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Another image worked its way into his mind. The child. Dinah. He had talked to her, drawn solace from her, given her comfort. At least he thought he had, though he couldn’t bring any of their recent conversations into sharp focus. But he sensed a connection with her. A longing. A need to keep her safe and to protect her.
It was part of the guilt.
But that wasn’t why he had gone to her room. Over and over. He needed to see her, to watch her sleep and to assure himself that she was still safe.
Quickly, he found his way down from the cliff, into the house, into the child’s bedroom, where he stood beside her bed, gazing down at her.
She stirred in her sleep but didn’t waken. He reached out a hand, then let it fall back to his side. Better not to disturb her now. He would let her be.
But the woman…
He would go to the woman. She had come back to him at last. The thought of her set off a humming in his head. An eagerness. An urgency. A need to recapture the past.
BREE’S EYES SNAPPED open.
Fear leaped inside her chest as she fought to remember where she was. Then, from below her, she heard the crashing of waves against solid rock, and recent events flashed through her mind: the flight from Baltimore, the drive from San Francisco, Ravencrest and everyone she had encountered since arriving at this cold, massive house.
Her jaw clenched. She made an effort to relax and almost succeeded, until it registered that the room was dark, except for a small beam of moonlight filtering through a crack at the edge of the drapes.
But she’d deliberately left the light on in the bathroom. Why wasn’t it burning now? Had the electricity gone off all over the house, or had someone turned off the light in her private quarters?
A tremor rippled across her skin as her gaze shot to the door that led to the hallway. It was closed.
Mentally, she went over her actions before going to bed. She’d been so tired she could barely function, but she did remember locking the door.
Under the covers, her nails dug into her palms as her hands clenched. Maybe that had awakened her—the small noise of the latch springing open. Or had someone come in another way?
Silently she damned herself for falling into bed without thinking things through. She should have checked the closet for hidden passages. And she should have fetched the gun from her suitcase.
It wasn’t an ordinary gun. In today’s climate she never would have risked trying to pack a regular handgun in her luggage. This was a special model designed by Randolph Security, a weapon that came apart into innocuous-looking pieces. She should have put it together, but she simply hadn’t thought she’d need the gun in her locked bedroom.
Now she lay very still under the covers, her eyes slitted, trying to look as though she was still asleep. Her gaze flicked to the bathroom door, to the closet, probing the shadows, as she fought the feeling that the walls were pressing in around her.
She saw no one, heard no one, yet she sensed she was no longer alone in the room. The air around her seemed to have thickened so that it was difficult to take in a full breath. And she was sure that somebody or something was watching her.
Strangely, her body felt drugged, and she was afraid that if she tried to move an arm or a leg, it would be impossible to make the muscles work. All she could do was lie here, waiting for something to happen, her breath shallow.
Earlier, on the access road leading to the mansion, mist had slithered in white tendrils along the blacktop. Now, somehow, that same mist had crept into the bedroom, spreading across the floor like a white, undulating river of vapor.
The effect was eerie and so totally out of her experience that she could only stare at the foglike wisps while the edge of panic sank its sharp claws into her.
She knew a scream was locked in her throat. Yet at the same time, she felt a kind of humming anticipation. Something was going to happen. Was already happening.
A cloud drifted across the moon and the almost nonexistent light around her faded to black. A small gasp escaped her lips, a mere puff of air. If she could have made her muscles work, she would have sprung off the bed and dashed toward the door.
But her limbs were heavy, heavy as sandbags. At the same time, a feverish expectation swelled inside her until she felt she would explode if something didn’t happen.
Please. The supplication was only in her mind. She didn’t have the power to speak out loud as she lay there with her heart thumping inside her chest. Slowly, inexorably, she sensed someone coming toward her. It was a man. She didn’t hear his footsteps, but she detected his clean male scent mixed with the smell of soap and spicy aftershave. The scent she had caught outside on the driveway. Only more potent.
And suddenly her anticipation was stronger than her fear.
She knew he had come to a stop beside the bed, knew he was bending over her. In the depths of the darkness she couldn’t see him, but she knew very well he was there. She should order him out of her bedroom. Yet the words stayed locked in her throat.
The air around her stirred and she felt his warm sweet breath against her face. For heartbeats, nothing more happened. Then she felt a gentle pressure against her lips.
It was a light kiss, butterfly light, brushing back and forth. A caress that teased and tantalized her senses even as it set off a shiver that was part sensual response and part fear.
