“Oh, Damon, I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t want to think about it.” He couldn’t. It was too close, too raw. Still in his nightmares, still in his heart and soul. He could hear the echoes of screams. He could see the pleading in Dan Treadway’s eyes. He would carry that sight to his death, forever etched in his brain. At once the pain was almost too much to bear. He wept inside, his chest burning, his throat clogging with grief.
Sarah reached across the table to place her fingertips on his head. The gesture seemed natural, casual even, and her touch was so light he barely felt it. Yet he felt the results like shooting stars bursting through his brain. Tiny electrical impulses that blasted away the terrible throbbing in his temples and the back of his neck.
He caught her wrists, pulled her hands away from him. He was shaking and she could feel it. “Don’t. Don’t do that.” He released her immediately.
“I’m sorry, I should have asked first,” Sarah said. “I was only trying to help you. Would you like me to take you home? It’s already dark outside and it wouldn’t be safe for you to try to go down the hill without adequate light.”
“So I take it the paint preservative is a deep dark family secret,” Damon said, attempting to lighten the situation. He drained the tea mug and stood up. “Yes, thanks, I wouldn’t mind a ride.” It was hard on the ego to have to accept it but he wasn’t a complete fool. Could he have behaved any more like an idiot?
Sarah’s soft laughter startled him. “I actually don’t know whether the preservative is a family secret or not. I’ll have to do a little research on the subject and get back to you.”
Damon couldn’t help smiling just because she was. There was something contagious about Sarah’s laughter, something addictive about her personality. “Did you know that when you came home, the wind actually whispered, ‘Sarah’s back. Sarah’s home.’ I heard it myself.” The words slipped out, almost a tribute.
She didn’t laugh at him as he expected. She looked pleased. “What a beautiful thing to say. Thank you, Damon,” she said sincerely. “Was the gate really open? The front gate with all the artwork? Not the side gate?”
“Yes, it was standing wide open welcoming me. At least that’s how it felt.”
Her sea blue eyes drifted over his face, taking in every detail, every line. He knew he wasn’t much to look at. A man in his forties, battered and scarred by life. The scars didn’t show physically but they went deep and she could clearly see the tormented man. “How very interesting. I think we’re destined to be friends, Damon.” Her voice wrapped him up in silk and heat.
Damon could see why the townspeople said her name with awe. With respect. Mysterious Sarah. She seemed so open, yet her eyes held a thousand secrets. There was music in her voice and healing in her hands. “I’m glad you’ve come home, Sarah,” he said, hoping he wasn’t making more of a fool of himself.
“So am I,” she answered.
Chapter 3
“SARAH!” HANNAH DRAKE threw herself into her sister’s arms. “It’s so good to see you. I missed you so much.” She drew back, stretching her arms to full length, the better to examine Sarah. “Why, Sarah, you look like a cat burglar, ready to rob the local museum. I had no idea Frank Warner’s paintings had become valuable.” She laughed merrily at her own joke.
Sarah’s soft laughter merged with Hannah’s. “I should have known you’d come creeping in at two A.M. That’s so you, Hannah. Where were you this time?”
“Egypt. What an absolutely beautiful country it is.” Hannah sat on the porch swing wearily. “But I’m wiped out. I’ve been traveling forever to get back home.” She regarded Sarah’s sleek black outfit with a slight frown. “Interesting set of tools you’re sporting there, sister mine. I’m not going to have to bail you out of jail, am I? I’m really tired and if the police have to call, I might not wake up.”
Sarah adjusted the belt of small tools slung low on her waist without a hint of embarrassment. “If I can’t charm a police officer out of booking me for a little breakin, I don’t deserve the name Drake. Go on in, Hannah, and go to bed. I’m worried about our neighbor and think I’ll just go scout around and make certain nothing happens to him.”
Hannah’s eyebrow shot up. “Good heavens, Sarah. A man? There’s an honest-to-God man in your life? Where is he? I want to go with you.” She clasped her hands together, her face radiant. “Wait until I tell the others. The mighty Sarah has fallen!”
