
A Shiver at Twilight
By
Erin Quinn
ISBN: 978-1-927111-28-4
PUBLISHED BY:
Books We Love
192 Lakeside Greens Drive
Chestermere, Alberta, T1X 1C2
Canada
Copyright 2011 Erin Quinn
Cover art by Michelle Lee 2011
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Like an omen, the rain turned the lonely stretch of highway into a dark unknown. Carly thought it a bad sign in a day that had been filled with them.
The storm had started an hour after she left Phoenix behind and with each mile it became fiercer, more determined to make the simple three hour drive from Phoenix a harrowing passage. When she'd left her apartment, it had been ninety-six degrees out---in October for heaven's sake. But now the temperatures had plunged and the pelting rain looked slushy. And it was cold, even for the mountains of northern Arizona. Cold enough to turn the rain into snow at any minute. Snow, on Halloween. It was unheard of.
Beyond the blacktop, the mountains sloped and peaked. A fire that had burned out of control in the summer had destroyed thousands of acres and thick patches of blackened pines poked from the swamped earth like corpses in a Wes Craven horror fest. Beside them, pockets of healthy growth thrived, giving the scenery an eerie patchwork effect.
At last she saw the sign: Canyon Veil, Two Miles. She slowed, searching for any trace of Jillian's BMW. The police said it wasn't here.
But the police didn't know what Carly knew and she couldn't tell them, no matter how much she wanted to.
Frustrated she pulled to a stop on the shoulder, knowing she was in the right place. She grabbed her umbrella from the backseat and left the car running as she stepped out into the sleet and rain. A few tiny bits of taillight glass lay shattered on the shoulder, but it could have been there from another car, another accident.
Her headlights illuminated a dark passage down the steep drop at the edge of the road and carefully she inched to the side, leaning to look down. Something glinted in the distance. There---a gleam of silver.
Jillian's car.
She hurried back to her VW Bug, grabbed her cell phone and flipped it open. No bars on the display. In vain, she moved up and down the side of the road, praying she'd hit a pocket where a cell signal might be picked up.
Finally, she shoved the phone in her pocket with a muttered curse. She'd have to drive into town and convince the police to come back with her. They'd listen, once she told them she'd found the wreckage.
Before crawling behind the wheel again, she looked down one more time. The sleeting rain drove hard from the sky and hit her umbrella with a drumming sound. The freezing cold made her shake, but she knew the metal glinting below was Jillian's BMW.
She cupped her hands to her mouth and called out, "Jillian! Jillian!"
Silence chased her echoing call back. She took another step and tried again with no response.
"Damn it to hell," she said.
The wind howled around her and grabbed her umbrella just as Carly turned to go back to her car. She stumbled, trying to catch it as the gust wrenched the handle from her hand.
Beneath her, the ground gave out. She fell, face down in the gravel and mud, the air knocked out of her.
"Shit!"
She struggled to her skinned hands and knees and slipped again, losing more ground. Panic tried to crowd in, but Carly gave it the good fight. There was no need for it. She just had to get a foothold and heft herself up.
Instead she skidded again, scrabbling for something to grab onto as the soft shoulder eroded beneath her.
It felt like quicksand as she dropped another foot and then the earth simply gave and she plummeted down the steep incline, screaming as the landslide catapulted her faster and faster. She bumped over roots and hidden stones, feeling the mud and muck as she rolled and bounced. The rushing water had carved out a path of least resistance and it snaked down the hillside, taking her with it as plunged to the bottom.
She hit with a thud that knocked her breathless and lay stunned in a gulch at the base of the hill, looking up at the freezing sleet gushing from the sky. Slowly she moved her arms and then her legs. Terrified she wouldn't be able to, she tried to sit. Pain screamed from every joint, but she managed. Shaking so hard her teeth chattered, Carly stood. Nothing seemed broken. Everything still attached.
Up high she saw her car, still perched on the side of the road, lights on, engine running. The canyon wall rose steep and slippery, and she tried to climb up only to fall back where she started. She fought the odds for long, painful minutes before admitting defeat. Unbelievably, unless Spiderman swooped down to get her, she had no way up.
With a sinking feeling, she limped her way to the gleam of silver she saw through the gloom.
"Christ," Carly whispered, staring at the destroyed BMW.
Had Jillian survived this? Terrified she peered into the car. A body sat in the passenger seat.
She clamped her hands over her mouth and peered in at the still form of a woman slumped against her seatbelt---but it wasn't Jillian. Carly reached a shaking hand through the shattered window and pressed her hand to the woman's throat, feeling for a pulse, finding none. The body was cold, deathly cold.
With a strangled scream, Carly backed away.
Turning in place, she shouted Jillian's name again and again, but only the echo of her own voice answered. Her cell phone was still in her pocket, miracle of miracles. She took it out and flipped it open. Of course, no signal.
She could hardly see through the driving sleet and eerie murk, but she could just make out a path up ahead. Maybe a dirt road. Is that where Jillian had gone? Carly scrambled up and found a gravel lane, wide enough for a vehicle if hers wasn't still idling on the side of the highway. She could see the glow of headlights shining off in the distance. Hopefully, someone would come along and stop. With her luck, they'd steal it and not report it to the police, though.
From here she saw something glowing softly against the black pearl of the sky---lights in a window and a thin streamer of smoke spiraling above the tree tops. A house.
She tried to run, but could only manage a limping trot. Her right leg hurt like hell, but she didn't stop to examine it. After what she'd been through, a lot of things were going to hurt. The sleet bit her cheeks and hands and a cold sweat only added to the shaking that racked her body. Her adrenaline had long since dumped, spurred and drained, but she pushed on as best she could.
The house looked neglected and weathered, but nonetheless solid and dry. Old, it had two stories with picture book gables and pale shutters. The forest fires had skipped the entire area and the trees around it grew full and piney. She took a deep breath, smelling the wood smoke, sensing safety waiting for her.
She climbed three porch steps that felt like a mountain and knocked. Another light came on inside, spilling out from the stained glass panels flanking the entrance. A moment later the door opened and an old man in a flannel shirt and faded cotton pants stood before her.
They stared at one another in shocked silence. Carly, because she'd been half convinced that the unstoppable Freddie Kruger with deformed face and glove of sharp blades would greet her. He because---well she could only imagine what he thought.
Her voice shook and it took several moments before she could stutter out, "I need help."
The understatement of the year, but she saw comprehension and then dismay on his face. His hair sprouted thick and iron colored from his square head and a long and straight nose made a centering point on features that might have been carved from stone. He stood at a peculiar angle, perched like an ungainly ostrich on spindly legs.
He said, "Come in, come in," and moved aside for her to enter.
He had a deep voice with a strange, guttural inflection and a hint of an accent she couldn't place. She didn't care if he spoke Greek, she came in.
The house was a relic from the days before microwaves and tile. Battered wood planks covered the floor of the cavernous room he led her into. A rocking chair teetered soundlessly back and forth in front of a roaring fire---as if someone had just risen from it. In the corner, a pile of blankets had been stacked, but no other furnishings occupied the space. An overhead light cast the barrenness into stark relief.
He ushered her over to the fireplace with an awkward gait and stood her in front of the crackling blaze. Gratefully she absorbed the heat. Overhead, she heard someone walking across a creaky floor and then a door slammed shut.
"I was looking for my friend," she said between chattering teeth. "Has another woman been here? She has brown hair and she's about my height?"
He looked at her blankly. "No one's been here for years."
Glancing around, that didn't seem hard to believe. "She was in a car accident," Carly went on, needing to fill the silence. "I think someone ran her off the road. Her car is totaled, out there." She nodded in the direction of the wreck. The old man watched her with unnerving steadiness. Her relief at finding shelter took on an uncomfortable edge.
"Teenagers?" he barked suddenly. "Was it teenagers done it?"
Carly jumped at his booming voice. "I don't know."
"Damn kid down the way," he growled. "Always causing troubles. Killed my dog, you know."
"Oh, God," she said. "That's horrible."
He nodded, pale eyes snapping with a sudden rage. Carly cleared her throat, giving the yawning shadows an anxious glance. "Can I use your phone to call the police?" she asked.
He shook his head. "No phone."
"I'm sorry?"
"No phone. Shut it off a few years back."
No phone? For a few years? She stared at him blankly, dumbfounded. How did someone not have a phone for a few years? He looked back and she saw something dark move in his eyes. A chilling trickle slipped down her spine that had nothing to do with the cold.
Carly pulled out her cell phone again. Still no bars on the display. Somehow she'd known there wouldn't be. The old man continued to watch her with an intensity that made her want to squirm. For the love of God, what was up with him?
They stared at each other in tense silence and a little voice inside urged her to get the hell out of there an instant before the sound of an engine out front reached her ears.
The old man looked to the door and then back at her. His expression didn't change.
"Maybe that's the police," she said.
"No," he answered, shaking his head. "It ain't the police."
The certainty in his tone made her blood run cold. She looked at the door as footsteps pounded up, foreboding a squirming, living thing in her gut. "Who do you think it is?" she whispered a second before the door flew open and a man strode in, a stunned expression on his face.
At first glance, the stranger looked like a beach bum, all golden hair and dusky tan skin. Warmed and sun-kissed. He was young, probably only five or six years older than Carly's twenty-three and he was handsome in a rugged, early Robert Redford kind of way. His eyes glittered with an unusual shade of brown---not quite amber, not quite hazel. Golden, like the rest of him. Tall and muscular, he wore a pair of battered jeans and a fleeced lined jacket over a sweatshirt emblazoned with "Canyon Veil High School Girl's Lacrosse."
She cast a nervous glance at the old man who lived here, but he no longer stood at her side. Confused she looked behind her, fearing for one crazy second that he might be creeping up on her. Nothing but shadows and cold waited anywhere she looked. The old man was gone.
"What are you doing here?" the young stranger at the door asked.
The question struck her funny and she almost laughed. What the hell did it look like she was doing here? She glanced down at herself. Mud covered nearly every inch of her body with pine needles stuck into the mix. Her hands and arms had deep abrasions on them and she suspected her face looked pretty much the same. There were holes in her jeans where the fabric had caught and torn during her wild flight down. She looked like she'd been through hell. Pretty much, she had.
Strange, though, that other than his surprise at finding her on the doorstep, the old man who lived here hadn't really reacted to it at all. She frowned, disturbed by this realization. Disturbed by his vanishing act. Didn't he care that this stranger---this young man---had just burst into his house?
The stranger advanced, leaving the front door wide open and Carly's attention snapped back to his face. He approached her like she was a wild animal caught in a snare, one that might snarl and bite if he wasn't careful. He held his hands loose at his sides, palms slightly facing her. "Are you okay?" he asked, his voice unbelievably gentle.
Tears burned her eyes at the careful tone of his question but she refused to let them flow. This was not the time to show weakness, no matter how kind and consoling this man appeared to be. Someone had run her friend off the road---she knew it. She'd seen it from a hundred and fifty miles away. For all she knew, it had been this man and now he'd come to finish off the rescue party. But she didn't think so. Something about this golden stranger calmed her, made her think he could be trusted.
The man stopped right in front of her and murmured again, "Are you okay?"
She nodded quickly, biting down on her lip. Still moving with caution, he lifted a hand and slowly, tenderly touched her cheek, brushing away tiny bits of gravel and pine needles that clung to her skin. His fingers were long and warm and for a moment she wanted to turn her face into his palm and let him comfort her. Crazy to have such a reaction to a man she'd never met before. Maybe it was the compassion she saw in his face. Maybe it was the very maleness of him, the steady strength she saw in his whiskey colored eyes. Maybe she'd scrambled her brains when she'd fallen.
"Is that your silver car out there all smashed up?" he asked softly.
Carly shook her head. "It's my friend's car. I'm looking for her."
"There's someone in it," he said cautiously.
"I know, but that's not her. I don't...I don't know who that woman is . . . ."
He frowned. "Were you with your friend when she crashed?"
"No."
"No?" His brows went up and his eyes searched her face. "In that case, you wouldn't happen to own a blue VW bug, would you?"
She nodded.
"How did you get down here?" he asked, the frown fading into bewilderment. And then his eyes dropped to her muddied form once more. "Did you fall?"
He looked so incredulous that she did finally laugh. The sound came out high and shrill, but it felt good all the same. Laughter chased the horror back, just a bit. Just enough.
"I rolled," she said. "And bounced a little."
She covered her mouth as a snort came out between giggles. Probably she was hysterical, but she was alive and no longer alone with the creepy old man who'd let her in. Hopefully, she'd find Jillian soon and she, too, would be laughing like a loon someplace close. Safe.
The golden stranger seemed to understand the crazy thoughts going through her head. He smiled a little and shook his head. "Why don't I get you out of here? I think you should see a doctor."
"And the police," she said on a gulp. "I need the police. I don't know where my friend is. She could still be out there. You didn't see her?"
She knew the last was a stupid question. Of course he hadn't seen her. He would hardly have left her if he had. But he answered in the same even voice, as if her question was perfectly rational.
"No, I didn't see anyone. But we'll look again on the way out and we'll get the police down here to really search."
Carly nodded. A plan. It was good to have a plan.
Outside, thunder boomed with window-rattling intensity and lightning lit up the hall where they stood. It brought into sudden, chilling focus just where she was and what had transpired on this awful night. Her eyes began to burn again.
"Thank you. Getting out of here would be great," she said and burst into tears.
He stepped closer and pulled her into the solid warmth of his chest. He smelled of soap and some elusive cologne that made her want to bury her nose in his heat and take his scent deep into her body. He rubbed her back and murmured soothing words while she cried, her entire body shaking with delayed reaction. Each little touch set off sparks on her nerve endings. His long fingers traveled up to the sensitive skin of her nape, brushing over the bare skin in a teasing caress that finally distracted her from her terror. Her sobs slowed and came to a hiccupping stop, leaving behind only the sound of their breathing and an awareness that stretched tight between them.
Wow, this night had gone from crazy to flat out unbelievable.
He leaned back, bending his knees so he could look into her face. His eyes gleamed a beautiful golden-green. "Okay?" he asked, his voice deep, a little husky. The sound rubbed against her heightened senses.
