by Julie Leto
“I’m not leaving,” she said. “Not just yet.”
“The place is deserted, Alexa. And thanks to our seafaring friends, we know the structure is relatively sound. Let’s get back to the mainland, call in our structural engineers and our designers and—”
She turned and faced her stepbrother squarely. “I said no, Jacob. I want some time to look around. I…”
She faltered. She what? Wanted to know if the figure of the man she’d seen in the window had been a figment of her imagination or, as she suspected, a ghost? Could he be the man portrayed in the painting?
Despite the sudden difficulty she had moving her legs, she took a few steps away from the canvas. “I want to get a feel for the place.”
With perfect timing, Jacob’s cell phone trilled loudly, the noise jarring. There was nothing to soften the sound. No carpets. No furniture. No draperies. Even the room upstairs where she’d been so sure she’d seen a man yank a curtain closed just after she spotted him from the helicopter had ended up having an entirely bare window.
While Jacob was distracted with the call, she thanked the Coast Guard seamen for their time. After assuring them that she and her brother would return to the mainland on their chartered boat and would exercise the utmost caution while on the island, they left.
“Finally,” she said.
“Yes, she’s here with me,” Jacob replied to the caller. He moved to hand the phone to her, but she waved him away, her gaze captured again by the portrait. His nose was as interesting as the rest of him, the nostrils flared ever so slightly and his lips, she noticed, were curved almost imperceptibly upward. As if he was on the verge of a sneer.
“I’ll make sure Alexa is accurately informed,” Jacob insisted, his volume increasing.
She stepped farther away from Jacob and closer to the painting. She had no interest in the obvious crisis at the office. The urge to get rid of Jacob, too, and experience the castle while alone overwhelmed her. She raised her hand and realized her fingers were shaking.
Touch him.
Touch me.
“She’s asked me to handle it,” Jacob said.
He laid his hand on her shoulder. Alexa nearly jumped out of her skin.
She caught her breath and acknowledged his assumption with a quick wave.
Jacob walked down the stairs and toward the main entrance, but Alexa’s heartbeat didn’t slow. She removed the backpack she’d filled prior to leaving the marina and double-checked her stash. Bottled water. Energy bars. Dried fruit and nuts. A very large knife. Two emergency flares and a flare gun. A portable GPS and her satellite phone.
Enough to keep her safe and sound for a few hours, right?
She glanced up at the painting. Had that tiny sneer eased into a smile?
Below, Jacob’s voice grew increasingly perturbed. She was the CEO of Chandler Enterprises, not an operations manager like him. If she didn’t have the quality staff to handle a problem without her intervention for a few hours, then how could the company remain successful?
She’d just zipped up her backpack when Jacob returned the phone to his waist and marched back up the stairs.
“I lost the signal, but I got an earful. There’s a storm blowing through Boston,” he explained.
“And I control the weather, how?” she asked.
Jacob frowned. “We’re hosting that big convention this weekend.”
She took a few steps closer to the painting. Away from Jacob. Away from the Crown Chandler crisis. Away from her everyday life. Just for a moment. Just for one, brief moment.
“And?” she asked reluctantly. The sooner the situation was explained, the sooner she could order Jacob to handle the solution.
“The hotel lost power.”
“That happens in storms,” she pointed out, even as a dip in the pit of her stomach warned her there was more to the story.
“The hotel is booked to capacity and there isn’t even enough light to run the bar.”
She took a deep breath, and then exhaled slowly, tempted to find a stone pillar to hide behind. “What does the city say?”
“They can’t send out crews until the storm passes, and this apparent pseudo hurricane isn’t showing any meteorological signs of moving one inch. We need to send in buses and move the guests to other properties in the area or we need to get the generators up and running.”
“Why aren’t they?”
“It’s bad, Alexa.” Jacob said, his mouth drawn in a tight line. “Looks like sabotage.”
Her chest tightened. “Sabotage?”
