by Lila Dubois
Tess gave the woman a slight nod. “It’s perfectly okay, Ms. Jones.”
The librarian raised one of her own finely arched eyebrows. “Please, call me Robyn. And it’s not okay. Not after everything you’ve been through before moving here.” She paused. “Not after what Chad put you through.”
Tess’s blood turned to ice. How did she know that? No one in the Creek knew about Chad. Virtually no one in New York did either. She had no family to speak of and she hadn’t told any of her friends or colleagues he’d been stalking her.
Green eyes regarded her, seemingly seeing everything. “There’s something I’d like to show you, Ms. Darcy. Something Mr. Jenkins, the postmaster delivered to my hand this morning. Will you join me in my office?”
A stinging jolt shot up the length of Tess’s scar and she flinched, the powerful desire to shout “no” sitting heavy on her chest. But the reaction made no sense, even if it was from her gut, which she trusted without question. What could the woman possibly show her that was worse than an obsessed ex-boyfriend planning her abduction and rape?
What indeed?
“Well?” Ms. Jones asked with a twist of her lips.
Holding Robyn’s green gaze with her own, Tess mounted the stairs. Heart pounding in a way it shouldn’t.
Cool, dry air folded around her as she stepped into the old, stone building, shocking her sun-flushed skin. Her nipples pinched into rock-hard tips, sending shots of electricity through her body as they rubbed against the coarse cotton of her tank top.
“This way, Ms. Darcy.”
Robyn moved deeper into the dim library, spine straight, stride long and sure. She did not turn to see if Tess followed her past the rows of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a fact Tess found both irksome and annoying. For a defiant moment she considered leaving, if for no other reason than to bring the haughty librarian down a peg. But then the sound of Chad’s name falling from Robyn’s perfectly red lips echoed through her head and she began moving. She wanted to know how the librarian of a small town in rural Australia knew her dead ex-boyfriend’s name. And her cold curiosity had nothing to do with once being a journalist.
The distinctive smell of books, dusty and somehow old, hung on the air, growing stronger with each step Tess took. It was a smell she usually enjoyed. Over a year ago her life had revolved around reading and research; she’d spent more hours in the New York Public Library than she could remember. Today however, it made her stomach turn.
She frowned at the thought. Why?
A scraping noise, soft and almost inaudible by the overhead air-conditioners rumble, sounded on Tess’s left and she snapped around.
Nothing.
Scowling, she shook her head. What was wrong with her?
Teeesssss…
Ice ripped through her veins and she froze. Did she just hear—
“Ms. Darcy? Tess?” Robyn turned, casting her a cool look. “Is everything okay?”
Suppressing another scowl, Tess gave the librarian a slight smile. “Everything is fine, Ms. Jones. Tell me, is the library always so empty?”
Robyn bristled. “The good people of Kangaroo Creek find their entertainment in various places, Ms. Darcy. You of all people should know that.” And with that very ambiguous statement, she turned, disappearing between two bookshelves.
Tess’s eyebrows shot up. “What the hell does that mean?”
A sudden soft pressure played down her spine and across her hips—over the bareness of her thighs. Unexpectedly, an image of her silent dream lover filled Tess’s mind and her nipples tightened into painful peaks of hunger. Eyes closed, she sucked in a swift breath.
Teeeesssss.
A cool breath kissed her neck. Insubstantial fingers slid to her pussy.
“Ms. Darcy?” Robyn’s confident voice sliced through the library from somewhere behind a bookshelf.
Tess’s eyes flung open. She looked about herself, all too aware of the pounding beat in her chest, the damp heat between her flushed thighs. What the hell was she doing?
“Ms. Darcy?”
“I’m coming.” Tess called back, cheeks hot. Well, almost.
The librarian’s office was almost as gloomy as the library itself. Robyn stood behind a massive mahogany desk, shrouded in shadows, impatience rolling from her in disapproving waves as she watched Tess enter.
