Shivers Box Set: Darkening Around Me\Legacy of Darkness\The Devil's Eye\Black Rose (4 page)

O’Keefe reached for the book and my breath caught as his fingers brushed mine. His were calloused, but also long and well formed. Mine were shaking. Though brief, his touch was intimate. Warm and immediate and nothing to do with books and dark stairways.

“I don’t spend much time in the library. It’s Mrs. Scott’s domain,” he confessed.

“She was dusting,” I said. I watched his hand on the book. I had fisted the fingers he’d touched to stop the tingling.

“Yes. She does that,” he replied. “And, yet, it’s always dusty.”

He opened the cover of the book and flipped a few pages. A nervous laugh in response to what might have been a joke caught in my throat.

I had noticed, but I didn’t want to offend him or insult his housekeeper. And I certainly didn’t want to share my hypothesis about the old house preferring it that way.

“Victorian poetry? I guess we’re poorly stocked. No recent thrillers or erotic romances.” O’Keefe commented on the book I’d unknowingly chosen. He handed it back to me. It had fallen open to a page marked by a faded ribbon.

The night is darkening round me,

The wild winds coldly blow;

But a tyrant spell has bound me,

And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending

Their bare boughs weighed with snow;

The storm is fast descending,

And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,

Wastes beyond wastes below;

But nothing drear can move me:

I will not, cannot go.

—Emily Brontë, “The Night Is Darkening Round Me”

He teased, but the mood of the poem seemed to more closely match the expression on his face. I couldn’t help looking at him. Even in the flickering light that painted shadows across his bold features, I saw more than I’d seen before.

He wasn’t detached. He was contained. Carefully, carefully contained. The poem and our proximity tested that control. I could see the war he waged to hold himself apart. Why? Why not laugh and talk and enjoy not being alone in this gloomy place?

I could only guess based on my own experiences. Any emotional connection might tap into darker emotions I couldn’t and wouldn’t face. I loved my friends and family. Possibly even more than before the attack. But I didn’t show it. Ever. One fissure and the dam would fail. For some reason, O’Keefe had the same sort of dam to hold himself back. What had caused him to be this way? What darkness did he hide within himself?

“I didn’t even know what I had picked up,” I said, lightly touching the once-red ribbon with my index finger. When it moved, it left a yellow line of age down the page.

“Be careful. Thornleigh has a way of making you do the unexpected,” O’Keefe murmured. He reached out and closed the book as if he found the poem threatening.

I probably should have scoffed. I wanted to reach out and brush the dark waves of hair from his forehead. Instead of either, I spoke.

“I’m always careful,” I confessed. Here, in the dark with O’Keefe it didn’t feel like a boast. More of a reassurance or a promise. I always looked for experiences to challenge myself, but those challenges were always carefully executed and controlled.

“Are you?” he replied.

He stood so close we were almost touching. I had to tilt my neck to look at his face. He held it turned down to me…almost…leaning.

“I’m not sure that’s true,” he continued.

I stood in near-dark in an almost empty house on a stormy night with a man I’d never met before. One who smelled of rain…and roses.

No. Maybe I wasn’t always careful. And maybe that wasn’t a bad thing, after all.

My heart was just beginning to pound in response to a certain gleam in his eye when he drew back and turned away.

“Good night, Ms. Knox. Don’t dream.”

I stayed on the landing and listened to his retreating steps until they faded away.

It happens sometimes. More often than I confess to anyone. The nightmare comes—when I’m too tired or not tired enough, when I’m someplace new and different or I’ve been too long in Abingdon, when I’m exhilarated from reaching a goal or I’m disappointed because a goal has slipped through my grasp.

I remember the beautiful day. I used to love spring with its promise of flowers in the air and my workshop thrown wide-open to the Virginia breeze. The nightmare always begins the same. I don’t think it would be nearly so bad if I didn’t remember the “before” moments so clearly.

