He said something she couldn’t hear, then he cupped his hands around his mouth. “Kismet, they’re going to brace the section of stairs you’re on, then set up some scaffolding to get you down. You might be up there a while.”
She touched her thumb to her forefinger, giving him an okay signal, telling him she understood, then she let Buffy rock her to sleep.
DESTINY opened her eyes in time to see the stranger who lifted her from her open cage. How had they opened it without her hearing them? The first stranger handed her to another, then another, down lower, and so forth, until someone finally handed her to Morgan.
His amber eyes were full. A tear slipped down his cheek. “I love you,” he said. “I realized it on the water before all Hades broke loose.”
“I love you, too,” she croaked, pleased that he was still trying to use positive words after all this, but he had to lean close, and she had to repeat herself before he heard her.
Their tears mingled when they kissed.
“I’m carrying you up to our bed where a medic is waiting to check you out. Do you understand?”
“Not deaf,” she croaked, her voice a bit less raspy. “You?”
“Not deaf either.”
She made a fist at him but couldn’t raise it.
He raised it himself, to his lips. “I have scrapes on my hands and cold feet from my icy swim. That’s all.”
He was bruising as she watched. “Kayak?” she asked.
Morgan shook his head. “Sleeping with the fish.”
She rolled her eyes.
A half hour later, the medic shook his head. “No broken bones,” he said. “Miss Cartwright is extensively bruised and has a few scrapes.” He packed away his stethoscope. “But it’s a bloody miracle nothing is broken.”
Morgan made a flying motion behind him, as in wings, à la Buffy, and she nodded. He must know, probably from Meggie, that Buffy had been with her.
“How did you know to come to our rescue?” Morgan asked the medic.
“We got a call from Miss Regina Paxton who was on the dock and saw it happen. Ball of fiery lightning skimmed the water, she said, and headed straight to the lighthouse for a dead hit.”
Morgan tilted his head her way.
“Storm,” Destiny mouthed and she practically saw the lightbulb go on over Morgan’s head. Her sister, Storm, could literally see the psychic present, though her specialty was finding lost children, but they were siblings after all—an identical three-pack—and each of them sensed when one of them was in trouble.
The medic picked up his bag. “I’d like to take you both to the hospital and get you checked by a doctor.”
Destiny shook her head almost as adamantly as Morgan.
The medic growled. “See your doctors for a checkup as soon as possible, then. Will you? Tomorrow? I can’t find anything wrong, but I’m
not
a doctor.”
“We’ll be fine.” Morgan started to walk the medic out the door as she thought about getting up. He turned to her. “Stay,” he said, “under penalty of severe punishment.”
She guessed she dozed, because when she opened her eyes, Morgan was placing a bowl of soup on the nightstand. Meggie, Horace, and Buffy were with him.
“Thank you, Buffy,” she said. “Morgan, the Fresnel lens would have crushed me if Buffy hadn’t pushed it over the edge. Then she caught me in her arms and covered me with her wings, and we rode out the tower collapse together.”
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Meggie said.
Destiny wished she could hug her. “I’m glad you stayed with Morgan. I love you, Meggie.”
“I love you too, Sis.”
“What?” Morgan said. “Another sister? Meggie, you wouldn’t believe all the sisters Des has, but you’re the best by far.”
Meggie winked at her. “We’re gonna go now, so you can sleep.” That fast, they disappeared.
“They’re not totally gone, are they?” Morgan asked. “I mean forever?”
“Not yet,” Destiny said. “But I think they’ve fulfilled their unfinished business on this plane. They’ll tell us when they’re ready.”
His eyes full, likely at the thought of losing his sister again, Morgan took her sweats off her and put her in his flannel robe. “It’ll be loose on you, but it’ll keep you warm.” He proceeded to try to feed her some soup.
“Hey, I can do that. I’ll sit up and eat off the nightstand.”
“Okay,” Morgan said, crossing his arms and moving the vase of wildflowers she’d put there. “Go for it.”
Destiny got the spoon into her hand, but she ached too much to raise it to her lips. She hated that she had to put it down and look up at him, but he didn’t crow; he just fed her.
