Part 4

Chapter Seven: The Voice of Your Eyes

The house was, and was not, what Vincent had expected when Catherine had spoken of her father’s cabin. He’d expected, knowing how wealthy she was, a more imposing building, but the little cabin was just that---little. It was a red, cedar-shingled two-story cottage with a grey slate roof, a enclosed wraparound porch with a long white porch swing, and Victorian tracery in all the corners.

What he had expected, though, was what the cottage turned out to be---a peaceful place in harmony with its surroundings. It fronted the water but the woods around the house were largely let to run wild, so much so that it seemed the cottage, along with the trees and wildflowers, had grown from the earth itself.

"The two bedrooms have the best view of sunrise over the water. We’re just past sunrise now, but it’ll be glorious tomorrow." Catherine said, setting her satchel down in the entry-way. "What do you think?"

His eyes took in the hardwood floors, the comfortable, overstuffed furniture, the bookshelves filled to the ceilings and considered that much of this world, unlike the world that Catherine normally inhabited, could have folded neatly into the tunnels. "It’s lovely," Vincent said.

Catherine smiled. "We came here every year from the time I was about three until the summer I left for college. Some of my happiest memories are of this place, and I so wanted you to see it."

The curtains were pulled back and sunlight arched across the wood floors to spill on Vincent’s features. Catherine saw the red hair mixed in with his gold mane, the high cheekbones and the flattened feline muzzle as though she had never seen them before. Well, I haven’t. Not like this.

He turned to her then and the radiance of his smile dimmed even the sunlight. "And no one looked twice," he said wonderingly.

"No," Catherine replied. "No one will. It’s just you and I here this week." She took his hand, feeling the faint tremors of emotion and sensing the joy he couldn’t fully express in their bond. "Come," she said. "Let’s get unpacked and go exploring."

***

Catherine smiled as she heard the hardwood floors on the stairs creak under Vincent's weight. The floors were old, built in her grandmother's time, and sturdy. Amused, she wondered what her grandmother would have thought of this latest visitor to her old home. "The two bedrooms are up here, and the bathroom is right in between them."

She opened the door to the larger of the two bedrooms, which was dominated by a carved Jenny Lind bed that had been in the family since her grandmother's time. It was covered with a quilt made in the mariner's compass pattern that Catherine remembered snuggling up under in the cool autumn nights. An old brick fireplace dominated one side of the room and a braided rag rug in a multitude of colors warmed the floor. On the opposite wall was an old armoire and a bowed-front dresser.

Catherine turned to look at Vincent, who was walking around the room as if in a daze. "Do you like it?" she asked.

Gently, he placed his satchel on the floor and rested one clawed hand on the fireplace mantel. "You offer me paradise and ask if I like it?" His gaze met hers, intent and blue. "Catherine, I have dreamed of us...here...for months now."

"Come," she said, "there's more to see."

And there was: the study on the upstairs floor that still reminded her of her father, the smaller bedroom that had once been hers, the kitchen and library on the first floor, the copse of trees near the house that once had hid the young Catherine in the endless days of summer. And, finally, she led him down to the water's edge, where the water glinted clear and bright in the sunlight.

"There's no one around," Catherine said again; she could feel the muscles in his arms tensing, preparing to bolt in an instinctive fear of being caught in the open. "Relax, love. It's only us here."

Vincent gazed down at Catherine and slowly relaxed. "Of course," he said. "I'm sorry."

The chill autumn wind was ruffling the ends of his mane. "Don't be," Catherine replied. "This is all unknown to you. Take the time to get used to it." Taking his hand, she led him to some weathered stone benches behind the house, surrounded by a dense yellow hedge.

"My mom planted these when I was small," Catherine told him. "We used to have tea parties out here." She gazed at him. "What are you feeling, love?"