That day, I had finished a particularly challenging piece with intricate solder work and numerous settings for precious stones that had to be fitted to perfection or risk losing heirloom rubies that had been in my client’s family for generations. I had spent months designing then crafting a necklace that was to be an engagement present from a man to his fiancée. He was old Southern railroad money. She was from Quebec. It was to be my largest commission to date and it would support me for months, but, most important, I thought the piece had captured the couple’s relationship in a meaningful way. It was a sweet, romantic gesture to welcome her to his family and I was pleased and proud to be a part of it.

La Roux had a reputation to uphold and this piece, more than any I’d created before, lived up to that. I wasn’t just the dabbling niece. I was contributing something meaningful. I remembered my eagerness to show my aunt the pendant. I didn’t even change. I wore my worn and faded denim bibs complete with scorch marks and solder drippings. I loved those bibs. Their looming destruction in my nightmare eats at me every time I relive it. Almost as if they mattered more than my flesh because they couldn’t heal. One day I’ll ask my aunt if she’s the one who threw them away.

I drove carefully through town because of the speed trap all the locals mocked and all the tourists cursed. No matter how many times I drive that street, I can’t make my dream-self put on the brakes and turn around. I try. Each time I try.

La Roux is lovely in and of itself. Even if my aunt hadn’t filled the walls and the carefully arranged pedestals and shelves with brilliant works of art, both local and from all over the world, the building itself is stunning. Built of dark red salvaged brick in the old-fashioned shotgun style so popular on main streets throughout the South, it had drawn me to its cool, whisper-quiet interior for years. It hurts that I love it even in the nightmare almost as if it’s a different place before the attack than after. Because I don’t go there anymore. He took La Roux from me, too.

My parents had me late in life. I was an only child and was closer to my father’s youngest sister than anyone, even my own parents. When they retired to the Florida Keys, it was natural for me to gravitate even closer to my aunt and La Roux. She encouraged my interest in silversmithing. I helped her with her business as it became established and regionally respected. The gallery was ours. The artistic community of southwest Virginia was our extended family.

That day I was happy, confident, loved and safe. Oh, how I thought I was safe. There was a warmth to that perception that I’m sure I’ll never recapture.

My aunt had been out. I remember being disappointed. In my nightmare, the disappointment is sharp and accusatory as if her presence might have saved me. In waking moments, I’m so happy she wasn’t there. What if he had taken her, too? Of course, he did. One of the worst parts of the nightmare is that I know I’ve lost her in some way and I don’t know how to find her again.

He seemed so normal. No different than a million other nondescript patrons who came and went. I noticed him even less than most because I was too excited and impatient for my aunt’s return. If I’d offered him the coffee we often brewed so people could leisurely sip and browse, would he have spared us? Is there anything I could have done to stop him? In the nightmare’s grip, I struggle to be smarter, more observant and clever enough to save us all. But I am never a superhero. I’m always just a young woman with a pendant in her pocket and an invisible target on her chest.

I don’t think I really doubted my absolute safety until the knife penetrated my skin. By the fourth or fifth blow, I was on the floor, screaming, never to believe it again.

The nightmare is all physical sensation. The fierce plunge of the blade into my body. The burning pain, the wrenching movements as the knife is pulled and plunged again and again. I wasn’t a large woman. My attacker wasn’t a giant of a man, but the blade between us had seemed huge and powerful. Because he held it, I had been diminished and he had been transformed into an unstoppable fiend.

Only for those few bloody moments, but they had changed my life.

It rained all night with frequent episodes of thunder rumbling in the distance and lightning eerily illuminating the unfamiliar room where I tried to sleep. Morning came too soon and not soon enough. I was sleepy and grumpy with myself for being nervous as I made my way downstairs. In between jarring nightmares of blood and pain, I had remembered the feel of O’Keefe’s sensitive fingers on my face all night long. At some point the two blended and I couldn’t tell where darkness ended and the light began.

