Always in My Dreams

by Jo Goodman

Skye looked around. She had no clear idea what he intended her to see, and she was wary of falling into a trap laid by him. "You're not making any sense. I see the entrance. I suppose it leads to the cellar."

  "I think you know it does. What else?"

  She turned. The dried, frozen limbs of rose bushes bordered the house. She imagined their fragrance in the spring and summer was carried in through open windows. It was the windows themselves that caught her attention next. Skye pointed to the closest one. It was a wide, double-arched window and only the abandoned ballroom had similar ones. She shook her head, not comprehending the purpose of this trip.

  "Higher," Walker said.

  Skye tilted her head upward. A small balcony jutted out on the second floor, surrounding a pair of French doors. She frowned as she tried to place the rooms and their occupants. Her face cleared suddenly as the answer was borne home. "That's your room," she said.

  "That's right."

  "I suppose you can see quite a bit from your balcony."

  He nodded. "Quite a bit. In the autumn the trees all along this ridge burn with color. Now that it's winter, I can actually see the river in different places."

  Skye didn't appreciate Walker's tormenting. "You know what I meant," she said.

  "Why don't you say it?"

  She couldn't. It would mean showing her hand. Skye shook her head. Walker was the one who would have to say it. She had to be certain he wasn't bluffing.

  "Very well," he said. "You carried that lamp out here and tried to open these doors. I watched you. The doors were locked and you gave up immediately. You'd have been better off not to have carried the lamp. It was the light that drew me to my window in the first place."

  "And your point is?" she asked.

  Her question gave Walker a start. "My point is that I saw you trying to get into the cellar."

  Skye shook her head, remembered he couldn't see her gesture, and said flatly, "No."

  "No?"

  "What you saw me doing was testing the doors to be certain they were locked. I told you I heard something outside. I went out to investigate. Intrepid, remember? With Mr. Parnell being so adamant that no one except a select few enter the cellar, I thought I'd better check."

  "That's your story?"

  "That's the truth."

  Walker's shoulders were stiff with cold. "There's nothing more that needs to be said out here. Let's go back inside." He didn't offer Skye his assistance, thrusting his hands in his own pockets this time. When they were back in the kitchen, Walker fired up the stove and set water on to boil.

  Skye began to remove his jacket. He stopped her. She was very nearly lost in the thing, but her teeth were still chattering. She gave him a grateful look.

  Walker leaned against the stove, his arms crossed in front of him. The single dimple that sometimes marked his smile was nowhere in evidence. His features were drawn and the slightly crooked line of his nose was more pronounced. His eyes were narrowed but remote, his gaze going past Skye to some distant point, some distant thought.

  "The water's boiling," Skye said for the second time.

  "What? Oh." He jerked away from the stove and filled two cups from the kettle. He let the tea steep, removed the strainers, and handed one mug to Skye. "Sugar?" When she nodded, Walker found a spoon and put it on the table next to the sugar bowl. He didn't take a chair, preferring the stove's residual heat. "Do you play much poker, Skye?"

  To keep from spewing tea, Skye swallowed hard. She felt the liquid burning all the way to the hollow of her stomach. "It's not a woman's game," she said, just managing not to choke on the words.

  "That's a response to a question I didn't ask."

  "I've played a little," she admitted. Jay Mac had taught all his daughters to play. Michael was very good at it, Mary Francis even a shade better. Rennie couldn't bluff at all, her face too expressive. Maggie didn't particularly enjoy playing, but she hated to disappoint Jay Mac by sitting out. As for Skye, her abilities were somewhere between Michael's and Rennie's. What she had going for her was luck. It seemed when it was shining on her she could do no wrong. The whole family marveled at it.

  Right now Skye felt as if she was at the end of her run.

  "I thought perhaps you had," said Walker. He exhaled slowly, not quite a sigh, more a signal that his patience was at an end. "Look, there's no particular reason you should trust me—at least, I can't think of one—all the same, you'd do better to throw in with me than oppose me."

  Skye's puzzlement wasn't entirely feigned. "Throw in with you how?" she asked.

  "Your snooping is going to get you hurt. You'd be better off just asking me whatever it is you want to know."

