Authors: Ingrid Weaver
Tags: #mobi, #Romantic Suspense, #Paranormal Romance, #Fiction, #Shadow, #epub
Delaney's Shadow (33 page)
He should have gotten rid of the bandage. He should have lost the elastic cloth that wrapped his wrist, too. It would have been as easy as creating the hill and the pine tree. Only, she’d been responsible for imagining this scene as much as he was.
She
wanted to see him this way.
She
wanted to see him this way.
“Does it hurt?” she asked, tapping the bandage.
“Not now. Nothing hurts when we’re in this place.”
“How did it happen?”
“You made me up. You tell me.”
She continued her inspection, studying the bruising on his shoulder, touching his wrapped wrist. She got to his waist and inhaled sharply. Her gaze returned to his.
He stretched out and crossed his ankles. “I could imagine some pants, but you’ve seen it all before.”
“And you’ve seen me.” She touched the spot where the scar on her breast disappeared beneath the edge of her nightgown. “Max, did I really make you up?”
“Why are you asking me that? I thought you had it all figured out.”
“So did I.”
He ran his forefinger along her nightgown strap. “The last time I saw you, you asked me to kiss you.”
Her breath hitched. “Max . . .”
“Did you like how it felt?”
“You know I did.”
He traced her neckline to the shadow between her breasts. “Where do you want me to kiss you this time, Deedee?”
“Max, stop. I don’t want sex.”
“We don’t really have sex. We just think about it.”
She caught his hand. “Are you John?”
His pulse leapt. He should have expected the question. In fact, he’d half wanted it after the dance they’d done around the truth when she’d come to his house. “Who?”
“He’s a real man. He has a sprained wrist and a scraped forehead and he looks exactly like you.”
“Poor guy.”
“Yes, he is.”
“You sound as if you feel sorry for him.”
“He’s so alone. I don’t think he really wants to be.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“It’s my guess that he’s been given a hard time by so many people that he’s decided he’d rather push them away than give them a chance.”
“What’s this? You finished psychoanalyzing yourself and you’ve decided to start working on him?”
She sat up and swung her legs off the bed. She walked to the pine tree and braced her palm against the trunk. “I’m a long way from being finished, Max. The fact that I needed my imaginary friend to pull me out of my nightmare again proves it.”
The boughs above her blurred as the sky began to dim. So did the sensation of the mattress beneath his back. He nudged his thoughts closer to hers until the scene regained its substance, then went to stand behind her. He slid his arms around her waist. “What brought on the nightmare this time?”
“Insanity.”
“I told you, Deedee. There’s nothing wrong with having a powerful mind.”
“No, I mean the world. People I thought I knew, I didn’t know at all.”
He rested his chin on her shoulder. “You’re talking about your husband.”
“Him and Elizabeth and Jenna.” She touched his swollen wrist. “That’s probably why I gave you John’s injuries. The hit-and-run was my fault. He was hurt because of me.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. Shit happens.”
She shook her head. “It might not have been an accident.”
“What?”
“The detective who’s investigating suspects my stepdaughter tried to run me down.”
“Why the hell would anyone think that?”
“Why do you need to ask? You’re my subconscious. You should already know.”
“Humor me.”
She related what Toffelmire had told her. Max listened in growing alarm. The cop might be a pain in the ass, but it sounded as if he was right to issue a warning. Max’s arms tightened reflexively, though he knew that he wasn’t actually holding her. His thoughts alone couldn’t shelter her from perils in the real world. He’d have to be here in the flesh to do that. “Damn, how could anyone want to hurt you?”
“The answer has to be in my memory.” She thumped the heel of her hand against her temple. “But I’m still blocking it.”
“The cops should arrest your stepdaughter.”
“They don’t have enough evidence, and she’s not the only one who might have done it.” She turned in his embrace. Her eyes shone. “I need to remember. The nightmare won’t end until I do.”
“Deedee—”
“I was wrong.” She ran her palms across his chest. “I do want sex.”
“Let me guess. To help break your mental block, right?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t need me for that.”
“Yes I do!”
“Did you remember anything the last time?”
“No, but it’s helped before.”
“And you’ll use whatever works.”
“Kiss me, Max.”
He should be angry. They’d been through this already. She saw him as a tool, a key, not a man.
Yet that was his own choice, wasn’t it? She was right; he’d rather be alone than risk the consequences of a real-life relationship. He was the one who wouldn’t end the charade.
She slid her hands to his groin. “Please.”
Instinct took over. It made no difference why she wanted this. He was enough of a bastard to oblige.
TWENTY-ONE
DELANEY CARRIED THE STAINLESS STEEL BOWL OF ORANGE peels, coffee grounds, and eggshells toward the compost bin behind the garden shed. For as long as she could remember, Helen had been composting her kitchen scraps, not only for the sake of the environment but because the compost was good for her roses. It was part of the daily routine. Delaney had done it dozens of times since she’d come home and thought nothing of it.
Only this morning, the door of the garden shed was open.
