Shadows Rise

by Denise A. Agnew

  “You shouldn't be here."' Another thought battered her. “Why are you here?"

  “Because I’m walking off a bad dream.”

  “That can’t be the only reason you’re here.”

  “No. I’ll admit it isn’t. I wanted to apologize for trying so hard to get you to share your bad dreams when I haven’t shared mine.” He didn't move, his lopsided smile filled with equal quantities of insolence and amusement.

  Skepticism led her to cross her arms and say, “You needed to come here to tell me this? In the middle of the night?”

  His low, husky laugh made her breath catch. “This ward is full of bad dreams. It's thick here."

  "Thick?"

  “I know you don’t believe in ghosts Annabelle."

  She hadn't given him permission to use her first name, but it sounded wonderful in his rich tones. Annabelle leaned against the door jam. “No.”

  “You’re practical. A woman with her mind on a goal. Her heart set on fixing every broken soldier.”

  Disconcerted, she said, “It’s my job.”

  He shook his head. “Oh, no. It’s far more than your job. It’s your obsession.”

  Floored by his insight, she rallied against his probing accuracy. “Obsessions are for the weak.”

  He snorted. “Really.” He took one step forward. Then another. “Do you think a sculptor is obsessed? Or an author? Do you think an artist paints because he’s mad?”

  Not understanding exactly where he planned to go with this, but compelled to continue the conversation, she said, “Depends entirely on the artist.”

  “Obsession can be the one thing that keeps that artist going when all else fails.”

  Drawn to his words and to the resonance it made within her, she watched with a strange fascination of her own as his chest rose and fell. “Are you ... are you an artist?”

  He smiled, but it wasn’t humor that created the curve of his mouth. “Before the war I painted. Now I can’t paint a damned thing.”

  “Oh.” For a second it was all she could think to say as she ruminated on what he’d revealed. “Your inspiration is gone?”

  He took a slow and deliberate step toward her. “My inspiration is to paint things no decent human wants to see. No one wants a painting like mine hanging in the dining room in their house.”

  She swallowed hard, her breath coming shorter. This conversation reminded her of a dream she’d once had. She hadn’t been able to run in the dream, feet stuck to the ground while a trench had crumbled around her. She'd had no control, and didn’t know which way to go.

  “What do you paint?” she asked.

  “I used to paint sunsets. Landscapes mostly.” This time his smile was genuine. “And sometimes a beautiful woman.”

  “I never would have guessed.”

  “That I’d paint beautiful women?”

  “That you’d paint at all.”

  “Because I don’t fit your idea of an artist?”

  She decided to admit her own prejudice. “No.”

  “Hmm. Then you’ve got a lot to learn about people, don’t you?”

  “Don’t insult my intelligence, Captain Hale.” She made a disgusted sounded. “I know more about people than I want to.”

  “Is that why you’re working in a mad house? When you left the war, why did you come to a place as dark as an asylum? Were you trying to work off the guilt in your soul?”

  Oh, God. Yes. Yes, she wanted to. And to escape. If only she could escape guilt. If only.

  “Do you have nightmares at night?” he asked before she could respond to his question.

  “Everyone does once in a while.”

  He shook his head. “No. Not everyone has these nightmares. Not the ones you had while you were in France. Not the ones you still have.”

  She swallowed hard as a panic rose within. Corralling her fear and the memories, was a full time job. She shoved back the sweaty fear that threatened, and replaced it with defiance. “You are far off the point. None of this explains why I should believe in ghosts, and why you’re here where you shouldn’t be.”

  “I was drawn here. Drawn to where you are. I don’t want to be here, but I can’t seem to stay away from you.”

  A tingle of apprehension threaded its way into her thoughts. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t call for help.”

  “Because you’re curious. You have a hell of a lot going for you. Except for your refusal to believe in ghosts. You aren’t the type of woman given to wild fancies.”

