Dangerous Lover

Four

Summerville

Oh, my, Caroline thought, watching through the wide arch as Jack quickly descended the stairs and strode through the atrium into the dining room. There was a rare, very definitely feminine flutter in her chest.

Boy, does he clean up nicely.

Gone was the scruffy, unshaved look of a man who’d been traveling hard and rough. He’d washed his hair and tied it back. It gleamed an intense, shiny black.

He had on tight black pressed jeans and a black turtleneck sweater. Though the clothes were informal, they had the odd effect of looking like elegant evening wear. The clothes also showcased his body, strong chest muscles and biceps showing under the sweater.

In the bookshop, it had been clear that Jack Prescott was a tall, strong man, but Caroline had been too busy worrying about whether to accept him as a boarder and then about whether they’d actually make it home alive to dwell on his body.

But now they were safely home, they hadn’t died, the boiler hadn’t died, and he didn’t seem like a serial killer. Now she could look her fill. In between setting the last of the tableware and lighting the candles, she watched him.

She’d rarely seen such a perfect specimen of a man. It was something other than being buff. Buff was normal nowadays. Even Sanders was gym-fit. This was something beyond that—it was sheer male power, unadulterated, unadorned.

His eyes met hers and held as he made his way quickly down the staircase and into the dining room. Some expression, one she couldn’t pin down, passed over his face when he saw the dining table.

Had she overdone it?

She looked over the table, set with her best Villeroy & Boch tableware, which her parents had bought on their honeymoon in Paris thirty-two years ago. She still had four unbroken Waterford crystal glasses and there were still bits and pieces of the family silver. Enough, certainly, to set an elegant table for two.

She’d been lighting the last of the candles when he stopped on the threshold. They looked at each other, utter silence in the room. What incredibly magnetic eyes he had. They held her own. His gaze was so compelling, she could scarcely look away…with an exclamation of pain, Caroline blew out the match that had singed her fingers. It stung. She glanced down at the angry red spot on her index finger.

In a second, he was by her side, a deep frown between his eyebrows. He picked up her hand and examined it carefully.

“It’s nothing,” she said, tugging at her hand to free it. It didn’t work. He was holding her in a perfectly painless yet unbreakable grip. How stupid, to burn her finger on a match staring at a man. You’d think she’d never seen a man before, the way she’d been staring at him.

A flush of embarrassment rose from deep inside her. She was cursed with the skin of a redhead, and she knew that her cheeks would be flushed and that the flush would extend down to her breasts.

He was standing very close, close enough for her to smell him. He’d used the soap she left for all the guests, but his smell—the one that had been imprinted on her brain, on her very nerve endings in the car—overrode the attar of roses. Maybe it was the combination of such female and masculine scents blended together that made her slightly dizzy.

For a moment she felt light-headed and would have swayed if he hadn’t been holding on to her hand so tightly.

“You’ve got delicate skin. You wouldn’t want that to blister.” He reached past her and picked up an ice cube from a water glass. “Here. Hold that against the burn for a few minutes.” He held the cube against her finger and curled his hand around hers.

He didn’t step back, as she would have expected, but watched her in silence, his hand around hers. Caroline was aware of her heart beating, slow and hard, and of the incredible warmth of his hand. She didn’t know what to do. Of course, she should withdraw her hand from his, but somehow her muscles wouldn’t obey, so she simply stood quietly, watching him. His irises were a dark, deep brown, almost indistinguishable from the pupils.

A drop of melted water fell through her closed fist to plop onto the marble floor, sounding loud in the hush. It was as if that small splash awoke her from a deep slumber. She took in a deep breath and flexed her fingers under his.

He opened his hand immediately, and she looked down. The ice had done the trick. The redness was almost all gone.

“Thanks,” she murmured, stepping back. Stepping away from him was harder than it should have been, as if that big body exerted a gravity of its own, a small planet made of heat and bone and muscle.

