Strangers in Paradise (17 page)

Rex had been in such a hurry to get out, to get away from her. He'd been counting the damn days, she thought spitefully. He wanted her to go back to work.

And then he'd grabbed the phone away from her. He hadn't thought her capable of dealing with John. But then, really, just what did he think of her, and what could she really expect? They'd met because she'd broken in—because she hadn't been able to get that stupid old key to work. Then she'd heard the footsteps of someone chasing her in the sand. And she'd been convinced that someone was in the house that night the lights had gone out. And then again, when they'd come back after their night out on the beach, she'd been so sure...

He thought she was neurotic, surely. He'd run out tonight because he just had to have a break from a neurotic woman who was perhaps becoming just a little bit too much like a clinging vine.

Alexi ruefully turned the water off, thinking that the kittens would surely have the cleanest bowls in the state. Then she paused, startled, her heart soaring with hope as she thought she heard the door open and close.

She dropped the bowls into the sink and hurried back to the bottom of the stairs. “Rex?”

She didn't hear anything, but she could have sworn that the front door had opened. Alexi started up the stairs and entered the kitchen. There was no one there. She hurried out into the hallway and saw that it was growing dark. The stairs to the second floor and the landing above them loomed before her like a giant, empty cavern, waiting to swallow her whole.

“You are neurotic!” she charged herself aloud. In a businesslike manner she turned on the hallway light, and she felt better. She moved on into the parlor and turned on the globe lamp behind the Victorian sofa.

“A little light shed on the matter,” she murmured. Then she paused uneasily again, shivering. It felt as if someone was near. She couldn't really describe why—it just felt that way.

John.

Ice seemed to course through her veins. He had said that he was near, hadn't he? Had he been here all along, stalking her? Running after her on the sand the second night she was there, somehow slipping into the house once she had run into Rex, escaping when she had screamed...

No. It just couldn't be John. What could he want with her?

He said that he wanted to talk to her....

The shadow in the Asian restaurant, watching them through the screen...could that have been John?

Who else? She gave herself a shake, then stood very still. She hadn't heard a thing. She was just nervous because Rex was gone and she was so accustomed to being with him now.

Alexi cut across the hall. She meant to go into the kitchen, but paused and walked into the ballroom instead. She turned on the lights and walked down to stand beneath the portraits of Pierre and Eugenia.

“You were really so beautiful!” she told them both softly. And she smiled, wondering if they had ever loved each other on the beach, watching as the sun came up in an arc of beauty. Had they laughed in the waves, played in the surf?

They had been great lovers, she knew, according to family legend and some documented fact. Eugenia's father had been a rich Baltimore merchant, but she had defied him to marry Pierre Brandywine, a Southern sea captain. They had eloped and run away to Jamaica to honeymoon, even as the conflicts between the states had simmered and exploded. In 1859, Pierre had brought Eugenia to the Brandywine house on the peninsula and carried her over the threshold of his creation.

Alexi studied her great-great-great-grandfather's handsome features and deep blue eyes. He seemed to be looking at her with grave concentration. Alexi smiled. “I don't believe you haunt this place, Pierre. And truly, if you did, you would surely never hurt me! Flesh and blood and all that, Pierre!”

She looked over at the picture of Eugenia. She loved that picture. She must have been such a sweet and gentle woman, so lovely, so fragile—and so very strong. She had been here alone with one maid and an infant through much of the war.

“I suppose I can deal with a night's solitude,” Alexi told the portraits dryly. She turned around, squaring her shoulders, and left the ballroom. The poor kittens. She really had to forget her problems and her fears and feed the little things.

To her annoyance, she paused in the kitchen again. Now she could have sworn that she had heard a board creak on the staircase in the hallway. She hesitated a long moment, swearing silently that she was a fool; then she rushed back out to the hallway again. There was no one there.

She went into the kitchen and didn't hesitate for a second. She went straight to the cellar doorway, threw it open and started down the stairs.

She was about five steps from the cellar floor when the room was suddenly pitched into total darkness.