For the moment at least, fear won, and she found her voice. “No.”
He didn’t accept the denial. Instead he absorbed the word of protest from her lips. Deliberately, he intensified the kiss, increased the breathless feeling in her chest as his lips moved over hers with practiced male assurance.
Her eyes drifted closed. Her heart stopped and then started again in overtime. She wanted to lift her arms. To push him away? To pull him close? She couldn’t say which, and she did neither. She only lay there with her eyes closed, drawn into the experience until she was returning the kiss—tentatively at first and then with more passion as her need for him grew stronger.
For a long time their lips were the only point of contact. As he sensed her acceptance, his mouth opened, became more possessive. He was a skilled lover who knew what he was doing, knew how to surprise and tease. The kiss deepened, then became momentarily more shallow. His tongue played with the sensitive tissue at the insides of her lips, then probed into the corners.
When he caught her lower lip between his teeth and gently nipped at her, she heard a small moan escape her throat.
Her response seemed to please him. He touched her then, his fingers stroking her cheeks, her jawline, her neck, moving downward, sending tingles of sensation over her skin.
He slid his hands under the covers, his fingers skimming the warm skin of her shoulders, stopping to play with the straps of her gown, which brought another small moan from her.
She found her voice, enough voice for one word. “Troy?”
He didn’t answer. She didn’t even know if it was him. The only thing she knew was that this was neither of the other men she had met this evening. It couldn’t be.
His lips left hers to flutter soft kisses over her closed eyelids, her brows, the tender line where her hair met her cheek. She felt his warm breath against her skin.
“Troy?” she asked again, her voice high and breathy as she responded to him.
Again he remained silent, never stopping the kisses and touches. His skin must have heated in response to her because the wonderful scent of his body had intensified.
She was enveloped in the sensual spell he was weaving. She wanted more from him.
As if he knew her desires, his hands slipped lower, playing with the edge of her gown where it rested against the tops of her breasts.
The kiss had started like a whisper of sensation against her lips. His touch was like that now. Light and playful. Teasing, even.
She responded with a flood of tingling warmth spreading downward through her body to the hollow place that had opened up inside her.
She could imagine her face, the dazed, drugged look. She no longer felt the bed beneath her body. Instead she seemed to float on the surface of a deep, warm pool of sensuality. But down in the far depths she felt doubt stirring. In some part of her mind she knew that this was wrong. It had to be wrong. Whether this man was Troy or not, he had come to her in the night without announcing his name or his intentions. He had come to her bed like a phantom lover.
The dark image was powerful in its dampening effect. The fear that had momentarily receded into the background leaped to the front of her mind again.
All at once, she felt as if she’d been under an evil, sensual spell. And through her own will, she had been released. Her eyes flew open. It was still dark in the room and she couldn’t see the man who hovered over her. But her hands moved swiftly and surely as they came up to push him away.
For a millisecond she thought she felt the resistance of his warm flesh, of muscle and bone. Then her hands pressed upward through chilled, empty air. He was gone. Vanished, as silently and as swiftly as he had come to her.
Chapter Three
For several heartbeats the room remained in the clutches of darkness. Then, perhaps in response to her urgent need, the clouds moved away from the moon and once again a sliver of radiance seeped through the crack at the edge of the drapes. In the cold, dim light that streamed across the room, Bree saw that she was alone.
Her midnight visitor had vanished—along with the mist that had rippled across the floor. Or had the mist just been the product of her overheated imagination?
Her heart was still pounding as she pushed herself up, pressed her back against the pillows and looked around the chamber.
“Troy?” she questioned, her voice no more than a breathy whisper. Once more there was no answer.
And no proof that the man who had come to her bed was Troy London, she thought, goose bumps blooming on her skin. In the darkness she hadn’t seen him, only felt his touch and his scorching kiss as he’d woven his erotic spell around her.
Her skin heated at the memory. Her gaze flew to the door, but it was shut, the way she’d left it.
Now that she was alone, the whole experience seemed cloaked in unreality. The mist, the man, her reaction that was so totally unlike her normal response.
Her visitor had come to her in the dead of night and coaxed a totally sensual response from her. Then, when she’d regained her senses, the rational part of her mind had been terrified.
At the same time, there was no way that she could deny the sexual pull toward her midnight caller. Raising her fingers, she touched them lightly to her lips, brushing them back and forth, feeling a small tingling afterburn of the sensations he’d generated.