“You’re welcome. Here.” He dug into his jeans pocket and came away with a plain white envelope. “We should get this over with right away.”

She held it, looking up at him. Though he wasn’t in any way handsome or even good-looking, he had an oddly…elegant face, long and lean, with a strong bone structure no longer blurred by the stubble. Deep grooves bracketed his mouth.

The paper crackled under her fingers. “What is this?”

“The five hundred dollars for the first month of rent, plus a five-hundred-dollar deposit. If you’ll have me, I plan on staying a while. I’ll pay on the twenty-fourth of each month if that’s okay by you.”

Wow. That was wonderful by her. The thousand dollars was going straight into the bank on Monday morning. Caroline pulled out a drawer of the secretaire where she kept her bank statements, dropped the envelope in, and nudged it closed with her hip.

She’d been incredibly low all day, alone in the bookshop, with only an empty house to come home to and a long, long lonely Christmas weekend to look forward to. But now it appeared things were looking up.

She smiled as she walked to the kitchen. She’d outdone herself with dinner, maybe to celebrate no longer being quite so alone. Jack Prescott was a boarder, it was true, but he was turning into a good one. Who knew? Maybe he even had conversation in him. Maybe—

“Caroline?” His deep voice was low, a questioning note in it. She turned. In the kitchen a bell pinged. The roast was ready. “Yes?”

He pointed a long finger at the secretaire. “Aren’t you going to count that?”

She stared at him. “Count what?”

“The money. I want you to count it.”

Caroline looked at him, then at the drawer. She gave a half laugh. “But—but I trust you.”

He inclined his head gravely. “That’s reassuring to hear. And to know. But you should count it, just the same.”

“But the roast—”

“Won’t burn in the minute it will take you to check to see that the money is all there. Humor me. Please.” That harsh face didn’t seem to have pleading in its repertory. The word had been said softly enough, but something in his face said it wasn’t a word he used often. And it definitely wasn’t a face you would say no to.

Well, someone as big and strong as he was, an ex-soldier to boot, probably didn’t need to say pretty please very often. He probably just took what he wanted.

It was, after all, the way of the world.

Caroline had butted her head time and time again against those more powerful than she was, and she’d lost, every single time. Power in her world was usually money and connections, not physical strength, but since she didn’t have any of them—money or connections or physical power—she always came out the worse for wear.

He didn’t move, and he didn’t say anything else, so on a sigh, she turned back and pulled open the drawer. The envelope wasn’t sealed—the flap was tucked into the envelope like a Christmas card.

Inside were ten very new, very crisp hundred-dollar bills. She counted them, one by one, laying each bill on the surface of the table with a little slap, then when she’d done counting, tucked them back into the envelope and placed the envelope back in the drawer.

It had been a charade, but maybe he’d been right to force her to check. The crisp feel of the notes was so reassuring. The month of January was going to be okay, money-wise. The boiler hadn’t conked out yet. She had an attractive man over for dinner.

Man, she was on a roll.

Caroline turned back to him. He hadn’t budged an inch, it seemed. She’d never met anyone, man or woman, who could keep so still. “Now, unless that money is counterfeit, and if it is, I’ll know it on Monday morning when I deposit it in the bank, I suggest you sit down and pour us a glass of wine. I’ll be right back.”

When she walked back into the dining room, he was already seated and had poured them both half a glass of wine. He stood immediately as soon as she crossed the threshold.

Caroline put down the roast beef and sat, noting that he didn’t sit down until she did. That rule had gone out with the dinosaurs, though apparently Jack Prescott hadn’t heard about it.

Jack’s dark gaze took in the table, then shifted to her. “This looks absolutely wonderful. Thank you. I didn’t dream when I landed that I’d be having such an elegant meal tonight. I thought I’d check into a hotel and try to find a diner somewhere.”