“Don’t even pretend you’re not hungry. Somehow we managed to miss breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
“When are you eating?”
“The Coast Guard fed me after I changed into dry clothes, while they were putting up the scaffolding.”
“You left me to go and eat?”
“No, I ate a couple of hot dogs that the cook brought to the tower while the Coast Guard worked to rescue you. I only left you long enough to fetch dry clothes at a run. Twelve seconds. Then I made Meggie turn her back and got buck naked in the tower in front of the rescue crew so I’d be near you.”
“Thank you.” She took another spoonful of soup. “I can’t believe I didn’t get soaked in all that rain.”
“It had stopped by the time I reached shore,” Morgan told her. “I was lost out there. Meggie brought me back. I don’t think we need to protect her anymore. I think she’s figured out what’s up with us.”
“What
is
up with us, exactly?”
Chapter Forty-five
DESTINY got nervous waiting for Morgan’s answer. He ran his hand through his hair, either uncertain or scared.
“We’re in love, Kismet, and when we’re not bruised and beaten, we’re having überhot beginner sex.”
“You hardly perform like a beginner.”
“Thank you, but I’ll need a lot more practice.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“I want to practice only with you. Marry me, Destiny.”
“Whoa. I think you got hit on the head with too many bricks.” Though his aura certainly radiated the bright blue of love.
He looked stumped. “How do you know about the hail of bricks?”
“I’m psychic?” She smiled and fingered one of the many bruises on his temple. “I love you so much, Morgan, but I don’t see how we could possibly have a life together. Our beliefs; we’re too different.” Neither could she imagine living without him, but she didn’t want to ruin him either.
“I don’t want an answer tonight,” he said, rubbing a topical anesthetic on her bruises, while she bit her lip against the pain.
“You’ve been through a traumatic experience,” he said. “We both have. We
are
from different worlds, different faiths, which I think we can handle. But you need time to think, especially after yesterday at my parents’ house. I understand.”
Destiny felt the pain in her muscles receding. “I appreciate that.”
He got into bed with her. “I want to hold you, but I don’t want to hurt you. How would you be most comfortable?”
“In your arms,” she said.
He held her loosely, and she relaxed. “Just so you know,” he said, “I’m offering my unwavering devotion and my heart, my whole heart. You are my missing center. You understood me when I couldn’t understand myself. You saw my vulnerability, my psychic ability, and you saw my dirty aura and cleaned it up.”
“Sure, I’m handy that way, but marriage?”
“You helped me come to terms with my guilt and my past.”
“I think I was always meant to save you,” she said, sleepy again. Maybe he was her psychic mandate. Who knew? A tender and gentle lover with a heart that needed healing. She wasn’t surprised when he said he loved her in the tower. Joyous, grateful, and elated but not surprised, though the marriage proposal, after everything,
was
a bit of a shock. “I knew you’d save me today,” she said. “As scared as I was, I knew.”
Morgan kissed her brow and stroked her hair. “I think we were meant to save each other in different ways.”
“Hmm.”
Destiny opened her eyes. Again, she was being cradled, minus the feathery cloud. “Where are you taking me?”
“To the bathroom.”
“Very good idea.”
He set her down.
“You don’t need to stay with me.”
“I don’t want you taking a header into the tub.”
“Out. Now. I’m drawing the line at peeing as a spectator sport.” She ignored the sound of his doubtful cough as he left the room. “Ow, ow, ow,” she said, as she lowered her body.
“You okay in there?”
“Just peachy.”
“I’m heating water so you can soak in a hot tub.”
“I love you!”
A few minutes later she bit her lip as she walked into the kitchen. “What a mess,” she said.
“Yeah, the stovepipe popped at the elbow, hence the soot, and a few things fell off the shelves, but the outside wall is intact, and every other wall is structurally sound, too. We’re lucky it’s just the tower.”
“Morgan, I’m sorry my painting was right.”
“Any chance that you’ll feel like painting the lighthouse again sometime soon?”
She looked into her mind. “There is that chance, actually.”
“What would the tower look like this time?”
“Exactly like the old one did, erect and proud, because this superior architect I know is going to rebuild it in keeping with the integrity of the original structure.”
