by Leslie Kelly
How could anyone understand? Even Simon, himself, couldn’t make sense of the crazy twists and turns his mind took these days. From half believing the house was haunted, to immediately fearing his beautiful young houseguest was in danger, he’d gone from having the creative mentality of an analytical nonfiction writer to a Stephen King wannabe.
When he reached the third floor corridor, he heard her pounding from the far end. He also heard some rather choice language coming out of her beautiful mouth and couldn’t prevent a half smile. Damn but the woman was feisty. Dramatic. She brought life and light into this drafty, shadowy old house and he could barely stand the thought of how dark and empty it would be when she left it.
He liked her. He liked having her here. Too much.
If he didn’t like her, it probably would have made things simpler. Because there was no doubt he was attracted to her. And if attraction had been all he felt, he could have just taken her to bed and been done with it.
Everyone kept telling him he had to get back in the saddle. That he couldn’t let what had happened the last time he’d picked up a woman make him swear off sex for life.
He wasn’t ready to swear off sex—hell, no. But he would never again do something as stupid as pick up a stranger in a bar and bring her back to his room.
He didn’t know if anything he’d ever experienced could have prepared him for that—for an attractive woman practically wrapping herself around him in a public place, begging him to take her upstairs. Then, when he did, letting a male partner in behind them.
When they’d both pulled weapons and demanded his money, he’d given it to them. Simon wasn’t stupid.
That should have been the end of it. Why hadn’t that been the end of it? Why hadn’t they taken his cash and credit cards and gotten the hell out?
Why did things have to get so bloody?
He’d learned a lesson. A valuable one, which made him again question his decision to let Lottie stay here. She wasn’t quite a stranger—the paperwork and letters from his uncle proved her identity, and her mission, at least. But she wasn’t exactly someone he knew very well, either. “Yet she’s still sleeping under my roof,” he muttered, knowing he was playing devil’s advocate to pump up his own reservations.
There was no more time to consider it, though. Reaching the attic door, he dug the old-fashioned keyring out of his pocket. He had no idea how she’d managed to get in and lock the door behind her without the key. “Hold on, I’m here. You’ll be out in a second.”
“Thank God,” she exclaimed.
He grabbed the knob to hold the door steady while he inserted the key. But strangely, the knob twisted in his hand. The door opened, and Lottie Santori, red-faced and furious-looking, practically fell out.
She landed, as was becoming her habit, right in his arms. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she muttered, pressing a couple of quick kisses on his cheek, as if she couldn’t restrain the impulse. Her body pressed against his from shoulder to thigh and he couldn’t resist dropping his hands to her waist, cupping her and holding her still.
The woman definitely knew how to express her appreciation. Her soft curves molded against him and her arms encircled his neck. Her thick, dark hair brushed his face. And his relief that she was okay simply overwhelmed him. Unable to resist, he bent and covered her mouth with his.
She instantly melted into him. Tasting her tongue, Simon heard her tiny groan of pleasure and echoed it. Lottie tasted sweet and spicy, which suited her so well. Lazily exploring her mouth, he met her tongue in thrust after slow thrust.
She tilted her head, lifting her arms to wrap them around his neck, her fingers twining in his hair. There was no frenzy, no insanity as he’d expect to feel after such a long, celibate period without a woman in his life. No. This was smooth and relaxed, not a prelude to anything more but a delight in and of itself.
He liked kissing. He’d forgotten how much.
He especially liked kissing her.
Lifting one hand, he cupped her cheek, realizing how cold her skin was. Icy cold. Such a contrast to her warm mouth and her hot, hot body.
Lottie shuffled backward, drawing him with her, until she was leaning against the corridor wall. When she bent her leg and lifted it, scraping her thigh along his hip, he groaned at the intimacy of it. She was tugging him hard against her with one leg while she tilted her pelvis into his. He could feel the heat between her legs and smell the hot, unmistakable musk of female arousal.
It would be easy—so very easy—to unfasten her jeans and take her right here, right now. Judging by her whimpers and the nearly frantic way she was rubbing against him—as if getting off on the feel of his erection against her crotch—that was exactly what she wanted. And the way their tongues tangled—mating, thrusting, giving and taking in a long, lethargic dance that imitated the way their bodies would dance when they came together—only emphasized it.
No. That couldn’t happen. She’d intended to give him a kiss of gratitude for God’s sake, because she thought he’d rescued her.
He was no damn hero. And though he was no damn saint, either, he somehow managed to end the kiss and lift his head.
She rose up on tiptoe, whimpering, not even opening her eyes. As if she wanted to start it all over again. But Simon resisted, taking a deep, controlling breath and easing back a few inches.
“Your cheeks are cold,” he said with a soft laugh, trying to tease the aura of sex and sensuality out of the air.
She stared at him, her big brown eyes dreamy and out of focus, her lids half-closed in lazy, wanton invitation. But he wasn’t accepting that invitation.
He was not.
Finally, as if she’d recognized his resolve, she nodded. “Yes, it was pretty cold. At least twenty degrees colder than that icebox I slept in last night.”
Chuckling, he said, “I offered to fire up the generator.”
“You didn’t seem very enthusiastic about it.”
