House of Dreams (38 page)

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Authors: Brenda Joyce

BOOK: House of Dreams
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Gregory looked from her to Antonio. “I'll go. I'm in better shape than you, I can run most of the way.”
Cass felt her pulse, already erratic and high, accelerating. She did not want Antonio to go, but she did not trust Gregory, not for an instant. Not anymore. She wondered if her fear and panic were blinding her, making her irrational.
“No,” Antonio said sharply.
Cass moved closer to him. “We have to talk,” she whispered. “Please.”
He shook his head. “I will put on running shoes—”
“I'll go,” Gregory said with some heat. “You should stay here with your son, Tonio.”
Cass faced him. “So which is it? You can make better time—or he should stay with Eduardo?” Her words came out with a caustic ring.
His stare was cool. “Both.”
Antonio stepped between them. “I'm older. I will go.”
Gregory looked at him in disbelief.
“Oh, perdón, el conde!”
Antonio grimaced. “If you choose to see it that way, so be it.” He shrugged and started out of the garage, his strides long and resolute.
As Gregory raced after him, Cass felt her heart sink with fear and dismay. She knew something terrible would happen on the road to Pedraza, she just knew it.
“Then let's draw straws,” Gregory said.
“No.”
“Antonio, there is safety in numbers. You have a son—”
“He's right.” Cass ran up to them, panting as she hurried to stay abreast. “Just let Gregory go, please, Antonio. Eduardo needs you.”
Antonio halted and looked at her. She could see the conflict in his eyes. Finally he nodded. But he turned to his brother. “I want you to be very, very careful,” he said. “Trust no one. There is a killer nearby. A killer who had stranded us here for a reason. Perhaps he will offer you a ride. Trust no one, Gregory.”
Gregory seemed pale. He nodded tersely. “Do you think I do not already know this? I will leave immediately.”
Cass gripped Antonio's hand to prevent him from following Gregory back to the house. When Gregory was out of earshot, she looked at Antonio, not quite able to get out what she wished to say.
“What is it, Cassandra?” His gaze was piercing.
“I know he's your brother,” she began slowly.
“No.” The one word was like a whiplash. “He is more than my brother, he is my twin, and do not ever forget it.” Anger etched all over his face, he shook her off and stalked after his brother.
 
 
Gregory had left.
Another search had begun.
Cass and Antonio were rapidly approaching the ruins of the old castle, having decided to stick together. As Gregory had said, there was
safety in numbers. They had been searching for a full hour, and neither Tracey nor Celia was anywhere to be found.
Cass was grim. Any hope she had seemed to be slowly, steadily disintegrating. Now the two towers jutted out of the dry, brown landscape, and the gleaming blue vehicle was catching the sunlight where it was crashed into the wall. Cass glanced at Antonio. “You don't think they might be around here?” She did not want to go anywhere near that dead electrician again.
Antonio did not reply.
Cass glanced at him. There was something on his mind, something he wasn't sharing with her. Or was it just that he was as worried as she over everything that was happening?
They paused. “I'll go check the ruins to see if anyone is there,” Antonio said. “You stay here. I'll be right back.”
Cass nodded, watching him go. A few minutes later, he returned. “No luck?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
He shook his head. “Let's start back to the house. We'll take a different route,” Antonio said grimly.
The sun was high and hot, and they started back rapidly, in silence. Cass couldn't think. She only knew that she was beginning to unravel—when she had to keep her composure for a few more hours, just until the police arrived, for the children's sake.
For her own sanity's sake.
“Cassandra. There is something I haven't told you.”
She tensed. She did not like the tone of his voice or the look in his eyes. “I thought so.”
“My father went insane just before he died,” Antonio said too calmly. “And so did your aunt.”
“What?!” Cass knew she had misheard him.
“They both went insane in the days before my father's death,” he repeated, this time less calmly.
Cass stared, disbelief giving way to something else, a suspicion, an inkling that she could not quite finger. “Are you
certain,
Antonio?”
He met her gaze as they walked along the rutted road. “It was horrible,” he said finally. “His behavior was filled with hatred and anger, and it was directed at your aunt—but it made no sense, none at all.”
The mere mention of Catherine filled Cass with grief.
He touched her back gently. “She was also incoherent with the same anger and hatred, Cassandra. You should not read the journal.”
Cass didn't want to. She wanted to remember her aunt with all of her wits and dignity intact. And then she thought about the slashed tires.
Slashed … with hatred and anger.
Cass stopped short.
Antonio also paused. “What is it?”
“The moment I saw all of those slashed tires, I just thought, whoever did this was so angry, so hate filled. There seems to be so much anger and hatred present now, Antonio.”
He stared. “Like my father and your aunt?”
Cass nodded, and suddenly it all fell into place.
He had paled. He, too, understood. “The way we made love. Violently. Unnaturally. I have never tried to hurt a woman before. I wanted to hurt you.”
Cass trembled. “I have been having these feelings of hatred and anger—ever since we arrived. Toward Tracey, toward Gregory. Feelings that are so intense they frighten me. Feelings that are not me.”
He stared at her. “I have, too,” he said. “They come out of the blue. And disappear as abruptly.”
Their gazes locked.
“Are you thinking what I'm thinking?” Cass whispered.
He stared, wide-eyed. “If you are right …” He inhaled, hard. “When I first saw her portrait, she seemed so sad.”
“But it's changed,” Cass whispered. “It has changed.”
He nodded. “Jesus. If you look at her portrait now, you can see the anger and hatred in her eyes.”
She plucked his sleeve. “And there is malevolence there, and, I think, belligerence.”
“I have noticed,” he said grimly.
Their eyes met and held.
“And she has enough energy to start fires, send a message,” Antonio said grimly.
“Does she have enough energy to slash tires? To stab someone?” Cass asked fearfully. Already suspecting the answer. And it was no.
“That is not what I think,” Antonio said.
“Her anger is the contagion,” Cass whispered.
“And it is poisoning our minds,” he said.
 
