A Case of You

by Pamela Burford

  Kit turned to him, smiling broadly. “I’m going to be a real nuisance, Noah. Think you can stand to have me haunting your attic for a few days?”

  “You told Hannah you’d be leaving in a day or two.”

  “I know, but that was before...” Her eyes swept her surroundings and she shrugged.

  “I told you, Kit. My junk is your junk. Of course, you may have to share this space with Bryan on occasion. He’s still poring over this stuff. But at least you won’t have to sneak around anymore or pretend you were looking for the john.”

  Her gaze snapped to his. Then she smiled crookedly. “So tell me. Is there running water in the blue bathroom or what?”

  “Not a drop. I wouldn’t lie.” He couldn’t suppress a grin. “I hope you found something interesting for your trouble.”

  Kit hesitated. She tucked the slide she’d been examining into its storage box, then looked at him directly and said, “I found you have an impressive assortment of books.”

  That gave him pause. Ah. The books.

  “Do you believe in reincarnation?” she asked.

  “Yes. Do you?”

  “No. I figure it’s wishful thinking.” She replaced the box of slides in the cardboard carton and closed the top. “An attempt to rationalize away the finality of death.”

  “Haven’t you ever had an unexplained memory? Some talent or knowledge, perhaps, that came out of nowhere?”

  “Never. And I must admit the last person I’d expect to believe in that stuff is a doctor, a man of science.”

  “It’s nothing that can’t be explained scientifically, Kit. Think about it. What’ll happen to your energy when your physical body dies?”

  She frowned. “My energy?”

  “Your life force. Personality. Your soul, if you will. That’s what it is, in essence—an energy field. Where will it go?”

  “Well, it’ll... go somewhere else. Becomes another form of energy, I guess.”

  “Because...” he prompted.

  “Because energy can’t be created or destroyed.”

  “Right. It’s indestructible. It can be transformed, as you said—changed into other types of power. But it never dissipates entirely.”

  She gave him a wry smile. “The man of science twisting he laws of physics to serve his own—”

  “Wishful thinking?” He grinned, not expecting her to believe.

  She crossed the room to stand in front of him. He was still half sitting on the edge of the desk, and they were practically eye-to-eye.

  “So tell me, who was Dr. Stewart in his last life?” she asked.

  She was so near, the fresh, sweet scent of her hair floated over him like a veil. If she took one more step, she’d be bracketed by his thighs. He stared at her brown eyes and watched the ring of golden highlights change shape as her pupils widened.

  The urge to touch her was overpowering. Noah struggled to control his response to her, to govern his breathing and heart rate in the way that had become second nature over the years—his techniques for keeping Ray from emerging.

  Kit was studying his face, her expression attesting to the conflicting emotions warring within her, her warm brown gaze like a caress on his brow, his jaw and chin. His eyes.

  He’d learned long ago how to maintain his hard-won control when he was with a woman. It was a skill he’d mastered, of necessity, along with all the others. He knew how to look, touch, want... how to drive his need into a woman’s body and spill it in a blinding torrent of physical release...

  While never once relinquishing his precious control.

  So why couldn’t he simply look into this woman’s eyes without feeling the untamed part of him rattling its cage?

  “Who were you, Noah?” she whispered, leaning forward with a teasing smile, her warm breath tickling his lips and stealing inside him to turn the key of the cage.

  The thing he’d been in his last life wrapped its arms around her and crushed her to him, seizing her head in his long fingers to tilt it back. In the instant before he brought his mouth down on hers, he saw her passion-darkened eyes widen in fear.

  But it was too late.

  Noah no longer knew where he ended and Ray began. He didn’t know who was ravaging Kit’s mouth with this brutal kiss, and he didn’t care. Because he wanted her as badly as Ray did.

  She was stiff in his arms at first, from shock and fright. A whimper escaped against his mouth. She’d seen something in his eyes in that last instant, he knew. Something that had nothing to do with Noah Stewart, MD

  The feel of her lips crushed under his sent a shudder of raw desire ripping through him. He invaded her mouth with his tongue, appeasing his primal need to be inside her.