“I have not fallen—don’t start, Hannah. I just have one of my hunches and I’m going to check it out. It has nothing to do with Damon at all.”
“Ooh, this is really getting interesting. Damon. You remember his name. How did you meet him? Spill it, Sarah, every last detail!”
“There’s nothing to spill. He just waltzed in asking about paint and wood preservatives.” Sarah’s tone was cool and aloof.
“You want me to believe he walked in on his own without an invitation? You had to have asked him to the house.”
“No, I didn’t,” Sarah denied. “As a matter of fact the gate was open and the dogs allowed him in.”
“The gate was open on its own?” Hannah was incredulous. She jumped to her feet. “I’m going with you for certain!”
“No, you’re not, you’re exhausted, remember?”
“Wait until I tell the others the gate opened for him.” Hannah raised her arms to the heavens and stars. “The gate opens for the right man, doesn’t it? Isn’t that how it works? The gate will swing open in welcome for the man who is destined to become the love of the eldest child’s life.”
“I don’t believe in that nonsense and you know it.” Sarah tried to glare but found herself laughing. “I can’t believe you’d even think of that old prophecy.”
“Like you didn’t think of it yourself,” Hannah teased. “You’re just going off to do the neighborly thing in the middle of the night and just sort of scout around his house. If you say so, of course I’ll believe it. Is that telescope up on the battlement directed toward his bedroom?”
“Don’t you dare look,” Sarah ordered.
Hannah studied her face. “You’re laughing but your eyes aren’t. What’s wrong, Sarah?” She put her hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Tell me.”
Sarah frowned. “He carries Death on him. I’ve seen it. And he read it in the mosaic. I don’t know whose death, but I’m drawn to him. His heart is broken and pierced through, and the weight of carrying Death is slowly crushing him. He saw a red ring around the moon.”
“Violence and death surround him,” Hannah said softly, almost to herself. “Why are you going alone?”
“I have to. I feel…” Sarah searched for the right word.
“Drawn. It’s more than a job, Hannah. It’s him.”
“He could be dangerous.”
“He’s surrounded by danger, but if he’s dangerous to me, it isn’t in the way you’re thinking.”
“Oh my gosh, you really do like this guy. You think he’s hot. I’m telling the others and I’m going up to the battlement to check him out!” Hannah turned and raced into the house, banging the screen door so Sarah couldn’t follow her.
Sarah laughed as she blew a kiss to her sister and started down the stairs. Hannah looked wonderful as always. Tall and tanned and beautiful even after traveling across the sea. If her wavy hair was tousled, she just looked in vogue. Other women paid fortunes to try to achieve her natural wind-blown style. Sarah had always been uncommonly proud of Hannah’s genuine elegance. She had a bright spirit that shone like the stars overhead. Hannah had a free spirit that longed for wide-open spaces and the wonders of the world. She spoke several languages and traveled extensively. One month she might be found in the pages of a magazine with the jet-setters, the next she was on a dig in Cairo. Her tall slender carriage and incredibly beautiful face made her sought after by every magazine and fashion designer. It was her gentle personality that always drew people to her. Sarah was happy she was home.
Sarah made a littl
e sound as she made her way down the small deer path that cut through her property to Damon Wilder’s. She knew every inch of her property. And she knew every inch of his. Her hair was tightly braided to keep it from being snagged on low branches or brambles. Her soft-soled shoes were light, allowing her to feel her way over twigs and dried leaves. She wasn’t thinking about Damon’s broad shoulders or his dark, tormented eyes. And she didn’t believe in romance. Not for Sarah. That was for elegant Hannah or beautiful Joley. Well, maybe not the beautiful, wild Joley, but definitely for most of her other sisters. Just not Sarah.
Damon Wilder was in trouble in more ways than he knew. Sarah didn’t like complications. Ancient prophecies and broad shoulders and black auras were definite complications. Moonlight spilled over the sea as she made her way along the cliffs, following the narrow deer path that eventually wound down the back side of Damon’s property. The powerful waves boomed as they rushed and ebbed and collapsed in a froth of white. Sarah found the sound of the sea soothing, even when it raged in a storm. She belonged there, had always belonged, as had her family before her. She didn’t fear the sea or the wilds of the countryside, yet her heart was pounding in sudden alarm. Pounding with absolute knowledge.
