by Jenna Ryan
With Orry adamantly out of commission, the older, pokier deputy took over. Left to him, Isabella figured matters might be sorted out by June. Fortunately for everyone involved, Sheriff Crookshank planned to return in a few days.
Katie recovered to tell her story. She explained that after David took her, he used her cell phone to contact Isabella, presumably in an attempt to prevent any unwanted investigation into her disappearance. As he’d readily admitted, it was David who’d abducted Isabella in the van and also David she’d run into the day she’d followed Smuggler Smith’s cat into the corridor at Darkwood.
Pouting and with her arms tightly crossed, Darlene approached her to insist she hadn’t known about David or his plan. She’d assumed Gordie was behind all the nastiness.
People came and went from the sheriff’s office for most of the day. When darkness descended, however, so did Haden—like a drill sergeant. He told Donovan to handle the bar and asked Isabella to take the drink orders. Then he dusted off his hands and gave a firm nod. “Let’s see you two avoid each other now.”
Isabella could have told him she hadn’t been avoiding Donovan all day, but why bother? He’d been avoiding her, so it was much the same thing in the end.
Not every resident of Mystic Harbor crowded into the Cave that night, but a good three-quarters of them did, and they all wanted to hear the gory details. Another Dark gone mad, and how intriguing that this one bore a real-life resemblance to his ancestor, Aaron. The Historical Society was in seventh heaven.
Isabella answered more questions in three hours than she usually did in three months. Katie was offered a wicked deal on a used car—still no idea where her old one had gone—from a man who wanted not only her business, but also her company for the remainder of the evening.
“No need to look so concerned, hon,” a tipsy George assured her. “That’s my cousin once removed Katie’s canoodling with. He’s a sweet young man under the blather. And while we’re on the subject…” She motioned toward the bar. “Donovan’s looking a tad lonely back there.”
“I think he likes it that way.”
“Bluster, pure bluster. Go on over,” she urged. “Have it out with him. My money’s on you to bash down that all-Darks-are-cut-from-the-same-mold barrier before the night’s done.”
“Your faith is staggering.”
“So’s my daughter’s gall, and thank you again for not pressing charges. She’s just damn lucky she didn’t wind up like Gordie, though it’s hard to say what state she’ll be in if Orry’s wife gets hold of her.”
Isabella grinned at the mental picture. “Similar state to Orry, I imagine.” She hugged the older woman. “Thanks for the boot in the butt.”
“Anytime.”
Handing her tray to Lindsay, Isabella pushed up her sleeves and zeroed in on the bartender.
Donovan was drawing a mug of beer when she planted her hands on the counter and said straight-out, “We can we talk here or take it outside, Black. Your choice.”
Lips curving, he topped the mug and slid it the length of the bar to a harassed-looking Robert Drake.
Isabella did a surprised double take. “He’s still here?”
“He wasn’t involved,” Donovan reminded her.
“What about that message he gave George asking me to meet you at the manor?”
“The call was real, Isabella. It was placed from a phone booth near the harbor. Darlene says Gordie wanted you to experience the wail at close range.”
“The wail and Darlene’s ghostly warning for me to run.” She regarded the developer in some amusement. “Looks like he’s made a conquest. That’s Orry’s wife who’s draped all over him, isn’t it?”
“Ever since he came in.” Trapping her chin, Donovan drew her across the bar. “You said outside, right?”
As always, when faced with those mesmerizing eyes, she could do little more than nod.
Thick fog had rolled in on the heels of last night’s storm. Layers of mist slunk around the back door and crawled along the old brick walls.
Buttoning her coat, Isabella stepped into the alley. A gasp stuttered out when Donovan caught her arm and twirled her around.
His mouth was on hers before she could react. Ten hot, hungry seconds later, she had a spinning head, a jumble of displaced thoughts and a tingling sensation on her lips that lingered long after he stepped away.
It took several seconds for her head to clear. “That was—amazing. Is there a reason you look like you want to hit someone?”
