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.Come The Night – Roaring Twenties 03Page 76 of 530“Is it quite safe for him to ride alone?” Gillian asked, speaking as if the words had beenpried out of her by red-hot pokers.“He isn‟t a baby,” Ross said.“You can‟t keep him in high chairs and diapers for the restof his life.”She glared at him, her eyes glowing as the shadows of the cave closed in around them.“You think me overprotective,” she said.“You think that Toby is as…worldly as any boyhis age.He is not.He has lived all his life—”“Around people just like him, where he‟s safe from anything that could challenge whathe‟s been taught.”“You know nothing of how he‟s been raised.”“I can guess.” He leaned back on the hard wooden seat, careful to keep from touchingher.“The lessons don‟t seem to have taken, though.He‟s not a stuck-up little prig.”Her breath came fast.“No,” she said, “he is not.But you, Mr.Kavanagh, are certainlynot lacking in arrogance.”“Because I‟m honest?”“Are you?” She searched his eyes.“Are you really?”Ross started to answer and found he couldn‟t speak.He was convinced in that momentthat she could see right through him, right down to the core of the miserable failure he‟dbecome.He was saved as the railcar, which had been chugging its way to the top of a steepincline, suddenly plunged from darkness into a brilliant white scene of the North Pole.Come The Night – Roaring Twenties 03Page 77 of 530Ross hardly noticed.The car rolled on to the next exhibit, but he was no longer payingattention.He thought of all the places he‟d read about and longed to see when he was akid at his parents‟ ranch in Cold Creek Valley, places with exotic names that seemed amillion miles away: Timbuktu, Istanbul, Singapore.When he‟d turned seventeen and theGreat War was already raging in Europe, he‟d seen joining up as a chance to escapeArizona and explore a little of the world.Ma had been against it at first, but Pa hadunderstood Ross‟s need to be part of something bigger than himself.They‟d added tohis own store of carefully saved money to send him on a boat to France.There hadn‟t been many American volunteers at the time; the United States was stillyears away from officially joining the War.But Ross had found exciting and oftendangerous work as a driver for the American Volunteer Motor Ambulance Corps.He‟dserved for about three months when his vehicle hit a mine; somehow he‟d gotten mixedin with a bunch of British wounded and been shipped off to recover in a Londonhospital.That had been where he‟d met Gillian.Of course he hadn‟t known her name in thebeginning; his injuries had been pretty severe, though not disfiguring, and at first he‟dhardly been able to tell the difference between the succession of doctors, nurses andvolunteers who passed by his bed.But then he started to heal—fast, with the help of his werewolf blood—and he‟d seenher visiting the men in the ward.He‟d become increasingly intrigued by her poise, hergrace, her untouchability.If anyone in the place represented his idea of a Europeanaristocrat, loaded to the gills with “good breeding,” she was it.It soon became obvious that she was very skilled at what she did; ice queen or not, shehad a gentle touch and soothing voice for soldiers who needed comfort, and she wasmore competent than many of the professional nurses.Plenty of guys seemed to findher attractive.But she seldom smiled and never laughed, and no one seemed to beable to breach her air of cool superiority.Come The Night – Roaring Twenties 03Page 78 of 530Ross had almost dismissed her as a just another arrogant, privileged blue blood.Butthen his condition had begun to improve, and he‟d had set himself a challenge: to findout what made Gillian Maitland tick.His first few attempts had failed.Maybe she was put off by his American drawl, or hiseasy manner and informal ways; he treated her as if she were his equal, and that didn‟tsit well with her in the beginning.But eventually she began dropping by his bed moreoften, and he would regale her with the stories of the “Wild West” he‟d learned at hisfather‟s knee.She started to smile a little more.Warmth crept into her hazel eyes.Helearned that her father was a baronet, and she came from a grand estate in the north ofEngland.He figured that she‟d never known a day of want in her life, which made herwork at the hospital all the more admirable.Little by little their relationship had evolved from a cautious friendship to a deeper bond.One night, after Ross was finally allowed to walk again, she‟d let him kiss her.A new Gillian had emerged after that brief incident, a girl of passion and hidden fire.Ross had felt like the peasant boy who‟d won the heart of the king‟s daughter.He andGillian had kept their relationship carefully hidden from the hospital staff and patients.They had walked on the grounds after midnight, hand in hand, speaking little and feelingmuch.One late night, on his way to meet her, Ross had seen Gillian Change from wolf tohuman form on the hospital lawn behind a clump of trees.He‟d quickly overcome hisshock, realizing that he‟d already felt the difference in her without knowing it.He‟d toldher then, with perfect honesty, that he knew about the existence of werewolves, at leastin America.She didn‟t ask how or why he knew about loups-garous, and he didn‟treveal his own mixed heritage, unsure how she would feel about it.Come The Night – Roaring Twenties 03Page 79 of 530After that, Gillian had told him all about the werewolves in Europe.They were trying tosave the werewolf race from extinction, she‟d explained.The number of loups-garous inthe world was rapidly shrinking; they had to live secretly among humans, constantlyfearing exposure.Ancient European families had been working tirelessly to preserve thepure werewolf bloodlines and unique gifts.Ross had listened, strangely uncomfortable with the driven, almost mechanical wayGillian spoke of the Europeans‟ efforts.She‟d recited the information almost like aschoolgirl who‟d learned her lessons by rote; the passionate, animated woman Rosshad discovered beneath her aristocratic veneer seeming to vanish.But then she‟d self-consciously asked him to make love to her, and he‟d forgotten thethings that had troubled him.Their joining had been like a miracle, a gift Ross knew hedidn‟t deserve.He‟d finally admitted that he was of werewolf blood.She‟d laughed, hereyes filled with happiness and relief.Ross had believed that his dreams were about tocome true.Until she‟d asked him to run as a wolf beside her, and he‟d had to tell her that hecouldn‟t do it, that his mother was human and his father only half-werewolf.He hadn‟tnoticed then how quiet she‟d become.He‟d been certain, in spite of what she‟d saidabout the European devotion to werewolf purity, that it couldn‟t possibly matter.Theyloved each other.And he wanted her to marry him.There had been no explanations, no warning.Gillian simply never showed up at theirnext planned rendezvous.She‟d left her work at the hospital and disappeared without aword
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