She was not alone in the night. Instinctively she lowered her body so she wouldn’t be silhouetted against the horizon. She used more care, blending into the shadows, using the foliage for cover. She moved with stealth. She was used to secrecy, a highly trained professional. There was no sound as the branches slid away from her tightly knit jumpsuit and her crepe-soled shoes eased over the ground.
Sarah made her way to the outskirts of the house. She knew all about Damon Wilder. One of the smartest men on the planet. A government’s treasure. The one-man think tank that had come up with one of the most innovative defense systems ever conceived. His ideas were pure genius, far ahead of their time. He was a steady, focused man. A perfectionist who never overlooked the smallest detail.
When she read about him, before accepting her watchdog assignment, Sarah had been impressed with the sheer tenacity of his character. Now that she had met him, she ached for the man, for the horror of what he had been through. She never allowed her work to be personal, yet she couldn’t stop thinking about his eyes and the torment she could see in their dark depths. And she couldn’t help but wonder why Death had attached itself to him and was clinging with greedy claws.
Sarah rarely accepted such an assignment, but she knew her cover couldn’t have been more perfect. Meant to be. That gave her a slight flutter of apprehension. Destiny, fate, whatever one wanted to call it, was a force to be reckoned with in her family and she had managed to avoid it carefully for years. Damon Wilder had chosen her hometown to settle in. What did that mean? Sarah didn’t believe in such close coincidence.
She had no time to circle the house or check the coastal road. As she approached the side of the house facing her home, she heard a muffled curse coming from her left. Sarah inched that way, dropped to her belly, lying flat out in the darker shadows of the trees. She lifted her head cautiously, only her eyes moving restlessly, continually, examining the landscape. It took a few moments to locate her adversaries. She could make out two men not more than forty feet from her, on the downhill, right in the middle of the densest brush. Sarah had the urge to smile. She hoped for their sakes they were wearing their dogs’ tick collars.
Lying in the shrubs, she began a slow, complicated pattern with her hands, a flowing dance of fingers while the leaves rustled and twigs began to move as if coming alive. Tiny, silent creatures dropped from branches overhead, fell from leaves, and pushed up from the ground to migrate downhill toward the thickest brush.
Sarah knew that the one window lit up in Damon’s house was a bedroom. If the telescope set up on the battlements of her house happened to be pointed in that direction, it was only because it was the last room she had investigated. It just so happened that it was Damon’s bedroom, a complete coincidence. Sarah glanced back at her house overlooking the pounding waves, suddenly worried that Hannah might have her eye glued to the lens.
She hissed softly, melodiously, an almost silent note of command the wind caught and carried skyward toward the sea, toward the house on the cliff. The brush of material against wood and leaves attracted her immediate attention. She watched one of the men scuttle like a crab down the hill toward Damon’s house. He crouched just below the lit window, then cautiously raised his head to look inside.
The window was raised a few inches to allow the ocean air inside. The breeze blew the kettle cloth drapes inward so that they performed a strange ghoulish dance. With the fluttering curtains it was nearly impossible to get a clear glimpse of the interior. The man half stood, flattening his body against the wall, tilting his head to peer inside.
Sarah could make out the second man lying prone, his rifle directed at the window. She inched her way across the low grasses, moving with the wind as it blew over the land. The man with his rifle trained on the window never took his gaze from his target. Never flinched, the gun rock steady. A pro, then; she had expected it but had hoped otherwise. She could see the tiny insects crawling into his clothing.
Above her head the clouds were drifting away from the moon, threatening to expose her completely. She wormed her way through the grass and brambles, gaining a few more feet. Sarah pulled her gun from her shoulder holster.
Hearing a slight noise from inside the room, the assailant at the window put up his hand in warning. He peered in the window in an attempt to locate Damon. A solid thunk sounded loud as Damon’s cane landed solidly on his jaw. At once the man screamed, the high-pitched cry reverberating through the night. He fell backward onto the ground, holding his face, rolling and writhing in pain.
