Untamed

But Tara had always had the need for some boundaries in her life. She could still recall, vividly, when as a seven-year-old she had accompanied her parents to a Renaissance fair in Midland, Texas, and had been overwhelmed by the vastness of the country. The flat west Texas landscape, with its horizons stretching far in the distance on all four compass points, had made her feel as if she were adrift on a small dinghy in the middle of the ocean.

Later, she’d often felt exactly the same way living in the commune. While other teenagers all over the world were rebelling against authority, demanding freedom, Tara found the dictates of following one’s own star unnerving.

The lack of boundaries had given her more than her share of anxiety attacks, and had definitely inhibited her social life. It was only when she’d discovered her love for mathematics, and the purity of numbers whose values never changed and always did what they were supposed to do—so long as you followed the rules and theorems—that she’d begun to feel comfortable.

From that day forward, she’d buried herself in her textbooks and, to the good-natured amusement of the adults in residence, had become the first math nerd in the artistic communal family.

Her mother was waiting for her outside the house her father had designed—a wonderfully sprawling series of cubes and towers perched on a rocky cliff overlooking the ocean. It was daring even for this community, and whenever anyone asked Darren McKenna what he would do when the house inevitably slid into the sea, he promptly answered, “Build another one, of course.”

Her father never had been one to look beyond the moment. Which made him the opposite of his daughter, who could, with a quick glance at her leather-bound organizer, tell what she’d be doing at any given hour weeks into the future.

“Tara, darling.” Her mother’s flowing skirt swirled around her legs as she spanned the distance between them. “Welcome home. It’s been too long.”

As she returned her mother’s embrace, Tara breathed in the scent of custom-blended jasmine and gardenia and felt instantly comforted.

“It’s good to be here.” It was true, Tara realized with some surprise. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she’d entered the gates with a sense of relief, a sense of homecoming.

Her mother leaned her head back and gave her a long maternal look that gave Tara the feeling that she could see all the way inside her. To her heart. Her soul.

“You haven’t been sleeping well,” Lina diagnosed.

“Now you’re monitoring my dreams?” Tara tried for a friendly flippant tone and had to cringe when the words came out overly defensive.

“Actually, it was the shadows beneath your eyes that gave you away,” Lina said mildly. “And the fact that you’re too pale. Even for someone living in the city.”

“I’ve always been fair skinned.” Her ivory complexion had been the bane of her existence during her teenage years when she’d struggled to gain the golden tan the boys seemed to admire so on the other California girls.

“True. In that respect, as well as so many others, you take after your grandmother,” Lina agreed. “But you’ve always had an inner glow.” She reached out and trailed the back of her hand up Tara’s cheek. “It’s missing.”

“It’s only stress. One of my clients is a computer company that just completed negotiations for buying a software firm. I’ve been working nearly around the clock combing through years of back financial statements.”

After graduating from Cal Poly University with an M.B.A., Tara had taken a top-level job in the financial department of a San Francisco Fortune 500 company. She’d continued to go to night school and had earned her C.P.A., but apparently she was more like her parents than she’d thought because she began to find the corporate atmosphere stifling. Eventually, she’d struck out on her own, becoming a consultant, and although she worked harder than she ever had as an employee, she enjoyed the ability to pick and choose her jobs.

“All the more reason to take a break and visit your mother.” Although Lina’s tone was characteristically mild, she could not keep the seeds of worry from her expressive hazel eyes.

“We’ll have tea out on the patio. And we’ll talk. About your work, your vacation. And whatever else you’d like.”

“I definitely don’t want to talk about Brigid’s house.”

“Of course you do, dear.” Lina laced their fingers together and led Tara into the house. “That’s why you’re here.”

Tara did not even try to argue. There was no need. Because, although she hadn’t realized it until this moment, once again, her mother was right.

As she sat overlooking the sun-gilded waters and sipped a cup of lemon balm tea, and helped herself to a second helping of the smooth yellow custard made with crushed marigold petals from her mother’s garden, Tara could literally feel the tension that had her shoulders tied up in knots slipping away.

