A dull weight grew heavier in Emma’s chest—right where her heart would have been if she still had one. Laynie was such a dreamer. She actually thought Emma was going to see Torin again. “IlovedTorin. Past tense, Laynie. That chapter slammed shut when I sealed the portal.” Emma dropped her gaze to the floor. A hopeless sense of weariness wrapped around her, sapping her strength until it took everything she had just to find the energy to speak. “I’m never going to leave you, Laynie. You’re stuck with me. You know Torin is lost.”
“Bullshit!” Laynie jabbed Emma’s shoulder. “You pinky swore that if we found him you would never leave his side again, and I’m going to hold you to it.” Yanking the towel higher around her breasts, Laynie nodded in Alex’s direction. “We’re searching the island for folks right now who know all about the legends. We’re going to find him, Emma. You just wait and see.”
“I can’t handle any more of this nonsense. I’m getting out of here.” Emma scooped up her purse and headed for the door, struggling to see through a stinging blur of tears. How could Laynie be so heartless? How could she be so blind?
“Emma.” Alex stepped in front of her, blocking her path to the door. “Ye will find Torin and rejoin him someday. I swear to ye, I will do everything in my power to help ye.”
“Get out of my way, Alex, or I swear I’ll set fire to that towel.” Emma hitched her purse higher on her shoulder, digging her nails into the leather handle.
“Let her go, Alex. When she gets like this you can’t reason with her.”
Emma pushed past him, slamming the door behind her so hard that the windows rattled in their casings. She didn’t know where she was headed but anywhere was better than here.
Chapter
Fifty-Nine
The freezing rain coated the wipers with every pass across the windshield. The ice-covered strips made feeble attempts to swipe the slush from the automobile’s glass. Emma slowed the vehicle to a crawl, cranked up the heat and adjusted the high beam on the headlights to try and cut a path through the murky storm. She must be nuts to be out in weather like this but she wasn’t about to head back home.
A gust of wind slammed against the side of the car nearly shoving it from the slippery road. This was stupid. Emma edged the machine over to the wide patch of gravel along the side of the road and threw the gearshift into park. Pressing her forehead against the steering wheel, she closed her eyes and listened to the rhythmic slosh and click of the frozen windshield wipers swiping across the glass.
“Why, Torin?” she whispered into the darkness. Why had he been so cruel as to make her love him and then leave her all alone?
“Ye told him ye would never go with him. What did ye expect him to do?” a taunting voice said through the dark interior of the car. Murky shadows danced by the light of the glowing instrument panel.
Jerking straighter in the seat, Emma strained to see through the darkness. “Who’s there?”
Only the scraping swish of the wiper blades against the frozen windshield answered. With trembling hands, Emma swiped the tears from her face. Great.Now she could add hallucinations to her growing list of problems.
A troubled feeling stirred in the center of her chest, unfurling to squat like a poisonous toad on her already churning stomach. As much as she hated to admit it, the disembodied voice spoke the truth. How many times had she sworn to Torin that she would never leave this reality?
“Why do ye waste your time grieving for a man ye swore ye never loved?”
“I never said I didn’t love him,” Emma shouted at the flickering instrument panel. “Who are you? If you’re going try to pick a fight, at least have the guts to show your face.”
“I didna come here to battle with ye, my silly child. My visit is to aid ye in finding the truth that lies within your heart.”
The truth.Emma closed her eyes and curled her hands atop the smooth coldness of the steering wheel. With a hissing sob, she gave way to the pain that had tormented her soul ever since Torin had disappeared. “I didn’t need your visit to show me the truth. I already know what it is.”
“Then find the lad and tell him this truth. It will do ye both an eternity of good.”
“Find the lad. Yeah right. You make it sound so easy.” Emma sniffed back another deluge of tears as she glared at the slush-covered windshield. “Since you appear to be so all knowing, why don’t you make this easier on both of us and just tell me where he is?”
An amused chuckle rippled through the interior of the car as a gust of wind shook against it. “Ah now. That would be cheating and making what ye yearn for much too easy to attain.Ye wouldna appreciate your prize nearly as much if there was no struggle to achieve it.”Sleet pelted in a frozen sheet across the front of the car as the disembodied voice continued its lecture, “Where would be the pleasure in having your love merely handed to ye with little or no effort? Ye still have much growing to do before ye are ready to cross and meet your love. Ye have always worked hard for whate’er ye’ve attained and this path will be no different.”
“I don’t know who or what you are but I do know one thing.”
“And what would that be, my miserable little child?”
“I hate you more than I have ever hated anything in my life.”
A warm chuckle rumbled through the damp air. “Good. Hatred is a strong emotion filled with energy. Tap into that strength to find what ye seek.”
Chapter
Sixty
“Dr. Emma?”
