"An angel?"
His eyebrows puckered as he watched the blood drain from Gemma"s face.
"That"s what she claims. See, she was a little girl in France in the late seventeen hundreds. Not only were her family wealthy, but they had also been harboring some clergymen. They helped the men escape, but left it too late for themselves. Her father had already been executed and it was only a matter of time before she and her mother got the chop. Apparently the mob had been coming when she said an angel appeared and carried her to safety, hiding her in the hollow of a tree trunk."
"What happened to her after that?" Gemma whispered.
"Well, her mother found her that night and they managed to escape to England. She vowed to spend the rest of her life honoring G.o.d for sending her this guardian angel. She did it through her music."
Gemma leaned back against her seat, a soft smile creasing her lips. "What was her name?"
"Emilie Clayton. She married Lord Robert Clayton. Like everyone else I know, he fell in love with her music."
Gemma"s eyes held a warm glow as she looked at him. All the sadness and tension from moments before had vanished.
"What?"
"That"s a really nice story, Harrison. Really nice."
She closed her eyes. His gaze traveled over the plains of her skin and he saw the mark on her collarbone appear. The phenomenon made his insides quake, but he knew he couldn"t ask her about it. He watched the star shape mark burn a pa.s.sionate red, before fading again as her body relaxed.
In an attempt to dispel his disquiet, he reached for the icepack she was holding. He needed something else to focus on.
"Here let me have a look at that."
Taking the pack from her before she could object, the uneasy fire stirring in his gut accelerated as if someone had doused his insides with gasoline.
"What?"
Whipping off the st.i.tches, he ran his finger over the hairline scar that now lay where her gash had been. Her skin was no longer purple and the only evidence of her recent wound was a little dried blood in her hair.
"How did...? Where did it go?"
Gemma"s shoulders stiffened. She brushed his hand away and covered her scar. "I"m a fast healer."
"Fast? Gemma, I"m a fast healer, okay? You"re just... All you"re giving me is fast? You have a scar now! The kind of scar that takes days, sometimes weeks, to appear! What happened to the bruising?"
She closed her eyes and turned her head away. "What do you want me to say, Harrison?"
"The truth would be nice."
"I can"t tell you that!"
His heart thudded in his chest as he watched her struggle, but he couldn"t let this go.
"Gemma..." He licked his lips.
"Please don"t, Harrison. I"m not allowed to say anything."
"Why? Are you an alien or something?"
"This isn"t Roswell." She huffed and looked out the window. "Just accept that there"s things you"ll never know about me."
"I"ve been trying, but I want to know everything about you... and I want you to know everything about me! I feel like we could have something awesome if you were just willing to bend a few rules."
Her eyes were fiery when she turned back to face him. "I am breaking the rules for you! Do you have any idea what my parents would do if they found out I was sitting in your car right now? What more do you want from me?"
"I want you to trust me with the truth!"
"You don"t know what you"re asking! I can"t, okay?"
Harrison"s anger spurted to life as he started the engine and reversed.
"You know you"re not the only one putting yourself on the line here. Do you have any idea how much flak I"m getting just for talking to you?"
The fact he didn"t really care was hardly relevant. He accelerated onto the road.
"The least you could give me are a couple of reasons why you"re such a secretive freak."
"I"m sorry I can"t give you what you want, but you either take me as I am or you don"t take me at all."
"You know it would be a h.e.l.l of a lot easier not to take you, but I can"t stop thinking about you or wanting to be with you! Ever since that day we touched... I... it"s like you"ve cursed me!"
Gemma flinched. His words were an invisible blow that left her looking bruised and aching. Harrison glanced at her, hating himself.
"I didn"t mean-"
"Stop the car."
"No, I"ll take you back to school."
"I don"t want you to."
He knew he could probably spend the next ten minutes arguing with her. By then he"d be pulling into school anyway, but his foot pressed the brake and he pulled to the side of the road.
"Gemma, I"m sor-"
The door slammed shut behind her. She hitched her bag higher onto her shoulder and began a fast paced walk up the street that soon turned into a run. Closing his eyes, he banged his head against the steering wheel.
"Granger, you are such a JERK!"
Chapter Nine.
Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida - 2011AD Gemma took the long route home hoping her tears would dry up by the time she pulled into the garage. It didn"t work. She took off her helmet and wiped her blotchy cheeks.
Shaking her head, she slammed her helmet down on the seat and sniffed.
"Put a curse on him? So I"m a witch." Wrestling the bag off her shoulders, she unzipped her leather jacket and threw it over the handlebars. "Or better yet, an alien!"
"Who are you talking to?"
Gemma whipped around, blushed red and focused on the tires of her mother"s BMW. "Just myself."
"Have you been crying?"
Her head shaking turned into a nod.
"I sensed you weren"t being entirely honest on the phone. You should have let me come and get you." Her mother clipped down the concrete stairs and wove around the cars to her. "By the look of your puffy eyes it must have been a painful afternoon."