“I did not take you for a dawdler, Ms. Darcy. Surely life in New York is not so bereft of good manners?”
Tess arched an eyebrow. “Let’s not discuss manners, Ms. Jones. You know why I’m here. What do you know about my ex?” For a moment Tess thought the woman was going to argue, but then she pulled open a drawer in her desk and withdrew a large yellow envelope, handing it to her without comment. “What’s this?” The paper felt cold and rough under her fingers—and somehow alive. She wanted to drop it. Almost as much as she wanted to tear it open.
“It’s for you.”
With a barely suppressed growl, Tess dropped her stare to the envelope, turning it over in her hand.
Mrs. Tessa Fisher
c/o Kangaroo Creek
The words were scrawled in thick, black Magic Marker. As if the writer had been in a hurry.
A stinging jolt of heat shot up the length of Tess’s scar and her breath caught in her throat. Tessa Fisher. Chad’s surname. Someone was playing a sick joke. A very sick joke. Anger curling through her, she glared hard at the waiting librarian. “Who sent this?”
Utterly composed green eyes met hers. “Obviously someone who knows more about your past than anyone in the Creek does.”
Anger turning hot, Tess ripped open the envelope, catching the small, glossy photo that fell from its torn wound with a hand so close to trembling she felt sick. She lifted it. Turned it.
Stared at it.
Oh, God. No.
The photo had been taken beneath the Statue of Liberty, the blue of the spring sky so clear it almost hurt to look at it, the blindingly white tips of the water in the distance behind the same. It had been only their third date. Both she and Chad were smiling, but even now, Tess could see an uncomfortable light in her deep, brown eyes. And a burning possessiveness in Chad’s ice-blue ones. His arms were curled around her so tightly she could almost feel their tenacious pressure on her ribs now, his body pressed to hers so closely she felt the sear of his hips and jutting cock on her ass, even in the cold library’s office.
She’d developed the image that night in her personal darkroom, Chad by her side, his hands skimming lightly up and down her back, over her ass as she did so. He’d fucked her against the darkroom’s wall moments later, the soft red light casting their partly naked bodies in deep shadows, the smell of processing chemicals threading through her gasping, shallow breaths.
A finger of ice traced the line of her scar.
Two days after ending their relationship, she’d torn this very photo in two. She’d never given Chad a copy. So where had this one come from?
The finger slid back down to the base of her spine and she shivered.
Mouth dry, heart hammering, she returned her attention to Robyn. “Thank you for delivering this to me, Ms. Jones.” Her voice couldn’t have sounded more relaxed. In control. Blood roaring in her ears, she gave the woman a smile as she slid the photograph back into its envelope. “I would be quite upset if it were to be lost.” She folded the envelope once and pushed it into the back pocket of her denim shorts, then hitched her camera further up her shoulder. “Now I hope you don’t think me rude, but I want to catch the morning sun on Tin Hut Gully before the flies come out.”
Without waiting for a reply she left, the envelope burning into her ass cheek with each step she took.
If Robyn Jones had a problem with her New York manners, she could just stick it.
* * * *
Jared watched her walk from the library. Anger rolled from her in waves of tangible heat, rivalling the blistering temperature of the day. His gut tightened. Something had happened inside the old building. Something he sh
ould have seen, should have felt but didn’t.
He frowned, tracking her progress down the library steps. The smoldering sulphuric-red hue of her anger floated around her like a thundercloud, staining the air a deep vile scarlet. He’d never seen that color about her before. Auras of pensive blue, yes. Overlays of uneasy, guarded grey and insecure muddied brown, but never this turbulent red. Tess was angry. Very angry.