She nodded, embarrassed by her own thoughts. He'd come to help and suddenly she was entertaining ideas of stripping those layers off that muscled chest and running her fingers over the hot skin she'd find beneath. Shock, she told herself. It had to be shock.
She'd smeared mud and dried pine needles on his sweatshirt and tried to brush it off.
"Don't worry about it," he said, watching her hands move against him with an intensity that made the gesture somehow intimate.
Carly stilled but she couldn't seem to pull her palms from where they rested just over his heart. As if guessing at her inner struggle, his arms tightened fractionally, keeping her captive.
He cleared his throat. "What's your name?"
"Carly," she said, and her voice held that same, husky invitation that his had. She gave herself a mental slap and tried again. "Carly Ryan."
"I'm James Dover. People call me JD." He took what felt like a reluctant step back, letting his arms drop. Cold rushed in where the heat of his body had been. "Let's get you to that doctor."
Feeling like a fool, she followed him to the door. "Wait," she said, before they stepped through. "I want to thank the man who let me in."
JD looked startled. "What?"
"I don't want to leave without thanking him." She faced the gaping darkness in the house, wondering when and why he'd turned out the lights. "Hello? Excuse me?" Her voice echoed back, unanswered. She waited. "Sir? I just wanted to say thanks. I'm going now."
The silence felt thick and insidious. Carly backed up until she bumped into JD. His arms came up and steadied her.
"I guess he had something to do," she mumbled.
"Sure," he said, his voice once again bewildered.
As they stepped onto the porch, lightning flashed overhead in a bright and angry display that made Carly jump. It illuminated the white pickup truck parked out front before it cracked down on the towering pine tree beside it. A harsh scent filled the air as flames jumped from the point of impact.
The fire tried to take hold and fear seized Carly as she imagined this hellish night going from bad to worse to horrifying. But the pine's bark was sodden, the tree heavy with the weight of it and the flame doused before it could burn. Then the massive giant swayed in a gruesome parody of bending before snapping with a sound like an explosion. It keeled with an equally loud groan and then crashed down, shattering glass and crunching metal as it struck. It happened so fast, neither of them had time to react, but when it was over, the white pickup lay in ruin beneath the tree.
"Holy crap," Carly whispered.
JD had other things to say and more creative ways to say it. He ran out and circled the destroyed vehicle, apparently searching for a way inside it, though it seemed a pointless foray to Carly. The tree had made a bizarre pancake of his truck, nearly cleaving it in two with the impact. There were no doors left to open, no way into the flattened mess. The roof of the cab and the bed in the back had been shaped into a V around the pine.
"Fuck!" he shouted at the wreck.
He raked his hands through his hair, leaving it standing on end. Then he crouched down and wedged a shoulder into the crunched opening of what used to be a window.
While he struggled for access---to what end she had no clue---Carly shrank back on the porch, foreboding dogging her steps. She looked over her shoulder into the house, wondering about the old man. Where had he gone? Surely he'd heard the crash? But the stillness behind her rubbed against her skin like oily fur. She shifted, not liking the feeling of having her back to the gaping darkness of the open door.
As she hesitated, she heard footsteps and JD stopped at her side, looking like he couldn't quite believe what had happened. She couldn't believe it either. What were the odds of lightning crashing down in just that place? Of lightning at all in a winter storm like this? A million to one? Ten million to one?
JD shook his head and glanced away. She had the strange feeling that he'd heard her thoughts.
"It looks like we're going to be stuck here for awhile," he said.
And as if to validate the statement, the freezing, slushy rain thickened and came faster. It colored the driving wind a brilliant, blinding white. Soon there would be drifts and piles of it everywhere. It was the kind of snow that layered ice on black roads and isolated the unsuspecting driver.
JD strode past the foyer into the room the old man had led her to---the one with the fireplace. At the entrance, he reached over, flipped a switch and a loud click echoed in the barren room. No lights came on.
Carly drew even with him, wondering why the fire didn't cast a glow. The answer struck her like something hard and sharp. No fire burned warmly in the grate, not even the remnants of one. Like the old man, the flames had vanished.
All the skin on her body seemed to shrink until she felt like she'd been trapped in a constricting wetsuit. She'd thought she was cold before, but now . . . .
JD turned on a flashlight---she realized that it must have been what he'd grabbed out of the cab of his truck---and the beam chased back all but the blackest shadows. She trailed him through the door on the other side to a kitchen as devoid of furnishings as the first room. Another click of an ineffective light switch. She felt a draft that made her shudder. JD's light bounced off dirty countertops to a shattered window over an ancient porcelain sink.
"You're sure someone let you in?" he asked.
"Either that or I imagined the door opening and the man leading me to a warm fire." As she spoke, they both turned to the fireplace. "There was a fire," she said. "And an old man with gray hair and a flannel shirt. He asked me if teenagers had forced me off the road."
JD continued to stare at her like she was crazy. She couldn't blame him. There was no fire now. No old man.
"I saw lights," she insisted, her voice rising as she tried to convince them both. "When I was walking on the road. That's how I found it here. I saw lights and smoke coming from the chimney. I smelled the fire."
She spoke the last as if the addition of olfactory perception would make her claim indisputable. No matter that the lights weren't working now and the hearth was as cold as her blood, she'd smelled a fire.
She saw something flicker in his expression and knew he must have seen the lights too, maybe even the smoke from the chimney. Why else would he have come here looking for . . . the thought ended in an unsettling question.
"Why are you here?" she asked suddenly.
"I saw your car up on the highway. It was still running and the headlights were on. I thought there might be trouble so I pulled over to help, but there was no one there."
Carly watched him, suddenly certain there had to be more to it than that.
"It looked like something was down in the canyon---I couldn't tell what, so I came to see."
"How did you get down here?"
"There's a road---it loops back and around the base of the canyon."
"Can we get out the same way? Up to my car?"
"Tonight? In this storm? Maybe. It would be risky, though. It's a good ten-twelve miles. Up. You don't even have a coat."
True and already the cold had made her numb. "But . . . You came all that way without even knowing what you were looking for?"
"Yes," he said. "Someone could have been hurt down here."
She stared at him standing there like some unflappable hero in a bad action flick, flashlight in hand, cool confidence radiating from him.
"What are you, a boy scout?"
She hadn't meant to sound sarcastic or ungrateful, but in a night when nothing made sense, his "rescue" seemed nearly as bizarre as the absent old man and the fire that no longer burned.
His chin lifted a fraction and his eyes narrowed on her face. Embarrassed by her own harsh words, she tried to look away, but he captured her gaze and held it.
"Looks to me like you could use a boy scout," he said softly.
He had her there. Face hot, she broke his spell on her and glanced down at her feet.
"How did you know your friend was in an accident, anyway?" he asked. "Did you see it?"
"She called me," Carly said, keeping her lashes lowered so he couldn't look in her eyes again.
"After it happened? So you know she's okay?"
"No, I was talking to her when it happened," she lied. "The police said they couldn't find anything so I raced up here."
JD studied her for a long moment and she had the uncanny sense that he'd seen through her deception to the truth. But that was impossible. No one would guess how she knew about Jillian being run off the road. Even if she told him, he wouldn't believe it.
Softly JD sucked in a breath. "Christ," he said. "You must have been nuts, hearing that. No wonder you jumped in your car and drove through this storm."
Relief washed over her, but with it a strange sense of disappointment. In those moments when he'd held her, she'd felt a connection like she'd never experienced before. Maybe this man might be different.
Ridiculous.
He turned away and continued his inspection of the house, bouncing his flashlight beam over the room. Shaken by her own thoughts, she went with him, noticing with uneasy surprise that the rocking chair had broken runners and a layer of dust and dirt coated the blankets in the corner.
"Did she call you back? Afterwards?" JD asked.
Carly stared at the chair, clearly remembering that it had been rocking when she entered the room the first time. As if the old man had just stood up from it.
"Carly?" JD repeated. He touched her shoulder and had her immediate attention. "Did your friend call you after the accident?"
Without thinking, Carly shook her head. JD gave her a sideways look, frowning. "Then how did you know where to go? Where to find her car?"
Mouth dry, Carly cursed herself for the slip. "Just before, she told me about the scenery and how pretty it was in Canyon Veil," she said quickly.
His expression mirrored the disbelief she heard in his voice. "She could have crashed anywhere in a twenty mile radius," he said. "How did you find the exact place? I was there. You could barely see it from the road."
"Just lucky, I guess," she answered. Her teeth had begun to chatter from the cold, from the dread she'd felt since she'd seen the accident.
"With that kind of luck, I hope you play the lottery," JD muttered.
He went to the front door and closed it. The click it made echoed ominously. An instant later another sound followed. Another door, upstairs. It slammed shut, rocking the house with the force of its swing.
They heard the thud of heavy footsteps thumping the floor and then another door slammed with a rattling bang. A slight pause and then more pounding steps and a third door banged shut, then a fourth and a fifth. Someone up there was running down the hall from one end to another, slamming every door in between. Then suddenly the steps started back, racing, angry. They paused at what had to be the landing at the top of the stairs. Then they started down.
Carly couldn't help herself, she scooted closer to JD. The ceiling of the first floor obscured the upper portion of the stairway and they waited for the feet, then legs, then body to appear. But though the heavy thud of steps raced closer, they saw nothing, no one to make the sound.
She could feel her lungs burning, begging for her to breathe in, but she couldn't. She could only stare as the pounding came at her, wanting to move aside but paralyzed by fear.
The sound rushed them, an invisible menace ladened with hostile intent. It didn't pause, even though the steps made the dust at the floor by their feet jiggle and dance. And then it pushed between them, nudging both of their shoulders as it split them apart and hurled itself at the front door. The heavy wood swung back on its hinges then banged shut again, rattling the cracked glass panes that bordered it.
The two of them stood motionless, staring at the door, speechless as a deathly silence settled like the freezing snow.
"What the hell was that?" JD said under his breath, staring at the closed door, the rattling window panes, trying to rationalize what had just happened. But there was no way to do it. Something had come down those stairs. Something big, alarming . . . and invisible.
Christ almighty. Beside him, Carly stood like she'd been turned to stone. Her big blue eyes looked ready to swallow her face and she was pale. Too pale. A fine tremor seemed to be running through her.
"Hey," he said, reaching out to touch her and bring her back from the edge of terror she teetered on. She shifted those baby blues to his face and pulled in a loud, gasping breath. He watched her chest rise as she drew it in but there it seemed to stick. She shook her head and tried again, but her lungs had locked up. She wasn't breathing.
"Shit," he said and moved to help, not sure what to do. Was she hyperventilating? Had something blocked her airways? He didn't know, but she made a desperate sound of panic and her hands flew to her throat.
Quickly, he moved behind her, pinned down her arms and forced her to bend forward, using his body as support as he pushed her head lower. She made another gasping sound that scared the hell out of him and then he heard her expel whatever had held her lungs captive. She gulped in a new breath, and then another. He kept her bent, her hips cradled by his, listening for her exhale, relieved when he heard it.
He nearly slumped with relief, still bent around her, still holding her tight against his body, aware of her softness, her heat, the curved femininity of her. He cursed himself for thinking about her breasts which made a silken weight against the arm he had wrapped beneath them as he kept her steady while the oxygen raced through her blood. He tried not to focus on the hips firmly pressed to his or how seductively rounded they were.
At last she took another deep breath and then a few more ragged inhalations before her breathing returned to normal. She was so small, fine boned and delicate. She roused all of his protective instincts.
The thought sent a red flag up in his mind. Damsel in distress. According to his brother, Bill, JD had a hero syndrome. He rescued women from bad relationships, financial ruin---he glanced at Carly---mud slides. He did it because he wanted to help, not because he expected anything in return. But more often than not, he ended up paying for his good intentions. No good deed goes unpunished, as Bill loved to say.
Carly took another breath and patted his hand. He realized he was still holding her head down. Embarrassed, he straightened, reluctantly giving her some space. He couldn't seem to stop touching her though. He dropped his hand to her back where he rubbed slow circles. "Deep breaths."
"I'm okay," she said after a moment. She turned, her cheeks flushed, her eyes sparking with an awareness that made his blood feel hot beneath his chilled skin. She gave him a nervous smile and squared her shoulders as she darted her gaze over the shadows that surrounded them. Mud covered her from head to toe, scratches whipped up her arms and fear tightened the muscles around her mouth and pulled a frown between her finely arched brows, but she tried to put on a brave face.
"Thanks," she said, her voice pitched low. "I'm better now."
JD nodded and forced himself to let her go and step away. "Sounds like your old man is upstairs. I'm going to go up and see what's going on. I'll be right back."
"What?" she asked, double-stepping to catch up to him. "You're going up there?"
Her face was so expressive that he only needed to look at her to read her thoughts. Her bravado had fled under the fear of being left alone.
"I'm just going to talk to the guy," he said, glancing at the darkness that waited above. "Don't worry."
"You think he's up there?" Carly whispered.
He faced her, his gaze calm and serious. "Someone slammed those doors."
Or something, her worried eyes corrected him.
"Someone," he said to her silence. "It's the old guy you said let you in, right?"
She nodded, entirely unconvinced.
"Come with me," he said easily enough and yet his pulse still felt hot and fast from having all those soft curves so tight against him and the simple invitation took on another meaning in his head.
He gave himself a shake and a mental eye roll. Obviously he'd been too long without female company. He just hadn't realized what bad shape he was in until he'd set his eyes on this female.
He started up the stairs, trying to project calm and fearlessness, taking each step like it led to the upper floor of Macy's and not an eerie, deserted place that had just coughed up an invisible, stomping, door-slammer.
Honestly, he didn't know what the hell he'd find upstairs. This house had been abandoned years ago which meant either some homeless person had decided it would make a good shelter or kids had taken over upstairs, playing games and trying to scare them off. That still didn't explain the rushing energy that had pushed him, but that didn't mean there wasn't an explanation for it.