Shrugging, he admitted, “It doesn’t work very well.” Then, knowing their brief talk had succeeded in cooling them both off, he asked, “So, are you okay?”
She nodded. “Just chilled. And a little freaked out. I guess my imagination started to get away from me. I was envisioning people under every one of those stupid sheets up there.”
He suddenly remembered what she’d been yelling…that she’d been locked in the attic.
“Lottie,” he said, taking her hands in his—cold hands, too—and tugging them away so he could step back. “Why did you think you were locked in?”
She gave him a duh look. “Because I was. At first I wondered if you were trying to scare me into leaving, playing a prank. Believe me, if you’d rescued me an hour ago, I would have come out swinging.”
Lucky for him. He much preferred her coming out kissing.
“But I figured you wouldn’t do that, especially when I heard you calling for me outside. I’m glad you came back toward the house and heard me shouting back.” She lifted her hands, studying the backs of them, which was when he realized they were red and scratched. “I guess I pounded too hard.”
Frowning, Simon grabbed her hands and turned them so he could take a better look. “They’re raw. You were banging on the door?”
She nodded. “Yelling my guts out, pounding, kicking.”
Her throaty voice told him she wasn’t exaggerating. She sounded a little hoarse.
“I didn’t hear a thing,” he said, wondering how he was going to tell her she had not been locked in. He had the feeling she wasn’t going to like hearing that bit of news.
“This house is too darn big,” she said, not trying to remove her hands. She seemed to like the way he was holding them, carefully stroking his fingers against her abrasions. When the tip of his index finger brushed the tip of hers, she winced. “Ouch.”
Seeing small red blisters on the tips of two fingers and her thumb, he asked, “What happened here?”
“I think I burned myself,” she admitted. “I didn’
t realize it until I came down the stairs, but there’s no bulb in the light fixture at the bottom of the stairwell. I wasn’t about to stay perched on the step pounding on the door with the little tiny bit of light spilling down from above. So I had to go steal one from up in the attic.”
Did the woman have no common sense? Unable to resist, he drew her hand to his lips and kissed the tip of each finger, resisting the urge to suck them into his mouth.
Shaking his head, he asked, “Couldn’t you have shut the lights off and let them cool off before trying to unscrew one?”
She snatched her hand away and frowned. “In case you haven’t realized it, the only switch for your stinking attic is down here by the door. And if you thought I was going to march down in the dark, flip the switch off and then climb back up into that black hole of death, trying to feel my way to a cool lightbulb, you’re nuts.”
Well, when she put it that way…
“I wasn’t thinking at first,” she grudgingly admitted, her temper cooling as quickly as it had heated up. “I just grabbed. Once I realized it was hot, I found a rag and twisted the bulb off, then brought it down and felt around until I could get it into the socket.”
The woman was damn lucky she hadn’t electrocuted herself. He could just imagine if she’d jammed her finger into the live socket while poking around in the darkness. This story was getting worse and worse. And he still hadn’t found a way to tell her the door must have only been stuck, since it certainly had not been locked.
“You really ought to fix that door so it doesn’t lock like that. It’s dangerous.”
Knowing he had to be honest with her, he walked over to the door and pushed it shut. “This is one of the original locks to the house.”
“Yeah, well, maybe you should replace it then.”
“Yes, I should,” he murmured. “But my point is that it’s an old type of fixture that can only be locked or unlocked with a key. There are no buttons or switches.” Opening and closing it a couple of times, he added, “There’s no way it can be accidentally engaged.”
Her eyes narrowed as she began to catch his meaning. “You’re wrong. It was locked.”
“It must have been jammed, Lottie.”
The strong jaw jutted out and her dark eyes glittered. “Simon, I tried twisting the knob several times. It wouldn’t move at all.”
He simply stared at her, certain she must be mistaken. But the woman wouldn’t back down, wasn’t changing her story at all.
“That door was locked.”
VIVID NIGHTMARES interfered with Simon’s sleep. Not about Charleston, but about his uncle Roger.
In the months he’d lived in Seaton House, Simon had grown more angry about the way his last remaining relative had died. The unfairness of it, the lousy whim of fate that had sent the sixty-year-old man wandering out on the lawn on a foggy morning, then plunging over the side of a mountain.
His uncle had died an awful death.
And all through the night, Simon kept seeing it over and over in his mind, hearing the plaintive calls for help that had never reached anyone’s ears. He saw his uncle’s final, lonely hours. When he woke, a slick sheen of sweat covered his skin and hot moisture pricked the corners of his eyes.
“God,” he whispered in the semidarkness of early morning. His covers were wrapped around him, as if he’d thrashed in the night.
Knowing he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep, he got up and headed outside, determined to walk off the anger and sadness. As he often did in the early hours, he found himself heading for the cliffs.
The morning had dawned gray but not misty, unlike what it must have been like on his uncle’s last day. Standing at the farthest point on the south side of the lawn, Simon was able to see down into the town of Trouble. He could easily make out the main street, the roofs of the grocery store and the diner. And, rising on a hill just past downtown, the house owned by his one and only friend in the area—Mortimer Potts.
