Obsession (23 page)

Perversely, the sheer inadequacy of the weapon made her feel better. It assuaged most of the rest of her residual suspicion that he might be something other than what he seemed.

“Good to know,” she said, forbearing to point out just how useless that thing would be if they actually had to fight off the murderous-minded goons who had twice invaded her house. The fact was, if they were found, they were toast.

At this juncture, when she was so tired she was practically swaying on her feet and with her mind less than functional, all that was left to do was pray they weren’t found.

“Hungry?” he asked, laying the pistol down on the counter with a casualness that would—if she hadn’t had more important things to worry about—have made her nervous about his trustworthiness with a weapon. “I make a mean baloney sandwich.”

Katharine shook her head. “Just tired.”

She was, in fact, exhausted, which in its own twisted way was a good thing: Exhaustion, she was discovering, had a wonderfully dulling effect on fear.

“You look it. You probably ought to sack out for a while.”

She nodded. “Sounds good.”

“Bathroom’s down the hall on the right. The bedroom ’s just past it. There’s only one, but it’s all yours. Come on, I’ll show you.”

Hefting the duffel bag, he led the way toward the back of the house and showed her where everything was. Not that he needed to, because it was a very small cabin, just the living room and kitchen at one end and the bedroom, bathroom, and a utility room at the other. He pointed out the closet where a bunch of mismatched towels were stacked alongside rolls of toilet tissue and a couple of unopened bars of soap, then headed back toward the front of the house.

“Yell if you need me,” he said over his shoulder.

Katharine nodded from the bedroom doorway where she was standing, then stepped inside, closed the door, and looked around.

The bedroom wasn’t a great deal larger than the double bed that nearly filled it. The bed was strictly utilitarian, consisting of a mattress and box spring on a frame that had been pushed into the far corner of the room, probably to provide as much floor space as possible. A cheap pine nightstand with a blue ginger-jar lamp on it stood beside the bed. A scarred oak chest against the wall beside the closet door constituted the rest of the furnishings. Like the living room, the walls were generic white. The long, narrow window was covered by another pair of the cheap white curtains, which were carefully drawn. No attempt had been made at decoration: A blue velour blanket had been pulled over the top of the bed, hiding everything, including the pillows, and that was it.

Dan had said that he’d changed the sheets right before he’d left the last time he’d been there, so the bed was clean and ready to go.

She was so tired she didn’t even care.

But before she crawled into bed she had to have a shower. She felt so grungy she couldn’t stand herself. The terrible, lurking suspicion that there might still be dried blood on her from last night was something she couldn’t shake.

The thought made her stomach twist.

Carrying everything she needed with her, she went into the bathroom. Various noises from the kitchen located Dan for her just before she closed and locked the door; he was probably eating the baloney sandwich he had offered her.

Stripping off Dottie’s clothes with relief, and turning the water on full-blast, she stepped into the tub, pulled the plastic shower curtain closed, and let the blessedly hot water sluice over her. Washing her mind-bendingly straight, coarse hair without getting her nose wet proved tricky, but she did her best, closing her eyes and tilting her chin back as the shampoo rinsed away down the drain. Steam from the hot water even had the added benefit of opening her nasal passages a little, so that she could actually get a whiff of the Irish Spring soap with which the cabin came equipped, as she rubbed its lather into every square inch of her skin she could reach.

It was in the course of doing this that she made two appalling discoveries: number one, she had had a Brazilian wax, and number two, a small red heart with an arrow through it was tattooed on the left side of her abdomen just above her bikini line.

Either of these on its own was enough to totally freak her out. Both of them together made her go all light-headed and weak-kneed. She sat down abruptly on the edge of the tub while the shower curtain billowed around her and the hot water continued to rain down on her legs.

The idea of herself with such a blatantly sexy crotch was mind-boggling. As far as she knew, she had never had such a thing done to herself in her life. But the tattoo was even worse: She knew,
knew,
that she would never willingly get a tattoo.

She was needle-phobic.

Hyperventilating was not a solution, she told herself sternly even as she caught herself starting to succumb to it.

The reality was, she was now a skinny blonde with expensive belongings, a bikini wax, and a heart tattoo. It might be a new reality for her, but it was reality all the same.

Post-traumatic stress disorder was supposed to explain this?

Okay. Succumbing to panic was useless, as she had already discovered. Until she was able to get her mind around these new additions to her person, the best thing to do was simply not think about them.

Or anything else.

Forcing herself to her feet, she rinsed off the last of the soap, turned off the taps, got out of the tub, toweled herself dry, and used the blow-dryer she found on the wicker caddy in the corner to blow her (new) hair dry. Then she pulled on panties and a T-shirt—pretty, über-feminine white lace panties and a snug white T-shirt with a pink heart in the center of it, both of which fit reasonably well, and neither of which seemed like anything she would ever actually buy—wrapped herself in her robe, and staggered into the bedroom.

There she immediately fell into bed, burrowing under the covers, closing her eyes, doing her best to keep her mind a blank.

When that didn’t work, she tried counting. Numbers, not sheep.

By the time she reached twenty-seven, she was out like a light.

Sometime after that, she began to dream. Dark dreams, scary dreams. In them, she was running for her life. . . .

Suddenly she found herself observing what looked like a shabby office. The details were hazy, but she knew it was night, and the room she was looking into was dark except for a small amount of light filtering in through what she knew was a door to her left, although she couldn’t see it; a wall protruding into the room blocked her view. Her vision sharpened, focused, and she realized that she was in the scene, too, in a second room that was connected to the first by an old-fashioned wooden door that stood open. She was sitting in a hard, wooden chair facing that open door. She was actually tied to the chair, tied hand and foot, and gagged, too.