Caroline smiled, pleased, as she served him. Yes, she had set a good table. And tonight she’d outdone herself with the cooking. It was an old trick. When depressed—slap on more makeup, slip on your prettiest blouse, put on some great music. Just as long as it didn’t cost money she didn’t have, Caroline knew all the tricks.

The dining room was beautiful in its own right. When her parents had been alive, it had been painted a light canary yellow that went wonderfully well with the warm cherrywood Art Deco dining set. A year after the accident, on one of the few occasions he’d actually managed to stand upright, Toby had slipped and banged his head against the sharp corner of the buffet, then against the wall, leaving a bright red track of blood.

Caroline had been so appalled and heartbroken at seeing her brother’s blood on the wall, the next weekend she’d painted the walls an uninspiring, flat mint green that was just one shade off hospital khaki. It had been the only color on sale the day she’d stopped by the local hardware store.

Other than that, the room was as it had been in its heyday, when the Lakes entertained senators and judges and famous writers and artists. So far, she hadn’t had the heart to sell off the dining room set, though if Toby had lived much longer, the dining room set would have had to go, together with the last of the artwork and, eventually, the house.

The cherrywood table was polished to a high gloss. The candle flames were reflected deep into the wood, as were the crystal glasses, almost as sharply as if the tabletop were a mirror.

The candle flames were reflected in Jack’s dark eyes, too, tiny flickers of light in darkness. There was another kind of light in his eyes, too, unmistakable.

There was no doubt that he was appreciating more than the dinner. He hadn’t said an untoward word, but the male interest was evident and potent. He didn’t do anything as crass as look her up and down—his eyes remained riveted on her face—but Caroline had been on the receiving end of enough male attention to know quite well when it was directed at her. Jack Prescott was definitely interested.

She was looking good, she knew that. She’d showered and taken special care with her makeup and put her hair up, with a few tendrils left down to caress her shoulders.

She had on one of her mother’s Armanis. There was no way on this earth she could afford a cocktail gown like the one she had on, never in a million years. But she still had her mother’s wardrobe, and a rich and varied one it was, too. Monica Lake had had excellent taste, with a wealthy and indulgent husband who loved to shower her with gifts and show her off.

In an effort to raise her spirits, Caroline had decided to dress up for the evening. Damn it, it was Christmas Eve, and instead of spending it alone in a cold house, she was spending it with a very attractive man and—wonder of wonders—the boiler hadn’t broken down yet so she could wear the black off-the-shoulder cocktail gown without feeling like an idiot.

It almost felt like a date.

When was the last time she had been on a date? Long before Toby’s last collapse. September, maybe?

She’d gone to Jenna’s bank to pick her up for lunch and Jenna had introduced her to the new vice president, George Bowen. He was blond, handsome, thirtysomething, and he was immediately smitten. He got her number from Jenna and called that very evening for a date.

George took her to an upscale Japanese restaurant, cool and elegant. It was a wonderful September evening, warm and ripe with promise. George was smart, funny, romantic. Charming company. Sexy in a low-key way. Caroline was seriously thinking of sleeping with him after a couple of dates, wondering how it would be, when her cell phone rang. Toby’s nurse. Toby was having an attack.

George insisted on accompanying her home and watched, horrified, as she dealt with Toby.

She never heard from George again. She never even saw him again. It was embarrassing the way he avoided her.

He managed never to be around when she picked Jenna up for lunch, and he never responded to the one message she left on his answering machine. Caroline didn’t need to be hit over the head to understand that he didn’t want to be part of her life in any way. Her life was way too harsh for him.

After that, she and Jenna had lunch at her bookstore, First Page, taking turns paying for the Chinese takeout. It was easier on everyone that way.

Jack put down his fork and took a sip of wine. “Wow. I can’t remember a better meal. Actually I can’t remember my last good meal at all. It was definitely before Afghanistan.”