  “Why did you ask me if I believe in ghosts then?”

  “Because I think this place is haunted. I hoped you’d be open enough to confirm it for me. I wanted the truth from a relatively sane individual.”

  She stood straighter and barked a soft laugh. She glanced down the hallway, still half expecting to see a nurse or patient coming toward them. “Then if you believe that, you belong here.”

  “Never said I didn’t.” He uncrossed his arms, but he looked no less powerful. “I checked myself in here, remember?”

  “Believing in ghosts is poppycock.” She had to say it once again, in case he didn’t understand how adamant she was. “And you wouldn’t have come to this particular asylum if I hadn’t been here.”

  “Who you trying to convince, Dorrenti? Me or you?”

  His switch to her last name made her feel like one of his soldiers, and it also angered her into action. She took one step forward. “Perhaps you should continue to address me as Nurse Dorrenti.”

  She’d half expected humor—a glint in his eye. Instead she saw guarded respect. This man meant what he said and said what he meant. Cade’s gaze caught hers, and she sucked in a breath. Within the fire of his eyes, she found an inner heat that hadn’t existed within her before in quite this way. Men in the war, those she’d encountered both wounded and well, had rarely stirred her senses, her anger, or her sensual needs. He did all three with disturbing ease. The knowledge frightened her. He burned with a fire she didn’t understand and feared. Yet excitement smoldered low, igniting a yearning.

  He took a step forward and then another until he stood far too close—no more than six inches away. She gasped and one hand went to the door jam, clasping the wood. “What are you doing?”

  Slowly his fingers tilted her chin upward. Her eyelids fluttered, almost closed. He leaned in and his cheek was close to hers as he drew in a breath. Cade’s scent teased her nose, a soft musk and delicious masculinity she thought of only as his. Heat off his body touched her flimsily clad body as he eased nearer.

  “Answer my question,” she barely whispered the words. “What are you doing?”

  “Making sure you’re real.”

  “Is that laudanum speaking?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I was really sick the day Velia died.” The words spilled from her, as if confession was her only choice. “I’d gone to work at the field hospital. I had this stomach thing and had to run to the bathroom and vomit. I was faint, and the doctors told me to go to quarters. We were already short-handed and Velia insisted on taking my shift.” Her throat felt full, as if she’d never have enough words to explain or make amends. “I didn’t ask her to take it. I barely made it out the door before ... before—”

  “Don’t.”

  He cupped her face, his hands hard but not rough. His eyes told her nothing beyond the fire inside them. If he meant to destroy her here and now, he could. He lowered his lips to hers, a taste so small and sweet as to be a butterfly’s wings brushing against air. She gasped, her lips clinging to his for one shameful, impulsive second.

  She trembled as she touched the center of his chest. Suddenly she wasn’t as strong as she’d been, or as resistant to men as before. All during her time in France she’d had to push men away, to ignore advances. She’d learned early on she couldn’t rely on a man to be gentle and true. Strength poured from his flesh. She could feel his heat and muscles shift under her touch. His gaze wouldn’t release her, and as his arms gathered he
r into his body, she gasped. She had to tilt her head upward to see him; his height drew her as much as his strength.

  This man ... well, he didn’t like her. He challenged her. He made her think about things she’d never taken the time to think about before. He was a soldier—a man trained to kill. She knew so little about Cade Hale, yet she felt she knew everything about him. Velia had told her many things about how wonderful and protective and good he was. How stubborn and bossy. She’d half been in love with him just from what Velia had said. Then that last letter came from him and Velia had rebelled. She’d raged against her family’s controlling nature.