  But of course, she couldn't. She sipped her tea.

  Walker let the silence sit for a while before he said, "Parnell's life has been threatened."

  "You don't think—"

  "You?" He shrugged. "I don't really know, do I?"

  "But when? You mean, just today he was threatened?"

  "No. It started months ago. A few weeks before I was hired. In fact, it's the entire reason for me being here. I was hired to protect him."

  Skye frowned. This was an unexpected piece of information. She had supposed that Walker's presence was meant to protect the invention, not the inventor himself. Where was the truth in what her father told her? Did she dare accept everything he said at face value? In that case Jay Mac hadn't known it all. He would never have sent her into any kind of danger. "I'm not certain what you think this has to do with me," she said.

  "I thought that much was obvious. If your aim is to hurt him in some way, I won't let you do it."

  "Hurt him?" She was dumbfounded. "Hurt Mr. Parnell? You have some very strange ideas. Have you had this conversation with anyone else? Mrs. Reading, for instance? Or the twins?"

  "I watch everyone," he said. "But you seem to draw my attention more often."

  "I don't suppose you meant to be flattering."

  His mouth flattened as he shook his head. Gold shards of light flickered in his eyes.

  "I see," she said slowly, setting down her mug.

  "I don't think you do." He finished his tea and pushed away from the stove. When he came to the table he didn't pull out a chair, but intentionally towered over Skye. "I've decided you bear watching more closely."

  "You're practically living in my pockets now!" Skye's raised voice only hinted at her alarm. She started to rise, but Walker extended his hand and let it hover near her shoulder. She sat back slowly.

  "I can't seem to trust you not to wander around the house at night, and I'm not losing more sleep over it."

  Skye didn't think she liked where Walker was heading. The only conclusion she could draw was—

  "You can share my room, or I can share yours," he said.

  She hadn't mistaken his line of thinking. There was small comfort in that. "You're quite insane," she said calmly.

  "And quite serious."

  "Mr. Parnell won't stand for it. He didn't want you in my room for a moment. He won't allow you to spend the night there."

  Walker shrugged. "You can take it up with him in the morning."

  Skye was of a mind to take it up with her employer now. Her intention showed clearly on her face.

  "All right," said Walker. He stepped back and let her stand. "You go and wake Parnell."

  Skye hesitated. He made it sound as if waking Parnell was not a particularly wise decision. She was certain Walker was very deliberate in giving her that impression. She was also fairly sure he was right. "I'll speak to him in the morning."

  "As you wish."

  "I'm not going to stay in your room," she said.

  "Then I'll stay in yours. I told you it was your choice."

  "Between Scylla and Charybdis," she uttered, under her breath. Realizing what she'd said, Skye glanced at Walker quickly. It wasn't likely that a housekeeper would reference Homer's Odyssey. She wished she'd said something about the devil and the deep blue sea instead. It was a relief t
hat Walker hadn't heard or at least hadn't commented.

  He pointed to the servants' stairs. "We'll take those to my room. I need to get some blankets." Walker put the book in Skye's hands and picked up her lamp. "I'll go first."

  Skye followed Walker to his room and waited just outside as he collected blankets and a pillow. She half hoped that Mrs. Reading would come out of her own room and surprise them. Skye doubted the cook would have been as reticent to wake Parnell.

  In truth, Skye was bothered more than a little by her own reluctance to do so. Walker had called her intrepid, but she was feeling decidedly cowardly. He had just given her a perfect opportunity to get away from him. She could lock herself in her room and be done with his interference—at least for the night. Yet she didn't move.

  Skye didn't think her action, or lack of it, could bear much scrutiny. She consciously put it out of her mind. When Walker was finished collecting his things, she followed him to her own room without a word.

  He locked the door as soon as they were inside, leaving the key in the hole. "No one has to know I was here," he said. "That will be your decision."

  "I can't think of a reason that I'll want to keep this to myself," she said stiffly.

  "Just the same," he said indifferently. "Your choice."