"It's all so...alive, Catherine," he responded. He tilted his head back, feeling strange and naked without the hood of his cloak shadowing his face. "The sunlight on my face...I never thought to feel it. And the colors of the leaves...we don't have such colors below." His eyes were all blue in full sunlight, like the autumn sky. She had never seen them such a vivid, deep blue.

Rising, she walked over to stand between his legs and he rested his head against her. Stroking through his thick, dense mane, she asked, "Are you hungry?"

He nodded. "I think Gertrude got the pantry stocked up for a few days at least. Let's go inside; I need to call her and find a mechanic for the van anyway." Catherine tugged on his hand and they went back into the house.

***

Later, contently munching on a roast beef sandwich and drinking hot apple cider, Catherine felt herself becoming drowsy. She'd called Gertrude and then the local mechanic that Gertrude recommended, and made arrangements for the van to be towed and repaired, and all of their clothes were unpacked and put away. Now that they were, finally, at their destination, some part of her was succumbing to a bone-deep weariness.

"Catherine," Vincent said, amused. "You nearly fell asleep in your sandwich. Come upstairs and rest with me."

Groggily, she looked at him. "You're tired too?"

Vincent nodded. "We've gotten used to sleeping during the day, after all. We'll both feel rested if we sleep now."

Catherine pushed her hair out of her eyes, and smiled up at him. "When you're right, you're right. I could really do with a nap right now."

They staggered up the creaking stairs and Catherine collapsed on the bed. "I'd forgotten how soft this bed was," she said, pulling her sweater off over her head and leaving only her camisole top and jeans on. Ugh, this bra. This bra has got to come off, because I'm not sleeping in it. She threw the offending piece of underwear in the corner, not caring for once where it landed, and pulled back the covers on the bed.

Her mouth went dry suddenly as she gazed at Vincent. He was wearing one of the homespun-knit-flannel shirt concoctions of the tunnels and a pair of jeans that seemed newer than his normal garb, but as he took his shirt off, she found herself mesmerized by the play of muscles under the soft fur of his arms. She remembered how those arms had held her in the night, braced over her in their passion and...Suddenly, it felt very, very warm in the bedroom.

"Should I light a fire?" Vincent asked, shooting her a wry, humorous glance that told her he'd picked up on her thought and was clearly enjoying it.

"Um, yeah," Catherine said, remembering that Gertrude had said on the phone that the chimney had been swept only last month. "There's some wood by the fire."

Vincent bent down and swiftly lit the fire, affording her an excellent view of his posterior. He stood up and Catherine came to stand behind him, rubbing the soft fur of his back. "Though if you ask me, it's already pretty warm in here." Great. I sound like some character out of a really bad romance novel.

Cath, her inner Jenny piped up. It's not a cliché if it's true. Vincent smiled down at her, that happy, full-fanged grin she loved to see, and turned to rub her back.

She put her arms around his waist. Without all the layers of clothing, he was thinner than she would have guessed, something which had startled her the first time she'd noticed it in the hotel. But his sheer presence was something quite aside from his actual physical mass; he loomed large whenever, wherever he walked.

His arms drew her close and Catherine listened to the soft susurrus of his heart, remembering how she had done so in the height of his illness last summer. "I'm here now, my Catherine," Vincent said, softly, and it was enough for her to chase back the shadows of that dark time. Unexpectedly, she yawned. "You should rest," he said.

Catherine looked up at him. "I can always sleep, but we won't always have this."

"Nevertheless...Catherine, you are tired, and when you awake, I will be here."

Such a simple thing to say, but it brought tears to her eyes. "I love you, you know."

His lips nuzzled the part in her hair. "And I love you, my Catherine."

***

She awoke to the grey, watery light of early evening and the warm crackle of the fire. There was a faint hissing of rain on the windows and Catherine's eyes snapped open. Rain? She tilted her head just slightly to see the rain skitter down the uneven glass of the windows. She smiled; Vincent had to see this. "Hey, love," Catherine whispered.

