Pounding louder and louder.
“Becca, are you awake?”
She opened her eyes and pushed wet strands of hair from her face, confusion twisting inside her like rusty coils.
The pounding started again. “Becca, you have a phone call.”
Tommy Cavendish? Claire’s brother. Shaking from the emotions stirred by the dream, she rolled over and looked around, half expecting to see David lying beside her. Needless to say, he wasn’t there.
“Who’s calling at this hour?” she called, her voice heavy from sleep and the aftermath of passion and fear.
“It’s not all that early, lazybones. It’s after eight. And it’s some guy, but he didn’t give his name. Want me to take a message?”
“No. I’ll take the call.” She slid her feet to the floor and into her slippers. Grabbing her old flannel robe from the hook on the door, she slung it over her shoulders and shoved her arms through the sleeves.
A man? She couldn’t imagine who would be calling her on Sunday morning. It couldn’t be Larry. Tommy would have recognized his voice. She just hoped it wasn’t Detective Megham. Anyone but him.
“Better grab the family room extension, that is if you want to hear,” Tommy said, when she started toward the kitchen. “Mom’s cooking pancakes and the little ones are helping.”
“Gotcha.”
She breathed in the invigorating odors of fresh-brewed coffee and bacon and hurried to the family room.
“Hello.”
“Good morning, Becca. I hope I didn’t wake you.”
David’s voice dipped inside, revived the dream, and she went weak. “No,” she answered, hoping the huskiness of sleep camouflaged her feelings. “Is something wrong?”
“I heard what happened last night to you and Claire.”
“News travels fast in Moriah’s Landing.”
“Especially bad news. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I’m not so sure about Claire, though. I haven’t had a chance to check on her this morning, but she went all to pieces last night, collapsed into a quivering mass of terror.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Is that why you called? To ask about last night?”
“No. I need to see you.”
“I’m planning to come back out to the Bluffs tomorrow to get some more measurements.”
“I’d like to see you this morning.”
“When?”
“When can you be ready?”
“I just woke up. I’m not dressed, and I haven’t had breakfast.”
“You can have breakfast with me. I’ll send Richard to pick you up.”
The recluse who never left the shadows wanted her company for breakfast. But why, especially when he had barely bothered to visit with her when she’d been at the Bluffs? It was all too bizarre.
“Please, Becca. It’s important that I see you.”
The persistent tone mingled with the hypnotic quality of his voice, pulling her in as surely as if he’d reached out and caught her in his arms.
“I suppose I could—”
“Good,” he interrupted. “Richard will be there in forty-five minutes.”
Before she could answer, he’d broken the connection. Geoffrey Pierce’s warning skirted along her nerve endings as she rushed to take a shower. But long before she’d slipped out of her robe and pajamas and climbed under the pulsating spray, the apprehension had been swallowed up by anticipation. She couldn’t wait to see him again.
THE DAY WAS OVERCAST and gray, but even the little sunlight that managed to penetrate the heavy layers of clouds was blocked from the massive sitting room by the thick, opaque draperies that had been pulled tight and clamped to keep even a ribbon of sunlight from pushing its way through. The only illumination in the room was the flickering glow from a couple of candles that rested on top of the black marble mantel.
Dark, gloomy, the only place where David would feel comfortable entertaining Becca Smith. He hadn’t planned on calling her this morning at all, but he’d lain awake for hours last night, hating that some monster had come so close to her that he had left her running to the likes of Geoffrey Pierce for help. He could have lost her, could have been awakening to the news that her body had been discovered in the woods, two slashes cut through her jugular, left to be found by animals or boys on dirt bikes.
The travesty would have been too great. To lose her forever when he ached to have her here where he could watch over her. He ached to touch her, to run his hands down the smooth lines of her face, to fit his lips against the back of her neck and feel her tremble in desire.
Desire for a monster, one almost twice her age? It would never happen, and still he couldn’t let her go. His body stiffened as he heard footsteps in the hall and the sound of Becca’s voice. It tinkled, the way Tasha’s had, a bubbly, rich ringing sound that screamed youth and whispered naiveté.
So much like Tasha and yet so different. More self-assured, her curves more mature, her lips fuller. Her hair was the color of summer straw, where Tasha’s had been like sunlight sparkling through morning mist.
A few seconds later, the door opened, and Becca stepped inside. He drew in a deep breath, steadying his voice, seeking a calm that wouldn’t give away the intensity of his need. “Hello, Becca. Welcome back to The Bluffs.”
BECCA HESITATED, giving her pupils time to adjust to increasing darkness. A chill of apprehension darted up her backbone, froze her to the spot, as she let her gaze move around the cavernous room. Richard’s footsteps were receding. She was alone with David.
He sat on the floor on a satin blanket stretched in front of the unlit fireplace, his face shadowed, his eyes capturing darting reflections from the candles’ glow. “It’s so dark I can barely see you,” she whispered, realizing that fear had left her almost too breathless to speak. “Do you mind if I turn on the light?”
“I prefer the darkness, and there are no lights in this room.”
“Then it’s true what people say about you.”
