Handful of Dreams (18 page)

Suddenly she bounded from her pillow, chills cascading along her spine. There had been a sound. Not the wind and not the waves, but something totally alien to the whispers and melodies of the night.

No, she thought, listening alertly, her heart thudding. How long she stayed there, barely daring to breathe, she didn’t know. She tried to convince herself that she had imagined the sound in the parlor, and when nothing else came, she was almost certain that she had.

Mindy had asked her once if she didn’t think that Peter would come back to haunt the place that he had loved so well. And she had laughed in return, assuring Mindy that if Peter could be a ghost, he would certainly be welcome back in his home and that he would never hurt her.

Maybe it was Peter settling into his library, lighting his pipe, she tried to muse whimsically.

She lay back down, but her heart continued to pound. Then she sat up, realizing that she would never sleep and that if she did sleep and someone was in the house, they could creep in on her.

Silently she reached into her closet for her umbrella—the best weapon she could think of. On bare feet she trod across the room, slowly cracked her door, and looked out. There was nothing, only the gentle glow of the night-light on the stairwell. Hurriedly she tiptoed down the stairs, crept down to the wall, and stared into the parlor. She gave herself a little shake, breathing more easily. She had imagined the sound.

Better make sure, she warned herself.

She crept across the parlor to the kitchen door, wondering what she was going to do if she surprised a thief. Maybe she should have gone the other way, into the library. She could have picked up the phone and dialed the police.

For what, goose? she charged herself. To tell them she heard bumps in the night?

She went on into the kitchen like a wraith, keeping close to the walls, almost chuckling aloud when she saw that the kitchen, too, was just as she’d left it.

She turned around, relieved and annoyed that her imaginings had destroyed what had promised to be a wonderful night’s rest, something she hadn’t enjoyed in a long, long time. Not since the day Peter had died.

Halfway back across the parlor she came to a dead halt, riddled with chills, goose bumps forming all over her body.

There
was
someone in the house. Someone who had been in the parlor. Someone who had been upstairs when she had been coming down. Someone who was now moving down the stairway.

At first she couldn’t run. She couldn’t even move. What had been imagination was now real.

And then she longed to run. With every fiber in her body she longed to make a mad dash for the door.

But she couldn’t do that, didn’t dare to. The footsteps were nearing the bottom of the stairway, and if she raced through the parlor to the foyer and the door, she would be caught, just like a trapped hare, desperately trying to undo the bolts she had so studiously fastened before going to bed.

How had the intruder gotten in? Oh, God! He hadn’t, she realized. He had been there all the while, hiding in David’s bedroom! And she was about to be assaulted because she’d been too disturbed to open that door while help had remained below.

All this passed through her mind in a flash while she prayed desperately for insight on what to do now. At the last possible second she flattened herself to the parlor wall, right next to the doorway. If she was lucky, the thief would have finished with the house. He would seek a way out.

And if she wasn’t lucky … well, she was carrying her umbrella as a weapon. Her heart began to race afresh and then to sink.

The footsteps paused in the foyer, and then they turned, softly, stealthily, coming directly toward her.

Susan raised her umbrella, trembling. Again the footsteps paused, right outside the doorway. She was sure he heard the pounding of her heart, leading him straight to her.

Suddenly, too suddenly, he was inside. Looming tall and incredibly broad and completely shadowed in the darkness of the night.

Near tears, she restrained a cry of terror, stepping forward to lash out at the intruder with all her strength, bringing the umbrella down like a club over his head.

He ducked just in time but let out a cry of pain as the umbrella sliced over his shoulder. The umbrella was wrenched out of her hands by a ruthless power and sent soaring across the room, and before she could absorb that shock, powerful arms were around her, jerking her arm behind her back, sending her to the floor. She screamed then, loud and desperately.

“Susan!”

She was released so instantly that she sprawled down on the hardwood floor, face first. She didn’t know whether to laugh or start screaming all over again.

Her “thief” was David Lane.

She rolled, blinking against the sudden harsh glare as he flicked on the overhead light.

