Touched by Lightning [Dreams of You] (Romantic Suspense) (17 page)

“It looks like we have a lot of work to do, then.” Adrian smiled at Dave’s confused expression.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, we have to meet with a contractor to see what kind of work we’re talking about. Then we’ll all pitch in to get it fixed.”

“You didn’t hear me. That takes money, and we have exactly two hundred dollars in the emergency fund. That won’t even buy a new stove.”

“We’re not going to touch the emergency fund. I happen to know a wealthy businessman who could use a tax write-off. I have a feeling that he’d have a special interest in this project. What are you sitting there with your mouth open for? Get the phone book out and start calling contractors.”

When word spread that the shelter was in danger of being shut down, everybody who called it home pitched in to help. Charlie had been in construction briefly after the shipping accident and had some handyman experience. Even Pedro was eager to help as much as a twelve-year-old could. The contractor took care of the electrical and plumbing, and everyone helped with hanging drywall, painting and cleaning up. Adrian supplied hamburgers to all the help, since the kitchen was inoperable.

The roof was handled simultaneously by professionals, but Adrian kept on top of everything, pretending he knew more about the business than he did. Rock and roll blared from morning to dusk, and into the evening hours after the construction crew left for the day. Adrian, Dave and a handful of other men and women continued their work under rented lights.

For six days Adrian worked from sun up till late at night, breaking only after Dave insisted. More than protecting the shelter from being shut down, all the hard work kept Nikki from consuming Adrian’s mind. Sometimes he showered at the shelter and stayed up talking with Dave until they were both exhausted.

That was the case tonight, and when Dave’s eyes started drooping, Adrian reluctantly pulled his boots from the corner of the desk. Unlike Dave, and despite the days of hard work, he was restless tonight.

“I’ll let you get to sleep. I think that shower woke me up for a while.”

“If you want to keep shooting the bull, I can stay up.”

Dave was not the sort of guy Adrian would have hung around with in New York, but hard work and common goal had brought them together like old friends. Despite the fact that Adrian stuck with the story of a business acquaintance footing the bill for the construction, he suspected Dave knew it was his money.

“Nah, I’m sure I’ll drop dead as soon as I get home. See you bright and early tomorrow. We’re almost done.”

“Thanks to you, we are.”

“I’ll pass the thanks on to my friend.”

Dave gave Adrian a knowing smile. “Sure, you do that.”

Adrian wore only a white cotton T-shirt and blue jeans to his car, not bothering to put on a sweater for just a minute or two. He left the windows open as he drove back to the house, radio blaring jazz to counteract the overdose of rock and roll.

When he walked into the house, he sensed immediately that something wasn’t right. It only took him a second to find just the opposite was true—something was very right. The shell necklace was hanging from the peg, and Nikki was sound asleep on the sofa in the living room. His heart lurched inside him, but he told himself it was because he was glad she was safe. Right there on his couch. He took the necklace off the peg and walked into the living room.

Crackers’s tail thumped against the throw rug as he struggled to his feet when he saw Adrian. He stroked the pup’s head but his gaze remained on Nikki. She was wearing a long skirt and a black sweater, and her long, blond curls flowed around her face and shoulders. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She looked so peaceful, so content. He couldn’t deny that his feelings for her went deeper than relief. The overwhelming need to protect her, to hold her in his arms again, engulfed him.

Breaking out of his spell, he kicked off his shoes and walked closer to the couch, kneeling down beside her. He set the necklace on the table. He didn’t want to disturb her sleep, but curiosity overcame thoughtfulness. She was curled up under an afghan, and her hands were tucked beneath her cheek. Thoughts of kissing her seemed ludicrous, like kissing an angel. He touched her cheek, and she stirred from a deep sleep. Her green eyes widened, then rested upon him. She rubbed them sleepily, sitting up.

“I didn’t expect to find an angel on my couch when I came back. I would have returned earlier.” He spoke softly, so as not to jar the delicacy of the moment.

“I hope you don’t mind that we came in. I waited out front for a while, but it got so late. There was a window in back that was unlocked.”

Rita, he thought with chagrin. “I don’t mind. I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been worried about you.”