He muttered something unintelligible. "Vincent," Catherine said softly. "It's raining."

One blue eye opened, then the other. Because of the way he'd been sleeping, half the fur on his face had gone one direction, the other half had gone the opposite direction, giving him a mussed kitten appearance that Catherine found absolutely irresistible. "It's raining?" Vincent asked.

Catherine nodded. "Just like our first concert together. You want to go see it?"

He nodded, pulling on his shirt and cloak and handing her sweater. He put out the fire, and they walked down the creaking stairs, the sound of rain pounding on the slate roof as they went. She opened the screen door and they stepped out into the rain and the darkening clouds. Rain pelted them in cooling drifts and dampened their hair and the damp leaves squelched underfoot in the mud. "It all smells so clean here," Vincent said wonderingly. "No city smells, no smog, no gasoline, no asphalt. Just...clean."

"What else do you smell?" Catherine asked, not caring that the rain was falling on her face.

He tilted his head back. "Grass, leaves, earth...you."

"Me?" Catherine asked, stunned again by how acute his sense of smell was.

His blue eyes darkened as he looked at her and Catherine shivered, though not from the chill rain. "You, with the rain in your hair," Vincent said hoarsely. "The first time I saw you like this, it was all I could do not to kiss you."

A thundercloud opened up and the rain poured down in hard torrents over and around them. His cloak billowed out, turning his eyes the blue-grey of the storm clouds above them. "Nothing's stopping you now, Vincent," Catherine said throatily. His lips came onto hers with an almost bruising force as his arms pulled her closer. She felt his warm hands under her sweater, then stop. "Catherine," he said, backing away slightly. "You're soaked and freezing. Let's go inside."

Was she freezing? She hadn't noticed. But taking his hand, they ran back to the house. As soon as they came to the side entrance of the screened porch, Vincent stopped and took her hand. "You were saying something about a porch swing, Catherine?"

Chapter Eight: Not Even the Rain

Catherine sat down on the porch swing, ignoring the squishing of her clothing. Vincent was watching her but in the dim light, she couldn't see his face clearly.

The lightning reflected off the glass of the porch enclosure, silvering his profile and turning his hair the color of moonlight. He seemed a creature of some other time or place, foreign yet completely and unutterably familiar. "What are you thinking?" she asked, voice no louder than the rain that poured down around them.

Vincent removed his cloak, then his shirt, folding them over the back of a lawn chair. The water dripped down his mane and onto his chest, but he didn't seem to notice as he sat next to her on the porch swing. "I think it's time we both got out of these soaked clothes." His voice was slightly rougher than usual, a faint rasp to his words that Catherine loved to hear.

Catherine grinned at him. "I thought you'd never ask." Her sweater, camisole, jeans and underwear joined his clothes on the back of the chair. It briefly crossed her mind that their clothes were going to take forever to dry in this weather, but the sight of Vincent, naked and lit only by the flashes of light from the storm, drove all other considerations out of her mind. "Come," she said, holding out her hand and drawing him to sit beside her on the long white swing. "Have you ever made love on a porch swing before?"

Vincent snorted. The sound of it was so unexpected it nearly sent Catherine into a fit of the giggles. "Catherine, I've never been on a porch swing, to say nothing of making love on one." He looked at her, and Catherine could have sworn she saw some mischief dancing in his eyes. "Have you?"

"Made love? Why yes, just yesterday, as I recall," Catherine said, laughing. She raised her hands to her mouth in an expression of mock horror. "Don't tell me you forgot."

His hand traced the soft curve of her breast. "Perhaps you would...remind me?"

The wildness of the storm was in his gaze as he looked at her. Catherine remembered, in what seemed another life now, telling him that it was okay to want, but then, she hadn't really been sure he'd heard her undertone: It's okay to want to love fully. It's okay to want to touch me. Now, though....Catherine knew Vincent had heard.

