Shifting Shadows (10 page)

“
Or maybe I woke up saying I thought I was somebody else, pretending I didn’t remember anything about my life or how I got down those stairs,” she challenged. “Maybe you’re afraid I really do remember, and maybe that’s reason enough to check up on me.”

He didn
’t answer. His stoic expression returned. “Why were you headed for your car? I thought you’d forgotten how to drive.”

“
I forgot that I forgot. I was scared, in fear for my life. If I could have gotten into that car, somehow I’d have figured out how to drive away from you.”

He gazed at her for a long moment then shook his head.
“Can we continue this discussion inside before some neighbor calls the cops on us?”

Analise
drew in a deep breath, looked around her and took notice of her surroundings, her situation, the fact that she’d ripped a seam in her skirt, still clutched a large knife in one hand and probably looked even more disheveled than he did.

“
On the porch,” she said, unwilling to be alone in the house with him in spite of his protestations of innocence.

He inclined his head in a brief gesture of agreement, and they walked to the porch together.

As the overpowering anger and fear left her, she began to notice the aches and pains...a scraped elbow, a battered knee and several places that would, by tomorrow, add more dark bruises to the ones she already had from her fall.

She wrapped her arms about herself, fighting off the
sensation that her body had looked and felt this way before after one of Blake’s rages. But there was a difference. Her spirit wasn’t broken as Elizabeth’s had been.

“
I really am sorry I scared you,” he reiterated when they stood in front of her door. “I knocked and called your name. When you didn’t answer, I tried the door and it opened. It wasn’t locked. After all that’s happened, I was worried.”

It wasn
’t a good enough explanation. “How did you know I hadn’t just gone to bed early?”

He didn
’t reply for a long moment, but when he did, he faced her squarely, and his words held no apology. “I can see your bedroom window from mine. You didn’t go in there.”

A th
rill of something embarrassingly akin to desire rushed through her body at the idea of a connection between their bedrooms. She shoved the absurd feeling aside, mentally assuring herself it resulted from the adrenaline still flooding her veins from her recent fright. It wasn’t possible to fear a person one minute and be attracted to him the next.

As if he could read her mind
or felt the same emotions as she, he stepped backward, crossed his arms over his chest and stood with his back against one of the porch pillars. His posture exuded defiance.

“
In the future, you might try knocking a little louder,” she said. She knew she sounded irritated and hoped he would think it was directed at him when in fact she was equally irritated with herself for being unable to control this inappropriate attraction to him. “I was in the attic. I didn’t hear you.”

“
In the attic?”

“
Looking through some old papers I found up there.”

She knew she should have told him that what she
’d been doing in the attic was none of his business, but she couldn’t resist baiting him, studying his response for any sign of interest in hidden papers she might have found.

She wasn
’t disappointed. Even in the dim glow from the streetlight, she could see the dark fire blaze in his eyes.

At the same time, she was disappointed. Whatever she
’d hidden in the house, she didn’t want it to be something she’d had to hide from Dylan. In spite of everything, she wanted to believe he’d only entered her house out of concern for her safety.

“
What kind of old papers?” he asked, and it was more than an idle question.

She hesitated
but could think of no way to push her slight deception any further since she knew nothing else about the papers she thought she’d hidden. In fact, she couldn’t be positive they even existed. “I found an old journal hidden in the attic. Elizabeth Dupard’s journal, a record of her life, her father’s death, her marriage to Blake Holbert. His family founded our town.”

Dylan
’s gaze became distant, focused somewhere beyond her. She turned automatically to see what he was staring at, but she saw only his house.

“
The bastard owned the factory.”

She whirled in surprise. The voice had traces of an a
ccent, didn’t sound quite like Dylan. When he’d brought her home from the doctor and she’d first seen Phillip, he’d assured her in a similar voice that she didn’t have to go back. But tonight the strangeness was stronger as was the familiarity she couldn’t quite place.

He took a step closer to her, lifted his arms toward her.

