The Cinderella Hour (34 page)

“I suppose so. It’s been a while since I’ve spent much time
looking at the night sky.”

“Then maybe you’ll consider doing some stargazing with Wendy
. . . and me?”

“I’d like that.”

“So would I.”

They fell silent, and in a minute or two she would have to
leave for the next appointment of her busy day. And the next and the next.

Vivian didn’t want to leave. Just as she hadn’t wanted to
leave the strong, steady heartbeat in the ICU. But there would be family
get-togethers, Mira said. Lots of them. And maybe some stargazing, too.

“I guess I should be going.”

“I’ll walk you. Vivian?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t remember anything you said to me. But I know how I
felt when you were there. Don’t ask me how I know. Just understand that I do.
When you were there, Vivian, I didn’t feel alone.”

“Really?”

Daniel smiled. “Really.” He stopped smiling. “I’m sorry. I
didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“You haven’t. It’s just that . . . when I was talking to you
. . . I didn’t feel alone, either.”

Nine months after she and Luke were married, Snow gave birth
to their second baby girl. Unlike the sister she would never know, Julie Ellen
Kilcannon entered the world alive and squealing.

Julie took the delivery room by storm, as she would take life
by storm. And did her arrival cause a storm, too, a chaos of despair for her
mother?

Snow’s loved ones were prepared for her depression. As was
Snow. She knew—they all knew—that it was likely to recur. Intervention would be
swift. And, in no time, the joy she had felt throughout her pregnancy would again
be hers.

But, with Julie, the joy was never lost.

Snow and Luke lavished on Julie the love they would have
lavished on their first baby girl.

In loving Julie, they loved their Wendy, too.

And although she would never grow up to dance and dream—as
Julie would—Wendy was dancing somewhere, dreaming somewhere, in a pink satin
gown with a sapphire shoe.

Caitlin didn’t stop reading, couldn’t
stop reading, not for food, not for sleep, not even when the flight became so
bumpy that most passengers abandoned their books, clutched their armrests, and
gritted their teeth.

Blue
Moon
was dark. Sensual.
Erotic. Dangerous.

And
written by a man who could not possibly compete with his dazzling twin? An
awkward and perhaps physically unattractive man
with an extraordinary
imagination?

Was
it truly possible to imagine such passion? Before reading the lyrical prose,
her answer would have been an emphatic no.

But
now she felt the passion, its longing, its hunger, its need. Jesse Falconer
made her feel it, made her
want
it.

Jesse
Falconer? No. The moon twin was not the sorcerer of ecstasy. Graydon Slake was.

Graydon
Slake, alter ego of the shadow twin, the author who created the most
spectacular fiction of all—the fantasy of love—and who might beg to differ with
her romantic take on his work. His thrillers were breathless journeys, daring
journeys, into the intimate recesses of murderous minds . . . and
breathtakingly daring journeys as well into the intimacies of sex.

Sex,
not love.

Never
once, not in the six hundred pages of
Blue Moon
, did
love
appear.
Not in the elegant prose. Not in the stylish repartée between hero and heroine
as they pursued the killer. And not in the explicit desires they shared with
each other, whispered to each other, in bed.

Graydon
Slake’s hero, the ex-cop who understood so well—too well—the bloodlust of
killers, was dangerous, and he could be cruel. The line between avenging hero
and diabolical villain was fine indeed. But the gossamer thread was there.
Without the slightest hesitation, he had been willing to forfeit his own life
to save the life of the woman he “loved.”

As
she read the words of Graydon Slake—every word, more than once, during the
tumultuous flight to Honolulu—Caitlin thought about the Falconer twin she did
not know.

She
had decided, long ago, that Jesse was moon to Patrick’s sun. Possessing not a
kilowatt of his own dazzle, he was both physically uninspired and socially
inept. Passion smoldered within him, of course, passion for his writing . . .
and for
The Snow Lion
s of the world.

Jesse’s
passion was quiet yet fierce, serious and intense, just like her own passion
for saving endangered hearts. The
un
dazzling twin was far more like her,
she had thought, than Patrick ever would be.

But
now she had read
Blue Moon
. And maybe,
maybe,
the novel provided
further proof of how similar she and Jesse were: irrevocably solitary creatures
who were nonetheless achingly capable of imagining the wonders of love.

But
it was also possible that her assessment of the dark twin was
all wrong
.

