She stopped just inside the broken door. The wide staircase loomed before her at the far end of the foyer. She stared upward. That’s where she’d lost her mind. If she had any chance of finding it, surely it would be there.
She walked slowly forward, stood at the bottom of the steps and looked up to the landing. A wisp of memory swirled tantalizingly just out of reach. She needed to go up there, see if she could find—
A hand grabbed her shoulder. She gasped, whirled and fought through the fog in her mind to recognize Phillip.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, smiling. “You seemed to be in a trance. I just wanted to be sure you were all right.”
She nodded. “I’m fine. I was only looking. Trying to recall.”
He frowned. “Recall what?”
“She has some temporary amnesia,” Dylan said, stepping up beside Phillip, his tone brusque, his dark eyes glowing like coals. Yes, there was definitely some animosity between them—at least on Dylan’s side.
“Amnesia?” Phillip repeated.
“I can’t remember…things.”
“She thinks her name is Elizabeth Dupard and the year’s 1911.”
Analise bit her lip, distressed that Dylan had exposed her so callously. In spite of his kindness in looking after her, she didn’t think she could trust him completely. There was something going on with him that she didn’t know about…but then, she didn’t know about much of anything.
She looked at him and found him watching Phillip as intently as he’d watched her. Had he told Phillip about her problem deliberately just to catch the man’s response? Why? What was going on between the two of them?
Phillip draped a protective arm about her shoulders and smiled down at her. The only response his touch evoked in her was mild surprise that she could look almost directly into his eyes. She was only a couple of inches shorter than he was. The feeling of looking at a man almost on a level was new, strange and a bit exhilarating. She’d always been so short, this sudden height gave her a feeling of power.
Appalled at the coldness of her thoughts, she lowered her gaze so he wouldn’t be able to read her thoughts.
“I’m not surprised something like this would happen,” Phillip said, his voice calm and reassuring.
“You’re not?” She looked up at him in shock. Was she finally going to get some answers?
“It’s this damned house.” He waved his free arm in an encompassing gesture. “She’s been acting strangely ever since she moved in here. She kept saying she felt as if she’d lived here before. She claimed to know where every piece of furniture should go. She let herself get obsessed with it. So now, a little bump on the head, and she’s invented a former resident for the house, taken on her name and personality—Elizabeth Dupard, a fictional woman who lived in 1911.”
She listened to his words in horror. Fictional? She—Elizabeth—had never lived, was just a creation of Analise’s imagination? How was that possible?
But all the evidence told her it was.
Difficult as it might be to believe she had invented herself, it did make sense, and nothing else had so far. In fact, as Phillip had spoken, she’d found a slightly blurred memory of taking pieces of furniture from the attic, positioning them just so, replacing missing items as closely as possible.
But how could none of her life as Elizabeth have happened when she remembered it so clearly? How could she recall a lifetime that didn’t exist and forget one that did? How could her heart ache with love for people who’d never lived?
“Well,” Phillip said, extending one hand to Dylan as he continued to clutch Analise with the other, “I certainly appreciate your taking care of Analise. Let me know how much the doctor bill was, and I’ll reimburse you.”
Phillip was dismissing Dylan. She didn’t want him to leave. She bit her lip as that odd need for him came over her again. But, she reasoned, even though she was unsure of him, uncomfortable with him, he was one of the few familiar parts of this world she’d awakened into. That explained why she didn’t want him to leave. Didn’t it?
One corner of Dylan’s mouth quirked up as he accepted Phillip’s proffered hand and shook it once, then released it quickly. “That’s not necessary. I have a long-standing relationship with Dr. Watkins. In fact, I promised him I’d check on her every four hours until tomorrow morning. That’s the only reason he let her come home rather than go to a hospital, and I wouldn’t feel right breaking my word to an old friend.”
A part of her relaxed, glad that Dylan wasn’t planning to leave her alone with Phillip. But another part was becoming irritated that the two men were talking about her as if she wasn’t there. Men did that, she knew, and women accepted it, but suddenly she didn’t like it.