Though he was looking at her, she wasn’t sure he really saw her. The whole thing, especially after her recent fright, was totally disconcerting.

“
What did you just say?” she asked, snapping out the words.

That stopped him. He dropped his arms and blinked, shook his head, and the faraway expression was gone.

“Nothing,” he said in his own voice. “You were talking about the town founder. He owned a factory. That’s how the town started. That’s all I meant.” He seemed more confused about his odd statement than she was.

“
Come in and see the book,” she invited impulsively. One part of her whispered that she might be putting herself in danger, asking him into her house like that. But the idea existed only on an intellectual level, didn’t reach her emotions, didn’t instill any fear in her. Maybe she’d been so frightened of everything lately, she’d used up her quota of fear. Or maybe she wanted to be with him more than she feared him.

He looked at her for a long moment, and she sensed some sort of battle r
aging behind his shuttered gaze and outthrust jaw. “Thanks,” he finally said, and she didn’t know which side had won.

They went in, and she locked the door. Dylan had said the door was unlocked when he came in. She could have sworn she remembered locking it when Phillip left. But if she had, how had Dylan gotten in?

For that matter, if someone had pushed her down the stairs, how had that person gotten inside?

“
Are you okay?” Dylan asked from behind her, and she realized she’d been staring at the lock for some time.

“
Yes, I’m fine.” She turned her attention to him, faced him squarely. “I was just thinking that I probably need a new lock. It would be pretty easy for someone to break in here.”

“
A child with a library card could do it,” he agreed smoothly. “You really should get a dead bolt. I’ve been telling you that for some time. I’ll pick up one tomorrow and install it for you.”

And keep a copy of the key?
she wondered, but she kept that thought to herself.

“
Let’s go to the kitchen,” she suggested. “I need to put this back.” She indicated the knife. “And you can put on some water for tea while I bring down the journal.”

When she opened the kitchen drawer to replace the knife, the sight of her hand wrapped around its handle brought a dawning realization. She had just been reading about Elizabeth
’s fear and inability to defend herself against her husband. With that knowledge fresh in her mind, plus the anger generated by the injustices done to Elizabeth, she herself had found the strength to repel someone she feared meant to harm her.

Unfinished business
, Lottie had said.

She tossed the knife into the drawer and shook her head to clear the confusion.

She was Analise Parrish, not Elizabeth Dupard. She wasn’t a Victorian-era woman with no rights, tied to an abusive husband. She was an independent woman. Because she felt sympathy for someone who’d lived and died in an unfortunate time period didn’t mean she had been that person.

But she couldn
’t dispel the vivid picture of Blake looming over her, his breath hot on her face when he shouted, his fist hard and painful as it smacked against her face, her stomach, her arms. She couldn’t dispel this new feeling of victory, of freedom, of pride at being able to take care of herself, whoever she was.

Dylan watched Analise as she stared into the drawer of knives, apparently completely absorbed in them, almost in a trance. What could she possibly be thinking about? Surely not wielding the knife against him again.

It had been stupid of him to break into her house. He
’d made a grievous error, allowed himself to indulge in panic when the evening turned dark and the lights didn’t come on...panic for her safety as much as panic that she’d somehow gotten away and gone to Phillip. He’d almost paid dearly for his foolish behavior. He had no doubt she’d have cut him if she could have.

But if she really had found some hidden book and he got to see it, if it was the right book with the right information, it would be well worth the risk. He didn
’t for a minute believe her mumbo jumbo about it being a journal of some dead woman and wasn’t sure why she’d told him that, then agreed to let him see it. But he wasn’t going to pass up the chance.

“
Analise?”

She looked up, eyes slightly dazed but alive with
pleasure, lips curved upward in a faint smile. “Oh, yes,” she said. “The journal.” She closed the drawer. “I’ll just run up and get it.”

“
I’ll go with you.” He told himself he’d made the offer so she wouldn’t have a chance to hide the book from him. But even as he mentally uttered the excuse, he knew the real reason was much simpler...the idea of being alone with her in the dark attic was tantalizing.

