“You know,” he’d told her softly, “he’s only such a jerk because he’s afraid.”
“What?”
“Matt. He’s afraid.”
“You’ve lost me. Matt is really afraid of ghosts?”
That brought Clint’s devastating, deep-dimpled grin into play along with a spate of laughter. “Matt? Afraid of ghosts? No. He’s not even afraid of whackos with guns and knives. He’s afraid of you.”
“Why would he be afraid of me?”
Clint had joined her against the rail. Tall, lean, charming. And very handsome. She wondered why she couldn’t feel an almost painful physical draw to him.
He’d reached out to smooth down a stray strand of her hair.
“Because he really likes you—and respects you—but doesn’t want to. Because you’re a beautiful redhead.”
That had brought a smile from her. “Thank you. That’s sweet. It’s also bull.”
Clint shook his head. “His wife was a total bitch. She was insane over him at first, but he couldn’t be deterred from the house or his work, and she just wasn’t the kind who could live long without playing hard—all over the globe. Then she started to think that he had lost interest in her, and she tried to make him jealous. Wrong move with Matt. It just turned him off completely. But she did have her ways. So…when the marriage went all to hell, it left a nasty taste in his mouth.”
“For redheads.”
“A certain kind of redhead.”
“Great. I’m a kind of redhead?”
“Cool. Smooth. Sophisticated.”
“Sophisticated, huh?”
“A kind of sophistication that no one can acquire if it isn’t just natural. So…Matt is going to act like a jerk. That’s why you should forget all about him, and realize just how attractive I am.”
“You’re very attractive.”
“But you’re just not interested. Still…you change your mind, I’m around. Ready to rush to your defense at any moment.”
“Hopefully, I won’t need any defenders.”
“Don’t crush my crusading spirit!”
“If I do need a defender, I’ll be delighted that you’re there. How’s that?”
“A crumb!” Clint told her, but he was grinning, and he slipped an arm around her shoulder as he led her back into the house.
Penny had hot tea and scones prepared when they got inside. When it had hit eleven, Darcy had yawned, excused herself, and gone to bed. Her room had seemed cold and cavernous that night, despite the warmth outside.
She’d opened the balcony door, certain herself that nothing evil was coming from outside the room.
Whatever watched her had a place within.
She watched a late-night show on TV, giving it halfhearted attention.
Something waited within the room.
She did so herself.
Well after midnight, she was still certain that Matt hadn’t returned. And still, some time after that, she drifted to sleep.
Soon after, she began to dream again, entering into the world of another. Vaguely, in a subconscious place, she knew that she dreamed once again. This time as another…
Before, she had dreamed as a man, coming to the house.
This night, she entered the soul of the woman who had waited.
She’d not begun the evening with any great sense of fear or urgency. Indeed, she’d been angry herself, and ready to fight, argue, speak her mind—and change her life. She’d not thought a thing about going to bed that night.
She was certain that he would not come. All that raged between them was too close, too tense, too passionate.
She was furious!
By the dim light, she sat down at her desk and began to write. He could do what he wanted. She couldn’t stop him.
But he was going to pay.
Yet, as she set out to write, pulling out a sheet of stationery with her personal emblem, she paused. It was a beautiful night. Cloudless, allowing even the gibbous moon to cast a serene glow over the rolling hills of the countryside beyond the window. For a moment, a sense of hesitance settled over her. There was so much here, so much between them.
Ah, but…
She had been betrayed. He had betrayed her.
She started to write. From somewhere near, she heard the whinny of a horse. A dog began to howl and bark. Oblivious she set to her task, determined. The die had been cast.
Then…
A sound.
Darcy awoke with a start. The sense of sharing another’s dream, of being that person, reliving the past, fell from her as if she had doffed a cloak from her shoulders.
And yet, blinking in the shadowed room, she struggled to fathom what had awakened her. Had it been the sound she heard within the dream?
No…
She listened, and was certain that she had heard something.
Out on the balcony.
Footsteps, slow, quiet, furtive.
She bit into her lower lip, silent and dead still for a moment. Then she slipped from beneath the covers, stepped out of the bed and rose, slowly, quietly. Her bare feet made no sound on the soft Persian rug beneath the bed. She prayed that a floorboard wouldn’t creak.
Carefully, she moved across the floor to the balcony. Standing behind the softly billowing drapes, she looked out. Nothing. Nothing, but the moon in the sky, and a gentle breeze. She moved out, one slow step at a time, and still, nothing.
With a sigh, Darcy frowned and walked to the railing.
Then she heard it again. Something…just a sound, a scratch…from behind her. She started to turn.
She saw nothing but a whir of darkness. She felt the quick whack of something hard against her head like a bolt of lightning out of the blue.
Not hard enough to knock her out. Hard enough, however, to make her stagger, fall to her knees, cry out.
And see nothing more…
She brought her hand to her head, more furious than hurt. The whack hadn’t been at all deadly, and her head wasn’t spinning. As she staggered up, the balcony doors next to her own burst open.
And there was Matt. Clad in Calvin Klein black knit boxers, and nothing more. Staring at her as if a lunatic had decided to knock on his door in the middle of the night.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.