“I never bother myself with what people say. But what is it that concerns you?”
“They say you only go out at night.”
“They’re mistaken. I went for a horseback ride at daybreak.”
So the tales weren’t true, or else he was lying. He was definitely in the dark now, and she was in here with him. Alone in an isolated area of a seventy-room fortress at the tip of a cliff. But no one had forced her to come. She’d come willingly, and even now, she eased closer instead of running away.
“I hope you’re hungry,” he said, motioning to the feast spread out beside him.
“I’m not sure I can eat at all.”
“If you don’t like the food we can have Richard bring something else.”
“Oh, no, it’s not that. It’s just that, I’m not sure about you, David. I mean, I’m not sure I can trust you.”
“Are you afraid I’ll seduce you?”
Yes. Afraid he would. Afraid he wouldn’t. “I’m not sure what I’m afraid of. You’re different from any man I’ve ever known.”
“Have you known so many?”
“Of course not. I mean I’ve known them, but I haven’t been with a lot of men.”
“I’m glad. And you don’t have to be afraid of me. I’d never hurt you, at least not intentionally.”
“Then I guess we should have breakfast and talk.” She stared at the food, amazed at the variety of selections and the amount. “Are you sure you didn’t tell Richard you were feeding a few dozen guests?” she said, striving to regain some control over her emotions and lighten the mood.
“I told him it was for two, but he tends to go overboard with this sort of thing.”
“Do you do this often?”
“Eat breakfast?”
“Invite a friend for an indoor picnic.”
“Once every decade or so. Actually you’re probably the only person in town who would have accepted the invitation.”
“Does it bother you that the
people in Moriah’s Landing seem to fear you?”
“Not anymore, and they don’t all fear me. The Pierces merely hate me—and make sure I’m kept in my place.”
So, he knew how Tasha’s family felt about him. It must make her death all the harder on him. “Have you tried to mend fences with them?”
“Not really. We weren’t friends when Tasha was alive. I see no reason for us to become friends now.”
“They’re a huge family. I don’t think you should lump them altogether like a barrel of spoiled fish.”
“I don’t. I actually like Drew Pierce and think he’ll make a good mayor. And though I have no use for Geoffrey Pierce, I’m glad he showed up for you and Claire last night.”
“Still, it must bother you that Tasha’s family seems to hold you responsible for her death.”
“I don’t worry much about any of the Pierces. I have my work, and my memories. That’s more than a lot of people have. Besides, this lifestyle suits me.”
She couldn’t imagine that a lifestyle devoid of friends and relationships suited anyone, but she didn’t want to pry into what made him tick. Not yet. It was enough that they would be working together and that she was getting to know him little by little.
David pushed a plate in her direction. “Help yourself to the food. And there’s coffee or champagne.”
“Champagne sounds wonderful.”
“Then champagne it is.”
He lifted the bottle from an insulated carrying case, then pointed it away from them and popped the cork. His hands were smooth, his fingers long and steady, and she marveled that they’d missed the destructive effects of the explosion.
With that thought, her gaze went to his face. Even in the darkness, she could make out the curdled flesh along the right side of his face and a jagged-edged scar that seemed to suck his flesh into a hard line of resistance. Still brutally damaged after five years. It made her cringe even to imagine what his face must have looked like immediately after the explosion.
The effects would fade in time, or for all she knew, he might have more surgeries planned to correct the disfigurement. But there were likely other scars. Some on his body, some buried deep inside him. Becca knew more than she cared to about the kind of suffering and loss that buried itself deep inside a person’s soul. She lived with it every day.
Still, she’d never even considered locking herself away from life the way David had done. But then she wasn’t tormented by the memory of a lost love. Now that she thought about it, she was certain part of her infatuation with David had always been the idea of a man pining away for his one true love. The whole tortured-hero idea was straight out of the classics.
David looked up and she averted her gaze, hopefully before he realized that she’d been staring at him. He poured the champagne into two crystal flutes.
“How elegant,” she said, taking one as he held it toward her. “If I’d known we were going formal, I would have dressed for the occasion.”
“You look lovely just as you are. It’s Richard who has a flair for the elegant. I myself am a lifelong member of the Moriah’s Landing Riffraff Club.”
“Riffraff don’t live in castles.”
“They do in my case. In Moriah’s Landing, a man never escapes the branding of his birth, and I’m not only from the wrong side of town—the wharf—but the back side of that. Not that some of the more prominent men in town didn’t come slumming into my neighborhood on occasion—even some of the pious Pierces.”
“My background’s not so wonderful, either.”
“I know.”
His response surprised her. She’d never shared her past, or lack of one, with anyone in Moriah’s Landing. “How would you know?”
He tensed and glanced away. “I looked into your credentials for the redecorating job.”
“But you found out about my private life?”
“I know about your near brush with death.”
“You had me investigated?” She turned away from him and stared at the wall of shadows, suddenly so irritated she could barely sit there and maintain any semblance of control.
“I’m certainly not judging you, Becca. How could I?”
“Okay, David, just so we’re on the same page here, why don’t you tell me exactly what you found out about my past?”