Her storm-delayed Aloha Airlines flight
from Honolulu landed in Maui in the late afternoon. Already the tropical
tempest had imposed an early twilight on the Valley Isle, and the Honoapiilani Highway had become a treacherous ribbon of black satin.

I
will be careful, she had promised Timothy Asquith. It was a pledge that
implicitly precluded the notion of making the drive to Jesse’s remote home
after dark. Arguably, for her, the cliffside trek would always be risky. She rarely
drove. Her apartment was directly across from the hospital and Ariel’s was an
easy three-block walk away. A bone dry street at high noon would have felt
foreign to her and if one factored into the equation for disaster her recent
lack of sleep . . .

Her
mission
could
be put off until morning. She—and Jesse’s blood—would have
plenty of time to make the flight to LA she had booked for tomorrow. But she
had come this far, and it felt important to complete her journey on this night,
while it still her birthday and when the heavens had become the sea, pouring
sheets of liquid magic onto earth.

She
would arrive at the mountaintop hideaway a little frazzled. More than a little.
Weary and raw. But she would arrive. Even though her hands were threatening to
spasm from their death grip on the steering wheel and her eyes stung from
peering through the walls of rain—already, and she had yet to reach Kaanapali.

 Twilight
was far behind, and her destination lay far ahead. Beyond Kaanapali. Beyond
Kapalua. Beyond Pineapple Hill. But she was virtually alone on the watery
roadways, making it safer for all concerned, and streetlights glowed overhead,
illuminating her path . . . until, that is, she made the turnoff onto the
private road to Jesse Falconer’s home.

Unpaved
and lightless, the road sent the clear message that visitors, at least
uninvited ones, were not welcome. And that was fine. The reclusive author had
every right to discourage an invasion of his privacy. And he was also under no
obligation to provide lighted insight into the perilousness of an interloper’s
winding ascent—or the precariousness with which they teetered on the edge of
eternity.

In
a way, the darkness, the blackness, was protective, forcing her to drive with
excessive care and well within the limits of her meager headlights. But it felt
endless. She had to be getting close, she told herself, and
kept
telling
herself as yet another tight curve led to only more blackness. At any moment
there would be light ahead, a shining driveway, an incandescent house . . .
unless, of course, the dark twin chose to live in darkness, to write in
darkness, to craft the blackest of terror—and the most breathtakingly daring
desire—in the utter absence of light.

She
was considering the disturbing possibility when the world suddenly changed.
Brightened. Glowed.

Glared.
It was daylight, the full luminescence of a tropical sun, a blinding brilliance
made all the more intense by the prism effect of the falling rain.

She
was driving on stone now, a teal green driveway of slate that was lined on both
sides by a towering spiked fence. The lofty barricade of spear-sharp steel lay
ahead as well, a massive gate anchored to pillars of slate. There was an
intercom in the driver’s side pillar, modern technology embedded in stone. Was
there a camera, too, zooming in on her face? Was Jesse Falconer studying her
image, faultlessly clear despite the rain, thanks to the powerful wattage of
the penetrating lights?

Yes,
she thought. He is.

She
felt his unseen appraisal, intense and disapproving, as he took note of her
dark-circled eyes, the harrowed tautness of her skin, and the bloodless hands
that clutched the steering wheel.

Would
he take pity on the orphan of the storm, permitting her to venture further with
no questions asked? Or would she need to plead her case to the intercom framed
in stone?

The
answer came quickly. Apparently his interest was piqued. Or maybe it was a
face-to-face inquisition that appealed.

The
spiked gate opened, a somber parting and a silent one; and yet, as she saw it
close behind her, she sensed an ominous clang, like the doors of a jail cell
slamming shut.

Her
heart began to pound, a primal reflex of pure fear, even though there was
nothing fearsome in what she saw. The world had changed again, gentled. The
glaring floodlights had been dimmed, replaced by a golden mist that drifted
from lampposts within an ocean of fluttering palms. The slate gentled, too,
becoming a river of teal that meandered through gardens of tropical blooms.

As
she rounded the final bend, she saw the sprawling white structure that was his
home, a lustrous strand of pearls nestled in a rainbow of flowers.

She
stopped the car at the foot of a flight of teal green stairs. She compelled her
fingers to uncurl, an unfurling that caused a burst of tingling pain—and a
clumsiness the surgeon had rarely experienced. Sheer will enabled her to turn
off the ignition, set the brake, douse the headlights, unfasten her seatbelt,
and open the door.