  Kit felt Noah’s strong, demanding tongue slide deep within, exploring the sensitive interior of her mouth... touching, stroking, tasting. Claiming her. The primitive rhythm he set urged her to surrender, to abandon her fears.

  For a few short moments she relaxed against him, drunk with the savage eroticism of his kiss. For a few short moments she gave in to his unrestrained hunger and her own repressed desire. She clung to his shirt, savored his fierce possession, felt its heat shoot to the deepest, neediest part of her.

  Stunned by her own response, she tried to break away, pushing on his chest, arching her back. Still perched on the edge of the desk, he clamped his legs around her hips, pinning her between his thighs. She felt his strong fingers tighten against her scalp as he intensified the kiss. Finally, in one violent motion, she managed to twist her head to the side.

  “Noah!” she gasped. “Please... you’re scaring me.” She despised the pleading tone in her voice. She’d never felt so helpless. “Don’t do this. Please,” she whispered.

  He became very still, and she turned to look at his face, inches from hers. What she saw rocked her to her toes. She’d never met this man.

  Good Lord. Wasn’t that what Henry David had said? His face, his eyes... It was like I’d never met this guy.

  He was breathing hard, his expression at once fierce and clouded with uncertainty, as if some battle were being waged within him. Beneath her palms pressed to his chest she felt the violent hammering of his heart. Tentatively, as if he were trying to make sense of his own actions, he looked down at his arms, at his legs, still imprisoning her. His hold began to relax. He stared at her disheveled hair and slowly untangled his long fingers from it.

  He swallowed hard and turned to stare out the window, his features tight with shame and regret. He was trembling. When he spoke at last, his voice was hoarse. “I’d never let him hurt you, Kit.”

  She stepped back, still reeling from their kiss, her body still throbbing with need.

  Without looking at her, he pushed off the desk and crossed the room in three seconds, pounding down the stairs. She heard his footsteps on the next flight down and then the sound of the front door slamming.

  She stood at the window and watched him jump into the Cherokee, his movements stiff and agitated. Max leapt around the Jeep, barking excitedly.

  “Sorry, boy,” Kit murmured from two flights up. “Your master’s not in the mood for company.”

  Tires spitting gravel, the car disappeared down the tree-lined driveway.

  Chapter Seven

  I GOT CLOSER last night.

  Noah mentally corrected himself. Ray got closer. For the sake of his sanity, he had to distance himself. But how do you distance yourself from something that’s as much a part of you as your eye color?

  He watched the townsfolk milling around, eating, chatting... enjoying the annual Fourth of July barbecue on the grounds of the town church. It was after eight o’clock, but there was still nearly an hour of light left. He found an isolated spot in the shade of an ash tree and scanned the swelling crowd, awaiting Kit’s arrival.

  Last night had been rough. He’d slammed awake at 3:00 a.m., gasping and drenched in sweat. Ray’s memories always came to him in the dead middle of the night, scrolling through his mind like some demented horr
or film he was helpless to turn off. It was as if Ray were purposely forcing the memories on him... the brutal details of the thing he’d done three decades ago.

  And each time the dream came, he saw more of it than he had the time before—the next installment, so to speak. The scenario had been advancing at an alarming rate since he’d met Kit. He used to have the dream three or four times a year, but in the eight days since her arrival, he’d had it every goddamn night.

  And each time, Ray got closer to killing Anita.

  Noah refused to witness that. Refused to feel himself doing that terrible thing to Anita David. Through sheer force of will he’d managed to shake himself awake each time, before the final act could play itself out. Unfortunately, the thing inside him seemed just as determined to see it through to the gruesome end. It amounted to a bizarre clash of wills between his own subconscious and the restless soul of a man who’d gone to his grave before Noah was born.

  And the restless soul appeared to be winning.

