Nightfall (5 page)

There was blood, everywhere. The smell of it assaulted her, thick, metallic, the feel of it was black on her hands. There were children surrounding her, crying voicelessly, and the blood poured from their wounds, drenching her.

She knelt, a penitent. The woman stood over her, pale, dying, her mouth open in a silent scream, and she pointed an accusing hand. Cassidy didn't turn. She knew what she would see behind her, looming over her, the knife upraised. She didn't want to watch, to look into his mad, dark eyes as the knife fell, and she joined them, the silent, the dying.

But he was close, so close. She felt the pull, the draw of him, even as she knew that to turn was to face her death. She couldn't resist. She felt his hands on her shoulders, strong, and there was no weapon. She turned, looking up at him, and screamed.

The sound tore her from sleep, and she sat bolt upright. Outside she could hear the ceaseless traffic of the never-ending New York City night, inside the cavernous old apartment her scream still echoed.

She scooted back in her bed, up against the carved headboard, trying to calm her panicked breathing, her racing heart. She couldn't remember when she'd last had a nightmare. Probably when she was a child, still living with her incessantly battling parents. To be sure, in the six years since she'd been on her own, she hadn't been plagued with bad dreams.

This one more than made up for it. It was no wonder—she'd been thrown into the company of a murderer, one who showed absolutely no remorse, and her father's twisted sense of humor only made things worse.

At least she hadn't seen Richard Tiernan again. Sean took his womenfolk, as he termed them, out to dinner to celebrate Cass's defeat, or so she thought of it, and there'd been no mention of his houseguest joining them.

It hadn't helped. She couldn't stop thinking of him. Even eating mediocre food at the Russian Tea Room and watching Sean preen hadn't been enough to distract her from the memory of those haunted eyes.

There was no sign of him when they returned. Cass had curled up in the white sofa, nursing the Irish Mist Sean had forced on her, and wondered what Tiernan was doing. And what he had done.

She shoved her hair away from her face now, taking deep, calming breaths. Her room was pitch-black—the heavy velvet draperies shut out the light, if not the noise of the city. It felt like a tomb. She leaned over and turned on the lamp, but the sight of all the Gothic splendor surrounding her wasn't cheering.

She dragged herself out of bed, fumbling around for her watch. It was quarter past three in the morning, and there was no way she was going to sleep without a little outside help.

She knew there was any number of choices. Hot milk, the contents of Sean's liquor cabinet, the contents of Sean's medicine cabinet were all available. Hot milk would take the longest and taste the worst, and the kitchen was too close to Tiernan's bedroom. If she had any sense at all, she'd head for the chemical response to nightmares that was a family tradition.

But there was sense, and there was sense. The memory of Sean's drunken brawls was too fresh in her mind. Her mother's slurred whine lay at the back of her thoughts as well. If she had to resort to sleeping pills or liquor to make it through the night, then she damned well wasn't going to stay there.

The kitchen was dark and deserted, the flooring cool beneath her bare feet. Cass leaned against the counter, arms wrapped around her waist, as she watched her mug of milk heat in the microwave while she called herself an idiot.

Richard Tiernan wasn't going to emerge from his lair, not at that hour of the night. If he did, all she had to do was grab that wreath of garlic hanging on the wall and ward him off.

Her smile caught her in the midst of a yawn, just as the microwave beeped. She pushed her tangle of hair away from her face in a sleepy gesture, reaching for her milk, and then froze.

"Nightmares?" said Richard Tiernan.

She could smell the blood. For one brief, crazy second she could smell death. And then sanity reared its blessed head.

He was standing in the door, where she'd first seen him, watching her. His hands were tucked in his jeans pockets, and his dark hair was ruffled, perhaps from sleep. Apart from that, he looked the same. Lost, dark, and dangerous.

She pulled her oversize sweater around her in what she hoped was a suitably casual gesture. She hadn't underestimated his unnerving effect on her. Damn Sean for getting her into this! "Not really," she said coolly. "I guess I'm not used to the city noise. I seldom have trouble sleeping."

"Lucky you," he murmured.

