"Eden?" I asked, fear creeping into my voice. "You're scaring me. What's wrong?"
"Clive Richter was murdered in jail this morning. The police just came over to tell us. Molly told them we were staying with a friend for a couple days. She told them she'd call us." Her voice sounded flat and alarm speared through me.
"How?"
Eden's eyes met mine. "Stabbed."
I blinked at her for a minute, absorbing the news, trying to figure out if I was upset about it. I tilted my head. "Do they know why?"
Eden bit her lip and came to sit down on the bed next to me. She shook her head. "She said they didn't even have a suspect. He was in jail with people he arrested though. Knowing Clive's personality, he made enemies all over the place."
I furrowed my brow. I couldn't disagree with that. Clive was the type of man who got off on making people's lives miserable, especially when he held the upper hand. I thought about the time I'd physically overpowered him at the main lodge before I'd known he was a police officer. I knew now he was the type of cop who needed a gun to show any strength. And he hadn't had either the upper hand or a gun in jail. Still, was I disappointed he'd never serve time for his crimes? Was I disappointed he'd never be officially charged with the crimes against Eden and me? Flashes of him pulling up in his police car, throwing Eden and me in the back . . . watching as Hector started the fire at my feet . . . beating Xander . . . "Good," I finally said.
Eden's eyes snapped to mine. She searched my face for several beats and then she leaned in and wrapped her arms around me, pulling me close. She knew exactly what I was thinking, just like she always did. And she forgave me. I released a breath and pulled her against me.
When we let go she said, "There won't be a trial now. We know that for sure."
"Good," I repeated, realizing that although I'd have gone to trial and faced him without fear, it was another way we'd been set free. "I don't know if he deserved to die, Eden. I guess it's not my job to determine that, although if I had had the chance to kill him that day, I would have. But he was guilty, and he was an evil man, there's no doubt in my mind there. So I don't have a problem with what happened to him. And maybe we don't get justice in the court system, but the justice we get by being free of him? That's enough."
She nodded. "For me, too."
We took a long, hot shower together and when we got out, we saw that a light, but steady rain was falling outside. We got under the covers and watched movies for the rest of the evening. Inside, I felt okay, but I still held on to Eden tightly that night. And in the morning, we stayed in bed well past eleven.
"Let's go to that museum today," Eden suggested as we were getting dressed. "It's really the only thing we haven't done."
"Okay," I agreed. "Should we think about going back to Cincinnati?"
She looked sad. "Maybe just a couple more days? I'm not ready to leave just yet."
I smiled. "Me neither."
Outside, the air smelled fresh and I inhaled deeply. The rain had washed everything clean and somehow the world seemed brighter.
We strolled downtown to the small building that held the French Lick West Baden Museum and waited as the guide finished with another tour. We were the only two in the next group and I held Eden's hand as we walked through the building, the tour guide expounding on all the artifacts.
As we stood and looked at a poster of an advertisement from a company that sold the spring water as an elixir back in the eighteen hundreds, our tour guide explained, "Pluto water is what made the French Lick resort famous. It was sold as a health remedy for chronic ailments of the stomach, liver, kidneys, you name it. It was declared that these waters had miraculous powers to cure everything from asthma to alcoholism to venereal disease." He chuckled. "Guesthouses were built around the springs so people could drink and soak in the Pluto Water."
Eden tilted her head. "Why was it called Pluto Water?" she asked.
"Oh, it was named for the god of the underworld because the waters came from underground and were dark like the mythical River Styx."
I glanced at Eden who had a small frown on her face and then back at the poster. Rest for the weary, Cure for the ill, I read. "Did the stuff really work?" I asked.
The tour guide chuckled again. "Well they tested the water at some point and found it was full of two things," he looked back at us as he continued through the museum, "salt and traces of lithium."
"Lithium?" I asked as he stopped at another display.