He clenched his fists, studying the color enveloping her. It boiled about her head, writhing and contorting—like a living thing in the throes of extreme pain. His heart clenched, feeling Tess’s torment. As always, he fought with the overwhelming urge to go to her. To embrace her, hold her to his body and kiss away her pain. She’d been through so much, possibly faced so much more, alone. And yet, she never faltered in her determination to deny it all. He admired her strength. It was almost stubborn, a trait he understood very well. A trait he’d been accused of more than once himself. Tess wouldn’t bow to her grief. But she wouldn’t acknowledge it either, and that was dangerous.
Jared’s heart clenched again. The One Almighty knew that, yet still he was forbidden to help her. Sent to protect and observe and that was all.
Denied longing flooded Jared’s being. He focussed hard on Tess as she made her way west, drawn to her innate sensuality and fragile resolve. What’s pissed you off so much, Tess? Why can’t I feel it?
A shower of brilliant white sparks suddenly erupted in Tess’s sullied angry aura, blinding him for a split second before disappearing again. Jared sucked in a hot, dry breath. She’d felt him. Her spirit had felt his presence. How had that happened?
How could that happen?
If her spirit sensed him…
His body stirring in a base, elemental way, he frowned at her back.
And she looked over her shoulder.
Straight at him.
His heart thumped into rapid life and, incapable of doing anything else, he stared straight back at her.
Time froze. For a glorious moment, Tess Darcy saw him. Deep, chocolate brown eyes held him prisoner before, with a distracted frown, she looked straight ahead again and continued hurrying along the street.
His pulse leapt into life and he felt the familiar tug on his being he’d experienced the second he’d laid eyes on her—like a fist around his damned soul. God, he was in trouble here. The last time he’d lost his heart to a woman, he’d had it destroyed. After so many months of watching Tess, of seeing her so deeply, knowing her soul so completely, his dead, shattered heart felt afire with life, with futile hope again. He couldn’t afford to fall for her. To do so would be just as dangerous as Tess’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge her grief. He couldn’t fall for her.
Yet he was.
And he was incapable of preventing it.
He started walking, following her path. She headed for the farmer’s shack she now called home. The murky red halo still rippled around her head, not a fleck of white to be seen in the shimmering hue. Whatever had angered her in the library still infuriated her now. Her feelings were no less intense than the moment she’d burst through the doors. Shoulders stiff, she marched along the empty street, the camera she wore slung over her shoulder bouncing against her hip with each step.
Something drew his attention to her butt, and it wasn’t just the sight of the wonderful curve of her ass cheeks. Something…cold. Something… Jared narrowed his eyes. “Wrong.”
He picked up his pace, gut clenching. Watching her storm along Hill Street.
Her hands continually opened and closed into bunched fists at her sides, as though she fought with them. Like they wanted to do something she did not. Orange agitation washed over the angry red halo and, in stiff, jerky movements she pressed the fingers of her right hand to her back pocket, pulling them away quickly, as if stung.
Spears of muddy grey and inky black spiked though her aura and Jared stiffened. Fear. Whether she knew it or not, whatever was in Tess’s back pocket made her scared.
And that worried him. A lot.
He needed to know what it was.
Jared’s pulse quickened. He needed to get…
“Closer.”
* * * *
Except for three dry eucalyptus logs and some tinder, the fireplace sat empty before her. Outside, the day was turning into a mean Australian summer scorcher, the midday sun and gale-force westerly sucking moisture from the air and flesh alike, rendering everything dry, brittle, and hot.
Tess held a cigarette lighter in one hand. Lighting a fire in this hot weather was lunacy, but so was the existence of the photo in her hand. A photo she knew she’d destroyed over a year ago.
She’d kept the goddamn thing in her back pocket for the entire morning’s shoot, too aware of it for her own peace of mind.
Now, three hours later, she was about to destroy it. Again. Once and for all.
Afterward, she would have a bath. Her scar ached and for some reason she felt dirty, a feeling nothing to do with the dust flying around on the hot summer wind. She was used to filth; it came with the territory of being an investigative political journalist. There was nothing more dirty in the city than a politician, especially one trying to keep secrets from his or her constituents. But filth from her own life needed to be scoured away. Now.