Perhaps it looked a little strange. She realized that she was standing directly in front of his French doors, disheveled and barely dressed. She’d opted for her favorite type of nightgown that night rather than the long T-shirts she often wore to bed. It was white, diaphanous. Sleeveless, with Victorian lace around the bodice. Her hair was all over. She might have resembled the mad Lady of Shalott.
“I…there was something out here,” she said.
He lifted a brow, leaned back slightly, and crossed his arms over his chest. “The ghost is hanging around on the balcony?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?”
He was mocking her, of course. Aggravated herself, she too crossed her arms over her chest and tried for a look of dignity. “I heard something out here. It woke me.”
“Did it whisper in your ear?”
“Stop that, will you? I think that there was someone out here.”
“Alive or dead?”
“Someone. Alive.”
He continued to stare at her skeptically, but then stepped past her. She could hear him swearing beneath his breath, but he did at least seem willing to take a look around. He walked the length of the balcony. When he disappeared around the corner, she felt a strange sense of loss and a chill invading her. Time seemed to stand on end, to stretch out, and the cold—despite the balmy night—to seep into her bones. How long could it take him to walk the circumference of the wraparound balcony? Granted, it was a big house, but….
She stared to the left, watching the corner where he had disappeared. Hesitantly, she walked toward it herself, then nearly screamed to high heaven when she felt a touch upon her shoulder.
&nbs
p; Jumping half a mile, she swirled around and saw that Matt was back.
“I can’t find anyone,” he told her, his voice polite, and still curt.
“Wait a minute here,” she said angrily, planting her hands on her hips. “You’re the one so convinced that there aren’t any ghosts, that some kind of real, outside force is causing the ‘haunting’ here. So why are you so mad when I think that I’ve heard someone prowling around on the balcony?”
He had that chiseled stone expression one that she had learned when she had first met him at the Wayside Inn. His arms were still crossed over the breadth of his chest.
“Sorry. But I didn’t hear anything. And I have really sharp ears.”
“Even when you’re sleeping?”
“Even when I’m sleeping.”
“You still might have missed something.”
“Anything is possible.”
“Glad to hear you believe that.”
“I think I told you to keep your balcony doors locked. If I’m not mistaken, you seemed to be the one totally oblivious to danger in the night.”
For a moment she was still, locking her jaw as she stared at him.
“Someone hit me in the head!” she said, indignant.
“What?” His attitude changed. He stepped forward, lifting her chin, searching out her eyes. “You were hurt?”
She shook her head, still feeling his fingers against her cheek and chin. He was too close, but she didn’t draw away. “I’m not…hurt. But there was someone here, and…well, I don’t…it was just a way for the person to disappear.”
“A real person?”
“Yes.”
“Not like Clara. She said that a ghost struck her in the face. You didn’t fall…trip…or bang your head another way?”
There was concern, and more. Maybe he was feeling a certain triumph, as she had that afternoon. He didn’t believe in ghosts. Well, he had ghosts, whether he wanted them or not. But this time, he had been right. A real person had been on the balcony.
“There was someone—flesh and blood—out here tonight,” she said. He hadn’t moved. The scent of his skin seemed very rich, and ridiculously intoxicating. She didn’t want to move. She wanted to lay her head against his bare chest.
He was closer, somehow.
His finger-feathered over her hair then, touched down gently on her temple. “Where…uh…were you struck?”
“I…uh…side of the head.”
“Is there a bump?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Are you dizzy?”
“No.” A lie, but her state of physical rubber had nothing to do with the knock on the head.
“You’re all right? Really all right?”
His breath caressed her forehead. Her lips were dry. She nodded, still not moving. His hands still cradled around her head. Her lips could almost brush his flesh.
“I’m…fine.”
Then he tilted her chin again, looked into her eyes. A hint of five o’clock shadow teased his cheeks. His dark hair was sleep-mussed. His body seemed to emit heat like a radiator, making the night chilly, and the length of him a beacon. Tension gripped his muscles, appeared with his every breath. She could hear his heart beat. And her own.
“This would be crazy,” he whispered.
“You bet,” she agreed, and yet, still, neither of them moved, and the breeze seemed to grow cooler, making the rise of tension between them a delectable, taunting warmth.
Then the warmth of his breath touched her ear and just the timbre of his voice created a cascade of hot blood rushing through her veins.
“Are you feeling crazy?” he asked.
“Totally insane,” she whispered back.
His hand molded around her chin again and a moment later, his mouth covered hers. It should have been a slow and gentle kiss, a getting-to-know-you kiss, and it started out that way. But the very movement erupted almost instantly into something else, deep, consuming, passionate, ravaging. Maybe it was the way his arms wrapped around her, or that last eighth of an inch between their bodies was pressed away, the feel of the full length of his form, the sheerness of her clothing, the raw feel of the so nearly naked man. Their mouths clung together, tongues became weapons of seduction, and just standing in the night, a violent hunger seized them both, and the kiss was the most sweepingly carnal she had ever experienced, the very movement of his lips, teeth, and tongue seeming suggestive of everything that was to come. It wasn’t her, Darcy thought, realizing that she responded with blatant urgency, almost awed, wanting everything and more. Life didn’t usually offer her such a feast, and their exchange had been the truth, for this was lunacy. But there was no thought about tomorrow, what she did, what he did, thought, or believed. Tomorrow did not exist, for as he held her, as his mouth seared her, as the force of his arousal pressed and drummed and taunted, there was nothing she could care about except for the culmination of the storm of wonder that swept through her with such fantastic force.