  Skye placed her book on the nightstand beside the unopened bottle of laudanum. In her absence the fire had been reduced to embers. She stoked the logs and added more wood. Walker had already moved aside a chair and was snapping out one of his blankets on top of the braided rug. It could not possibly be very comfortable for him, but Skye didn't offer to share her bed. She turned back all the lamps except the one at her bedside and removed Walker's jacket.

  Holding it out to him she said, "You might need it. It could get cold there."

  He placed it on the nearby chair. "Are you going to read?" he asked.

  "Will it bother you?" As soon as the words were out Skye flushed, painfully aware it was the sort of question her mother might have posed to her father. It was the kind of question that had a comfortable relationship behind it, something one asked when concern for another was the motive. "No," she said quickly, before he could answer. "I'm going to try to sleep." In an odd way, she thought she'd be able to now. This also did not bear scrutiny.

  Skye lifted the glass globe covering the lamp and gently blew on the flame. Except for firelight her bedchamber was dark. She replaced the globe and turned her back on Walker. Skye removed her robe.

  "Pleasant dreams," he said.

  She couldn't remember having a dream since she'd arrived at the mansion. Skye thought about that as she climbed into bed and pulled the comforter up to her neck. Walker was already lying on the floor in front of the fire. His long frame was silhouetted by the light.

  "How did you break your nose?" she asked. She watched the dark outline of his body change shape and knew he was touching the slightly bent bridge, feeling the shape of it. "Were you in a fight?"

  "I was in lots of fights," he said. "But I broke my nose falling down a flight of steps."

  "Oh."

  Although he knew she couldn't see, he smiled. This time his signature single dimple appeared at one corner. "Disappointed?"

  "No, of course not." But she was a little disappointed. She had imagined something quite different. A saloon brawl in Dodge City, or a gang fight in the Bowery... even an attack in Central Park. Skye drew her knees closer to her chest. It had been a long time since she'd thought of the stranger in the park. She sighed.

  "Would you think more of me if I told you I'd been pushed?"

  "Hardly," she said primly. Then, more softly, "Were you?"

  He chuckled. "No, but I was prepared to make up a story."

  Skye thought about that. "You'd like me to think more of you?" she asked.

  "Something like that."

  There wasn't a good reason to be so attracted to him. Jonathan Parnell had more strikingly handsome features and was more refined, less irritating, probably smarter, definitely wealthier, and... possibly the person her father had handpicked for her. The last reason worked strongly in Walker's favor, but Skye was sensible enough to know it did not count as a good reason. Yet the attraction to Walker was there, sensible or not.

  Turning more fully on her side, Skye slipped one arm under her pillow and closed her eyes. She had other questions she wanted to ask him. She fell asleep with one of them forming on her lips.

  * * *

  It was the fluttering touch against her cheek that she felt first. Skye wrinkled her nose and turned her head. There was no avoiding the touch. It covered her face, her neck. It was lightly drawn across her breasts. She sucked in her breath as the sensation swept lower across her belly and her thighs. She tried to lift an arm, then her knee. She could only twist from side to side with the movement of her head.

  Her lashes lifted a fraction, then closed again as she struggled toward complete consciousness. There was a voice. Words she couldn't quite make out drifted toward her. She strained to hear and her ears failed her just as her arms and legs had.

  The voice receded and with it the weights that kept her in place. She raised one arm, then the other. They both dropped limply back to the mattress, her strength depleted by the small movement. Her knee was raised a few inches. Exhaustion shivered through her.

  The shutter of darkness lifted suddenly and with its passing Skye woke completely, her eyes opening wide. There was a pressure in her chest, an ache she was desperate to release. She pushed herself to sit up. Her fingers clutched the sheet. Skye opened her mouth.

  The thing that was a terrible pressure in her chest, the ache that needed to be released, was Skye's anguished scream.

  * * *

  Walker's drift to consciousness was even slower than Skye's. He couldn't quite contain the groan as he sat up, and pressing both hands to his ears didn't relieve the pounding in his head or the sharp pain in his ears.

  It was when he became aware that the things inside his head were also happening outside it that he opened his eyes.

  The pounding was coming from the door. The source of the piercing ache in his ears was Skye.