She smiled, becoming more awake. “You’ve been too busy to worry about me.”

“Oh, you mean the shelter. If it weren’t for that, I’d go crazy.”

“I thought you would be gone by now.”

He touched her cheek again. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“I can see that.” She looked around for a moment, then back at him. “I don’t even know why I’m here. I shouldn’t be here.”

“Do you still think I’m working for Devlin?”

She started at his familiar use of the name but shook her head. “Adrian, please hold me.”

He gathered her in his arms, holding himself back lest he crush her. She felt small and delicate, and he had to remind himself how tough she really was.

“Let me help you,” he said into her hair.

She pulled out of his embrace, facing him. “You can’t help me. I wish you could understand, but no one can help me. I just have to wait.”

“I want to understand, Nikki. Tell me what we’re up against.” At her puzzled look, he added, “I told you, we’re in this together. If something happens to you, I think a part of me will die, too.” He would never tell her about the drowning nightmares and what they foretold. If she drowned, and he experienced it with her, would he die, too?

She rocked back and forth, her lips in a tight line. “I haven’t talked about it since the trial. I don’t even think about it, except for the nightmares.” Her hand subconsciously went to her scarred shoulder. Her eyes focused elsewhere, somewhere beyond him. “The day you felt the explosion ... that was when my whole world shattered.”

CHAPTER 11

Nikki couldn’t believe she was sharing this with anyone, much less someone she couldn’t completely trust. She had overheard him talking to Dave, when they’d come into the office and she’d had to hide in the closet. Adrian was serious about helping the shelter stay afloat.

As she looked into his eyes, filled with sympathy and understanding, she continued what she had started.

“Three years ago…it seems like yesterday when it all happened. My life seemed to be going okay for the first time. It wasn’t what you would think, with the money and the mansion on the beach. I didn’t fit into all that, and I knew I let my mother down because I was different. I tried, for most of my young life, to fit her mold. She set a great example: beautiful, active in the social and charity thing, but it just wasn’t me.

“Much to her chagrin, I hadn’t planned on marrying one of her friends’ sons and settling down. I got interested into photography and wanted to travel and take pictures of real life. No one knew that I took photographs of the homeless. I was happy with who I was and what I was doing with my life. I was dating a handsome man who wanted to marry me.

“There was never peace in my family, between me, Devlin, and my mother. You see, Dad left us each four million dollars in trust funds, which we would inherit when we turned twenty-eight. Even with two years to go, Devlin was impatient, so he kept borrowing money from Mother, promising to pay her back when he inherited. He figured that since she had plenty of her own money, she would give him whatever he wanted, so he kept investing in all these business ventures that flopped.

“Mother would get angry at him for squandering the money he’d be inheriting. They would go on for hours sometimes. He was under a lot of pressure to fill Dad’s shoes, but he didn’t have the business sense. The worst part was he kept trying.

“I know he resented the fact that even though he was twenty-six, she controlled the money. That’s why he was so desperate to get out from under that control.” Nikki turned to him. “Mother was a good woman, but she liked to control her children. We were all she had, and she reminded us of that often. She controlled me with guilt, but even she couldn’t make me live the kind of life she thought I should. She controlled my brother with money. She was his sole source of income, and if he did something that displeased her, she cut him off. He’d get back in her good graces, then search for some way to get some money of his own so he could do what he wanted.”

She took a drink of the glass of water she’d poured earlier. Adrian’s posture was relaxed, but his eyes were focused on her every move and word. She continued.

“It was a grand day, and Jack, my boyfriend, had invited all of us to a big fair in Miami. It sounded like fun, and I hadn’t spent much time with him lately because of my photography. He was supposed to meet us at the house, and then he and I would ride together. Except he was late, as usual. Devlin said I should teach him a lesson and be gone when he got there, so he would have to meet us at the fair. I was kind of irked about it, so I agreed. We gave him fifteen minutes, then we decided to leave him a note and go.

“I got in the back, Mother got in the passenger seat, and Devlin got in the driver’s side. Just before he started the car, he said he forgot his sunglasses and got out. It was a hot day, so he tossed the keys at Mother and told her to start the car to get the air cooling down.” Nikki squeezed her eyes shut, knowing the pain that would come in telling the next part.