He had to laugh. Mortimer was an eighty-year-old millionaire who liked to dress up in sheik robes and camp out in an enormous tent in his backyard. If that wasn’t a statement about how radically Simon’s life had changed, he didn’t know what was.
“What’s funny?”
Startled, he swung his head around and saw Lottie standing a few feet away from him. He hadn’t even heard her approach in the damp grass.
Apparently an early riser, too, she was dressed in running clothes—sweats and sneakers—with her thick, dark hair swept up in a ponytail on top of her head. Her breaths came in shallow pants, as if she’d been jogging already, though it was only seven-thirty.
“Don’t run along the cliffs,” he said, barking out the first words that came to his mind.
“Well, good morning to you, too.”
He cleared his throat. “Good morning.” Then he repeated his warning. “The cliffs are uneven along the edge. You don’t want to be running within ten feet of the drop-off, especially not when it’s dark out.”
She walked over, still panting. She’d apparently been out and about for quite a while. He wondered if her night had been as restless as his. And what the two of them might have done about that restless night, had they happened to be sleeping in the same room.
“Simon?”
Seeing her eyeing him curiously, he cleared his throat. She’d obviously said something to him but his mental imaginings had made him deaf to whatever it was. “Sorry?”
“I asked if you were all right. You don’t look well. Have you eaten this morning?”
“Got a second career as a nurse going, have you?”
“Got a second career as a vampire I don’t know about? You’re pale enough,” she said, her tone just as sarcastic.
After a pointed look up at the sun, which cast a few rays of light between the morning clouds, he glanced at her and quirked an eyebrow.
“Okay, you’re obviously not a pile of vampire ash in the sunlight,” she admitted, sounding grumpy. Cute. “But if you keep starving yourself and hiding away in that office, you’re going to look like Dracula.”
“I thought you were here to research the history of the house, not harass me into eating.”
Her fists hit her hips. “Harass? Please. You haven’t seen harassed yet. You want to know what real harassment is, ask my brothers.”
There she went being cute again. So tough and bossy. He wanted to know more about her. “Brothers? Big family?”
She nodded. “Five of them. All older.”
Ouch. Five older brothers. If he hadn’t already known he couldn’t get involved with this young woman, that would have driven the point home.
“Fortunately,” she added, as if sensing his immediate reaction, “they’re all back in Chicago, not here watching my every move. How about you, any siblings to torment you throughout your childhood?”
He shook his head.
“Cousins? Anything?”
“No. No one.”
She frowned. “Wow, I’ve often wished I had about twenty or thirty fewer males bossing me around but I can’t imagine not having any.”
“Twenty or…”
“With the cousins and second cousins, yeah. My parents each come from huge families and they all took that Catholic ‘go forth and breed’ thing a little too seriously.”
He smiled, liking her frankness. As usual. “My father was an only child, and my mother’s brother…” He glanced down the mountain. “Uncle Roger never married. He spent his whole life here.” Lowering his voice, speaking almost to himself, he murmured, “And he died here.”
Her hand touched his arm—lightly, offering comfort, warmth. “I’m sorry. I still regret barreling in and mistaking you for him the other night.” Clearing her throat, she added, “How did he die?”
Simon remained silent for a moment, though the story certainly wasn’t any big secret. Still, it wasn’t easy to talk about. Even at the funeral, when most of the town had come up to offer him their condolences, he’d barely managed a word to
anyone.
Which probably explained why they all thought him an antisocial villain now. Well, that and because he’d thrown so many of them off the grounds after he’d moved here in July. He’d not only pushed the welcome wagon back down the mountain, he’d slit its tires and emptied its gas tank, too.
Lottie, of course, couldn’t know, though. Somehow, standing here so close to where it had happened, he felt compelled to tell her. “Uncle Roger apparently came out here for a walk very early one morning in June, as he often did. But this time, he lost his footing.” Staring down the hillside past the rocks and mounds of dead plant life and spiny, decrepit tree limbs, he could almost see the elderly man lying there. Waiting for help that never came.
“He wasn’t found until a day and a half later, after an all-out search had been called by the Trouble police. By the time they spotted him it was too late.”
“Two days…” Lottie’s hand clenched reflexively on his arm. The color fell out of her cheeks and her bottom lip trembled. “No one heard him, no one knew?”
“The hotel has never done much business and there were only a handful of people staying here at the time. The staff didn’t get worried about his disappearance until that night and didn’t call the police until the next morning.”
Moisture appeared in Lottie’s pretty brown eyes. “Simon, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up something so painful.”
“You didn’t. I was standing here thinking about it, anyway.” Not sure why he was admitting it, he added, “I dreamed about him last night. I think your stories about this Zangara character have made me start to wonder if this house is…cursed. My mother certainly thought so.”
He had been about to say haunted but had quickly changed his mind. Little Miss Tough-talking Santori didn’t need to hear about his own crazy imaginings. Even if she had jokingly suggested last night when they’d shared dinner in the kitchen that a ghost must have locked her in the attic.
She’d laughed. He hadn’t. Not because he believed any spectral entity was playing pranks on his guest. But because the incident was one more he had to add to the list of strange things taking place in Seaton House.