Caroline watched Jack eating. He had excellent table manners, though she quavered every time he picked up his wineglass. His hands were large and rough-looking. They were capable of delicacy, though. His movements were precise and controlled. Maybe her wineglass was safe, after all.

George had had small, soft, white hands. She tried to imagine him as a soldier in Afghanistan and failed miserably.

“What exactly were you doing in Afghanistan?” she asked, piling more food on Jack’s plate and smiling inwardly at his grateful nod.

“I went twice, once for the government, once for the company. The first time was a six-month rotation right after I got my Ranger Tab. We were on winter patrol in the Hindu Kush. The second time was after I resigned my commission to help my dad run his company. We landed the contract to protect Habib Munib. I just got back a couple of weeks ago.”

Caroline blinked, fork halfway to her mouth. “Habib Munib? Isn’t he—heavens, isn’t he the president of Afghanistan?”

“Yeah. Sort of. That’s the theory, anyway.” Jack’s hard mouth lifted in a half smile. It didn’t soften his features but it softened her a little. “Truth is, Habib isn’t president of much these days beyond the Presidential Palace in Kabul and about a ten-block radius around it. Any warlord up in the mountains has more real power—and certainly more firepower—than Habib does. And every warlord in the country—and believe me there are a lot of them—is gunning for him. Keeping him alive is…a challenge. We managed mainly by creating the sandbag capital of the world around him.”

She’d seen photographs of Jack! She must have. Habib Munib was often in the news and the pictures showed him surrounded by his American bodyguards. Big beefy guys, mostly, with beards and sunglasses, cradling alarmingly large black guns. She’d imagined them to be U.S. officers, but apparently they weren’t.

“Did you enjoy the challenge?”

He paused to think. “Yeah, I did. A lot. We had to outthink some pretty inventive and seriously nasty bad guys. It helped that Habib’s one of the good guys. Studied at CalTech, got himself an engineering degree that he doesn’t use and solid poker skills, which he does. The man’s got a good head on his shoulders. He’s his country’s best hope for a future that isn’t grinding poverty and crazed fanatics out on the streets killing people to keep the country safe from women who wear lipstick and nail polish. We worked really hard to keep him alive.”

Caroline watched his face as he talked. She’d forgotten to turn the overhead chandelier on, so most of the light came from candlelight. It turned his darkly tanned skin a deep bronze, the flickering flames alive in his dark eyes.

The house was lukewarm at best, but Caroline wasn’t cold. He was sitting at right angles to her, their elbows almost touching, and he seemed to be radiating heat. She felt enveloped by it, the very molecules of air between them speeded up and hot.

“If you liked the work so much, why did you leave?”

“I got word that my dad was sick. He didn’t tell me he was feeling bad—didn’t want to worry me. It was his secretary who told me. She called and said that Dad was vomiting blood. I flew straight back. I bullied him until he went to the doctor.” A faint smile creased his face—a second and it was gone, like a shadow of a smile instead of the real thing. “He was stubborn, my dad. Hated doctors. It took some doing to get him to one. And when I finally dragged him in for tests, we found out he had stomach cancer. I couldn’t leave him while he was sick. The cancer was very advanced. He only lasted a few weeks. After he died, I decided to do something else.”

Caroline rested her chin on her fist as she looked at him. “Why?”

He put his fork down, thoughtful. He took his time answering. That was something Caroline liked. She disliked glib quips, ready-made answers. He was clearly struggling to find the right words. It was entirely possible that words weren’t his medium. He was a soldier, after all.

Finally, he spoke, his deep voice quiet. “My father was a soldier all his life. When he retired, he founded a company where he could use his special skills. I loved my time in the Army, but I know now that, in a way, I enlisted in the Army to please him. When he needed me for the company, I resigned my commission to help him. I was happy to do it. If he were alive, I’d still be in Afghanistan, still with the company. But after he died, I realized”—he stopped and struggled for words—“I–I realized that the company was his dream. Not mine. I have another dream, another plan for my life. And much as I miss him, my father’s death set me free to pursue it.”

