'No!' The hurt look on Laura's face stabbed at Caitlan, and she immediately softened her voice. 'I'm sorry, sweetie, but I need to be alone for a little while. How about we play a game of checkers or cards when I get back?'
'Okay,' Laura said reluctantly, her worry obvious.
Caitlan walked down the path until she was out of Laura's sight, then she broke into a run, needing to work off the anxiety nearly smothering her. She jogged alongside the fenced-in pasture, then up and over a knoll covered with wildflowers. Exhausted, she fell to her knees, gasping for breath, wondering when her heart and soul had become so tangled up with J.T.'s life. And if she'd ever be the same again.
'Anybody home?' J.T. called as he entered the house.
No answer.
'Caitlan? Laura?' Still, no reply. He glanced at his wristwatch. Three-thirty. Paula would be gone, but where were Caitlan and his daughter? After checking the kitchen and the den and finding them empty, he started up the stairs. He glanced in Laura's room first, then moved to Caitlan's, hesitating on the threshold when he saw it too was unoccupied.
He stared at her impeccably made bed, a sudden streak of guilt assailing him for the way he'd handled things with Caitlan this morning. He'd been anything but a gentleman in her bedroom when he'd asked her about birth control, and like a coward he'd left the house before she'd had a chance to come downstairs. But, dammit, whenever he was around her she brought out feelings in him he didn't want to deal with. He refused to deal with them, or label them, when she'd be gone in a few days. Yet he couldn't quite fully convince himself that keeping his distance until she left was for the best. He couldn't convince his body that he'd had Caitlan and she was out of his system, because she wasn't. The soft, silky feel of her skin and the feminine scent of her would haunt him for a long, long time. Not to mention those uncanny violet eyes, her dimple, and how incredibly perfect and fulfilled he'd been with her.
Frustrated, he stepped into the room, wishing he knew more about Caitlan besides the vague tidbits she'd shared. He found himself walking toward the nightstand, where he'd seen her put her pad of paper. Amanda had loved to draw. He remembered many lazy Sunday afternoons down by the creek when she'd made him lay there while she sketched him. Afterward he'd have to sweet-talk her into showing him the drawings; she'd been that modest about her ability. Just like Caitlan.
Why had he even thought that? Shaking off the apprehension climbing his spine, he opened the drawer and withdrew the pad. His conscience argued with him to put it back unopened, but he wanted more insight into Caitlan, wanted to know who or what occupied her mind in the late hours of the night while she sketched by moonlight.
Before he changed his mind, he opened the cover. He stared in stunned disbelief at a sketch of himself as a young boy, the sensation of being punched in the stomach rendering him breathless. She'd reproduced him in precise detail, right down to the stubborn tilt to his chin and the faint lines around his eyes when he smiled. He flipped through the pages, seeing that she'd drawn him in different stages of youth and as a grown man. All the pictures were meticulously detailed-eerily so-as if she'd known him fifteen or twenty years ago.
He turned to the next page and thought the clamping pressure in his chest was a sure sign of a heart attack. His blood roared in his ears and prickles of heat skimmed along his nerve endings.
In remarkable exactness Caitlan had drawn Amanda, every delicate feature of her face finely etched, along with her beautiful, beguiling smile and her dimple. Amanda's head was tilted back, her long hair streaming over her shoulders, that mischievous twinkle he'd loved sparkling in her eyes. The pose was a likeness that only could have been captured in a candid moment-how in the hell had Caitlan managed that?
'Christ,' he muttered, thumbing through the rest of the pages. Caitlan had drawn a few pictures of Laura and King, and even one of Randal, but the majority of the sketches were of him and Amanda.
Once J.T.'s initial shock wore off anger settled in, prompting him into action. He wanted explanations for these bizarre reproductions. And he wanted them now.
Taking the pad, he bounded down the stairs. The kitchen screen door slammed shut, and he headed in that direction. 'Caitlan?' he called, unable to contain the fury lacing his voice.
'It's me, Dad.'
He ignored the curious look Laura gave him when he walked into the kitchen. 'Where have you been?' he asked, glancing out the window to see if Caitlan was outside.
She went to the sink and washed her hands. 'Down in the barn. I wanted to check on Missy.'
Paternal instincts kicked in. 'Alone?'
She nodded. 'Yes.'
'After what happened with Missy's kittens I prefer you don't go down there unless someone is with you.' His fingers curled tight around the sketch pad, renewing his anger. 'Where's Caitlan?'
'She went for a walk.' Grabbing the terry towel, she dried her hands, slanting a speculative glance J.T.'s way. 'What's going on? Everyone's acting weird today. First Caitlan, then you-'
'What's wrong with Caitlan?' he interrupted.
Laura shrugged. 'I don't know, exactly. I came home from school today and just as I was about to come inside the house she came running out. She nearly crashed into me. It looked like she'd been crying, but she said she was fine, that she just wanted to be alone for a bit.' Her fingers twisted in the towel. 'I'm kind of worried about her, Dad. Maybe you should go find her, just to be sure she's okay.'
Oh, he planned to. And just as soon as he reassured himself of her well being he'd get some answers. 'Which way did she go?'
'Alongside the north pasture fence.'
'I'll find her,' he promised, striding toward the front door. 'And we'll be back before supper.'
Caitlan didn't know how long she knelt there in the pasture, afraid to contact her Superior but knowing she no longer had a choice. Her Superiors had no idea what she'd experienced with J.T., didn't know about the haunting visions that touched her soul, or that she'd done the unthinkable and fallen in love with J.T. Unless summoned for help or guidance, Superiors never monitored an angel while on a mission, and for that she was grateful.
A crisp breeze blew, tangling in her hair and chilling her to the bone with icy fingers of dread. The cold, damp earth beneath her knees seeped through her jeans and stole into her joints. Her tears of confusion had flowed freely, and even after they'd dried a chasm of bleakness echoed in her soul. She wished she had the ability to freeze into a statue, an emotionless slab of stone with no real worries or cares. When had being a guardian angel become so emotionally and physically draining? Never had she experienced such mental exhaustion. Not until J.T.
Not wanting to put the inevitable off any longer, she wiped the moisture from her cheeks and grabbed her medallion, silently transmitting a summons to her Superior.
Mary's voice drifted clearly through Caitlan's mind. Glancing toward the heavens, a glimmer of despair swept over her. 'No… I mean yes.' Taking a deep, calming breath, she started again. 'J.T. is fine,' she assured her Superior, knowing that would be Mary's first concern.
Devastated was more like it. 'I…' She swallowed to ease the anxiety congealing in her throat. 'I'm having these… visions that I don't understand. And at times, when I'm with J.T., I feel… strange things.'
Frowning, Caitlan grasped the pendant tighter. 'Mary?'
'J.T. when he was a boy, and a young girl. Her name is Amanda. From what I've learned from J.T., I believe she's his soulmate. Why am I so connected to these two people that I feel and see things they've experienced in the past?'
Heat tinged Caitlan's cheeks when she remembered all the wonderful sensations J.T. evoked inside her. In the barn last night she'd been drawn into him, her heart and soul reaching for his as if they belonged together. She erased those thoughts quickly, before Christopher or Mary could latch onto them. She couldn't very well tell them