Jacob leaned in close, his voice hushed as if they were in the office with a half dozen prying ears rather than in an abandoned castle with only a haunting portrait to intrude on their privacy. “The generators have sustained severe damage. The police have been notified. They don’t want maintenance to touch anything because they’ll be destroying evidence and—”
“Stop!”
This couldn’t be happening.
Not again.
He arched a brow.
“Go back to the mainland,” she ordered. “Organize a conference call with all the managers of our properties in the area. We can’t bus the guests anywhere until the storm dies down, but we need transportation in place. At the hotel, move the guests to the grand ballroom, where there aren’t any windows or exterior doors. Have the kitchen break out all the ice cream and desserts we’ll lose anyway and serve it gratis, as well as all the booze they can pour. And then…” Her mind swam. God, didn’t she pay her staff huge salaries to handle this type of crisis?
But sabotage? Again?
She leaned back against the wall, the portrait’s frame skimming her shoulder. “Jacob, you know what to do as well as I do. Handle this, okay?”
She closed her eyes. The stone against her back, so cold only moments before, suddenly warmed. The heat eased through the thin layer of her clothes and ignited her skin. She could feel the gray eyes of the man in the portrait staring down at her. Into her.
Jacob stepped nearer, his gaze darting with annoyance to the portrait as if the man were intruding on their conversation. “Are you crazy? You want me to leave you here alone?”
Fingers of warmth curled around her shoulders. Alexa allowed her head to drop forward, and the sensations smoothed over her neck, then eased down her spine. Yes, she wanted to stay. Yes, she wanted to be here alone.
“Alexa?”
Jacob grabbed her arm and tugged her away from the wall.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Alexa shook her head. Wrong? Nothing was wrong. Was it? She was simply tired. Overwhelmed by her experience earlier in the helicopter and now in the castle.
“Look, you’ll only be gone for a few hours, right? The Coast Guard knows I’m here and I have the portable GPS. I can activate the distress signal if I need to and our friends will come running, I’m sure. And I have my phone.”
“I just lost the signal on mine,” he said, his expression incredulous.
Guard dog.
“A cell, not satellite. And you had the phone working long enough to hear the complicated and business-threatening tales of woe from Boston. If I call you and all you hear is ‘help,’ get here quick, okay? I’ve got water and supplies. Just come get me before dark.”
His eyebrows slanted together at a hard angle. “I can’t just leave you here.”
“Why not?” The farther she walked onto the landing, the more the warmth seeped out of her, the clearer her mind focused on the possibilities of the castle as a Crown Chandler resort property. The stairs would be polished, the cracks repaired. Lush tapestries would keep out the drafts and keep in the cool air that seemed trapped in the stone walls. She’d insist on electric or gas-powered torches to provide ambience and just enough light to keep the shadows sufficiently spooky.
This could work.
She just needed time alone to concentrate. To allow the ideas to flow uninterrupted.
She spun and lifted her chin. “Just take care of bus
iness on the mainland and let me do my stuff here.”
Jacob made no move to leave.
She stared at him intently.
He groaned. “There’s no arguing with you when your chin tilts up that way.”
She smiled. He was right.
“I’ll be back in two hours or less,” he promised. He jogged down a few steps, then returned, removing a necklace from around his neck. “Wait. Wear this.”
Alexa eyed the offering warily. She wasn’t sure she’d seen Jacob wear this particular trinket before—a gold triangle with a jagged corner, as if it were ripped off a larger design.
“What’s this?”
“A talisman,” he answered.
She crossed her arms.
He rolled his eyes. “Take the damned thing, Alexa. It’s for luck. I’m betting this charm kept us from falling out of the sky today on that helicopter.”
She shook her head. “I don’t need a good-luck charm.”
He thrust the necklace at her. “Take it or I’m not leaving.”
