His Dark Embrace

by Amanda Ashley

  “Don’t tell me your backyard is a burial ground for deceased pets, too.”

  “In a way.” He gazed into the distance for a moment. “Did your grandfather leave anything for me?”

  “Not that I know of. There was nothing mentioned in the will. Were you expecting something?”

  “No, not exactly.”

  She looked at him askance. “What, exactly?”

  “Paddy had developed a rather unique vitamin drink for me that I found most beneficial. I’m very nearly out of it and I was hoping he’d left the recipe for me.”

  “A vitamin drink?” she asked, frowning.

  “More like a tonic,” he replied smoothly. “Something to thicken the blood.”

  “Really?” Was that why Thorne and her grandfather had spent so much time in the basement? “I’m sorry, Granda never said anything about that.”

  “Perhaps you’d be good enough to look around in his lab when you have a chance?”

  “Sure. Granda told me you moved away shortly after I left for college.”

  Thorne nodded.

  “Quite a coincidence, your coming back here at the same time I did,” she remarked, though, in truth, she didn’t believe in coincidence.

  “Sometimes life is funny that way.”

  Sky nodded, although there was nothing funny about the way he was looking at her, or the way her whole body vibrated at his nearness. It was an oddly sensual experience, as if every cell in her body had suddenly awakened from a deep sleep.

  Unsettled by the intensity of his gaze, she looked away. What wasn’t he telling her? She thought it odd that Granda had never mentioned the mysterious tonic. And odder still that Kaiden Thorne, who looked as fit and healthy as a young stud horse, needed a tonic in the first place.

  “I should let you go,” Thorne remarked, glancing at the dark clouds overhead. “It’s going to rain. And you’re cold.”

  “What? Oh, yes, it’s a little chilly,” she said, and then frowned. She had stopped shivering as soon as he sat beside her. “Are you here to stay?” she asked, and held her breath, waiting for his answer.

  “I’m not sure.” His gaze moved over her, as warm as a summer day. “Good night, Skylynn.”

  “Good night.” She stared after him as he descended the stairs and crossed the street to his house. She felt oddly bereft when he disappeared inside.

  It started raining as soon as he closed the door.

  After turning off the inside lights, Thorne stood at the front window, his gaze focused on the woman across the street. In spite of the distance and the darkness, he was able to see her clearly. She had always been a pretty girl but now, in her early twenties, she was exquisite. Her hair was a deep reddish-brown; her eyes, beneath delicately arched brows, were the rich warm blue of a midsummer sky. She wore a long-sleeved, square-necked lavender sweater that emphasized the swell of her breasts. A pair of white jeans hugged her legs. He was sure he could span her narrow waist with his hands.

  Thorne had felt protective of Skylynn ever since she had been a little girl. Having no children of his own, he had enjoyed watching her grow up. She had been a sweet, chubby-cheeked child, a leggy adolescent, a truly beautiful teen. By the time she was seventeen, he started to feel like a dirty old man lusting after an innocent young girl, although it hadn’t been her body he lusted for. And even though he was still old, she was no longer young. Or innocent. She had been married and divorced and was now dating an investment banker in Chicago who would never be good enough for her.

  It had been coincidence that brought Thorne back to Vista Verde shortly after Paddy McNamara passed away. Paddy had asked Thorne to keep an eye on Skylynn while she was away from home. Thorne never knew why. Skylynn had always been a level-headed girl, able to take care of herself. Perhaps Paddy’s concern had merely been worry for a granddaughter about to be away from home and on her own for the first time in her life. At any rate, Thorne would have looked after Sky without being asked. And he had done so, without her being the wiser, until the day she married Nick O’Brien.

  Of course, Paddy’s granddaughter hadn’t been the only reason he had stayed in touch with the old man. Thanks to Paddy McNamara’s remarkable potion, Thorne had been able to live a relatively normal life for the last eight years. But the sun would soon be lost to him again if Skylynn couldn’t find her grandfather’s notes.

