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“I can see inside you, and I see a beautiful soul.”
Melissa had been stunned. No one had touched her so gently since the accident. Her looks had repulsed all of the previous nannies, and they hadn’t bothered to hide it. Deanna had touched her softly and told her she was beautiful. Melissa hadn’t known whether to hit her or to cry. So she’d done both. As her love-starved soul pounded the new nanny, Melissa had dissolved into tears. Deanna had gathered her in her arms and held her close. She’d sobbed as only a heartbroken child could.
They’d been friends ever since. Not that Melissa had made it easy for Deanna, but Deanna had thrived on the challenge and had made Melissa’s life alive with laughter, learning and love.
They’d been inseparable until Deanna married Sam Ziegler five years ago. Sam and Deanna had since had two beautiful children, and Melissa’s time with Deanna was reduced to one night a week and daily phone conversations. Melissa allowed herself to visit her two god-children only when Sam was absent.
Tonight Melissa was determined to push Tyler’s arrival on her doorstep last night and his presence in her dungeon out of her mind and concentrate on the movie Dee had brought. Ghost was Dee’s favorite and she’d brought along the required box of tissues.
Dee lay sprawled on the sitting room’s comfortable couch while Melissa sat cross-legged on the plush cream-colored carpet using the couch leg as a backrest. A bowl of popcorn was propped on several cranberry-and-forest-green throw pillows within easy reach of both women.
Patrick Swayze slid his hands provocatively over Demi Moore’s body while “Unchained Melody” played in the background. The actors’ eyes glowed as they savored each other’s bodies. And though Tyler looked nothing like Patrick, and she in no way resembled Demi, Melissa saw him there on the screen, touching her like that. Ridiculous, of course. Only Dee could stand the sight of her face. Only the horses could stand her touch.
“Is love really like that?” Melissa asked, eyes glued to the TV as she popped a handful of popcorn into her mouth.
“Like what?” Deanna answered lazily, her attention also directed at the screen.
“Serious and strong and raw and, I don’t know, so intense.” What was real? What was movie magic?
“Sometimes.”
“Does it happen with all men or only when you’re with a special one?” She had nothing to go on to analyze the strange feelings Tyler stirred in her.
“Why do you ask?”
“Just curious.” Melissa chewed on another handful of popcorn. “Do you realize I’ll be thirty next month and I’ve never even been kissed by a man?”
Dee sat up, reached for the remote control and switched the movie off. “What’s going on in that head of yours, Melissa?”
“Nothing.” Melissa picked up the bowl of popcorn and balanced it on her knees, refusing to look directly at Deanna. She concentrated on each kernel she picked, chewing it longer than necessary and swallowing it untasted. How could she explain lustful thoughts about a man who wanted to hurt her when she wasn’t even sure what lust was?
“Come on, Mel. I know you. I know something’s eating you.”
Melissa continued her ritualistic choosing of popcorn, thinking of the man under lock and key in her dungeon. Now that Tyler Blackwell was fit, though bruised, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with him. Dee was right, she should have shoved him out the portcullis at first light. But that would only have enhanced her witch image. And that, she’d decided as she’d watched him last night, was the last thing she needed.
Now, watching this movie of two people in love, she knew she wanted someone other than Dee and Grace to see her as a person—to see her as a woman. But how to achieve that when people tended to see only the scars?
“I’m just wondering about love between a man and a woman,” Melissa said finally, not knowing quite what she wanted Dee to tell her. “How does it come about? How do you know when you’ve got it? What does it feel like?” She put the bowl of popcorn aside and faced Dee. “Is it like in the movies?”
Deanna shook her head. “Oh, boy, I don’t know how to answer that. Why this sudden urge to find out?”
Melissa shrugged, then stood and walked to the window. Nothing but blackness in all its shades. After Dee left, she would go for a ride and gallop away all these crazy sensations sliding through her.