And even as she stood there, fear rushing upon her as cold and icy as a winter's storm, she heard a sound on the steps behind her. A definite sound. She wasn't imagining things, nor was it a ghostly tread.

Someone was in the room with her.

She turned, a scream upon her lips, determined to defend herself. But she never had a chance. Something crashed against her nape, hard and sure. Stars appeared before her momentarily in the darkness; then she pitched forward, falling the last few steps to land upon the cold stone floor below.

* * *

Rex kept the gas pedal close to the floor. He was going way too fast in the Maserati, he knew, but tonight it felt good. He'd felt so hot in the house, so hot and tense, and had been winding tighter and tighter, until he felt he might explode.

What the hell was the matter with him? He'd known she didn't really belong on the peninsula. He'd known she'd come to the place looking for a safe harbor, a place to lick her wounds, a place to stand up on her own two feet. He'd helped her to do that. Yeah. He'd helped her. And it was nothing to feel bitter about; he was glad.

He had to be. He loved her.

He just hadn't realized, not really, that she would be leaving. That she came from another world. A busy world of schedules, of ten-hour days. Hell, she had the face that could launch a thousand ships, right? She enjoyed her work, all right—she'd run from John Vinto, not the work. She was beautiful; the world had a right to her.

“Wrong, Samson, wrong,” Rex sighed.

Samson, his nose out the window, barked.

He didn't want to share her. Ever again. Maybe that was selfish. He wanted her forever and forever. On the peninsula with him. With her hair down and barefoot and no makeup and—hell, yes!—barefoot and pregnant and together with him in their little Eden. He hadn't thought that he'd ever want to marry again. To take that chance, make that commitment. But nothing from the past mattered. It was all unimportant. Because he loved Alexi.

She didn't intend to stay. He'd known that. He'd known it, but it was a painful blow....

And that was nowhere near the worst of it, Rex reminded himself. He glanced at the road sign and saw that he was south of Jacksonville; and he'd been gone about thirty minutes. He was making good time.

John Vinto.

He scowled thinking of the name. His fingers tightened fiercely around the steering wheel, and the world was covered in a sudden shade of red. He'd like to take his hands and wind them around the guy's neck and squeeze and squeeze....

“You won't touch her again, Vinto—I swear it!” he muttered aloud. Samson turned around, panting and whining, trying to get his big haunches into the little bucket seat. He licked Rex's hand.

“I sound like a lunatic, huh?” Rex asked the dog. He inhaled and exhaled slowly, reminded himself that he'd never met the guy; he'd never even seen him, except on the covers of the gossip rags. Still, the guy had problems. Anyone who behaved the way he had with Alexi had problems. Were those problems severe enough for him to be playing a game of nerves with her now?

He glanced at the sign he was passing. St. Augustine was just ahead. Rex drove on by the main road, heading south. At last he came to the turnoff he wanted and slowed considerably, watching for the small lettering that would warn him he was coming closer and closer to the Pines.

He pulled beneath an arcade. A handsomely uniformed young man came to take the car, greeting Rex by name. Rex returned the salute, asking how Mr. Brandywine had been doing.

“Spry as an old fox, if you ask me!” the valet told Rex. “You just watch, Mr. Morrow—he'll outlive the lot of us!”

Rex laughed and asked the valet if he'd mind giving Samson a run, then entered the elegant lobby of the Pines home. It didn't appear in the least like a nursing home—more like a very elegant hotel. Rex went to the front desk and asked for Gene, and the pretty young receptionist called his room. A moment later she told him that Mr. Brandywine was delighted to hear that he was there. “Go on up, Mr. Morrow. You know the way.”

Gene's place was on the eighteenth floor. He had one of the most glorious views of the beaches and the Atlantic that Rex had ever seen. The balcony was a site of contemporary beauty, with a built-in wet bar and steel mesh chairs. Rex found Gene there.

“Rex! Glad to see you, boy. Didn't know you were coming!”

Rex embraced Gene Brandywine. He was a head taller and pounds heavier than the slim, elderly man, but Gene would have expected no less. With real pleasure he patted Rex on the back, then stood away, looking him over.

