Don't Close Your Eyes (2 page)

“Their throat is an open tomb,” a voice whispered caressingly in her ear as Tamara’s slender body jerked grotesquely in its death throes.

The arm released Tamara. She fell in a heap, still twitching, her eyes wide, her blood soaking the dirt. The figure kneeled beside her and tucked a note into the fold of her sweater. Then it stood, bowed in a grotesque imitation of servitude, and wafted silently back into the dark, swaying forest.

Rain had begun to fall when the dog returned five minutes later. It loped toward Tamara, then abruptly stopped, dropping the stick. It whimpered unhappily. Finally it warily approached the body of the woman who earlier had greeted it so joyously. When it smelled blood, the hair on its back stood up and it crouched, half-crawling to Tamara. It stared at her with warm amber eyes, the smiling look gone from its face. Gently, almost reverently, it lay down and stretched its sleek neck across the gaping slash in hers, protecting her from further harm. As rain poured, the dog howled mournfully into the lonely night.

SUNDAY MORNING

Natalie slowly opened her eyes. Morning sun filtered dimly through delicate willow-patterned curtains. A beautiful green coverlet lay over her drowsy body. She drew a deep, lazy breath, then shot up in bed, her dark gaze frantically searching for the clock. Nine! She was due at Anicare an hour ago. She was on the Sunday morning shift. What had happened to the alarm?

Reality rushed back. She closed her eyes in relief and leaned back against the pillows. She wasn’t at Anicare because she was officially on vacation—on vacation from her job, on vacation from Kenny Davis. She was back in Port Ariel in her old room and unless her nose deceived her, she smelled bacon and eggs frying.

Natalie stretched, yawned, considered going back to sleep for a few minutes, then thought of the breakfast being prepared for her. Under normal circumstances breakfast consisted of a bagel or an English muffin eaten on the run.

She was swinging her legs out of bed when her father yelled, “Natalie, breakfast! Hurry up before I eat it all!”

She smiled wryly. He’d been saying the same thing since her mother left twenty-three years ago when Natalie was six. He’d always seemed to think cooking breakfast for her could make up for any emotional trauma—a runaway mother, a faithless lover.

“Be right there, Dad,” she called, looking around the room for her robe. It lay on the white bedroom chair, a beautiful splash of pale green-and-pink silk. She wished desperately she had brought another robe. She’d grabbed this one be

cause it fit neatly into the suitcase, but just looking at it caused her pain. She’d been so touched when she’d opened the package last Christmas morning and found the exquisite kimono-style robe she’d admired in a store a month before. She didn’t think Kenny had been paying attention.

Tears pressed behind her eyes. “Stop it,” she told herself firmly. “You’re not going to sit around weeping and wailing all day.”

She shrugged hurriedly into the robe and brushed her long, black hair back into a ponytail that hung halfway to her waist. A close inspection in the mirror showed that her large dark brown eyes—the eyes with the slight almond slant she’d inherited from her Eurasian mother—showed tiny red lines. She reached for the Visine. Just four margaritas last night at Panache with Lily Peyton and now she had bloodshot eyes. Four was over her limit. After her second, though, it had seemed so good to see Lily again she didn’t want the evening to end. After the third, she’d reached the maudlin stage and began describing in what she now realized was excruciating detail the demise of her relationship with Kenny Davis and how she’d come back to Port Ariel “just for a couple of weeks” to get her bearings. Natalie shook her head. What a thrilling night for Lily, but she’d understand.

“Everything is going to be ice-cold if you don’t get out here,” Natalie’s father threatened.

“Coming?” Natalie rushed from her bedroom into the roomy country kitchen filled with morning light. Sunshine bounced off the copper bottoms of cookware hanging above an island range, and plants cascaded from pots sitting around the many windows. Exercising his amateur interest in architecture, Andrew St. John had designed the house for his bride Kira and had it constructed on a beautiful piece of land running down to Lake Erie. Natalie had always loved it. She thought it reflected her father’s personality—big, strong, open. The place was built of solid stone to stand up to the heavy northern winds, and glass expanses showed off the spectacular lake view. When she’d first left home and begun

living in apartments, she’d felt as if she couldn’t get her breath.