“This is nice,” she murmured, enjoying the sight of sea gulls diving for fish out amidst the breakers. “I hadn’t realized how long it’s been since I’ve taken a breather.”

“You work too hard.”

Tara knew her mother’s comment was not criticism but merely observation. She opened her mouth to argue, but knew she could never lie to this woman.

“I know.” She sighed. “But it’s not as if I have a choice.”

“We always have a choice, dear.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Tara flared, her nerves more on edge than she’d thought. “You dropped out thirty years ago. Some of us prefer life in the real world.”

“Reality is where you find it, I suppose,” Lina murmured, frustrating Tara even further.

As much as she truly loved her mother, she could not remember a single instance in her life when she’d been able to get a good argument going with her. Although Lina Delaney never withheld her feelings, neither would she try to force others into agreeing with her. She was, truly, a free spirit.

“Speaking of reality,” Tara said, wanting to steer the subject away from her work, “I read in the paper that you’ve started working for the FBI.”

Although her mother had never used her powers of second sight for profit, over the years stories of her psychic ability had become public knowledge. So much so that Lina’s assistance was routinely requested by law enforcement officials who, while not exactly admitting belief, had solved more than one case with information given to them by Lina Delaney.

It was Lina’s turn to sigh. Her gaze became distant as she looked out toward the horizon where a line of fishing boats trawled for tuna. “They thought I might be able to help them locate that serial killer who seems to be moving across the country.”

“And?”

Lina briefly closed her eyes, as if to shut out the images she’d received from the evidence the police had collected in three western and two southern states. “I believe I may have provided some assistance.”

Tara saw the pain etched in deep lines on her mother’s tanned face. “I’m sorry.” She reached out and took Lina’s hand in hers. “It was rough, huh?”

“It wasn’t pleasant.” Lina linked their fingers together. “It also reminded me how very fortunate we are to have each other. All those young female victims had no one to care about them.”

“Yes, they did.” Tara squeezed her mother’s hand. “They had you.”

Lina smiled at that, a warm smile that for Tara had always been capable of soothing the cruelest of pains. “A bit late, I’m afraid,” she said. “But thank you.” Her expression sobered. “I know you said you don’t want to talk about Brigid, but there’s something I must tell you.”

“What?” Tara asked with a sigh of resignation.

“I don’t believe her death was from natural causes.”

Tara felt the shock all the way through her body. “What do you mean? Surely she wouldn’t have…”

“No. Of course your grandmother wouldn’t have taken her own life. She relished every moment too dearly. But I’ve been receiving the most disturbing vibrations. And whenever I dream of the night she died, there’s always a shadowy figure in the background. And a force so powerful it chills my blood.”

Tara stared at her mother, unable to recall a single time she’d ever seen her looking so distraught. “I don’t understand. With your gift—”

“You’d think I’d be able to see what happened, wouldn’t you?” Lina broke in uncharacteristically. She shook her head. “I only see the shadow. Your father suggested it’s because I’m too emotionally close to the situation.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Tara allowed. “In fact, maybe the reason for the dreams in the first place is because you can’t accept Brigid’s death.”

“I thought that might be the case, in the beginning. But now I don’t think it is.”

“Are you saying you think Brigid was murdered?”

“That sounds so overly dramatic, doesn’t it? And murder is such an ugly word.” Lina sighed. “Honestly, darling, I don’t know what to think.”

Neither did Tara. “I can’t imagine anyone wanting to kill Grandy.”

“I know. Everyone loved her so.”

“And you told me the coroner ruled that she’d suffered a heart attack, which made her fall down the stairs.” Tara still felt guilty for missing her grandmother’s funeral. But a late-spring blizzard had kept her in Moscow, where she’d been helping a Russian-American entrepreneur open a pizza parlor.

“That was his official opinion. But I still can’t shake the feeling that he was wrong. That being the case, I suppose I should be relieved you don’t want to take possession of the house. I certainly wouldn’t want something horrible happening to you, darling.”

“You don’t have to worry. The only thing I have to worry about is getting burned from too much Hawaiian sun.”