Silently, he tracked his flashlight beam into the consuming darkness, aware of Carly so close behind him that a quick stop would send her crashing into him. He fought the instinct to reach back and take her hand. Fought an even greater desire to turn around, pull her close and talk about the first thing that came up. He couldn't remember ever having such a fast and physical reaction to a woman he'd just met. It took the concept of chemistry to a whole new level. Being near her felt damned close to combustible. He wondered if she felt any of it...he wondered if somewhere away from this cold, dark house she had a boyfriend waiting. A husband even.
He felt a scowl pulling his brows together at that.
"So Carly," he said, glancing at her over his shoulder. "Did you tell your husband you were going out for a drive in the worst storm of the decade?" he asked as casually as he could.
"I'm not married," she said. "What about you? Does your wife know you're out rescuing strange women tonight?"
It pleased him to no end that she'd asked.
"Of course," he said. "That's what boy scouts do."
"And she's okay with that?" Carly asked, sounding cross and a little disappointed.
JD shot her a smile over his shoulder. "I'm not married either," he said and let his gaze travel her pale features, lingering on the big eyes that stared back. God, she was pretty. Dangerously so. He needed to get his mind off all of those curves and focus on what went on here and now.
He reached the top of the stairs and called out a loud hello. His voice echoed dissonantly in the suffocating quiet. The old man didn't answer. If he'd really let Carly in, where had he gone? Maybe he'd heard the male voice and assumed it was the police, there to throw him out. Maybe he was just as scared as Carly was. JD aimed the beam of his light down the hallway as Carly stopped at his side, inching closer until her shoulder brushed his.
Her hair had a faint, coconut scent that made him want to gather it up in his hands and bury his face in it. He forced himself to ignore the impulse and concentrate on finding the old man.
His flashlight parted the shadows and brought a chilling illumination to the darkness. Every door in the hall stood open.
JD and Carly stared from one yawning entry to another in silence, neither wanting to comment on the impossibility of what they saw. They'd heard these doors slamming just moments ago. JD moved forward, feeling her behind him as he peered into the first room, playing the light over dirt, cobwebs and more broken windows.
This room had probably been the master bedroom and it still contained a battered chest of drawers pushed against the wall. JD pulled one open and looked in. It was as empty as the house itself. He moved to the closet, pretending mild curiosity, but making sure no one hid in it.
"What are you looking for?" she asked.
"Nothing in particular," he said.
A few hangers dangled on a rod and on the floor in a corner sat a crumbling, mildewed box. He opened the lid and saw snapshots scattered inside.
"That's weird," she said, peering over his shoulder.
"What is?"
"Why would anyone take all of their possessions and leave their pictures, their memories, in the closet to rot?"
She made a good point. He thought he knew, but didn't want to tell her. It would only scare her more.
He knelt down and lifted a picture from the top of the heap. A young girl, a teenager with big eyes and shiny hair that curled in a style long out of fashion smiled back at him. She was about Carly's size and build, but more slender than curvy. She lacked the full breasts, the lush hips that made Carly such a vision of femininity. The girl in the picture wore too much make-up---Carly didn't wear any at all that he could see. Giant earrings brushed the padded shoulders of a shiny blouse that all but screamed Let's Boogie. She'd tucked the iridescent fabric into a pair of high-waisted, skin-tight jeans that ended in white ankle boots. She looked like someone from an old movie the cable stations played late at night. JD lifted the photo and stared at it for a moment, remembering the first time he'd seen the girl. He'd been eight or nine and he'd thought her a movie star.
"Someone you know?" Carly asked curiously, resting a hand on his shoulder and leaning closer to see the picture. He felt the heat of her body against his back and the warmth of her breath on his ear.
"Yeah," he said softly. "My brother went to school with her." He looked up to find her staring at him open-mouthed.
"You know this place? You've been here before?" she asked.
"No, I've never been here. I was just a kid when she lived in this house. But I remember her. I wanted my brother to marry her just so I'd get to see her every day."
Carly gave him a tight smile. She had dimples and a crooked tooth up front that kept her looks from seeming too perfect. But he thought her damned close to perfection, even covered in mud and scratches. Everything about her had his body sitting up and paying attention.
Down boy, he could hear his brother, Bill, saying in his head. She's in trouble because she is trouble.
"She looks like Jillian," Carly said, drawing his attention back to the picture he still held in his hand.
"Who?"
"My friend, from the accident."
"Her name is Jillian?"
"Jillian Mahoney."
JD hoped he hid his reaction from her. He was supposed to have met Bill an hour ago and be his "back up" in a sticky situation with one of his female students whose name just happened to be Jillian. Bill was afraid she'd go crazy on him when he told her he couldn't see her anymore and he didn't want to be alone when it happened. Obviously, JD hadn't shown up---instead he'd gone with his instincts and investigated the abandoned car on the roadside, thinking, rightly as it turned out, that someone might need help. He wondered what Bill had told the girl he'd gone to meet, wondered if she could possibly be Carly's Jillian. For such a bright man, someone who had everything, Bill managed to get in the worst messes with women. That didn't stop him from analyzing JD's weaknesses, though, did it?
JD dropped the picture back in the box and stepped out of the closet. Carly stared at the green-eyed girl for awhile longer before following him.
"So what do you know about this place?" she asked. "It doesn't look like anyone lives here anymore."
"No one does."
"Then who let me in?"
He couldn't decide if telling her that the old man was most likely homeless---someone who might not think twice about hurting her for the shirt on her back---would make her feel better or worse. Definitely talking about the family who used to call this home wasn't the best idea. If Carly was on edge now, she'd be over the moon when she learned that four people had died under this roof. But avoiding either question would only make it worse.
"Maybe the old guy who let you in was a bum, Carly. Probably he wanted to scare us with all the slamming doors. When that didn't work, he took off."
Relief and worry battled in those baby blues. He couldn't help himself. He wanted to smooth away the anxious lines between her brows with his thumb and then he wanted to cup the silky skin of her cheeks and tilt her face up so he could kiss her. A whole slide show of what he wanted to do next played out in his head.
Down boy was right.
"As for the girl in the picture, her name was Sissy. She and her family lived here eighteen years ago, I guess it was."
He paused, wondering if she'd let him leave it at that. Because the next line, "and now she's dead," wasn't going to go over so good.
"And she knew your brother . . ." Carly prompted, moving so her back was no longer to the closet door. Talking seemed to be calming her down and he could see her gathering her wits together, drawing on the grit that he'd sensed lurking inside her. She might look like a delectable cupcake, but he suspected beneath the frosting, she had backbone. She'd come out in this storm to find her friend without thinking twice about her own safety. Even though something didn't add up about how she knew where her friend's car had gone over the edge and into the canyon, he still couldn't help but admire her for her gumption.
"Yeah," he said, answering her question. "She dated my brother, Bill for a short time. She was your typical small town goddess---pretty and smart and everyone always talked about what a good girl she was. I was just a kid, so I don't really know everything, but I remember she was gorgeous." He smiled. "And she smelled good. She'd come over to see my brother and I'd always try to sit next to her."
Carly caught her lip between her teeth as her gaze searched his face. "She's dead now, isn't she?"
He didn't ask how she'd guessed. He just nodded.
"What happened to her?"
"As I remember, she got pregnant---still in high school. She said she'd been raped."
"She said? Was it true?"
"No---at least I don't think so. Her dad was some religious fanatic and Bill thought she'd made up the rape because she was scared to tell the truth. Bill said she slept around. A lot. Any number of boys could have gotten her pregnant."
"Sounds like a nice guy, your brother, talking trash about his own girlfriend. Could the baby have been his?"
The question caught JD off guard. "No."
"Why not?"
He didn't have an answer. In truth, it had never even occurred to him that Bill might have been the father. At the time it all happened, he'd been nine years old and thought Bill was the next best thing to their dad, who'd died the year before.
"Bill was crazy about Sissy. If the baby was his, he'd have married her." Before Carly could question that, he went on. "Anyway, she said it was a kid from school who'd raped her---Mike Maze. His family hadn't lived in the area long. At the time, they were one of the only black families in Canyon Veil. There was still a lot of prejudice around back then---especially in a little town like ours. A lot of it. I remember someone broke into the grocery store not long after they'd moved in and everybody pointed fingers at them as soon as they heard."
"Nice place to live," she said.
"Yeah. It's not so bad anymore. Even Canyon Veil has some diversity now. I guess that puts us twenty years behind the times instead of fifty."
"So was he arrested? This boy she accused?"
"Yeah. Mike was also an honor student and a star football player and for all appearances, a really good guy. He said he'd never touched her and there were teachers who vouched for him, the coach---everyone who knew him said there had to be a mistake. But it was his word against Sissy's, and Sissy was this model of virtue. This symbol of good in our town."
He moved to the next room with Carly right behind him. He felt her fingers at the small of his back and realized she'd taken a handful of his jacket to hold onto.
A shade of nondescript beige that had aged to a grimy gray covered the walls in this bedroom. He played his flashlight over all four corners and the empty closet before moving to the last room. This one had dingy pink wallpaper and the shredded remains of lacy curtains.
"This must have been her room," Carly said softly.
He figured she was right. Silently, he let his flashlight beam roam the bare walls, the broken window, the dirty floor. The light picked out a brown quilt spread out over a pallet of some kind. Frowning, he moved closer and squatted down beside it. A hissing sound came from beneath the quilt and JD lifted the edge to see an inflatable mattress with an open valve beneath the cover. He tested the fullness as he replaced the plug and found it hadn't lost much air yet.
Two plastic cups with a red residue at the bottom sat beside the makeshift bed. An empty bottle of cheap wine lay on its side not far away. Someone had been here recently. Very recently.
The closet door stood open and JD moved to it, poked his light inside, and then closed it. So far, no sign of the old man. JD hoped that meant he'd left. As for the mattress and the wine bottle---well, an empty house like this had to be known by all the teenagers in town. Any number of them could be making use of its facilities. But who had opened the air valve and why?
"Teenagers," Carly said, as if reading his mind. "The old man who let me in asked if teenagers had run me off the road. He said they'd killed his dog."
He turned to find her right behind him, her soft curves so close that a deep breath would bring his chest against hers. She looked pale and terrified and this time he didn't question his motives or actions. He leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers, kissing her until he felt her lips move beneath his in an unguarded response. His body shouted for him to pull her closer, though his intention had been only to distract her from her fear.
Yeah, right.
It took all his will to end the kiss and step back. She stared at him with dazed eyes and he felt a surge of masculine pride at the knowledge that she had been as aroused by the kiss as he. Even now his heartbeat raced and his body yearned to draw her back into his embrace. His need to have her felt consuming. Never before had a mere kiss affected him so deeply.
The haunted look had left her face and now an awareness that shot through his veins like a drug hummed between them.
JD forced himself to turn away and continue to next the room. She followed him quietly through the last open door. A bathroom with ugly tile, a cracked tub and a lacerated mirror.
"How'd she die?" Carly asked, meeting his eyes in the splintered reflection.
She meant Sissy, but the flush in her face and the way her gaze clung to him told JD that she asked about the other girl to distract herself from thinking about that kiss. He knew, because he was trying to do the same thing. Even now he wanted to back her against the wall and taste every inch of her. She'd gotten under his skin so quickly he still felt stunned by his own desire. But he was coming to see that everything about lovely Carly Ryan was new and intriguing.
"Sissy was shot," he said, his husky tone betraying his real thoughts. He cleared his throat and tried again. "The day of the trial. Mike got thirty years in prison without parole. After they read his sentence, his father took a shotgun and killed everyone in Sissy's family before blowing his own head off."
"Jesus," she breathed. "Her whole family?"
"Yeah. Then a few years later Mike got another trial and his sentence was overturned. He still served five years, lost his dad, a scholarship, his future." He shook his head. "I can't even imagine what his family went through. All because Sissy was afraid to tell her parents she'd had sex."
Talk of murder and tragedy had finally cooled his hot blood. Not sure if he felt relieved or disappointed, he headed for the hall again.
A sound came from downstairs. He stilled, trying to place what he'd heard before finally it registered. The front door had opened again, slowly this time. And then it closed with a small click.
Carly gave a tiny yelp, jumped forward and clutched his jacket again. He looked over his shoulder at her and then reached back and took her hand. Her fingers felt like ice.
JD didn't have to tell her to be quiet as they crept to the stairs. She might have been his shadow, so close did she stay and so silent were her steps. At the top of the stairs, they looked down at the closed front door. The light from his flashlight cut a swath through the inky blackness, but a peculiar glow flickered from the room to the right.
He glanced back at her again then leaned close, putting his lips to her ear. "Wait here," he said.
She clutched his hand tightly and shook her head. Her eyes had gone all big again and her face looked very pale in the muted light. He glanced down at her white knuckled grip on his fingers and then back to her white face. He didn't argue. He shut off the flashlight and the black shadows greedily closed in.
They took careful steps down, but the old wood still creaked, announcing their descent. At the landing, JD peered around the corner into the room with the fireplace. He cursed softly. Standing on tip-toes on the step behind him, Carly leaned in and peered around his shoulders.
A fire burned cheerfully in the grate and a woman sat in the rocking chair. The runners were still broken, but somehow she made a smooth rocking motion. Back and forth, back and forth. An uneasy feeling settled in his gut as he watched her.
"Hello," he said, his voice sounding over-loud in the tomb-like quiet. Every nerve in his body on alert, he entered the room. Carly scooted around to stand at his side, but she didn't let go of his hand. He'd probably lose all feeling in it if she didn't lighten up a bit, but he didn't say anything.
"I'm JD Dover," he said, tilting his head to see the woman better as he approached. "I used to live not too far from here."
The woman turned and smiled at them both. At first, JD thought she looked like a sweet little old lady. She had light brown hair, streaked heavily with white. Half of her face remained in deep shadow, but he could make out the features on the other half and thought she must have been a beautiful woman in her youth. Pale, though wrinkled, she reminded him of a china doll. Even in the gloom, the fire gave enough light that he could see her eyes. They were the color of a summer sky, her lips a muted pink. She wore a house dress like his grandma used to, with big pockets on either hip and a plaid pattern of woven gray, black and red.
