Magnificent Folly - Iris Johansen [43]
“Dead?” Lily’s eyes widened in horror. “She was in that much danger?”
“It’s only a matter of time after the mind shuts down before the bodily functions follow.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I knew I could bring her back, and it would only have terrified you.”
“Yes.” She was terrified now at the mere thought of how close Cassie had come. “Quenby said half-breeds were prone to this kind of trauma. It’s like a time bomb. It could have happened anytime.” Her voice rose in panic. “It could happen tomorrow.”
“Easy,” Andrew said quietly. “It took a gigantic shock to send her into a tailspin.”
“And what if it had happened before?” Lily asked fiercely. “What if you hadn’t been on the scene?”
“I would have been notified. You don’t think the Clanad would let one of its own go wandering around without being monitored. We care about one another, Lily. The Clanad wouldn’t let my daughter suffer.”
“Just one big happy family.” Her hands tightened into fists. “Well, I don’t know anything about this Clanad of yours, but—”
“The Clanad isn’t only mine; it’s Cassie’s.” Andrew smiled faintly. “And you belong to it now too.”
“No!”
He nodded. “A rather perilous honor, I agree. The only place where we’re safe is Sedikhan, because we’re under the protection of the reigning sheik, Alex Ben Raschid. Anywhere else in the world, discovery of what and who we are means we’re fair game.”
“Even here in America?”
“There are witch hunts everywhere. What was your reaction when Quenby told you?”
“Revulsion,” she said honestly. “Fear.”
“Exactly.” He smiled sadly. “And you’re an intelligent, civilized woman, who knows I care very much for her. There are a hell of a lot of people who are on the lower end of the scale whose reaction would be a good deal more violent. I was almost murdered when I was a child younger than Cassie, by someone who discovered what the Clanad was.”
“Murdered.” She swallowed to try to ease a sudden queasiness in her stomach. “They’d murder a child?”
“As you told Cassie, there are lots of weirdos running around.”
Death. Andrew could have died, and she never would have known him. He never would have grown up, never given her Cassie. She dried her suddenly moist palms on the denim of her shorts. “I don’t understand how anyone could—” She stopped as a thought occurred to her. “This insemination business. Was that the Clanad’s way to spread its powers?”
He nodded. “We were encouraged to be donors, but it wasn’t mandatory. Each parent was investigated for genetic and mental stability, and the children were monitored from birth for any sign of acute sensitivity.” He grimaced. “I wanted no part of it. Until I saw you.”
She laughed shakily. “Well, your investigation went off the track when it came to me. I’d just committed the most incredibly stupid act in the history of the human race, and I was on the verge of a breakdown.”
“But you were a survivor, and struggling damn hard to come back to life. You’re very strong, Lily. You’d have been chosen by the Clanad even if I hadn’t wanted you to belong to me.”
She repeated his words: “A perilous honor. When you consider you gave me a daughter who can go into shock and die at any moment.”
He flinched, and she felt a stab of remorse. The words had tumbled out unthinkingly, born of bewilderment and frustration. “I didn’t mean—”
He interrupted quietly. “No, you have every right to resent it. Our scientists thought the sensitivity would have vanished by the third generation, but you had no choice, and no information on which to base a decision. My only defense is that I thought I was giving you sufficient gifts to balance the bad points. Be fair: If you had the decision to make today, would you choose not to have Cassie?”
Refuse Cassie, with her sunny nature and loving heart? “No,” Lily said instantly. “I’d do it again in a minute.”
Andrew smiled. “Thank God.”
“But that doesn’t mean I hold you any the less culpable for not coming to me and telling me what I’d gotten myself into by bearing Cassie.” She walked over to the chair and