"Yeah, they use it now as a mood stabilizer for mental health issues. ’Course you'd have to drink quite a bit of the water to get those affects, but a little bit of it could sure put you in a good mood, and the salt would clear you out real fast so that some of your ailments probably would feel better. Temporarily at least." He continued on, my heart rate picked up in speed. I looked over at Eden and I could see that she was thinking the same thing I was.
"Sir," I interrupted, "these springs, are there other ones? I mean, in other parts of the country? Is it possible?"
"Oh I s’pose it's possible. I don't personally know of any others, but could be."
I nodded and we continued through, my mind spinning in a million directions. When we finally thanked the guide and stepped back out onto the large front porch of the museum, Eden whispered, "Hector, he was here, wasn't he?"
"I think so," I said, looking around as if I would suddenly see him walking toward us on the sidewalk. I shivered despite the fall sunshine and pulled Eden into my side.
"Did he find a spring that had the same elements?" she asked, frowning.
I shook my head. "That or he added them, if that's even possible. I don't know. All I do know is, Pluto Water," I looked over at her, "it was the same as our holy water."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Calder
We walked around a little bit more and then Eden left for the appointment she had for a massage at the spa while I went back up to the room to watch another movie. I went over the spring water thing in my head, but couldn't come to any conclusions. Was it possible it was just a coincidence? What connected Hector to this place other than the fact that Eden was pretty sure Hector had brought her to this state after he abducted her? I guessed it would make sense that the first council member he would try to recruit—Eden's father—would be within driving distance. And it would be more likely that Hector would have heard Eden's father's story—it was practically local.
I lay back on the bed, not bothering to turn the TV on. My mind kept going around and around Hector's connection to Indiana, and now, this place in particular. There was the Pluto Water name—a Greek connection—just like all the other Greek connections in our religion and so many other parts of Acadia. But what did it mean? I had no clue. Was it possible Hector had simply been traveling through this part of the country and had liked the idea of the spring and sought it out in another place—in Arizona? So many things were possible. And we'd probably never truly understand any of it.
I shot Xander a quick text about the water and told him to look it up online and let me know what he thought. He texted back and told me he was working, but that he would when he got home.
Before I knew it, I'd fallen asleep and Eden was running her fingers through my hair gently. I opened my eyes and gazed up at her beautiful face, smiling sleepily. There was something almost fearful in her expression. "Hey," I croaked out.
"Hey yourself," she said softly.
I sat up a little bit. "You okay? How was your massage?"
"What? Oh, it was good. Nice." She stood up and headed toward the bathroom. "I'm going to shower all this lotion off me and then we can go to dinner?" she called behind her, closing the bathroom door.
I furrowed my brow slightly. "Yeah, okay," I called.
We took the shuttle bus to the restaurant a few miles from our resort that the front desk recommended. The atmosphere was romantic and the food excellent, and we held hands throughout our meal, but Eden seemed distracted. When I asked her about it, though, she
just said the massage earlier must have fogged up her brain. And then she'd offered me a warm smile and squeezed my hand.
We went back to the hotel early and Eden got in bed and took out her book, and so I switched on a TV show and had fallen asleep before it even ended.
I was woken up by Eden's hand dipping below the waistband of my briefs and I moaned out.
"I finished my book," she said in my ear. "Were you asleep?"
"No," I lied, not willing to put any kind of halt on what she was doing.
She slid her hand downward and squeezed me gently. I groaned again. She dipped her hand lower and cupped my balls in her palm. "Oh God, Eden."
I rolled over and took her face in my hands, kissing her mouth deeply until those sweet little moans I loved so much came up her throat.
"Tell me about your book," I whispered when I'd broken free from her mouth. I smiled against her neck before I feathered my lips over it lightly. Lust shot through me as she bent her head back and arched her body into mine.
"Hmm," she hummed as I pulled her tank top up and over her head. My mouth immediately went for her sweet, pink nipple. I knew she loved it and so did I. As I sucked and teased the stiff peak, she ran her fingers through my hair.