Then
she was outside, standing in the rain, her every muscle trembling with relief,
and release, from its isometric clench.

Trembling,
yet paralyzed.

Or
was it mesmerized, transfixed by the apparition at the top of the stairs? It
was as if the rain had parted, as if he had
made
it part, for she saw
him quite clearly—as clearly, that is, as a shadow could be seen.

He
was a faceless silhouette. But his shape spoke volumes. He was physically
whole, distinctly
un
maimed. Lean, elegant, powerful, commanding.

But
perhaps there were scars on his shadowed face, the ravaged face of the moon,
disfigurements so grotesque that no woman would want him even in the blackest
veil of night. She would know soon. He was emerging from the darkness.

The
lamplight fell first on his hair. Like hers, it was the color of midnight.
Thick, lustrous, shining. Then the golden beams illuminated his face, revealing
it, exposing it.

There
were no scars. There were only hard planes and harsh angles, classic features
carved in stone. Flawless, breathtaking—

But
were there scars after all? Deep slashes, savage ones, carved in the heart with
knives of pure pain? For a fleeting moment, she believed she saw such scars.
The moment passed swiftly, the vicious wounds merely a mirage, false shadows on
this night of authentic ones, and she saw the real Jesse Falconer once again.

Meek.
Socially inept. Physically unattractive. Those were the words she had imagined
would describe the moon twin best. Such safe words, such comforting images.
They were shattered now, splintered like fine crystal on a river of slate.

And
the words that took their place? They came on a gust of wind, a force of nature
that seemed—like the rain—completely in his command.

Dark,
the wind hissed. Sensual, it howled. Erotic, it mocked. Dangerous, it warned.

The
gusting wind swirled with the same adjectives she had assigned to Graydon
Slake’s thrillers of passion and murder. And as for the extraordinary
imagination she had given him? Quite possibly he had no imagination at all. The
exquisitely detailed passages of intimacy had merely to be recalled from his
own vast experience.

Passages
of intimacy? You mean sex. Pure and simple. At least simple for him, for whom
such uninhibited sensuality was surely as instinctive
and as
necessary
as breathing.

The
man who stood before her wrote bestselling novels; and he had at his command
the wind and the rain; and for light entertainment he enjoyed watching
unwelcome visitors attempt to reach his home in the blackness of night.

But
those were trivial diversions, amusing ways to pass the time, when he couldn’t
be
where he belonged—in bed, making love.

Caitlin
was in the presence of an alarmingly sexual creature. He was moving toward her
now, a powerful gait of predatory grace, and at last she saw his eyes. They
blazed with a dark green fire, a glittering inferno that sent both warning and
promise. Like a Graydon Slake hero, this man was dangerous, and he could be
cruel. He was separated from sheer villainy by the most slender of threads.

The
stealthy prowl halted a short yet generous distance from her, not crowding her,
not invading her space, at least not physically.

He
did not smile. But he did speak. And his words, low and deep, felt oddly
protective.

“Let’s
get you out of the rain.”

He was as drenched as she was. But he
supplied her with all the towels she needed before attending to the dampness of
his own hair and face.

“So,”
he began at last, “who are you?”

“Don’t
you know?”

“Should
I?”

He
had seemed so unsurprised to see her that Caitlin had assumed he had been
forewarned after all, that Timothy Asquith hadn’t kept his promise of silence
any more than she had kept her promise to be careful.

“Didn’t
Timothy Asquith tell you I was coming?”

“Not
a word. And the last time we talked was about two hours ago.”

“Well,
I asked him not to tell you.”

“And
he agreed? That doesn’t sound like Timothy. The two of you must be very close.”

“What?
Oh, no. Not really. I know his wife fairly well, and his son and—”

“Okay.
Somehow you managed to convince him to conceal from me the fact that you were
coming. The question is why?”

Because
I wanted to catch you by surprise, to be certain that, once warned, you
wouldn’t flee rather than confront the bitter memories of your past
. What a foolish notion—one that rivaled
the image of him as unattractive and meek. This man, this predator, would never
be caught by surprise. Nor would he flee. Not ever. Not from anything.

Because
I wanted to offer you the chance to become the sun, to be as dazzling as your
twin, to save an endangered heart.
But
Jesse was not the moon. He had his own light, his own heat. True, the fires
within him were quite different from Patrick’s. Dark. Fierce. Dangerous. But
they were dazzling nonetheless.