“Because I feel empty inside. I want a husband and children. A normal life—like yours. And I know I can never have that. I guess I’m going through an early mid-life crisis.” She laughed halfheartedly, then turned to stare once more at the darkness. “How long does it take to get pregnant?”
“What!”
“Well?”
Deanna flushed. “We covered that in basic biology.”
“Would one time be enough?”
“Are you considering artificial insemination?”
Then something seemed to click in Deanna’s mind. She gasped and spilled the bowl of popcorn with her foot as she sprang up. “He’s still here! Tyler Blackwell’s still here! I thought we agreed letting him go was best all around. Dad says his being here can’t be good. He’s a dirt-digger, Mel. He doesn’t stop until he gets what he wants.” Deanna sucked in air and put a hand over her heart. “You’re not planning on sleeping with him, are you?”
“Are you mad!” Melissa brushed away the half-sketched thought. “The man is out to ruin me. Of course I’m not going to sleep with him.” She sneered and slapped her left cheek. “Do you really think he’d want to take someone like me to bed? Or that I’d even know how to seduce a man?”
Gently Deanna wrapped one arm around Melissa’s shoulders. Melissa hated the pity in her friend’s eyes.
“You know that’s not what I mean,” Dee said softly. “It’s just that he’s not another of the battered creatures you like to take in. He’s much more dangerous.”
“I know that.” Melissa knew it with her mind, saw it with her eyes, felt it in the strange sensation shivering down her back. Shrugging off Dee’s hand, she sat down and pressed the remote to restart the movie. But there was also something about Tyler Blackwell, about the pain in his voice, in his eyes, when he called to his Lindsey, that touched her deeply.
“I don’t want to see you hurt.”
“I know.” But Dee, in her own well-meaning way, had also never encouraged Melissa to venture past these castle walls. All the field trips but one had been James Randall’s idea. Because of his generous donations, he’d had museums and galleries opened after hours just for her. And as dangerous as Tyler Blackwell was, his words could open a whole new world to her. The only way she could think to achieve that was to hold him prisoner until he saw past the witch.
Patrick Swayze kissed Demi Moore, and she arched back in ecstasy at his touch. After wondering all night and all day what she was going to do with her unwanted guest, Melissa had her answer. The only question left in her mind was whether she would have the courage to follow through on her brash decision.
“MR. BLACKWELL?”
A woman’s voice pierced through layers of drowsiness, and Tyler winced as he propped himself up to answer.
“What…? What time is it?” he asked, his voice hoarse with sleep. “Who are you?”
“I’m sorry to wake you up, but I need to talk to you. I’m Deanna Ziegler, a good friend of Melissa’s.” She looked at her watch and added, “It’s about two in the morning.”
“Two a.m.!” Tyler sat up. He was wide awake now and annoyed. “What the hell are you doing here at this time?”
“Visiting. For Melissa it’s only midafternoon—she keeps quite different hours from most people. I want to know what your intentions are.”
“Intentions?” His eyes adjusted to the night and he stared unbelievingly at the small woman peering at him through the bars of his cell. She sounded like a father facing his daughter’s suitor. By the moon’s soft light, spilling from the high window, he guessed she was about forty. Her hair, gleaming white and her smooth Germanic features drawn tight with worry betrayed her age more than the well-proportioned figure clad in fuchsia exercise pants and flower-print T-shirt.
“I’ll arrange for Grace to let you go in the morning. I suggest you leave the second you get the opportunity,” Deanna said.
Tyler guessed that “Papa” had judged him to be an unsuitable prospect. Who was Grace? The woman who brought him his meals?
“I can’t.” He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, then leaned his elbows on his thighs and cradled his head in his hands. The angel of his hallucinations with her heavenly voice and jewel-green eyes had revisited him in dreams a man like him had no right to have. The angel was so far removed from the tabloid witch that he had to reconcile the two and find which one was real. Maybe he was doomed to repeat his mistakes, he thought, as the need for answers once again reasserted itself. How did he expect to find a new path if he followed the same old road?
