Deception (28 page)

She put her arms around his neck, eager for the kiss that would start the heavy fire in her body. She hungered for this man, craved him with a physical need that bordered sometimes on pain.

He eased her back onto the large sofa before the fire. His hands and mouth robbed her of any will, leaving her helpless to deny him anything he requested. When she wanted him this badly, she lost all contact with the world outside of him. There was only his generous body and the need to bond with him.

The sound of something tapping lightly at the door brought them both up. Breathing heavily, Clay listened. The fire crackled softly, and there was the sound of a soft giggle.

“Those damn kids,” he whispered. He dropped a kiss on Connor’s forehead, but he sat up.

Inching out from beneath him, Connor leaned against the arm of the sofa. She rehooked her bra and pulled her shirt together. They’d lost their minds, making love on the sofa. They weren’t teenagers, they were supposed to be adults … people who thought their actions through.

“I’m sorry, Clay,” she whispered, swinging her legs around him so that she could stand up.

“For what?” He caught her hand and kissed it. “We aren’t doing anything wrong, Connor. Or at least, it shouldn’t be wrong for me to want to make love to you. My wife is dead. It isn’t like I’m cheating on her.”

She leaned down and brushed her lips across his forehead. “I know that, but you also know there are other things to consider.”

Circling her hips with an arm, Clay pulled her into his lap. “Any other woman would be whining and complaining because my children interfered with her good time. Here you are, lecturing me that we have to be more conscious of how what we do will affect my kids. I love you, Connor. I do.” He kissed her and then boosted her back to her feet. “Let’s adjourn to your room. We can lock the door and have some privacy.”

Connor grinned. She picked up the tray of mugs. “Let me check the turkey. Willene will have me in that roasting pan if I let it burn. I’ll join you in a minute.”

Night hung heavy outside the bedroom window. Connor stretched tentatively, her fingers trailing over the empty side of the bed where Clay had lain. Half-asleep, she assessed the physical damage that their savage lovemaking would cost her in the morning. There would be definite bruises on her buttocks where Clay had gripped her in the throes of his own release. She smiled lazily. “Merry Christmas,” she whispered to herself. They might not have left the premises of Oaklawn, but Clay had transported her to a world of sensual fulfillment that she’d never known existed. Sometimes tender, sometimes wild and fierce, as he’d been tonight, Clay was the key to a land of indescribable pleasure. Connor sighed and rolled over on her side, feeling again the remnants of their pleasure.

She checked the bedside clock. The luminous dial showed three
A.M
. Clay had gone downstairs to arrange the children’s Christmas surprises under the tree. It was going to be a wonderful Christmas, the best in her life, Connor thought, as she snuggled deeper beneath the covers. Her eyes closed and she was drifting toward sleep when she heard the noise that had awakened her.

It was the sound of the door latch working.

Clay! Connor wiggled with pleasure. She loved sleeping beside him, his body so lean and hard and warm.

“Clay?” she whispered.

There was no answer.

“Clay?” Hope faded from her voice.

From the sitting room came a soft click.

Connor’s eyes opened. Still cocooned in the web of sleep, she looked around her bedroom. The sheers at the window were luminous white in the moonlight. She could see the antique footboard of the bed. Nothing was amiss. She closed her eyes, reaching for the soft dreams of Clay and the future.

Suddenly her heart was racing. There was the sound of someone else breathing in her room. Instinctively she knew it wasn’t Clay. Awake, Connor didn’t move. She listened. It was there, the soft exhalation of breath, as if someone stood over her watching her sleep.

Terrified, she opened her eyes. Dark eyes in a pale oval face met hers. The woman was standing at the foot of the bed, staring at her. Transfixed.

Heart pounding, Connor sat up, forgetting that she was nude beneath the covers.

The woman stared at her naked breasts, then whirled, long auburn hair and a long gown flying out behind her. She disappeared through the bedroom door.

“Shit!” Torn between terror and the need to confront the apparition, Connor grabbed a blanket, threw it around her shoulders, and ran after the woman. This time she’d get proof that someone else was at Oaklawn.

The door was open wide, and the landing outside the stairs was empty. Cursing softly under her breath, Connor pursued. Whoever the hell she was, she had no business standing over Connor’s bed in the middle of the night. She had no business at Oaklawn, as far as Connor knew. If only Clay had stayed with her a bit longer.