Oh, yes, she remembered his touch. But she remembered other sensations, too. She’d felt strange, drugged, compelled, as if she’d been under some kind of evil magic spell.
Even as thoughts of black magic formed, her mind rejected the explanation—and jumped to a more acceptable alternative. Maybe the whole experience had simply been a dream, a very vivid dream brought on by her exhaustion and her own sexual needs. She’d been thinking about Troy, remembering him just before she’d gone to bed. And she’d been hoping to encounter him. So it made sense that she had conjured him up in the dark of the night. And conjured up the sensuality, too, if she were honest.
Because she’d never given up her secret dream of getting back together with Troy, and she’d never stopped wanting him.
She’d been a virgin seven years ago when she’d first met him, and she was pretty sure he’d known it. He’d been careful of her, going slowly, awakening her sensuality with touches and kisses that had become more intimate over time. She remembered that first thrilling moment when he’d cupped her breast then played with her beaded nipple through the fabric of her blouse and bra.
They’d been dancing on the porch then, their bodies swaying in slow, provocative rhythm. When he’d slid his hands down her body and pulled her against his arousal, her own need had leaped to meet his.
She’d been exhilarated with the knowledge that they’d been on the verge of making love. Then her mother had gotten sick and she’d gone rushing back to North Carolina. Mom’s health was fragile, and she couldn’t be left alone, so they’d moved to Baltimore, where Aunt Martha could take care of her while Bree was in school.
She’d lost track of Troy in the flurry of activity surrounding the move. Later, she’d told herself it was for the best. Still, she’d been shocked and hurt when she’d heard that he’d gotten married so soon after she’d left.
Then, because he’d taken a wife, she’d told herself it was wrong to still want him. And mostly she’d managed to keep him out of her thoughts. But Helen’s call had changed everything.
Maybe the real reason, the secret reason, she’d come rushing to Ravencrest was that she wanted to take up where they’d left off.
Unbidden, more scenes came winging back to her from the summer of her sophomore year in college—when she’d been head over heels in love with Troy. It wasn’t just sex. The two of them had seemed so right for each other. They’d gotten into long discussions about all sorts of topics from world politics to the running of the family cattle ranch. They’d gone for rides in the mountains, carried along a picnic lunch so they wouldn’t have to come back for hours. He’d taken her to the barn where she’d been entranced by a newborn foal.
She’d thought their relationship was heading somewhere important. And then it had all been snatched away from her.
As those memories from the past flooded through her mind and body, it was impossible to stay in the bed where he’d come to her. Throwing aside the covers, she swung her legs over the edge, thumping her feet onto the floor as she looked around.
Weaving slightly, she crossed the room. First she tried the door, just to make sure. It was locked—the way she’d left it.
With a sigh, she backtracked to the window. When she opened the curtains and pushed at the bottom sash, it slid upward with only minimal resistance.
The cold outside air sent a shiver rippling over her skin, but she didn’t step back. Cautiously, she stuck her head out and took in the scene. The stars and moon gleamed in a black velvet sky. A path of moonlight wavered on the dark surface of the restless ocean below her.
Dragging her gaze away from the mesmerizing sky and the water, she inspected the wall of the building. It rose above her for two more floors like a man-made extension of the cliff. And like the cliff, there were rough stones that an agile climber might be able to use for hand-and footholds. But could anyone climbing the wall have gotten away so quickly?
Maybe, if he’d slipped inside another room. Or if he was a mountain climber, like Troy. That summer, she’d watched with her heart in her throat as he’d scaled sheer cliffs. There was no reason he couldn’t do the same thing now.
Suddenly feeling dizzy, she pulled her head back inside, then shut the window and sprung the latch.
Her next stop was the bathroom, where she felt around for the light switch. It was in the off position, and the light came on as soon as she flipped it up. Blinking in the yellow glow, she waited for several seconds then checked her watch. It was one in the morning. She’d gone to bed around seven, so she’d slept almost six hours. That meant she probably wasn’t going back to sleep anytime soon.
With a small shrug, she crossed to the sink, scooped up some water in her hands and took several sips. The tingling cold helped ground her. Deliberately, she brought up more details from the disturbing encounter, examining the facts and her feelings.
Either she’d dreamed up the whole thing or a man had come to her room, a man whose presence had frightened her but whose seductive touch had captivated her. He hadn’t been rough with her. On the contrary, his attention had been gentle yet thrilling. Still, she’d known he shouldn’t be there and when she’d reached to push him away, her hands had contacted only empty air.
