Haunting Ellie (29 page)

Page after page she flipped through, and page after page she saw her face and her form, clothed and unclothed. She couldn’t help but smile, in spite of the mistakes he’d made. Her hips couldn’t possibly be that small or her breasts that large. Her smile wasn’t quite that wide, and her eyes didn’t sparkle quite that brightly.

But at least he had the red hooker boots right.

She turned one more page and saw herself again, lying in the middle of Jon’s bed with only a sheet draped across her hip. She slept peacefully, her eyes closed in slumber. And at the bottom he’d written,
Ellie, my love.

A
tear rolled down Elizabeth’s cheek.

“Now you know what I do in my spare time.”

She looked up at the man who stood in the doorway with a tray in his hands and coffee steaming
out of two big mugs. “You’re good, Jon. Really good. You could make money at this,” she said, and glancing around the room, added,
“if
you needed more money.”

“You really think I might have some talent?”

“I know so. I know tons of artists in Los Angeles and Hollywood who can’t hold a candle to you.”

Jon took the sketch pad from her hands and substituted it with a cup of coffee. “Want to see more?”

Elizabeth sipped at her coffee and nodded.

“Come on,” he said, taking hold of her fingers and drawing her up from the chair.

She followed behind him, still wrapped only in a blanket. He led her out of the bedroom and down the hallway to the far end of the house. He opened an arched door and mounted a narrow spiral staircase.

“Where are we going?”

“My favorite room in the house.”

“I thought we just left your favorite room.”

“I have favorite rooms for different things. I used to use my bedroom only for sleeping. That wasn’t very high on my list of things to do when you crawled into my bed.”

Elizabeth’s heart skipped a beat, and the next one reverberated in her ears. Lord, the man walking up the stairs in front of her made her body do a lot of strange and wonderful things.

The stairway was dark, and suddenly Elizabeth saw light ahead. They stepped into a round, stonewalled room with many long, narrow windows. And she remembered. “I’ve watched the lights in this room at night. All night.”

“That’s when I do my best work.” He set the tray on his workbench and picked up the second mug of coffee. “Take a look around.”

While Elizabeth roamed the room, Jon sat on a stool in front of the window where he’d sat many nights and watched the lights in the hotel. But this morning he watched Elizabeth up close, realizing all the mistakes he’d made when he’d sketched the pictures and molded the clay. Her cheekbones were a little higher, a little more well defined. Her shoulders more broad, her breasts fuller. He turned his hands over to look at his palms, and he smiled. Yes, they were made for each other.

“Is this the chaise in those pictures?” Elizabeth asked, and Jon could hear the lilt of laughter in her deep, sexy voice.

“The one and only. Care to give it a try?”

“Sounds tempting, but...” She walked across the room, her grace making her look as if she were floating. She caressed her fingers over the clay figures of a bear and two cubs, frolicking together in a grass-and wildflower-strewn meadow. Head still bent, she looked up at him through long black lashes, the smile on her face hidden behind a touch of sadness. “Are these the ones?”

Jon nodded. “There’s a whole sketch pad full of them. An entire summer of watching and studying and learning their habits.”

Elizabeth picked up the pad and thumbed through a few pages. “Do you do this for all your work?”

“Not always. Only when something catches my interest.”

“Like me?”

“Like you.”

She smiled, and Jon realized his sketches hadn’t caught the true depth of her emotion. He’d have to begin again and fill another entire pad.

She picked up one of the muffins Jon had placed on the tray and nibbled at it as she roamed further around the room. The blanket slipped slightly from her shoulder as she reached for a bronze on one of the shelves. Again he saw his mistake: he’d drawn a well-defined shoulder, square, pronounced, the bones too prominent. Her shoulders were rounder and smoother, like the hips he’d held when they’d made love.

“You do bronzes, too?”

Jon nodded again. “The clay’s only for making the molds. The bronze is the finished product.”

“You sell them?”

“Does it seem that hard to believe?”

“No, but you never mentioned it. Why?”

“It’s a secret.”

“Is there something special I have to do to make you divulge the information?” she asked, and slowly, ever so slowly, she glided across the floor and stood right between his legs. The blanket draped her like a stole,
just off her shoulders and gathered together with one hand below the soft, full creaminess of her breasts. He had a strong desire to pull the blanket away, but she offered her lips in exchange, softly, tenderly.

“There’s something special, all right. In fact, I think you’ve already figured it out. But I need you to do it again—just to be sure.”

She stepped back slightly, her fingers tracing a
straight line over his skin, from his lips to the buckle of his belt. “Am I on the right track?”

He smiled.

She let the blanket slide away.

What a grand and glorious day, Elizabeth thought, as she set foot on the street in front of Dalton House. The sun shone high in the bright blue sky, and the temperature must have been at least a degree over freezing because water dripped from the icicles hanging off the eaves of every building lining the road. To top all that, she’d fallen in love, and what could be better than that?

Yes, it was definitely a grand and glorious day, but Elizabeth knew she had hell to pay for having had a grand and glorious night.

“Where in tarnation have you been?” Alex bellowed, the moment she stepped through the hotel door. Elizabeth grinned and Alex turned away, pacing the hardwood floor, his hands clasped tightly behind his back. “No, don’t answer that. I saw you and that big oaf out in the street last night. I imagine everyone in town knows what the two of you were up to.”