“
All right.” She agreed readily, her expression guileless. Whatever she’d found upstairs, she saw no problem in showing to him. Which could mean it was worthless or that she, in her current condition, didn’t know what it was.

As he followed her up the wide staircase, a sudden image flashe
d across his mind of her tumbling downward, her slender body crumpling in a heap at the foot of the stairs. A chill darted down his spine at the idea that she could have come so close to death, that her crystalline gaze and soft skin could have been lost to him forever.

He set his foot down hard as he stepped onto the landing
, reminding himself forcefully that his primary concern was to learn her secrets. She might be sending his libido into overdrive, she might be stirring strange protective feelings in him, but she was still Analise Parrish, ex-wife of Phillip Ryker, and still somehow, for some reason, connected to Phillip.

Seemingly unaware and innocent, she led him into the dark attic.

They entered the attic and, i
n the faint glow coming from downstairs through the open door, she retrieved a flashlight off the floor. “It was in there,” she said, indicating with her light a hole in the floor and the paint and rubble from her efforts at exposing it.

He knew immediately this wasn
’t what he was looking for.

This was nothing that had been hidden during the time period that concerned him
...unless she’d pried loose the windowsill and set the whole thing up so she could pretend that she’d found whatever she was about to show him. Perhaps he’d be smart to reserve judgment until he knew more.

She sat on the floor and picked up the book. It appeared to be an antiq
ue, exactly what she’d told him, the journal of a long-dead woman. He knelt behind her, close enough to feel her warmth.

“
Listen,” she said. Aiming the light onto the open pages in her lap, she began to read excerpts from the life of Elizabeth Dupard.

Oddly compelled by the diary entries of this woman he
’d never met, he moved closer, straining to see the writing. It wasn’t a good idea, he knew. The journal was obviously useless to him, and sitting so close to Analise in a dark attic wasn’t the type of action that would allow him to keep his goal uppermost in his mind. He ought to at least suggest they go downstairs where the light was better, where they could sit with a table between them. But the words never came out. He sat, tantalized by Analise’s nearness, fascinated against his will by her and by the details of a dead woman’s life.

“
That’s as far as I got,” Analise said, carefully turning a page then continuing.

“
It’s been a week since I could come to visit Mama. I upset Blake again. I should have known better. Rachel told me the whole town’s talking about the horrible things Blake has been doing, some things his father would never have tolerated. He’s cut the workers’ pay and makes them work longer hours. He raised the rents on the company houses he owns, and he won’t fix broken windows or repair leaks in a roof or do anything to keep their homes livable. He fires the men if they can’t work because of illness, yet the long hours make many of them sick
.”

To Dylan
’s amazement, he found himself becoming outraged over Blake Holbert’s treatment of his workers. It shouldn’t be tolerated. Someone ought to do something.
He
ought to do something.

Ridiculous!
he chastised himself. This wasn’t like him to get so involved in a story that might as well be fictional. The events had happened over a hundred years ago.

“
I asked him about it, and he became furious. He said I should pay more attention to my needlework and stay out of the world of men. He hit me and told me we’d go to town the next day so everyone could see that he managed his wife as well as his factory. I wanted to die when he paraded me around and everybody pretended not to notice.”

Anger surged through Dylan at the man
’s treatment of his wife.

“
But they all know. Mama came to see me the next day while Blake was at work. She cried with me and hugged me and told me she was sorry. So I guess there’s nothing to be done. I must learn how to keep him happy.”

Analise
turned the page, the rustling loud in the silence, and Dylan blinked, startled out of complete absorption. He took a deep breath, started to excuse himself and leave, run from whatever hypnotic spell she was weaving with this ancient book.

But she read on, and he didn
’t move.

