Her feelings for Peter had eroded so slowly over the years that there had barely been any left by the time it was over. But this… she squeezed her eyes tight, and though the air was still and warm, she shuddered.
She'd never loved anyone the way she loved Michael. Wildly, outrageously. Brutally. And all those feelings were so fresh. So bright and new. She had treasured them. She'd treasured discovering that she could feel again, realizing she could want and be wanted as a woman. She'd admired what he was, what he'd made himself, and she had fallen as much in love with the rough and dangerous man as the kind and gentle one within.
Now he wanted it over, and there was nothing she could do. Crying didn't help, and her tears were already dry. Temper changed nothing, and she was already ashamed of the way she had snapped in front of him. He'd think her pitiful now, but that couldn't be helped either.
She stepped closer to the edge to watch the waves beat against rock. She felt that way, she mused. Battered by forces that were beyond her control, lapped in a violent, endless war with no choice but to stand.
It didn't help, it simply didn't help, to tell herself she wasn't alone. That she had her family, her children, her home, her work. Because she felt alone, completely alone, there on the edge of the world with only the thunder of the sea for company.
Even the birds were gone. No gulls cried today, none wheeled white toward the hard blue sky or dipped toward the spewing waves. She could see nothing but the rolling of the endless sea.
How could she accept it that she would never love this way again? Why was she expected to go on, to do everything that needed to be done, alone, always alone, and know that she would never turn in the night and find someone there who loved her?
Why had she been given this glimpse into what she could have and feel and want if it was only going to be taken away? And why was the one thing she had dreamed of all of her life always, always, just out of her reach?
She imagined that this was what Seraphina had felt as she stood here so many years before grieving the loss of her lover. Laura looked down, pictured that dizzying, somehow liberating plunge into space and the fierce, furious heart that had taken it.
Had she screamed as the rocks rushed up, Laura wondered, or had she strained to meet them?
Trembling, Laura took a step back. Seraphina had found nothing but an end, she thought, a horribly easy end to pain. Her own wouldn't be easy, because she would have to live with it. Live without Michael. And finally accept that she would live without her dream.
She barely noticed the rumble, took it at first for the sea's thrashing. The ground seemed to jitter under her feet. Blank for a moment, she stared down, watched pebbles dance. Then the roar filled her ears, and she knew.
Panicked, she tried to stumble back, away from the edge. The ground rolled, unbalancing her as she grabbed frantically for a rock. The wave of earth lifted her up and pushed her hard over the rim of the world.
The horses sensed it first. Eyes wheeling white, panicked whinnies. Michael reached up to calm the mare he was grooming. Then he felt it. The ground shuddered under him. He swore as the noise grew and horses plunged. Above his head came the sound of crashing glass, straining wood.
The freight train roar deafened him as he fought to keep his balance. Tack leapt off the walls and fell jangling on the shuddering brick.
He yanked stall doors open, focused on getting his horses out. In the wild confusion of the moment, one thought pierced like a lance.
Laura. My God. Laura.
He stumbled forward, fighting free when the earth tried to heave him back. He raced into the brilliant sunlight, ignoring the violent undulations of the tidy green lawn. When he was knocked flat, he clawed his way back up, skidded down the slope. No one would have heard him screaming her name as he ran toward the cliffs. He didn't hear it himself.
It lasted no more than two minutes, that stretch and shift of the earth. All was still, preternaturally still, when he reached the cliffs.
She'd gone home, he told himself. She'd gone back to the house, was safe, secure. A little shaken perhaps, but a native Californian didn't panic at every trembler. He'd go check on things himself as soon as he… as soon as he made sure.
When he looked over the edge and saw her, his legs buckled. On a ledge fifteen feet below, inches away from oblivion, she lay white as death. One of her arms was flung out so that her hand dangled over that narrow bed of rock into space.
He wouldn't remember the climb down to her, the sharp bite of rock into his hands, the small, nasty avalanches of dirt and pebbles where his feet slid, the stinging slices as roots and rock tore viciously at his clothes and flesh.
Blind terror and instinct took him down fast where a single misstep, one incautious grip, would have sent him plunging. Cold sweat dripped into his eyes, skidded along his skin. He thought—was sure—she was dead.
But when he reached her he fought back the panic and fear and placed a trembling finger on the pulse in her throat. And it beat.
"Okay, okay." His hands trembled still as he brushed the hair from her cheeks. "It's all right, you're all right." He wanted to drag her up, hold her, rock her to him until this greasy sickness in his gut passed.
He knew better than to move her, even with thoughts of aftershocks spinning in his head. He knew he had to check the extent of her injuries before he risked shifting her.
Concussion, broken bones, internal injuries. Christ, paralysis. He couldn't get his breath and had to squeeze his eyes shut for a moment and force air in and out until he was calm. He made himself move slowly, carefully. Lifting her eyelids to check the pupils, gently moving his hands over her head, gritting his teeth at the blood that smeared on his fingers.
Her shoulder—she'd dislocated it, he realized as he probed. It would be screamingly painful when she woke. Dear God, he wanted her to open her eyes. His breath came fast and harsh as he continued to check her. No breaks—a lot of bruises and some bad cuts and scrapes, but nothing was broken.
He agonized over her back and neck, knew he had to leave her to call for an ambulance. And the thought of leaving her alone there on that ledge, knowing that if she woke it would be to terror and pain, ripped him.
"It's going to be all right." He took her hand, squeezed gently. "Trust me. I won't be long. I'll be back."