Once more, her skin prickled. She wanted to cling to the dream theory, but she knew that would be dangerous.
Just as it was dangerous to get all wound up with memories of Troy—or to mix them up with the present.
She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to talk herself out of the feeling of intensity he’d created within her. Intensity she’d seldom experienced in her lifetime.
Of course she’d had relationships with other men since her almost affair with Troy. In fact, she’d done her best to forget Troy London and to get serious about someone else. But none of her other boyfriends had seemed like the soul mate she’d wanted for a marriage partner. And she’d known deep down that she was comparing each of them unfavorably to Troy.
She snorted. Talk about carrying a torch! Obviously the man had gotten over her. He’d married not long after that sweet summer encounter. And Helen had said that his wife’s death had devastated him.
Yet tonight he hadn’t come to her like a man still pining for his lost wife. He’d come to her like a lover. And now she struggled to figure out what that encounter meant.
Again she touched her lips, remembering the kisses in the darkness. She was making assumptions about his identity. Could she be sure he was the same man who had held her in his arms seven years ago?
She couldn’t answer that question. Maybe if she’d seen him tonight she would know for sure. But she was forced to rely on her other senses—on the memory of his long-ago kisses and caresses. She’d been a lot younger then. So had Troy. His kisses had been different, less skillful back then. But she could put that down to his lack of maturity and experience. And her own immaturity, too.
Resolutely she reentered the bedroom and switched on the overhead light. Then she turned to the closet. The door was closed, and she hesitated for heartbeats as she stared at the dark wood as if trying to penetrate it with her gaze.
If he was inside, she should clear out. Yet he hadn’t hurt her. He hadn’t demanded anything. He’d only taken as much as she’d wanted to give. And he probably wasn’t anywhere around now.
She recognized all those thoughts as rationalization. Still, before she could stop herself, she grasped the knob, turned it and pulled the door open. The closet was empty—and as dark as she remembered.
She breathed out a small sigh, then kneeled on the floor, felt around in her suitcase and found the flashlight that she’d brought along for emergencies. When her heart rate had calmed a little, she began investigating the closet, shining the light along the walls, over the ceiling and down to the floor, which was made of the same wood boards as in the bedroom. The walls and ceiling were old-fashioned plaster, except for the back of the closet, which was wood paneling. Holding the light in one hand, she shone the beam over the surface. With the other hand, she ran her fingers and palm lightly over the wood, taking care not to pick up any stray splinters in the process. She thought she detected a line where two pieces of paneling came together—which proved nothing more than that the surface had been applied in sections.
Making her hand into a fist, she rapped her knuckles lightly against the wood, first on one side, then on the other, and finally in the middle. The sound seemed different—more solid in the middle and on the right side, more hollow on the left.
Unsure of how to proceed, she tried pressing on various parts of the panel, disappointed when nothing happened. Exasperated, she put down her flashlight and pressed with two hands, trying different random patterns. When she pushed with one hand near the top of the panel and the other near the middle, there was a soft click. In the next second the wall swung inward, revealing a dark, yawning cavern.
She stared into the blackness, automatically wishing the door hadn’t opened. Then, firming her jaw, she picked up the flashlight again and shone it into the opening. A long, dark passage stretched in front of her. The old Bonnie Brennan would probably have shut the door again, gone back to bed and pulled the covers over her head. The old Bonnie Brennan had been passive and timid. The new Bree Brennan knew she had to find out where the passage led because there was no safety in her room as long as someone could sneak in at will.
But the new Bree Brennan was no fool. She wasn’t going to do it dressed in her nightgown. And she wasn’t going to act like the dumb heroine of a Gothic novel. She was going to get her gun.
Digging through her suitcase, she began to pull out the separate parts of the weapon. The barrel was a narrow flashlight. The clip was a waterproof box filled with “medicine capsules.” The stock was a soap dish.
After finding all the components, she sat on the bed and put the gun together.
Carefully she tested her construction skills, then loaded in a clip and got comfortable again with the feel of the weapon in her hand. Before she’d left Baltimore, she’d trained with this pistol on a firing range until she’d felt confident that it would protect her if she needed it.
Turning back to her suitcase, she found a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. After pulling them on, she got out socks and running shoes. When she was better outfitted for exploring, she picked up her gun and the flashlight and faced the tunnel again.