* * *

A white box had been delivered with my breakfast tray. I don’t know who’d brought it to my door. Mary, Mrs. Scott or O’Keefe himself? The box and the tray were just there on a wheeled cart that must have glided noiselessly into place. Nestled in white tissue paper within the box was an antique ivory robe made of fine silk. I lifted its gossamer folds and it felt like nothing in my hands. Pure creamy air. Beneath it were several sets of underthings crafted of some iridescent fabric like woven spider’s web. Unbelievably soft. Unbelievably revealing while at the same time so simple I couldn’t protest.

I had to wear something for my sitting…or at least to walk to my sitting.

I’d thought to wear yoga pants and a tank, but obviously O’Keefe had more sophisticated tastes.

Each step I took down toward O’Keefe caused the liquid shimmer of the robe to tease my thighs. Each step reminded me that the whisper of bra and panties I wore beneath the silk displayed more than they covered. I’ve never been a prude, but this was bold for me. Even more so because of my reaction to O’Keefe’s touch the night before.

I’d like to say the house appeared more welcoming and normal by the light of day, but I was still put off by its neglected atmosphere. It wasn’t only the dust and the decor. The air was stale. So many rooms closed off and forgotten. I couldn’t help remembering the sound of the door from last night. Somewhere someone had opened and closed one of the doors I now passed. Yet no one else was supposed to be living here.

O’Keefe’s studio was in what was once a conservatory. I don’t think that was really a thing in the 1960s. Again, more of a recreation of what a Victorian conservatory was meant to be, but the leaded glass panes did a good job of looking ancient and, though numerous, they let in very little light. Perhaps if the rain ever stopped…

Though it was late summer, the damp and lack of sun made me shiver. I liked that there were space heaters glowing in the corners. Not only for the heat, but also because they broke the ambience of having stepped back in time.

“I’ll create many charcoal sketches while you’re here. The sketches are my way of memorizing your form. Later, when you’re gone and I’m alone and sculpting, the sketches will be a reminder of your curves and angles and shadows. Try to relax and hold perfectly still,” O’Keefe said.

He didn’t stop in his business of preparing materials. I was left arms akimbo, staring at a velvet couch draped in a sheet and positioned in the center of the room.
Curves and angles and shadows, oh my
. The pause alerted him to my discomfort because he finally turned. His gaze fell on me—evaluating and assessing. It didn’t help.

“I’m sorry. I always forget this part might be…”

“Almost impossible,” I finished his sentence.

Why had I come? Why had I decided this would be part of my healing process? I hadn’t been an exhibitionist before the robbery. I knew my scars didn’t make me ugly. I was toned. I was strong. The network of fine white lines left on my breasts and abdomen didn’t define me.

But I froze facing that settee and his artistic eyes.

I couldn’t go forward or back.

“Ms. Knox.
Samantha…
” Not Sam. “We have only one week and I will need every minute,” O’Keefe began. He walked toward me and my heart began to beat faster. Because I knew I was going to do it. I was going to slide out of the ivory silk robe. Out of the gossamer whisper of panties and bra.

But it was going to be much more intimate than I’d expected when I’d been back in Abingdon behind my walls and closed off from connection. Already his deep, rusty voice washed over me, persuasive and appealing, almost hypnotic in its calm focus.

I’d heard him lauded as a genius. I’d sat and looked at the piece at La Roux for over an hour. It had featured a woman looking into the distance, her hands on her stomach and her long hair flowing in an unending breeze. It was called
Mourning Walk
. I had brought the charcoal sketch of it he’d mailed to me because I couldn’t bear to leave it at home. His work called to something deep inside me. Maybe the darkness we seemed to share.