There was silence in the big room. Through an archway was the living room where she’d lit the fire. It crackled and popped.

He was comfortable with silence. Caroline liked that. “So tell me, what is this dream?”

He hesitated. “I have—some special skills. Some the Army gave me, some I was born with. They were useful to my father, and I was happy to place them at his service and at the service of the company’s clients. But he’s gone now. I think I want to use my skills for other kinds of people. The kinds of people who can’t go to a security company and have their problems solved by buying what they need.” His teeth clenched, the strong jaw muscles flexing under the dark skin. “Security companies protect the kind of people who already have the means to protect themselves. They’re usually rich or at least have enough money to buy themselves the protection of a whole company. A lot of them have companies of their own, with employees to stand between them and danger. Hiring extra security is sometimes just icing on the cake, and sometimes, frankly, a status symbol. I think what I’d really like to do is teach people who need it self-defense skills. People who need to know how to defend themselves but can’t afford professional security staff.”

“And is that what you want to do here? Start a—a what? Self-defense school? Here in Summerville?”

He nodded. “I wanted a fresh start. I…passed through here with my father when I was a child. I liked the place. I just always had it in the back of my mind that I’d like to settle here.”

“There are worse places to live.” A huge gust of wind rattled the windowpanes, and Caroline gave a wry smile. “And then, of course, there’s the delightful, balmy weather.”

He gave another half smile. “I’ll confess I didn’t plan on arriving in the middle of a blizzard.”

“I’ll bet you didn’t. Summerville’s a nice enough town, but I have to warn you that sometimes the winters can be vicious. The weather forecasters are predicting a particularly cold and long one this year. Is that going to scare you off?” It wasn’t entirely an idle question. It would be a pity if he went. He was going to make a nice boarder, and the steady money would be very welcome.

He froze, as if she’d said something of unusual importance. “No, ma’am,” he said softly, watching her eyes. “A little bit of cold weather isn’t going to scare me off, believe me. I’ve been thinking about this for a long, long time.”

Caroline was silent, watching him as he bent his head and finished off the last of his third helping of roast potatoes. Steadily, neatly, he’d tucked away an astonishing amount of food. Apparently what he’d said was true—he hadn’t had a good meal in months. “This meal was delicious, thank you.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it. I think a little extra effort is called for on Christmas Eve, don’t you? And I’ve got a nice meal planned for tomorrow.” She dabbed her mouth with one of the heavy linen Pratesi napkins she only took out on special occasions. “But I warn you, you won’t be getting fed like this every day.”

He took in a deep breath, clearly searching for the right words. Caroline was distracted for a moment by the sight of his massive chest wall expanding with the breath. She could see his pectorals through the sweater. He probably had thick chest hair, judging from the wiry black hairs on his forearms. A sudden image of that chest without the sweater bloomed in her mind, and a surge of pure heat shot through her.

It was so unlike her, she almost looked around to see if it was someone else who had turned hot at the thought of a man’s naked chest instead of her, Caroline Lake, Ms. Cool.

“I won’t be complaining, ma’am,” he said finally. “I spent seven years eating MREs, and they taste like year-old dog food mixed with rubber. ’Bout as chewy, too.”

“Well,” she answered, amused, “I’m not too sure what MREs are—sounds like some kind of a weapon, actually—but they must be dreadful. I’ll treat you better than the Army did, that’s for sure.”

“Yes, ma’am.” His dark eyes bored into hers. “I’ll just bet you will. I’m looking forward to it.”

His words were completely neutral, polite, even. There was nothing suggestive in either his tone or body language. He kept his gaze strictly above her neck. But there was no mistaking the undertone of his words. Sex hormones suddenly swirled in the air, a little flurry of them, so powerful she was not only at a loss for words but could feel the air leave her lungs.