David stared down at her, and for the thousandth time he wondered why he had come. What about her had been like a Circe’s call, beckoning him back, to flounder upon the rocks?

His shoulder ached and he rubbed it absently, looking down at her incredulously. She had just clubbed him! But seeing her…

She was flat on her back. Her hair was spread around her like waves of flame, and her features were deathly pale. She was wearing a long white nightgown with slits up the sides that left almost the entire length of one long, tanned limb exposed. And as she returned his stare her lip started to tremble.

“David!”

“Who were you expecting?” he asked, still confused, but certain that she hadn’t been attacking him personally. He reached a hand to her; she accepted it, dazed, and stood before him.

“There have been a couple of break-ins,” she told him nervously. “I—I thought you were the prowler.”

“Oh,” he said simply, then frowned despite himself. “There’s a prowler in the area and you’re still determined to stay here alone?”

She spun around, hugging her arms across the low-cut décolletage of her nightgown. “If you’re trying to get me out of here,” she said bitterly, “forget it.”

He caught her shoulder angrily. “I’m not trying to do anything of the kind! But what if I
had
been the prowler? You got your best shot at me. You missed and were at my mercy. And then what the hell would you have done way out here, alone?”

He realized then that she was still visibly shaken, and although he rationally thought she deserved a whole lot more, he relented, releasing her. Susan hurried to the sofa, sinking into it before her knees could buckle under her. She stared at her hands.

“What are you doing here?”

“Other than having you crack my shoulder?”

Her eyes were riveted to his, shimmering, moist and emerald. “I’d rather have cracked you with my palm across the face.” She stiffened with regal poise. “I certainly didn’t really mean to cause you injury.”

“Well, you did, you know.”

A little flicker of guilt and concern passed through her eyes. “Want some ice? A brandy or something?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do,” he told her, intrigued to see what she would be willing to do for him.

She stood and hurried into the kitchen. David pulled his knit shirt over his head and ruefully glanced at his shoulder. It was swelling up nicely. He sat down in the spot on the sofa she had just vacated. She came back into the room carrying an ice pack and a snifter.

“You’ve got a good batting arm,” he said, teasing her.

She didn’t smile but handed him the brandy and set the ice pack on his shoulder, her brows knit in a frown as she did so.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, her eyes on her task. But she was close. So close that he could inhale the subtle scent of her perfume and remember; so close that he could have moved his hand and caressed her breast.

“I came to make you realize that it was uncomfortable to have to share a home,” he told her, watching her. But her eyes didn’t come to his. She finished adjusting the ice pack and straightened, and to his amazement she smiled.

“I see. You were trying to disturb me.”

He grinned wickedly in return. “Yes—maybe I was.”

Susan laughed, sailing across the room to the door, only turning back when she reached it. “I’m sorry, Mr. Lane. I’m not disturbed. I’m thrilled to death. You may be any number of things—which I’ll restrain myself from vocalizing right now—but at least you are not a thief. I’m delighted with your appearance. I’ll get a good night’s sleep and you can tangle with the prowler if he should decide to show!”

“Miss Anderson!” he said, calling her back.

She paused, one brow delicately raised.

“You’re not feeling … charitable this evening?”

“Oh, I only give to any cause once, Mr. Lane. Where you’re concerned, I haven’t a charitable bone left in my body!”

She disappeared up the stairway. David winced; his shoulder was throbbing.

Yet, he thought miserably, it didn’t pulse with anything near the flame of desire that just seeing her brought to him.

Why the hell was he here? What had he thought he could prove? Ah, yes! He’d wanted her to know how uncomfortable it could be to share a house, to be surprised at any time.

And all he had achieved was a burning shoulder and something more than the misery of longing. Dear God! He wanted to believe in her! He wanted to pretend that there was no past, that the vulnerable beauty he had touched before was the truth.

He set his mouth into a grim line. There were things of his father’s that he had a right to: memories, the house. There were things in the past that he had no right to—and she was at the top of that list.

David sighed and rose. He’d been waging a war—and waging it against himself. She’d never really wanted to fight him; some sense of outrage had simply forced him to drive her into a corner. The whole thing was insane. His best move would be to sue for peace, relent to what had been, after all, Peter’s wishes. Maybe then he could get on with his life and forget her.

