by B. J Daniels
She’d barely disconnected when her phone rang again. She thought it might be Ethan calling her. It was Lillie. “Hi.”
“Are you all right?” Her friend sounded worried, making Drey feel even guiltier for calling her in the state she’d been in.
She let out an embarrassed laugh, feeling worse now that she’d heard from Ethan via Jet. “I’m sorry about calling you yesterday.”
“So things are better? Your husband came back?”
“No. But I just heard from him.” She saw no reason to get into the specifics. “He was called away on business. One of the company’s plants in Mexico City.”
“So you don’t have to worry anymore.” Did Lillie sound disappointed?
“No,” she said, hoping that was true as she thought about Ethan’s brother. Worse, the thumb she was convinced had been real. But it hadn’t been Ethan’s; it couldn’t be since he was in Mexico City, not bleeding to death somewhere. The thought made her shudder, because now she really did have to wonder if she was losing her mind. “Everything is fine.”
“Oh, Drey. What about his creepy brother?” Lillie asked as if reading her mind.
“Jet?” For a moment she almost voiced the crazy thought that had been running around in her head. He drugged me last night, and now he’s trying to make me think that I’m crazy and I can’t even be sure he really talked to Ethan. “He’s going to be moving to the hotel tomorrow morning.”
“So you’ll be alone in the house? I think you should come stay with me.”
“I’ll be fine.” She’d bailed once on a relationship years ago, running away instead of staying and fighting for it. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. Anyway, she was a married woman and this was now her home.
“I need to stay here. It’s only a few days until Ethan returns. I was worried and afraid something had happened to him. In fact, I was planning to go to Flint if I didn’t hear something today. Now that I know Ethan’s all right...”
“You have to be furious with him for worrying you like this.”
“His brother says that he’s always been like this. He gets business on his mind and that’s all he can think about at the time,” she said.
Lillie made a sympathetic sound. “But it’s your honeymoon.”
Moving to the balcony, feeling as if she needed fresh air, she opened the door to step outside while talking to her friend. She started to drop into one of the chairs, but saw movement in the nearby pines and caught a whiff of cigarette smoke. Jet?
She stepped back inside and closed the door. How long had Jet been out there? Was he watching her room? Not with the tinted windows that allowed her to see out, but him to be unable to see in—except when she had the glass door open to the balcony. She would have to remember that, she told herself.
“I’m glad you called, Lillie, but I’m fine, really. I’m sure Ethan will be home soon and I can handle his brother.” She’d never been less sure of anything as she disconnected. But Jet would be gone in the morning and once she changed the pass code on the gate into the house... And she always had her gun, she thought, remembering seeing it among her personal items that had been moved to the house.
CHAPTER NINE
IT WAS DARK by the time Hawk turned his horse back toward the ranch. His body hurt from an impossibly hard day’s work, but his mind wouldn’t rest.
He couldn’t bear the thought of Drey being miserable. Or even unhappy. And yet he’d made her that way for years. They’d made each other unhappy until she’d had enough and decided to strike out and have a life for herself with someone else.
Hell, he admired her for that. He wanted the best for her. At least that’s what he kept telling himself. But what if she wasn’t happy? What if her husband had really left her alone? Or maybe worse, in that house with his brother?
He drew up short as he realized where he’d ridden. Through the pines he could see that all the lights were on at Mountain Crest. Such an odd-looking place, so much glass and yet he couldn’t see anyone moving behind it. That apparently was the idea.
An in-your-face house from a man who supposedly wanted privacy by building up here on the side of the mountain so he could look down on the rest of the world. Hawk shook his head, knowing he wasn’t being fair. He knew nothing really about Ethan Baxter except that he was rich and he had Drey.
He told himself that he should ride on, but he found himself studying the place, wondering if even half of what Lillie had told him might be true. Was Drey in that house, miserable, scared?
There was only one car parked out front: an expensive sedan. He’d seen in the local paper that her old pickup had been for sale. He’d actually thought about buying it—for old times’ sake. The idea was so ludicrous he’d felt more like a fool than usual. Kind of like he felt sitting here on his horse staring at the house where Drey now lived.
Had her husband returned? Probably. Which meant everything was all right now—just as he had suspected would happen. False alarm.
Something moved along the side of the house. He saw Drey step out on the balcony on the top floor. She was on her cell phone. He couldn’t hear what was being said, but he could read her body like a neon sign. She wasn’t herself. He tried to see into the room behind her but his view was blocked. Something told him that she was still alone. No husband. So who did the car belong to? Or maybe her husband had a car service pick him up. Did Gilt Edge even have a car service?
Something else caught his attention. A dark figure moved from the pines and started down the mountainside toward one of the lower entrances. He caught only a glimpse of the man’s face, but he was sure it wasn’t Ethan Baxter.
Not your rodeo. Not your bull, he told himself. He started to spur his horse, feeling like a voyeur, when suddenly all the lights went out in the house. Like a blink, the whole place went completely dark.
His heart began to race as he waited for the lights to come back on. There had to be a backup generator for a place that cost that much. Ethan Baxter had dropped a pretty penny for this monstrosity.