“I don’t want to care about you, Isabella.”
“I gathered that.” Fascinated, she touched her lips. Still tingling.
“David Gimbel was insane.”
“Yes, that one was even harder to miss.”
“He left the bulk of his estate to a very old, very distant relative.”
“Cousin Burt. David poisoned him.”
Donovan shot her an unreadable look. “At which point, having conned the old guy into signing a will he’d drafted beforehand, he proceeded to funnel the money into a Swiss bank account.”
“I got the gist of the story in the tunnels. David’s plan was to take me to a Caribbean island he owned and keep me there forever. Dead or alive, it didn’t matter which. I belonged to him, and no one was allowed to take what was his. I have to tell you, the whole thing makes me feel icky in retrospect.”
“Why icky?”
“Let me think. Maybe because I dated him for two months and never saw the monster inside. Or if I did, I was too busy and or too self-absorbed to understand what I was seeing.”
“That’s called a lack of interest, Isabella.”
“I know. I just…” She stared into the fog at her feet. “I’m not sure what I think, actually, what I missed, what I could have prevented if I’d been more aware. He called me all kinds of names, made references to situations that didn’t apply to anything we’d been through or done. I realized then that he was mixing Aaron and Sybil up with us, inserting their story into ours. Not that we had a particular story, but you get the idea. His mind was gone, probably had been for years. And I didn’t see it.”
“Neither did his legal partner, or his clients, or your cousin.”
“Katie never liked him.”
“Not liking someone is a far cry from suggesting that person’s insane.”
“You’re trying to make me feel better, aren’t you?”
With a smile quirking his lips, he started toward her. “No more than you’re trying to shift the subject from one Dark descendant to another. You dated Gimbel for two months, yet in all that time you never guessed anything was wrong?”
This time she spotted the trap. “Guessed it, no, but I didn’t want to be with him, so even if I didn’t understand why, I knew enough to back off. We may not always rely on them, but as a species, we do possess certain instincts.”
“We also possess certain propensities.”
A smile blossomed as he came back into touching range. “Yours is to believe the worst about yourself.” She ran a suggestive finger over his chest. “Mine is to take risks. So who wins the battle of wills?”
“Maybe neither of us.”
“Or maybe both? You’re nothing like David, Donovan. For all her bad judgment, neither is Darlene. George is a sweetheart, Haden’s a teddy bear—and you’re going to kiss me again, aren’t you?”
“Thinking about it.”
He splayed his hands on her waist, held her gaze with his. “This could be a very big mistake.”
“Risk taker,” she reminded. Eyes dancing, she shifted her hips against him, slid her arms around his neck. “Now, about that kiss—”
His mouth covered hers before she finished the word. Heat and hunger and need fired up fast, sucking every errant thought from her head. An entirely different set of instincts surged to life. She thought the fog might actually be sparkling when Donovan trailed his lips along her jaw to her neck.
She tipped her head sideways, marveled at the delicious buzz in her
brain. “If Aaron had kissed Sybil like that, she’d never have left him.”
“Wouldn’t have made him any more sane.”
“I’m not sure she’d have cared.”
Once again his dark eyes fixed on hers. “I love you, Isabella, but you’re playing with hellfire here.”
“Love you, too, Black, and having been to hell and back recently, I’ll go for the burn.”
“Gimbel’s…”
“Dead. Darkwood Manor’s mine, and even if the ghosts we saw and heard weren’t the real deal, the story will draw tourists to Mystic Harbor in droves. What’s hellish about that?”
“You decide.” Turning her to face the hazy outline of the manor, he dipped his head so his mouth brushed her ear. “I talked to Darlene, Isabella. She wrote that note warning you to leave town, and she was responsible for all the unearthly wails, but she swears on her grandfather’s grave, the voice you heard at the manor telling you to run and not come back wasn’t hers.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8505-1
DARKWOOD MANOR
Copyright © 2011 by Jacqueline Goff
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Epilogue
