Midnight Secrets

  The punch was less sharp. She rolled that idea around in her mind. The Massacre was horrible, tragic, she had lost her entire family. But, they were gone. No tears, no despair would ever bring them back. If tears and despair and heartbreak could bring people back, her family would be here with her.

  Nothing would bring them back. They were gone.

  But she was here. Right here, right now, she was alive in her house in Portland, Oregon. She could feel the hardwood floor beneath her bare feet. She could feel the softness of her sweats against her skin. She could feel her heart beating in her chest, slow and steady. She could still feel hope and joy, though for the longest time she’d thought they had fled her life forever. She could still have feelings for other people.

  Like Felicity and maybe her friend.

  Like Joe.

  She stood back, looking at her gleaming kitchen, taking as always keen pleasure in order. Tomorrow she’d mess it up again cooking for her new friends. The thought gave her enormous pleasure.

  A meal for chicks, unlike the cooking she’d been doing for Joe and his friends.

  Grilled zucchini dressed with a balsamic vinegar reduction, orange and fennel salad, mini lentil burgers, slices of provolone with wine jelly, baked radicchio with grated parmesan cheese.

  Yes.

  For dessert, raspberry white chocolate mousse. And, if they were to join the guys, she could make chocolate-espresso cheesecake. Or a big pan of apple crumble, with brandy butter. It was one of her favorite party dishes and could make grown men weep.

  Well, maybe not Navy SEALs, probably a little brandy butter wouldn’t make them weep, but still. It would be fun to watch them put that first bite in their mouths.

  She had brandy, didn’t she? In some cupboard somewhere. The cupboards of this house were deep, so she went to get the powerful flashlight Joe insisted she keep handy. He’d chosen it for her and the light could probably be seen from the moon.

  The brandy was under the sink, hidden in the back. The trusty super flashlight lit it up as if it was on stage. So, okay, there was the bottle of brandy. Brandy butter tomorrow night.

  Tomorrow night would be fun.

  Fun.

  She rolled that idea around in her head. Having fun. It felt odd even saying the word in her head.

  The girls over. Then going over to join the guys. Laughing at the grumpy ones who’d lost to Joe. Maybe they could go over in time to see the last couple of hands. She’d really like to see that. Watch Joe’s face, watch his hands holding the cards.

  His hands. Joe had the most beautiful hands she had ever seen, totally unlike the hands of any man she’d ever known. Her dad had always had his hands manicured. She smiled gently. He’d been such a dandy, her father. They’d teased him about it. His suits were always well cut, he sometimes changed his shirt during the day. Shoes always polished, hair barbered twice monthly by the best guy in town.

  He’d said once that he considered it a sign of respect for people but she also knew he liked being well turned-out.

  Joe was the exact opposite. Everything he wore was clean, but well used and rarely ironed. Presumably when he started working that would change, but maybe not. His buddies Jacko and Metal wore work clothes, not suits.

  Joe’s hair was getting shaggy and his hands definitely did not have manicured nails.

  Those hands were strong, though. The strongest, most fascinating hands she’d ever seen. Enormous, callused, even rough. With large raised veins on the back that ran up his muscled forearms. Hard, tough hands. But delicate. When he fixed things or assembled them he had an incredibly delicate touch, gentle and steady.

  Isabel went into her bedroom thinking about Joe’s hands. She’d never really thought about men’s hands before, but his fascinated her. Several times, watching him carefully repair something, she’d flashed on those big strong hands touching her. And she’d have one of those heat flashes that should have belonged to menopause but didn’t. They belonged to Joe.

  Isabel set the flashlight on her bedside table and undressed by the light in the corridor. She liked the half-light. The room seemed mysterious yet cozy, her small collection of silver frames gleaming in the penumbra.

  She undressed and folded her clothes neatly on the small button back nursing chair that had belonged to her great-great-grandmother back in France. Naked, she padded to the chest of drawers and took out her favorite nightgown—a full-length long-sleeved pale pink cashmere nightgown that had been a present from her mother. It was soft and warm and pretty and she loved it.