Darcy felt as if she melted against him, as simply as dew against the grass when the sun rose, and she was grateful for and almost oblivious to the arms that held her, lifted her then, and carried her through the balcony doors. His room, not the Lee Room, she noted vaguely, too aware of the feel of his sinew in his arms, the cut of his face as he made his way to the bed. The surroundings didn’t matter. The sheets were cool and clean and smelled of fabric softener, and the mattress was deep and inviting, but not even that mattered; steel at her back wouldn’t have mattered because his lips had trailed from hers to her throat, and she was still in the sheer gown, which seemed no barrier. The feel of his mouth closing over her breasts, the searing wetness over and through the fabric, and his tongue chaffing her nipple sent streaks of lightning ripping through the length of her. Her fingers tore through her hair as he leaned against the bed, lowering himself against her, she was aware of his hands at her side, long, powerful, handsome hands, as arresting as…
The feel of his mouth, almost agonizingly erotic over the fabric of her gown, lowering over her abdomen, lowering still. And then those hands, those glorious hands, slipping at last beneath the fabric, and his touch on her thighs, so intimate, too intimate, and yet all that they must be for this insanity, stroking and caressing into the core of her. And then the touch of his tongue, blazing with intensity, arresting every vein and muscle within her, creating fire within every fiber of her being. And at that moment, there wasn’t the least surge of hesitance, of inhibition, within her, not a thought that they were not seasoned lovers, that this kind of shattering contact should take time, knowing, caring….
There was simply response, for every action, a reaction, and she followed every law of physics, spiraling, arching, twisting, and gasping with every electric jolt of lightning that filled and awakened her. She had to touch, stroke, taste, caress and evoke in return, and in minutes, they were tangled flesh and limb. She flourished, as if long accustomed to an arid life, her world had suddenly been filled with the thrill of a waterfall, and in the end, she wanted so much that it couldn’t be, that a hoarse and gasped out cry of impatience ripped from his lungs, and they were truly melded together. The shock of his body thrusting fully into her own sent another wave of climactic ripples tearing through her, and then the night became nothing but movement, urgent, yearning, fast and spinning. Man and flesh, bed beneath, the world rocking, and vague impressions of the tension in his face, the fire in his eyes, the hunger…and then…a catapult stiffness, ejaculation, and her climax, so violent, volatile, complete and almost devastating that she cried out, shuddering like leaves blown in winter, again, ripples of aftermath sweeping over her again and again until they subsided slowly to nothing more than the gasps of breath that still tore from her lungs.
And then…
The truth of shadows. The balcony doors, still open to the night. The massive size of his bed, the books on the shelves nearby, the very real feel of the person beside her, the one who had mocked her, who didn??
?t believe in ghosts, who had stared at her in such horror when she had found the skull.
She stared at a mote of shadow dust, almost like a miniature star, dancing in a pale ray of moonlight. He stroked a hand through her hair, brushing it from her face, and despite what she had always thought of as the honesty of her life, she curled against him with a soft groan, burying her face against his chest, far from the gray eyes that seemed to see far too much within her, in daylight, shadow, and even darkness.
“Sh!” he murmured softly, and she realized that reality had come back far more quickly to him, or perhaps, it had never left him.
“What?”
“I think someone is downstairs.”
“Someone…up to something?” she asked a little anxiously, and rose against him enough to see his face. He was smiling, a slow, lazy, rather self-satisfied smile. He cast an elbow behind his head to rest against it as he studied her.
“Actually,” he murmured politely, only a trace of amusement in his tone, “I think that we might have awakened the living and the dead.”
Shadows could never hide the flood of crimson that came to her cheeks. “Lord! I’m sorry,” she mumbled quickly, suddenly thinking to escape.
His arm was around her. She wasn’t moving.
“Are you?” he asked quietly. “I’m not.” For a moment, he was sincere, and there was something in his face and in his tone that caught at her, heart and soul. But then he added, “Do you really think we might have awakened the dead?”
And she knew that in his way, he still laughed at her.
She pushed away from him, meaning it, and he released her. It was frustrating to discover that she couldn’t find her nightgown, it had become so entangled in the covers.
“Hey!” he said softly, drawing her back. And she was forced to meet his face, and he asked, “Are you sorry? Because, most sincerely, I am not.”
“You do think I’m a fake,” she informed him, a frost of ice coming to her words.
He shook his head. “No. Never a fake.”
She arched a brow. “Are you referring to life—or sex?”
Again, that slow lazy smile that might have broken a hundred hearts. “Both, maybe.”