She was halfway down the long, narrow flight of stairs when she felt the knife blade slice into her foot. The pain was so sudden, so unexpected, that she lost control of her forward momentum.

Time slowed, almost stopping, as Connor felt herself spin head first down the steps. She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. Hands held in front of her to break her fall, she hit first on her shoulder and then tumbled.

Her body slammed into the hardwood floor of the hallway. Darkness moved in on the edge of her vision. She tried to lift her head and call for help, but she was paralyzed.

There was the sound of a soft giggle. Connor twisted her eyes to the left, up the stairs. She saw the hem of a long white gown, then the body and finally the head of the young woman who’d stood over her bed. She held the bloody knife in her hand. As she looked at Connor, she giggled and then turned and fled back up the stairs.

She’d hidden in her suite. She was still there.

Connor struggled against the darkness that surged out to claim her. She was afraid, terrified that if she gave in, the girl would come back down the stairs and finish her off. She opened her mouth and tried to call Clay’s name, but no sound would come from her. At last, she could fight no longer and darkness swept in.

Connor opened her eyes. The large blond head bent over her was unfamiliar. She blinked and looked harder. When Harlan Sumner turned his face to her, she screamed.

“Do you always have that effect on your patients, Harlan?” Clay asked from the corner of the room. He walked forward, into Connor’s line of vision. “Connor,” he whispered softly, picking up her hand. “Everything’s fine, don’t worry. You’re safe.”

“Step back,” Harlan ordered, as he reached into his black bag and drew out a pencil-shaped light. “I’m going to look at your eyes,” he told Connor as he lifted each lid and shined the light in her pupils.

“Yes,” he said slowly, “yes, the dilation and contraction are good.”

“What happened?” Connor asked. Her throat was sore, as if someone had tried to strangle her. Every muscle in her body felt like she’d been kicked. She shifted, wanting to sit up, but Harlan put his hand on her chest and held her flat.

“Stay still just a bit longer,” he said. “Nothing’s broken, but I want to check out a few more things before I give you a clean bill of health. You’re a lucky woman.”

Connor looked around. She was in her room, beneath her covers. Harlan and Clay were the only ones with her. Weak daylight hovered outside the window. It was very early morning.

“What happened?” she asked again.

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Clay said. He eased to the side of the bed where he could sit and hold Connor’s hand. “When I found you at the bottom of the steps, I thought you were dead.” He lifted her cold fingers and pressed them to his lips.

Fragments of the night came back to Connor. Her eyes opened wider. “She was in my room,” she said urgently. “I went to chase her and I stepped on something sharp on the stairs. I lost my balance and fell.”

Across Connor’s prone body, Harlan looked at Clay. “That’s where all the blood came from, the cut on her foot.”

“What were you doing with a knife?” Clay asked. His face was pale, his eyes tight with worry.

“I didn’t have one,” Connor said. It was coming back to her. “I woke up because I thought I heard something. It was the door latch, but I thought maybe it was …” She drifted to a stop, unwilling to speak of personal matters in front of Harlan.

“I drifted back to sleep, and I had the strangest sensation someone was staring at me. So I opened my eyes, and there she was, at the foot of the bed.”

“Who?” Clay and Harlan asked.

“I don’t know who she was. I’ve never seen her before in my life. She was pale, with long hair. And she had on this strange white nightgown, like she’d escaped from a movie set.”

“She was just standing at the foot of the bed?” Harlan’s skepticism was obvious.

“I didn’t give her a chance to do anything. I jumped up and started chasing her.” Connor felt her temper begin to elevate. She shifted and was sorry for the movement. Pain winged through her body.

“Better try to stay as still as you can,” Harlan said. “You beat the hell out of yourself. I still don’t know how you avoided breaking your silly neck.”

“Harlan!” Clay snapped.

“Tell us more about your nocturnal visitor,” Harlan said.

Connor ignored him and looked, instead, at Clay. He was paying strict attention, and he was worried. “She turned and ran out of the room, and I thought she went down the stairs, so I went after her. But about halfway down I stepped on that knife. I lost my balance and fell the rest of the way.”