Alexa knew how to assess an opponent. From across a boardroom table or on the landing of an ancient castle staircase, she could estimate with amazing accuracy when her adversaries would back down and when they would not. Jacob had correctly assessed her stubbornness a moment before. Now he was the one who wasn’t budging. Which meant the crisis at Crown Chandler would only snowball. Sunlight would slip away. Her chance to roam the castle halls would be lost.
She yanked the necklace out of his hand and, while he watched, twisted the chain around her neck.
“There,” she said. “Satisfied?”
After a quick kiss on her cheek, Jacob told her to be careful and left.
Instantly, Alexa turned to the painting. Fingering the triangle now dangling from her neck, she approached the portrait with soft, measured steps. The closer she got, the more intensely her body reacted. Her chest tightened. Sweat curled along the back of her neck. Her breathing shortened. His eyes seemed to rake over her. She jolted when her nipples hardened in response.
Whoa.
She stopped. “Just who are you?” she asked the painting.
Touch me and find out.
She staggered backward, then spun around. The door at the bottom of the stairs remained firmly closed. The voice had been a whisper in her ear, a hot breath along the nape of her neck…and yet, she was alone.
Alexa swallowed hard and turned sharply. She hadn’t come this far to be afraid. She marched to the canvas and balanced her fists on her hips.
“Say again?”
She waited.
Nothing.
“Just when things were getting interesting, you turn shy?” she quipped.
His expression remained stoic, unchanged, but his eyes brimmed with wild fury like thunderclouds rolling over white-capped waves. Even through the layers of grime coating the canvas, masking what she anticipated was a rich depth of color, he intrigued her at the same time that he unnerved her.
She shrugged out of the silk shirt she’d worn over a lacy chemise and approached the canvas.
Hung high, the painting remained mostly out of reach. She stretched on her tiptoes and flicked the shirt at the corners, removing most of the powdery dirt and spiderwebs that had accumulated on the surface and in the corners of the once-gilded frame. With a shiver, she tossed the ruined material to the floor, but admired her handiwork nonetheless.
He was gorgeous. The fire of male strength and power had been captured in his eyes, in the set of his shoulders, in the broad width of his chest. The fabric and detail in the cut of his clothes reflected money. Perhaps influence. The time period eluded her, but she’d have experts tackle that question. She was more concerned with who he was—and if he was the man she’d seen in the window. Was he the type of man who would defy time, space and, perhaps, death?
She closed her eyes and concentrated.
Who are you?
She ran her fingers over the frame. Once again, she felt a surge of warmth. Funny. Ghosts were supposed to announce their presence with cold, weren’t they? Clearly, this was no ordinary spirit.
Or she was taking this fantasy thing way too seriously.
She nearly pulled her hand away when she heard the whispered baritone once again.
Touch me.
She kept her hand steady. “I don’t go around touching strangers,” she countered.
The air around her swirled with heat.
I’m not a stranger. We’ve met before. In a dream. In your fantasy. Touch me and see.
Alexa couldn’t resist. She slid her hand off the frame, then up the portrayal of his waist. She stretched as high as she could on the balls of her feet and reached until her palm settled on the spot where his heart would beat.
Did beat.
Strong.
Hot.
Heat seared her hand, and yet she couldn’t pull away.
The temperature rose. Her skin seemed to melt into the canvas.
She opened her mouth to scream, but darkness dropped over her and pulled her into a vortex. She scratched out, stretched and twisted, fighting to keep from falling…but lost.
4
This time the awakening came slowly.
No rush of air.
No blinding light.
Just the gradual saturation of life into his body, the gentle peeling of his skin away from the moist oil and canvas that had held him captive for what he guessed must have been centuries. The moment his boot hit stone, his vision cleared. The redheaded woman was sprawled on the ground at his feet.
He hoped she wasn’t dead. Pity if such an enchanting female perished only to set him free.
