A Shiver At Twilight (6 page)

The sweatshirt smelled like him, soap and a light cologne that managed to be both masculine and seductive at once. Without thinking, she pulled the collar to her nose and breathed him in.

When she turned, she found him watching her again. Their eyes met for a moment and she felt the touch of his gaze like the alluring scent that surrounded her. She saw something unreadable in his golden eyes—a war of push and pull that brought out a myriad of brown and green flecks like stars on a bright night. She could fall into those eyes and never emerge. It made no sense, her awareness of him, not here, not now. But there she couldn’t pretend it didn't exist. Her whole body thrummed with it.

She gave herself a shake—she knew nothing about this man. They were strangers, stranded in a storm, not a couple on a date.

“You promise you don’t have a wife at home?” she asked and the question struck the silence with an awkward note. Good grief, what was wrong with her?

Slowly he nodded, watching her all the while. “I promise,” he said and the husky note in his voice started a hot, liquid quiver somewhere low in her belly.

Together—because Carly had seen too many horror flicks to be left behind—they went outside. From the shelter of the porch, they could see a mound of wood that had been split but never stacked. JD insisted that she stay sheltered from the snow and wind while he brought the wood from the pile to her so she could shuttle it to the door.

While they worked, he kept her talking, teasing her into forgetting how cold and frightening this place was. How horrible the bloodied face on that woman had been.

“So what do you do, Carly Ryan?” he asked, dropping an armload of wood at her feet.

“I develop websites.”

“You like it?”

“I guess. I get to work from home and that’s nice.”

He smiled and went back for more wood while she moved the logs to the front door.

He returned a few minutes later, arms full. “You don’t miss people, working from home?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes.” But truth be told, she’d miss working in her pajamas more than she missed interaction and office politics. She’d never been as social as Jillian, who’d spent half of their time in college trying to coax Carly into putting down the book and going out. Carly stared at the storm. Where was Jillian now?

“I’d miss people,” JD said, interrupting her thoughts.

She believed it. And they’d miss him too.

“It’s not like I’m a hermit or anything,” she said. “I have friends. I go to the gym. The library. Movies.”

He grinned at her as he dropped another load. “Wild woman.”

Her face grew hot and she scooped up the logs he’d left and dumped them by the door. They both made several more trips before she asked, “What about you? Are you really a coach or do you just like the t-shirts?”

“Athletic Director,” he corrected. “Not just coach.”

“Well, excuse me. It says coach across your chest.” And what a chest that was.

“It’s a common mistake,” he said, eyes glinting with mischief. “Most people don’t fully comprehend my importance.”

“I can imagine.”

“My brother thinks I’m a meathead. He’s a big shot professor up at NAU. Thinks I should have followed in his footsteps.” He frowned, looking out into the storm.

“What?” Carly asked.

“I was supposed to meet him tonight at five. He’s going to be worried.”

“Maybe he’ll send out a search party,” she said. “Maybe they’ll find Jillian.”

“They may have already,” he offered.

“I don’t think so. If they had, surely they’d have come back here. Seen my car. Come looking for us.”

“She could have made it up to the road before the storm got really bad. Before you even got here.”

She doubted it, but the thought gave her a little hope. “Maybe,” she said, shuttling the last load to the door.

In silence, they transferred the pile from the porch to the front room. Each time she and JD entered the cavernous house, she felt that eyes watched. They peered from blackened windows and scowled at their progress, sneering at her attempts to make sense of it all.

The events of this night went beyond surreal and she knew her imagination was working overtime. But the unfolding circumstances could not possibly be grounded in the real world—the one that existed in the light of day. She felt them conspiring, whispering in the shadows and a terrifying idea occurred to her.

She had the strange and sickening feeling that neither she nor JD had come to this house by chance. She’d been called to this place, lured down that darkened, deserted road by someone or something . . . .

“Carly,” JD said sharply and she realized he’d been speaking. “You with me?”

She nodded quickly and watched as he laid a fire in the fireplace, using an old newspaper he found in the corner with the blankets for kindling. He’d had matches in his jacket and she was willing to bet it wasn’t because he smoked. Definitely a boy scout, always prepared.

“What’s got those pretty eyes looking so worried now?” he asked.

Carly flushed at the compliment. “I was just thinking about how many coincidences have brought us here.”

He nodded, not needing an explanation. Evidently he’d been connecting the same dots as she.

“You said your brother is a professor at Northern Arizona University? Jillian’s working on her Masters in Psychology there.”

JD paused, his gaze wary. “My brother’s the department head,” he said in a voice that came across too casual. “She probably knows him. Dr. Dover. Bill Dover?”

Feeling as if she’d been skewered by a hot poker, Carly said, “This morning I got an envelope from Jillian. It had a newspaper article in it.” She watched JD. “About one of the psychology professors.”

“Do you remember who it was?” he asked.

“No. I just remember it had to do with a grant some big shot in the psych department had won.”

She shook her head, cursing herself for not reading the article more carefully, but it had been so dull and she hadn’t known why Jillian sent it. There’d been a picture of a man wearing a tweed suit and a bowtie like Indiana Jones’ alter-ego and a lot of droning text about the research the grant he’d won enabled.

There’d also been two handwritten notes with the article. The first—in a messy, masculine hand—read “Meet me on Wednesday at four. I must see you.” It wasn’t signed. The second note had a woman’s name and a phone number on it. Carly had never heard of her. Jillian had scrawled, “Carly, in case something happens,” on a post-it note stuck to the top of the bundle. That was it.