 
The walk seemed endless; her feet began to hurt. It was unbearably hot out, and Cass was covered with sweat. Her T-shirt and shorts were sticking to her like a second skin.
They sank down on a flat rock to rest and sip water from a sports bottle Antonio carried. Their shoulders brushed.
Cass went still. So did he. And their eyes met.
Cass could not help herself. She was falling in love and they had this one brief moment to themselves—when God only knew what would happen next. “Antonio?”
His gaze moved to her mouth. “Cassandra, you are the most desirable woman,” he whispered, and his tone was rough.
Cass met his eyes. “Is she poisoning our minds?” she whispered.
He was pulling her toward him. Cass was breathless with need and expectation. “No. Not now. Not like this,” he said, kissing her gently.
A moment later Cass was on her back and he was kissing her hard and touching her everywhere. And when their loins settled the one against the other, soft against hard, heat against heat, she gasped, because he was already hugely aroused.
He pulled her T-shirt and bra over her head, tossing them aside. His next words were in Spanish, but Cass did not have to understand them to decipher their meaning. He wanted her as desperately as she wanted him. She closed her eyes as he nuzzled her breasts and she began to tremble.
He began sucking one nipple.
She could not stand it, this, him.
“Oh, God,” Cass said, and she needed to feel him buried deep and hard, massive and thick, inside of her.
Their mouths locked. He palmed her hard. Cass ripped open his shorts. They fell to the grass, Antonio tugging her shorts and panties down her hips. An instant later he was thrusting into her; as instantly, Cass was coming.
And this time there were no damned violets.
And when he collapsed, it was to cry her name—a sound that Cass knew she was never going to forget.
Antonio rolled onto one elbow and Cass was able to look at him.
Their gazes held. “It's not because of Isabel,” she whispered. “This isn't because of her.”
He flipped onto his back, still breathing hard. “I want to make love to you. Slowly. For hours and hours. Not like this—on some flat, dirty, ant-infested rock.”
Desire surged again, immediately. “You do?”
He turned back to face her, pushing her hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear. The gesture was so gentle, so tender. “Of course I do.” He leaned forward and they kissed.
This time it was slow, soft, lingering—endless. Somehow he found a bed of grass and he moved on top of her, somehow she wrapped her body around his. Their tongues flirted before mating. Their hips picked up an ancient, tireless rhythm. And when he entered her now, it was slowly, with excruciating care.
Cass let him show her all the possibilities. He let her eagerly learn.
 
 
Antonio found her clothes, handing them to her. Cass tried not to look at him. The sun was at its apex now, it had to be noon—they had made love all morning. Cass did not know what to think; she was dazed.
If she had been falling in love with him before, now the deed was done. She would never be able to walk away from this man, not after what they had just shared. And what they had shared had been love, not lust—Cass had never been more certain of anything.
Isabel had not been with them, poisoning their minds.
Cass finished dressing. Guilt began to make its insidious presence known. Tracey and Celia were missing; Gregory was hitchhiking his way to the nearest town. Isabel remained a threat to them all. And Cass had just experienced the most incredible morning of her life.
Antonio was waiting for her. Cass was surprised yet again when he took her elbow firmly in his hands as they walked past the cottage, toward the garage and house. His touch now did crazy things to her, reminding her of what they'd shared, what they could still share, and of what she really wanted from him. Cass wondered if they might ever share a future.
She wanted to hope, but just then, faced with the looming presence of the house, and the sight of Gregory's BMW with its four flat tires in the drive, the prospect seemed dim.
“Everything is so quiet,” Antonio muttered, breaking into her thoughts.
Cass glanced up, shivering because he was right, the stillness was eerie, unsettling, even laden, and she gazed past the BMW, at the front door of the house, and then she glanced back at Gregory's car—and she screamed.
Tracey was sitting in it, and she was dead.
Cass heard herself screaming again and again.
Antonio grabbed her, trying to hold her, trying to prevent her from going to her sister, who was sitting slumped over the wheel, immobile and unmoving, her long hair a funny, dark, tangled mass.
“Let go!” Cass screamed savagely, striking him, and she broke free of his grasp, already knowing what that horrible color was—it was the color of old, dried blood.
She wrenched the door open, saw the scratches on Tracey's legs, the cuts on her arms—both hands gripped the steering wheel. Her hair was a snarled mass, and her clothes were also terribly stained—with blood. “No!” Cass reached for her.
And to her shock, Tracey's body did not yield or fall into her arms. It remained stiff with resistance—impossibly so.

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