Adrian touched her hand, giving her strength. “If it’s too hard to talk about, you don’t have to finish. I might expire from suspense, but I won’t mind.”

“I talked about it so much to the police and then in court, but I haven’t said anything about it since then. Maybe it’ll be good to talk about it again.” She took a deep breath. “I remembered that I left my dream journal on the table. I’d planned to take it to the fair with me.”

“What’s a dream journal?”

“It’s a journal that I logged my dreams in. I learned how to dream lucidly and recorded the stranger ones. So I started to get out of the car just as Mother was starting it. I almost yelled for Devlin to grab my journal for me, but I figured he’d be too nosy to resist reading it. Thank you, God, that I didn’t ask him. I would have stayed in the car. And I would have died.

“I thought the car was really loud when it started. There was a roar and suddenly this hot orange cloud surrounded me, pushing me back.” She looked at him. “I remember thinking that I had to get out and save Mother.” Just as he’d said.

She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to protect herself from the viciousness of the memory. “I could hardly breath, and the air seared my lungs. I crawled out of the car, and realized that my right side was on fire. I dropped down into a bed of petunias and rubbed out the flames. I didn’t see Mother in the car, which was totally engulfed in flames. I made my way around to the passenger side of the car.

“That’s when I saw Devlin. He was just standing there on the front walk. I screamed for him to help, but he kept standing there. So I walked around, and that’s when I saw her lying on the driveway.”

Adrian wiped the tear away with his thumb, roughened from his work on the shelter. “You don’t have to tell me about your mother.”

She nodded. “I do. Because I keep seeing her there, just like she was that day. She was completely covered in flames, but she wasn’t trying to extinguish them. The police said later that she was already dead. I didn’t know what to do to help her, so I started throwing dirt on her body to put out the flames. When I had the flames out, I dropped down next to her and tried to shake her, begged and pleaded for her to be alive. I couldn’t see the huge gash in her back. When I looked up, Devlin was still standing there with his mouth open. I screamed at him to call 911 and he finally went inside and called an ambulance.

“I could feel myself fainting, but something told me not to lose consciousness until help came. By then, Jack pulled up and some of the neighbors had come running over. A huge black cloud filled the sky. The car was still burning, but it was already destroyed. Then I heard the ambulance, and everything went black.”

“God, Nikki. I knew you were hurt and scared, but I never imagined it was that bad.” He reached for that scarred hand and pressed it to his lips. She shivered from his touch but didn’t move away.

“If I hadn’t been half out of the car, the police said I would have been killed, too. I went through four operations for my burns.”

“Do you remember the date the explosion happened?”

“Are you kidding? I’ll never forget September twentieth. Why?”

He looked thoughtful for a moment. “Yeah, that’s the same day I was struck by lightning. So I did actually experience the explosion the moment you did. At least I got to return to my life. You had to live through hell, the burns, losing your mother.”

“That wasn’t the worst of it. The police suspected Devlin and started investigating him. He had all the motive and opportunity they needed. Mother had finally cut him off financially, and he was furious about that. Jack had some kind of business offer, and Devlin couldn’t raise the money to take advantage of it. With Mother gone, he was due to inherit over eight million dollars in two years. And he would get a regular living allowance that her will stipulated if she were to die before we turned twenty-eight.

“I didn’t want to believe that my own brother could kill our mother, but the evidence kept piling up. The police told me that pipe bombs are the weapons of cowards; my brother is the biggest coward I know. He had also dabbled with explosives when he was a teenager. Nothing serious, just rockets and stuff. The police were sure he would be convicted.

“I was devastated that he had killed our mother for money. I hated him, and I still do. But he and his top-notch defense team painted him as a mama’s boy who lived for his mother. Witnesses corroborated their story, neighbors and friends who’d seen Devlin kowtowing to please Mother so she’d give him a loan. Sure, there were witnesses who’d seen the fights between them, but the defense lawyer explained them away. The prosecution couldn’t prove Devlin had bought the pipe. Otherwise I think they would have convicted him.