She focused on the shadowed interior, her steps slowing. She didn’t like being afraid. She resented it. Edgar had told her it had probably been kids who had been in the shed before. There was a chance the process server had been watching the house from there before he’d snuck into the house. She couldn’t picture Elizabeth hiding amid the garden tools and the cobwebs, though, waiting to pounce. She couldn’t see any of Stanford’s lovers doing so, either. He’d been too fastidious. He wouldn’t have had an affair with the type of woman who would skulk in garden sheds.
So there was no reason to feel nervous, she told herself, firming her grip on the bowl. She stopped at the shed and poked her head inside.
No one was there. Of course, no one was there, only the lawn mower, some bags of fertilizer, and the garden tools. Nothing more threatening than some rakes and a few shovels that hung from the wall. She was being paranoid, likely due to lack of sleep.
Or did a fantasy count as sleep? After all, she’d been on a bed.
No, there had been nothing restful about last night’s fantasy. Max had managed to stimulate every nerve in her body and every synapse in her brain. He’d wrung one climax after another from her mind with nothing but kisses. Imaginary kisses. Yet this morning she was exhausted and aching as if she’d spent the entire night having sex.
We don’t really have sex. We just think about it.
And now she couldn’t stop thinking about it. What was wrong with her?
But she hadn’t been seeking pleasure; she’d been seeking memories.
There. See? She’d had a perfectly rational reason for the fantasy sex. A logical reason. Unfortunately, in spite of Max’s best efforts, she hadn’t remembered a thing. Drat.
She went to the compost bin, lifted the lid, and banged the bowl hard on the edge. A wasp buzzed past her hand. The scent of rotting vegetables and old grass clippings hit her like a slap of reality. She replaced the lid fast, pressing her lips tight against a desire to laugh.
It wasn’t funny; it was pathetic. The years of being married to Stanford must have left her starved for affection. Either that, or she was finding a new avenue for denial. Sure, why worry about whether someone was trying to harm her? That was definitely unpleasant. It was much better to channel her energy into the arms of a make-believe lover.
The hair on her arms tingled beneath her blouse. She glanced over her shoulder toward the back gate.
A tall, dark-haired man was coming up the path that led to the pond.
Good God, she must have conjured him up by thinking of him. “Max?”
His right arm was in the sling across his waist. He placed his left hand on the gate and lifted his face. Blue eyes met hers.
And she remembered how his eyes had glowed as he’d rubbed his teeth over her hip bone.
The bowl slipped from her fingers and bounced on the grass. She wiped her palms on her skirt. “Max, I didn’t mean to call you.”
The gate creaked loudly as he pulled it open.
“This isn’t a good time . . .” She stopped. The gate had creaked. He’d swung it on its hinges.
Max couldn’t move things. His touch felt real in her fantasies, but he had no physical presence except in her mind. What happened in the world they created was merely an extension of her imagination. She understood that. So she couldn’t have just seen him open an iron gate.
He stepped onto the lawn and strode toward her. His shoes connected firmly with the ground. His shirt was pearl gray and had the liquid drape of fine cotton. The breeze rippled the fabric against his chest and arms. The bandage on his forehead was stark white in the sunshine. No stray lock of hair covered it this morning. His hair was combed straight back from his face.
It wasn’t Max; it was John Harrison.
Then why was he watching her as if he knew she was picturing him naked?
Maybe because she was staring at him with her mouth open and her cheeks burning. God, she would have thought she was too old to blush.
She left the bowl where it had fallen and walked forward. “Good morning, John,” she called. She paused to wait for him in the shade cast by the big oak. “This is a surprise. How are you today? You must be feeling better if you decided to take a walk. At least, I hope you are. But I suppose there are plenty of activities you can do with a sprained wrist.” She heard herself babbling and cringed inwardly. Wasn’t the blush bad enough?
“Yeah,” he said. “You’d be surprised what I can do.”
The injuries she’d imagined Max having hadn’t hampered him much, either. His arms had felt as strong as always. He’d seemed to enjoy it when she’d kissed his bruises. She thought of the discolored flesh on John’s shoulder, the broad chest, the line of soft, dark hair that led past his navel . . .
“See something you like?”
She jerked her gaze away from his pants. They were similar to the pleated pair he’d worn at the festival. They were almost identical to the ones Max had worn the first time she’d met him at the pond. He hadn’t worn a belt then, either.
And his question was word-for-word what Max had asked her the first time she’d seen him naked.
This had to be more than coincidence. How could two men be so much alike? Her instincts were screaming with recognition, regardless of how insane the idea was.
What if it
was
possible? What if there really was such a thing as a psychic connection between two complete strangers?
was
possible? What if there really was such a thing as a psychic connection between two complete strangers?
What if her deepest wish had come true, and Max actually existed?
No, it was crazy. Impossible. She had to get a grip.
Yet now that she’d allowed herself to think it, the idea wouldn’t go away. Her heart pounded so hard it stole her breath. What if? What if?
“I brought back your towel,” John said.
What if she was simply punchy from lack of sleep?
He reached into his sling with his left hand and brought out the linen tea towel that she’d wrapped around the banana bread she’d taken to him. It had been folded into a square and appeared to have been washed. “Thought you might want it.”
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