"Hendrix Cooper, drug-addicted, alcoholic manwhore, and lead singer of Devout Wenches, has a one-night stand with who he thinks, in his inebriated state, is a crazed groupie."
I brought my head up. "Devout Wenches?"
Eden made a frustrated sound in her throat and grabbed my head, pushing it back toward her breast. I grinned and resumed what I'd been doing. She sighed.
"What he doesn't realize until later is that it was actually his assistant, Polly Honeycutt, a poor southern girl whose whole family died when a tornado came ripping through their small trailer park. She was forced to find the first job she could and of course, fell secretly in love with the damaged but lovable bad boy."
"Damaged?" I scoffed, moving to her other breast and kissing it once, lightly. "He sounds more like a complete mess."
Eden moaned as I sucked her nipple into my mouth, laving my tongue around it. She wrapped her legs around my hips and ground up against my hardness. I made a strangled sound in my throat. God, she felt good. I moved my hips in slow circles against her to the rhythm of my mouth. We were both silent for several minutes, desire making us speechless.
"Aren't we all, in our own way?"
I paused, trying to remember where we'd been. "True enough," I agreed, kneeling up so that I could remove her bottoms.
As I brought her shorts and underwear down her legs, she said, "Anyway, he had his reasons. He had been abused by the headmaster at the boarding school where his parents sent him because they couldn't be bothered by him, and although he cried out for help for years, no one ever came to his rescue." She shook her head, sorrow passing over her expression. I paused. Was I supposed to comfort her or keep going here? But Eden kicked off her bottoms and sat up, bringing her mouth to mine.
We kissed in that position until I was throbbing so hard that I couldn't stand another minute. "Eden," I groaned.
She blinked at me, her eyes shiny and half-closed. Then she pushed me down on the bed and removed my own underwear quickly.
She got on top of me and held my erection in her hand as she pushed down on it, impaling herself. I groaned out at the tight, wet grip of her.
Eden closed her eyes and started moving up and down very slowly. "It was a long road for them," she said, her eyes still closed. "Hendrix had to go to rehab and he had to fire his manager, Naomi Garnet, who was constantly trying to get in his pants and ruin things for him and Polly in shrewd and evil ways." She began moving faster and I felt like I might pass out with how good it felt. I reached up and took her small, perfect breasts in my hands and ran my thumbs over her nipples until she threw her head back and started riding me faster.
I felt my orgasm swirling through me, my balls drawing up tightly against my body. And then it hit and I groaned out loudly with the sudden, intense pleasure, bucking my hips up into her. Eden gasped and then fell forward on me, moaning out her own climax. God, I loved that.
I brought my arms up around her, enveloping her small back and just held her there, breathing in her sweet scent and loving her so intensely, it made my heart speed up.
"Polly," she said in a voice a little above a whisper, "you deserve a man who is going to love you in ways that make you feel like the angel you are. Someday maybe I'll be that man, but right now, I'm not. And I love you far too much to offer anything less. Wait for me, Polly. Believe in me. Be my reason for fighting."
She was silent for a second as I waited.
"I'm sorry, Hendrix," she whispered. "I can't." I felt the wetness of a tear fall onto my shoulder as I waited again.
When she was silent, I said, "And then?"
She shook her head against my shoulder. "And then nothing. That was the end."
"What the hell?" I asked, feeling an outrage that I wouldn't have admitted to.
"It's a cliffhanger," she said. "We'll find out what happens in three months."
"You bet your ass we will," I said.
Eden started laughing and I slipped out of her with the movement. She brought her head up and gazed down at me. "I'm pregnant," she whispered.
My whole body froze. She continued to watch me closely as I gaped at her. "I . . . what? I thought . . . you said . . ."