  In the morning, shortly after breakfast, Sky went downstairs to the basement that housed Granda’s lab. The basement was divided into three rooms. There was also a half-bath to the left of the staircase.

  The largest room was Granda’s workroom. It held every conceivable medical book known to man, as well as metal shelves crammed with beakers and test tubes and a plethora of other instruments. A small wooden table and chair were shoved into one corner.

  A door connected his workroom to his office. A state-of-the-art computer, a twenty-four-inch monitor, and a printer took up space on an oversized desk. A small TV was mounted in one corner. A bank of gray metal file cabinets lined one wall.

  The last room was the smallest. Located to the right of the staircase, it held a number of wire cages in a variety of sizes. All were empty now. One of the first things Skylynn had done after she got home was drive out to the country where she had released half a dozen mice and a handful of baby rats. In retrospect, she wondered if that had been a smart thing to do, but it was too late to worry about it now.

  Sky stood at the foot of the stairs for a moment, Granda’s keys in hand; then, heaving a sigh, she unlocked the door to the room that held the filing cabinets and stepped inside. The basement had always been off-limits to Sky and she had never been down here except with Granda. It seemed wrong, somehow, to be there now, without him.

  The drawers to the filing cabinets were all color-coded, labeled, and locked. The first cabinet held folders labeled INVOICES, CURRENT FILES, OLD FILES, RESEARCH NOTES, and TAX RECORDS. The next three filing cabinets contained Granda’s journals, with the first drawer labeled 1957–1962, the next 1963–1968, and so on.

  The top drawer in the last filing cabinet was labeled EXPERIMENTS. Did that cabinet hold the mysterious recipe Kaiden Thorne was hoping to find?

  Sky glanced at the keys in her hand. Each key was color-coded to match a particular filing cabinet.

  She was about to unlock the drawer marked EXPERIMENTS when the doorbell rang. Wondering who would possibly be calling so early, she pocketed the keys and ran up the stairs, her slippers flapping.

  “Mr. Thorne!” she exclaimed when she opened the door. She felt a flush heat her cheeks. Had she known he was going to show up so early, she would have changed out of her pj’s.

  “I know it’s early,” he said, somewhat sheepishly. “I just wondered if you’d had a chance to look around for that formula.”

  “Not really.” She slipped a hand into her pocket, her fingers curling around the keys. “It must be important.”

  “Only to me.”

  She tilted her head to one side. “It must work. You look great.”

  His gaze moved over her with undisguised admiration. “Thanks, so do you.” He rocked back on his heels. “I should go.”

  “Would you like to come over later for lunch?”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Around one?”

  He nodded. “I’ll be here.”

  Sky watched him cross the street, admiring the way his jeans hugged his taut backside, his easy, long-legged stride, the way the sun cast silver highlights in his black hair.

  Murmuring, “Oh, my,” she made her way back down to Granda’s lab.

  She spent the next three hours going through his filing cabinets, sorting out old receipts and purchase orders for a variety of medical supplies, perusing copious memos written in her grandfather’s spidery hand, most of which she couldn’t decipher. The drawer labeled EXPERIMENTS held a number of spiral-bound journals, the pages covered with notes, diagrams, and scientific jargon that made no sense to her.

  Sitti
ng cross-legged on the floor, she thumbed through his most recent entries, but found nothing that looked like a recipe for a vitamin drink.

  At twelve-thirty, she stood and stretched her aching back and shoulders. If there was a formula hiding in any of Granda’s notes, it would have to wait until tomorrow. She was going cross-eyed, trying to decipher his handwriting.

  After locking the basement door, she went upstairs, found her cell phone, and ordered two large pizzas—one pepperoni, one sausage—two orders of spicy chicken wings, and breadsticks. While waiting for the pizzas, she made a fruit salad and a pitcher of iced tea, then set two plates, two glasses, two cloth napkins, and a pair of forks on a tray.

  She kept glancing at the clock, her stomach fluttering with anticipation at the thought of having lunch with a handsome man. A man who hadn’t changed at all in eight years.

  How was that possible?