Carly stared at it, thinking, what was going to happen?

“Is that typical of your friend? To send you stuff like that without telling you why?”

“No.”

“Did you ask her about it when she called you?” JD went on, watching her with eyes that missed nothing.

Carly looked down. “No. I…she…I heard the accident before I had the chance.”

From upstairs, a new sound cascaded down. It came in a series of rhythmic thumps—faint, but repeated. JD cocked his head to listen. As Carly searched her mind for possible sources for the sound an unwelcome idea came with a wash of dread. The thought of someone bound tight, unable to move but for the steady pounding of their head against a wall filled her mind. She swallowed and tried to block it out. They’d already checked every room and there hadn’t been anyone up there, but the visual stayed with her even as the sound faded and then stopped completely.

JD gave her a reassuring glance. “Probably a branch hitting the house,” he said.

She nodded, but the memory of the sound grew and warped, until the pounding still echoed in her head.

JD got the fire going, then took the blankets to the porch and shook them vigorously before spreading them out to sit on. With his sweatshirt warm against her skin, Carly sat beside him in front of the fire and felt herself begin to thaw. But her nerves remained tightly wound and a dark hostility seemed to emanate from the now quiet house. In her gut, she felt something building, waiting for them to let down their guard.

Chapter Ten

JD added another log to the fire, determined to keep it blazing. On the floor, Carly sat bundled in his sweatshirt, her knees drawn up to her chest, a worried frown pulling her brows. He couldn’t blame her. He felt the same unease as he glanced at the shadows around them.

He wouldn’t let himself dwell on what had happened earlier. Not the sounds, not the scents, not the gruesome woman—not the fire that had looked as real as the inferno he stoked now. Wind could have slammed the doors—probably had, making them bounce right back open. But Sissy’s mother—how could he wrap his brain around that one? And the frying chicken that they’d both smelled cooking? Christ almighty.

It was Halloween for the love of God and here he was in this house, a place that had every right to be haunted. But JD didn't believe in things like that. He believed in what he could see and touch. Real things.

Sissy’s mom had looked real enough, though.

He glanced back at Carly. She was biting her nails to the quick. She looked up and caught him watching. What went on behind those blue eyes, he wondered? He saw her disquiet, understood it himself. But something else churned in the shades of cornflower and indigo. Before it had been banked desire. Now it looked like…suspicion. Suspicion, inconceivably directed at him, if he read it right.

He knelt down in front of her, forcing her to meet his eyes. She looked very small and defenseless, swimming in his sweatshirt and that undeniable protective instinct rose up inside him again. He couldn’t help it. This woman seemed to trigger all of his baser inclinations. Seeing her in his shirt spiked that feeling with a healthy dose of possessiveness that caught him off guard even as it settled deep within him like it belonged there.

Like one of his high school students with his first girlfriend, he wanted to put his arm around her and parade her through the cafeteria so everyone could see that she was his. Of course she wasn’t his—not his girlfriend. Not even a friend. She was a stranger. A victim of circumstance, stuck in this god-awful place just like he was.

But he’d seen her watching him—he’d seen her because he couldn’t seem to stop watching her. As strange as their meeting was, as bizarre as the unfolding night had become, it somehow felt right—intended. And when he’d touched her, held her, kissed her….

He wanted to know everything about her. He wanted to talk about who she was and what she wanted.

No, in truth, he didn't want to talk at all. He wanted her in his arms again, pressed tightly against his body.

“What are you thinking?” she asked softly and her voice had a husky tremor in it that sparked along his nerves.

He blinked, feeling heat creep up his neck. “I’m thinking about this storm.”

She tilted her head to the side and he had the uncanny sense that she knew he’d meant the storm inside him, not the one trapping them in this house.

“It feels a little…prearranged, doesn’t it? You and me, stuck here because of it. It seemed to just come out of nowhere, didn’t it?”

“Like a bolt of lightning,” he said, caught in the swirling sparkle of her eyes. She was like a bolt of lightning. Blindingly bright, breathtakingly unexpected. He felt like he’d been struck. No—not struck. Flattened like his truck outside.

He didn’t understand why Carly had that effect on him, but he couldn’t pretend she hadn’t shaken him up. More than the hero syndrome his brother accused him of having sparked his interest in Carly. He’d have noticed her anywhere. His brother was a psychologist, but he didn’t have a clue about how a relationship between one man and one woman should be. He’d never believed in the kind of feelings that…that struck like lightning. For him it was all about lust. JD would be lying if he didn’t admit a good deal of lust was at work within him, but there was more to it than that.

Bill had a great wife and kids, but he jumped into bed with every woman who ever batted her eyes at him. Now he was paying for his wrong decisions. His life was in shambles, his wife was going to leave him. The university had talked of suspension. All that kept him from getting fired were the investments he managed to convince others to give to the university. He seemed to have a knack for bringing in money.

Grant money. Carly said Jillian had sent an article about a professor who’d won a big grant. His gut told him it had to be about Bill. His suspicions that Jillian was the girl Bill had planned to meet that afternoon had grown to certainty. He pushed the thoughts away to analyze later and went back to studying Carly.

Unlike his brother, JD was much more careful about who he became involved with and when he decided to do it. And here, in this house of horrors with Carly—and her fantastic story about finding her friend’s car by luck—was not the place to change his ways…was it?