Emily and the Stranger (14 page)

"Follow me and we'll check each room." When she moved in front of him, he grasped her by the shoulders, halting her. "You follow me."

"Why?"

"Just in case I'm wrong about the intruder being long gone."

"Okay." Emily allowed Mitch to walk in front of her.

He flipped on light switch after light switch as they moved down the hallway, checking in the bedrooms and the bathroom before reaching the living room. Emily gasped and grabbed Mitch's sleeve.

"Oh, my heavens. Look at my living room!"

The cotton jabots that crowned twelve-over-twelve pane windows had been ripped. Two peach wingback chairs lay turned over on each side of the small trunk used as a coffee table. And the camelback sofa's green-and-cream print upholstery had been slashed in several places. The handmade hooked rug that covered a large area of the room was littered with sand, obviously hauled from the beach and deliberately dumped. An antique secretary's contents had been scattered. A pair of Staffordshire dogs lay broken on the wooden floor.

Mitch's gaze wandered around the room, slowly taking in all the random destruction. He sucked in his breath when he saw the message printed on the large mirror over the unused fireplace.

"'Don't ever see him again! He's the wrong man for you!'" Emily read the message aloud.

"Come on, Emily. Let's go back in the kitchen. I'll call the police while you make us some coffee."

He'd never felt so protective of a woman in his life. The thought that someone was harassing Emily made him want to kill. And knowing that his relationship with her had prompted her poetry-quoting admirer to become destructive made him more determined than ever to take care of her. Whoever was wreaking havoc in her life would have to answer to him.

When they walked into the hallway, Mitch placed his hand on Emily's shoulder. "After the police take a look at things here, do you want me to drive you over to spend the night with Nikki?"

"I'm not going to let anyone force me out of my own home. I'm staying here, and tomorrow I'll start cleaning up that horrible mess in the living room."

"Then I'll stay here with you tonight," he told her.

"Mitch, that isn't—"

"I'll sleep in the guest room."

"Thank you."

She smiled at him, obviously grateful for his concern, and that shy, sweet smile of hers turned him inside out in a way nothing and no one ever had.

The police came and went, giving Emily little hope that they would ever find her intruder, unless he struck again. And although he hoped he was wrong, Mitch didn't doubt that whoever was harassing Emily wouldn't give up easily. Was her mystery man only a jealous want-to-be-lover, or was there more to his warnings? Did he know who Mitch really was? If so, why hadn't he already told Emily?

"His phone calls and letters weren't threatening, until … until he found out about you," Emily said. "My soft-spoken secret admirer has become dangerous, hasn't he?"

Emily talked to Mitch briefly about what had happened and about her fears, then she told him she needed to be alone. He wanted to take her in his arms, to hold and comfort her, but she shut him out, and he felt he didn't have the right to intrude on her private thoughts.

Hours later, Mitch tossed and turned in the natural wicker bed in Emily's guest room. He'd listened to Emily stirring about in the adjoining room, and when she'd quieted, he'd tried to sleep, but sleep wouldn't come. His mind had shifted into overdrive—all he could think about was the possibility that someone posed a threat to Emily. But who? And why? Rod Simmons, her love-struck art student? Or Charles Tolbert, the guy she'd said she had been dating on and off for the past year? Or was it someone else? Someone who knew Mitch?

Hell! He might as well get up. He wasn't getting any rest this way.

Mitch flipped on the wood-and-brass bedside lamp sitting in the middle of the unfinished-pine nightstand. The long, wide windows, covered with wooden shutters, overlooked the front of the house, giving a clear view of the beach in the daytime.

He flopped down in the twig chair and propped his feet on the matching ottoman, both covered in a muted beige animal print. Rubbing his eyes and yawning, Mitch leaned back in the chair.

At first, he thought he was imagining the sound, but when he cleared his mind and listened carefully, he could make out the muffled cries. Emily's cries.

He jerked upright in the chair, his body tensing as he listened to her quiet little sobs. Was she crying into her pillow, trying to keep him from hearing her?

Standing, Mitch reached down to the foot of the bed, picked up his slacks and slipped into them. He opened the bedroom door and walked down the hall. Hesitating outside Emily's room, he listened at the door.

He knocked lightly. The crying stopped. He knocked again.

"Yes?"

"Emily, may I come in?" He grasped the doorknob.

"I—I guess so. Yes."

Mitch opened the door slowly, uncertain what to expect, unsure what he should do. The room was alive with light, soft light coming from several different lamps—a white, wrought-iron floor lamp placed beside a chaise longue, etched glass hurricane lamps flanking the bed and a tiny crystal boudoir lamp sitting on the dressing table.

Mitch took a tentative step into the room. Emily sat on the chaise longue. She stared at him, her eyes red and swollen, her face damp with tears.

"Please, come in, Mitch." She scooted to the edge of the chaise and stood. "Is there something wrong? Do you need anything?"

Did he need anything? Yes. He needed her. Was something wrong? Yes. He wasn't holding her in his arms.

"I heard you crying. I was worried," he said.

"I'm sorry if I woke you. I tried… It's just that I'm scared, and I don't want to be scared."

"You didn't wake me. I couldn't sleep."

"You're in a different house. A bed you're unaccustomed to sleeping in. I understand."

Mitch stared at her. She stood there looking like a lost child who only moments before had been crying for her mother. Only, Emily wasn't a lost child, and his instincts told him that if she'd been crying for anyone, it had been for him.

"I can stay with you." He saw the uncertainty in her eyes, the hesitation before she spoke.

"Mitch … I…"

"Wouldn't it be appropriate for friends to sit and hold each other, to comfort each other, to talk the night away if they wanted to?"

He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen anything as lovely as Emily Jordan standing there wearing a pair of dark-gold pajamas, the feminine contents of her lacy bedroom surrounding her.

