Shadow Lover

by Anne Stuart

  The phone rang, and she started to reach for it automatically, then stopped herself. It should have been Sally on the other end, but Sally was dead. Was it Patsy, her voice slurred and faintly anxious? Or Warren, pretending concern or not even bothering. What would he do if she called him “daddy”? She could just imagine his horror.

  Whoever was on the other end of the phone line wasn’t about to give up easily. It stopped ringing, then started again two minutes later. The phone had a particularly shrill tone, one that would reach clearly through the rambling old house, and Carolyn stared at it with acute dislike, willing it to be still. They tried a third time, and then the phone was mercifully silent.

  She heard him come clattering down the back stairs, but she made no move to find him. She could see the bay from the windows, and more than anything, she wished it were twenty years ago, before Alex had died and been reborn, before she found out too many secrets.

  She heard the slam of drawers, the rifling of papers, but she still didn’t move. Maybe if she closed her eyes she could will herself back in time. Or at least pretend, for a short, peaceful while.

  Except that it hadn’t been that peaceful on the island all those years ago, she knew that full well. Patsy and her latest lover had been there, and both Warren and Sally had disapproved. Apparently he had criminal connections, but Patsy had been radiant, completely smitten, and unwilling to listen to anyone’s warnings.

  George and Tessa had been there as well, come to think of it. Tessa had run with her own social crowd down at the club, basically ignoring Carolyn, despite the fact that they were the same age. And George had been a pompous, perfect, stuffy teenager, always watching, always judging, always ready to report on Alex’s latest transgressions, or anyone else’s misdeeds that he happened to catch.

  And then there was Alex himself. How could she have thought that was a happy time, when she was so plagued with adolescent misery over him? She’d longed for him with an intensity she could still remember, even to this day. She could summon up those feelings, the ache in the pit of her stomach, the fluttering in her chest, the dreamy possibilities of his mouth.

  She laughed in sudden bitter recognition. It was no wonder she could easily conjure up her adolescent passion for him. She’d never outgrown it. Living out her fantasies, eighteen years later, had only intensified it. She’d been a fool to let herself give in, when she was usually so careful, so defensive. She should have guessed the power he still had over her.

  He appeared in the doorway, a sheaf of papers in one strong hand. “What’s so amusing?”

  “I am,” she said shortly. “I never realized quite what a fool I could be.” She wasn’t about to elaborate, especially when the steady gaze made her feel particularly foolish. “What are you looking for?”

  “Information. Clues, hints, proof.”

  “Of what?”

  “Where I came from. My birth mother’s dead, and her family never even knew she was pregnant. But she summered on the Vineyard, I know that much.”

  “Why do you care?”

  He shrugged. “Curious, I suppose. I’ve known I wasn’t Sally’s birth child for the last eighteen years, but I never even thought of who gave birth to me.”

  The Stuyvesant chair was uncomfortable. She rose and wandered over to the corner window seat. “Are you going to tell me what happened to you?”

  He didn’t move from the doorway. “Are you going to ask?”

  “I’m asking.”

  A cool smile curved his mouth, and he dumped the papers on the table. He ignored the revered chair—when he was a child he only used to sit in it to annoy Warren, but Warren wasn’t around. He sank down in a wicker chair, and it creaked in protest. “Unfortunately, I don’t have the answers, and I never have. I remember getting caught boosting that car. I remember Sally and Warren screaming at me. They were already having a fit about Patsy’s new boyfriend, and my latest transgression was the final straw.”

  “Why did you steal a car? Sally would have bought you one.”

  “I only borrowed it for a while,” he protested lazily. “Just for a short joyride. I had every intention of returning it to where I got it, with no one the wiser. Unfortunately, we had a stool pigeon in our midst.”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” she said. “George.”

  “George the Pig,” Alex agreed. “He hasn’t improved much with age, has he?”

  “He’s very good-looking,” she offered halfheartedly.

  “I’m not talking about his looks. He was a perfect angel and a complete snitch. He was always sneaking around, watching people.” An odd expression crossed his face, as if he suddenly remembered something. “I wonder if he still does.”

  “Still does what?”

  “Watches people,” he said absently. “Anyway, I decided to take off, I remember that much. I waited until everyone was asleep, then I came back to the house and emptied every purse I could find.” He frowned. “It seems there was something more, but I can’t quite remember. Something about Patsy.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m sure Patsy didn’t come sneaking down to Lighthouse Beach and put a bullet in me.”

  “Who did?”

  “I don’t know. I remember coming up to your room. I was half-tempted to take you with me, you know,” he added. “You were very tasty back then, and you did adore me so. Teenage boys need to be adored.”

  “Teenage boys need to be beaten,” she said, ignoring her immediate, treacherous response.

  He laughed. “I made do with kissing you good-bye. If you’d been a couple of years older I would have taken you to bed, but I guess even I had some sense of morality back then. I still hoped that kiss would ruin you for any other boy. At least until I got back.”

  “You took too long,” she said.

  “So I did. I wasn’t expecting to get shot. I wasn’t expecting to find out my parentage was a lie.” He paused, staring out into the bay.

