“I tried to run, but Viper wouldn’t let me,” Winter gently butted into the conversation. “It was after my attack. Believe me, if I’d had use of my legs, he wouldn’t have been able to catch me, either.”
“I would have caught you,” Viper stated. Rachel believed him. With his hard, muscular body and long legs, Winter wouldn’t have gotten far.
Beth’s scream and her chair falling back as she rose terrified Rachel as she looked to see what was happening.
“No!” Rachel’s own scream parted her lips as Beth yelled for someone to call nine-one-one.
Mag had turned deathly pale and had passed out, her head falling back over the wheelchair. The men quickly pushed it back from the table, laying her on the ground. Rachel watched as Beth frantically took her pulse. Shade moved Lily back as she came out of the restroom, turning her so she couldn’t see what was going on. Cash knelt by his grandmother, holding her hand.
“Her heart is racing,” Beth told Cash.
Rachel stared down at Mag, crying. She fell to her knees beside Mag, laying her hand on her heart. After she had touched Cash, she’d had nothing left. For the last few months, her gift hadn’t shown a trace of itself.
Gathering her strength, she reached for her…
* * *
“Mag… Mag!” Rachel kept calling desperately, searching for the woman’s soul. She didn’t want to give up. “Mag, answer me, dammit!”
“Rachel, I’m here.”
Rachel moved her spirit to where she heard Mag’s voice.
“Thank God.” Rachel dropped down next to Mag, her pale eyes staring up at her.
“Don’t leave,” Rachel begged. She looked up, seeing the bright light approaching, and then held her hand tighter.
“Girl, I wasn’t meant to stay here forever. It’s time I went home.”
The acceptance in her voice had Rachel shaking her head. “Your time is close, but not now. It doesn’t feel right,” Rachel begged. “Listen to me, Mag. Something is wrong, but it’s not anything wrong with you. I would feel the pain. Please stay…” She was unaware of the small cries escaping her as she pleaded with the woman she had come to love.
Rachel felt Mag’s acceptance; she wasn’t even putting up the least resistance. Life was not given freely; it had to be wanted… she needed to be wanted. The answer came to her.
“I need you, Mag. Who is going to make Cash behave if you leave? Don’t you want to stay and see your first great-grandchild born? Isn’t that worth living for?”
“I’m going to have a great-grandchild?”
Rachel felt the spark within Mag flicker, the light pausing above her.
“Yes!” Rachel felt no qualms about lying to her if she lived. “Stay, please, stay… for Cash, me, and our child.”
Rachel put her last bit of strength into Mag’s fluttering heart, holding it steady until she could see the blinding, beautiful light receding away from Mag.
Rachel looked up; the light was moving toward her. She instantly understood the peaceful serenity that Mag hadn’t wanted to give up…
* * *
Cash was holding her when she woke. He held his breath as her eyes opened, staring up at him groggily.
“Cash?”
“I want to shake you. Don’t you ever fucking do that again. I don’t care who it is. Not Ever Again!” His hands tightened on hers, trying to give some of his warmth to her ice-cold flesh.
“Is Mag okay?”
“She’s fine. Wants to know what’s for dinner.”
Relief at his grandmother’s rapid recovery had been offset by his fear for Rachel. If he’d had any doubts of his feelings for her, they had been destroyed when he had come so close to losing her.
“What happened? I remember Mag fell and I helped her. I didn’t pull back in time, did I?”
“No, you didn’t. You almost died. The paramedics had to shock your heart back into rhythm.”
“I’ll be fine in a couple of days.”
Cash couldn’t believe the lack of concern she had for her own safety.
“You knew when you helped her what was going to happen, didn’t you?” When he saw the guilty look in her eyes, he had to get up. Moving to the window, he stared out.
“I didn’t know for sure. After I helped you my gift disappeared, I thought it was gone. My mother and grandmother both warned me that our gift is limited. We can’t do what we’re doing unless we give away a piece of ourselves. I gave too much.”
“It happened when you saved me, didn’t it? Lily didn’t tell me that part.”
