“I didn’t do it. I loved her,” he said.
She continued to stare, still caught in a twilight world between life and dreams. He looked different and yet…so familiar. He had long sideburns, a goatee and moustache, and long tawny hair, but she couldn’t escape the sense that she should recognize him.
“I loved her. Do you understand?” He sounded so agitated. “But I had to leave.”
She closed her eyes, clenched them shut, and furiously commanded herself to awaken.
When she opened her eyes, he was gone.
She glanced at her bedside clock. It was 5:00 a.m. It must have been a dream, brought on by a combination of all that had been happening and Mr. Griffin’s insistence that her house was haunted.
She lay back down and closed her eyes, then opened them again and looked toward the foot of her bed. There was nothing there. Of course not. She had imagined the man there, imagined his claim that he hadn’t done it.
Hadn’t done what?
Put the bones in her walls?
She groaned and closed her eyes.
Worthless. She looked at the clock again. It was 5:03 a.m.
It didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to get back to sleep. She threw off her covers and, swearing at herself, Caleb and Mr. Griffin, she headed into the shower. It bothered her that her memory of the man at the foot of her bed was so perfectly clear. She could remember exactly what he had looked like.
So familiar, and yet…
She didn’t know. She showered unhappily, thinking that she was going to call in and take the day off—after all, it had been offered.
When she emerged from the shower, the sun was beginning to rise. Wrapped in her towel, she walked over to turn on the television, opting for a children’s show rather than the news. As she walked back toward the bed, she looked down and was startled to see bits of mud and grass on the carpet.
As if they had been carried in from outside.
Like footprints.
Her heart skipped a beat.
Then it occurred to her just why the man at the foot of her bed had reminded her of someone.
He had looked just like Caleb Anderson.
Give him some facial hair, long curls and period clothing…
“That bastard,” she breathed aloud and hurried to the door. It was still bolted. It would have been impossible for him to have gotten in.
On the other hand, the man worked for Adam Harrison, who seemed to have the ability to get just about anything done.
So what the hell had Caleb been doing? Trying to scare her to death? Trying to make her give up the house so he could…what?
It didn’t matter. She dressed as quickly as she could and headed out on the warpath. She was going to confront that wretched son of a bitch right away, while her temper was flaming at a thousand degrees, and if he didn’t watch his step, she was going to sock him in his ridiculously rugged jaw.
6
Caleb woke suddenly from a sound sleep, his sharp senses aware of footsteps on the walkway outside his room.
He looked at the clock. It was barely 6:00 a.m. but the footfalls were light, a woman’s. Probably just someone heading home after a late night.
And then, even though he heard the steps marching straight toward his room, he was stunned when he heard a pounding on the outside door of his room, and even more stunned when he got up and opened the door to reveal Sarah standing there with a murderous look on her face.
For a moment she simply stood in the doorway, shaking with rage. Then she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
“You…bastard,” she began. “I should call the police. I should have you arrested. And I still may. What in God’s name did you think you were doing?”
Without waiting for his answer, she walked to the bed, still trembling with fury, grabbed a pillow and threw it at his head with a vengeance.
“What the hell…?” he demanded as he caught the pillow.
She went for another. “What kind of an idiot are you? You could have scared me to death. Or what if I kept a gun? I could have shot you!”
The second pillow came hurtling his way.
He tried to figure out what the hell she was talking about as he dodged the pillow. She had one hell of an arm on her. She would have been great at a company softball game. “What are you talking about? And I do carry a gun, so it was dangerous as hell for you to burst in here!”
Before she could send the last of his pillows flying his way, he rushed her, wrenching the pillow from her hands and tightening his arms around her to stop her from starting on the rest of the bedding, his momentum bearing them both down on the bed. Glad that he’d slept in boxers, he tried to keep a distance as he held her down, but it was difficult. She was on fire. Her eyes were wild with a passion for revenge over something he couldn’t fathom, and her skin was soft as silk. She was vital and vibrant, and he found himself fighting the rise of desire while he attempted to subdue her and get to the root of the problem.