She stared at him, silver eyes as sharp as knives, her breasts heaving with the exertion of her breathing.
“Do you think this is all a game? What did you think you were doing, playing dress-up and sneaking into my house at night?”
“Calm down,” he insisted. He wasn’t the only guest, and Bertie was undoubtedly somewhere nearby, too, and there was Sarah, pinned beneath him, screaming accusations that made no sense. No one would ever believe that he’d been the one being attacked.
“Don’t you ever set foot on my property again,” she warned him. “I was an idiot to come here. I should have called the cops immediately.”
“Sarah, listen to me. I swear to God I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” he vowed.
She blinked, and for a moment she seemed on the verge of believing him. Then she apparently discarded the thought as totally impossible.
“You were in my carriage house,” she accused him.
He answered carefully. “Of course I was. I was there with you. But that was the only time I have ever been there, I swear.”
She was still a ball of tension beneath him, but he could feel her trying to control herself. She was seething, but she’d stopped trying to escape his hold.
“Let me up,” she demanded.
Carefully, he did so. To his astonishment, she began ransacking his room, looking through the closet, the drawers and his open luggage. He was glad that his computer was sitting open on the small antique desk; she might have sent it flying, otherwise, as she hurled his clothing over her shoulder.
He didn’t even think to try to stop her. It would only have made her madder.
At last, exhausted, she stood still for a moment. From her expression, he could tell that she hadn’t found what she was looking for.
“What did you do with it?” she demanded.
“With what?” he asked.
“The clothes!”
“You’ve just seen every piece of clothing I have with me,” he said, sitting on the foot of the bed and staring at her. “Maybe I should be calling the police.”
“Be my guest.”
“Sarah, can you tell me what’s going on and what you think I’ve done?” he asked, hoping he sounded patient, since he certainly didn’t feel that way.
“You came to my house and stood at the foot of my bed, pretending to be a nineteenth-century ghost. And I don’t care what you say, I know it was you. The facial hair was great, and the wig was even better, but it was you.”
He frowned. “Someone broke into your carriage house?”
“Not someone—you!” she accused.
“In nineteenth-century clothes?” he said skeptically. “Did it ever occur to you that you were dreaming?”
“Oh, no. It was no dream. It was real, and I have your footprints to prove it,” she announced.
He stood. She backed away from him.
“Sarah, I walked you home, then came back here, and I never left this room after that. I did not bring a period costume with me to St. Augustine. I don’t know what to say to convince you, but I would never break in to someone’s house and play a joke like that. Aside from the fact that it’s cruel, it’s also illegal. You must have had some kind of a nightmare.”
“It wasn’t a nightmare, it was a…a play. And you were the flesh-and-blood star,” she said. She stared hard at him, then said, “Shoes!”
She went back to the closet and pulled out his shoes, turning them over and looking at the soles.
At last she stood, hair a wild tangle about her face—but now with just a trace of doubt on her features.
“I told you, after I said good-night to you I came back here and went to sleep,” he said evenly.
At that moment there was a tap on his door, and Bertie called, “Excuse me, but is everything all right in here?”
Sarah winced, closing her eyes tightly for a moment.
“Everything’s fine, Bertie,” he called. “Just give me a minute.” As he spoke, he was pulling on a pair of pants.
As soon as he was decent, he went to the door and opened it for Bertie, who walked in hesitantly, a wary look on her face.
He couldn’t blame her. This was her home as well as her business. She could hardly be expected to ignore the sounds of a heated argument and flying objects coming from a guestroom.
“Caleb? What’s going on here?” she asked, taking in the state of the room. Then she saw Sarah and just stared.
Caleb crossed his arms over his chest. “Sarah will explain,” he said.
Sarah shook her head. “Someone…someone dressed up and played a trick on me, tried to scare me. He looked just like Caleb,” she said.
“When did this happen?”
“About an hour ago,” Sarah said.
Sarah might have known Bertie longer, but at this moment, Bertie seemed to be taking his side, Caleb thought.