"Are you Sissy's friends?" she asked. "She didn't tell me you were coming, but that's okay. I always make too much for dinner." As she spoke the air filled with a warm, rich scent.
"Fried chicken," Carly said under her breath.
The woman stood then and faced them and JD's astonishment at finding her there turned to horror. Beside him, Carly staggered back, pulling JD with her as she recoiled. He stumbled, righted himself, but never took his eyes off the woman. Carly couldn't look away either. It was like a nightmare that grew and morphed, chased relentlessly through the dark valleys of slumber.
He wanted to believe the woman wasn't real. He wanted it to be a gruesome but fantastic vision his overtaxed imagination had conjured up and spit out. But Carly's horror-filled gasp left no doubt that she saw the same thing.
"What is it, dear?" the woman asked, cocking her head to the side and smiling.
But it wasn't a smile. A terrible grimace, wide and ghastly, stretched her lips. The side of her face they hadn't been able to see at first was battered, caved in from skull to throat, showing bits of carnage that made JD's stomach roll. Her eye was missing completely and teeth showed through a ragged tear in her jaw. The pale china face was shattered, destroyed with no hope of ever being whole again.
The terror locked inside Carly finally ripped free. She screamed and turned into JD. His arms came up around her, but he didn't make a sound. She could feel his heart pounding wild and hard beneath her ear, though. Feel the breath struggle in and out of his lungs.
It was too much---first Jillian, then the storm, the hurling drop into the canyon, and now this---this inexplicable atrocity. What had happened? How could she possibly be speaking to them when her face . . . her face . . .
"She's gone," JD said, his voice stony. "It's okay, she's gone."
Gone? She was gone? Carly slowly looked up from his chest and braced herself for the grisly visage and its terrible smile, but JD had spoken the truth. What she saw was no less chilling, though. Once again, the fire had disappeared, leaving not even the glow of ash in its wake. The chair stood still and empty. And the woman had vanished.
She made a sound deep in her throat, looking at every dark corner, fearing what might pop out next. What was this place, where people appeared and vanished, where doors opened and closed on their own, where something shocking waited in every corner?
"You saw her, right?" JD asked, as if he'd already convinced himself that he'd imagined the woman.
"And the fire," she whispered.
She felt him swallow, felt the effort it took to keep his cool. His hands skimmed up her back to her shoulders and he peeled Carly off his chest to look into her face. They'd both seen the woman. They'd both seen the fire.
"I don't want to be here," she said. "I don't want to be here anymore. I don't care if it's a hundred miles, let's go. Let's walk."
She tried to pull away and head for the door but JD kept hold of her, while waves of fear and panic washed over her. What did they do now? Where could they go in this storm? They had to get out . . . .
JD cupped her cheeks with his hands and tilted her face until he could look into her eyes. "Carly, calm down. It's going to be okay. I promise."
"Calm down?" she repeated, her voice rising. "You saw her. She was---She couldn't---Her face---"
He made soft hushing sounds and shook his head. "It'll be okay. I promise."
Carly saw that reassuring steadiness in his gaze, the confidence that came with size and strength. It made her suddenly and inexplicably angry. Men always thought things would work themselves out---that they could fix anything that didn't. Her father had been that kind of man---the kind other men respected and women loved. And then some drunk had run him down one evening after work, leaving Carly and her mom on their own with the realization that he hadn't been super human. He'd only made them feel that way.
"How can you promise that?" she asked, trying to pull free of him. But he held on.
He didn't answer her rage. Instead he simply repeated, "I promise."
And despite everything, he somehow made her believe him. "Do you think you're indestructible?" she asked.
"Nah," he answered. "I know it."
He was teasing her and she wanted to be mad about that, too. But his thumbs brushed against her cheeks, warm and gentle, reassuring. Her hands lay flat against the hard muscles of his chest and beneath them, she could feel the rhythm of his pounding heart, slower now. She thought about the way his kiss had shaken her to her soul. Never before had something so simple had such an impact on her. Even now, despite her fear, despite everything, she wanted to feel his mouth against hers once more.
"It'll be okay," he said again, softer this time, making her look up and into his eyes.
"How can you say that?" she asked. "How can you say that when she . . . she . . ."
Her voice rose again as that feeling of hysteria crowded in. She clamped down on it, fighting not to lose control. She wasn't some immature little girl afraid of the dark, some weak and pliable woman who needed a man to protect her. Hold her hand, yes. Her trembling body, sure. But she wasn't going to melt down into a blubbering panic-stricken mess.
At least not until she was home and safe and alone.
JD still watched her, gauging what she'd do next. He still held her face, cupped in his big hands, his thumbs rubbing gentle circles against her cheekbones. Then suddenly he moved closer and pressed his mouth to hers in a hard, fierce, possessive kiss that zinged through her blood like a drug. It shouldn't have felt so right, this kiss from a man she hardly knew, but it did.
"I won't let anyone hurt you," he said, resting his forehead against hers. "I promise." How could she doubt the whispered pledge when she saw the truth of it in his beautiful eyes?
She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "You kiss pretty good for a boy scout," she said, forcing a smile that surely looked as fake as it felt.
His eyes crinkled at the corners and he smiled back. "First badge I earned."
He pulled her against him once more, letting her bury her fake smile in the comforting warmth and scent of him. She held on tight, knowing in a minute he'd release her and she'd be forced to act like she wasn't scared out of her wits. She wrapped her arms around the hard muscles layered over his ribs and let her hands slide up his broad back. He radiated heat and she let it seep beneath her skin, wishing she could slip her hands beneath his sweatshirt and touch his skin. She was far too aware of him, far too attracted to him...to his beautiful eyes and that smile that probably broke hearts wherever he went. And then there was all that strong and steady maleness pouring off of him. What female could be immune to that?
She forced her thoughts from the avenue they desperately wanted to travel. One that involved putting this terrifying house out of their minds as they shucked their clothes and lost themselves in one another.
"This place is haunted," she said.
She waited for him to scoff but he didn't. How could he? What they'd seen was unfathomable.
"The woman we saw. She was Sissy's mother, wasn't she?" Carly asked.
Again, he said nothing. She was glad. She couldn't have swallowed a lie anymore than she could handle the truth.
Outside the wind howled fiercely, whistling through the gaps at the windows and the shattered glass in the kitchen. It brandished its icy power and sliced through them. A shudder traveled her entire body, but it wasn't just the cold that caused it. Carly was scared. Really scared.
"We need to start a fire," JD said. "One that's going to stay lit."
He tugged on her hand and led her to the front door without waiting for her answer---not that she would have argued. It was a plan, a purpose. Something beyond waiting for whatever would come next.
JD opened the front door. In the space of time it had taken to explore upstairs, the world outside had become a blizzard of white. With a sinking feeling, she watched the snow plunge from clouds that looked close enough to touch. The trees sagged beneath the weight of it and the brown, muddied earth lay cleansed by the crystalline flakes. It would have been beautiful if it hadn't felt so deadly.
She thought of Jillian, out there in this storm. Had she been able to see a way up before darkness fell? Had she made it back to the highway? Flagged down someone to take her to the police? Carly prayed Jillian had found someplace safe and warm to wait out the storm. She couldn't let herself consider the alternative.
"How far away did your family live from here?" she asked, remembering what he'd said to the woman with the broken face.
"Eight, nine miles. On the other side of the highway." He shook his head, once again hearing her unspoken question. "It's up the same damn road and it's too far to walk tonight. Not in this. Right now we need to find some wood. We're stuck here, Carly, like it or not."
The words felt as ominous as the hissing snow. She looked at the blizzard of white, the crushed pick up, the dark and silent house. How would they make it through the night?
Before they went outside, JD insisted on giving her his coat, but Carly refused, just as she had his directive to wait in the house where she'd be warmer. She wasn't being stubborn on either count. She knew JD's clothes were dry beneath his jacket and if he gave her the coat now, he'd be just as wet and miserable as she was. What good would that do either one of them?
Besides, she refused to spend a minute alone in that house. She told him so.
Shaking his head, he peeled off his fleece jacket and pulled the sweatshirt over his head. Beneath it he wore a t-shirt that said coach across the chest. He handed Carly the sweatshirt, raising his brows when she didn't take it right away. He was such a gentlemen, unlike anyone she'd ever met. For a moment, treacherous tears burned her eyes again, but she fought them. JD probably already thought her a big baby. No need to belabor the point.
She glanced at him as she pulled her sodden hoodie off and caught him watching her with a look that made her temperature rise as quickly as the cold had made it plunge. His eyes moved over her and she feared he'd see the shiver that his hot look caused. Self-consciously she glanced down, aware of how her breasts swelled against her ancient bra. It was too small but it was her favorite and she couldn't seem to let it go. No one but Carly ever saw it anyway---until now, that was. The mounds of flesh strained against the scraps of lace, clearly defined through her damp and semi-transparent t-shirt. It clung greedily to her skin, sloped down over her ribs, her belly, over the low waist of her jeans.
"Sorry," he mumbled, looking down at his feet.
"It's okay," she said. She turned her back and pulled off the wet t-shirt, quickly tugging on his sweatshirt. It hung down to her knees and was so blissfully warm that it made a shudder go through her. "Thank you," she said over her shoulder as it penetrated the iciness of her skin.
The sweatshirt smelled like him, soap and a light cologne that managed to be both masculine and seductive at once. Without thinking, she pulled the collar to her nose and breathed him in.
When she turned, she found him watching her again. Their eyes met for a moment and she felt the touch of his gaze like the alluring scent that surrounded her. She saw something unreadable in his golden eyes---a war of push and pull that brought out a myriad of brown and green flecks like stars on a bright night. She could fall into those eyes and never emerge. It made no sense, her awareness of him, not here, not now. But there she couldn't pretend it didn't exist. Her whole body thrummed with it.
She gave herself a shake---she knew nothing about this man. They were strangers, stranded in a storm, not a couple on a date.
"You promise you don't have a wife at home?" she asked and the question struck the silence with an awkward note. Good grief, what was wrong with her?
Slowly he nodded, watching her all the while. "I promise," he said and the husky note in his voice started a hot, liquid quiver somewhere low in her belly.
Together---because Carly had seen too many horror flicks to be left behind---they went outside. From the shelter of the porch, they could see a mound of wood that had been split but never stacked. JD insisted that she stay sheltered from the snow and wind while he brought the wood from the pile to her so she could shuttle it to the door.
While they worked, he kept her talking, teasing her into forgetting how cold and frightening this place was. How horrible the bloodied face on that woman had been.
"So what do you do, Carly Ryan?" he asked, dropping an armload of wood at her feet.
"I develop websites."
"You like it?"
"I guess. I get to work from home and that's nice."
He smiled and went back for more wood while she moved the logs to the front door.
He returned a few minutes later, arms full. "You don't miss people, working from home?"
She shrugged. "Sometimes." But truth be told, she'd miss working in her pajamas more than she missed interaction and office politics. She'd never been as social as Jillian, who'd spent half of their time in college trying to coax Carly into putting down the book and going out. Carly stared at the storm. Where was Jillian now?
"I'd miss people," JD said, interrupting her thoughts.
She believed it. And they'd miss him too.
"It's not like I'm a hermit or anything," she said. "I have friends. I go to the gym. The library. Movies."
He grinned at her as he dropped another load. "Wild woman."
Her face grew hot and she scooped up the logs he'd left and dumped them by the door. They both made several more trips before she asked, "What about you? Are you really a coach or do you just like the tshirts?"
"Athletic Director," he corrected. "Not just coach."
"Well, excuse me. It says coach across your chest." And what a chest that was.
"It's a common mistake," he said, eyes glinting with mischief. "Most people don't fully comprehend my importance."
"I can imagine."
"My brother thinks I'm a meathead. He's a big shot professor up at NAU. Thinks I should have followed in his footsteps." He frowned, looking out into the storm.
"What?" Carly asked.
"I was supposed to meet him tonight at five. He's going to be worried."
"Maybe he'll send out a search party," she said. "Maybe they'll find Jillian."
"They may have already," he offered.
"I don't think so. If they had, surely they'd have come back here. Seen my car. Come looking for us."
"She could have made it up to the road before the storm got really bad. Before you even got here."
She doubted it, but the thought gave her a little hope. "Maybe," she said, shuttling the last load to the door.
In silence, they transferred the pile from the porch to the front room. Each time she and JD entered the cavernous house, she felt that eyes watched. They peered from blackened windows and scowled at their progress, sneering at her attempts to make sense of it all.
The events of this night went beyond surreal and she knew her imagination was working overtime. But the unfolding circumstances could not possibly be grounded in the real world---the one that existed in the light of day. She felt them conspiring, whispering in the shadows and a terrifying idea occurred to her.
She had the strange and sickening feeling that neither she nor JD had come to this house by chance. She'd been called to this place, lured down that darkened, deserted road by someone or something . . . .
"Carly," JD said sharply and she realized he'd been speaking. "You with me?"
She nodded quickly and watched as he laid a fire in the fireplace, using an old newspaper he found in the corner with the blankets for kindling. He'd had matches in his jacket and she was willing to bet it wasn't because he smoked. Definitely a boy scout, always prepared.
"What's got those pretty eyes looking so worried now?" he asked.
Carly flushed at the compliment. "I was just thinking about how many coincidences have brought us here."
He nodded, not needing an explanation. Evidently he'd been connecting the same dots as she.
"You said your brother is a professor at Northern Arizona University? Jillian's working on her Masters in Psychology there."
JD paused, his gaze wary. "My brother's the department head," he said in a voice that came across too casual. "She probably knows him. Dr. Dover. Bill Dover?"
Feeling as if she'd been skewered by a hot poker, Carly said, "This morning I got an envelope from Jillian. It had a newspaper article in it." She watched JD. "About one of the psychology professors."
"Do you remember who it was?" he asked.
"No. I just remember it had to do with a grant some big shot in the psych department had won."
She shook her head, cursing herself for not reading the article more carefully, but it had been so dull and she hadn't known why Jillian sent it. There'd been a picture of a man wearing a tweed suit and a bowtie like Indiana Jones' alter-ego and a lot of droning text about the research the grant he'd won enabled.