  This battle had been joined two and a half years ago when, as a young family practitioner, he’d given in to wanderlust and followed his gut instinct—because that’s what it seemed at the time—to a tiny hamlet tucked into the Green Mountains. Pratte, Vermont. Ensconced in Ray Whittaker’s town, in his very home, he’d finally put the pieces together and figured out what had been happening inside him his entire adult life. Or, more accurately, who had been happening inside him.

  Last night, in his dream, Ray had gotten the now-familiar call from a desperate Anita David. Ray! Help me! I can’t breathe—I can’t— And he’d bolted out of the house with his medical bag, driven fast through the dark thinking about the fight on TV and his anticipated winnings from Henry. He squealed to a stop in front of the Davids’ house and jumped out of the Fairlane practically before the engine was off.

  That part got to Noah. Imagine being in that much of a hurry to do what he’d come to do.

  He found her in the kitchen, hunched on the floor near the wall phone. She wore a powder-blue nightgown and one satin bedroom slipper. The other lay near her, obviously kicked off in her agitation, her struggle to breathe. The kitchen was spotless, the way she always kept it, except for the remains of a sandwich on the table. Anita always had a late-night snack before retiring. That was one of the things he’d learned about her during their short affair.

  Ray was used to these emergencies, when Anita, severely asthmatic as a result of allergies, would need a shot of epinephrine to help her breathe. But he’d never seen her like this. Her face, neck, and chest were scarlet and her lips were swollen with a violent histaminic reaction that he knew affected her bronchia, as well. The tubes in her lungs were constricted and filling with mucus. The only sound in the room was her strangled wheezing.

  She looked up at him. Any relief she felt at his arrival was eclipsed by the raw terror he saw in her eyes. “Ray...” she croaked.

  Anita disgusted Ray. She had disgusted him almost from the moment he’d finally succeeded in wearing down her defenses. It had been an exhilarating game, seducing his best friend’s wife, exhilarating and dangerous, knowing Henry’s temper. Ray had used every trick in the book on the tediously faithful Anita. None of his usual smooth lines had worked, so finally he’d let slip how her husband had been messing around behind her back. After that, it had simply been a matter of playing the understanding friend, giving her a shoulder to cry on and a sympathetic ear. The rest had been laughably easy.

  Now she stared up at him with those panic-stricken eyes, and he could barely restrain the urge to slap her. He was bored with her, bored with her emotional neediness and the physical debility that yanked him out of his warm bed in the middle of the night. With a voluptuous body like hers, she should have been dynamite between the sheets, but the woman was too preoccupied with sobbing out her undying love to give him the kind of tumble he’d expected from her.

  It was time to end it.

  Ray opened his bag as he knelt by her. I’m here, honey. Don’t worry, it’ll all be over soon...

  Noah had awoken then, his ears filled with the harsh sound of his ragged breathing, his eyes filled with the familiar sight of his own bedroom in the semidark. Ray’s bedroom.

  He couldn’t do anything about the recurring dream, but at least he’d mastered his mind and body enough to keep Ray from emerging while he was awake. The only exceptions were times of extreme physical weakness—exhaustion or illness, usually.

  Thirty-six-hour shifts as a medical resident had been a challenge, but nothing compared to the fatigue he’d experienced the day after Andy Kramer’s bike accident, when he’d finally dragged his weary butt out of Wescott Community and a marathon session at the boy’s bedside. That was the day of Grace Drummond’s garden party. The day Jo died.

  He didn’t remember anything about the party until Henry found him in the solarium. All alone, drinking the treasurer’s Glenfiddich. And he needed to remember.

  He had to know.

  Noah wished Paul Kerrigan hadn’t gone on that damn sabbatical. Here he was, at last willing to be hypnotized—to get his answers—and his old friend was climbing mountains in Alaska or some such thing. Come home, Paul. I need you.

  He continually scanned the crowd for that gorgeous, unruly mop of chestnut corkscrew curls. He smiled, recalling the disdain with which he’d first regarded Kit’s “city” look. His smile faded as he thought of untangling his fingers from those silky strands four days ago, in his attic. He’d frightened her then, and he’d frightened himself.

  The experience forced him to add one more element to the list of things that made him lose control of the evil thing inside him. Exhaustion. Illness.