She put the mug of warm milk to her mouth. It was so hot she could feel the steam burning her lips, and she paused, feeling like a fool. On the one hand, she'd look ridiculous if she put the mug down without drinking. On the other, she wasn't sure she wanted to scald her esophagus in her effort to appear unmoved by his presence.

He solved the matter quite neatly. While she stood there, uncertain, he walked into the room, crossed to her, and took the mug of milk from her hand. "You'll burn yourself," he said gently.

He was too close to her. She wished this were simply an extension of her nightmare. She wouldn't even mind the blood, as long as it wasn't real. But it was. Richard Tiernan was standing within inches of her, towering over her respectable five feet nine, invading her space, close, too close, and she could feel the heat of his body in the cool night kitchen, smell the faint tang of whiskey on his breath.

She took a step backward, away from him, not caring if she looked like an hysterical idiot. He simply looked at her and smiled, a slow, cynical smile. "Your father says you're going to stay and help us."

Us. It was an unnerving word. She considered denying it, but she wasn't a coward. She didn't run away from her family demands when the going got rough. If she said yes, or said no, she lived with the consequences.

One of which was the man standing far too still in the middle of her father's kitchen. A man whose power to disturb her went far beyond the crimes he was accused and convicted of committing. "Yes," she said.

"We need all the help we can get."

"We" was just as bad as us. "I'll do my best," she said inanely. Maybe that was the way to protect herself from his insidious effect on her. Be as trite and ingenuous as she could be. As corny, as breathtakingly guileless…

"I'm sure you will," he said, with just the faintest trace of a drawl in his voice. To her horror he lifted the mug of milk to her mouth, holding it there. "It's cool enough now," he said.

The challenge was obvious, even with the unreadable expression on his still, dark face. It was a challenge she couldn't back away from. Not with his dark eyes watching her.

She put her mouth against the mug and drank, when she knew she shouldn't. She should spit it out, tell him she didn't need it after all, and bid him a polite but firm good night.

Ah, but she'd been safe all her adult life. She drank from the mug in his hands, letting the thick warm milk slide down her throat.

When she'd drained it, she looked at him defiantly.
I'm not afraid of you
, she thought. Knowing it was a lie.

For the first time his slight smile reached those dark, haunted eyes. "You have a milk mustache," he said.

She took another step back, this time coming up against the cabinets, as she backhanded her mouth, wiping the milk away before other, more troubling suggestions came to her mind. "I think I'm ready to sleep now," she said brightly, only a faint tremor in her voice.

"Are you?"

"I'll see you in the morning."

There was only one problem with her firm dismissal. He stood between her and freedom. She was literally backed into a corner, backed by her own nervousness, and he'd advanced on her. She raised her chin, looking at him with completely false calm, and waited for him to move out of the way.

He didn't. Not for an agonizingly long time. He let his gaze fall, travel down the length of her, from her wild mane of hair, down the front of her plain white nightgown to the tips of her bare feet. There was nothing even remotely suggestive about the cotton nightgown or the baggy sweater she'd pulled over it, nothing erotic about bare feet. His eyes slid down her body, and she was burning up.

And then he stepped back. "In the morning," he said. And left her there, disappearing back into the shadows of the night kitchen.

She let out her breath, realizing for the first time she'd been holding it. Just as she'd had a virginal hand at her throat, to ward off demons. She was shaking, she realized absently.

She pushed away from the counter, still tasting the creaminess of the hot milk in her throat. She walked into the darkened living room, reached for her father's bottle of good Irish, and poured herself a stiff drink, tossing it back with only a faint choke, letting it burn its way through the milk, through the memory.

There was no key to the lock on her door. She'd never realized it before, never needed one before. She needed one now. Not that Richard Tiernan was going to come wandering down the long hallway, past Sean and Mabry's bedroom, to sneak into the Gothic nightmare and have his wicked way with her.

But there was no way she was going to go to sleep without something pulled in front of the door. Even if it was one of those mock-baronial chairs. First thing in the morning she'd go in search of a key.