Phillip tightened his arm about her. “Under the circumstances, she won’t be spending the night here. We’ll be going to our home in Leawood.”
A vague impression of a large, rambling structure took shape in her mind, a beautiful place where she’d never quite felt comfortable.
She twisted out of Phillip’s embrace and stood facing both of them. “No. I don’t want to go to your house. This is my home, and I’m going to stay here.” She surprised herself with the firmness of her actions, but Papa had always said she was pure pig iron beneath the flounces and ruffles.
Phillip reached for her again. She stepped backward, out of his reach.
“Analise, don’t be silly. My house was our home until six months ago. It’ll be a lot more convenient for everybody if you stay with me until you’re completely recovered from this accident. You don’t want to impose on Mr. Forrest.”
She didn’t like what he was saying, but it made sense. She was tired and scared and almost acquiesced, but she could find the answers only where she’d lost them—in her own home. And somehow she sensed that now, a hundred years later, she had the right to demand that she be allowed to do that, that she didn’t have to do what her husband ordered. It was a giddy, empowering feeling.
“No,” she said boldly. “I’m staying here.”
Phillip’s eyes blazed briefly with cold fire. She automatically took a step backward, away from the fury she anticipated from defying her husband. Ex-husband.
But he only smiled. “Very well. Then I’ll spend the night here and set my alarm for every four hours. We don’t need to inconvenience your neighbor.”
She relaxed then jumped when Dylan spoke. “Since you’ll be staying here, I’d better get my tools and fix that door. I’m the one who broke it.” He strode away through the broken door before Phillip could protest, as she felt certain he meant to do.
When he was gone, leaving her alone in the house with Phillip, her anxiety returned in full force. That was absurd, she knew. Dylan was only Analise’s neighbor whereas Analise had trusted Phillip enough to marry him even if they were now divorced. Surely that counted for something. Why didn’t she want to be alone with him now? He’d shown that he didn’t have Blake’s harsh temper.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Your friend will be making a lot of noise with that door.” His hand touched the small of her back. “We can go get a late lunch.”
Why did he have to keep touching her?
“I’m not hungry. We stopped and had a sandwich on the way home.” It was the truth, but she’d have said it even if it hadn’t been. She moved away from him, headed toward the kitchen. “Would you like me to make something for your lunch?”
“I could use a cup of coffee.” If he noticed the rebuff, he gave no indication.
In the kitchen she went to the stove and stood staring at it stupidly. “I don’t know how to light the fire.”
Phillip came up behind, reached around her and turned a knob. Flame leapt from a front burner. She gasped, jerked backward, then laughed nervously. “It’s a gas range with a pilot light, isn’t it?” she said, retrieving the memory. “It startled me.”
He gave her a long, searching look then picked up the kettle Dylan had used earl
ier to boil water for tea and held it under the faucet.
“Where’s the coffeepot?” she asked. “I thought you wanted coffee.’
Coffeepot’s over here, sweetheart.” He indicated a white machine with a glass pot that didn’t looking anything like Mama’s old battered black pot. “I thought we could just have some instant right now.”
Instant coffee. A picture came to mind. Bitter stuff with foam on top. “I prefer hot tea,” she said.
Light flared deep inside Phillip’s pale, penetrating eyes. Slowly he turned off the faucet. “You remembered your preference for tea,” he said.
Analise realized with a start that her memory was important to him too. He was as dubious as Dylan about her loss, as anxious to know how much she recalled.
What did she know—what had Analise known?—that concerned both these men?
She sank down in one of the chairs, decided not to tell him her memories of hot tea came from sitting at Mama’s table, drinking tea and talking.
A gray sadness washed over her as she forced herself to face reality. Mama and Papa and Elizabeth had never existed, were just characters she’d created the way she’d done when she was a little girl and played house with Rachel.
