by Angel Smits
“Not much. I’m tired. Would the bed be more comfortable?”
“Than what? The couch or the floor?”
“Either. Come on.” She moved away from him and stood.
The glow of the fire created shadows on his body and she realized how deeply she wanted him again. Instead, she turned toward the bedroom, and he followed. She absently flipped off the gas fire, plunging the room into darkness. Only the dim moon through the skylight provided illumination for the hallway. At the door of her dark bedroom she stopped.
“It’s okay. If the dream returns, I’m here,” Cord promised.
His hand settled in the small of her back, guiding her to the bed. After they crawled into it, he pulled her close and tucked the blankets snug around them.
“There. Get some sleep.” He pushed her head back into the comfortable niche of his shoulder, placing a soft kiss on her forehead.
“Cord?”
“Mm hmm?”
What did she want to say? The words that nearly fell unheeded off her tongue were those of love, words that came too easy to mind. Words she dared not speak because she wasn’t sure they were hers.
“Nothing.” Instead of speaking her thoughts, she let her hand slip beneath the blankets. Suddenly, she was no longer sleepy. The warmth of his skin against her fingers sent them both deep into the vortex of desire.
The night slipped away, filled with soft, passionate sounds. She felt a belonging she’d never known before, and she wanted it to last forever. When the first fingers of morning filtered into the room, she watched him as his eyelids slipped closed. The pink and gold of the sunrise tinted the room, and she snuggled close, holding tight for just a little longer.
Faith managed to doze in the circle of Cord’s arms. The dreams remained at bay, but with the growing of the day, her mind filled with the dream’s remnants.
Carefully, slowly she slipped out from the warmth of the covers, smiling when Cord moaned and pulled her pillow into the empty spot she left. A smile lifted the corner of his lips, but he didn’t awaken.
She showered and dressed and settled onto the window seat with a cup of coffee. The morning rituals helped her get back on an even keel, get back to feeling like herself. She sipped the warm brew and watched Cord sleep.
Lord, he was handsome. His dark tousled hair fell over his forehead begging for her to smooth it back with her fingers. His bare shoulders looked big and dark against the white linens. Warmth washed over her when she remembered how tightly she’d clung to those strong shoulders last night.
Breathing in slowly, she fought to calm her racing heart, but it was an impossible task when she couldn’t tear her gaze away.
Cord Burke was different. From the minute she’d met him he’d taken charge, taking care of her and others around him. He took care of Johnny when he drank too much. He’d picked her up when she fainted and whisked her off to the doctor to tend her wounds. He drove here when he knew the dream was ahead.
Her heart hurt as she recalled Timmy’s death, but not as much as it would have if Cord hadn’t been here. She shuddered, knowing that if he hadn’t been, she’d have gone insane.
He was someone she could count on. Cord.
Rafe. The names whispered through her mind, and she shivered. She could still see his face as it had been last night in the dream. Distraught with grief, he’d let his tears flow, uncaring that the world saw his pain, uncaring that she saw it. He’d been a strong man, too.
Faith closed her eyes and let the two images form. She knew now that she’d always been attracted to the dream man. She also knew she was dangerously close to falling in love with his real life counterpart.
VAGUELY, SLOWLY, Cord’s mind started to function. The scent of lavender tickled his nose, and for a moment confusion took over. He rubbed his face against the sweet scented sheets, and recognition filtered into his mind. A smile tugged at his lips.
Faith.
Reaching out, he found the spot where she’d slept. Empty. A flash of loss invaded his heart before he squashed it. Opening one eye, he surveyed what he could see of the room. Opening the other eye, he lifted his head, taking the time to look around.
Everywhere white lace greeted him. Even the blanket that pooled around his hips as he sat up contained more lace than blanket. Elegant dove gray covered the walls in a peaceful tone. He liked the room. It fit Faith.
Light filtered in through a large window. Turning, he looked at the bay window and saw her.
She blended in with the décor of the room, wearing a white lace shirt and form-fitting white jeans. The stark color of her hair caught his eye, like a single copper stroke across a canvas.
Her knees were drawn up, nearly to her chest. A mug sat perched between her hands on top of her knees. Steam wafted up past her face where it dissipated in the morning air.
She stared out the window, her eyes distant and sad. What was she thinking about? The dream? He pushed his own memories away. Not now. Maybe never.
He leaned back against the white, carved headboard. He didn’t want to disturb her thoughts—and yet he wanted to know them all.
“Morning.” Her voice came out in a husky whisper. She didn’t look at him, just continued to stare out the window. She lifted her cup and slowly sipped its contents.
“Morning.” He waited, holding his breath in anticipation of her next words. Would she ask him to leave? Tell him last night was a mistake? He pushed his luck. “Regrets?”
Finally, she turned her head to look at him. A smile played on her lips. “No. No regrets.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.
“Then why the pensive mood?” He pushed harder, letting go of the breath trapped inside.
For several long minutes she returned his stare and then faced the window. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you everything. There’s a lot.” She traced the lip of the mug with her finger, round and round.
Relief washed through him. She wasn’t regretting last night. “Does this have to do with your visit to Gibson yesterday?”