“They can guess.
You
can guess,” Elizabeth said with a devilish smile, “but it’s all personal and private, and I’m not telling a soul.”

He stomped back and forth, back and forth, making
a point of letting every one of his footsteps be heard.

Elizabeth sat down on the stairs and waited for his anger to subside. She’d already learned it could be a slow process, but nothing, she promised herself, was going to spoil the day.

Finally, Alex stopped smack in front of Elizabeth and crossed his arms over his chest. “I warned you about those Winchesters. They take sweet young things like you and spoil them.”

“The same way you spoiled Amanda?”

Alexander’s jaw tightened. “It’s not the same thing. We were engaged.”

“Do you regret what you did?” she asked, already knowing the answer but wanting to prove a point.

“I don’t regret anything I did. I loved her.”

“It wasn’t all that many hours ago that you told me I should go to Jon. In fact, you said he loved me.”

“That was a lack of judgment on my part. He’s a Winchester.”

“There’s only one Winchester in this town who deserves your revenge.”

Alex stopped short in his pacing and stood over Elizabeth, glaring down with fire in his eyes. “Did that buzzard hurt you?”

Elizabeth shook
her head. “Jon came to the rescue just in time.”

“See? It’s just as I said. You need a man around to take care of you.”

“Even if that man’s a Winchester?”

Alex threw his hands in the air. “I don’t want to hear any more talk about that big oaf. I’d rather
know if you learned anything new last night—anything that might help me get out of here.”

“Possibly.”

“Well, spill it, woman!”

Elizabeth laughed. It didn’t seem right to tease, but Alex had tortured her with his antics from the moment she’d moved into the hotel, and it seemed only fair to give him a taste of what it felt like to be toyed with. “You’ve waited a hundred years; I think you can give me time to take a bath.”

“Thunder and tarnation!”

Alex disappeared and less than a second later the chandelier began to sway.
Ten minutes,
an invisible Alexander barked.
That’s all you’ve got. If you’re not out of the tub, I’m coming in to talk.

“Twenty?”

Fifteen! Not a minute more.

oOo

Elizabeth sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed, her hair wrapped in a towel, her body bundled in a white terrycloth robe she’d bought at the Beverly Hills Hotel, the frivolous place she’d checked into the moment she’d checked out of the hospital. She’d squandered nearly a year’s worth of savings pampering herself after the earthquake. It was decadent, reckless, and fun. She’d met dozens of other misplaced and unfortunate people, and it was one of the best weeks she’d spent in her life. But it wasn’t nearly so decadent, reckless, and fun as last night.

“You’re grinning like the Cheshire cat,” Alex muttered from the top of the mantel, where he lounged. “Makes me think that personal and private stuff that went on last night is something I
should pop that big galoot in the jaw for.”

“
You do, and I cease all efforts to get you out of this place.”

Alex frowned. “You wouldn’t back out on a promise.”

No, she wouldn’t, but Alex didn’t have to know that. “Want to give it a try and find out?”

Elizabeth could hear the resignation in Alexander’s sigh. “I’d rather know what you found out last night.”

“What I found out isn’t nearly as important as what I found.” Elizabeth reached into her pocket and pulled out the two pictures of Amanda she’d snatched from Matt’s valuable collection. “These are for you,” she said, smiling as she held out her open palm.

Alex floated down from his place above the hearth and sat on the footboard. With hesitant fingers, he touched the photos, then took them from Elizabeth’s hand one by one. Elizabeth’s heart lurched when she saw the tear slide down Alexander’s cheek. What was he feeling? Happiness? Sorrow? Pain?

“She’s beautiful, Alex. I can see why you loved her.”

“She was everything to me. She was my life, and...” He slowly left the bed, roaming aimlessly across the room as he looked at the pictures of his beloved. “I wa
nted to grow old with her. I wanted to have babies with her. I wanted to hold her and love her all night long, every night.” He sighed deeply. “Forever.”

Alex disappeared through the wall in a flash of fiery light, and the pictures of Amanda
, unable to break through the wall as Alex had, floated gently
to the floor like falling autumn leaves.

Elizabeth walked to where the photos had fallen, picked them up, and took another long look. In one, sadness filled Amanda’s eyes, and loneliness. In the other, peace and contentment shone in her smile as she looked down at her hands—hands that wove gently together over her belly. Elizabeth’s throat tightened. Why hadn’t she realized when she’d pulled the photos from the album that Amanda was pregnant in these pictures—pregnant with Luke Winchester’s child?

Tucking the photos back into her pocket, she went into the hallway and up the stairs to Alexander’s attic room. He stood at the window and watched the house at the end of the street. Amanda’s house. The home where he should have raised his children and loved his wife.

Forever.

Elizabeth propped the pictures on top of a dusty dresser. Later she’d clean this room from top to bottom, spread pretty white doilies around, and make it more of a home instead of a tomb. It was the least she could do for Alex, since there might never be a way to help him leave.

She walked to the window and touched his arm, realizing once again the foolishness of her action. She couldn’t touch him; he couldn’t feel her warmth; but did any of that really matter?