  Nothing about the draw between them made a lick of sense. He slipped his palms down her back until they rested in the middle of her back, until his pelvis pushed against her stomach. Hardness pressed, his arousal evident as his hips shifted. Once more his head dipped, and he kissed her. Deeper, harder. It was unlike any kiss she’d experienced before. She should have pushed him away in protest. Instead, desire gripped her in sharp talons. As she responded, he twisted his mouth across hers in a search for more. A soft moan escaped her mouth as his tongue caressed hers. His lips moved tenderly, but insistently. Clutching at his shoulders, she sank into the exploratory kiss. She responded, allowing him to take the kiss deeper as emotions and feelings swirled around in her quickly. She ached with longings, with feelings that turned her inside out.

  Her heartbeat quickened, and her breath came faster. Her world went into chaos as his body cradled hers. He drew back, gaze enmeshed with hers. Fire invaded her body, and made her vulnerable and weak and strong in one breath. She ached to discover his touch once more, yet hoped to run at the first opportunity.

  Before they could speak, a slamming door echoed down the hall toward the staircase. “You are real.” Those amazing eyes refusing to release her. “Until tomorrow. Sleep well.”

  He turned on his heel and left, and Annabelle stared after him, her body and mind a whirl. Her heartbeat pounded, and her mouth tingled. Her breath came a little shorter and quicker. She went back into her room and closed the door. Wishing she had a lock on her door, she propped one chair under the knob and stared at it, blank with shock. She didn’t fear him, at least not in the way a woman should fear a man she barely knew.

  She returned to her bed, crawling under the covers. Any man could be dangerous, soldier or not, and memories flew at her like the artillery that had slammed her many times in her dreams. Over and over she’d dream of those last moments in the field hospital when Velia had given her life . Annabelle also recalled her uncle’s simmering rages, her aunt’s tearful silences, and her own desperate attempts to mend a family she now understood couldn’t be repaired. Misery opened a door and for one cruel moment took a bite out of her hard-won contentment. She wrestled it into submission. No sense in losing herself to this place and its insanity. She knew who she was and who she’d become. Annabelle drew the covers more securely over her head.

  Self-recrimination surged inside her. How could she have allowed any of this to happen? Not one damned good thing could come of it. What had allowed her to have a full blown discussion yet again where any moment another nurse or watchwoman might have caught them? A man had never uprooted her sense of self like Cade Hale seemed determined to accomplish. A man had never driven her to this strange place in her mind where she lost control.

  A question remained, boiling in her mind. How could she possibility allow Cade to kiss her? And how could it feel so right?

  Chapter 7

  Find some paper and pencil and spend quiet time in your room writing. Prever’s words rang in Cade’s ears as he headed down the pathway the next day to the small grass area with the benches. Weather cooperated with bright skies feathered with an errant cloud here and there. It was still, without a breath, and the air had warmed considerably. Cade wore a coat and hat, but suspected he could do without the gloves.

  When he reached the bench and sat down, he opened the notebook and started right in with his pencil.

  Dear Diary—

  Cade stopped and stared at the page. No, this wouldn’t do. Dear Diary sounded like something a young girl would write. He couldn’t decide what to say. It was just as well Prever hadn’t approved painting. Cade knew he’d spend more time splattering the colors with abandon, making a mess in his anger, and creating sorry scenes that would horrify. No, he needed another outlet. This would have to do. He cleared his throat and began again.

  Starting this journal is damned difficult. I don’t know what to say or how to say it. I’d rather be painting. Where do I begin? Before I came to the asylum or after?

  Before.

  Perhaps it is safer to talk about my life then. What I learned from home. My family is a strange conglomeration of good and bad. My mother can be gentle and sweet, but she has a backbone. She’s stubborn as hell when she makes up her mind. If anything, I got my courage from her. My father. Well, what can I say about him?

  Father can be a bastard. Or let us just say he has two personalities. The one he shows to the world at large, the men he works with ... businessmen who are as hard and certain as him. He acts the philanthropist, the man who gives to those in need. He’s given a great deal of money to charities in Denver and Colorado Springs. At home, he treats my mother with inconsiderate arrogance. To his children, he is a tyrant. How we survived him, why we aren’t broken in mind in spirit, I don’t know. I kept my head down. I ran to the military. I wanted to show my father that I could be more than he thought. Perhaps I failed in that regard.

