“I’m sorry. There’s a real fear—kids smoking pot!”
He wasn’t amused. He left her. As he did so, she walked to the closet. She was touched to see that Cutter had never gotten rid of her things. She would have to do so now. But she saw a set of clean sheets that had been sealed in a plastic zippered bag.
A little tremor touched her. Cutter had probably never stopped hoping that she and her father would return.
She had the bed halfway remade when Liam returned to the room. “Any evil weed smokers?” she asked him.
“No.” He helped her finish pulling the clean sheets onto the bed. “Where did you find these?”
“In the closet—the miracle of sealed zipper bags,” she told him.
When the bed was made, he stood looking across the room at her. “You have my number in your cell, if you need me—if you need anything.”
She smiled. “Yes, thanks.”
“All right, then. Hey, give me a call in the morning, all right?”
“Absolutely.” They stared at one another for a minute. She wondered if he remembered the last time they’d been there together. She’d been in so much pain. He’d been so compassionate. She found herself wondering what might have happened if she had stayed in Key West.
They might have become a couple. They might have even married young, and then, like so many people she knew, grown apart, either apathetic or hating one another….
They could have been divorced already, she thought dryly.
But she didn’t think so.
Something inside of her seemed to ache. All the could-have-beens.
“Come on and lock me out,” he said.
She nodded, following him back down the stairs. When they came to the front door, they both hesitated a moment.
Such a hugging group. He was probably going to hug her good-night.
But he didn’t. He seemed to need to keep a distance. That was good.
“All right, then. Good night, kid.”
He brushed her cheek. She was suddenly tempted to step closer, to hug him. To cling to him for all the amazing strength he offered. But he offered a great deal more now. He was incredibly tall and well-built, and his eyes were hypnotic, blue like her own but different: more like silver-gray. She suddenly felt an odd jealousy, wondering what had transpired in his life over the years, what women he had known—and how it was possible that he was able to still be such a friend to her.
He walked out the door.
She made sure to lock it quickly behind him so he heard the clicks.
She heard him walk across the porch, and then she didn’t hear his footsteps as he reached the overgrown lawn and driveway.
For a moment, she was tempted to throw open the door and beg him to come back in. She was tempted to actually ask him if he’d stay the night…ask if he wasn’t the least tempted to sleep with her.
Her cheeks burned with the thought. And with the remembered brush of his fingertips upon them.
She turned to look around the house. The things that seemed so scary to others were not so to her. She loved the mummy—it had given her such great stories, both those told to her by Cutter and those she made up to scare her friends. She smiled at the thought of her dream, because, as Liam had once said, the mummy was dead and gone, locked in its elegant sarcophagus. That, she decided, must go to a museum. Cutter would have a particular museum listed, she was certain.
It was actually three hours earlier in California, and she shouldn’t have been so tired. But she was exhausted.
She was going to go to bed and sleep, and in the morning, she’d start dealing with it all.
She started up the stairs and paused. She silently cursed all the rumors about the place.
Once again, she had the odd sensation of being watched.
With a shake of her head, she went up the steps and into her room. She fell down on the clean sheets without bothering to undress.
Cutter, forgive me, she thought.
He emerged from his special place, that place that not even Cutter Merlin had known about.
And he watched as the car drove away from the house, a sense of elation filling him.
They didn’t know; they just didn’t know. They didn’t see him, and they wouldn’t find him.
They didn’t understand. He was protected by the power within. They would never see him.
Old man Cutter had thought that he’d understood, but he never had, not until the very end.
Cutter’s daughter… She’d known, and she’d seen. And the granddaughter had the same gift, so it seemed.
He was elated. What he had thought was lost might now be found.
She was back!
She was going to stay at the house. He thought of all the things that he could do, but he knew that he would wait. He had to wait. Kelsey Donovan was the only one who could find the source of the power that he needed, the true relic and the true wealth.