Mother and daughter sat, hand in hand, watching as the blazing gold ball of sun dipped into the water, turning it a fiery crimson. Neither spoke. There was no need. As always, their thoughts were perfectly attuned.

Such was the legacy of the Delaney women. The legacy Tara had spent so many of her twenty-six years trying to escape. A legacy she feared, as she sat in the warming glow of the setting sun, she could no longer ignore.

All the way back to San Francisco she told herself that she was not going to Whiskey River. The town held too many painful memories for her. Besides, Brigid was dead. There wasn’t any reason to return.

But then Tara thought of her mother’s atypical anxiety, and although she was certain that the dreams were merely a manifestation of emotional loss, that didn’t make them any less upsetting. Perhaps, Tara considered, the thing to do would be to put the house on the market and get rid of it once and for all. Then, maybe, her mother’s mind could be at peace.

Knowing it was the right thing to do—the only thing she could do—Tara reluctantly called her travel agent and canceled her trip. Afterward, she unpacked all the beach and resort wear from her suitcases and tossed in some jeans and sweaters instead.

Then, frustrated but determined, she set the alarm in order to get an early start on the long, lonely drive to Arizona.

THE INSIDE OF Brigid Delaney’s house was, to put it charitably, a mess. A layer of dust covered everything like a ghostly shroud, spiders had taken up residence in all the corners of the ceiling, there was evidence that a family of mice had moved in and there were so many cobwebs draped over picture frames and chandeliers that Gavin felt as if he’d stumbled into Dickens’s Great Expectations.

“Miss Faversham, I presume,” he muttered, sweeping away a particularly thick cobweb hanging from a gilt-framed black-and-white photo of Brigid, clad in a wide straw hat and flower-sprigged cotton dress, gathering herbs in her garden.

The elderly woman he’d grown fond of had been striking. The young woman in the picture was a beauty. Her long wavy hair spilled from her straw hat like a rippling waterfall and her expressive, laughing eyes dominated a high cheekboned face.

Dress her in silks and satins and she could have been a princess. The amazing thing was that, although she’d had a presence that had reminded him of royalty, he’d never met a more down-to-earth woman in his life. Despite her distracting habit of insisting she was a witch.

“Dammit, Brigid.” He glared at the photo as if its subject were capable of discerning his irritation, which, if even half her stories were to be believed, she just well might. “I’m doing my best here. But next time you decide to die and leave everything to a relative, couldn’t you at least make certain the recipient is willing to accept the inheritance?”

He glanced around, depressed by the sight of the parlor that had always been cozy and tidy, looking so forlorn. Telling himself that he was only cleaning the place so he could spend the night in it without giving himself the creeps, he went out onto the service porch, gathered up a bucket and mop and set to work.

IT WAS RAINING when Tara finally pulled into the driveway of her grandmother’s home. Storms in Arizona’s high country could be wild, and this one was no exception. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed like cannon fire. Wind wailed like the cries of lost souls in the treetops and drove the rain across the windshield of her sensible sedan with a force that had rendered visibility next to impossible as she’d driven the last thirty miles up the narrow, curving road to Whiskey River.

Then suddenly, a jagged bolt of lightning lit up the sky in a blinding white sulfurous flash, illuminating the house.

It hadn’t changed. Tara didn’t know why she thought it might have. Beneath the cloud white gingerbread trim, the fish-scale siding was still sky blue and the patterned windows flanking the arched front door were the same colored glass that Tara remembered gleaming like a princess’s jewels when the morning sunlight streamed through them.

The copper roof of the tower had shone briefly in the bright light like a welcoming beacon and reminded her of summer tea parties she’d hosted for her grandmother and her dolls in that octagon-shaped room overlooking the garden.

This was the home where Brigid had given birth to her daughter, Lina, who, not wanting to break the chain of Delaney women, had kept her maiden name when she’d married, handing it down to her own daughter.

This was also the house where Brigid had soothed her granddaughter’s broken heart after what Tara would always call the “Richard debacle.” And proving that life was indeed made up of concentric circles, her grandmother had died here, as well. Of an accident, Tara thought firmly.