  Walker scrambled to his feet, his normally graceful balance challenged by the darkness and the burning sensation at the back of his head. He stumbled once, righted himself by grabbing the back of a chair, and went straight to Skye.

  She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her entire body rigid. The wide straps of her nightgown had fallen off her shoulders and the fabric was bunched below her breasts. The hem of the garment rested against her upper thighs. She was virtually naked and insensible to it.

  "What's going on in there?" The cry, mingled with the pounding, came from the other side of the door. It was Parnell. It was joined a moment later by Annie Staplehurst's entreaty.

  Walker ignored both. He spoke softly to Skye, whispering her name and nothing more. Her scream dissolved into a sob and he absorbed her shudder by taking her into his arms.

  "It's all right," he said quietly. "You're all right. It was a dream." He said it because he hoped it was true. More difficult to explain was the ache at the back of his head. Walker released her slowly, afraid his touch would have a reaction opposite to the one he wanted. She was still shaking, her smile bereft of any warmth. "Let me help you," he said.

  Skye looked down at herself. Her nakedness frightened her. She didn't remember... she glanced sideways at Walker. Outside the room Parnell continued to slam his fist against the door. Skye heard Annie, then Corina Reading. Her screams had awakened everyone. And here was Walker, solicitous and gentle, sitting next to her, telling her it was a dream.

  "Did you?" she asked.

  "Did I?" He wasn't certain what she was asking.

  Skye hooked her index finger around one of her nightgown straps and raised it to her shoulder. With the other hand she pushed at the hem of the cotton gown and covered her thighs. Clothing gave her the courage to pose the question. "Did you rape me?"

  Chapter 7


  "Jesus," was what Walker said.

  Skye watched him get up slowly and go to the door. He fumbled with the key and opened it. Annie Staplehurst practically fell into the room. Jonathan Parnell was right behind her. He held a lamp in his left hand and raised it as he entered. His eyes scanned the scene in front of him, missing none of the detail. Skye could only stare at him, knowing what he saw was damning. He would want an explanation, she thought. How could she explain when she didn't understand it herself?

  Walker pulled on his trousers and tucked in the tails of his nightshirt. His action was unapologetic, neither hasty nor clumsy. He picked up Skye's robe and carried it to her. "Here, put this on."

  The hand she held out trembled. Walker had to press the robe into her grip. He gave her a moment, then helped her into it, lifting her hair out of the way and straightening the collar of the robe.

  "Get away from her, Walker," Parnell said. He raised his right hand slowly and drew all eyes to the gun he held. He carefully set the lamp aside, never taking his gaze from Walker. "Take your goddamn hands off her." The weapon was as steady as his voice. "I mean it. Now."

  Walker's fingers slipped away from Skye's collar and he raised his hands slowly. His face was expressionless.

  He didn't watch the gun in Parnell's hand. He watched Parnell.

  Skye could hardly speak for the hard knot in her throat. She forced words out, harsh and raspy, and prayed they made sense. "No... please don't... it's not—"

  Parnell wasn't listening. His hand tightened on the weapon and he jerked it once to indicate where Walker should move. "What did you do to her?" he demanded.

  Walker didn't answer. He simply continued to stare at Parnell.

  "Say something, damn you."

  "You already think you know what I did," he said. "I'd be a fool to talk with a gun pointed at my chest."

  Parnell's brows lifted in a slight arch. His look was frank. "You'd be a fool not to."

  Skye's legs were shaking as she came to her feet. She held the corner bedpost for support. "For God's sake, put the gun—"

  What happened next took only seconds, but in Skye's mind the players moved slowly, as if the air had taken on the density of water. She saw Parnell glance in her direction. Behind him, Annie's head swiveled toward Walker and Mrs. Reading's mouth opened to shout a warning. Walker pivoted on his left foot and faced the mantel. In part of the same motion his right leg struck out, and using the bottom edge of his foot, he delivered a snapping kick to Parnell's hand. Advancing closer in an identically fluid movement, Walker landed a slashing blow with his cupped hand on Parnell's wrist. The weapon spun free of Parnell's numb fingers and thumped loudly against the wall. It skittered across the floor and slammed against the wall without discharging.