Chapter Six
David understood Becca’s irritation but doubted the facts would ease any of her anger or alleviate her fears. The simple truth was he had wanted to know everything about her—where she’d come from, if she’d been married before, whom she’d loved. He’d hoped that knowing might somehow lessen his inexplicable attraction for her. Instead it had only made her more fascinating.
He stared at her, looking deep into her sapphire eyes. “I only found out the basics about you, Becca.”
“That’s all there is about me, David. Basics. Cold, terrifying facts.”
“You were strangled, had your face smashed in, then buried alive. It must have been a horrible experience.”
“So horrible that I evidently blocked it from my mind along with everything else in my life.”
“So you have no memory at all of clawing your way out of the grave.”
“No, my first memory is waking up in the hospital, but according to the farmer who found me on his land in Vermont, I was coated in dirt and dried blood, disoriented, wandering aimlessly just a few yards from the shallow grave where someone had left me, probably believing they’d killed me even before they covered me with earth.”
His heart tightened into a wrenching knot at the thought of Becca fighting for breath, struggling to hold on to life. “It’s a miracle you survived.”
“That’s what the doctor said. The police tried to find out who I was and what had happened to me, but I was just one of those unsolved mysteries.”
“And you never remembered anything about what happened?”
“No, and I was afraid to dig into the past. For all I knew the man who’d tried to kill me would come back and finish the job if he realized I was still alive. So I made up a name for myself and when I was finally released from the hospital, one of the nurses who’d befriended me got me a job working with her mother in a family owned tailor’s shop. That’s how I learned to sew.” She took a deep breath and sipped the champagne. “Great credentials. So why did you hire me, David?”
He blurted out the truth. “I don’t care who you were or what you did in the past. I’m interested in the person you are now.”
“I haven’t told anyone in Moriah’s Landing about my past.”
“Nor have I.” He reached out and took her hand. To his surprise, she didn’t pull away. “It must have been tough, waking up and not knowing who you were.”
“It was tougher knowing no one cared. There were no missing persons reports filed on me, no one calling all the hospitals to see if I’d been admitted when I didn’t come home that night. No one to care if I lived or died.”
The irritation she’d experienced a few minutes ago dissolved into a sadness that was mirrored in the misty blue of her eyes. A knot formed in his throat. He shouldn’t be letting himself get this close to Becca, but he couldn’t pull away. Not yet. “A lot of people care about you now.”
“Are you one of those people, David?”
“I care.” It didn’t change anything, didn’t lessen his love for Tasha, didn’t make him any less of a hideous monster, but he did care. “Whoever you were before, you’re Becca Smith now. A beautiful, vivacious, loving person.”
But she hadn’t been beautiful immediately after her ordeal. He’d read the entire terrifying report. The police opinion was the man had attacked her and strangled her. Then when he’d started to bury her, he either realized she was still alive or just wanted to make certain she was dead. He’d smashed in her face, probably with the shovel, doing massive damage to the bones and tissue.
Fortunately, she’d ended up in a hospital connected to the medical school, providing her with some of the best care and rec
onstructive surgery available in the country—all at no cost to her.
She sipped her champagne. “I wish you’d trusted me, David, without an investigation.”
“It’s not a matter of trust. It’s just a routine business arrangement.”
“Like having me here for brunch in a room with the drapes pulled tight and the only light a faint glow from two flickering candles. There’s nothing ordinary about you, David. Nothing ordinary about this.”
He touched his hand to the sickening flesh and scar on the right side of his face. “A man does what he has to, Becca. Believe me, the sight of me in sunlight would not be pleasant.”
“I’m not afraid to look at you.”
“One day I may put you to the test, but not yet. Now, I suggest we eat before the food gets cold.”
DAVID SQUEEZED HER HAND before letting go of it. Becca would have expected that his knowing about her past would have added a strain to their fragile relationship. Instead she felt a new bond with him. He was the one person in all the world who knew as much about her as she knew about herself.
Everything about their relationship was bizarre and mysterious, almost haunting, and yet there was no denying her attraction to him. She didn’t know her own age, but she thought she must be in her early to mid-twenties. David was forty. She was a working girl, lucky to have been given the opportunity to learn a trade that allowed her to support herself and provide the necessities of life. David was extremely wealthy.
Most of all, he was a recluse, a man who revealed so little of himself that it would be impossible for her to ever know the man behind the shadows and deformities. Yet here she was, with him by choice, having brunch in a setting straight from a horror movie.
He broke off a piece of crusty bread and slathered it with marmalade. But instead of placing it in his mouth, he reached across the space that separated them and held it to her lips. Becca opened her mouth and took a bite. When her lips accidentally brushed his fingers, her whole body reacted crazily, as racked by desire from that simple touch as it had been during last night’s dream.
They both retreated into the task of eating, but David kept her champagne glass full. By the time she’d eaten all she could possibly hold, she was feeling warm and more than a little giddy. She had a ridiculous urge to reach across the blanket and link her fingers with his. She wondered what he’d do if she did.
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