Upstairs, he threw open the windows, grateful for the cold night air. He lay down, lacing his fingers behind his head, staring into the darkness of night, but seeing things that lay in the past. His thoughts ebbed and flowed like a tide. They wouldn’t allow him to sleep.

He started suddenly, tensing as his bedroom door opened. A glimmer of moonlight filled the room, enough so that he could see her. In her white nightgown she looked like a Grecian goddess, as virginal as an ancient maiden doomed to be sacrificed. She moved so lightly, like a wraith, like a nymph….

Like a lover coming to him in the night in sweet secrecy. Sleek, shimmering white, passionate red, the flame of her hair catching the moonlight to cloak her with an innocent sensuality…

It wasn’t true, of course. Fantasy—it was her business.

“David!” Her voice was anxious and hushed.

“What?” he answered, not moving. “Have you decided to be charitable after all?”

“David, stop!” she pleaded. “I think there really is someone downstairs!”

“What?” He bolted up. How could anyone be downstairs? Since he’d been in the service, he’d learned to listen, to hear any unusual sound. “You’re imagining things.”

“No, I swear, I’m not!”

He threw his feet over the bed, mindless of his nudity. She stood silently aside, and whatever she was thinking was hidden from him in the darkness. He grabbed for his robe, then rummaged in his top desk drawer, finding his service revolver. “Stay here,” he told her.

She shook her head vehemently, and in the muted light her eyes did indeed seem to glow like gems, making him ache all over again with the desire for things to be different. For her to be … his, in truth. He wanted to wrap her in his arms, assure her like a lover, swear to protect and defend…

“I’m not staying here!” she protested in a hushed but vehement whisper. “David…” There was the slightest plea to the words, and then she was nervously teasing, “Don’t you ever watch horror movies? The heroine gets left behind—and then attacked! I’ll be right behind you!”

“Behind!” he persisted gruffly.

“I’ll stay where I’m supposed to,” she promised. Her eyes fell on the revolver. “Is that thing real?”

“Of course, it’s real,” he whispered back impatiently.

He didn’t touch her; he silently started out of his room, then down the stairway. In the light there he could see the front door; the locks and bolts were all still in place, and he frowned. It had been her imagination.

He didn’t say so. He turned to her and motioned that he was going into the darkened parlor. She nodded and stood in the foyer, watching him.

There was nothing in the parlor. David went on in to the kitchen and began to smile to himself. She had been imagining things. Hearing about the prowler, convincing herself that he would surely come after her.

But then, just as his muscles relaxed and he exhaled a long breath, he heard her scream. It was quick, sharp sound. Instantly cut off as if someone had—

“Susan!”

He had his gun out before him, his finger on the trigger. He drew up short, seeing her in the foyer, held in the powerful grasp of a man who seemed to be half monster. The guy was unshaven, muscle-bound and burly, and clad in jeans and a khaki jacket that added to his height and breadth.

His left arm was locked around Susan, his grimy fingers clamped over her mouth. In his right hand he carried a knife—one set closely against her rib cage.

David paused and swallowed, sickly aware that he couldn’t show his fear. He spoke quietly. “Let her go.”

The prowler laughed, showing yellow teeth. “No way, buddy. That thing’s probably a kid’s water pistol! Now you come over here and open the door for me—nicely. Throw the gun down and open the door, and as soon as I get into the woods, I’ll let your little girlfriend go.”

Like hell he’d let her go! God alone knew what he would do to her—David didn’t dare think about it—but when he was through, it was more than possible that he’d slit her throat and leave her in the pines.

David shook his head slowly. “No way,” he said very softly. “I assure you this isn’t a water pistol. I had to shoot a lot of decent men who happened to be on the other side of the line with this thing. I wouldn’t think twice about shooting garbage who preys on innocent women. And I promise you, the bullets fly fast from this baby. Real fast. I can aim right between your eyes or I can aim at your kneecap. There’s nothing like a shattered kneecap for real pain.”