“Sorry, Dad,” she said, taking her seat and picking up a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice. “I’m not used to being served breakfast.”

“That boyfriend of yours not willing to cook a simple meal now and then?” Andrew asked, scooping up scrambled eggs.

Natalie set down her glass, groaning silently. Her father had never liked Kenny Davis with his golden blond hair, movie star features, and easy charm. “He’s too slick,” Andrew declared after one brief encounter. “I don’t trust him.” She’d dismissed her father’s assessment. What was it based on? she asked herself then. Nothing but the fact that Kenny was handsome. Now it appeared that Andrew had been right—Kenny wasn’t trustworthy. She wasn’t ready to capitulate to Andrew’s judgment, however. As angry as she was with Kenny, Natalie still felt compelled to defend him. “Kenny is very busy, Dad. He is a brilliant veterinarian,” she said as Andrew set a plate heaped with food in front of her.

“Yes, a vet, not an M.D.”

“Dad, I’m a vet.”

“Who should have been an M.D.”

Natalie sighed. This was an old argument. Old and impossible for her to win. Years ago Andrew had decided his daughter would become a surgeon like him. She’d balked. She had wanted to be a veterinarian since she was twelve, and she’d done exactly as she pleased. Andrew had not been happy about her career choice. He hadn’t been happy about the most important romantic involvement of her life, either.

“Dad, I love animals and I love being a vet,” she said patiently. “And as for Kenny, he didn’t cook breakfast for me and I didn’t cook breakfast for him. Anicare is the biggest animal clinic in Columbus. We were both on the run.” She was determined not to belittle Kenny in front of her father even if he was the reason she’d dragged her hurt and embarrassed self back to Port Ariel.

Her mind drifted to three days ago when she’d come home

early. Walking in on Kenny passionately having sex in their bed had destroyed an already eroding relationship. She’d suspected infidelities, but suspecting and actually seeing were different. She’d never felt such shock as she had when confronted by the sight of Kenny in flagrante delicto. She’d stood frozen in the doorway until the sweating pair finally noticed her.

“Natalie!” Kenny had exclaimed, his blue eyes flying wide beneath his tousled hair. “This isn’t—”

“What it seems?” she asked, amazed by her calm voice when her entire body seemed to be quivering. “What is it?”

“Natalie, shut the door. Go downstairs and—”

“And let you continue?” She’d glared at the flushed young redhead wearing diamond stud earrings and nothing else. “I’ve seen you at the clinic. You have that white poodle Snickers. What a ridiculous name! He has a horrible disposition.” Natalie couldn’t stop babbling as the reality of the situation fought for acceptance in her mind. “No wonder he’s always irritable. You drag him in constantly and there’s nothing wrong with him. Now I know the reason for your frequent visits.”

“Natalie, please don’t turn this into some ridiculous farce,” Kenny said in a controlled voice as the woman fumbled frantically for the sheet to cover herself. “We’ll talk later.”

“I think not,” Natalie had replied coldly. “I don’t think we will ever talk again.”

With that she had descended the stairs of the townhouse, crossed the small foyer, and walked outside. As soon as she closed the door behind her and heard the lock click, she remembered her purse. Her purse on the hall table holding her wallet and keys. The keys to Kenny’s condo as well as her car keys. She was not only stranded without money and transportation, she was also denied access to the place she’d called home for the past eight months.

Oh, dear God, she’d thought in despair. Could this get any worse? Humiliated, she had rung the doorbell repeatedly until a blazing-eyed Kenny swung open the door wearing

only an old pair of jeans. “Why are you doing this?” he’d demanded.

“My purse.” Natalie wanted to cry. Her throat was tight and the words grated. She blinked frantically. “Just give me my purse with my keys so I can leave. I’ll be back this evening to pack.”

“Nat—”

“My purse!”

He’d turned away from the door as tears spilled from her eyes. He retrieved the purse, handed it to her, and watched her stalk to her car.