Potent, dark, utterly male desire flared in the room, so powerfully she could practically see the waves of desire coming at her from across the shiny surface of the table. Caroline had been desired before, but she’d never felt this dark magnetic pull before.

She should say something, something lighthearted to dissipate the tension in the air. But for the life of her nothing came to mind. She couldn’t even look away from him, his dark gaze so compelling it was like a punch to the stomach. Her chest felt tight, and she found it hard to breathe.

It took Caroline a full minute to realize that it wasn’t just him. She was feeling desire back. It had been so long since she’d felt it she hadn’t even recognized it. Jack Prescott was so unlike the men she’d been attracted to in the past that it hadn’t even occurred to her that she could desire him.

Caroline was attracted to men who were witty and sophisticated and worldly. Men who enjoyed books and the theater and had an ironic take on life. The little she’d seen of Jack Prescott showed that he was almost the exact opposite. She hadn’t seen wit—indeed, he’d been serious to the point of grimness. He didn’t look sophisticated, or worldly. True, he’d traveled, but to outposts of civilization, where an ability to wield a gun was more useful than a knowledge of the local museums.

That was her head talking. The rest of her body simply wasn’t listening. It was completely taken over with hormonal overload, a reaction to the sheer…maleness of Jack Prescott. It was humbling to think that her body wasn’t paying any attention at all to what he was saying, what books he might have read, what his politics might be.

No, her heart rate and breathing speeded up because he had the most magnificent male body she’d ever seen. Her knees trembled at the sight of his hands—large, elegant, rough, strong. His deep voice set off vibrations in the pit of her stomach.

Oh, this was bad. Jack Prescott was her boarder. He was paying her an above-market price for life in her very beautiful but at times fiercely uncomfortable home. She couldn’t afford to be breathless when she spoke to him, or for him to catch her sneaking admiring glances at the breadth of his shoulders or the size of his biceps.

Caroline had to get a grip on herself now.

She had to put this back on a landlady-tenant basis. Cordial and impersonal.

She pasted a polite smile on her face and made polite landlady-talk. “Would you like some more roast beef?”

“No, ma’am,” he said, unsmiling. “I’m fine.” His eyes never wavered from hers.

They were so dark. She’d rarely seen eyes that dark, with only a hint of a distinction between the pupil and the iris…

She shook herself.

“I hope you saved some room for dessert. I made chocolate mousse. We can take it in the living room with the coffee, if you’d like.”

He became, if possible, even more still. His eyes probed hers, as if she’d said something compelling.

“Yes, ma’am. I’d like that very much.” He rose before she did, in a smooth, graceful motion, and pulled her chair out as she stood up. When was the last time a man had done that?

Caroline pointed at the living room. “Go on ahead, I’ll bring in the coffee and the mousse.”

When she walked into the living room carrying a tray with two bowls of mousse and two cups of coffee, she saw him crouching beside the fire, feeding a log, stoking the wood with the poker. Sparks flew up the flue. A log fell, bursting into red-hot flames, outlining his broad back in a rim of fiery red. The tight black jeans showed the long, massive muscles of his thighs, flexed in the crouch. He rose easily and turned.

“Here, let me get that.” He took the tray from her hands and put it on the coffee table.

The fire rose, renewed, great rolling flames greedily licking at the wood, filling the room with heat and the friendly crackle of the flames. It was like a third person in the room with them.

Caroline sat back on the sofa, sipping her coffee. As so often in difficult times, she tried to count her blessings. She was in good health. January’s bank payment would be made. February’s—well, that was in the future, wasn’t it? Jack said he was staying. He didn’t look like the kind of man who’d run screaming from a temperamental boiler. She might make it through February. She might not. One thing the last six years had taught her was not to sweat the things she couldn’t influence or change. And to make the most of things, thinking resolutely positively. She’d trained herself to do it.

Unfortunately, frantically thinking happy thoughts didn’t always work as well as she wanted. Tomorrow was Christmas Day, when the world as she knew it had come to a crashing end. Christmases were always so hard.