There'd also been two handwritten notes with the article. The first---in a messy, masculine hand---read "Meet me on Wednesday at four. I must see you." It wasn't signed. The second note had a woman's name and a phone number on it. Carly had never heard of her. Jillian had scrawled, "Carly, in case something happens," on a post-it note stuck to the top of the bundle. That was it.
Carly stared at it, thinking, what was going to happen?
"Is that typical of your friend? To send you stuff like that without telling you why?"
"No."
"Did you ask her about it when she called you?" JD went on, watching her with eyes that missed nothing.
Carly looked down. "No. I...she...I heard the accident before I had the chance."
From upstairs, a new sound cascaded down. It came in a series of rhythmic thumps---faint, but repeated. JD cocked his head to listen. As Carly searched her mind for possible sources for the sound an unwelcome idea came with a wash of dread. The thought of someone bound tight, unable to move but for the steady pounding of their head against a wall filled her mind. She swallowed and tried to block it out. They'd already checked every room and there hadn't been anyone up there, but the visual stayed with her even as the sound faded and then stopped completely.
JD gave her a reassuring glance. "Probably a branch hitting the house," he said.
She nodded, but the memory of the sound grew and warped, until the pounding still echoed in her head.
JD got the fire going, then took the blankets to the porch and shook them vigorously before spreading them out to sit on. With his sweatshirt warm against her skin, Carly sat beside him in front of the fire and felt herself begin to thaw. But her nerves remained tightly wound and a dark hostility seemed to emanate from the now quiet house. In her gut, she felt something building, waiting for them to let down their guard.
JD added another log to the fire, determined to keep it blazing. On the floor, Carly sat bundled in his sweatshirt, her knees drawn up to her chest, a worried frown pulling her brows. He couldn't blame her. He felt the same unease as he glanced at the shadows around them.
He wouldn't let himself dwell on what had happened earlier. Not the sounds, not the scents, not the gruesome woman---not the fire that had looked as real as the inferno he stoked now. Wind could have slammed the doors---probably had, making them bounce right back open. But Sissy's mother---how could he wrap his brain around that one? And the frying chicken that they'd both smelled cooking? Christ almighty.
It was Halloween for the love of God and here he was in this house, a place that had every right to be haunted. But JD didn't believe in things like that. He believed in what he could see and touch. Real things.
Sissy's mom had looked real enough, though.
He glanced back at Carly. She was biting her nails to the quick. She looked up and caught him watching. What went on behind those blue eyes, he wondered? He saw her disquiet, understood it himself. But something else churned in the shades of cornflower and indigo. Before it had been banked desire. Now it looked like...suspicion. Suspicion, inconceivably directed at him, if he read it right.
He knelt down in front of her, forcing her to meet his eyes. She looked very small and defenseless, swimming in his sweatshirt and that undeniable protective instinct rose up inside him again. He couldn't help it. This woman seemed to trigger all of his baser inclinations. Seeing her in his shirt spiked that feeling with a healthy dose of possessiveness that caught him off guard even as it settled deep within him like it belonged there.
Like one of his high school students with his first girlfriend, he wanted to put his arm around her and parade her through the cafeteria so everyone could see that she was his. Of course she wasn't his---not his girlfriend. Not even a friend. She was a stranger. A victim of circumstance, stuck in this god-awful place just like he was.
But he'd seen her watching him---he'd seen her because he couldn't seem to stop watching her. As strange as their meeting was, as bizarre as the unfolding night had become, it somehow felt right---intended. And when he'd touched her, held her, kissed her....
He wanted to know everything about her. He wanted to talk about who she was and what she wanted.
No, in truth, he didn't want to talk at all. He wanted her in his arms again, pressed tightly against his body.
"What are you thinking?" she asked softly and her voice had a husky tremor in it that sparked along his nerves.
He blinked, feeling heat creep up his neck. "I'm thinking about this storm."
She tilted her head to the side and he had the uncanny sense that she knew he'd meant the storm inside him, not the one trapping them in this house.
"It feels a little...prearranged, doesn't it? You and me, stuck here because of it. It seemed to just come out of nowhere, didn't it?"
"Like a bolt of lightning," he said, caught in the swirling sparkle of her eyes. She was like a bolt of lightning. Blindingly bright, breathtakingly unexpected. He felt like he'd been struck. No---not struck. Flattened like his truck outside.
He didn't understand why Carly had that effect on him, but he couldn't pretend she hadn't shaken him up. More than the hero syndrome his brother accused him of having sparked his interest in Carly. He'd have noticed her anywhere. His brother was a psychologist, but he didn't have a clue about how a relationship between one man and one woman should be. He'd never believed in the kind of feelings that...that struck like lightning. For him it was all about lust. JD would be lying if he didn't admit a good deal of lust was at work within him, but there was more to it than that.
Bill had a great wife and kids, but he jumped into bed with every woman who ever batted her eyes at him. Now he was paying for his wrong decisions. His life was in shambles, his wife was going to leave him. The university had talked of suspension. All that kept him from getting fired were the investments he managed to convince others to give to the university. He seemed to have a knack for bringing in money.
Grant money. Carly said Jillian had sent an article about a professor who'd won a big grant. His gut told him it had to be about Bill. His suspicions that Jillian was the girl Bill had planned to meet that afternoon had grown to certainty. He pushed the thoughts away to analyze later and went back to studying Carly.
Unlike his brother, JD was much more careful about who he became involved with and when he decided to do it. And here, in this house of horrors with Carly---and her fantastic story about finding her friend's car by luck---was not the place to change his ways...was it?
He gazed into her eyes and wished he knew what she was thinking. Did she feel it too, this pull between them?
"What's going on behind those baby blues, Carly?" he asked.
Carly shook her head, catching her bottom lip between her teeth as she looked up at him. Despite his best intentions, JD found himself staring at her mouth.
"Why are you here, JD?" she said at last. "I mean, really? What brought you out in this storm tonight? And don't tell me you were just driving around looking for someone to rescue."
"No," he said. "I wasn't. I told you, I was supposed to meet my brother at his office. Why?"
She looked down again, pretending a sudden interest in the hem of his sweatshirt. "I'm trying to put the pieces together. Figure out how it is we both ended up in this place."
"I was wondering that too," he said. "I can't seem to get past how lucky it was that you stumbled on the exact spot your friend went off the road."
She shifted, avoiding his eyes. He saw her wince as she tried to find a comfortable position. She'd had quite a fall, he reminded himself. Every bone in her body probably hurt. But she hadn't complained once.
"I can see if that mattress has any air left in it and drag it down for you. It looked clean."
"Like someone might be sleeping here?"
"Maybe. Maybe they just use it when the backseat gets old."
She nodded, looking forlorn and JD wanted nothing more than to fix this mess. But he didn't have a clue how to do it.
"Leave it upstairs," she said. "I'm fine where I am."
"Why don't you at least lie down?" he suggested, his voice gruff. "You look wiped out."
He grabbed his jacket from the hearth and balled it into a pillow for her. Self-consciously, she leaned back and rested her head on it. He couldn't help himself. He stretched out beside her, careful to keep his distance when every instinct urged him to pull her into his warmth and make her his....
She shifted, as if again, she knew what he thought. "I think I've got a bruise the size of a watermelon on my butt."
"You're lucky you didn't break something," he said.
Lucky.
Once more, she caught her lip between her teeth and started worrying it. What the hell was she thinking?
"How did you know where your friend's car would be, Carly?" he asked gently.
He touched her arm, drawing her gaze. He saw confusion and fear in that bottomless blue.
"Talk to me," he said.
He thought she'd refuse, already he recognized the stubborn tilt of her chin. She was going to put a hole in her lip if she didn't stop biting it. Unable to stop himself, he reached out and rubbed his thumb over her bottom lip. She released it with a soundless sigh.
"Did you ever read The Shining?" she asked softly.
"I saw the movie."
"Do you remember the little boy? How when he needed help, he thought real hard and could send a message?"
He had no idea where she was going with this, but he nodded. "Yeah, I remember."
"Jillian can do that."
He didn't know whether to scoff or laugh outright. But Carly's face was solemn, her eyes intent. She wasn't joking.
"What's that supposed to mean? She sent you some . . ."
"Signal. She sent me a signal."
"And told you she'd been run off the road."
"She showed me, JD. I saw it happen. She was driving, it was raining. She was just approaching the Canyon Veil exit sign and this big---I don't know, a Cadillac or some gas guzzler car from back when gas was cheap---it hit her. It rammed her right off the road."
"Bullshit." He couldn't have held it back even if he'd tried.
She sat up, anger making red flags of color on her cheeks. "It's not bullshit. It's the truth."
"Why would anyone run her off the road, Carly?" he demanded.
"I don't know. But I saw it. And my story is no more unbelievable than yours is, JD. You just happen to be driving by on your way to meet your brother? I don't believe that. I saw the way you looked when I mentioned Jillian's name and said she's a student at NAU. I saw how guarded your eyes got when I told you about that article. You know who Jillian is, don't you?"
JD stared at her, too surprised to respond. Was she accusing him of something? Angry, he stood and she immediately jumped to her feet as well. The top of her head barely reached his chin, but she stared him down with a look that might well reduce him to ash.
"I was on my way to see my brother," he said calmly, though his heart raced and his palms felt suddenly damp. He didn't like where this conversation seemed to have veered. "He's having an issue with one of his students."
"An issue?"
"There's a girl---"
"Is her name Jillian by any chance?"
"As a matter of fact, it is."
Carly muttered something under her breath and covered her face with her hands.
"Wait a minute," he said. "Stop right there---whatever you're thinking, stop. This girl at school, Bill said she's got this, this thing for him. She's been following him around. Calling his house. Waiting for him in his office. His job is on the line and so is his marriage. He asked me to come up to his office tonight so he could tell her to knock it off. He didn't want to be alone with her but he didn't want to meet her somewhere public either. He thought she might go nuts on him."
"Jillian would never obsess over a man," Carly spat at him.
"I never said she would. I'm saying this girl, who by coincidence is also named Jillian, has a screw loose and she's after my brother."
Carly glared at him. "Has it happened before?" she demanded.
JD knew exactly what she meant---had there been other girls? He thought of Marilee Rhodes who might well press charges and put an end to Bill's personal and professional endeavors. Damn Carly for asking. "Yes."
"How many times? How many times have students lost their heads over your brother?"
Too many to count. But he wasn't going to say it.
She shook her head. "How many times has it happened to you, JD?"
She was back to accusing him, he guessed. Pissed, he looked her in the eye. "Never."
"Doesn't that strike you as strange? You have female students, right? I mean, granted I've never met your brother but he can't be any better looking than you are and yet you manage to keep them from crossing the line, losing their heads. I mean . . ."
She paused, flustered, as if she'd just realized what she'd said. If he hadn't been so mad, he might have smiled. He hadn't imagined those long, hungry looks she'd cast him.
"I mean, if I was going to. . . ." She stopped again. "What I'm saying is, maybe it's your brother and not the women in question."
"You don't even know him."
"I do know my friend. She's gorgeous. She's smart. She's rich. For as long as I've known her, she's had a line of men just wishing she'd talk to them. Nothing you can say would convince me that she suddenly went nutso over your brother to the point that he'd need a witness to back her down."
JD clenched his jaw, not wanting to see the truth that gleamed out of those blue eyes. But it was there. If they were talking about the same person. And she seemed pretty damn certain they were.
"There were two slips of paper attached to the article Jillian sent me. One looked like it had been written by a man---it said for her to meet him today at four. The other had a girl's phone number and name on it. I can't remember her name, though. Mary or Rhonda, Rhoda---"
"Marilee Rhodes?" he asked softly, wishing she'd say no, but of course, she didn't.
"Yes," she exclaimed. "Marilee Rhodes. How do you know that?"
He exhaled, shaking his head. "She's going to file charges against Bill for sexual harassment. Right now, it's her word against his, but if someone else were to come forward and corroborate her story, it wouldn't be good."
"Someone? Like Jillian?"
He didn't answer. He didn't have to. The truth of the matter was too starkly clear.
"All this confirms is that Bill needed to talk to your friend," JD said. "And that he didn't want to do it alone. It doesn't mean he ran her off the road."
"You're protecting him," she said, her voice tinged with disappointment.
"Hell yes, I'm protecting him. He's my big brother. Just because he can't keep his dick in his pants, doesn't mean he's a monster."
She hesitated, looking like she wanted to say more. In her expression he saw compassion. Understanding. But threaded through it was determination.
"Has he always been that way?"
"A slut?"
She nodded. "I mean, earlier, when I asked you if your brother could have been the father of Sissy's unborn child? You said, 'no,' with absolute certainty."
"Listen, Carly. I agree we've got some strange coincidences ... but now you're really reaching. I told you. He would have married her in a heartbeat if she'd have had him. He was torn up for weeks after he found out she'd been with someone else."
"Why wouldn't she have had him?" Carly asked. "If she was scared enough to lie about being raped, why didn't she say yes to your brother?"
"I don't know. Maybe he didn't ask her because it wasn't his kid." He threw his hands in the air and shook his head. "This conversation is crazy, you know that? We're talking about a girl who died twenty years ago, for christssakes. It's ridiculous."
"I'm sorry, JD. It's just...I don't think we're here by chance. Don't you see that? Can't you feel it? I mean, me falling down the hill. Your stupid truck getting flattened in the front yard. Everything that's happening? The doors. The woman? The picture upstairs that looks exactly like Jillian? God in heaven, there's something going on here and we need to figure out what in the hell it is."
She'd worked herself into tears. Giant drops that spilled over her lashes. She swiped them away with an angry hand. "I'm scared," she said. "And I want to know what's going on."
His own anger faded as he watched her struggling to hold back the tide. She was frightened. Hell, he was too. The shadows just seemed to get longer and the air felt thick with anticipation. And as crazy as what she'd just said sounded, he knew in some way, she was right. Too much coincidence to ignore. But what did that mean, really? What did Bill and her friend have to do with the two of them being stranded in this house? Nothing? Everything?
