What Dreams May Come (12 page)

Reprieve.
The word rose in Kelly's mind. Once again they had only briefly obeyed the pull drawing them together, coming near enough to each other to confront one of the barriers between them. Near enough, this time, to touch fleetingly. Then, cautiously, easing back again to a safe distance, gazing warily at each other across the space between them.

She resisted an impulse to give in completely to
the constant tug toward Mitch, just to allow
herself
to rush across the space and be in his arms. Even though it was where she wanted to be, every instinct told her that if she gave in too easily and without thought, she'd never learn to understand and value what she could have with him. And without understanding and respect, even love could turn into a trap all too easily.

Love?
Love . . .

She drew a deep breath and flexed her shoulders in an attempt to ease the sudden tension. No, she realized, not sudden; it was just that the pull toward him had intensified so sharply, it felt like an entirely new thing. She hadn't dared define her own feelings until now, and giving them a name had weakened her resistance to him.

"I think I'd better go back to work for a while," she said carefully.

Mitch seemed to hesitate,
then
said, "Out on the beach, you were upset. Do you think your—do you think he's found you here? Is that what was bothering you?"

He found it very difficult to name Brad as her ex-husband, she realized. She wondered if he'd ever be able to accept the fact that she had married another man. The old Mitch wouldn't have been able to, she knew.

"I don't know," she said finally. "He had a private detective following me at one time; I thought I'd lost him before Tucson. But maybe I never did. Brad could be around here somewhere. He could be back in Texas. Just be careful, all right? He's dangerous."

Mitch nodded slowly, watching her.

She started toward the door, feeling as if the dying storm outside had battered her mercilessly.

"Kelly?"

Pausing at the door, she looked back at him. He was grave, his lean face still.

"Happy Valentine's Day," he said softly.

Whatever slim resistance she had left almost deserted her then. Whether it would have been best if the accident had never happened, or if she had waited, or even if their best chance for happiness was right now, the fact remained that they would have been married ten years ago today.

Unable to say a word, Kelly simply nodded and hurried from the room. She went to her study and closed the door firmly behind her, leaning back against it for a moment. Then she walked to her desk and sat down, staring blindly at the neat stacks of files and charts and graphs.

She loved Mitch. For the second time in her life, she had fallen in love with him. Or maybe she had never stopped in the first place; maybe that emotion had grown and changed silently inside her all these years. It had changed, she knew that. This wasn't the unshadowed adoration of a
child,
it was the painful, uncertain love of a woman. This time she was afraid of love.
Could
she love him the way a man needed to be loved? Could she give so much of herself without becoming lost?

And what about Mitch?
Even assuming he could truly forgive her for not having waited, for marrying another man, could he love the woman she was now? Could he conquer his own possessiveness, trust her enough to give her the space she needed? And once they were lovers . . .

Lovers.
Kelly shivered, wondering if Mitch had guessed the part of it she'd been unable to say. Sex hadn't been something she had enjoyed with Brad.
Quite the contrary, in fact.
He hadn't been
brutal—except in the weeks just before she'd left— but always he'd been impatient and rough. The first time had been terrible, the last time even worse. More than once, he had used sex as a punishment because he'd known how she hated it, and though she understood that his way had been twisted and sick, she couldn't help but wonder if he had left her physically and emotionally unable to enjoy it.

She knew that what she felt for Mitch was made up of desire as well as love, but she was still afraid that if he made love to her, she'd be unable to respond. She might feel what she had with Brad: the smothered helplessness of being pinned by a male body and used.

Brad had seen it on her face, had felt it in her tense body no matter how hard she'd tried to hide it; that had been one of the sparks igniting his rages. She wasn't sure even now if he had been hurt by it or if his tremendous ego had simply demanded that every woman consider him a wonderful lover. Whichever it had been, he had blamed her for her failure to find pleasure in his bed. Her and the ghost of Mitch he had seen between them. And his anger had found expression in taunts and cold humiliations and painful demands.

It had been years, but she hadn't forgotten.

What if those memories proved to be yet another barrier between her and Mitch?

After a long time Kelly made herself lift the first of the files from the neat stack in front of her on the desk. She'd had a lot of practice in blanking her mind, and she called on that now. With careful focus she concentrated on the work.

Mitch remained in the den for a long time after Kelly had gone, looking at nothing. Finally, he got the tray from the coffee table and carried it into the kitchen. He efficiently cleared away the remains of their lunch, his brooding glance straying often to the wall phone hanging near the pantry. There were two separate phone lines into the house: one ending in the study and the other in the kitchen; the kitchen phone had an extension in the entrance hall.

It took Mitch only a few minutes to make up his mind. He went to the phone and punched a number that was very familiar since he'd called it often in the past year. This time, however, the only response was an answering machine with a terse request to leave a name and number. Mitch hung up without leaving a message, and stood thinking for a moment.

His second call, this one to a hotel in Portland, met with more success. He asked for Evan Boyd, and was immediately given a mobile phone number where he could be reached.

Mitch wasn't very surprised to find that Boyd was still in the area. He called the mobile phone, and when the investigator answered, said only, "Mitchell. Where are you?"

There was a brief pause, and then Boyd replied somewhat defensively, "Just down the road. I know you gave me my walking papers, but—"

"Something was bothering you?"

"Yeah.
Something."

Hearing the constraint in the other man's voice, Mitch sighed and said, "All right. I admit I didn't want to hear that Kelly was running from someone. But you were right."

"Her ex?"
Boyd asked cautiously.

"The bastard's threatened to kill her. Have you been watching the house?"

"Off and on.
I haven't seen a sign of anyone else, but I've been around mostly during the day."

Mitch wondered briefly if Kelly would like this, but the question didn't alter his determination. He could no more ignore a threat against her than he could willfully prevent the next beat of his heart. Slowly, he said, "Can you find out if he's where he's supposed to be ... in Texas?"