She clenched her hands in her lap, reminded herself sternly that Rachel was part of the imagined life too. They’d never played with dolls or giggled about the way John Barker’s voice was changing or whispered about her approaching marriage to Blake.
She’d made it all up.
Because her life as Analise was so horrible she wanted to forget it? She was divorced from an attractive man who turned her blood to sawdust. She’d never known a divorced woman. Something horrible must have happened to cause Phillip to divorce her.
And somehow she was involved with Dylan. She couldn’t deny that, though she had no idea of the nature or the extent of that involvement. Somehow he was a part of her life, apparently a secret part…and no matter how much she was drawn to him, that didn’t sound good. The more she learned about Analise, the more unsavory her life seemed. Elizabeth’s life was much more simple and appealing…and seemed much more real.
Chapter Three
A loud pounding startled her from her reverie. Dylan, she realized. Repairing the front door. The door he’d broken down to get to her that morning.
Phillip frowned, compressing his lips in irritation, but he made no comment as he placed a steaming cup of tea in front of her and sat down across the table. “I’ve been worried about you, Analise. I need to know exactly what happened.” His voice was silky smooth, his expression veiled and expectant.
“I don’t know.” She sipped her tea, another product of the paper squares. It didn’t taste like Mama’s, but it was palatable. “I woke up at the foot of the stairs early this morning and...didn’t recognize myself in the mirror.”
Phillip questioned her gently, skillfully probing. She’d been right. Like Dylan, he showed a decided interest in the recent events of her life. She couldn’t answer most of his questions, could only keep repeating I don’t know.
She wasn’t sure she would have told him even if she could remember. Until she could figure out exactly what the two men wanted to know, why they wanted to know it, she might be wise to keep any returning memories to herself. Their prying irritated and frightened her.
Dylan burst into the room clutching a hammer.
Analise leapt up, shoving her chair back so fast it fell. She tripped over it, stumbled backward, and Dylan caught her, clutched her securely against him.
A brief rush of panic overwhelmed her, and she grabbed his arms to pry them away. But the adrenaline that surged through her veins seemed to give her a preternatural awareness of every inch of Dylan that touched her—his chest against her back, his hand at her waist, his fingers on her arm. She made no move to get away from him.
He held her a second too long and eternities too briefly.
“You okay?” he asked, releasing her. Fortunately he didn’t wait for an answer. She wasn’t sure she could have given one. “I’m finished with the door. It’s not perfect, but it’ll keep the rain out.” He set her chair upright, and she sank into it, her legs shaky. Again she had to ask herself what was wrong with her that she thrilled to this stranger’s touch but cringed from that of a man to whom she’d been married.
“Thanks.” Phillip spoke to Dylan, but his gaze was on her.
She looked down, lifting her cup to her lips in an effort to hide her face which might betray her inappropriate feelings.
“No problem. Can I talk you out of a cup of coffee?”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Phillip’s thin lips turn down in a scowl, sensed he was going to refuse. “Of course!” she exclaimed before he had a chance to speak.
Phillip glared at her, but she stood her ground. No matter what year it was, surely good manners hadn’t changed that much.
Dylan went to the cupboard, took down a cup and poured in the water, then added crystals from a jar. “Analise tells me you’re a lawyer,” he said, taking a seat at one end of the table.
Phillip was an attorney. A successful businessman like Blake. A chill shivered through the room, surrounding her as a memory slid around the periphery of her mind, just out of reach.
“Oh?” Phillip raised one eyebrow at Dylan’s statement. “When did she tell you that?”
Analise recalled her earlier assumption that Phillip and Dylan knew each other. That didn’t seem to be the case, yet Dylan’s enmity toward Phillip was obvious, and Phillip seemed to be developing the same feeling for Dylan.
“She told me before the accident and her memory loss,” Dylan answered.
“How interesting,” Phillip said. “She didn’t tell me anything about you.”