"You could say that." Gemma kept her gaze on the tires not willing to risk eye contact. Who cared about some little scratch. It wasn"t her head that was hurting!
"Let me have a look at it." Penelope brushed back Gemma"s hair with a soft hand and ran a finger over the scar. "It"s healed nicely."
"Yep." Gemma nodded and forced a smile.
Her mother pulled her into a tight hug. "I"m just glad you"re okay." She rubbed Gemma"s back then stepped away with a smile. "Come in and get washed up. You know how much your father hates tears."
Gemma snorted. In spite of the fact he had left the army years ago, he would remain a hardheaded soldier. With a nod, Gemma followed orders and was sitting at the dining table five minutes later. The air was thick with tension, something Gemma had forgotten to take into account having been distracted by Harrison.
Dom sat straight backed in his chair, looking defensive. Ruby was slumped in her chair, studying her nails. Gemma caught her eye and silently asked what was wrong. Ruby rolled her eyes and shook her head.
Somehow they all knew Dom"s decision across the line would have consequences.
Licking her lips, Gemma glanced at her father. His steely expression softened when he caught her eye then went hard again.
"You didn"t check in," he said.
"I -"
"You must always check in no matter what your state, otherwise we a.s.sume the worst."
"I"m sorry, I just -"
"Your mother had to call twice before she got through."
"My phone was buried in my bag. I didn"t hear -"
"I had Dom and Ruby combing the school for you."
"Which was a total waste of time." Ruby mumbled then looked at Gemma with a frown. "Where were you?"
Gemma"s heart began to pound like a jackhammer. She cleared the lump in her throat. "I hid out in the bathroom until the blood stopped, then went to the library."
"We must have missed each other." Ruby shrugged and eased Gemma"s fears with a smile. "You did the right thing. It would have sucked if someone saw you."
"Yeah, totally." Gemma cut off her nervous laugh and scanned the faces of her family. She was surprised they couldn"t feel the vibrations of her heartbeat. Thankfully everyone seemed to be caught up in the brewing storm.
She glanced at her father. His grim face was aimed at Dom. "What the h.e.l.l went wrong today?"
Dom shuffled in his seat. "Like I said before, we didn"t have any other choice. Gemma"s the fastest. I knew she could get out with the girl. We wouldn"t have stood a chance if we hadn"t separated."
"You NEVER leave her!" Alistair slapped the table and jumped up. Burying his hands in his pockets, he paced away from the table. "I"ve put rules in place for a reason. We need to protect each other and we can"t do that alone. Do you have any idea what it would have done to your mother and I if we lost her?"
"Or any of you," Penelope added swiftly.
"Dad, I was fine." Gemma kept her voice soft. "You didn"t need to abort early. I could have made it."
"I"m not willing to put you in that kind of danger. As it was, you were injured! What if you hadn"t made it? Your body doesn"t start healing until you return, Gemma. If I hadn"t aborted when I did, your head may still be bleeding now!"
"You three come before anyone else." Penelope leaned forward. "As soon as a mission goes bad, we always abort. When Dom and Ruby arrived without you, Gemma, we had no other choice."
"You guys need to trust us." Dom clenched his fists. "You practically make us sweat blood during training. We know how to handle ourselves. If anything, Gemma is the most capable of us all. I know I took a risk today, but it was a calculated one."
"You put Gemma"s life in danger." Alistair snarled as he leaned towards his son.
"You were the one that sent us back at the wrong time, Dad. Are you going to take any responsibility for this?"
A ferocious roar shattered the air as Alistair came towards his son with a raised hand. Dom jumped up to block it, but there was no need. Gemma"s father froze, his eyes wide with mortification as he slowly lowered his hand.
Every face at the table stared in stunned silence; the only sound was the heavy breathing of her father. Gemma had never seen him lose control before. Dom stood his ground, disbelief scarring his expression. Gemma had a split second thought that maybe there was more to this error than her parents were willing to say.
Her father"s voice shook, "I"m sorry, Dominic. I..." He sighed. "You"re right. I am partly to blame and I"m very angry with myself. I can"t lose you guys." He ran a shaky hand through his grey speckled curls. "This can"t happen again, you understand me? When we cross that line you do as I say and nothing else."
Dom kept his subdued gaze steady as he answered his father. "Yes, sir."
Without another word, Alistair engulfed his son in a bear hug. The tension in the room ebbed as Penelope stood from her seat and joined her men, Ruby followed and finally Gemma stood to entwine herself in the family embrace.
She could hear Ruby sniffing and almost felt bad for not wanting to cry herself, but she couldn"t. This embrace was only a reminder of what she belonged to. The arms around her felt like manacles. She could see her life stretching out before her, one mission after the next, each one dictated by her father, each one a secret. There would never be room for her own decisions. There would never be room for love.
Her eyes welled with tears. She sniffed and felt the arms around her tighten.
Chapter Ten.