Boyd cleared his throat.
"Already done.
I called his travel agency in Marshall and talked to his secretary. He's supposedly been on vacation, out of the country. But my gut says he's a hell of a lot closer than that."

Mitch almost smiled—at the informant rather than the information. "All right, then. Since you've obviously been working for me all along, forget the walking papers. I want that bastard out of Kelly's life for good. What are our options?"

"We don't have many, until he makes a move. I know a few cops out here, but whether they'll be able to do anything is something I can't say until I talk to them."

"Do that right away. And make them understand it's serious. Kelly doesn't scare easily, and she's sure he really means to kill her. From what she's told me, I think he's capable of it. He's hurt her before." It was difficult for Mitch even to get the words out, and his tone harshened when it managed it.

In a flattened voice Boyd said, "I wondered.
Couldn't find a sane motive for him to have gone after her.
Look, do I have your approval to hire a couple more men to watch the house? Well concentrate on a perimeter defense—the road and
the beach—and stay well back from the house. I can promise you that the men I pick will be invisible."

"Hire as many as you think necessary."

"Okay. I should have them on the job by tonight. And I'll talk to the cops."

They spoke only a few moments longer, setting a time for Mitch to call the following day to check on the progress that had been made. Then the call ended, and Mitch stood looking around the kitchen without really seeing it.

Brad.
Almost as much as ending the threat to Kelly, Mitch wanted to get his hands on that bastard. It wouldn't take long, he thought with the detachment that came from a soul-deep, icy rage. Not long at all. Just long enough to teach
him
what real fear was. Just long enough to break every bone in his body.

The next two days passed quietly. Mitch had said that waiting for anything was a kind of limbo, and Kelly felt he was right. It was as if they were both waiting for something definitive. Between them was a careful stillness, like the quiet before a storm. They talked during meals, but nothing important was said. She buried herself in her work for long hours at a stretch, and except for making certain she ate, Mitch didn't try to interfere with her schedule.

The cleaning service came to do the house, and gardeners came to spend a day working on the grounds, and Kelly had another dream with a chilling ending.

It was the second night after she'd told Mitch about her marriage. She woke near dawn, a scream
trapped in her throat. She was sitting up in bed, shaking,
the
terrifying images of the dream vivid in her mind. This time she'd found Mitch in the lower garden, and everything had been fine at first. But then he had kissed her, his touch tender, and she had felt only coldness and dread. His puzzled hurt had turned with nightmare swiftness to anger, to a driven determination to
make
her feel something else. His face changed so horribly that she had become afraid of him. He had pulled her down into a tangle of ivy, his bitter voice like knives.

"Now his
ghost is between
us,
damn you!"

She had watched his savage face over her, blotting out the light—and woke with that scream in her throat.

It was hours until dawn, but Kelly wasn't ready to go back to sleep. She slid from the bed and, without bothering to turn on a light, went to her door and opened it silently. As soon as she stepped out into the hall, she saw the faint glow of a light underneath Mitch's door. Was he still up? For the first time, she wondered if he had trouble sleeping now. She thought that if she had awakened to find nine years of her life gone, sleep would be something to fear, something she would need to hold at bay.

It wasn't enough that fate had stolen time from him, but to further deny him the necessary peace of sleep and dreams . . . just the thought of it filled her with pain for him.

For an instant she was tempted to knock on his door and ask if she could help, but she resisted the urge because her dream was still too fresh in her mind.
And because . . . She glanced down at her sheer white nightgown, telling herself that it
was hardly something to wear while paying a post-midnight visit to a man one had been trying to keep at a distance.

On bare feet she slipped silently past his door and continued down the hall. She went
downstairs,
the house looking oddly unfamiliar, the way houses always seemed to in the darkest part of the night. The central heating was working well; even with her scanty attire and bare feet she didn't feel at all cold. She had come down here without thought, and ended up in the conservatory. Moonlight was shining into the room, and there was something welcoming about the wicker furniture glowing palely in the center of dark, glossy plants.

She curled up on the blue and yellow cushions of the chaise, looking out at the rain-washed flagstones of the terrace without really seeing them. This was the warmest room in the house, the temperature and humidity carefully controlled because of the plants, and despite her thin nightgown she felt comfortable. In fact, within minutes she was aware of heavy eyelids and an almost irresistible urge to sink down into the cushions and recapture sleep. Common sense told her she should go back upstairs to bed, but she couldn't find the will to move.

Without noticing the transition, she fell asleep.

A
ghost?
No.
A touch, light as a feather, warm on her lips.
A sharp, clean scent like spices and rain.
A sense of closeness, a connection made. She could feel herself floating upward through white mist, drawn from sleep by something she had no power, no will to resist.
Something inevitable.
Inside her, the waiting stillness gave way to yearning, reaching, needing. She was afraid to open her eyes.
More afraid not to.

Mitch was bent over her, sitting on the edge of the chaise as he looked down at her. His hard face was softened, his eye so dark it seemed bottomless. An inexpressibly tender smile was on his firm lips.

Kelly realized vaguely that it was early morning, that light filled the conservatory, and that he had kissed her.

"Good morning," he said softly.

She couldn't look away from his compelling gaze, feeling a quivering uncertainty deep inside
herself
. "Good morning. I—I didn't mean to fall asleep down here." Her voice was as quiet as his had been.

"You were smiling," he said. "I should have let you sleep; you looked so peaceful."

She didn't feel peaceful now. The emotions that had followed her out of sleep were growing stronger, and he was too close for her to fight them. Had he kissed her, or had that been only a wistful part of her dream? She wanted him to kiss her. She had to know how it would make her feel, had to know if love would make a difference.