  She hadn’t worn it since the Massacre. Almost as if wearing it was too great a pleasure for her, inhabiting the world of the half-dead. Something dark and cloudy had lifted inside her head and she saw the truth. Her mother would have wanted her to wear the nightgown. It had been given with love. Why had it lain in the back of her drawer all these months?

  It was time, time to step once more into the land of the living.

  The nightgown was voluminous and fell in soft folds to her feet. She hadn’t worn it in so long she’d almost forgotten about it. Isabel gave an experimental twirl, loving how it belled around her ankles.

  How did it look? She wanted to see it by the light, but was too lazy to cross the room. The flashlight had more candlepower than the ceiling light. She picked it up, turned it on, bringing it around to the mirror and—

  There was a monster at the window!

  Black-faced, with insectoid eyes. So grotesque it took her a second to believe her eyes, like a devil that the earth had just spawned.

  She screamed and screamed, dropping the flashlight, turning to run and bumping into the chest of drawers. Her heart pounded in her chest—it felt like it was bouncing off her rib cage. For a second, she couldn’t breathe through the panic and her chest squeezed.

  “Isabel!” Joe’s deep voice at the front door. He pounded on it so hard she felt the vibrations in the floor. “Isabel, open up!”

  Joe! Isabel ran to the front door, fumbling to punch in the security alarm, pull back the bolt. The instant the door was free Joe pushed into the room. He was bare-chested, in sweats, barefoot. A big black gun was in his right hand.

  “Isabel!” He grabbed her shoulders, looked her up and down. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

  Her heart hammered and it took her long seconds to get enough breath to speak. “A man—” She wheezed in breath. “A man at my bedroom window!”

  Joe picked her up, placed her against the door, one hand to her shoulder. “Stay here,” he said in a low voice. “Don’t move and don’t open to anyone but me.”

  She nodded, swallowing convulsively.

  “Isabel?”

  “Stay here,” she whispered, throat raw. “Don’t open to anyone but you.”

  “Good girl,” he growled and slipped out the door.

  Isabel felt bereft the instant he was gone. It was crazy, he was just outside but she felt completely alone. Whatever Joe was doing, he was doing it silently. There was no noise at all, the silence so deep her pants as she tried to breathe sounded loud in the dark living room. She was still shaking so hard she put her arms around her midriff to hold herself together, otherwise she felt like she’d fly apart in a million pieces.

  Joe was out there, searching for...searching for what? What had she seen? Instinctively she’d said she’d seen a man but actually all she’d seen was smooth darkness and insectoid eyes. Glasses but steampunk-like glasses.

  Isabel closed her eyes, trying to fix what she’d seen in her memory. In her treacherous, treacherous memory. She couldn’t remember the event that shaped her life, how could she trust her own memory?

  But she’d seen someone! Or something. It had been an instant, less than a second. By the time she’d drawn a deep shocked breath to scream, he—or it—had been gone.

  Why would someone be at her window? She couldn’t think straight. Her system had gone into overdrive when she’d seen that—that thing. Staring at her.

  Think, think! she to
ld herself. Joe would want to hear what happened. Unless he’d caught the thing and dragged it inside. But if he didn’t, he’d want to know why she screamed.

  Because she’d seen a monster.

  Only kids saw monsters. And usually they saw them under the bed, not outside the window. And she’d only seen it for a fraction of a second.

  Had her eyes been playing tricks on her?

  Was she crazy?

  Had she seen her own reflection and her sick, muddled mind had projected a monster onto the windowpane? An outward manifestation of the chaos and pain inside?

  A soft knock that she felt through the skin of her back, pressed against her front door.

  “Isabel?” Joe said. “It’s me. Let me in.”

  Shaking, Isabel turned and opened the door. Joe slipped inside and she closed it behind him. In the moment it was open, she could feel the cold air. It was freezing outside but you wouldn’t know it from him. Shirtless and barefoot, he wasn’t shaking and he wasn’t shivering.

  Unlike her.

  Joe looked her over carefully, head to toe, the way a doctor would check for injuries.

