair, ignoring the wineglass. He swiveled away from the computer. “Engaged? You’ve only known this girl for a little over six weeks.”

“Incredible, isn’t it?” He grinned, soaring in the afterglow of the unexpected event. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt such exhilaration or been so happy.

He had no one to blame but himself. There hadn’t been room in his life for anything except a military career. He’d plowed through the war, never pausing to examine what was missing. He’d lived with the stain of blood and death on his hands, waking each morning to another day of battle, seeing men he felt responsible for torn apart by mortar or bayoneted on the end of a rifle. Later came the curse of lycanthropy, the werewolf as doomed as the soldier. He’d had to adapt to a new century, all the while living through a grisly transformation every full moon. There hadn’t been time for diversions or pleasure.

Until now.

He’d known in his heart he loved Arianna and had wanted to marry her, but had feared she wouldn’t feel the same. Not only was he from another time, he was part beast. He’d considered himself a creature unworthy of love. Yet hearing his father talk about the weathering rock and his own experiences with life had made Caleb realize his future wasn’t in the past. It was here, in the twenty-first century, with the only woman he’d ever loved.

“You of all people should know time is irrelevant to me,” he told Wyn.

“What about returning to your own century? Chasing down ball lightning and hitching a ride to 1863?”

“That isn’t going to happen.” Caleb elaborated on the conversation he’d had with Rick and how his father believed the weathering rock was responsible for his jump through time.

“So what you’re saying is this rock brought you and Arianna together? Star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, cosmic fate, unable to be apart. Something like that?”

Caleb glowered from under his brows. “Winston.”

“You’re calling me Winston again.”

“Rightfully so. I love Arianna. Why can’t you be happy for us?”

“You know that isn’t it.” Wyn shook his head. “How are you going to… Caleb, think about it. You don’t exist in this century. You have no job, no source of income, and realistically, no potential of securing an income.”

“Trivial.” Caleb waved the concerns aside. “Talk to your friend in the government. He’s already provided me with a birth certificate, Social Security number, and driver’s license. It shouldn’t be too difficult for him to generate a military pension of some sort. I did serve my country, and I’d willingly do it again. The Union owes me back wages.”

“You can’t magically become a colonel in the modern day army, Caleb. Besides, strategy has undergone a change or two in the last hundred-plus years. We stopped using Springfield rifles and Napoleon cannons centuries ago. You’d make a better historian than a commander.”

“That’s not a bad idea. Historian. I like that.” Unable to quell his enthusiasm, Caleb grinned. “Confound it, man, stop looking so blasted dour! I’m going to get married. That’s a cause for celebration. And I truly believe, just as my father remained in the eighteen hundreds after traveling through time, I’ll remain in the present.”

“And Seth?”

Caleb frowned, irked his nephew had struck on the only topic capable of blighting his mood. He grew silent, rotating the glass in his hand, watching the wine dip and swell against the sides, red as the blood he intended to spill. Outside, the sun had sunk below the Earth, feathering the sky with the first licorice-laced shadows of dusk.

“I’m going to hunt him. If I’d killed him years ago when I had the chance, my troop would have never suffered that ambush.” Caleb set the glass aside. “All this time I thought Seth was responsible for my ending up in this era. That I needed him, along with an explosion of ball lightning, to return to the past. But he was the one in the wrong place. The weathering rock meant for me to make the jump through time. But, because we were locked in a physical struggle, Seth was transported too.” He shook his head, parting with a soft snort. “It’s ironic when I think I’m the catalyst.”

“According to your father and a lot of superstitious folklore.”

“There’s no better explanation, Wyn. Arianna and I were destined to meet. Think about it. What are the odds she and I would both be out after midnight, on the same foggy night? That we’d be at the same spot, at the same precise moment in time? Everything makes sense. More than that, it feels right. In my head and my heart.”

Wyn rolled his eyes. “God help us, the colonel is waxing poetic.”

“Is that what you call killing Seth? If I’m responsible for him being here, then I’m responsible for the death of his victims. Who knows how many he’s killed or turned? I can’t allow that to continue.”

Wyn sobered. “If you’re going to hunt him, you have to put serious thought into it. He’s an alpha wolf, Caleb. You’re not even sure what powers he has.”

“I know that. But as long as he’s alive, Arianna and I have no future. Seth saw how I reacted at Lauren’s party. He’ll go after her to get to me. I need to stop him before that happens.”