  Velia, well Velia was a favorite of his. Maybe because she played up to him. She agreed with him even when it was plain as the nose on a donkey’s face that he was wrong. She treated him like a king. Her two-faced approach, and her unwillingness to back up the rest of her family when Father decided he was right. He loved her for it. And when she died he blamed me almost as much as I blamed myself and Annabelle Dorrenti. He doesn’t understand that it isn’t simple what happened to Velia. She wanted to please him and when war came she took a drastic step. No matter how much I begged her not to become a Red Cross nurse in France, she wouldn’t listen, and that makes me angry. I can’t change it. I can’t fix it.

  He swallowed hard and his pencil stopped. Could he continue? His breath felt short in his throat, but he pushed onward. Maybe he rambled, but if no one would see his statements, then who cared?

  My life in the past isn’t important. It has nothing to do with how I am now. How I found myself here in this place. At the least, my life at home prepared me for war. For that, Father, I can truly thank you.

  The war.

  The Great War.

  They say this war will assure that all the old hate will fall away and no one will consider starting such a war again. I’d like to believe them, but I doubt humanity can stay altruistic for that long. I can only hope and pray this war will end soon.

  Where to start? When I first made it across on the ship, I was certain I’d come back with my brain intact. I have, and yet I haven’t.

  Prever wonders if I feel guilty about leaving my friends behind in France. Hell yes, I feel guilty. How could I not? They are left in trenches, the cold, the heat, the dirt. The mud. The rats. The bugs. No human is supposed to live in such overwhelming circumstances. And so many of us haven’t. Most of us have perished. Most have found themselves dead.

  Is that what happens?

  If there are ghosts, do they wander the battlefield without realizing they’ve lost a head? Or a leg? Are they left to wander in purgatory, or in a hell that never ends? That’s the way I saw them in France, but how do I know they’re real? Maybe this is what has happened in Tranquil View Asylum. There are ghosts wandering the place, of that I am sure. Yet none of them have said hello to me directly that I can tell.

  The blackness.

  There is that. When I went to the basement that first time and found Ziggy curled up and a mess, I knew more than ever the evil has arrived here and refuses to go. I wish I knew how to a
bolish the evil. What can I say? Who else could I tell?

  Annabelle.

  She listens but doesn’t believe me. I shouldn’t care if she does.

  She is the most extraordinary woman I’ve met. If I told this journal everything I want to do with her and to her—

  Wind rustled leaves nearby, and he started.

  Cade glanced at the trees as leaves swirled, making their swishing sound. Aspen’s golden leaves had fallen early this year due to snow. He knew Colorado weather could be gloriously unpredictable—warm one moment, and startling cold the next. He’d witnessed it over the years. Nothing the weather did surprised him, except for in this place. Here, the weather seemed a part of the asylum and its buildings, a manifestation of a will and a power. How insane did that sound? If he expressed these thoughts, as he’d once expressed similar thoughts about an old house down the lane when he was a kid, an authority figure would pat him on the head and reassure him ghosts didn’t exist. He’d decided that ghosts were stupid until he’d seen them—so many of them—in France. And if ghosts could exist, pure evil could too.

  Pine needles made their restless speech, as if talking to each other. Perhaps you are not stable. Doubt encroached, and he wanted to scream with frustration. If this war had done anything for him, it had made him wretched and incapable of finding answers to his own mania. He despised the parts of him he couldn’t understand, yet he knew to trust those parts nonetheless. So when the wind whispered higher in the trees and set the branches in motion, he doubted the origination. He looked beyond the property, at the treetops down the road. Less than fifty yards away in either direction, the trees did not move. He blinked and looked again. Only the treetops above him swayed. Disconcerted, but not alarmed, he returned to his writing.