Clay gently rubbed Connor’s hand between his own. He didn’t say anything.

“I hate to be the one to tell you, but there wasn’t a knife,” Harlan said, not hating it a bit.

“It was on the step. I can feel my foot. It’s been cut.”

“That much is true, but there wasn’t any knife.” Harlan started to put his medicines back in his black bag. “Since you’re talking clearly, I feel certain you’re going to be okay.” He looked at his brother. “Don’t let her sleep for the next twelve hours. Talk with her, play cards, do whatever you have to to keep her awake.”

“I will.” Clay stood up. He looked at Connor. “Let me walk Harlan out, and I’ll be back.”

The two men went to the living room. “Will she be okay?” Clay asked softly. In her room, Connor strained to hear them.

“She wasn’t seriously injured in the fall. How long has she been suffering from nerves?”

“Connor? Nerves?” Clay was puzzled.

“You think it’s normal that she sees women standing over her bed? Unless you’ve got one of your mistresses stashed somewhere in the house, she’s hallucinating.” Harlan laughed. “Or she’s taking something.”

“Look,” Clay’s voice was angry, “I don’t know what Connor saw, but she doesn’t ‘take things,’ and she doesn’t hallucinate.”

“And neither did Talla,” Harlan shot back angrily. “If you’d paid a little more attention to what she did and didn’t take, she might be alive today.”

“Shut up, Harlan!” Clay hissed. “You’re a total fool!”

The angry whispers became indistinguishable as the two men closed the door and started down the stairs. In her bed, Connor listened as if she were someone else. There was no room for thinking or reasoning, there was only room for pain that swelled and pushed at her skin as if it wanted to burst out. She closed her eyes. “Connor?”

Clay’s voice teased at her, calling her back from the blackness, the peace. She tried to avoid him.

“Connor?” There was an edge of panic in his voice. Connor heard it and reluctantly responded. She opened her eyes.

“What?”

“I brought you some coffee.” He was sitting on the bed and he lifted the mug from the coffee table. “Willene made it just the way you like it. She’s worried sick about you.”

“I want to sleep.” Escape, that was a better word. She wanted the deep, velvety depths of the blackness where she didn’t have to remember or feel or think.

“Harlan said to keep you awake. It’s the blow to your head.” Clay’s voice was apologetic, worried. “I can’t let you sleep.”

“Concussion,” Connor said. She knew enough about accidents to know that. Wearily she opened her eyes and pushed herself up in the pillows. Everything hurt. She took the coffee and obediently sipped it.

“I saw that woman, Clay. I don’t know who she is or what she was doing in your home, but she was here.”

Clay took a deep breath. “I heard you fall, Connor. I was there practically before you hit the floor. There was no one else. Your foot was gashed open, but there was no knife. Where could she have gone?”

“She was hiding in my room.” Connor felt her jaw tighten.

“I carried you straight to your room. There was no one there.”

“You just didn’t see her, Clay. I missed her, too, when I chased her. She never went down the stairs. She was hiding up here.” Connor forced her aching eyes to look around the familiar bedroom. The woman had found a hiding place somewhere in the suite. Most probably the sitting room.

“I promise you I’ll search every inch of your rooms to see if I can find that knife,” Clay said. “But you promise me that you won’t worry. There is a chance you were dreaming, Connor. That happens sometimes. Some dreams are so real you’d swear they really happened.”

Connor listened with growing aggravation to his attempts to soothe her. She wasn’t some frightened woman who was afraid of things that went bump in the night. And she didn’t need placating.

“I can see by the square of your jaw that I’m only making you angrier,” Clay said. “Shall I carry you downstairs? The kids will be up any minute. And by the way, Merry Christmas.” He leaned forward and kissed her lips. “When I saw you lying on the floor, I thought you were dead. I wanted to die. I couldn’t believe that fate would be cruel enough to take you, too.”

Connor felt her heart constrict. Without meaning to, Clay had called up the image of Talla Sumner swinging heavily on the end of a lunge line in the barn. Connor would not have been the first young woman to die at Oaklawn.

“What is it?” Clay asked.

“I think I’m going to soak in a hot tub,” Connor said. “I’m so sore, maybe it will help.”