Dylan shrugged, either ignoring or not hearing the challenge in Phillip’s tone. “Not much to tell. I’m a commercial artist with a firm in Kansas City, and I live next door.”
Phillip nodded. “Kansas City. So what brings you all the way up here to this little town?”
“The uncommercial side of my art. I paint as a hobby. The corner bedroom upstairs has perfect light, the house has atmosphere and the town’s quiet. Suits my artistic needs. That’s why I heard Analise scream this morning. I was out on the front porch painting the approaching storm.”
Phillip leaned forward, hands wrapped around his cup. “You must have moved in recently. That house was vacant when Analise bought this one. As I recall, the owner died intestate. The estate’s been tied up in probate for years.”
Dylan smiled tightly. “You’re absolutely correct. I’m renting from the court-appointed trustee.”
Analise averted her eyes from them and focused on the floral pattern on her cup. Was she the reason for the unexplained antagonism between the two men? If Dylan had moved in after Analise, had he moved there to be close to her? Did he feel the same tingle at her touch that she felt at his, the inexplicable, almost-tangible connection between them?
The possibility was getting stronger that she’d forgotten Analise’s life because she wanted to, because there were elements of that life she didn’t want to remember. But even as the thought crossed her mind, an urgency to know filled her. However distasteful Analise’s life might have been, she had to remember it.
When she’d walked into the house and stood looking up the stairs, she’d known there was something up there, something important, something her mind had almost grasped before Phillip startled her. She had to get up there and find…she wasn’t sure what, but she had to find out if it was still where she’d hidden it. If it wasn’t there, she’d have to—
“Analise, what are you doing?” Phillip demanded, and she realized she had risen from the chair and was moving toward the stairs.
She stopped and looked at him, at Dylan, at the way they watched her every movement. She was trapped—hemmed in by the two of them and locked out of her own mind. She had to get away, be alone with her thoughts and sort through them.
“I’m very tire
d. I must ask you to excuse me.” As she said it, she realized she was totally exhausted. The day’s events had depleted her, drained her energy.
Dylan pushed back his chair and stood. “I’ll be over to check on you in a couple of hours.”
“There’s no need for that. I’ll be here.” Phillip moved to stand beside her, sliding his arm about her waist, establishing his claim to her, shutting out Dylan.
Dylan nodded curtly, turned on his heel and strode from the room. She and Phillip followed him to the front door. Phillip took down the key ring from the hook beside the door where she habitually hung it and locked up behind Dylan. She stared at the closed door, distressed and relieved that her enigmatic neighbor was gone.
“He seems awfully interested in you,” Phillip observed.
The idea sent a ridiculous thrill through her. But she quelled it, unsure if Dylan’s interest was personal or something else—unsure whether she should be happy or frightened if it was personal. “He’s been very helpful,” she replied.
Wishing desperately that Phillip would leave too, she turned and started up the stairs. He followed close behind.
“I know you never take tub baths because of your water phobia,” he said, “but I think a good, hot soak might be just the thing, relax your sore muscles.”
The breath froze in her lungs at the picture he painted.
She tried to gasp, to breathe, couldn’t. Then, as suddenly as the discomforting sensation had come, it vanished.
How strange. Why would the idea of being in a tub of water terrify her? Of course she took baths in a tub. She and her family weren’t uncivilized folks who went down to the river to bathe.
“You go change, and I’ll run a bath for you,” Phillip continued when she didn’t protest.
“All right,” she agreed uneasily. She went on to her bedroom, changed into a robe and returned to the bathroom, still feeling oddly disturbed at the thought of sinking into a few inches of water.
The bathroom—her mother’s pride, since not everybody had one inside the house—looked much the same except someone had arranged a wall display of things she normally didn’t see on a wall—a paper fan, a shaving brush, a half-open straight-edged razor, a curling iron and some hairpins. Odd as it was, she had to admit that the odd grouping of familiar objects had a certain appeal.
Shifting Shadows Page 4