“I made her promise.”
Rachel’s soft explanation raised his fury.
“Stop keeping secrets from me. You didn’t tell me that you saved my life, you sure as hell never told me that you’re a damn genius, and you didn’t tell me you’re pregnant.”
“What!” She tried to sit up in bed, only to fall back when she couldn’t contain the laughter erupting from her chest. “I only told her that to give her the will to live,” she tried to excuse the lie she’d told.
Cash wasn’t going to let her off that easily. “Mag has told anyone who will listen that she’s expecting her first great-grandchild.”
“You have to stop her. If my brothers hear that rumor, they’ll kill you.”
Seeing she was getting upset, he decided to ease her worry. “I’ll talk to her,” he assured her. “In a couple of days,” he clarified. “We don’t want to set her recovery back, do we?”
“No, I don’t want to do that,” she said suspiciously.
“Good. That’s settled, then.”
“Do they know what happened to Mag? Was it another stroke?”
“No, it wasn’t a stroke or her heart. She was poisoned.”
“Food poisoning?”
“No, not food poisoning. I wrote down what it was called.” Cash took the piece of paper out of his pocket and tried to say the large name. Giving up trying to pronounce it, he instead gave her the paper.
Rachel looked down at the paper, turning deathly white.
“What’s wrong?” Cash’s hand went to ring for the nurse, but she placed a hand over his.
“Cash, did they tell you what this was?” she asked shakily.
“No. I haven’t had time to check it out; I’ve been with you.”
“It means species unknown.”
“Well, I knew that much. The closest they could come to was the family it belonged to.”
Her voice went low. “This is the plant I’ve been working with…”
“Could she have been poisoned from touching it?”
“No, it had to be ingested. I don’t understand. I only found that plant in one spot on the mountain by a small creek that gets runoff. No one goes there but me. I brought back some of the plants to use on my experiment, but they are all at Mag’s house. All five…” Her voice broke off sharply.
“What?”
“A few weeks back, I went into the sunroom and a few plants were missing. There was a broken pot. I thought Mag had broken it and cleaned it up. I didn’t check with her. Oh, God, Cash. I should have asked her, but I didn’t think to. There aren’t any small children around and—”
“When did the plants disappear?”
“I don’t remember… Maybe the day you were working on your truck outside, and you came in without your shirt on?”
Cash smiled at what she had remembered about that day. It wasn’t all he remembered, though. “That was the day Pastor Patterson and Brooke were there.”
“Are you saying Pastor Patterson tried to poison Mag?”
“Not Pastor Patterson, Brooke. I think Brooke tried to poison Lily.”
“How would she even know it was poisonous?”
Cash thought a moment, “Does that notebook your always writing in tell that it’s poisonous?”
“Yes.” Rachel whispered. “I always write down everything in that notebook.” She remembered back to that day, Brooke had stayed away from the table for an extended length of tim
e.
“Why would Brooke try to poison Lily? She doesn’t like us, but I don’t think she would try to kill one of us.”
Brooke was a mother, for God’s sake. What kind of person would do what Cash was suggesting?
Cash remained quiet.
“I see. I’m not supposed to keep secrets from you, but it’s okay to keep them from me.” Rachel turned her head on the pillow, hurt.
She heard a loud sigh before Cash answered, “Shade and Brooke knew each other from high school. From what I understand, she has an obsession with him. She hurt Evie in the past because she resented her close relationship with him.”
“Brooke hurt Evie?”
“Yes, they’re sisters. Evie no longer has a relationship with her because of her sister’s destructive behavior.”
“That’s why she switched churches,” Rachel mused.
“Yes. This is confidential, what I’m telling you. Shade is a very private person.”
“I won’t say anything. Thank you for telling me,” she said sincerely, feeling terrible she had made him break a confidence.
Cash squeezed her hand. “The doctor said he’ll release you in the morning.”
“I have to stay the night?” she complained.
“Yes. Now lie back and get some sleep.” She wanted to argue with him, but she was tired, already closing her eyes.
“Cash?”