“All right.” Wyn nodded, pushing his chair back and shoving to his feet. “I guess that means we’re going werewolf hunting. When do we start?”

“I’m going werewolf hunting. You’re not getting involved.”

Wyn grunted. “It’s a little late for that. I’ve got three years invested in you, and now it looks like I’ll be loaning you money to buy an engagement ring.”

“I’ll buy my own ring.”

“With what?”

“I don’t know.” Caleb bristled, frazzled to think he couldn’t scrape together enough funds for a ring. “Those dispatches I was carrying when you found me are worth something. I’ll have them appraised. And there’s always my uniform.”

“You are not selling your uniform, Caleb,” Arianna said from the doorway.

He turned, flushing to realize she’d caught the tail end of their conversation. His heart skipped a beat when he saw her–jet hair loose and tumbling over her shoulders, her green eyes flashing with fire. She was more beautiful than any woman he’d known, slender and poised, the set of her mouth hinting of defiance. With a little imagination he could feel the heat of her breast beneath his hand, the eager press of her body as they’d petted and kissed beneath the setting sun.

“You are not selling your uniform,” she repeated. “It’s part of who you are. I don’t need a ring as a pledge of marriage.”

He smiled, extending his hand. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I didn’t mean for you to hear that.”

She stepped to his side, twining her fingers with his.

Caleb pulled her close, bending his head to brush her lips. He’d meant for the kiss to be light but, the moment his mouth touched hers, he grew lost in the sensation. He wanted to take her to bed, make slow, passionate love to her and pledge his faithfulness for eternity.

Sliding his hand into her hair, he deepened the kiss.

Wyn cleared his throat. “Think you two can forgo that for an hour? I’m spending the night with Lauren, but I do have some things to finish up first. This is my den, you know.”

Pulled back to the present, Caleb kept one arm looped around Arianna’s shoulders and shot his nephew a conciliatory glance. “I’m sorry. I suppose I got carried away.”

“To put it mildly. I’ll cut you some slack, but only because you just got engaged.” Wyn raised his glass in a toast and grinned. “Congratulations and best wishes to both of you. And much happiness.”

Caleb relaxed, his sense of euphoria returning. At his side, Arianna broke into a wide smile. “I expect you’ll be my best man?” he persisted, surprised by how much the idea meant to him. It wasn’t just the title of someone who would stand by his side, but the definition of his closest friend.

Wyn looked taken aback, then smiled, inordinately pleased. “I’d be honored, Caleb.”

With a squeal of delight, Arianna launched herself into his arms. “He loves you like a brother, Wyn, even if he can’t admit it.”

“She’s right,” Caleb said quietly. He extended his hand. “I’ll be proud to have you stand at my side. Charles and I were never as close as I’ve grown with you.”

Wyn reached for his hand, and Caleb caught a flash of gratitude and surprised wonder in his nephew’s eyes.

He yanked hard, pulling the doctor into a tight embrace. “Just don’t expect me to be this demonstrative on a regular basis.”

Wyn laughed out loud. “Careful, or you’ll use up your emotional allotment for the century. And isn’t there someone else you’d rather be cuddling?”

“Hell, yes.” Caleb shoved him away. “Six foot and hairy runs contrary to my taste.” He extended his arm to Arianna, who slid into his embrace, inching the flat of her palm up his chest. Once again, he thought of the bed upstairs and how he wanted to peel off her clothes, piece by tantalizing piece. “Wyn,” he said without looking. “Can’t you hurry up and do whatever it is you have to do?”

His nephew gave a theatrical sigh. “Kicked out of my house by a lecherous ancestor.” The mouse clicked, followed by the sound of the computer powering down. “Don’t worry about waiting up for me.”

“What?”

“You know damn well what I said.”

Arianna giggled. “Sometimes the two of you are better than a movie. You really are like brothers.”

“I’m younger,” Caleb was quick to point out. “And better looking.”

“You’re one hundred, forty-five years older and conceited as hell. Caleb.”

“Now what?”

Grinning, Wyn scratched the bridge of his nose with his middle finger. “Just wanted to wish you a good evening, Uncle.”

The gesture wasn’t lost on Caleb, who laughed in appreciation. He had to admire Wyn’s off-the-cuff personality.

Even when he was the target.