“Well, Grandy,” she murmured as she looped her hands over the steering wheel and gazed at the house that was once again shrouded in rain and darkness, “you got your wish. I’m here. Although I’ll be damned if I know why.”

She took the key her grandmother’s attorney had sent her out of her purse, then retrieved her overnight bag from the back seat. The larger bags in the trunk could wait until tomorrow.

She considered waiting a bit longer in hopes that the rain would at least slow down. But a glance up into a sky draped in black clouds assured her that the storm had stalled directly over Brigid’s home.

“Nice welcome, Grandy. The least you could have done was use a few of your powers to turn off the waterworks.”

She counted to three, then opened the car door and, holding her bag against her chest, made a dash for the front porch, which took longer than planned because she had to stop and unlatch the white picket gate.

By the time she reached the wide porch, she was drenched, and shivering. She’d forgotten how cold it could get in the mountains.

Beneath a winged griffin door knocker that had frightened Tara when she was a child was a shiny new doorknob. Wondering what had happened to the old hammered-brass handle she remembered having polished on more than one occasion, she managed to insert the key into the lock and was vastly relieved when it fit.

Just as she turned the knob, a clap of thunder shook the porch. An instant later she was blinded by a flash of brilliant white light. The acrid smell of sulfur assaulted her nostrils and a black veil drifted across her eyes.

Then Tara crumbled to the wooden floor beneath her feet.

Gavin, who had dozed off in a large wing chair positioned to give him a good view of the front windows, was jolted awake by the crack of thunder and almost simultaneous bolt of lightning. On some subconscious level, he’d been aware of a loud thud just after the lightning flash that had obviously struck very close to the house.

“All right!” It was what he’d been waiting for, an opportunity to catch the vandals in the act. He ran into the foyer and yanked open the ornately carved front door.

Instead of the teenage boys he’d thought he would find, Gavin found himself staring down at a seemingly lifeless form lying at his feet.

When another flash of lightning—thankfully more distant this time—lit up the sky, he stared in disbelief at a woman who could have stepped right out of that long-ago photograph of Brigid Delaney.

3

TARA HAD NO IDEA how long she’d been unconscious. One minute she was standing on the familiar front porch fretting about a missing door handle, the next thing she knew she was in some man’s arms, being carried into the darkened house. The house where her mother believed Brigid had been murdered!

“Put me down!” she demanded as she desperately tried to remember the self-defense training class she’d taken after nearly being mugged as she left her San Francisco office late one night.

“And have you swooning at my feet again?” Although the woman resembled a young Brigid Delaney, Gavin realized she had to be the granddaughter, the hotshot accounting whiz Brigid had boasted about.

“I didn’t swoon.” Tara glared up at him, frustrated when the deep shadows kept her from seeing his face. “I never swoon.”

“Could’ve fooled me.” Although it was not easy, maneuvering across the crowded room in the dark with a wiggling, angry woman in his arms, he managed to make his way to the red brocade chaise.

“If you’re planning on raping me,” Tara said between gritted teeth as she landed on the antique fainting couch with a bounce, “you should know that I’ve studied karate.”

“Good for you.” Gavin reached into the drawer of the papier-mâché table and pulled out the box of matches he knew Brigid kept there. Storms were a routine part of living in this remote corner of the state, making power outages commonplace. “Perhaps, after we get to know each other better, you can entertain me by breaking bricks with your bare hands.”

The match flared as he struck it on the roughened side of the box, casting his face in an orange glow that made him look almost demonic. Her head still reeling, Tara tried to judge her chances for escape as he touched the match to the fat beeswax candle on the table.

“Who are you? And what are you doing in my grandmother’s house?”

“I’m Gavin Thomas. The guy who sent you three separate letters wanting to know what the hell you wanted me to do with this place.”

Sensing what they’d been about, and receiving disturbing vibrations from the envelopes that bore the bold masculine script, she had burned the letters without opening them.