He looked at Carly, furiously scrubbing the tears from her eyes and shook his head.
"Hey," he said.
She lowered her face so he couldn't see, but she couldn't seem to stop the flow. Suddenly it didn't matter so much what had brought them to this place. All that mattered was that they were here, together. He gave into the desire he'd been fighting. He pulled her into his arms and held her---not in comfort, not as a stranger, but as a man.
She struggled half-heartedly and then she sagged against him, bunching his t-shirt in her fists, pressing her face to his chest. He didn't say anything, he just held her, rubbing her back and shoulders, aware all the while of every soft curve of her body. Despite all she'd been through, her scent was sweet, like some honeyed soap and perfume so light he could barely smell it. He wanted to press his face to the soft curve of her neck until her fragrance surrounded him.
She still had pine needles caught in her hair and he pulled a couple out then combed his fingers through it. It was long and tangled in a silky mess. He rubbed the tight muscles of her neck, the base of her scalp, her shoulders, until her tears slowed then dried completely.
She stayed in his arms, but he felt her tense, felt her awareness of him spread through her body.
She tilted her head back and looked up at him with those big blue eyes. He could tell himself no all night, but the fact of the matter was, he wanted to kiss her---he wanted more than that. He wanted to bury himself inside her and stay there for a long, long time.
His gaze moved from her beautiful eyes to her soft mouth. She had her bottom lip caught with her teeth again. Now she released it, running her tongue over the tortured flesh in an absent gesture that pushed him right over the edge.
With a muffled groan, he captured her sweet mouth with his.
The moment JD's mouth found hers, Carly was lost in the taste of him, the scent of him, the feel of him. She let the sensations roll over her as his fingers tunneled beneath her hair. He cupped her head between his hands, holding her still while he explored her mouth with lips and tongue. Carly's arms wound around his neck, pulling him closer before her mind even thought--not that she would have listened even if it had. She wanted him. She'd wanted him since he'd walked through the door and the teasing kiss of earlier had only fanned her desire. The solid muscles of his chest felt hard against her breasts as she pressed every inch of her body against his. She rocked with the heat of him, frustrated by the clamor of emotions and needs fighting to control her. She wanted this, but not now. Not here in this terrifying place.
As he'd done so many times this night, he seemed to hear her thoughts. He pulled away and stared deeply into her eyes. Carly felt mesmerized by the swirling golds, greens and browns, by the confusion of emotions she saw warring inside him. She felt like she could see right down to his soul. He was the kind of man who'd stop in the rain to change an old woman's tire or give his last twenty to the homeless guy on the corner, even if he suspected the man would only use it for booze. Or believe in his brother long after he should . . .
In such a short span of time, she'd come to like JD very much, so much that like seemed a weak word. There'd been a connection she'd felt from the moment he'd walked through the door---as if a part of her had recognized him as the perfect counterbalance to everything that seemed off kilter within herself. Her emotions welled up, powerful, overwhelming. Never had she felt anything like this before and she knew that it went beyond attraction. After just a few hours, she'd fallen a little in love with JD Dover.
"When we get out of here . . ." he began with a quick glance at the hulking shadows.
Then those mesmerizing eyes stared into hers and she saw the same concern---the same fear of the unknown that she felt. This wasn't the time or place to fall in love. Too many mysteries lurked in every corner and Carly sensed that what unnerved JD the most, was his inability to protect her. Doing the right thing was as much a part of this man as that steady gaze.
Her fear somehow sharpened her awareness---of herself, of JD's body next to hers. She heard her breath moving in and out of her lungs. She felt his heart, pounding too fast against her own. His hands made a raspy noise as they traveled over her clothes.
Crazy, to feel threatened to her soul and feel that the only path to safety was in this man's kiss. But she did. In the space of a few hours, her life had become a train wreck, but this, right now, right here in the middle of this awful place, was something good that she was desperate to hold onto for as long as she could.
"Let's not wait until we get out of here," she whispered. "I want to be with you. Now."
JD stiffened in surprise and then he smiled that devastating smile. She melted into him as his tongue teased her lips and his hands roamed her body. She'd never reveled in the taste of a man before, in the warmth and softness of his mouth, the rough and silky velvet of his tongue. JD's kiss hit her senses like some exotic, potent drink.
She felt every contour, every layer of muscle from his chest, to the lean line of his belly to his long legs. He pushed his thigh between hers and she rocked against it as he shifted to kiss her throat. He was hard, in every way possible, and the knowledge that she'd roused him made her bold. A spiraling tightness turned everything inside her liquid as she opened herself completely to the sensation of his touch.
The contact was like a bursting flame, unbearably hot and uncontrollable, as unexpected as lightning in a still sky. His mouth trailed his hands and then with a groan of frustration he pulled away. She felt the loss immediately as reality rushed at her from all around. But only for an instant. He hauled the sweatshirt up and over her head before tossing it aside. The lifting of that barrier brought with it another need, this one deep and abiding. She pulled at the hem of his shirt and he obliged, tugging it over his chest and shoulders and then dropping it at their feet.
For a moment she could only stare at the sleek muscle, golden brown and gleaming in the firelight. He was layered with sinew and strength, a work of art, rippling and sun-kissed. She laid her hands against the warmth of him and watched with fascination as her touch brought a shiver.
He kissed her again, deeply, possessively. And then moved down her body. His mouth was hot and wet against the silky lace of her bra before he pulled her breasts from the cups and kissed them. She buried her fingers deep in his soft hair, watching as he knelt to press kisses to her stomach, her hips. He reached for the fastening of her jeans, giving her a moment to stop him if she chose. She didn't. He'd managed to block out everything else with the fire he'd started in her. All her worries, all of her fears took backseat to the brush of his lips and the flick of his tongue.
On his knees now, he pulled each button of her jeans loose and then kissed the skin it revealed. Her legs trembled as he dragged the denim down her legs. Then he paused and looked up the length of her body and into her eyes. In that moment, she didn't care where they were or how they'd come to be there. She saw only him.
He slid his hands up the backs of her thighs, slipping his fingers beneath the elastic of her panties as he pulled her hips forward and pressed his mouth against the silk. She braced her hands against his shoulders as his tongue stroked a hot and wet path, his teeth nipping gently until her knees buckled. He caught her in his arms and laid her gently on the blanket. In the next minute, he'd stripped her bare.
She'd never been with a man who made love with such focused attention, such seductive detail. JD didn't race for the finish line. What he did with his mouth, his tongue, the hot breath he blew across her sensitive skin---it made her arch her back and draw up her knees. It dragged sounds from deep in her throat that she'd never known herself to make. It shocked her, the power of sensation that shuddered through every nerve, every pore, bringing her to release with breathtaking swiftness.
When she could move, she came up on her knees and took a page from his book.
She kissed her way over the rigid lines of his chest then belly, rubbing him through the thickness of his pants as she inched her way down. He was hard and ready, pressing against the fly of his jeans, making them so tight she couldn't work the button free. Finally, the top one gave and the others followed in a rush, releasing him. He rolled to his back and lifted his hips so she could tug both his jeans and boxers down and off in one determined effort.
Then she took him in her hand, amazed that something so hard could feel so soft, the skin like satin. There were a million things she wanted to do him, with him. She wanted to touch and taste every inch of his golden skin. She wanted to feel him tremble as she drove him crazy with her lips and tongue. She wanted to lie back while he did the same to her.
But there was an urgency within them both that seemed greater than wants or needs. His muscles flexed as he braced his weight over her and slid between her legs. She wanted his whole weight, she wanted to melt against him, to become one. Carefully, he complied with her need until he was bearing down on her and there was only one place they were not connected. He looked into her eyes as he slid inside her. The edge of sanity, of reason came at her with dizzying speed. Before she'd considered what it meant, she was beyond it, engulfed in the passion and sensation of the moment.
JD drove himself into her, fast, then slow, long strokes than short until he'd built that tension again. She gripped him hard with her thighs, matching his rhythm as the feeling of spiraling and twisting grew tighter and tighter. His answer to her silent plea came hard and powerful and suddenly her body clenched in response and then she was gone. She arched her back as release flooded her senses and tightened her muscles around him. She knew the moment he joined her, his body tense and pushing and then rigid with climax. The feel of him letting go brought her to orgasm again and she held onto his shoulders as the unbelievable feeling washed over her once more.
They lay in each other's arms afterwards, neither of them moving. She wasn't even sure she could move if she tried. Slowly he rose up on his arms and stared down at her, laughing as he brushed her hair from her face and kissed her.
"Don't take this wrong," he said, and for a moment she braced herself. "But I think I could fall in love with you."
Carly smiled and then she laughed. "I know exactly how you feel," she said and kissed him again.
Carly didn't know what time it was when she woke up. She looked around, disoriented, stunned that JD had made her feel safe enough to doze. The fire burned low in the grate and the room was warm. She was dressed again, but for her shoes, lying on the floor by the hearth.
And she was alone.
"JD?" she said softly, sitting up. Panic came on so suddenly, she didn't know how to quell it. "JD?" she shouted.
He didn't answer but behind her, someone took a deep and ragged breath. Carly spun with a gasp, every hair on her body standing on end. A scream had lodged somewhere in her chest and she couldn't get it out.
The young girl from the photographs---Sissy---stood in the shadows. She wore a smock top with fancy embroidery, the kind they sold in Mexican border towns to American tourists. It dropped from a square neck over swollen breasts to a point just at her hips where her pregnancy pushed against the fabric. The jeans were not so tight now as they'd been in the picture and she wore no makeup at all. Carly felt like she was seeing a hazy reflection of Jillian when she looked at her.
"He doesn't even know," Sissy whispered, worrying a wadded up tissue with her hands.
Carly couldn't make her voice work to ask, who? and what doesn't he know?
"You can figure it out," Sissy said, her voice still low and breathless. "Think about the time." She paused and looked over her shoulder. There was fear in her eyes. Fear, though she couldn't possibly be real. What did the dead have to fear?
The question made her tremble.
"I thought he loved me," she whispered, as if the mysterious he might hear. "He used to come to see me in the night. He'd climb the tree, out in back, by my window. We'd sneak up to the attic." She looked into Carly's eyes, a faraway glow shining even in the shadows. "And we'd make love. I thought it was real. I thought he was . . . ."
"There's an attic?" Carly breathed.
"Then he changed. He said he'd kill me if I told anyone about the baby." Her eyes pleaded, for what Carly didn't know. "He told me to trust him. He's damned me to hell now."
Sissy reached out a hand, as if to touch her. Carly braced herself for the feeling of cold nothingness, but it was Sissy's words that filled her with ice.
"Think about the time," she repeated. "He's got her, and he'll hurt her."
Sissy's hand settled over Carly's heart and the scream that had banked within her throat tore free and burst from her mouth. It was long and harsh, burning as it came out. The front door burst open and footsteps raced at her. But she couldn't look away from the place where Sissy had stood. She couldn't stop shaking. She couldn't stop feeling that freezing invasion as Sissy passed her hand right through Carly's chest.
"Carly," JD said, grabbing her shoulders and turning her to face him. "Christ, I was out getting wood. I heard you scream. What happened? Are you okay?"
He was freezing, wet from the snow outside but she pressed herself to him anyway. A low, tortured sound came from deep in her throat.
"Carly, honey, what happened?"
He pulled her closer still. His hands moved over her back, pressing her into him as if he meant to absorb her completely. She wanted that. She wanted to be a part of him.
"There's an attic," she whispered.
Somewhere in the house a clock struck midnight in long, agonized tones.
With each echoing bong, the house began to creak and moan. The sounds came in waves, building with each measure, insidious, pulsating. Carly had been lulled by the silence, the lovemaking, and the connection with JD as she'd lain in his arms. She'd almost managed to convince herself what had happened earlier wasn't real.
Now she stared at the walls anxiously, watching them vibrate to some mysterious and sinister tempo. The ancient chandelier that hung in what must have been the dining room began to sway back and forth and the panes at the front door rattled. The floor overhead shuddered and dust rained down. The house felt caught in a quake.
A howling groan that sounded more human than possible rose up in crescendo and then the shaking stopped and the wind stilled. It left them with an eerie sense of waiting. Waiting, for something they didn't want to come.
Faintly at first, and then louder with each reiteration, the sound of thumping traveled down the stairs. It came in a desolate rhythm, stopped then repeated. As it had earlier, the sound brought to mind the idea of someone tied up, only able to move their head to beat against the wall. On the heels of the thought, came the memory of Sissy's warning.
He's got her and he'll hurt her . . .
JD stared at the ceiling. She put her hand on his chest, calling him back. "Who would she be talking about?" she asked.
He shook his head. "Who are you talking about?"
In halting, fearful bursts, she explained what she'd seen, what she'd heard.
Upstairs the rhythmic thumping paused and then started again.
"What if it's Jillian? What if she's here?"
Carly swallowed her terror and started for the stairs, JD following right behind her. It gave her courage, having him with her. But nothing could quell her fear. Just as she reached the first step, the old man appeared in front of her.
"Disrespectful," he said. "That's what it was, bringing her here. Right to Sissy's room."
Carly kept going, past him, though it took every bit of grit to do it. At the landing on the second floor, they paused. JD looked to the ceiling, searching for the hatch.
"You're sure there's an attic?"
Up ahead at the entry to Sissy's dark room, stood Sissy's mother. Her face was whole now. No gruesome gashes or ghastly caverns of bone and flesh. Both eyes gleamed in that perfect china blue. She motioned them to follow.
"There, JD," Carly whispered. Her voice shook, her legs shook. She'd never been so scared. But that steady thumping kept going, spurring her on.
Jillian. It had to be.
Carly reached for JD and he was there, beside her, holding her hand and helping her when she might have given up.
In Sissy's room, lit candles lined the walls around the mattress, giving the room a romantic, flickering light. In the center of it all, Sissy waited. She looked young and innocent, her enormous eyes filled with hope. She quickly moved to the closet door which stood open, though Carly remembered JD closing it. Then, Sissy vanished.
"It's in here," JD said softly.
