by B. J Daniels
Roz stared after him, more convinced than ever that something had happened before her father’s departure. Something Drew and his mother were keeping from her.
As Roz passed the second floor, she heard a voice she recognized. Drew’s sister, Suzanne, had a distinct whine that was easily recognizable even from a distance. She must be on the phone. Roz wondered why Suzanne hadn’t answered the intercom when Drew had buzzed her.
As Roz hurried up the stairs after Drew, she couldn’t help but remember the happy times in this house. She and her best friend, Charity, used to pretend that each room was a separate house in town where they lived happily ever after with their husbands and children and neighbors. She smiled ruefully at the memory of this house ringing with their laughter. She and Charity had both thought that one day their own children would race along these worn wooden floors as they had done.
She pushed the thought away as she and Drew reached the third floor.
“Mother hasn’t gotten this far yet in her remodel,” Drew said.
Roz swallowed hard as she looked down the hallway. This floor looked exactly as it had ten years ago. Her room had always been on the third floor just down from her mother’s sewing room and her father’s studio and darkroom. When she was young, they would put her to bed, then her mother would sew, her father would work in his darkroom. They had wanted her close by.
Her parents’ bedroom had been on the second floor along with several guest rooms. Her mother had installed an intercom so she could always be within earshot of her daughter.
It was crazy, but for a moment, Roz thought she heard her mother’s favorite song playing on the old phonograph in the sewing room. If she listened hard, she thought she would hear her father whistling a little off key in his darkroom down the hall. But hadn’t he told her that Emily was doing away with the darkroom because she’d purchased him a digital camera?
Drew stopped in front of Roz’s former bedroom door and waited for her. “Don’t look so worried. Your room is exactly as you left it. Liam insisted.”
Her feet felt like leaded weights as she walked down the hall to slowly turn the knob.
As the door swung open, Roz caught a glimpse of the whimsical quilt her mother had spent months stitching in secret for her thirteenth birthday. It was still on the bed, just where she’d left it. Albert, the stuffed teddy bear she’d loved threadbare, sat in the corner still wearing the tuxedo her mother had made for the tea parties she and Charity always had at the brightly painted table and chairs. On the table was the little tin tray her mother served the tiny chocolate chip cookies she’d made for them.
Roz swallowed, fighting the stinging tears that burned her eyes and choked off her throat. Drew was right. Her room was exactly as she’d left it ten years ago after her mother’s death. Everywhere she looked in this room she saw her mother.
“Roz, are you all right?”
The room magnified her loss. Forcing her back to those horrible days after her mother’s death. She couldn’t face the loss any more now than she could at seventeen.
“Roz?”
“I’m fine,” she said, realizing it wasn’t near the truth. She could feel Drew’s gaze on her. She glanced over at him, ready to reassure him. What she saw in his expression stopped her.
“Hey, maybe you’d better sit down,” he said putting down her suitcase and camera bag to take her arm and lead her over to the wicker chair by the window.
Had she only imagined that he’d seemed to be enjoying her discomfort at seeing this room? He looked and sounded concerned now. She told herself she was tired. Imagining things. Like she’d imagined someone in a yellow raincoat leaping into Lost Creek Falls?
“I’m fine. Really,” she said to Drew, watching him for some sign of the expression she’d thought she’d seen only moments before. “I just need to get out of these damp clothes.”
He backed toward the door, still studying her openly. “I know how hard this must be for you. Come on down soon for a drink before dinner. You look like you could use one.”
She nodded and tried to smile.
“Mother went all out on dinner tonight.”
“Do you know who the guest is?” she asked, getting to her feet to see Drew out. She needed some time alone. Pretending she was all right was exhausting.
“It’s a surprise.” He shrugged as if to say, “You know Mother.”
Except she didn’t know Emily. She suspected though that the woman was big on surprises. She’d certainly surprised Roz by somehow getting Liam to marry her.
“Buzz me on the intercom if you need anything. Two buzzes, okay?”
She nodded. “Thanks.” Closing the door behind him, she turned to look at the room again, fighting tears of grief and worry and anger. How could her father bring his new wife back to this house? This house so filled with memories of Roz’s mother? The room seemed to echo all the unanswered questions Roz had been asking herself for the past ten years.
First her mother and now there was the chance that her father—
She brushed at her tears, refusing to let herself even think that she might lose him, too. Cold, her clothing still damp, she went to the large antique bureau. In the third drawer she found what she’d been looking for. The thick rust-colored sweater her mother had knitted for her. It was the last thing her mother had made her. The sweater still fit.
She pulled on a pair of jeans from her suitcase and hiking boots, needing to get out of the house for a few minutes. She took the back stairs, exiting through a door that opened into her mother’s garden.
The night felt cold and damp but for the moment the rain had stopped. Only the faint tingle of electricity in the air foretold of an approaching storm. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly as she started down the stone path to the rear of the property.
Like the house, her father had seen that the garden had been maintained. But in this part of the country, it was a constant battle to hold back the rainforest and no one had a way with plants like Anna Sawyer had. Roz could see where there had been recent digging. Emily must have hired someone to redo the garden as well as the house.