He felt goose bumps ripple over his skin. The lights hadn’t come back on. Something was wrong.
* * *
DREY PICKED UP her sparkling water to take another drink. She’d taken a shower and then curled up with a book on the bed, still feeling tired and lost. For so many years, she’d worked. Now she didn’t know what to do with herself.
The first two aspirin hadn’t done the trick so she’d taken two more. Her brain felt sluggish, her body weak. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was more than the wedding, the worry, that nagging, relentless feeling that she’d made a mistake. Those had been aspirin she’d taken, hadn’t they?
She knew she was being ridiculous, all these crazy suspicions. But she felt even more foggy than she had earlier. She told herself that she would feel better once Jet was out of the house and Ethan was back. If Ethan ever came back. She couldn’t help thinking of that other premonition she’d had. That she would never see him alive again.
Wouldn’t Hawk Cahill just love it if her marriage ended before it even began? She shook her head. Ethan had called Jet. Everything was fine. This marriage would work. Or she would die trying to see that it did just to show Hawk that she could be happy with another man, come hell or high water.
The thought reminded her of another awful premonition she’d had when she’d seen this house. She shivered, telling herself she’d been under a lot of strain lately. She’d tried to call Lillie, feeling the need to talk to someone sane. Her thoughts were so random. Some too real. Like that thumb in the disposal. So real and yet... What if she was losing her mind?
But why wouldn’t she feel like that? Ethan had thrown her more than a curve. He’d derailed her with his surprises and then his disappearance. How could he do this to her? And calling Jet, instead of her? Did he not realize how awful that was? When he returned, she would make sure he
never did this to her again.
She started to lift the water bottle to her lips when she realized there was something in the bottom. Her eyes widened in alarm. Curled at the base of the bottle was what appeared to be a tiny mouse, as if it was asleep.
Drey screamed and dropped the bottle to run into the bathroom to throw up. Had the mouse been in there all the time? She’d left the bottle by the bed when she’d gone into the bathroom to shower. Was it possible the mouse had crawled in there then?
She clung to the sink, throwing up what little was in her stomach. How could she not have seen it before? Had she been so out of it that she hadn’t noticed there was something in the bottom of the bottle before now? A shiver of terror moved through her. What was wrong with her?
She gagged again, still sick to her stomach. How much had she consumed? Not much. Maybe a few sips before—
The elevator. Someone was coming. Jet? She’d locked the doors but she didn’t know how to keep the elevator from coming up and opening right into her bedroom.
She wiped her mouth and stepped back into the master suite, listening. The elevator kept coming. She hurriedly stepped to the bedroom doors to make sure they were locked. But what would it take to break in here? Why would Jet want to—
The lights went out, throwing her into pitch-black darkness. Drey screamed as something brushed her leg. A cold breeze stirred the drapes at the balcony window. She spun around to see a shadow move across the open doorway of the balcony and screamed again.
In a flutter of movement, the crow Drey had seen earlier on the balcony let out a cry and spread its dark wings. She cupped a hand over her mouth as she stared at the bird sitting on the balcony railing silhouetted against the night. Between the lights going off, the breeze coming in the balcony doorway brushing her leg and the crow—
Her heart was still pounding as she rushed to the balcony door, closed and locked it. She tried to calm down. But then she heard it. The elevator was still coming. How could the elevator still be working with the power out? A backup generator. She recalled Ethan mentioning that it hadn’t been working. But if it was working, then why were the lights still out?
She thought she heard a key in the lock at her bedroom doors. Now she felt as if someone was in the room with her. She closed her eyes tightly. This isn’t real. It’s just a bad dream.
But when she opened her eyes, her breath froze in her throat. The double bedroom doors that she’d locked earlier? One of them was standing open. She could see the landing to the stairs.
She worked her way in the pitch blackness to the double doors, locked them, then dragged a chair over. Who had unlocked the doors? Was it possible the doors could have blown open? Not after she’d locked them.
Her head ached and her body seemed to plead with her to simply lie down. Adrenaline fueled her and kept her upright. The elevator was still coming. Jet? Had he heard her scream? There could be only one person on that elevator. Jet. Or had he already been here?
She felt sick again. Moving back away from the doors, she stumbled against the bed and felt around blindly as she made her way toward the bathroom. But before she could find the bathroom doorway in the blackness, she heard the elevator stop on her floor and open on the other side of the wooden panel.
She froze, listening, but heard no movement. She waited for Jet to open the panel into the bedroom. But there was no sound. Who had been on the elevator? If it was Jet and he’d heard her scream, why hadn’t he said anything?
Drey listened as she continued to edge along the wall quietly toward the bathroom doorway. Once inside, she would lock the door and find her gun. There had to be a reason Ethan didn’t want his brother staying in this house with her.
She took another step toward the bathroom, then another and froze. She’d heard something. Move! Her mind raced. If she could reach the bathroom, get the door closed and locked—
The sound of shattering glass broke the untenable silence. She kept screaming as she hurriedly pushed herself along the wall until she felt the bathroom doorway. Just a few more steps and—
Tackled from behind, she fought, but the body holding her was much stronger, much more fierce. Not Jet. But someone larger, stronger—
“Drey, it’s me. Stop fighting.”