On bended knee, he reached to touch her, but stopped before his fingers made contact with her alabaster cheek. Her hair, pulled back tightly from her face, gave him pause. How many centuries had elapsed since the Gypsy woman had warned him that a woman with flames in her hair would be the instrument of his destiny? Her predictions had thus far proved ominous. He’d married his wife, Anne, partially because of her station and dowry, and partially because her burnished tresses garnered renown among the whole of King George’s court. He’d been so curious to see if the Gypsy’s prediction would prove true, he’d sacrificed his bachelorhood.
Yet despite the fire in her hair, Anne had proved as cold as the Thames in winter. He’d then found himself with Renata, his mistress, drawn by her passionate mien and crimson curls. Too late he’d learned she’d used henna the first night they’d met and changed her hair color on a whim. Sweet natured and warm, Renata had been a welcome distraction during his sojourns to London, but she had not affected his destiny in any way.
Except on the night of his imprisonment, when he’d thought—for a brief, insane instant—that Rogan had trapped her in a painting.
He glanced from the woman on the floor to the portrait on the wall, now devoid of subject. On the night of his sister’s disappearance, there had been a redhead in the portrait. In a corner shadow. In a doorway that did not exist. She’d lured him in and yanked him out of his time and into this new world where machines flew in the sky and women, like the one now crumpled on the floor, ordered men in uniform about as if she were queen.
At that thought, he touched her. A lock of hair had escaped the severe queue she’d tied at the nape of her shapely neck, so he merely brushed the hair aside. She moved, made a sound quite like a cat’s mewling.
He looked up.
No, it was only Rogan’s cursed cat.
Golden eyes ablaze, the flat-faced feline leaped out of the portrait, landing on its paws with a skilled bounce. The infernal animal stared at him accusingly, as if to suggest that Damon had once again developed a soft spot for a woman with red hair.
Despite the animal’s uncanny presence, Damon dismissed its omniscient look. He cared nothing for this woman except that she had somehow freed him.
She was, admittedly, beautiful. And before the force of the magic had knocked her unconscious, responsive. He hadn’t missed
how her nipples had hardened beneath her blouse or how her breathing had changed when he’d entered her mind with his sensual suggestions. She might have made a worthy conquest, if not for the fact that he had only one thing on his mind at this moment—escape.
“What do you think, beast?” He scowled at the animal, still unsure after all these years if the animal was friend or foe. “Is she the one who shall be the instrument of my destiny?”
The cat replied by licking its paw.
With a frown, Damon stood and assessed his surroundings, his eyes drawn instantly to the door across the great hall.
“Or perhaps she already is.”
He strode down the stairs, invigorated by the stretch of his muscles, the power in his thighs and shoulders. He breathed in deeply and the smells of the sea were unmistakable. With a backward glance, he noted that the woman who had freed him remained on the floor. A pang of something he assumed was guilt nearly caused him to pause, but he managed to push the intrusive emotion aside and concentrate on his goal.
Freedom.
Nothing would delay him.
Nothing and no one.
Not even the beautiful flame-haired woman who’d freed him from his prison.
At the top of the stairs, the cat howled.
Damon continued to the door.
He grasped the latch but didn’t yet pull. What manner of insanity existed outside these castle walls? He touched his waist. His sword was long gone. Machines that flew might be just one insignificant hint of how the world had changed. Damon was an educated man, a resourceful man. But even he understood that a man out of time would be vulnerable in ways he might not adequately anticipate.
Still, he couldn’t remain here any longer. Rogan’s castle brimmed with dark, evil magic. Questions ranging from the deep and philosophical to the shallow and mundane coursed through his mind. Were his brothers still alive as was he? Had they found his sister? Vanquished Rogan? There was no ocean near Valoren, so he knew the castle no longer existed there. How did one move a castle? And was he now in England? He’d heard the strangers speak as they milled beneath his portrait prison. They did not sound like any of his countrymen, but they spoke the mother tongue. At least, a bastardization of the language. Had his country changed so much over the years?