  Oh God, no. Please. When putting on her oh-so-pretty nightgown she’d flashed on an image of Joe seeing her in it. She imagined how he’d react. His dark eyes would flare with sexual desire and he’d reach for her.

  His eyes weren’t flaring with sexual desire, he was watching her the way you would watch a wounded person. And he was reaching for her because she was shaking so hard she thought she would fall apart.

  “D-d-did you f-f-find—” Her teeth were chattering so hard she couldn’t speak.

  Joe wrapped his arms around her, just to stop her from flying apart, she was shaking so hard.

  But oh! It felt so good! He was warm and hard and solid, something to cling to while she felt her entire world rock on its foundations.

  “Did you—” She wheezed. Her lungs weren’t working.

  “Did I find someone?” Joe was holding her tight, head bent over hers. She heard his words through his chest more than from his lips. “No.”

  She jolted. No, he hadn’t found him. It.

  Maybe there hadn’t been anyone there. How many monsters could be out roaming around on a cold Portland evening?

  “But—but—I did see someone. Something.”

  Joe’s arms tightened around her, his cheek resting on top of her head. He was curling himself around her as if he could protect her from all sides, including from the ceiling should a monster decide to drop down like a bat.

  “I checked carefully, but couldn’t find anything,” he finally said. “But the ground is hard and wouldn’t leave imprints. I checked your lawn and the bushes to see if someone passing changed the dew patterns, but I didn’t see anything. Maybe tomorrow morning something will show up in the sunlight.”

  It would never occur to her, not in a million years, to check for dew prints. She sighed, burrowed her face in his shoulder. This was awful. At some deep level, she was expecting him to find something, some sign of a human being’s passing.

  But Joe hadn’t seen anything and he was the kind of man who’d find some kind of sign of a monster’s passing, if it was there to be found at all.

  She whimpered, huddled in his arms.

  There hadn’t been anyone there.

  No one.

  Just a figment of her scared and crazy subconscious. No one there but the monsters in her own head.

  Her shaking intensified and her head swam, as if she was in a centrifuge, a place where there was no stable footing, everything spinning out of control.

  “I saw him. It,” she whispered, more to hear the sound of her own voice than anything else. But her voice shook and she barely had the breath to form the words.

  Joe’s arms tightened again and suddenly her legs left the ground. For an instant she thought she was falling to pieces physically and not just mentally. But something strong was holding her. Joe. He was carrying her to the sofa where he sat down with her in his arms.

  She wound up sitting in his lap, arms around his shoulders, face buried against his neck. Though he was bare-chested he was amazingly warm, like a steel furnace. One big strong arm was around her waist, the other cradling her head and she felt like he was the only thing holding her together. Without him she would fly apart.

  Words were forming but they didn’t make much sense. One big hand rubbed her scalp beneath her hair in a soothing caress. Maybe not caress. Maybe it was more trying to calm the lunatic. Isabel closed her eyes tightly but a single tear escaped.

  This was worse than her worst nightmare. Someone seeing her rendered down to bedrock, afraid of everything. So far she’d managed to keep her craziness away from everyone, but here this man, this man she admired and liked and even had sexy thoughts about—this man was seeing her at her most desperate.

  Another tear ran down her cheek. Even her dignity was being taken away from her. A long finger tipped her chin up so she had to look Joe in the eyes.

  They stared at each other. He was studying every feature, his gaze going from her eyes to her mouth, where his gaze lingered. Then he lifted his gaze to look into her eyes again.

  “I saw something,” she said miserably. “I did.”

  Joe blinked. “I know you did,” he said. “Did you think I didn’t believe you?”

  She nodded, never taking her eyes from his.

  Joe bent his head, his nose nudging a lock of hair away from her temple. He bent down to speak directly into her ear, voice low and deep. “I believe you. I’ll always believe you.”

  The words made hot tears spring to her eyes and she had to blink them away. How could he say that when she hardly believed herself?

  It wasn’t just his words that were having a big effect. His body was, too. Being so close to all that strength and power and heat.