She nodded, her hair glistening in the sun. “Some. There’s quite a bit I’ve learned through Clarissa, too.” Her eyes turned to his, no longer hiding her pain. “I don’t want to tell you.”
“Why? It couldn’t be any worse than what I’ve already seen. I can ask Clarissa.”
Maybe he should. Maybe it would be better if Clarissa told him. No, she had to tell him. They had to start dealing with it themselves. Besides it sounded as if Clarissa only knew part of the information.
“Mr. Gibson inherited the house when Maria died,” she said.
“Did he meet her?” he prompted when she didn’t continue.
Faith nodded. “She knew she was dying and asked him to come see her.” She shrugged and took a deep swallow of her coffee. “That’s when she asked that the observation room be forever closed.”
“Why?”
Her voice shook. “Rafe died there.” She swallowed hard.
Cord’s mind fell back to the day he’d gone into the room to see the trunk. The blinding pain. “H . . . how did he die?”
“Dr. Jamison told me Rafe was shot. Maria was there. She never went back into that room again.” Faith slipped off the window seat and set the coffee cup on the dresser. She paced at the foot of the bed.
“Don’t give up on me now.” Cord sat forward. “Who shot him?”
She shrugged. “No one seems to know for sure how he was shot. Oh, Cord. I don’t know what to think. Yesterday, I was so frightened of you.” She stopped and clasped her hands in front of her.
“Why?”
“A . . . at the archives yesterday . . . ” She hesitated. “We found that same article in the old newspaper. Another article took up half the next page. There was a picture of the girl I saw in the mirror at the casino.” Her sho
ulders rose as she took a deep gulp of air. He remained silent. His arms ached to hold her, but he feared he’d spook her.
“She was murdered. Her name was Delta DeLange. Clarissa says she’s been haunting us as revenge.” Faith paused, fidgeting with the lace curtains. The silence stretched until he almost couldn’t bear it. “Clarissa said you murdered Delta.”
Talk about a sucker punch. Cord stared at her. “I murdered her?” Anger exploded inside him, surprising him and burning its way through his gut. “You mean Rafe murdered her.”
They’d both struggled to keep the dreams and reality separate. After last night, after the determined way she made sure he knew she was Faith, he’d thought they’d gotten their identities straight, but obviously not. Betrayal and jealousy shot through him, and he couldn’t sit there any longer.
He threw off the covers, uncaring of her modesty. Images filled his mind. Not images from a past life—but from this life—his childhood. Of his mother and another man. Of his father’s heartache drowning in a bottle.
“So, who the hell did you think you were making love to last night?”
Twelve
FAITH STARED AT the closed bathroom door. The sound of the shower was the only thing that broke the silence. That and the beat of her heart, hard against her ribs. In that instant, the instant where anger filled Cord’s eyes, she’d known fear. The same fear that had overwhelmed her yesterday when she’d found him in her yard. The same shiver of fear that confirmed his accusation.
Guilt washed over her. Was he right? Was she confusing him with Rafe? Only a few minutes ago she’d been thinking of how much alike the two men were. A hard lump grew in her throat and she tried to swallow it. The ache remained.
She couldn’t honestly tell if the desire she felt was real or remnants of the dreams. She stood and paced, reluctant to see who came out of the bathroom. Cord the lover? Cord the protector? Cord the gambler? Or Rafe the murderer? She was even more afraid that she wouldn’t know the difference.
Stop it, she mentally yelled at her overactive imagination. Purposefully, she called to mind images of Cord’s kindness last night. He’d held her together when the dream had been so real. Heck, he’d done more than that. Her cheeks flamed as she recalled all the wonderful things he’d done to her.
She stared at the door again, suddenly realizing that on the other side, beneath the familiar spray of her shower, he was naked. Her mouth went dry.
She swallowed and took several deep breaths. What was wrong with her? Was she more Maria then she wanted to be? Even as she wanted to yell at him and hurt him as he’d hurt her, she ached to feel his arms again. She’d never lusted after a man like this before.
Who was she kidding? She’d seldom had the opportunity to lust before. Her sheltered childhood had extended well into her college years. After that she’d buried herself in her career.
Sure, she’d had a couple of relationships that bordered on serious, but even as she remembered them, she discarded the comparison. They were nothing like this. Nothing that threatened to sweep her away in its wake.
And there would be a wake. Cord was a man, but while he’d held her and loved her last night, there had been no promises.
He wasn’t the settling down kind. He lived in the back of his casino—at work. Building a home and job for himself were entirely different than looking at life as something to share with someone.
His stories last night at dinner told of a life spent moving from place to place, from town to town, looking for the next job. The fact that he’d taken off to come here was a perfect example of the practice. Even his commitments were only part time. There would be no promises of tomorrow from Cord. Disappointment shot through her, to be swiftly replaced by anger.
How dare he.
Was he just like her father and all the other men she’d encountered? They wanted to make all the decisions about how things should be. About when she could and could not have a relationship.