She was terrified. Her heart was racing. She was sweating, shaking. Something terrible was about to happen, she knew.

Looking around, searching for what it was that was scaring her so, she saw the shadowy outline of metal file cabinets and a serviceable metal desk and chair lining the wall near her. Behind the desk was a closet. Its door was partly open, and she saw that there was a mirror on the inside of the door. In the mirror she could see her own reflection.

She had masses of curly auburn hair that cascaded over her shoulders. Her skin was so pale it looked ghostly in the dim light. She was shapely, curvaceous, stacked . . .

A terrible dread filled her.

There was a man in the other room now. No, two men, shadowy figures whose features were concealed from her. She watched them through the open door. One forced the other to his knees. The man who remained standing had a gun in his hand, and he was pressing the mouth of it into the curve between the other man’s shoulder and neck. He was screaming something—she could hear him but couldn’t make out the words—and the man who was on his knees was now crying.

She was screaming, too, she realized, but no one could hear her, screaming silently because she loved the man on his knees, the man who she knew was about to be killed. Fighting to be free of her bonds, of the chair, she drew the attention of the man with the gun. He smiled at her—she saw that quite clearly—and she knew he was evil, knew he was going to pull the trigger in the next second and murder this person whom she loved, and there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop it.

Then the gunman’s head exploded, just exploded into a ball of pink mist and gore, and what was left of him dropped to the floor at the same time as the kneeling man collapsed. He, too, keeled forward, sprawling face-first on the floor, his body limp in a running river of blood.

Even as silent screams of horror ripped through her body, another man stepped into the opening between the two rooms. He was in a shooter’s stance, facing her, and in his clasped hands was a big silver gun. He was tall and formidable and aiming right at her. . . .

A shaft of light touched his features, illuminating them.

Jolted awake, Katharine opened her eyes, looked straight into the face of the man she’d just seen aiming a gun at her in her dream, and screamed to wake the dead.

14

"What is it? What’s wrong?” he demanded. His hands—strong, warm hands—closed around her bare upper arms. She could feel their imprints like a brand on her chilled skin.

Her startled-awake eyes met his—hard blue eyes, caught in a shaft of indirect light—and she exploded out of the warm cocoon that had sheltered her, coming bolt upright into a sitting position as another scream, jagged and raw and searing in its intensity, tore of its own accord out of her throat.

“Jesus Christ.”
He winced. His hands tightened on her arms.

“It’s all right.”

“No.”
Panicking, she began to struggle, trying to break free of his hold without success. She was trapped, he had her trapped, there was nothing she could do, she was helpless and at his mercy and, as she already knew all too well, he had no mercy.

“Damn it to hell.” He gave her arms a little shake. His fingers dug into her skin. He was close, too close, leaning over her, his face just inches away from hers, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, she could do about it.

He owned her.

This time her cry was one of distress. It was softer, more piteous, as she recognized her plight. He had her fast; unless and until he was ready to let her go, she would never be able to break away.

“I’m not hurting you.” He must have misinterpreted the sound she had made as one of pain, because his grip on her arms loosened.

Succeeding in jerking her arms free of his hold at last, she scrambled over a soft surface—a bed, she was on a bed in a dark room illuminated only slightly by that grayish shaft of light—until a corner trapped her. Whirling to face him, she crouched, squeezing back against walls that felt cold against her bare thighs, at bay on the bed, knowing him for her enemy.

“Keep away from me
,”
she warned.

He cursed again, under his breath, and straightened. She could feel his eyes on her, although she could not see his features at all now that the light was directly behind him. He was silhouetted by the grayish rectangle of light, an open door with light coming through it. He looked big and strong and formidable standing there blocking the door, blocking the light, and she shrank back into her corner, staring at him with huge eyes.

“You had a nightmare.”

His voice with its slow drawl was meant to be soothing, she thought. But it did not soothe her. Instead, it touched something deep inside her, some buried memory, some forgotten association, and in response her stomach knotted with anger and fear.

“Who
are
you?” It was a strained cry torn straight from her heart. Even as she said it, she knew the answer, knew who he was, knew all about him, but . . . but . . .

In the same instant that she reached for it, the knowledge all went away. Vanished,
poof,
just like that, like a puff of smoke blown to oblivion by the wind.

“Katharine. It’s me. It’s Dan.”

A light came on, momentarily blinding her. Wincing, she turned her face away from the source. He had turned on the lamp beside the bed.

Dan. As his name registered, her eyes adjusted to the light and she was able to look at him directly. He stood beside the bed, his hair rumpled, his eyes heavy-lidded and tired, the lines in his face more pronounced than she remembered, the stubble on his jaw discernibly heavier. He was wearing only his loose black pants, minus the belt, which meant that she could see about an inch of blue pin-striped boxers as the pants clung to his hips for dear life. His chest, and his feet, bare.

It appeared that, like her, he had been asleep.

“It’s all right. You’re safe.”

That voice again. Oh, God, she knew that voice, knew it well, but the context was impossible to dredge up. Sucking in air, she cast a quick, furtive glance around, trying to get her bearings, trying to get a handle on what was happening. It was clearly night. She could see the darkness of the world outside through a sliver between the imperfectly drawn curtains. There was a steady drumming sound, insistent and rhythmic, that in her agitation she was only just now becoming aware of. It must be raining. The sound was rain hitting a tin roof.

All at once, she knew where she was: in the bedroom of his fishing cabin, crouched on his bed, wedged tightly back into the farthest corner of it as a matter of fact, staring at him like a trapped wild thing. Her heart pounded. Her pulse raced. Her breathing came fast and hard.

“You were having a nightmare,” he said again.