He'd never seen so much lace. At the windows. On the tables. Covering the bed, creating a canopy with curtains that dropped down from the top of each bedpost. White and cream and ivory combined in a room that whispered the word
lady
ever so softly.

An ivory damask chaise by the windows basked in the moonlight. The wooden floors had been painted a plush cream and delicate striped wallpaper in shades of white and cream decorated the walls. Etched crystal lamps sat on each side of the bed, one on a round, lace-draped table and the other on a cherry Victorian bedside table. Watercolors that he felt certain Emily herself had painted hung in gilded frames, punctuating the walls in shades of palest pink, blue, lavender and green.

"There hasn't been a man in my bedroom since … since…" Emily held out her hand to him.

Her hand trembled. Damn! He wanted to sweep her up into his arms and lay her down in that big, lacy bed of hers and give her the kind of relief a night of lovemaking could provide for them both. But Emily wasn't asking for sex; she was asking for comfort.

God help him, he hoped he had the strength to give her what she wanted and needed, without demanding more.

Emily had tried not to cry, and when she'd failed, she'd tried to mask her sobs by crying into a pillow. Now she wondered if she'd wanted Mitch to hear her, if she'd subconsciously cried out for him to come to her.

He stood only a few feet away, wearing nothing but his unbuttoned slacks. The brown hair on his broad chest glistened like golden silk curls in the warm light of her bedroom. He looked so big and hard and totally male in the midst of all her feminine lace.

He didn't make a move toward her, standing rigid as a statue, as if he were afraid to reach out and touch her. Emily took a step forward, then another. Mitch waited for her to come to him. She raised her hand to his face, touching his cheek with her fingertips.

"Will you come and sit with me?" she asked. "Will you hold me in your arms? Will you spend the rest of the night talking to me?"

Every nerve in Mitch's body came to full alert. Control! Control! he told himself. Give her what she's asking for. Prove to her that you're the man she can count on. You need this woman as much as she needs you.

After lifting her off the floor and into his arms, Mitch carried her across the room. He sat down on the chaise, bracing his shoulders against the back, positioning her between his legs. Circling her arms, he clasped his hands across her waist. Emily leaned back, resting against his chest, her head on his shoulder.

Mitch kissed the side of her face, brushing his lips against her hair directly above her ear. "Talk to me, pretty lady. I'll listen to every word you say."

Closing her eyes, Emily breathed deeply, absorbing the feel of Mitch's strong arms holding her, his hard body protecting her. Turning her head, she buried her nose against his flesh, loving the clean, masculine smell of him. She kissed his shoulder. He tasted hot and salty and delicious.

"You aren't talking," he said.

Snuggling into his embrace, Emily sighed. "I can't ever remember feeling so safe, and so very special. Thank you, Mitch."

"And I can't ever remember looking forward to spending the night just talking to a beautiful woman." Mitch chuckled, and felt warm relief spread through him when he heard Emily's quiet laughter.

"Have you ever had a dream, Mitch? Something you wanted so very much?" she asked.

"Yeah. Once. A long time ago."

"Did your dream ever come true?" She rubbed her fingertips across his clasped hands, caressing his knuckles.

"In a way." Was now the right time to bare his soul and tell her about his past, as he'd planned on doing after their date last night? "I wanted to be a successful businessman and make a ton of money. I accomplished that goal, but I made a lot of mistakes along the way, and not only did I pay dearly for my mistakes, a lot of other people did, too."

Opening her eyes, she tried to turn around in his arms, but he held her in place, nuzzling her neck with his nose. "What about you, Emily, do you have a dream?"

"You don't want to tell me, do you? About what happened to your dream? Is what happened to you that painful?"

"I'll tell you everything, honey." He tightened his hold on her. "I had planned to tell you last night, but that was before we discovered someone had broken into your house. What I've got to tell you can wait another day. You don't need anything else to make you unhappy tonight."

"Have it your way. We'll talk only about happy things tonight." She held both of his hands. He turned her hands over, twining his fingers through hers.

"Is your dream something that makes you happy?" Mitch asked.

"Yes."

"Tell me."

"I want to publish my Hannah books. You know. I've told you about my little heroine, Hannah, whom I based on my Grammy. I've almost finished the first book, watercolors and charcoal sketches and the story itself."

"I think you'll sell your book," Mitch said. "I've seen your work, you know. You're very talented."

Emily sighed. "It's been my dream to write and illustrate children's books ever since I wasn't much more than a child myself."

"You really do love children, don't you?" He knew that many of her art students were children, a few of them physically and mentally handicapped. She often spoke about individual students. A little boy who liked to paint everything in his pictures various shades of red. A little girl who talked incessantly and giggled every time Emily scolded her. And always, there was a wistful look in Emily's eyes when she talked about children.

"That was my other dream." Emily willed the tears to stay inside, willed the pain not to come. "I've always wanted children of my own."

"Then someday—"

"I lost a baby."

Inadvertently, Mitch slipped their entwined hands down over Emily's flat stomach. She quivered. He gripped her hands tightly.

The pain in her voice was almost his undoing. She had lost a child when Ocean Breeze had collapsed and caught on fire. She had lost more than a husband that fateful morning in April five years ago. Both deaths weighed heavily on Mitch's conscience. If only he'd realized sooner what Randy was doing. If only…

"Do you want to tell me about the baby?" Mitch asked.

"No. Not tonight. Only happy talk. Remember?"

He remembered. "Tell me some more about your Hannah books, and about your Grammy."

Mitch held Emily in his arms for hours, talking a little, but mostly listening to her as she told him every detail of her Hannah books and countless stories of her life growing up with her beloved Grammy. He'd never spent a night just holding a woman, comforting her and loving her with only his thoughts.