  “You still haven’t told me what happened.”

  He shook his head. “I told you, I don’t remember. I walked down to Lighthouse Beach. I was going to steal the Valmers’ boat, I remember that much. Someone came after me, someone shot me. But I can’t remember any details.”

  “Why not?”

  He shrugged. “Head injuries can do that. Apparently, I got a concussion as well.”

  “I don’t understand—why aren’t you dead? I saw someone shoot you.” She shuddered. “And I did nothing to stop it.”

  “You would have been shot as well,” he said prosaically. “I don’t blame you—you were just a scared kid at the time. I survived—you probably wouldn’t have.”

  “But how did you survive?”

  He grinned. “Thank God for drug dealers.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I ended up in the water—I assume whoever shot me must have dragged me in. I was somewhere out there, clinging to a piece of driftwood, when a group of nefarious types fished me out. I didn’t bother to ask what they were doing, and they didn’t bother to tell me, but they knew how to treat a gunshot wound and shock. They dumped me off near Cape Ann and I made my way to my so-called father.”

  “I didn’t know you knew how to reach him.”

  “I didn’t. When I went through Sally’s purse I found my father’s address tucked in one of those tiny compartments. I figured it was a sign.”

  “What did he think about his son being shot?”

  “He told me I wasn’t his son,” Alex said. “After the initial shock I took it pretty well. But I decided then and there that I had no reason to ever go back to the MacDowells. No matter how much I wanted to see what happened to you when you were a few years older.”

  “Stop it!” she snapped, pushed beyond endurance. “I don’t want to hear your lies about spending eighteen years wandering th
e world, dreaming about me. I don’t believe it for one moment.”

  “I still had the charm bracelet, didn’t I?”

  There was absolutely nothing she could say to that. The possibilities were too frightening. “I’m going up for a nap,” she said sharply, rising. “I don’t need your company for that, do I?”

  “Not unless you want it.”

  “I don’t,” she said flatly. “Call me if a crazed murderer appears.”

  “You don’t sound worried. If you don’t believe we’re in danger why did you come with me?”

  “You didn’t give me much choice.”

  “Bullshit,” he said with a slow, knowing smile.

  “Bullshit to you, too,” she said, heading upstairs.

  He was right, the double bed creaked alarmingly when she climbed on it, pulling a duvet over her. She didn’t care. She left the shades open so that she could stare out at the bay. And then she closed her eyes and dreamed. She would have been better off awake. She dreamed strange, erotic dreams, where she had slow, deliciously depraved sex while all the MacDowells watched with thunderous disapproval. And she didn’t care. All that mattered was the silky smooth texture of his skin, the creamy taste of his flesh, the dark fever in his blue, blue eyes.

  When she woke it was dusk, and she was ravenously hungry. The house was dark and quiet, and she wondered if Alex had gone out someplace. Or whether their supposed murderer had come stalking and claimed his first victim.

  She still couldn’t believe it. Murders weren’t a part of her safe, neat little world, despite the fact that she thought she’d witnessed one so long ago. The memory of that night had been such a trauma that she’d shut it out of her mind. Nice people, good people, rich people didn’t kill. They didn’t shoot wild teenaged boys; they didn’t try to kill sensible young women.

  But as much as she wanted to deny the reality of it, she couldn’t. She still had scrapes and bruises from having to ditch her brakeless car. She could still remember the whine of the bullets flying past her in the woods. And she knew perfectly well just how much money Sally was leaving her heirs. For some people, it was more than enough to kill for.

  She found him in the music room, a drink in his hand, a distant expression on his face. The room looked like a bomb had hit it—papers and photos scattered everywhere. She knelt down and began to scoop them up automatically.

  He watched her, making no effort to help. “Do you know the Robinson family?” His voice was slightly rough.

  She rose, dumping the papers on the table. “The ones who live up island, by the cliffs? I vaguely remember them. Nice old couple, friends of Sally. They both died in the last few years, and I don’t think they had any children.”

  “They had a daughter named Judith.”

  “I remember now. They had pictures of her at their house. She died a long time ago.”

  “Thirty-five years ago, to be exact.” He took a deep drink of his whiskey. “Care to join me in a toast to my long-lost mother?”

  “Not particularly. I think we need to eat,” she said briskly.

  “What about your own mother?” He pushed it. “Don’t you care about your past?”

  “Not particularly. As you said, Sally was my mother in every way that counts,” Carolyn replied evenly. “Just as she was yours.”

  “Sounds like incest to me,” he said lazily, but she wasn’t fooled. She was confronted with a little boy who was hurting, and she was good at soothing hurts.

  “I’m not worried about it.”

  “At least Sally didn’t lie to you about everything. Your mother was Elke Olmstedder, the nursemaid she hired from Sweden to take care of me. I guess Warren knocked her up and Sally kicked her out when she found out about it.”

  “Do you remember her?”

  Alex shook his head. “Sorry. I was too young.”