He braced himself against the wall, using the upper shelf to heft his body high enough to reach the fat eyelet screw poking from the wooden hatch door. He was just inches too short. He motioned Carly forward and he lifted her until she could grab it and pull. The door swung down and a folded stairway opened out. The thumping came louder now.
"You ready?" JD asked.
Carly nodded, but she wasn't ready. Not at all.
Flashlight in one hand, he began to climb. Carly kept close, trying to keep her focus on that point of light, on JD.
"Careful," he warned as he reached the top and stepped off the ladder. He helped her do the same. The attic ran the whole length of the house. A cold draft gushed by, parting air warmed by the rising heat from the fireplace below.
A plywood floor stretched out, covered by old boxes and broken furniture. A lamp stood in a cobweb shroud next to a mirror that caught the flashlight and sent it back. Slowly JD poked the beam into corners and shadows. They heard a muffled cry and he swung the light around. The beam landed on something that squirmed.
Carly bit back her scream as he put the light back to the cranny between a tall, busted armoire and the wall. Shoes, legs.
Without another thought, she rushed forward, JD right behind her, crouching beneath the sloping ceiling. There, crammed into a tiny space between the debris, bound at ankles and wrists, gagged and beaten but alive, lay Jillian.
Jillian shook so much she could hardly stand and JD had to help her. She'd been tied tightly, her wrists trussed and then looped through the binds at her feet. JD winced at the welts where the ropes had burned. The only thing she'd been able to move was her head. She'd pounded it on the wall until a lump had formed.
Gently, he carried her down to the first floor, setting her by the fire on their blanket. Carly had been silent since she'd shouted her friend's name. With each horror they uncovered as they unbound Jillian, Carly became more stoic. He hadn't known her long, but he already knew her well enough to guess that she felt guilty for not knowing that Jillian lay just over their heads, in agonizing pain.
"This isn't your fault, Carly," he said, after he'd settled Jillian in front of the fire. Carly's eyes looked luminous with unshed tears. He pulled her to him and pressed kisses to her brow. "She'd still be there if it wasn't for you."
Carly knelt next to Jillian, smoothed her hair back and held her. Jillian still hadn't spoken, but Carly asked her again, "Who did this to you, Jilly?"
In answer, the house began to rumble again and within the thunderous shaking, came another sound. Crying. The sobs carried in long and low wails. It seemed the very walls wept in deep, discordant harmony. The heart wrenching sounds seemed to emanate from everywhere. The house wept.
JD watched the two women huddled on the blanket. Jillian stared at the fire, oblivious to anything but the flames. Carly looked around fearfully.
"She told me---Sissy told me to think about the time," Carly whispered. "What does that mean? She said I could figure it out, but I needed to think about the time."
At last Jillian spoke and her voice came like a rusted hinge, deep and painfully thin. "He told me to meet him here at four."
"Why here?" JD asked, though it hardly mattered.
"He liked it here and this is where we came all summer. It's not so bad when the sun's out." She laughed sadly. "We didn't have to worry about getting caught together or being seen by some nosy neighbor."
Jillian took a deep breath and looked at Carly with agonized eyes. "You saw him run me off the road?"
Carly nodded. JD looked on, feeling that her next words would change everything he knew to be real, understanding at some deep level that what she said next would wound him like nothing else could, though he hadn't a clue why. Still, he braced himself.
"I came here after I crashed," Jillian said in her broken voice. "I walked right into his trap. I didn't know it was him. I never thought he'd hurt me. I came in, thinking I'd find him waiting. Thinking he'd probably try to go out and get the crazy person who'd run me off the road."
"Who are you talking about," JD finally asked.
"Bill," she whispered. "Bill Dover."
JD felt like he'd been punched---yes he'd been braced for it. Yes, at some level he hadn't wanted to acknowledge it, he'd even expected it. But to hear his brother's name spoken by this broken woman...to have it confirmed. The air left his lungs and his heart seemed to constrict in his tight chest.
Not Bill, not his brother.
"Is that who the article you sent me was about?" Carly asked. "Is that why you sent it?"
Jillian nodded, shook her head, then nodded again. "I knew he wanted to end things. I knew he would stay with his wife. But I thought he loved me. I thought...I thought it would be as hard for him as it was for me, saying goodbye. Then Marilee got in touch with me and told me horrible, horrible things. I didn't want to believe her, but I sent that stuff off to you....I don't know. Just in case. I thought when I saw Bill, he would be able to explain it all away. I thought Marilee had exaggerated. I thought she'd lied," she said on sob.
Carly gently smoothed Jillian's hair back. "What happened when you got to this house, Jilly?" she asked.
"He was keeping Marilee here," she said. Her voice cracked and tears streamed down her face. "She looked like she'd fallen off a cliff or something. She was dead."
JD looked at Carly, thought of the passenger in the wreckage of Jillian's car and knew it must be Marilee's body he'd seen there.
"I still didn't understand so he explained it to me. Like I was an incredibly stupid child. Bill had run me off the road. He thought it would kill me. And then we'd both be gone. I don't know how he thought he'd get away with it. He'd be the first suspect. Wouldn't he?"
"Yes," JD murmured, but he was looking at Carly, remembering what she'd said. Think about the time.
Carly whispered, "Unless he had an alibi."
And then it all became crystal clear. Bill had told Jillian to meet him here at four and he'd told JD to meet him at his office at five. He hadn't wanted JD to witness his conversation with Jillian. He'd wanted JD to witness her never showing up. He wanted an alibi. If not for Carly, he'd have had one.
The horror of it washed over JD, but before he could react, a deathly silence gripped the house. He looked up to see something move and then come into focus. Sissy stood right behind Carly. The look on his face spun Carly around to face the dead woman.
"Don't worry," Jillian whispered. "She won't hurt you."
But how could they not be horrified by the sight that met their eyes? Sissy's smocked top was bloody and torn. A hole in her head, right between her eyes, looked like a Bindi but for the trail that spilled down her face. She turned and JD saw that the back of her skull was gone. She looked real and solid, grisly and gruesome. Her fingers spread over her belly where a dark stain grew even as they watched.
"He told me he'd kill me," she said, crying as blood spilled from that horrifying hole in her head. "'Tell them it was Mike,' he said. 'If you tell the truth, you'll be as dead as the dog.'" She looked at JD with sad, forsaken eyes. "I did what he told me, but he killed us anyway, didn't he?"
No, not his brother. Bill wouldn't, couldn't....
As Carly turned to look at JD, something zinged over her head and lodged in the wall. She screamed as splinters spewed back at her. JD stared at it with shock, but before he could react something else shot past her and hit Sissy's chest. Blood sprayed from the wound, splattering his face in a warm wash that was somehow more shocking than the sight. He'd felt the whoosh of the bullet, the sting of splintered wood and the spray of blood. They may not have been real, but he'd felt them.
Feeling the danger all around them, JD pulled Carly to her feet, tucking her close to his body to shelter her then reached down for Jillian as he backed them out of the room. Sissy left a bloody handprint on the paint as she slid to her knees. He still didn't understand what was happening. He couldn't wrap his head around the idea that someone had shot at them---couldn't determine if it was real or illusion. Another bullet whizzed by, caught the corner of the door and shards of wood and paint exploded from the impact.
Jillian screamed and Carly made a terrified sound that was as frightening as the bullets. Keeping a hand on each woman's head---holding them low as they crouched and ran---he raced for the front door which stood open and waiting. Through it, he saw the black night, frosted by snow that swirled in an angry white rage. The wind's howling cry whipped through the branches of the laden pines and stripped oaks. The freezing cold gusted in as they drew closer. And then, just before they reached the door, it slammed shut with a finality that echoed throughout the house.
JD grabbed the knob and turned, putting all his weight behind the effort to open it again. As if sealed with cement, the door wouldn't budge. In a rage, he tried to break the glass on either side with his flashlight, but the windows stood firm, repelling the effort without so much as a crack in the surface. The gunshots ceased, but the terror they'd inspired hung like the cold. Who had been shooting? Someone real? Or was it more trickery of the house?
Quickly, JD moved the women forward, through to the kitchen, past Sissy's bleeding body and to the back door. It stood open until they drew near and then slammed with a boom he felt to his toes.
Taunting them. The house was taunting them.
He hurried to the window over the sink that they'd seen shattered in their earlier inspection. Now thick plywood covered the glass, hammered tightly to the frame on all sides. No draft, no way out.
Back in the front room, their fire still blazed merrily in the grate, but now chairs and a long green couch sat around it, nudged up to a cozy braided rug. To their right, six chairs circled a dining table with a lace cloth and a bowl of flowers on it. A china cabinet stood just behind with dark wood gleaming and china plates glistening in the dim light. A heavenly smell wafted from the kitchen.
Fried chicken....
Cautiously, they inched forward just as a shadow separated itself from the wall and became the solid form of a man. He was black, his skin so dark it shone like ebony. Well over six foot and as broad shouldered as a lumber jack, he dwarfed the room. He wore a dark suit and crisp white shirt. He held a rifle in his hands.
It took a moment and then JD recognized him---Sissy had accused Mike Maze of raping her and Mike's dad's face had been on the news for weeks before the trial of his son, as he'd declared Mike's innocence and beseeched whoever would listen for justice. His picture and video clips had aired every night after the rampage that had left Sissy's family dead. Mr. Maze had come straight from the hearing, still dressed in his somber suit, to slaughter Sissy's family.
As JD stared, another form seemed to appear from nowhere and step forward. Sissy's mother, the woman with the shattered face. Beside her, stood the old man who'd let Carly in---must be Sissy's dad.
"They're not real," he said.
"Yes they are," Jillian murmured. "Bill made them real."
They heard footsteps again and then the loud report of a rifle. The china cabinet exploded in a burst of glass and porcelain. Another shot took out the flower bowl and blasted a hole in the wall. Carly let out a shout of pain. He looked down at her and saw blood soaking through the sleeve of her sweatshirt. She made a choking sound as she stared at her arm.
"Jesus Christ," he breathed, grabbing her just as her knees gave out.
"He's hiding."
The voice came from behind him. Holding Carly, trying to protect Jillian, feeling like he'd fail no matter what he did, JD spun to find Sissy, standing there. Her top was saturated with blood, her hair damp with it. The bullet hole stood out in stark ridges on her forehead.
"He started with the dog," she said.
"I loved that dog," another voice answered. It was the old man. His throat hung open where a bullet had ripped through the flesh and muscle. "Why'd he have to kill the dog?"
"I told him no, Daddy," Sissy said. "He doesn't like no."
Sissy's mother moved to stand beside her husband. Her horrible, shattered china-doll face moved in a lurching manner when she spoke. "I fed that boy," she said as if his act of eating food she'd provided were the worst of his crimes.
Sissy looked at JD with dead eyes. "He killed the dog as a warning, but I didn't understand. I didn't understand how anyone could be so evil. But you know, don't you JD?"
He wasn't sure which was most disconcerting---her knowing his name or her speaking to him at all. "What are you talking about?"
"Your brother wanted that scholarship more than anything, didn't he?"
JD shook his head, trying to understand and then he remembered. Their own father had died of a heart attack during Bill's senior year. There hadn't been enough money from the insurance to cover all the debts he'd left behind and Bill's plans for college had been snuffed with their father's life. But there was a football scholarship and he'd managed to secure it.
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Who do you think his competition was?" Mike's dad asked. "My son was smarter, better at sports, and for one goddamn time, being a minority worked to his advantage. But your brother doesn't like to lose, does he? He'll do whatever it takes."
The truth of it rolled over JD like a killer wave. Mike's case had been overturned years later when tests of Sissy's fetus had yielded DNA that didn't match his own. The prosecution's case that Sissy had been an innocent dove, touched only by her rapist, fell under that concrete fact and since all other evidence had been circumstantial, Mike had finally gone free. By then Bill was a college graduate.
"I told him no one would believe it, when the baby was born and it was white," Sissy said, "but he said it wouldn't matter then. He said by then we'd be married and we'd be heroes. Everyone would believe God had intervened."
A shuffling sound turned JD around. Carly sagged against him, holding her wounded arm. Jillian backed away, her eyes large and terrified.
Bill stood at the stairs.
Dressed in black from head to toe, he wore rubber gloves on his hands. He'd tucked his pants into the tops of his black boots, his sleeves bundled tight at the wrists. All his hair had been shoved into a stocking cap with a mask that hid his lower face. But this was JD's brother. He'd recognize him in any disguise.
"Why are you dressed like that?" JD asked, still hoping against all odds that the damning facts could be false. "Bill, what are you doing?"
The eyes peering from the ski mask looked distressed, but clear. "I'm sorry, JD. I didn't want you involved in this."
"In what?" JD demanded. "Just what the fuck is this?"
Bill shook his head. "A mess. And now I have to clean it up."
"You were going to make me lie for you, weren't you?" JD said as the extent of his betrayal began to clear. His brother, a man he'd loved and worshipped like the father they'd lost when they were kids. His brother had murdered people. He planned to do it again.
"No, I wouldn't have made you lie," Bill said, his eyes round with sincerity. "I swear. You wouldn't have been lying. You'd have come to the office. I'd have been there. It would have been the truth. I just didn't count on the girl." He glared at Carly. "How did you know?"
"I called her," Jillian said and there was a triumphant smile on her face.
For a moment, Bill faltered. "How?" he demanded. "I took your phone."
"It doesn't matter, Bill," JD said. "Look at yourself. What are you doing?"
"It would have worked if it wasn't for her." Another threatening glare at Carly. "And you, you and your hero syndrome. Couldn't just drive by, could you? Not JD. Always has to do the right thing."
As Bill spoke, Mike's dad moved to stand behind him. He reached over and yanked the stocking cap from Bill's head. Bill shouted and spun, his panicked gaze swiveling as he looked for whoever had done it. JD realized he couldn't see the ghost of Mike's dad. Bill's hat lay on the floor and he snatched it up. But when he turned around, Sissy stood right in front of him. He didn't see her either. She jerked his pants legs from his boots while Bill danced around, trying to escape her.