“What do you mean you can’t?” Anger rose and turned the woman’s soft features surprisingly hard. “Melissa’s been through hell and can’t take any more of the kind of pain you bring.”
“I’m not here to hurt her.”
The knuckles of the hands gripping the bars whitened. She shook her head. “She doesn’t need the kind of notoriety your work brings. It’ll change the quiet atmosphere she’s used to and needs to survive. You’re an investigative reporter, and I’m telling you there’s nothing here to investigate or report.”
“I’m not going to hurt her,” he repeated flatly. Family feuds had a way of burning anyone foolish enough to cross the battlefield. Freddy had to know that or he would have come to the rescue himself.
“Maybe you really don’t mean to, but you have to understand, Melissa isn’t like the people you’re used to interviewing.”
“I don’t imagine she is.” How could she be after spending her life alone in a place like this?
“Put yourself in her place. You’re eight years old and you’re disfigured in the same accident that kills your mother. Imagine growing up without love, with scars that today even the best plastic surgeon can’t make disappear because they’re too old and set. Imagine being kept in a room all alone—just because your family thinks you’re too ugly for anyone to see. Imagine what that does to the psyche of a child, and then tell me that your words won’t hurt her.” She jerked at the bars. “Go back to your editor and tell him you can’t do this story.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You have nothing to lose, Mr. Blackwell. You’ll get other chances. The last reporter who did a story on her nearly killed her with his words. She’s had enough pain to last her a dozen lifetimes. Leave her alone. Go,” Deanna pleaded.
Deanna’s fierceness spoke of loyalty and love. Freddy wanted Tyler’s reason for being here to remain a secret until he could corroborate it, but he’d also said that to get to Melissa he had to go through Deanna. Nothing short of the truth would work here. “Freddy Gold sent me.”
She snapped back as if the bars were suddenly electrified. “Why would Freddy Gold send a reporter? He knows how she feels about them.”
“To do an article on Eclipse.”
“Freddy doesn’t send reporters. I send him Melissa’s copy over the Internet.”
Freddy, Tyler thought, had probably never gotten around to asking his secretary to call Deanna about the article on her stallion. Were Rena and the baby okay? “He thinks she’s in danger.”
“From what?”
Tyler sighed. Freddy’s hunches had garnered him untold scoops, but sometimes they were a pain in the butt to explain. But if he was to stay, he had to convince Melissa’s guardian that his presence was needed here. “He received a warning that someone wants her harmed.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. That’s why he sent me here. He knows Melissa won’t talk to him, won’t even pick up the phone when he calls. He knows she won’t accept his help except through a business transaction. That’s why he thought she’d go for an article about her horse now that show season is under way. His secretary was supposed to call.”
“She didn’t.”
The thing about Freddy’s hunches was that they were usually right. And if Freddy thought danger lurked around Melissa’s castle, then there was probably something to it. Sometimes the intuition proved nothing more than a leaky faucet. Sometimes it was the shot that killed the woman you loved. But it was always worth checking out.
“I promised Freddy I’d keep her safe. That’s all.” That was everything. And it was too much. Especially when she’d managed to haunt his dreams in less than a day. He rubbed at the pain pounding in his forehead. “The story is just a cover. I won’t write one word about her. Call Freddy—he’ll verify my claim.”
“She’s as safe as she can be behind these walls. The last thing she needs is an intruder—a reporter—with a hidden agenda.” Deanna made an exasperated sound. “The best thing you can do for her is leave. I’ll look out for her. I’ve been keeping her safe for a long time.”
“Then maybe a fresh set of eyes is warranted.”
Deanna’s face hardened. “I come from a powerful family. I can make sure you never work again.”
“The name Ziegler doesn’t ring a bell.”
A drop from the leaky faucet pinged onto the brick floor. A gust of wind moaned through the half-opened window. The concert of crickets outside suddenly stilled.