“I don’t recall receiving any letters.” She lifted her chin and looked him right in the eye. “Obviously, the postman misdelivered them.”

“Or you mistook them for junk mail and tossed them out,” he said, deciding not to call her on the obvious lie. At least not yet.

“I suppose that’s a possibility.” Refusing to let him get the upper hand, she did not avert her gaze. Not even when his lips twitched and a wicked, knowing look came into his eyes. “If I had gotten the letters, what would they have said?”

“That I’d promised Brigid I’d look after the place until you arrived to take it off my hands. The last one mentioned, as politely as I could think to put it, that although I intended to do my best to live up to my word, I wasn’t prepared to take on a lifetime commitment.”

“Because you’re not a man who enjoys commitment.” It was not a question.

“You called that one right.” The last time he’d allowed himself to get seriously involved with a woman, he’d ended up in prison. Gavin was not eager to repeat either experience.

“Yet my grandmother still entrusted you with her house.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I tried to tell her I wasn’t the stick-around type. She didn’t believe me.”

“My grandmother was infamous for her ability to only see what she wanted to see.” Tara decided, for discretion’s sake, not to mention that Brigid’s intuitive sense of people was very seldom off the mark. “You haven’t answered my second question,” she reminded him. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

“I was sleeping. Until you woke me up by collapsing on the porch.”

Tara rubbed her temple where a headache was pounding. “I don’t understand what happened.”

“From the crack that woke me up, and the sulfur smell when I opened the door, I’d say lightning struck close by. Probably one of the trees. I’ll check in the morning. I’d guess that the force knocked you down.” Leaning down, he brushed away the auburn hair that had fallen over her forehead and examined a rapidly growing lump.

When his fingertips stroked her skin with a slow touch that was meant to be soothing but in reality was anything but, Tara jerked her head away. “I suppose I should count myself lucky I wasn’t hit myself.”

“Definitely.”

The air around them grew thick with the scents of rosemary and yarrow emanating from the burning candle. Rosemary, Tara remembered, was used to weave a spell of remembrance, and love. As for the yarrow, Brigid had told her that if you put a sachet of it beneath your pillow, you would dream of your true love.

“You should probably get out of those wet clothes,” Gavin said when Tara began to shiver. “Before you catch cold.”

She was wearing a blouse the color of a buttermilk biscuit tucked into a pair of snug jeans.

“Good try, Mr. Thomas. But I’m not that naive.” Nor foolhardy.

“The name’s Gavin. And believe me, sweetheart, I was only trying to keep you from catching cold.”

The sparring helped. Helped clear her head and calm her nerves. “Aren’t you considerate?”

“That’s me,” he agreed with equal sarcasm. “Mr. Consideration.”

She should have been irritated. Instead, dammit, she was undeniably interested. “Well.”

She took a deep breath, then wished she hadn’t as she watched his steady gaze slip from her face to her breasts. She glanced down and realized the tailored silk blouse that appeared so staid when worn with her oatmeal-hued suit in the office had suddenly become far too revealing for comfort.

The material was clinging to her breasts like a second skin and her nipples had pebbled—from the cold, she assured herself—and were pressing against the wet silk in a way guaranteed to instill dangerous thoughts in just about any man.

“On second thought, I think I will change my clothes.”

“Good idea.” His unenthusiastic tone said otherwise. Although he truly didn’t want to be responsible for her catching pneumonia, Gavin found himself more than a little reluctant to surrender the view. When his gaze returned to her face and he viewed her poisonous glare, he knew she’d been reading his thoughts.

Since he was not accustomed to apologizing for being either human or male, he gave her wet shoulder a fraternal pat.

“Your overnight bag is still on the porch. I’ll go get it.”

He was back in a moment.

She’d managed, during that brief interlude, to regain a bit of composure. And caution. “If you don’t mind, Mr. Thomas, I’d like to see some identification.”

“I was wondering when you were going to think of that.” He reached into his back pocket, pulled out his billfold and handed it over. “You’ll find an Arizona driver’s license, American Express card, a couple of Visas and a Mogollon County library card. That should convince you I’m who I say I am.”