Then it was Sissy's father's turn. He yanked the tight band of the gloves up and down Bill's hands with a grim and gruesome smile. The terror on Bill's face would have been comical had the circumstances not been so horrifying. Finally Sissy's mother approached, took the rifle from Mike's dad's hands and aimed it right at Bill's head.
JD shouted, "NO!" just as she pulled the trigger. The sound reverberated through the house, echoing over and over. Bill screamed as a blast of air passed over his head, but he was unharmed. Still stunned, JD watched him pull a gun from the waist of his pants and frantically swing it left and right, not knowing where to aim.
It was a real gun. The one that had shot Carly. Rage began to replace the devastation, horror and disappointment surging inside JD.
"Get out of the way," Bill said, deciding to make the people he could see his target. "Let me get this over with."
JD stood in front of both women and stared at his brother with crushing disbelief.
"You'll have to go through me, Bill. Are you so far gone that you'll kill your own brother? Because I won't lie for you."
"Quit being a fucking boy scout. Get out of my way."
JD launched himself at Bill, struggling to get the gun free. Bill fought hard but JD banged his wrist against the doorframe until he opened his hand. The gun clattered to the floor and slid across the room. Carly pushed away from Jillian and kicked it far out of reach.
It hurt JD to pound his fist into his brother's face, but Bill seemed to have no such compunction and he fought a dirty battle. They grappled, hitting each other with blows that went deeper than flesh and bone. At last JD's fist hit its mark and Bill's head slammed back. He slid to the floor, unconscious.
Breathing heavy, JD looked down at his brother and he saw a stranger. The brother he'd loved no longer lived in this body and yet they were still blood. He wanted to stop the world and reverse it, wiping out the awful crimes Bill had perpetrated. He wanted to cry out at the insanity of what had happened and make it all go away. He couldn't do the first anymore than he could the second. Instead he bent and bound Bill up with the ropes that had been used on Jillian, feeling numb as he did it. Carly left her friend beside the fire and came to stand next to him. She touched him gently, somehow understanding the pain that he still struggled to comprehend. What would he tell their mother?
"I'm sorry, JD," she said.
He put his arms around her and held her, feeling solace in her touch. He was sorry too, sorry he hadn't seen his brother for the monster he'd become. Sorry that so many had been hurt while he'd been blithely unaware.
He turned into the comfort Carly offered, burying his face in the crook between her shoulder and neck, letting her scent ground him. More than coincidence had brought them together and though the wreckage of his relationship with his brother would scar him forever, the balm of this woman's love would help him survive it, because now, in this darkest of moments, he realized that what he felt for Carly would last long after the horrors of this night had faded. It didn't matter how short a time they'd known each other, JD felt that forever would be theirs to cherish.
They shared a quiet moment that both of them knew would be just one of many in their future. Whatever bad things had brought them together, the good to come out of it would be found in their union.
With a deep breath, he bent to the inert body of his brother and patted his pockets, finding a knife and the tiny cell phone he'd been looking for. Bill always had the latest, greatest gadgets.
He flipped it open, not doubting for a minute that it would get a signal. Four bars appeared on the display. JD smiled sadly and dialed 911.
Even boy scouts needed help sometimes.
Preview of Haunting Desire
Nothing was going the way Shealy had planned.
"Dad, be reasonable. I just---"
"Reasonable?" Donnell O'Leary demanded, his face turning an alarming shade of red.
They'd just finished dinner and were leaving the restaurant as he spoke, his outburst drawing the eyes of the other patrons. Shealy had known her dad wouldn't be happy about her plans, but she hadn't anticipated this. She eyed his coloring with dismay. He'd already had one heart attack---she didn't want to give him another.
"I've told you this before, Shealy," he said in a tight, angry voice. "There is nothing for you in Ireland. Not one bleeding thing. No reason to go back. Ever."
"I want to visit mom's grave," she said calmly. "And I don't understand why that should upset you."
"Why would you care about seeing her grave?" he exclaimed, as if the idea were too bizarre to contemplate. "She's not even in it."
For a moment, his words robbed her of a response. She knew her mother's body wasn't in the grave---after the awful automobile accident her body had never been found. But six years had passed since her death and Shealy needed closure that still hadn't come. It was so unlike her father, so insensitive of him not to understand that. She'd been in the hospital when they'd held the funeral services and then her dad had packed them up and moved them to Arizona. She'd never even seen the place where her mother rested, in spirit if not in body.
But she didn't want to explain to him why she was so determined to go there now. She couldn't talk about the nightmares that chased her through the restless dark. Nightmares about her mother. Horrible, gruesome dreams that told the time had come to face everything she'd tried to forget. She needed to move on and that meant first going back.
"It's not safe there," her father stubbornly continued as she stepped into the warm night air outside of the restaurant.
"Safe? Dad, Ireland is ten times safer than Phoenix. Their crime rate---"
"It's not safe for you, Shealy."
The sharpness of his tone held a bite that stopped her on the shadowed blacktop. Somewhere in the back of her mind a strange tickling sensation began, creeping down her spine, making her skin pucker despite the summer heat that still held tight to the evening.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked. "Why wouldn't it be safe for me?"
He avoided her eyes. "There are things you don't know, Shealy."
"So enlighten me."
"Things that should not be talked about, not in the open. Not at all."
Ah. Inside, she gave a sigh of relief and a mental eye roll as understanding hit her. For a minute there, he'd actually rattled her.
Donnell O'Leary was a conspiracy theorist to his wee Irish soul. He had issues and opinions about everything from underworld religion to common traffic laws. No doubt next he planned to spout about the Troubles or the Government or, God forbid, the Protestants.
"Dad, let's try to stay within the bounds of reality. I'm talking about a trip to a civilized country. Two weeks in the land of green and blarney. I'm not headed for Juárez, for God's sake. I'll be back before you even know I'm gone. I've already got my ticket. I'm going."
Donnell grabbed her arm as she moved past him and jerked her around to face him with a sudden violence that shocked her into silence. "Do you think I took you away from there on a whim? Do think I'd have ripped us both up by the roots if I'd had a choice?"
For a moment, she could only stare at him, noting his color, the spark in his eyes that almost looked like panic. Frowning, she said, "You told me we moved because of the doctors. The specialists at Mayo Clinic that Dr. Campbell wanted me to see."
"Aye. And in part that's true. But there's more to it, things I've shielded from you. Things that are best left alone. Things you need to stay away from. Are you hearing me, girl? You are not. Going. Back."
A gust of hot wind blew across the parking lot, chasing the echo of his anger. The restaurant had been packed when they'd arrived and they'd had to park in the back, by a dumpster. Now the lot was dark and deserted. The burned-out streetlight over their car left shadows rasping against the heated tar and whispering sounds scampering across the abruptly taut silence that followed.
She wanted to tell him to calm down. She was twenty-four years old and she didn't need his permission, but an undefined feeling of threat prickled and poked at her. She opened her mouth to demand to know what these mysterious things he'd been protecting her from were, but an instinct as old as time silenced her and urged her toward the car. Pushing her to get out of the open.
"Let's---"
"Shhhh," he said. His eyes were wide, his expression frightened as he scanned the empty parking lot.
The air grated against them, lifting the hem of her skirt and blustering beneath it. It was hot---always hot in Arizona, but now that heat had weight and a dark, malevolent substance.
A trill of fear crept down her spine, but she didn't know what had scared her, why she suddenly had a sense of déjà vu that clenched her tight and terrified her.
"Get to the car," Donnell said, turning her and pulling her to the Toyota next to the dumpster.
"What's going on?"
A sound---like a hundred nails running down a chalkboard, like a thousand knives scraping china, like millions of screams that went on unending---ripped through the oppressive quiet. The blistering cacophony surrounded them, an invisible wall that herded them into shadow and gloom.
"Dad, what is that?" she asked, gripping his hand, feeling the tremors coursing through his body. That tangible evidence of his alarm escalated her own. Her dad had weakened with illness, but remained one of the bravest men she'd ever known.
He tried to pull her toward the car, but the air felt strangely gelatinous, a membrane holding them captive in the small space they filled. Beyond the unseen barrier, the everyday world faded until there was only dusky night alive with that terrible sound. Shealy clapped her hands over her ears and so did Donnell, both of them turning in place, searching for an exit. Seeking an explanation.
Beneath her feet the asphalt began to rumble and shake. Pieces of the parking lot cracked, spidering like a shattered windshield. Was it an earthquake? A car alarm joined the melee, as if in response to her panicked thoughts. She grasped at a perverse sense of comfort the explanation brought. Earthquakes were real. Shadows that hemmed people in weren't.
But even as she thought it the darkness to her left split down the middle, like a huge piece of velvet ripped in two. She heard the sound of it tearing, felt her breath seize in her chest as she watched the fissure grow. Felt again that unfathomable sense of déjà vu. Through the rent in the night, she saw a rock and shale wall shooting straight up and perpendicular to the earth. At its base there was a huge stone plateau and on it stood a man and teenage boy.
Mouth dry, Shealy saw the man suddenly look up, his golden brown eyes wide with shock. For an instant they stared at one another, Shealy and this man, and she felt the touch of that glance like she did the heat, the fear.
A queer sense of recognition staggered her.
There was no way she'd met this man before and then forgotten him. No possible way. He stood well over six feet, perhaps even six-five. Tall and muscular, so perfectly sculpted the Greeks might have used him as the model of Atlas, holding the world on his shoulders. A wound seeped blood into the fabric of his open shirt and splattered the burnished skin of his tight massive chest and muscular abdomen, but he stood tall and strong. And those eyes...those incredible eyes....
Who was he? Where was he?
Donnell muttered something that sounded like Tier Nawn and squeezed her hand tightly. She jerked her gaze from the man to her dad, saw the anger and . . . recognition in his face.
She'd barely had time to process that not only did Donnell see the man, but he recognized him too, when a second section of darkness shredded to her right and through the gaping hole she saw another man, standing alone in a white room that gleamed with marble. Like a photonegative of the dark and powerful warrior to her left, this one had pale skin with blue eyes that blazed with rage and...triumph.
"Feck," her father shouted and tried to put Shealy behind him, but the world shuddered violently and nearly knocking them off their feet. As if looking through windows, the two men caught sight of one another and the reaction was instantaneous. Murderous.
The one with the golden-brown eyes lunged forward, exploding from the gash in the darkness like a demon. The pale man moved only seconds slower. In a heartbeat they stood in the swirling circle of confusion with Shealy and her dad trapped in the middle between them.
The blond man made a grab for Shealy, but her father blocked it. Enraged, he struck Donnell hard in the face, making him stagger back. Shealy's screams joined the chaos as she tried to get around her father and stop his attacker. Her dad was not as strong as he used to be---illness had withered away much of the brawn that he'd once worn so easily. But he seemed determined to keep her safe.
The pale man came at them again, but the dark one with the luminous golden eyes---the one her dad had called Tier Nawn---shoved the other man back, shouting something at him that Shealy couldn't understand. It felt like the world exploded, imploded, ripping free of its moorings. Everything began to spin.
The ruptures in the darkness shrank, that gummy membrane surrounding them grew tighter, pinning them. And yet, the pale man strode forward easily, intent on Shealy. She didn't know why, didn't know how to evade him when the very air had become an enemy imprisoning her. What, in God's name, did he want?
Her father tried to stop him but he gave Donnell a hard blow that sent him sprawling at her feet. She was still screaming, but she couldn't even hear her own voice over the roaring coming from beneath her feet, overhead, all around. His fingers reached for her throat and in his eyes she saw victory.
And then the other man slammed into them both, knocking the pale man away and falling on top of Shealy.
All the breath left her body as he crushed her beneath him. Her head hit hard against the asphalt. She saw stars, bright bursts of color, then black on black nothingness.
"Who?" she tried to ask. Who are you?
But the viscous cocoon caved in around them and Shealy felt a great suction pulling her. She cried out for her father, heard the echo of his voice as he shouted her name. She turned her head, saw him prone beside her, managed to get her hand out and touch her fingers to his just as the pale man, relentless and determined, crawled over Donnell's inert body to reach her. But in the same instant, a force she couldn't comprehend hauled her toward that great tear in the darkness, to that rocky cliff she'd glimpsed earlier.
The suctioning pressure grew until it felt like it would crush her, collapse the cage of her ribs, and compress her skull leaving her nothing more than flattened goo on the sizzling parking lot. The man on top of her tried to ease his weight, pushing up with massive arms. He was enormous, his muscles so sculpted they looked illusory. But the weight of him added to that grinding pressure left her in no doubt that every single inch of him was real. He had dirt smudged on his face, a bloody cut on his collarbone, and eyes that burned like whiskey. He stared into her face as if he might find answers there. If she hadn't been so scared, she might have saved him the trouble. Shealy O'Leary didn't have any answers.
Still he probed, grimacing as the air compressed, excruciating and unyielding. She stared into his eyes, feeling his ragged breath fan her face, the tremble of his arms as he fought an unwinnable battle with the agonizing pressure.
Who was this man?
The force bore down on them both and she clenched her eyes tight, knowing she'd probably never find out the answer because whatever was happening to her would likely going to kill them both. The man fought the weight of it but his arms finally gave and he collapsed. His body covered her from head to toe, their faces side by side, his breath now a hot burst against her ear. The shrieking sounds rose to a crescendo and then suddenly it felt as if they'd punched through the crust of asphalt and were falling. . . .
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
About Erin Quinn:
Erin Quinn is an award-winning author. Her books have been called "riveting," "brilliantly plotted" and "beautifully written." Haunting Embrace, the latest in her Mists of Ireland series is available now. For more information go to www.erinquinnbooks.com.
NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER:
Thank you for purchasing and reading this BWLPP eBook. We hope you have enjoyed your reading experience. BWLPP and the author would very much appreciate you returning to the online retailer where you purchased this book and leaving a review for the author.
Best Regards and Happy Reading, Jamie and Jude
BWLPP and BWLPP Spice
The Beverly Hills Boutique of eBook publishers.
Vintage and New from award winning authors.
Top quality books loved by readers,
Romance, Mystery, Fantasy, Young Adult