She raised the photo of her and Chad from her lap, refusing to look at it. Its existence defied explanation. It shouldn’t be here. It shouldn’t be anywhere. Withdrawing the cigarette lighter from her pocket she’d found in the kitchen drawer when moving in, she lifted it to the photo’s corner. After she set it alight, it—
A whisper came from her bedroom.
Indistinct. Someone saying…
What?
Blood running thick in her veins, Tess rose to her feet. She folded the photo and shoved it into her back pocket again, feeling its stiffness pressing to her butt cheek through the denim. Peering down the hall, she strained to detect what she thought she’d heard before.
And what was that, Darcy? Your name? Again? How many times do you think you’ve heard it since moving here? You’re losing your mind.
Grinding her teeth, she walked down the hall into her bedroom.
She’d spent quite a few days since moving in getting the room right. Getting it to the point where she felt at ease in it, comfortable. The walls were now a clean, cool white, the floorboards polished to a dull sheen on which lay a soft shag-pile rug the same color as the walls. White sheer curtains billowed over the large window, granting glimpses of the dry landscape beyond. A large framed poster for her favorite movie, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, hung on the wall opposite the bed, a small gilded mirror on the wall beside it.
Then there was the bed itself, sitting in the center of the room. Her one indulgence. A massive king-size made from Tasmanian oak with a mattress softer than a cloud, covered in pillows, cushions, and a bone-white throw.
And something else.
A pair of underpants. A black pair.
Tess frowned. Had she left those out this morning? She must have. How else would they be on the bed? Laid out as if waiting to be worn?
She frowned again, squirming unease fluttering in the pit of her belly. Black undies. The very color underwear Chad loved to see on—
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Darcy!” she snapped, cutting the ridiculous thought dead. “Don’t be so goddamn stupid.”
Snatching up the skimpy knickers, she bunched them into a ball and shoved them into the top drawer beside her bed. She’d felt foggy when she’d woken this morning, a little disoriented, a little exhausted. A night of wild, passionate dream sex did that to a person who deprived him or herself of the real thing.
Quick as a flash, an image of the silent man with the shaggy blonde hair she’d seen this morning outside the library flitted through her mind. And then it was gone, leaving her with a squeezing tightness in her sex she hadn’t experienced for a long time. Well, hadn’t experienced while awake, that was.
Scowling, she turned and left her room. Dr
eaming of sex with a faceless man every night and now getting horny over a stranger in the street she’d seen for all of about four seconds? It’s no wonder she’d found a pair of knickers on her bed. She was losing her mind! She’d probably put them on the bed to wear before having a shower and forgotten about them.
Storming back along the hallway, she rolled her eyes. Damn it, she really needed to get a grip. Hearing voices in public libraries and whispers in her bedroom…anyone would think she’d stepped into a b-grade horror movie, the way she was behaving.
But what about the photo? Explain the photo, Darcy.
She reached into her back pocket and yanked out the folded photograph. “The photo’s just about to go up in smoke.”
Still doesn’t explain its existence though, does it?
Refusing to think about just what the explanation might be, she plonked down in front of the fireplace once again. Jaw clenched, she retrieved the cigarette lighter from the hearth and held it to the photo’s lowest corner. “Destroyed. Again.”
She flicked her thumb and the cigarette lighter flared into life. Face composed, pulse steady, Tess leaned forward and touched it to the bottom edge of the creased photo.
The glossy paper smoldered for a second, as if denying the hungry desire of the flame. Black smoke curled from its blistering surface. The smiling faces trapped there began to bubble, twist. As she watched, they began to melt and then it was alight.
Heart pounding and throat tight, Tess dropped the burning paper into the fireplace. “Once and for all.”
She closed her eyes, suddenly completely drained.
And that was when he came to her.
Her silent dream-lover.
Am I asleep? The words fell from her lips without a sound.