  Thorne prowled through the big old house, his thoughts chaotic. He shouldn’t have waited so long to come back to visit Paddy McNamara. It had been coincidence that brought him back to Vista Verde after such a long absence. Had he kept closer tabs on the old man, he would have known McNamara didn’t have long to live.

  Thorne raked his fingers through his hair. Dammit! If he had come back sooner, he would have had time to speak to the old man and obtain the formula that had so drastically changed his life.

  Striding down to the wine cellar, he bypassed the coffin that rested in the center of the floor and moved to the wall safe on the far side of the room. After unlocking the safe, he withdrew a round cobalt blue bottle that was about five inches tall. It held the last of Paddy McNamara’s unique tonic.

  Thorne rubbed the bottle against his cheek. The glass felt cold against his skin. He had attempted to get his hands on the formula before, but McNamara had refused to part with it. Thorne had tried coaxing the formula out of the stubborn old man, but that, too, had failed. One night Thorne had offered to bring Paddy across in exchange for the formula, but despite Paddy’s research into aging and longevity, he had no interest in living forever.

  “’Tis against nature, what you’re offering,” Paddy had said. “And though I’ve no wish to leave me darlin’ Skylynn, me wife and son are waiting for me on the other side.”

  As a last resort, Thorne had tried reading Paddy’s mind, but the wily old fox had blocked him at every turn. And now it was too late. Eternally too late. Dammit.

  After returning the bottle to the safe, Thorne went back upstairs. Maybe it was time to leave Vista Verde for a few decades. If he stayed for any length of time, people were going to start noticing that he hadn’t aged.

  He glanced out the front window, his gaze lingering on the house across the street. No need to leave right away, he thought. At least not until he learned if Sky was going to stay here. Seeing her again made him realize how much he had missed her.

  His inner clock told him it was almost time to join Skylynn for lunch. For a moment, he closed his eyes, dreading the thought of going back to his old diet, his old lifestyle. Right now, he had the best of both worlds. Dammit! Sky had to find that formula. After all the trial and error it had taken for the old man to get it just right, he must have written it down somewhere.

  His thoughts turned to Skylynn as he left the house. Being near her and not touching her would be a real test of his self-control.

  Sky was a bundle of nerves when the doorbell rang. It was like one of her teenage daydreams come true, having Kaiden Thorne over for lunch. She just hoped the reality lived up to her girlish dreams.

  Too late to worry about that now. She blew a wisp of hair from her forehead. So many of the things she had looked forward to when she was growing up had been disappointments. Her first real date. Her first kiss. Her first marriage. None of them had lived up to the hype.

  Sky took a deep breath before she opened the door. And he was there.

  “Hi,” she said brightly. “Come on in.” She pressed a hand to her heart as Kaiden moved past her. Lordy, the man was tall. And incredibly handsome. Well-worn jeans hugged his long legs, a shirt the color of red wine clung to his broad shoulders. “I thought we’d eat out on the patio.”

  “Okay by me.” Lifting his head, Thorne sniffed the air. “Pizza?”

  “I didn’t know what kind you liked, so I ordered one sausage and one pepperoni.”

  “Either one works for me.”

  “Great.”

  He followed her into the kitchen. It hadn’t changed much since he had last seen it just over eight years ago. The walls were the same pale green, the curtains still white with pink and yellow daisies, the square table and ladder-back chairs were well-used oak.

  Sky opened the fridge and took out the bowl of fruit salad and the pitcher of iced tea and added them to the tray.

  “Here, let me take that,” Kaiden offered.

  “Thanks.” Picking up the boxes of pizza, chicken wings, and breadsticks, she headed for the back door, acutely aware of Kaiden walking behind her.

  “Just put the tray there, on the table.” She put the pizzas next to the tray, then poured a glass of tea for Kaiden and one for herself. “Please, sit down.” She handed Kaiden a plate and a napkin, and took the chair across from his. “Help yourself.”