When she climbed into her bed, the noise from the city seemed to have faded. It was slowly approaching dawn; soon the city would awake in earnest, and there'd be no rest for the weary. She lay back and stared at the carved bed, barely taking it in. She could call Emmie, ask her to manufacture an emergency that would force her to leave on the first train south. She'd even take a plane in order to get the hell away from here.

But as soon as the idea came to her, she dismissed it. She wasn't a quitter, a coward. And Sean, for the first time in his self-centered, misbegotten life, needed her. If she went now, he'd never ask again.

She closed her eyes, listening to the night. The sounds of the old building, the distant roar of the subways deep underground, the squeal of the busses, the clang and rattle of garbage cans. The city was coming awake.

And she was going to sleep. And this time, damn it, there would be no dreams. Of blood, or death.

Or Richard Tiernan's haunted eyes.

Not a qualm, he told himself, listening for her footsteps in the thickly carpeted hallway. Not a doubt, not a second thought.

He leaned against the closed doorway, thinking about her feet. He'd never thought he could consider bare feet erotic. Everything about Cassidy Roarke was profoundly sensual, from her blaze of flyaway hair to her ripe, luscious body, to her innocent face. Like a Botticelli angel, unaware of the havoc she caused. He'd never felt such lust in his life.

He used that lust for his rationalization. He never thought he'd feel even the faintest trace of interest in sex again, which, considering he was probably going to spend his last few months on earth solely in the company of men, was just as well.

But he'd taken one look at the photo Sean kept on his cluttered desk, and it had been like a physical blow. Feelings, something he'd fought against for more than a year, flooded in before he was able to slam them down again. Something about her face, with the cloud of hair, the stubborn mouth, the wary eyes, the faint, troubled smile had called to him, when he thought nothing could ever reach him again.

He was going to use her. Sacrifice her, if need be, for his needs. Not for one moment was he going to consider her future, her well-being. In the darkest time of his life, he had seen her picture and with it had come light. If he had to burn her out, he would do so, and not count the cost. Anything to dispel the blackness.

The photograph had disappeared from Sean's desk today. He'd gone looking for it while the happy little family was out at dinner, finally finding it in the bottom of Sean's sock drawer, beneath the mismatched hand-knit argyles from the Auld Sod. Richard had taken it, hidden it beneath his own clothes. He could only draw one logical conclusion—Sean didn't want his daughter to know he kept a silver-framed picture of her on his desk.

He pushed away from the door and pulled out the picture, staring down into Cassidy Roarke's eyes. She'd been mesmerizing in the photo—now that he'd seen her in the flesh the photograph took on an even more powerful significance. He didn't believe in coincidence. She hadn't come into his life for no reason. She was there, for him. And he would use her, no matter what the consequences.

Cass followed the rich smell of French roast coffee, the irresistible, seldom-indulged scent of bacon and eggs. She found those things in the kitchen, filled with light from the bright day and the brightness of the one person she hadn't seen yet. "Bridget!" she cried, flinging her arms around the woman who'd been the bastion of sanity in her childhood.

Bridget put her burly arms around Cass, patting her. She smelled like vanilla and coffee and soap, that familiar-Bridget smell, and for the first time since she'd decided to come to New York, Cass felt a sense of well-being. "And where else would I be, missy?" Bridget demanded sternly. "You don't think I'm the type to retire and sit on my can all day, do you? I've been working all my seventy-six years, and I don't intend to stop now. As long as your father's raising hell and your stepma is more decorative than useful, I'll be here."

Mabry, who was comfortably seated at the kitchen table, smiled sweetly, taking no offense. "Actually, Bridget doesn't come in as often as she used to, but once she heard you were coming, there was no holding her back."

"Faith, they'd let you starve to death," Bridget said sternly, putting Cass at arm's length and peering up at her. "You look as if you'd lost weight already."

"It's no wonder I love you," Cass said with a grin. "Why don't you tell Sean you're worried I'm too thin?"

"That man!" Bridget said with a sniff. Their enmity was long-standing and mutually enjoyable. "You're not going to pay attention to the taste of a man who's been married five times, are you?"