“Glad to hear it. Here ya go.” He helped her sit. “Toast. Orange juice. Aspirin. Hot water’s nearly ready for the tub.”
A short while later, he helped her stand in the gorgeous French claw-foot bathtub, so out of place in a lighthouse, stenciled as it was on the outside with gold filigree scallops and pink teacup roses. Morgan climbed in after her and sat first, settling her so she rested on him, not on the hard tub bottom.
“Oh my Goddess. This feels sooooo incredible. I needed this soothing heat, this man muscle body mattress, too. Sooooo fine.”
“You sound like you’re having great sex.”
“I think I’m about three hundred or so ouches away from sex, but somebody forgot to tell your big guy.”
“Sorry about that. Reflex. You naked. Me naked. He’s primed.”
She sighed. “What time is it?”
“You’re not going to believe this, but we slept for thirteen hours.”
“How long is a flight from Scotland?”
They heard the front door open. “Hello? Anybody home?” Harmony called.
“Holy triple decker,” Morgan swore and lowered them deeper into the water. “You sensed them coming, didn’t you?”
“ ’Fraid so.”
“Sis, are you okay?” Storm asked, probably from the top of the stairs.
“Morgan, old man, are you here?” Aiden called.
“Maybe they got taken to a hospital,” King suggested.
The bathroom door opened. “Shit!” Morgan said, pulling more suds up to cover Destiny’s breasts.
Her brother-in-law, Aiden, whistled and grinned. “I found them.”
Morgan growled. “Why don’t you just sell tickets?”
Aiden shrugged. “Why should I, when the show’s free?”
And there they gathered in her open bathroom door, her sisters and brothers-in-law smiling at her and Morgan in the bathtub together.
When they’d left for Scotland, she and Morgan were trying to get away from each other, and at least two of them knew they’d end up here.
They
probably even knew that Morgan had been a virgin.
“You’re a bunch of intruding, grinning buffoons,” Morgan said. “I could get you for breaking and entering.”
“No you couldn’t,” King said. “I still own the place. You haven’t bought it yet.”
“That’s right!” Morgan said snapping his fingers. “Brother, do you have an insurance claim to file.”
“We knew the tower was gone,” King said.
“But did you know about your new kayak?”
“It came?”
Morgan shrugged. “And went.”
Chapter Forty-six
MORGAN liked that Destiny rested her head on his chest, as if it was them against the world. “Dearest gawking friends and grinning sisters-in-law,” he said. “Would you care to shut the door so we can get decent?”
“Bit late for that,” Storm said, wiggling her brows.
Destiny raised her head, though he held it because moving it must hurt her. “Storm, thanks for calling Reggie when you got the vision.”
“I can’t say it was a pleasure. I nearly had a heart attack. Seriously, are you okay? I mean, I knew you were, but it was scary.”
“Yeah, it was. I’m okay. A little sore.”
“I’m okay, too,” Morgan said, “in case anybody cares.”
When he and Destiny came out of the bathroom, Aiden, King, and her sisters were cleaning the kitchen. Good friends, no, family. He walked Destiny up the stairs slowly, an occasional “Ouch” escaping her.
“Des, do you need help getting dressed?” Harmony asked from the bottom of the stairs.
Morgan tightened his arm around Destiny’s waist. “I’ve got her, Harmony,” he said. “Thanks.”
“No kidding?” Harmony asked.
“What?” Destiny said without turning. “The tub wasn’t a clue, you matchmaking brat.”
“Who me?” Harmony gave them an innocent, cat-that-ate-the-cream look. “I’ll be cleaning the kitchen.”
Fifteen minutes later, Destiny’s sisters stood in the parlor and watched Morgan walk their clone down the stairs. He could see how much they loved each other by the way that Destiny’s pain was reflected in their eyes.
Harmony held the chair for Destiny. “We were thinking that since tonight is Halloween, and we’re home in time, we might celebrate Samhain together, but maybe you’re not up to it, Des?”
“I’m up to anything.” Destiny lowered herself into the chair by biting her lip. “Tonight at the castle? What time?”
“You can’t walk to the castle,” Storm said. “You can’t even sit in a chair without pain. I don’t think this is a good idea.”