Roz walked down the winding overgrown path as far as the rock arch where a tangle of vines and tree limbs had left only a narrow opening. Quiet settled over her as she stood in the shadowed darkness. From here she could barely see the house through the trees and vines.
She no longer felt like crying, which was good. She needed to be strong now—for her father. She felt like she was the only person here who was worried about him.
“What does that tell you?” she asked the night as she looked back at the house. “I can’t understand how you could have gotten involved with someone like her.” A younger, good-looking woman? “Okay, maybe I can understand the attraction—at first. You were lonely.” The thought broke her heart. “Of course you were lonely. But something happened, didn’t it?” She knew her father. He wouldn’t just stay away like this. He’d called her the night before last and hadn’t tried to get back to her. “What happened? What was it you needed to talk to me about?”
A breeze stirred the tops of the trees in a low moan. She took another deep breath and looked up at the night sky as if it held all the answers. Clouds skimmed over the faint glitter of distant stars. No moon. She tried to fight back her growing panic. Her every instinct told her that her father needed her, and it was imperative that she find him. Was it too much to hope that this mystery dinner guest and friend of her father’s might know something?
Mist rose from the wet ground around her. She hugged herself against the dampness, not ready to go back inside. Not yet. She took another deep breath, the air scented with cedar and rainwater and damp fertile earth, and so wonderfully familiar except for—She took another sniff. A chill skittered across her bare arms. Her heart began to knock as she picked up a scent that didn’t belong on the night breeze—and, eyes adjusting to the darkness, she saw a large, still shape that didn’t belong in the garden.
Someo
ne was hiding just inches from her on the other side of the rock arch.
CHAPTER THREE
“Wait!” Ford reached for her, hoping to stop her before she panicked and did something crazy. Like scream bloody murder. Too late. She got out one startled cry as she stumbled back from him, then she let out a bloodcurdling shriek that he knew could be heard in three counties.
He cursed himself for not warning her he was out here. At first he hadn’t wanted to scare her. Once he recognized her voice, he wasn’t about to open his mouth. What the hell was she doing here, anyway?
He caught her arm and spun her around, figuring once she recognized him she’d at least quit screaming. But her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, her mouth open, a shriek coming out.
Behind them, twenty yards away through the trees, the back porch light blinked on. Any moment the lady of the house would be calling the sheriff and—
He did the first thing that came to mind short of throttling the woman. When she took a breath, he kissed her, covering any future screams as his mouth dropped to hers. She gasped in surprise, eyes fluttering open for an instant, then shuttering closed again.
She had a great mouth, and for a few seconds, he got lost in her lush lips, in the warmth of her breath mingling with his, in the taste of her.
For those few seconds, he forgot whom he was kissing. He loosened his hold on her as the kiss deepened.
The right hook came out of nowhere. He managed to duck that one. But he hadn’t been expecting the kick. Her boot connected with his shin.
“Damn.” He should have been the one screaming.
She turned to run, mouth open, ready to let out another shriek. He grabbed her around the waist, dragged her back to his chest and clamped a hand over her mouth.
They were both breathing hard now, hidden in the dark shadows of the trees out of sight of whoever was now on the porch calling, “Rozalyn?”
“Listen,” he whispered next to her ear. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She tried to slug him again in answer.
“I’m just trying to get to dinner, dammit,” he whispered in exasperation.
* * *
THE INSTANT his words registered, Roz stopped struggling and groaned. She could hear Emily calling her name, and saw through the tree limbs the dim glow of the porch light in the distance. This man in the dark was no crazed killer hiding in the backyard. Just the dinner guest. She kicked herself mentally and wished the ground would open up and swallow her whole.
He slowly removed his hand from her mouth, obviously afraid she’d scream again. Behind her, she heard him clear his throat and step back almost as if he were afraid she’d kick him again.
She turned, an apology on the tip of her tongue. It never made it to her lips as she got her first good look at him.
“You?!” she whispered in horror. His face was bathed in the mottled pattern of light coming through the trees from the porch lamp. Her first impression earlier at the waterfall had been true. He was tall, broad-shouldered and dark except for his eyes, which were an eerie, pale blue-green.
He wasn’t even handsome. His expression was too severe, brows pinched together, full mouth a grim line between the rough stubble of his designer beard. But he was definitely the man who’d almost killed her at Lost Creek Falls. “You can’t be the dinner guest.”
“Emily invited me,” he said, obviously also trying to keep his voice down. “Anyway, why can’t I?”
“Because you were sneaking in the back way!” she hissed.
“I’m staying in the guest house. What other way should I be coming from for dinner?” he whispered back.
“You’re staying in the guest house?”
“Emily was kind enough to offer it.”
“Emily is so thoughtful.” Roz couldn’t believe her stepmother would let a perfect stranger stay in the guest house. But this man wasn’t a perfect stranger—not to her father and maybe not to Emily.
She could not believe her father would befriend such an obnoxious man. “So when was the last time you saw Liam?” she asked.