He stood near me. I unfroze and tilted my chin; otherwise the tip of my nose would have been uncomfortably close to his chest. And then his long, strong fingers lifted to my face. I inhaled and held my breath as their sensitive pads explored—cheek, chin, the hollow of my neck, the ticklish dip beneath my ear.
My lips
. Oh, I tried not to react, but I couldn’t help it. The air I’d sucked in moments before trailed out in a shaky sigh as his thumbs traced my lips. His gaze followed everywhere his hands explored. He was memorizing but also discovering what his sculpture needed to convey beyond skin and muscle and tissue and bone.

Closed off from connection? One soft touch from O’Keefe and it was as if I’d never built any walls at all.

“He didn’t cut your face,” he noted. He sounded less distracted by his process and more interested in me.

“No. The police thought he aimed for my heart and…got carried away,” I replied.

Now his hands paused on either side of my face and he cupped it gently. My eyes met his and I was startled by the sympathetic emotion there, so dark and so deep. But, of course, a great artist would have to have depth of feeling.

“We don’t have much time,” he said and his fingers trembled on my skin.

Something about the tremor frightened me. Not because it showed emotion or lack of control but because the calm he portrayed was a sham. I didn’t yet know who O’Keefe was, but I did know
calm
wasn’t a word I would ever use to describe him. Intense, maybe. Or compelling. But far from calm.

“I need to get undressed,” I said, a reminder for him and for me.

If we had been lovers or were destined to become lovers, I might not have had the courage to put it so bluntly. But this was supposed to be all business. Never mind that my body was saying otherwise.

He stepped back and turned away so that I could pretend it mattered whether he was facing me or not. He was still in the room. In moments, he would be tracing every part of me on the sketch pad he’d prepared nearby.

The problem?

My lips still tingled from the soft brush of his thumbs and my nipples were pebbled in spite of the space heater’s glow.

* * *

The sheet was cool against my skin. I sat on the antique sofa as if it was an examining table, the plush velvet so odd in place of paper. I’d copped out and initially left my underwear on. I’m not sure why. I was barely more covered but worlds less brave. At that thought, I shimmied the tiny bits of fluff off and kicked them to the side. Courage mattered to me now more than it ever had before.

He turned when he heard the sheet rustle and I looked everywhere but at his eyes. The dark polished floor, the rain trailing down the glass panes all around us, his boots coming closer. My sudden attraction to him had caught me off guard. For a long time, I’d chosen companionship based on a million qualifiers—how well did I know the man, could I trust him, could I take him if my trust proved wrongly placed? I’d dated a lot of very safe men.

O’Keefe wasn’t safe.

I felt that all the way to the once-nicked rib bone that still throbbed when it rained.

Oh, I’d checked out his reputation. He wasn’t a player. Not one with a bad, searchable record anyway. I hadn’t come all the way across the country without making sure he was professional and trustworthy. He was known as eccentric, but ethical.

“I think up for today,” he murmured and suddenly his hands were in my hair.

He lifted my auburn curls off my shoulders and fastened them with a hairpin high on my head.

“There,” he said and I made the mistake of lifting my gaze from his boots to his face.

The question was: How eccentric? And just how professionally detached did I want him to be?

He looked down at me so intently. I wasn’t sure I’d ever been so observed. Not even in the long months that followed the stabbing. How many doctors and specialists had I seen who had never looked up from my injuries to my face?

“I could spend the entire morning on the curve of your neck,” he said, lightly grazing the spot he meant with his fingers.

I suddenly wished he didn’t mean with pencil and pad but rather lips and tongue. I closed my eyes and tried to send the wish away. He had drawn and sculpted dozens of other women. Possibly dozens upon dozens. It wasn’t smart to become aroused by what must be all about shapes and angles and curves and shadows to him. I swallowed and opened my eyes. I steeled my resolve with a few metaphorical kicks to its wavering ass.

And I let the sheet slide to my waist.

This time, he drew in a breath. I saw his broad chest expand beneath the white oxford he wore open at the neck. Sometime that morning, he had carelessly rolled the shirt’s sleeves to his elbows, revealing muscular forearms used to wrestling clay.