“
Rachel’s family has a guest, Shawn Fitzpatrick, the most wonderful man I’ve ever met. He’s come from Chicago to organize a labor union here! He explained to me that means the workers all unite and force people like my husband to listen to their demands, to treat them fairly. We talked for hours, and I told him what little I know about the factory in the hopes that it would help. I barely had time to get back to Mama’s before Blake came for me. I know he’d be angry if he knew about Mr. Fitzpatrick
.”

Elizabeth
had written effusively of the activities of the fiery labor leader, and Dylan could feel the man’s frustrations at all the problems, his excitement when they gained any small amount of ground. And he could feel the love growing between Elizabeth and Shawn, the forbidden attraction that wouldn’t be denied, so like what he felt for Analise.

In the darkness he found himse
lf becoming confused, found it hard to separate the people, the years, to remember he was Dylan, not Shawn, and the woman beside him was Analise, not Elizabeth. He wanted her as Shawn wanted Elizabeth, knew the same frustration because of the impossibility of such a thing. Elizabeth should leave Blake and go with him, let him show her what happiness could be, what love could be...what joys he could teach her about her body, such an enticing, responsive body, wasted on a man like Blake.

“
Blake found out I’ve been talking to Shawn. He said someone told him, but I suspect he was spying on me. My mood has been so much lighter of late, he likely became suspicious. I’ve never seen him so angry. This time he locked me in my room for four days and instructed the housekeeper I was to have nothing to eat but bread and milk. She managed to sneak in some other foods, but I had no appetite for them. Blake says if I ever speak to Shawn again, he’ll forbid me to see Mama and Rachel. I couldn’t stand that. I must be very careful to avoid Shawn, but my prayers will ever be with him.
”

Analise turned the page, then another and another. To her consternation, the final pages were blank. What had happened that Elizabeth had never written in her journal again?

“
That can’t be all!” Dylan snatched the book from her, flipped through the last pages so rapidly she feared he would tear them. He dropped the journal to the floor and clutched her shoulders. “I need to know what happened!” he demanded in that odd voice that wasn’t quite his and yet seemed strangely right.

The beam from the flashlight she still held cast an eerie light on his face, distor
ting his features. Dylan, she reminded herself. This is Dylan, my neighbor.

But the image of Shawn Fitzpatrick filled her mind. She could see him as clearly as if she
’d really known him. His bright blue eyes sparked with as much fire as his red hair. His skin was pale, spattered with golden freckles. He was medium of height and wiry of build, not a traditionally handsome man, but he had a vitality, a charisma that drew people to him. And when he spoke in his mellow baritone with a trace of an Irish accent, people listened. The workers listened. Elizabeth listened.

Dylan
pulled her to him, and the confusion deepened. As his lips touched hers, it seemed to be Shawn kissing Elizabeth...and she no longer fought the sensation. It had been so long. She’d missed him so much. She drank him in greedily, his woodsy smell, the warmth of his body, the softness of his lips exploring hers. She could never get enough of him, not even if they were together like this for eternity.

He pulled her closer, one hand behind her neck, his fi
ngers tangling in her hair, caressing her the same way he always did. He touched her lips with his tongue, and she parted to allow him entrance, to merge with him, to take him inside her in this prelude to the ultimate merging. She wrapped her arms around him, struggling to touch more of his body with hers.

A thudding noise jolted
Analise, parting the mists of the surreal world she’d somehow fallen into, parting her from Dylan.

Dear God, what had she been doing
? Who had she been kissing...and who had he been kissing? In the darkness she could hear him breathing heavily, but he said nothing.

“
The flashlight,” she finally managed to say, reaching to pick up the object that had disturbed them. “The flashlight fell when...”
When I reached for you.

He cleared his throat.
“The flashlight.” A silence as charged as the recent thunderstorm wrapped around them. Abruptly he rose to his feet. “I’d better go home and let you get some sleep.”

She nodded, though she wasn
’t sure he would see the motion in the near darkness. Nor was she sure she wanted him to leave.