“Try Randall, as in James Richmond Randall.”
“Randall Industries?”
“The very one.”
The hair on the back of his neck bristled. Last year a trail of creative accounting, colored profits and corruption had led to Randall Industries before it ran cold.
Old instincts he thought had died with Lindsey revived. Danger had a scent, a taste, a feel of its own, and it slithered through him in a sticky cold that threatened to turn to black. He got up from the cot, shrugged off the unwanted feelings creeping down his spine and shuffled to the gate. He held the bars right above Deanna’s hands and looked straight into her pale blue eyes, gleaming in the moonlight.
“Even J.R. Randall can’t take something away from nothing. But you, how will you feel if the warning Freddy got is true and something happens to Melissa?”
Deanna swallowed hard. “She’s safe here.”
Money makes people do unspeakable things.
Did Freddy know Deanna was linked to Randall Industries? Was that why he’d sent him here? What chance did Melissa have against someone who thought nothing of murder to keep an illusion afloat?
“She’s in danger, Ms. Ziegler, but not from me.”
“I will not let you harm her.”
“Then help me keep her safe.”
Chapter Four
Tyler’s worst hangover paled in comparison to the freight train barreling through his head. He tried to hold very still, but somehow the bruises on his body felt as if they were being pressed in turn for doneness.
Grace returned several times during the day. First with a bottle of extra-strength ibuprofen, his laundered clothes, soap and a set of towels, then with lunch, and finally in midafternoon with the remnants of his personal effects from his Jeep—minus his Swiss Army knife, razor, cell phone and Palm Pilot.
She inquired more than once if he wanted the doctor to look at his head again. He refused, knowing instinctively that once he left the witch’s castle, she wouldn’t allow his return. The faster he got to the bottom of the situation here, the sooner he could go. He didn’t like the way his promise to Freddy was drawing him back into a past he was trying to forget.
He closed his eyes. The image of Lindsey’s blue eyes widening with shock, of blood blooming on the bodice of her white dress, exploded on the black screen of his lids. He moved too fast as he sought to escape the bloody vision. Pain rattled through him as he came to a sitting position. Wiping a hand over his face, he forced himself to concentrate on his current situation.
What if Melissa wasn’t the innocent lamb Freddy thought her to be? What if she was involved in a partnership with Randall Industries?
Then this time, he wouldn’t miss the mark.
He was willing to bet that, for all Melissa Carnes’s witch reputation, his skills were honed to a sharper edge—even with the wasted year to dull them. When he knew ahead of time he had to be patient, he found it easier to quell hasty actions and keep focused on the goal. And his goal was to wipe the slate clean between him and Freddy, to start fresh on a new page.
He rolled his shoulder, dragged his hands through his hair and massaged the back of his neck. A chilling feeling crept into his being, burrowed under his skin, and made evil seem to lurk in every shadowy crack in the stone wall, in the suffocating heat that settled and thickened the must, in the dankness that seemed to coat his skin like slime.
And if he wasn’t careful, he thought, it just might swallow him whole—just as it had after Lindsey’s death. The whiskey demon whispered to him and Tyler felt the pull of it from head to gut. Think of something else. Think of what you’re supposed to accomplish here. Think of the story.
As evening darkness infused his already dim cell, the jangling of keys announced an arrival—but not Grace. Not Deanna. The footsteps were too light, too airy. Melissa Carnes. Patience was paying off.
“About time,” Tyler mumbled.
He knew she was there, could feel her watching him from the shadows. He hated the fact his pulse kicked up a notch at her arrival. Leaning back on the unyielding hardness of the stone wall, he waited. The one who spoke first was always at a disadvantage.
“Does the dark frighten you, Mr. Blackwell?”
The melody in her voice took him by surprise. Given her reputation, her possible connection with Randall Industries, he’d almost expected a cackle. “Not particularly. What about the light that scares you?”
Her throaty laugh echoed in his cell. “You haven’t done your homework, then.”