Sarah kept her gaze fixed on the partner with the rifle. He was waiting for Damon to expose himself at the window. Damon was too smart to do such an idiotic thing. The curtains continued their macabre dancing but nothing else stirred in the night. The moans continued from beneath the window but the assailant didn’t get to his feet.
The rifleman crawled forward on his belly, slipping in the wet grass so that he rolled, protecting his rifle. It was the slip Sarah was waiting for. She was on him immediately, pressing her gun into the back of his neck.
“I suggest you remain very still,” she said softly. “You’re trespassing on private property and we just don’t like that sort of thing around here.” As she spoke, she kept a wary eye on the man by the window. She raised her voice. “Damon, have you called the sheriff? You’ve got a couple of night visitors out here that may need a place to stay for a few days and I heard the jail was empty tonight.”
“Is that you, Sarah?”
“I was taking a little stroll and saw a high-powered rifle kind of lying around in the dirt.” She kicked the rifle out of the captured man’s hands. “It’s truly a thing of beauty; I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get a good look at it.” There was a hint of laughter in her voice, but the muzzle of her gun remained very firmly pressed against her captive’s neck. “You should stay right there, Damon. There’s two of them out here and they look a bit aggravated.” She leaned close to the man on the ground, but kept her eyes on his partner by the window. “You might want to check yourself the minute you’re in jail. You’re probably crawling with ticks. Nasty little bugs, they burrow in, drink your blood, and pass on all sorts of interesting things, from staph to Lyme disease. That bush you were hiding in is lousy with them.”
Her heart was still pounding out a rhythm of warning. Then she knew. Sarah flung herself to her right, rolling away, even as she heard the whine of bullets zinging past her and thudding into the ground. Of course there had to be a third man, a driver waiting in the darkness up on the road. She had been unable to scout out the land properly. It made perfect sense they would have a driver, a backup should there be need.
The man next to her scrambled up and dove on top of her, making a grab for her gun. Sarah managed to get one bent le
g into his stomach to launch him over her head. She felt the sting of her earlobe as her earring, tangled in his shirt, was jerked from her ear. He swore viciously as he picked himself up and raced away from her toward the road. The one closest to the house was already in motion, staggering up the hill, still holding his jaw in his hands. The driver provided cover, pinning her down with a spray of bullets. The silencer indicated the men had no desire to announce their presence to the townspeople.
“Sarah? You all right out there?” Damon called anxiously. Even with the silencer, he couldn’t fail to hear the telltale whine of bullets.
“Yes.” She was disgusted with herself. She could hear the motor of the car roar to life, the wheels spinning in dirt for a moment before they caught and the vehicle raced away down the coastal highway. “I’m sorry, Damon, I let them get away.”
“You’re sorry! You could have been killed, Sarah. And no, I didn’t call the sheriff. I was hoping they were neighborhood kids looking to do a prank.”
“And I took you for such a brilliant man, too,” she teased, sitting up and pulling twigs out of her hair. She touched her stinging ear, came away with blood on her fingers. It was her favorite earring, too.
The drapes rustled and Damon poked his head out the window. “Are we going to call back and forth or are you going to come in here and talk with me.” There was more demand than question in his voice.
Sarah laughed softly. “Do you think that’s such a good idea? Can you imagine what Inez would say if she knew I was visiting you in the middle of the night?” She reached for the rifle, taking care to pick it up using a handkerchief. “She’d ask you your intentions. You’d have to deny you had any. The word would spread that you’d ruined me and I’d be pitied. I couldn’t take that. It’s better if I just slink home quietly.”
Damon leaned farther out the window. “Damn it, Sarah, I’m not amused. You could have been killed. Do you even understand that? These men were dangerous and you’re out taking a little stroll in the moonlight and playing neighborhood cop.” His voice was harsher than he intended, but she’d scared the hell out of him. He rubbed a hand over his face, feeling sick at the thought of her in danger.
Lover Beware Page 3