  Carolyn nodded, dismissing it. “Why don’t I see what we have to eat in this place—”

  “Don’t you care?” he broke in. “Don’t you want to know how you ended up here?”

  “Not particularly,” she said calmly. “But obviously you want to tell me.”

  “Your mother died when you were two and I guess Sally must have had a belated attack of conscience. Either that, or Warren talked her into finding you.”

  “I doubt it. Warren’s always found me an inconvenience. At least now I understand why. It must have been Sally’s idea. I bet she decided you needed a little sister to torment.”

  “And after all, you were a MacDowell,” he said in a silky voice. “I’d say she was hedging her bets. Sally was good at that.”

  She came over to him and took the drink out of his hand, and surprisingly enough he didn’t resist. “I’d say Sally loved us both, no matter what her other motives. And that’s what we need to remember.”

  “Incest,” he said again, looking up at her out of sleepy, sexy eyes.

  “Fuck you,” she said without any real heat.

  “Yes,” he said. And he rose, coming toward her, slow and sexy and determined.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  SHE WAS RUNNING away from him. No sooner had Alex risen to his feet than Carolyn turned and left the room. “I’ll find us something to eat,” she called over her shoulder in a brisk voice.

  She’d have to be a fool to think he wouldn’t follow, and Carolyn Smith was no fool. He was in no particular hurry, and he arrived in the kitchen in time to see her pouring his half-full drink down the sink.

  “I wasn’t finished with that,” he said mildly.

  “Yes, you were.” She was already poking her head into the refrigerator. “There’s nothing to eat.”

  “We could always get fried clams,” he said.

  “No!”

  “What about pizza? I bet I can even find delivery.”

  “I thought you told me everything was closed down off-season?” she said. “It’s only been a week since we were here.”

  “A lot can happen in a week,” he said lightly. “Besides, I may have exaggerated the situation before. After all, the island has a fairly large year-round population.”

  She wasn’t happy with him, but then, that was nothing new. “What else have you been lying about?”

  The fact that he wasn’t going to let her sleep alone in the double bed, he thought, but didn’t bother to tell her that. “I’ve told you so many lies I’ve lost count of them,” he said. “At this point I think everything’s out in the open, but I can’t guarantee it.”

  “What else would you be lying about?”

  How I feel about you, he thought. Maybe dragging her down here wasn’t the smartest idea in the world, but he couldn’t leave her behind. It was simply too dangerous.

  He seemed to be totally incapable of ignoring the effect she had on him. She moved around the kitchen, setting water on to boil, moving with calm grace, and all he wanted to do was ease her down on the hardwood floor, strip off her clothes, and put his mouth between her legs. He was worse than when he was seventeen. Then he was impartially obsessed by all females, including thirteen-year-old Carolyn.

  Now all that lust was channeled directly toward one woman, and he was having a hell of a time keeping it under control. She had her back to him, and was busy rifling through the cupboards, and he could no more resist the impulse than he could stop breathing. He moved across the room, coming up directly behind her, not quite touching her, so close he could smell the soap from the cheap motel, smell her skin and her shampoo and her faint, erotic, female scent, and he put his arms to either side of her, trapping her against the counter.

  She didn’t turn in his arms to face him, much as he wanted her to. She froze, keeping her back to him. “What do you think you’re doing?” She would have sounded bored if it weren’t for the faint quiver in her voice. The faint tremor that washed through
her body.

  She didn’t realize he found her back as erotic as the front of her. She’d braided her silky blonde hair in one thick braid, exposing the nape of her neck, and he wanted to bite her, like a mating cat. She stood straight and still within the prison of his arms, and he wondered if he would ever be capable of making her laugh. Right now it didn’t seem likely. Right now it didn’t seem as if either of them had much reason to laugh.

  He gave in to temptation, putting his mouth against the back of her neck, kissing her there, slowly, letting his tongue touch and taste the warm, soft skin. She shivered, taking in a deep breath, and he pressed his hips against her buttocks, wanting her to feel him.

  “Don’t,” she said in a strangled voice.

  He moved his mouth to the side of her neck, tasting, teasing. “Why not? Are you going to tell me you don’t want me?”

  “I don’t want you.”

  “Liar.”

  She turned in his arms then, a major tactical error on her part. He allowed her enough room, then moved in closer, so that he could feel the soft fullness of her breasts through his t-shirt, pressing against his chest. He could press up against her thighs, nestle there, where he belonged, knowing she could feel it too. She wanted to escape from him; he knew that full well. She also wanted him to kiss her.

  He brought his mouth close, so close that he could feel the soft puffs of her breath against his lips. But he didn’t close the gap. “Do you want to kiss me, Carolyn?” he whispered.

  “I want you to let me go,” she said in a dull voice.

  He dropped his arms to his side, no longer imprisoning her. “But do you want to kiss me?”

  She raised her eyes to look at him, and there was anger and betrayal in their cool depths. “Yes,” she said. “But I’m not going to.”

  He smiled then. “Maybe not now,” he agreed. “But sooner or later.”

  She didn’t dispute him. “Arrogant bastard,” she said. “I’d prefer later.”