He stood up, pulled her gently to her feet. Catherine watched as he laid down flat on the porch swing, which rocked a little with his added weight but which, surprisingly, did not fall out of the rafters as she'd feared it might. Not that he's all that heavy, but the way this trip has gone so far....

The seat of the porch swing was wider than normal, or so it had seemed to Catherine each time she'd looked at it. Idly, she wondered if perhaps her fantasy hadn't been quite as original as she'd thought. Her ruminations were banished, though, as the lightning flashed on Vincent's nude body. Carefully getting a foothold on the side of the porch swing, she swung her leg over his abdomen and gently sat down. The slats of the seat creaked, but held. "Hello, love," Catherine said, enjoying the feeling of him, warm and solid, beneath her.

Vincent's hands, warm and calloused, rose over her bare legs to caress her breasts. The lightning flashed and the thunder shuddered around them as his hands traced lazy circles—her back, her breasts, and lower still to where she waited to welcome him. Her mouth touched his and she felt his legs flex underneath her in pleasure. He pulled back just a little and she moaned in protest but then felt his mouth closing over her breast and she leaned her head back in joy at the feel of his mouth on her, the gentle rasp of his teeth against her skin.

They passed some time like that, passion and love passing from one to the other as the bond opened golden between them and neither was sure where the other began or ended. Lightning flared again and Catherine saw Vincent's eyes darken to almost black in the dimness. "Catherine, I must..." he gasped. Lifting herself slightly, she felt his hips come to meet her and they were one.

In a way she was beginning to become familiar with, Catherine felt the bond open into a chasm of feeling and sensation as he moved within her. It was no longer so dark on the porch, but grey-shaded and beyond the rattle of the rain, she could hear the stirring of birds seeking shelter and the smell of growing things that would eventually come from this storm and others like it. These are not my perceptions, Catherine realized in a brief moment of clear thought, but Vincent's. This is how and what he sees and feels. Then the bond swelled wider again, overtaking them both as their perceptions merged and blurred, Vincent's roar of completion echoing her own hoarse shout as the rain fell around them.

She leaned forward to rest her head on his chest, feeling the usual slow thrum of his heart beating rapidly under her ear. "Wow," she managed.

There was a bare rumble of a chuckle, then his almost-purr that made her feel warm all over. "Hardly poetic enough, but essentially accurate." Vincent's clawed hand brushed the damp hair back from her face. "I love you, Catherine."

Catherine nuzzled her head into Vincent's shoulder, feeling the swing sway under them. "I love you too."

***

The next morning, Catherine awoke in a near panic, convinced she'd missed the alarm and was going to miss her court appearance. The morning light shone through the linen curtains and brightened the quilt that had been carefully placed over her. Then she realized two things: one, she was in Connecticut and two, that Vincent wasn't beside her. She got out of bed and pulled on her father's old blue robe from the armoire as she padded down the stairs.

He was in the kitchen, humming a tune she vaguely recognized as one Cullen and the others had been singing in an impromptu concert late one evening. "Whiskey in the Jar" eh? Catherine thought, smothering a chuckle as she watched Vincent in the kitchen. He was dressed in his usual tunnel garb of patchwork shirt and worn jeans, but with one crucial difference.

His hair was tied back. It flowed down his back in a thick river of reddish gold, bright as a new penny against the worn linen of his shirt. It was such a simple, ordinary thing, but to Catherine, it was something remarkable. Vincent had never, to her knowledge, tied his hair back, not even when he'd worked on the seasonal repair crews and had come out of it filthy and soaked in mud.

Catherine had her own theory as to why he'd never done so---some fear of emphasizing yet another difference by revealing the shape of his ears? But the fact that he'd tied his hair back at all seemed like a symbol of larger things; that he felt relaxed and comfortable...

"Or that I didn't want hair to get in our eggs," Vincent said mildly. He smiled at her over his shoulder. "The eggs are almost ready, my love."