  Thorne drew in a deep breath as he lifted the lids on both pizza boxes, the scents of sausage, pepperoni, cheese, and tomatoes tickling his nostrils. “Smells great.” He took a slice of each, a couple of chicken wings, and a generous serving of fruit salad. For a moment, he was oblivious to everything but the food on his plate.

  “How is it?” Sky asked.

  Thorne looked up, a wry smile curving his lips. “Sometimes I forget how good food can be.”

  “Save room for dessert.”

  “Not to worry,” he said with a wink. He was surprised he hadn’t gained a hundred pounds, the way he had been eating lately. But everything tasted so good. Fresh fruit and cheese, cake and ice cream. And was there anything better in all the world than a good, thick steak with the rich, red juices still flowing? Just thinking about it made his mouth water.

  They made small talk while they ate, commenting on the weather, which had been unseasonably cold, the way the neighborhood had become run-down in the last few years, the number of foreclosures that were cropping up all over the town.

  Sky served warm apple pie and vanilla ice cream for dessert.

  “Did you make this?” Thorne asked, gesturing at the pie with his fork.

  “No, I never learned how to make a decent crust. It’s really good, isn’t it?”

  He nodded as he lifted another forkful to his mouth. Apple pie had quickly become one of his favorites.

  A last bite and he pushed his plate away.

  “Are you sure I can’t tempt you with another slice?” Sky asked with a grin.

  “I think I’d better say no.” Leaning back in his chair, he regarded her through hooded eyes. “I was sorry to hear about your divorce.”

  “It was inevitable.” She shrugged, as if it was of no importance. “I married the wrong man at the wrong time for all the wrong reasons.”

  “If you’d rather not talk about it ...”

  “No, it’s okay. I met Nick in a dance club several months after Sam was sent to Iraq. I was feeling lonely and stressed out when Nicky showed up. He was all smiles and good-natured fun and I told myself I loved him.” She shrugged. “But I didn’t. And once the excitement wore off, I realized we had nothing in common and that when he was sober, I didn’t like him very much. We were divorced before the ink dried on our marriage license.” She hadn’t wanted anything to remind her of her disastrous marriage; as soon as the divorce was final, she had resumed her maiden name.

  “I’m sorry, Sky Blue,” he said quietly, but it was a lie. The thought of her with another man was like acid in his gut.

  She blew out a sigh, then smiled wistfully. “I guess I’ll just have to keep looking for Mr. Right.” She laughed softly. “A nightclub probably isn’t the best place
to go looking for a man who’s interested in a serious relationship.”

  “Is that what you’re looking for?”

  “I don’t know. I guess so. I’m not getting any younger.”

  “None of us are,” he murmured.

  “What about you? You weren’t married when you lived here before. Has that changed?”

  “No.”

  “You’ve never married?”

  “I never found a woman who could put up with me.”

  “Oh, come on. You don’t seem that hard to get along with, although you did scare me half to death one Halloween night.”

  “I remember. I’m sorry about that.”

  “You should be. I had nightmares for weeks.”

  Thorne chuckled softly. He recalled that night all too well. He hadn’t meant to frighten her; he had, in fact, thought it was a couple of teenage boys who had been harassing him earlier in the evening. He would never forget the look of horror on Sky’s face when he opened the door, his eyes red, his fangs bared.

  “Even after Granda assured me that vampires didn’t exist, and even after you came over and showed me those fake plastic fangs and red contacts, I still woke up screaming.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  “It’s all right,” she said, laughing. “But you sure know how to make an impression on a girl.”

  “Hardly the kind I want to make when the girl is as lovely as you.”

  His soft-spoken words, the smoldering heat in his dark eyes, stilled Sky’s laughter. A sudden rush of warmth crept up her neck and into her cheeks as a giddy wave of pleasure swept through her.

  “Forgive me,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

  “No, I’m flattered.”

  He arched one brow. “But?”

  “It just seems odd for us to be on an equal footing, that’s all. I always thought of you as being so much older than I am, but ...” She tilted her head to the side. “How old are you, anyway?”

  “Thirty-nine.”

  Her eyes widened in surprise. “Really? You haven’t aged a day since I saw you last.”