She nodded her head, moving off me and lying down on her side. I turned toward her. "I know. I'm shocked, too. The doctor said it'd be highly unlikely I'd ever conceive without assistance. I don't know what to say. I feel like I tricked you or something." She continued to watch me, her eyes wide and filled with worry.
"Eden," I said, gently, my heart finally stuttering back to life. I brought one hand to her stomach. She sucked in a breath.
"Are you . . . are you happy?"
I was shocked, not quite feeling ready to parent a baby. But I knew how much Eden had ached having our other baby stolen from her, how much we both had ached. And then thinking she'd never be able to have another. A feeling of relief, followed quickly by joy, filled my heart. I brought my hand up to her cheek and whispered, "Yeah, I'm happy. Are you?"
Tears filled her eyes and she nodded her head. I pulled her close and just breathed with her for a few minutes. "How far?" I asked.
"About five weeks, I guess. I don't know. I bought a test at the drug store we stopped in today and took it in the bathroom down at the spa." She sniffled against my chest.
"Did we make this baby in the Bed of Healing?" I asked with a smile.
Eden laughed out a small half-laugh, half-cry. "I think we did."
I let the news sink in. "It feels right. It feels like a second chance," I whispered.
Eden nodded and sniffled again.
A part of me felt inadequate . . . I still didn't have a name, an identity, let alone the ability to support them yet. But I knew one thing. "I'm going to protect you, both of you," I said. "I won't let anything happen to you."
Eden leaned back and studied my face, her eyes troubled. "I know you will," she said. "Never for one second will I ever doubt that."
I breathed in deeply and pulled her closer. We fell asleep in each other's arms - a small, new life nestled between us in the safety of Eden's body.
In the darkness of night, Eden shook me awake. "You're dreaming, Butterscotch," she said softly, gentleness in her voice. "You're dreaming of them."
I let out a harsh breath, trying to get my racing heartbeat under control. I brought my hand up to my hair and gripped it. A feeling of deep dread had settled somewhere inside me and wouldn't release its hold. "Yes," I gasped out.
"You haven't had a nightmare in a long time," she said softly, laying her head on my chest and wrapping her arm around my bare middle.
"I know," I said, starting to relax a little bit.
"Is it because of the baby?" she asked.
"I . . . maybe." I pulled her closer. "But only becaus
e I want to keep you both safe." She kissed my skin softly.
"You will keep us safe. I trust you, Calder," she said, tenderness in her voice.
For the first time in a very long time, I said a prayer to the God of Mercy. I wanted so desperately not to let her down.
**********
The next day was chillier than the one before and so Eden put on a big sweater and I layered two long-sleeved shirts before heading out to breakfast. The air was crisp, but the sky was cloudless and blue overhead, and there was that faint smell of burning leaves in the air that I had learned to associate with fall since being in the outside world.
I held Eden's warm hand in mine and we lingered over our food. The dread of the nightmare released its grasp in the bright light of day and I was feeling hopeful. It had to be normal that I would have a few bad dreams, that the nightmares would come back temporarily. Eden had given me some big news and it had rocked me, and naturally it brought up memories of the first time we'd created a life, and how cruelly that life had been taken from us.
"We should think about leaving today or tomorrow," I said, glancing at Eden. She had her hair pulled back from her face and her sunglasses were resting on top of her head. Her thick, black sweater came all the way up to her chin and the dark knit right up against her skin made it look ever creamier than normal. Or maybe she was just glowing. "I think you should go to the doctor as quickly as possible to make sure everything's all right."
Eden's eyes met mine and she nodded.
"As soon as we get back, I'm going to ask the police to help me get a social security number like they're doing for Xander. I can't wait forever for someone to come forward. It likely won't ever happen, and I have a life to build for us." Marrying her was even more important than ever to me now. I wondered distantly how Carolyn was going to take this news.
Eden nodded, glancing at me worriedly. "Okay."
I watched her pick at her food and after a few minutes, she said, "I have an idea." She looked at me a little nervously.