“It’s been a while. Any chance we could discuss this after dinner? I’m hungry.”
“Rozalyn!” Emily called again. “Is that you out there?” She sounded as if she were straining to see into the trees and darkness.
“Answer her,” he whispered. “I would, but then she’d think I was the one who was screaming.”
“Rozalyn?” Emily’s tone had an almost hysterical edge to it.
He gave Roz a pleading look.
She groaned. “Yes, it’s me,” she called back through the trees and the distance between her and the house.
“Well, why in heaven’s name were you screaming?” Emily yelled.
Roz sighed. “There was a big disgusting rat by the stone arch.”
“Cute,” he whispered.
“Ohhhhhhhh,” Emily cried. “Rats? Oh! Please come in. Our guest will be arriving any moment now for dinner. I don’t want you scaring him out of his wits.”
“Too late for that,” he muttered under his breath and narrowed his gaze at her. “You’re having dinner, too, I take it?” He didn’t sound any happier about that than she was. “So, this must be the family you said you had here.”
“This is not my family,” she snapped.
“Whatever.” He glanced toward the house. “But don’t you think we should go in to dinner? Emily is going to wonder what’s keeping me if not you.”
Let her wonder, Roz thought. “Why didn’t you say something to let me know you were by the arch?” What had he overheard? She hated to think.
“I didn’t want to interrupt the conversation you were having with yourself. I thought you might lose your train of thought.”
Funny.
“Rozalyn, who are you talking to out there?” Emily called.
“And the kiss?” Roz whispered, ignoring Emily. “What was that about?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I just wanted to shut you up before you got the whole household out here.”
Flatterer. She fought the urge to kick him again.
“Are you finished interrogating me?” he asked quietly. “I’m going in even if you aren’t.” He stepped past her.
She let him lead the way to the house, not trusting him behind her anyway. While she could think of nothing she wanted to do less than to have dinner with this man, she didn’t feel like hiding in the garden all night. And now she was curious as to how Emily knew this man well enough to invite him to stay in the guest house. Especially with her husband gone. Especially since this man was closer to Emily’s age than Liam was. Especially since Emily would find him attractive, Roz would just bet on that.
If he was telling the truth and he really was a friend of her father’s, she was dying to know how they’d met and what they could possibly have in common.
As she followed him along the winding path through the thick vegetation, she realized she didn’t even know his name. Not that she really cared. She’d already found out one important thing about the man: he lied. The kiss was hardly nothing.
If he’d lie about a kiss… Who knew what else he’d lied about? And how much of a coincidence was it that the two of them had met at Lost Creek Falls earlier tonight under very strange circumstances only to have him turn up here?
* * *
FORD COULDN’T BELIEVE his bad luck. Running into the woman not once tonight but twice. Worse, it seemed Emily had invited her to dinner. He swore under his breath as he neared the house. Why hadn’t this Rozalyn gone to her own family for dinner? Whoever she was, she was obviously nuts even if she really hadn’t been trying to leap off the waterfall earlier.
She was a looker, too. That wild head of strawberry-blond curls, those big brown eyes and that obviously nicely put together body. Why were the great-looking ones the most cuckoo? And this one was unpredictable to boot.
A deadly combination.
He shook his head at his misfortune. But he could get through one dinner w
ith this bunch. After all, he didn’t have much choice if he hoped to accomplish what he’d come here for.
“Rozalyn?” Emily called again.
“We were just coming in,” she answered behind him, adding an irritated sigh.
“We?” Emily inquired as he and Rozalyn came into view. “Oh. I see you’ve met.”
“We were just getting acquainted,” he said.
“You look like you’ve been wrestling in the weeds,” Emily said, eyeing them both.
Rozalyn plucked a leaf from his hair and smiled at him with a devilish gleam in her eyes. She was actually enjoying ticking off her host.
“Let’s go right on into the dining room. The rest are already seated,” Emily said, clearly annoyed.
“I hope I didn’t hold up dinner,” he said. Rozalyn, he noticed, hung back as he mounted the steps of the back porch to Emily.
“Oh, no, you’re right on time,” Emily said, gracing him with a smile as she took his arm and led him toward the back door. “We’re just delighted that you could join us.”
“As am I,” he said, the tension between the two women like sloughing through neck-deep mud, as Rozalyn followed them inside.
Emily still had hold of his arm as they stepped through a set of French doors into a large dining room.
He thought for a moment that Rozalyn had changed her mind about joining them for dinner, but when he glanced over his shoulder, he saw that she’d stopped in the wide French doorway and was now watching him with obvious suspicion.
“I just realized—”
“I hope you’re hungry,” Emily said as if Rozalyn hadn’t spoken.
“—that I didn’t catch your—”
“Starved,” he said.
“—name,” Rozalyn finished.
“I’d like you to meet my daughter,” Emily said. A woman in her late twenties was seated at the round dining room table. She and a young man who resembled her had had their heads together when he and Emily had come in. Now the two looked up in surprise, cutting off an obviously intimate conversation in midsentence and appearing almost…guilty.