Resolutely she stood, taking the journal in one hand and shining the beam of light ahead of them with the other. She started from the attic with Dylan following wordlessly and closely behind
...so close she could feel his warm breath on her neck. So close, she reminded herself forcibly, that he could grasp her shoulders the way he’d done a few minutes ago. He could easily hold her against her will, drag her to the stairs, push her down.

She quickened her pace, almost running from the attic, down to the first floor
...unsure if she ran from fear of Dylan or fear of her own desires.

When she reached the front door, she opened it with fumbling fingers, not daring to look back at him. But he laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, forcing her to acknowledge him.

He looked so troubled she thought he must be going to apologize, to explain why he’d kissed her.
Don’t,
she begged silently.
Please don’t say you’re sorry.
Because even though she knew it was insane, she didn’t regret the kiss and couldn’t bear it if he did.

Conflicting emotions warred in the night of his eyes.

He dropped his hand. “Good night, Analise,” he said, and walked out the door.

*~*~*

Sleep didn’t come easily that night. The incredible scene in the attic played itself over and over in her mind. She’d become so mesmerized by Elizabeth’s journal, she’d again let herself slip into that life. That explained why she’d kissed Dylan so eagerly, but what about him? Had he become caught up in the story also? He’d certainly seemed to. Was that why he’d kissed her? And did she want that to be the reason...or would she prefer to think he’d known he was kissing her?

Again and again she had to bring her mind back to
reality. Someone might have pushed her downstairs, and that someone might have been Dylan. After all, he had been sneaking through her house tonight. Had he really come in because he was worried about her safety?

Along with those confusing thoughts,
she couldn’t stop wondering what had happened to Elizabeth after Blake forbade her to see Shawn. As if recapturing Analise’s life wasn’t difficult enough, now she was also trying to find out about Elizabeth’s.

She sat up, turned her pillow over and fluffed it, then stared across the room. She
’d pulled the bedroom curtains tight, but a sliver of moonlight shone through. Fancifully, irrationally, it seemed as if Dylan’s gaze rode in on the beam, as if she could feel him invading her room, her heart. Even more illogically, her inexplicable desire for him rose at the imagined feeling of that gaze.

She shivered and pulled the covers over her head.

*~*~*

Analise
awoke with a start, drenched in perspiration, heart thudding furiously. She’d been dreaming again about strong hands on her shoulders, pushing her. But this time she’d fallen straight down for a long time into suffocating, cold, wet darkness. From somewhere above, Dylan watched as she fell in slow motion. At least she sensed it was Dylan though she never actually saw him.

She looked at the clock.
Five-fifteen. Too early to get up but too late to go back to sleep. Already dawn was lighting the crack between her curtains.

Sliding deeper under the covers, she tried once more to make sense of things.

She’d fallen down the stairs. There was nothing wet or cold about her staircase, yet she’d associated those sensations with the fall in both dreams she’d had about the experience. There must be a connection.

And how was Dylan linked to all this? Some
how he was involved in her life. If not romantically, at least in whatever was happening to her. He’d been as engrossed as she in Elizabeth’s journal...not to mention in the kiss that had come out of nowhere. Or out of a total absorption in Elizabeth’s world.

But she couldn
’t look to the journal for an explanation of her original knowledge of Elizabeth. She couldn’t have read the diary, covered it with layers of dust, then replaced the years of paint on the windowsill.

So maybe she
’d gotten her knowledge about Elizabeth’s life from another record. But what?

There were, she thought, at least two more places she could look for Elizabeth. The town library probably had old copies of the local newspaper. Judging from her diary, Elizabeth
Dupard hadn’t been active in local society, but at least the circumstances of her death should be chronicled. Analise felt compelled to discover that information.

But checking through
several years of even a weekly newspaper would be tedious. She needed to find out the date of Elizabeth’s death. If the woman had lived in Holbert, chances were she’d be buried in the Holbert Cemetery. Her tombstone would have her date of death.

Even as the plan entered
Analise’s mind, a part of her rebelled at the macabre idea. She couldn’t dismiss the feeling that she was Elizabeth, that she’d be viewing her own grave.