Could he so easily turn off his feelings? Was she really just a fling to him? No, she couldn’t accept that. The tenderness in his touch and in his eyes had been more than fleeting, hadn’t it? No one could pretend those types of feelings . . . could they?
She buried her face in her hands, finding fewer answers behind her closed eyelids. She looked back at the door again. She had to know. Had to have some sense of who he really was before she moved on. Before she decided what to do next.
She walked to the door, pausing with her hand on the doorknob for only a moment. Steam wafted out the open door, and she prepared herself to face the lion in its den.
CORD’S ANGER WASHED down the drain with the warm water beating down on his back in sharp, welcome bursts. However, the unsettling frustration remained. He braced his arms against the tile and let her words and the shower wash over him.
Fool. He called himself that and a few other choice words, too. Faith wasn’t like other women. He’d known that last night when he’d stared at her pictures, had been convinced of it when he’d held her in his arms, and seen it in the hurt on her face when he’d yelled at her.
Both he and Faith were having trouble keeping each other straight from the dream. He’d slipped up several times before and so had she. Why had it bothered him so much this time?
Because he’d believed she was different than the other women who’d been in his life. Still believed it on some level, like the fool he was. She’d gotten under his skin and he’d let himself care.
Had last night really been just a continuation of their dreams? Was Faith only reaching out for Rafe? That suspicion ate a hole through him. He’d had plenty of one-night stands. Hell, that was all he’d ever wanted, wasn’t it? So why did the thought of waking up in that lace bedroom every morning hold so much appeal?
Images of last night came to mind. Okay, there were certain things he wanted to know more about . . . and most of them had to do with her body.
He recalled her face outlined in firelight, a face that begged for tomorrows and forevers. Things he swore he didn’t want, didn’t need. Things he’d never before wished he could have.
He brushed those thoughts away impatiently. Tomorrows always brought broken promises, and forevers weren’t real.
Cord grabbed the bar of soap and rubbed it viciously over his chest. Rafe. The name whispered through his mind. Rafe Cumberland, a murderer? No, it wasn’t possible.
And why not? he chided himself. Hell, he was as bad as Faith, acting as if he knew the man. Neither of them did. Just because he and Rafe shared a face didn’t make them in any way the same.
Damn it. This whole situation was ridiculous. A hundred-year-old murder? Ghosts?
He slammed the water off, no less frustrated than when he’d stepped into the shower. For a minute he stood, listening to the water falling down the drain, then shoved the shower curtain aside.
A blue towel smacked him in the chest.
“Men are such idiots.” Faith’s gaze challenged him to contradict her.
He didn’t. She sat perched on the only seat in the bathroom, indignant and adorable. He felt his resolve slip and shored it up with his reservations about her and the situation. “Women make us that way.” Briskly, Cord dried off and wrapped the towel around his hips before stepping out of the shower.
“So, this is my fault?” Faith stood, hands on hips, blocking his exit.
He glared at her. “I’m not sure anyone’s at fault.” The bathroom’s acoustics made his voice vibrate around them. “But it sure as hell isn’t mine. I’ve lived in Cripple Creek for two years and never had to deal with any of this until you showed up.”
“By this do you mean us, or the ghost?”
“Both. Excuse me.” He pushed by her, ignoring the heat that shot through him when his bare skin touched hers. She jumped back, letting him pass, but followed him into the living room.
His clothes spilled across the carpeting in front of the fireplace where he’d thrown them last night. Hot memories flooded back. His body responded, and he cursed. He wanted her, but she wanted someone who existed only in her dreams. He had enough trouble keeping track of himself without competition.
Cord grabbed his jeans and dropped the towel. He heard her breathe in sharply and watched her eyes widen as her gaze raked over his body. Her cheeks flamed, but she didn’t turn away. A wicked part of him enjoyed her discomfort, and he took his sweet time pulling on the faded jeans.
He ached to touch her, to pull her close and then down onto the rug where he’d erase any thoughts of anyone else. But then he’d be back to those forevers and tomorrows again.
For an instant, time stopped as their eyes met. Something flickered in hers. Uncertainty? Fear? Cord grabbed the rest of his clothes and stuffed them into his bag. He pulled out a clean shirt.
“I know exactly who I was with last night.”
Her words stopped him cold. He paused a long minute then turned to face her. “Are you sure?” He didn’t believe her and that bothered him. He could tell his doubt reached her, too, and he saw the hurt in her eyes.
“I don’t lie, Cord.”
He knew that, but a part of him couldn’t ignore the lessons he’d learned too hard in life. Women didn’t stick around and honesty was an illusion. She’d thought of him as another man. It didn’t matter that it was Rafe. Someone he may have been. What mattered was that it wasn’t him she’d been thinking of—the man he’d struggled so hard in life to become. Someone he was proud to be.
Anger and pain at her distance and betrayal tore through him. He grabbed his duffel and stalked toward the door.
Faith followed several feet behind, unsure what to say to stop him. “Cord, please, talk to me.” She stepped in to his path.
“About what?” He closed his eyes as if trying to calm the anger in his voice or shut her out, she wasn’t sure. “You’ve got what you wanted. The casino pictures. Excuse me, I need to get back to my work.”