  She had a big effect on him, too. Big big effect. When she shifted in his lap her thigh came up against an erection. Not a half-assed one, either. Full-blown, hard as steel. Like sitting next to a section of pipe. With a large diameter.

  For a second she’d wondered what it was, then a flash of heat ran through her like a hot wind.

  This was a surprise. She’d have thought that her crazy behavior would be a turnoff for him. Who wanted a hysterical woman? Joe was handsome, built, had a good job waiting for him. Stable, handsome, built bachelors didn’t grow on trees. He probably had his pick of women, what would he want with her?

  His body didn’t seem to care that she’d just sent him on a wild-goose chase because what she felt against her hip was arousal. Big-time arousal.

  Joe didn’t seem disturbed in any way. He wasn’t thrusting it at her, he wasn’t denying it. But it had the effect of clearing her mind. When she met his eyes she could tell he knew she was past her panic and fully in the moment.

  He was still holding the back of her head in a strong grip and their faces were inches apart, noses nearly touching.

  “You okay?” he asked quietly.

  She nodded her head jerkily.

  “Can you tell me exactly what you saw?”

  She nodded again. Sighed. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

  “No.” Joe’s voice was firm. “I’m not.”

  Okay.

  “I was, um, planning tomorrow night’s menu. Having fun with it. You know Felicity and Lauren are coming over tomorrow night while you guys play poker?”

  A corner of his mouth lifted. “No, I didn’t. Sounds great. Then you come over to my house with dessert, right?”

  “Something like that. Maybe. Though it appears you take everyone’s money.”

  Joe nodded. “They keep coming back for more of it, though. I’m really glad you’ll be spending time with Felicity and Lauren. They’re great.”

  “Well, I liked Felicity and she likes Lauren so it looks good. Anyway, I went into the bedroom to change into my nightgown and go to bed.”

  Joe looked down at her nightgown, fingered the material. “It’s a really
pretty nightgown, too.” When he looked back up at her there was heat in his dark eyes. Exactly what she’d hoped for when putting it on. The skin over his cheekbones tightened and the steel tube next to her hip came alive and surged.

  She blushed. Crazy. Sex had never been a big problem for her, but by the same token had never been really that big a deal, either. She realized now that she hadn’t truly desired her former lovers because she hadn’t felt anything for them like what she was feeling now.

  She desired Joe. A lot. Heat filled her down to her fingertips. Her womb contracted when she felt his penis move, exactly as if he had been inside her instead of her sitting on his lap separated by layers of clothing.

  His jaw muscles clenched. They both knew what was happening.

  “Go on,” he said. “I need to know what you saw.”

  She’d been studying his face, all the minute changes in it as he went from fierce protector to man. Absolutely fascinating. He seemed to be more self-disciplined than she was, though, because it took her a second to realize what he said.

  All this heat had served an important function. Isabel didn’t feel so lost and alone and crazy. Joe’s physical presence gave weight and heft to her memory, grounding her.

  Isabel sat up straighter, brushing his penis again. His hand had gone from cupping the back of her head to cupping her neck and she tilted her head slightly.

  “I was looking for something using that flashlight you gave me. It’s really bright.”

  “It’s supposed to be,” Joe said.

  “I went into the bedroom. I needed something and instead of turning on the bedside lamp or the ceiling light, I used the flashlight. It crossed the window and that’s when I saw him. It.”

  “Why do you say it? You couldn’t tell the sex?”

  Isabel took her time. This was important, if he was going to believe her. “It because it didn’t quite look human. Now that I think of it, it was probably a ski mask, but in that moment, that split second, it was like this—this thing outside my window had no human features. No nose, no mouth, just black blankness, and those eyes.”

  Joe frowned. “What about the eyes? What was wrong with them?”

  This was the tricky part. “They, um. They weren’t human eyes. That’s what went through my mind. The immediate overall effect was alien.” She shuddered. “That’s when I thought I was losing it. But they weren’t alien eyes. It or he or she was wearing some funny kind of goggles. Like steampunk goggles.”