It took her a few breathless moments for the familiar voice to register. Even more for her to trust that she’d heard right. The hold on her loosened. She started to turn when the lights came back on.
She blinked as she stared at Hawk Cahill, uncomprehending. For a moment, she thought she was seeing things. Another hallucination. The sparkling water. Maybe Jet had drugged it, because what were the chances that Hawk would be standing in her bedroom?
“No, no, no.” She fought to pull away from him, telling herself this couldn’t be real, he couldn’t be real. If this was another bad dream—
Hawk gave her a shake. “You’re all right now. Drey! You’re all right.”
She stared at him. No hallucination. Hawk was as real as his warm strong hands holding her. Hawk. Standing in her bedroom. The bedroom she should have been sharing with her husband. She felt disoriented as she looked from him to the broken glass near the balcony.
This felt so surreal. She hugged herself, feeling like she was going to throw up again. She wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t. She remembered seeing the mouse and screaming. The hum of the elevator coming up to her floor. The lights going out. Had someone gotten off when the elevator door opened? She had sensed someone in the room with her—someone there earlier before she’d heard the glass breaking, before Hawk grabbed her. When she’d heard the key in the door lock and found one of the doors standing open. This had to be another dream.
“You aren’t really here,” she said in a sob. “You can’t be here.”
At her words, he let go of her. “I saw all the lights in the house go out. When you screamed...” He glanced around the room. She followed his gaze. Her bedroom doors, the ones she’d locked, were still shut.
She looked toward the panel that hid the elevator. It was open, the glass elevator empty. Had she only imagined someone in the room before Hawk had broken through the balcony window and grabbed her?
“I don’t understand what’s going on,” she said, fighting tears as she looked toward the floor where she’d dropped the sparkling water bottle with the tiny mouse inside. It was gone. Her gaze flew to the table beside her bed. A half-full bottle of sparking water sat on a coaster. Even from where she stood, she could see that there was no mouse in it.
She let out a cry at the realization that she was losing her mind. Her legs no longer held her. She would have slumped to the floor if Hawk hadn’t caught her and helped her over to one of the chairs in the sitting area.
* * *
HAWK HAD NEVER seen Drey like this. She sat in the large chair, her legs curled up, her arms hugging her knees, her eyes wide as a harvest moon and just as golden. “Tell me what’s wrong,” he said quietly as he pulled the other chair closer and sat down. That she looked terrified was a given. But what had frightened her enough to leave her in this state? “Drey, what’s going on?”
She looked around the room for a moment and then shook her head. “It was just a bad dream.” Her voice was small, scared, her body trembling. Worse, she was slurring her words as if she was drunk. Again, given what Lillie had told him. Drey had never drunk more than a glass of wine or a beer. At least the Drey he’d known hadn’t.
He rose, went to the bed and pulled off the down comforter. Returning to her, he tucked it around her. She clutched at it, balling the fabric in her fists as she looked up at him, pleading in her gaze.
“You’re really here,” she whispered. “In my bedroom.”
He glanced around and then slowly nodded. This was the last place he’d ever thought he’d find himself. “So it was just a bad dream?” Nothing seemed to be out of order in the room—exce
pt for the window he’d broken to get to her. Had he overreacted? No, he told himself as he looked into her brown eyes and saw the fear still there. Whatever had made her scream, Drey had sounded terrified. This wasn’t the woman he knew. Not his Drey. Not strong, determined, self-assured Dierdre Hunter.
He reminded himself that she was no longer his Drey. Her name was now Baxter. The wife of Ethan Baxter. So where the hell was this husband of hers?
“How did you get up here?” she asked in that small, scared voice.
Hawk glanced toward the balcony. “I climbed up the balconies. I’m sorry. I had to break the window. I’ll have it replaced.”
“You didn’t come up the elevator.”
He shook his head. It should have been obvious how he’d gotten in. “Where is your husband?” he had to ask.
“Mexico City,” she said quietly as she stared over at the nightstand next to her bed.
He could see little of interest there other than a lamp and a bottle of sparkling water.
“You just happened to be in the area and heard me scream?”
He sighed and removed his Stetson. He could see that she was having trouble making sense out of this. Welcome to his world. He had no business being here in this house—let alone in her bedroom she should have been sharing with her husband. “So your husband isn’t still missing?”
She turned her attention back to him to groan. “Lillie told you. Of course she did.” She covered her face with the comforter for a moment before looking at him again. “He’s not missing. He was just called away on urgent business.”
“On your honeymoon.”
“This isn’t my honeymoon. When he gets back...” She shook her head.
“He left you on your wedding night? Left you alone in this house?”
“I’m not alone. His brother, Jet, is staying here.”
Yes, Jet, he thought. Lillie had mentioned the brother Drey had called creepy. If the man was in the house, wouldn’t he have heard Drey scream? Wouldn’t he have come to check on her? “So where is Jet?” he asked.