“I've missed you, Rex.” He winked, taking a seat after he'd made them both a Scotch and water. “But I've been hoping that you've still been keeping an eye on that ornery great-granddaughter of mine.”

Rex lowered his head, sipping quietly at his drink. “Uh...yeah, I've been keeping an eye on her.”

“A good eye, I take it?”

Something about his tone of voice caused Rex to raise his head. Gene hadn't lost a hair on his old head, Rex thought affectionately. It was whiter than snow, but it was all there. And his face was crinkled like used tissue at Christmas, but he was still one hell of a good-looking old man, with his sharp, bright, all-seeing, all-knowing blue eyes.

“Why, you old coot!” Rex charged him. “Seems to me you planned it that way, didn't you?”

Gene waved a hand in the air. “Planned? Now, how can any man do that, boy? You tell me. I kind of hoped that the two of you might hit it off. You didn't know what a good woman was anymore, Morrow. And she needed real bad to know that there was still some strength and character...and tenderness...in the world. You're going to marry her, I take it?”

Rex choked on his Scotch, coughing to clear his throat as Gene patted him on the back.

“Gene...we've only known each other a few weeks.”

“Don't take much, boy. Why, I knew my Molly just a day before I knew she was the one and only woman in the world for me. We Brandywines are like that. We know real quick where the heart lies.”

Rex straightened, twirling his glass idly in his hands. “Gene, I'm out here because I'm kind of worried about her. A couple of strange things have happened.”

“Strange?”

“Nothing serious. Alexi has thought that she's heard footsteps now and then. And we were watched one night at a restaurant. Then tonight...”

“Tonight what? Don't do this to me, Rex. Spit it all out, boy!”

“John Vinto called her. He said he wanted to see her.”

“And?”

“And I snatched the phone out of her hand. I talked to him myself. I said that he should leave her alone, and that if he didn't he'd have to deal with me.”

Gene didn't say anything for a long time. He studied the ice floating in his glass. “Good!” he said at last.

Rex watched him, perplexed. “Gene?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think that this guy could be really dangerous?”

Gene inhaled and exhaled slowly. “I don't know. I wanted her down here badly when this stuff first hit. I don't know exactly what happened—” He paused, giving Rex a shrewd assessment. “Her mother didn't even know, but I'm willing to bet you're in on more than we were. Still, I know Alexi pretty good. She's always been kind of my favorite—an old man's prerogative. I know he hurt her. I know he scared her, and I was glad in a way that she stood up to him to finish off that campaign. But I never did like Vinto. Smart, handsome, slick—and cruel. There's not a hell of a lot that I would put past the man.”

Rex looked down at his hands. His knuckles were taut and white. He forced himself to loosen his grip on the glass. He stood and set it down on an elegant little coffee table. “I'm going to get back to her, Gene.”

“You do that, Rex. I think you should.”

“When are you coming out for a visit?”

“Soon. Real soon. I was trying to give Alexi a chance to finish something she wanted to get done.”

“The window seat in the kitchen,” Rex said. “The carpenters were there today. It's all finished up.”

“Then I'll be by soon,” Gene promised. He shook Rex's hand. “Thanks for coming out. And thanks for being there. I love that girl. I'd be the cavalier for her myself, but I'm just a bit old for the job.” He shook his head. “Strange things, huh? You make sure that you stay right with her.”

Rex nodded. He hesitated at the doorway. “Gene, you don't think there's any other reason that strange things could be happening out there, do you?”

“What do you mean by that?”

Rex considered, then shrugged. “I don't know. I've been there years myself—and I've never had anything happen before.”

“Pierre isn't haunting the place, if that's what you mean,” Gene assured him. Rex thought his eyes looked a little rheumy as he reminisced. “Eugenia always said he was the most gallant gentleman she ever did know. She outlived him for more than sixty years, and never did look at another man. No, Pierre Brandywine just isn't the type to be haunting his own great-great-great-granddaughter.”

Rex smiled. “I didn't really think that Pierre could be haunting the house. I was just wondering...”