The Edge of Heaven (56 page)

She was simply out of practice with the way things were between men and women. She'd been alone too long. The last few years had been busy, working her way through school, trying to take care of her mother. There hadn't been time for casual flirtations. Maybe that was why it felt so oddly sweet to be with him, why she was reluctant to let the moment end.

"So," Stephen said. "You never told me. What are you going to do with the house?"

"I haven't decided. It's one of the reasons I came back."

"What else brought you back?"

"I miss my father, I suppose. And my sister," she said, then admitted, "I don't even know why Megan ran away."

"What did your mother tell you?"

"It's so odd," she said, searching her memory, as she'd done a million times before. "I don't remember. Not exactly. I knew something was wrong that day we found her gone, but I didn't know what happened at first. My mother woke me up early and sent me to a neighbor's house. I think she must have worried about frightening me, because she was so frightened herself. She always tried to protect me."

Which was another way of saying she never told Allie much of anything.

"Megan didn't say anything to you before she left?" Stephen asked. "She didn't seem upset or angry?"

"My sister was always quiet and a little shy." At least, that's what Allie recalled. She looked up at Stephen. "You must remember her so much better than I do. You were... what? Eighteen? The summer she disappeared?"

"Nineteen," he said, carefully setting his coffee mug on the counter. "You're right. Megan was quiet. Serious. A little shy. I'd watched her grow up, and it was hard for me to think of her as anything but a little girl, which is not something a sixteen-year-old girl wants to hear from a boy. I'm afraid I hurt her feelings that summer."

"So the two of you were never... involved?"

"No." He laughed a bit. "Nothing more than friends."

She couldn't help but ask, "Did you ever want to be more than friends?"

Stephen went to the window and looked out into the rain once again. "I wish," he said carefully, "that I'd been a better friend to her."

"Why?"

"She ran away, Allie, and she never made it back. Whatever was going on with her that summer, it must have been bad for her to just take off like that. She must have felt so alone, like she didn't have anyone to turn to. I wish she'd come to me. Or to anyone who could have helped her."

Which made perfect sense. She imagined there must be dozens of people in town who knew Megan and felt the same way. And surely there was someone who did know what went so wrong for her sister that summer, someone who could tell Allie. Someone who might know why someone was looking for information about Megan's accident after all this time.

"It was just a car accident, wasn't it?" Allie asked. "You never heard anything else, except that she was involved in a car accident?"

"No. Allie, what's going on?"

"I don't know. I—I've just always had all of these questions, and none of the answers."

He took her hand in his. "You've lost too many people."

Yes, she had. Allie had to turn her face away, because all of a sudden the urge to cry was nearly overwhelming. Stephen pulled her to her feet, his hands running up and down her arms. They stood facing each other, watching the rain through the flickering light of a half-dozen candles. Allie was feeling cold and lonely and frustrated. She wanted the man who made her laugh over dinner to come back, wanted him to chase away the shadows a little longer and help her remember some of the good times she had while living in this house. So she wouldn't have to think about the bad just yet, about all the people she'd lost.

"I know what it's like to feel alone, Allie," he said softly, then looked honestly as surprised by his own admission as she was.

"You?"

He nodded, that sense of unease covered in a flash with the barest hint of a smile.

"You've lived in this town your whole life," she said. "Your whole family's here—"

"They are," he conceded.

"But... What? You're not close?"

"We have our differences," he said, like a born diplomat.

"Still, your family's wealthy. I'm sure you're successful, that you love having your own company—"

"I do."

"And that it keeps you busy."

"It does."

"And you're... You're..." she stammered, then blushed.

"What?" he said, the teasing tone back, the near-blinding smile.

"You know what you are," she said, irritated now. He was going to make her say it.

"You tell me," he prompted. "What am I, Allie?"

"Gorgeous," she shot back. "Charming. Confident. What more does a man need?"

He threw back his head and laughed, beautifully, and she found she wasn't cold at all, not anymore. And he still had hold of her arms.

"You want to know what else a man needs?" he said seductively.

"No," she said, a hint of self-preservation surfacing too late to save her. He really was beautiful.

"He needs not to feel so alone when he's sitting in his house late at night. Or even worse, when he has a woman in his arms—the wrong woman."

"You spend a lot of time with the wrong kind of woman?"

"Not anymore," he claimed.

"Oh? I suppose you're just sitting at home alone every night?"

He nodded. Sure, he was.

"Poor little rich boy," she teased. "And what exactly would be the wrong kind of woman?"

"You want a list—"

"Go through a lot of them, do you?"

"Not anymore," he repeated.

"Tell me, Stephen."

"The wrong woman is the kind who wants to be with me because of my bank balance or because my last name is Whittaker. Because she thinks she knows who I am and what's important to me, when she doesn't have a clue."

Oh, damn, she thought. He was either very, very good at this, or she truly had been alone much too long. She wanted to believe everything he said.

"What's important to you? Give me a hint."

"I may do that before we're through." He grinned again, his gaze narrowing in on her. "How long are you going to be in town?"

"I'm not sure." She'd be here as long as it took to find the answers she needed.