She’d gone to a good restaurant not crowded at such an early hour, and cried in the restroom for a good twenty minutes. Then she’d applied a lot of powder around her red nose and swollen eyes and sat in the darkened bar for the next three hours. She felt like getting drunk, but the objective part of her knew oblivion wasn’t the answer. Instead she’d slowly sipped two small glasses of Chablis and wished she had a friend to talk to. For the first time she realized she had no really good friends in Columbus. Kenny had monopolized her time. No, she’d let him monopolize her time. She hadn’t made close friends here because they might interfere with her time with Kenny. Her friends were back home in Port Ariel. Her very best friend from childhood, Lily Peyton, was there. Suddenly the place Natalie grudgingly visited only twice a year was where she wanted to be more than anywhere in the world.

When she’d returned that evening, Kenny looked miserable. “Now you can explain,” she said.

“I can’t. I mean I don’t have a good explanation. I guess I just panicked. We’ve been in this semi-marriage situation for months and I got scared. Commitment. The old phobia.”

“Did you hear that on a morning talk show?” she’d asked scornfully.

“No. It’s the truth, Nat.”

“How many times, Kenny? How many times in the last eight months have you gotten scared and done something like this?”

“Never.”

He was lying. She’d stared at him for a moment and walked upstairs. He followed, watching her desolately as she began taking her clothes out of the closet. “Stay with me, sweetheart,” he said softly. “We love each other. We’ll get engaged.”

She had glared at him. “You’ve just told me you’re afraid of commitment, you spent the afternoon in bed with another woman, and now you’re asking me to marry you?”

“Yes. I’m serious.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” she’d snapped, throwing another blouse into the already overstuffed suitcase. “My father was right about you. I should have listened to him.”

“You did,” Kenny finally shot back furiously. “Your whole life is about defying him. I always thought half of your attraction to me was the fact that he couldn’t stand me.”

Now, sitting across the breakfast table from her father, Natalie wondered if Kenny was right. She gazed at Andrew with his husky build, his thick white hair, his piercing dark eyes. He’d lived in Port Ariel all his life and been an admired surgeon here for thirty years. The townspeople’s respect and affection for him only increased after his flighty wife Kira ran off to join, a California commune in the late seventies and left him with a young daughter to raise. He’d devoted himself to Natalie. She loved him. He loved her and clung too desperately, fearing he’d lose her just like he’d lost Kira. He was strict, unrelenting, smothering. He’d wanted her to be perfect. And docile. Natalie was anything except docile and his attempts to turn her into a sweet, spun-sugar concoction of a little girl only made matters worse. They’d argued incessantly since she was six. She’d never been able to please him. She’d never stopped trying.

“Are you thinking about Kenny?” Andrew asked abruptly.

“No,” Natalie answered truthfully.

“You won’t tell me why you’re really here, but I suspect you two had a real blowup.”

No, she hadn’t told him the truth behind her visit. It was too humiliating. Besides, she wasn’t sure she would not be

able to forgive Kenny and return to him. She didn’t want to give Andrew any more ammunition to dislike him if that were the case. Besides, she didn’t think she could discuss something so personal as Kenny’s infidelity with her father.

“Dad, I just wanted to spend some time back home.”

“Then why hasn’t Kenny called?”

“He did. Yesterday when you were out,” she said, feeling no necessity to tell him she’d slammed the phone down on him. This was none of Andrew’s business and she shot him a look that told him so.

He relented. “Eggs okay?”

“Great.” Except I don’t want them, Natalie thought. I’d rather have a bagel. I’m not used to all this heavy food in the morning.

Andrew was having no trouble with his. He ate like a lumberjack and never put on a pound. All the outside work he did, Natalie thought. He always had some project going. If he wasn’t improving his property, he was helping someone else.

“Try that bacon. Thick-sliced. Really good,” he said.

“I don’t eat meat.”

“A little meat isn’t going to kill you.”

“I don’t want to eat meat so please get off my back. After all, you don’t drink.”

“Alcohol is bad for you. Meat isn’t.” He looked up. “And speaking of alcohol and those bloodshot eyes of yours, did you have a wild time with Lily Peyton last night?”

Here we go, Natalie thought. Still the judgmental father chastising the forever-child. “We had fun, not a wild time. We went to Panache. I had alcohol and lived to tell.”

“Humph.” The famous, disapproving humph. “How is Lily?” Andrew asked. “Still got that store downtown?”

“It’s called Curious Things and doing very well. So is Lily.”

“A hellraiser. Her father let her get away with anything and her mother was too meek to object. I always wished you’d been closer to Tamara.”