Fairytale Come Alive (Ghosts and Reincarnation #4)(6)

No, Isabella thought, this was not fun and exciting.

This was agony.

She came out of her upsetting thoughts and realized they were approaching Fergus’s stately manor house.

The last time she’d come from America and approached this house, she’d not been in a limousine. She’d been in the backseat of Fergus’s Jaguar and she’d been jumping around more than Mikey.

Dougal’s beat up old truck was in the drive.

So was Prentice’s beat up old Harley.

Dougal was sitting on a step.

Prentice was standing at the top, arms crossed on his wide chest, his beautiful eyes on the Jag.

Sometimes, when Isabella was feeling maudlin, she’d take out the photo frame she carried everywhere with her, she’d study Prentice’s picture and she’d try to determine the color of his eyes.

When she’d been with him, she’d done it up close.

She could, she thought then (and now) do it for hours.

They were neither green, nor gray, nor brown, nor blue.

They were all of them in an equal mixture.

They were the most beautiful eyes she’d ever seen in her life, before, or since.

Fergus had barely stopped the car when Annie was out the door, flying toward Dougal, who’d stood and was walking with long-legged strides toward her, a huge smile on his handsome face.

Isabella would have done the same but, such was her excitement, her fingers were all thumbs and she was having trouble getting her seatbelt unfastened.

At home in Chicago with her father, she was unfailingly sedate, quiet and unassuming, as her father liked her to be.

With Annie in Scotland and at university (where they’d met), she was anything but sedate, quiet and unassuming.

And, with Prentice, she could be anything she wanted to be.

Which meant, with Prentice, she could be free.

Something she’d never been in her whole life.

Prentice had not walked with long-legged strides to her when she’d finally exited the car. His eyes didn’t leave her but he didn’t smile.

Isabella felt a moment of uncertainty, even though he’d never given her any indication in the months they’d been separated that their summer romance of the year before had cooled.

She felt her step stutter as she walked toward him. He noticed it, his gaze dropping to her feet.

Then he shook his head and grinned.

That was all she needed.

She flew at him so fast he got only one step toward her before she collided with him. His foot went back to brace their bodies, his arms came around her, fierce and tight, and his mouth crushed down on hers.

“Oh for goodness sake, don’t they have boys in America?” Fergus interrupted the Snog Fest, his voice filled with amusement.

“Not like they do here, Dad,” Annie retorted, her voice happy and teasing.

Isabella didn’t reply, she was too busy looking in Prentice’s eyes and counting the colors.

“Missed you, baby,” he’d whispered and her eyes closed.

She loved it when he called her “baby”.

Isabella pressed deeper into him and opened her eyes.

“Not as much as I missed you.”

An extraordinary warmth came to his face as he gazed down on her, he grinned again and shook his head.

He had no idea every word she said was utterly true. She was the living dead when he was not with her. His presence, his touch, his kiss, brought her to life.

Like Sleeping Beauty.

Another fairytale come alive.

Or so she thought.

Now, Isabella watched the house get closer and she reckoned she was most likely not going to get the same greeting.

Annie had been home to Chicago three times in the last two years, two of those times she’d been back together with Dougal and, one of them, Dougal came with her.

Isabella did not see Dougal.

Although Annie made excuses, Isabella knew Dougal had no interest in seeing Isabella.

In fact, Fergus had cooled toward her after what she did to Prentice and when she didn’t come back after Annie’s accident. He’d cooled substantially.

It wasn’t until years later, after Fergus had come to Chicago and he and Annie had dinner with Isabella and her father and Isabella had run into some colleagues from work that Fergus’s warmth toward Isabella had come back.

Regardless of the outcome of the evening, Isabella found it supremely humiliating the way her father had behaved.

Her colleagues had been in a good mood, having been out for drinks, and they were loud and happy, asking Isabella to join them some time, any time.

They trotted on their merry way and her father stared daggers at them.

Then he’d turned to his daughter.

“You will not join those ridiculous people for a drink. For God’s sake, every last one of them was publicly inebriated. How crass,” her father had snapped.

“They’re just having fun,” Isabella, very unwisely, had stated quietly.

Her father halted, turned, and leaned into her threateningly (and not unusually) and Isabella could actually feel Fergus and Annie get tense.

“Are you contradicting me?” Carver Austin asked in a lethal voice that didn’t threaten punishment if her answer was incorrect, it promised it.

“Of course not,” Isabella whispered back immediately, feeling her face getting pale right before she felt the blood rush painfully into it.