"I think we're going to have to see each other again," he said.

Allie blushed. "Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"You hit on all your neighbors?"

"I'm not hitting on you. Believe me, when I do, you'll know it."

She laughed herself and tried not to let the sadness creep in. He was leaving, and she didn't want to let him go.

"What is it?" he said softly, his hand warm along the side of her face.

"I don't remember the last time I laughed like this."

He turned serious, as well. "Allie?"

"Yes." She dipped her head so he couldn't see her face, the moment too intense, too touching, too personal.

"You don't have to be alone. Not while you're here."

Ridiculous tears flooded her eyes, and she was touched by the words. He was a stranger, and yet he wasn't. She could have sworn he truly cared about her, which was ridiculous given the fact that she'd spent maybe an hour and a half with him.

"You're a dangerous man," she said, finding the courage to look him in the eye once again.

"No, I'm not."

He tugged her to him, pulling her into a loose embrace. She fought the urge to snuggle against him, to bury her nose in the warm skin at that place where his neck melded into his shoulder. He was warm and solid and his mere presence reassured her like nothing had in years.

He most definitely was dangerous. He seemed to see right down to the lonely depths of her soul, and as much as she liked him, she truly had to back away, to remind herself she didn't know him. Not well enough that she should ever feel this close to him so quickly or tell him so many personal things about herself.

She was a cautious person, after all. A person who always thought things through carefully, who wanted always to do the right thing. She'd always feared that one little misstep might lead to out-and-out disaster, to utter chaos. She'd seen it happen, after all. She'd watched life as she'd once known it simply fall apart. And it could easily happen all over again.

Allie pulled away from him, while she still could.

He squeezed her hands one more time. "I suppose I should go."

She nodded.

"Thank you for dinner," he said as they headed for the door.

"You're welcome."

Allie was careful to shield the candle flame from the wind this time. The rain was finally slowing, but it was still pitch-black outside.

On the porch, he hesitated. "Will you be all right here by yourself?"

"I'm a grown woman, Stephen. I can take care of myself."

He smiled at her once again, took a business card out of his pocket, and scribbled something on the back of it, then handed it to her.

"I'm right next door. Here's the number. Home, work, cell phone. Call me if you need anything."

"I will." She took the card, then stood there watching until he disappeared into the rain.

* * *

Allie bedded down on the sofa in the family room because she wasn't ready to face the bedrooms on the second floor. There would be time for that later.

She lay there thinking that she liked Stephen Whittaker, certainly more than was prudent after what amounted to one brief meeting, and a few fifteen-year-old memories. Mostly memories of Megan watching him and talking about him with the kind of awe only a sixteen-year-old girl could have. Particularly for a boy who seemed utterly out of reach and not the least bit interested in her as anything more than a friend.

But Stephen had been a good friend, and Megan had always been sure he would grow to be an absolutely perfect man. Allie remembered Megan's litany of his attributes. Strength, a sense of purpose, of determination, a feeling that he was someone who knew what he wanted and how to get it. All of those qualities had been there inside of him, even at nineteen.

Allie thought she saw those same things in him now, and it worried her. She wasn't sixteen, but she was at a very vulnerable point in her life. Mourning her mother, her father, maybe even still mourning her sister. She had absolutely no one in her life now. She supposed it would be too easy to find anyone, simply to avoid feeling so alone. She'd seen women make terrible mistakes that way—by latching onto the first available man they saw, no matter how unsuitable, how undesirable.

Trouble was, she hadn't discovered anything at all undesirable about Stephen Whittaker. She couldn't imagine she ever would.

Still, she'd come here for one reason—to find out what happened to her family all those years ago, including what anyone might know about her sister's accident. She hadn't come here to find a man. No matter how appealing he might be.

That decided, Allie lay there, tired and restless and still too keyed up for sleep, feeling more edgy the later it got. Old houses spoke a language all their own, it seemed. Flooring creaked. Tree branches scratched against the side of the house. Wind whistled and moaned. For a while she could swear she heard all sorts of faint thumping and bumping sounds from overhead. The second floor? The third? What in the world could be up there?

She listened for a long time, hearing nothing now, telling herself it was nothing and that she desperately needed sleep.

Uneasy about sleeping with a burning candle, she blew it out. Darkness settled around her, smothering her. Suddenly, she had to remind herself that she could breathe freely and easily. There was nothing closing in around her except her own foolish fears, nothing at all sinister about this house. Still, at times she'd swear it wasn't the random creaking and settling she heard but...

Footsteps?

Overhead?

Allie caught her breath. She had the urge to go to the windows and look outside, to see if someone was watching her, had a fear at times that the next instant, if she turned her head, she'd catch a glimpse of someone.

She remembered being afraid of the dark when she was little, remembered the way she tried to make herself stay absolutely still, as if the illusion of sleep would somehow save her from whatever monsters lurked in the dark.

But she wasn't a little girl anymore. There were no real monsters, she reminded herself, merely things that had little girls curling up in tight balls in their beds at night. Still, the house seemed heartbreakingly empty now, hollow and sad, as she lay there, absolutely still, waiting to see if someone was going to jump out of the shadows and get her.