  Kit.

  He’d returned to the house after an aimless two-hour drive to find her gone, and in her place a note stating that she’d called a taxi to take her back to Etta’s and would return the next morning. He was irrationally relieved, when he knew he should have wished that he’d scared her off for good.

  In the days since, she’d been a constant fixture in his home, sifting through Ray’s belongings several hours each day. Noah had taken pains to be hospitable and accommodating.

  And to keep her at arm’s length.

  They shared meals, long walks with Max, and longer gab sessions on the back porch over iced tea and Oreos. When he could spare a few minutes from his practice, he’d occasionally join her in the attic to help sort through all the junk she seemed intent on studying.

  Too quickly he’d come to look forward to her easy companionship, feeling let down when she departed each day—and that disturbed him. He had to remind himself of the reason he’d never permitted himself a serious relationship with a woman.

  And God knew he couldn’t let himself get close to this, of all women. For her safety as well as his own.

  As for Kit, she’d acted skittish when she’d returned the next morning—all right, downright jumpy—but had soon seemed at ease in his company once more.

  And never once had either of them broached the subject of The Kiss.

  Suddenly he spied her through the crowd. He noticed the outrageous hair first, of course, and when she tossed it back, a welcome surprise: a pair of elegant, beautifully shaped shoulders, bared by the wide drawstring neckline of her short-sleeved white peasant top. Completing the outfit was a red denim miniskirt and sexy strappy sandals. This was the most stirring view he’d encountered since moving to Vermont, and he took a few long moments to soak it in before making his way toward her.

  She was talking to Henry and Bettina David, and all three held cans of soda. Long tables had been set up at the perimeter of the churchyard, laden with food and drink. The sharp smell of smoldering charcoal tinged with lighter fluid wafted on the breeze.

  “...no choice but to work two jobs while I was in college,” Henry was saying. “Took me two extra years to get my journalism degree, but at least I didn’t owe one red cent when I was through. Not like the kids nowadays, sponging off the government.” He n
odded to Noah in greeting.

  Noah said, “Hey, don’t look at me. I just sponged off my folks to get through school. Though I must admit your Horatio Algeresque youth is damn inspirational, Henry.” Of course, he doubted any of Alger’s stories involved marrying into beaucoup bucks. He flashed Kit a warm smile, which she returned in kind.

  Henry turned to Kit. “I bet you were in the same boat, huh, Kit? Working your way through school?”

  “I waitressed nights and weekends,” she confirmed. “But I couldn’t have scraped by without student aid and a small scholarship. I never thought of it as sponging, though.” Her smile was polite but pointed.

  Bettina playfully sidled up to Noah. “You and I have to stick together in this, Noah. We’re being made out as hopelessly decadent because our families could afford to send us to college.”

  “Bettina likes to come off as the pampered little princess,” Henry said with a proud smile, “but I want you to know she worked part-time while she was in college. Until we were married, that is.”

  She laughed lightly. “And I would never have lifted a finger if my father hadn’t forced me to take the job. To build my character, he said.”

  “Where did you work, Bettina?” Kit asked.

  “Conti-Meeker, one of my father’s companies.”

  “How’s that fine retriever of yours, Noah?” Henry asked, snaking an arm around his wife’s shoulder and tugging her close.

  “Max?” Noah took a moment to mentally switch gears. “Oh, he’s hale and hearty, as always. Except he spends too much time in the woods, picking up six-legged houseguests.”

  “I warned you about that when you moved here with him,” Henry said. “Told you to build a dog run, if you recall.”

  Noah noticed Kit’s hand slow as she raised her drink to her lips. Her pensive eyes locked with his. He’d known it was too much to hope she wouldn’t notice Henry’s offhand remark. Her mind was too quick.

  “You had Max before you moved to Pratte?” she asked bluntly.

  “That’s right,” he admitted. As opposed to what he’d let her believe the week before, that he’d acquired him after moving there, and named him for Ray’s dog. Max had been Max long before Noah ever heard the name Ray Whittaker.