She blushed a little then at his teasing tone. "Well, whatever the reason, it looks good on you. And thanks for leaving the hair out of the eggs."

With his spatula in his left hand, he sketched a small, absurd bow. "My pleasure."

Catherine giggled. Only then did she notice the smell of the coffee brewing. "Thank you for making the breakfast...and the coffee. I didn't know you could cook."

He shrugged. "William takes the second and fourth Sunday off each month. We rotate cooking duties on those days. When it's my turn, I make breakfast. Though," he continued, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, "I'm usually making food for more people than this."

She opened the cabinet in the corner, pulling out a ceramic mug and pouring herself a cup of coffee. "I'm starved, so that won't be a problem."

He removed the toast from the toaster and handed her a clean plate. "I've heard that exercise will do that to you."

Catherine nearly choked on her coffee. Innuendo, from her Vincent? "Are you all right?" he asked, all innocence.

She grinned at him around a mouthful of coffee. Swallowing, she asked, "Do you drink coffee?"

Vincent nodded. "Sometimes. Though since our supplies of it are dependent on our helpers, we don't have it that often."

Catherine nodded, adding coffee to her mental list of Things to Make Sure the Tunnels Had. "How do you drink your coffee?" she asked, pulling down another cup.

"With milk, thank you," Vincent replied. He turned off the stove and ladled the eggs onto a plate.

Catherine placed the plate and the toast on the worn oak table along with their coffee. She took a bite of the scrambled eggs. "Vincent, these are very good."

"Thank you," he replied, eating some toast. He shifted a bit in his seat and Catherine's instincts were immediately heightened. He shifted again.

"Vincent, are you okay?" she asked, unable to sense anything from their bond except some mild discomfort and embarrassment.

Embarrassment?

"I'm not sure," he said carefully, putting down the toast. "I'm feeling a bit sore."

Oh, God. I wonder if....."I think I know what the problem is. You might have splinters." Catherine felt her face warm as she said the words. "From the porch swing," she added lamely.

"Where else would I have gotten them?" Vincent said, dryly.

Catherine couldn't help it. She started laughing. In a second, Vincent's breathy laughter joined hers. First carsickness, then shredded tires, then cold-and-colder running water, then a suicidal deer and now this—splinters. From making love on a porch swing. "Vincent," she managed when she could finally speak again.

"Yes, my love?" he asked.

"When we tell our grandchildren about this trip, let's leave out this little detail, shall we?"

"Indeed," Vincent replied, grinning, even as he shifted a bit in his seat again.

***

They finished their breakfast and with the dishes soaking in the sink, Catherine went hunting for the first aid kit. I hope Gertrude updated this too---I don't even want to think about how long it's been since we used iodine in this house. Sure enough, Gertrude had; there was an anti-bacterial ointment and, bless her, a pair of tweezers in their packaging. She opened up the package, sterilized the tweezers in the flame from the gas stove and washed her hands, then took the entire first aid kit up to the master bedroom.

Vincent lay on his stomach on the bed. He'd taken off his pants and his head was resting on his folded hands. As she came closer, she could see where the splinters had entered. "The swing must have been made out of cedar," Catherine said. "I'm sorry, Vincent, but these are looking like they've started to fester."

"Cedar does that," he replied, turning his head to face her. "I was helping Cullen refinish an old cedar chest a few months ago and I got some splinters I didn't know about until they'd become infected."

She nodded. The area where the splinters had entered was swollen and red, clearly visible under the light dusting of fur on his backside. Well, we were pretty active on that swing, Catherine thought. Why didn't I put a blanket or something down first?

Catherine started as Vincent's hand clasped hers. "Catherine," he said. "I feel your guilt. Whatever wounds I've gotten were worth it."

"Sorry," she said. "It looks like our days on the swing are over for now."

"No," Vincent replied, flashing a grin full of fangs. "It just means I'll have to be on top."