There were so many memories of happy Christmas Eves in this room. Mom and Dad and Toby, music and laughter and firelight. She remembered a Christmas Eve with Sanders, before the accident. Toby’d been, what? Seven? She’d started dating Sanders—the first of their many stop-and-go affairs—and she’d invited him over for Christmas Eve. Her parents had been charmed by Sanders’s good manners and adult conversation. That was before they got to know him. Later, her father had grown to despise him. But that first evening they were all smiles.

She—well, she’d been blindly infatuated. So blind that she lost her virginity to him a couple of months later.

That evening, Mom had filled the living room with candlelight. Her mother had loved candles. She lit them on every possible occasion and sometimes just because she felt like it.

The memory of that evening could warm her still. She could even remember the sharp smells of that evening melding together—Mom’s Diorissimo, hot candle wax, woodsmoke, the cook’s cakes and scones, Earl Grey tea and Dad’s bourbon. A heady scent of joy and celebration.

She’d played the piano and they’d sung Christmas carols. She’d played—

“…play?”

With a wrench, Caroline brought her mind back to the present. Her boarder was sitting next to her. Not so close it made her uncomfortable, but close enough so that she could feel his body heat and feel the air move and the sofa dip as he leaned forward to put his cup on the coffee table. Seeing him this close, she felt slightly overwhelmed by the sheer size of him. It seemed his shoulders took up half the sofa.

Her perfectly normal-sized coffee cup looked tiny in his hands. His hands were compelling, unlike any other male hands she’d ever seen. Though they were huge, the skin visibly rough, as if he worked with them a lot outdoors, they were also naturally well shaped, long-fingered, elegant and strong, with a light dusting of black hairs on the backs. The nails were clean but clearly unmanicured, so very unlike Sanders’s hands, which were pale and soft, with perfect, buffed nails.

Oh my God. She was doing it again—drifting with her thoughts. He’d said something. “I beg your pardon?”

Jack inclined his head toward the piano. His voice was patient. He was a strong guy—a soldier. Presumably that gave him extra patience not to roll his eyes and shout at the crazy lady who drifted away in her head at the drop of a hat. “I see you have a piano. I imagine you play. I’d love to hear you play something.”

No, absolutely not was her first instinct, and she had to clench her jaws tightly closed to keep from saying the words.

No way could she play. She hadn’t played since before Toby died. Not enough time had passed. Her feelings were too close to the surface, the memories too bright, the pain still razor-sharp…

“Please,” he said and waited, watching her patiently.

Her chest was so tight it was hard to breathe. The thought of playing the piano made her slightly ill, but how could she say no? He couldn’t possibly understand what he’d asked of her. Saying no would sound as if she were insane. Or maybe even worse for a landlady—rude.

She glanced up at Jack. He was watching her quietly, his gaze dark and penetrating. She met his eyes for a moment, then looked down at her hands, hands that itched to touch the keys for comfort, hands that at the same time never wanted to play the piano again.

This was so scary.

Caroline felt she was poised on the edge of some deep, deep precipice from which there would be no return. She could either step forward and fall into the abyss of perpetual grief, a ghost of a woman with only ghosts to keep her company, forever mourning the past. Or she could step back and somehow reclaim her life and have something resembling a future.

She had to stop living in the past. She had to stop grieving. She had to stop thinking incessantly of Toby and her parents. She had to stop now.

This was so hard. But it had to be done. She could do it. Over the past six years, she’d learned how to do the hard things. Over and over again.

She drummed up a smile, upturned lips and a flash of teeth, hoping he wouldn’t notice how false it was. “All right,” she said, her throat tight. “Of course I’ll play for you.”

Resolutely, she got up and went to the piano. There was an off chance that over the past two months the piano had gone out of tune. God knows there’d been enough changes in temperature with her temperamental boiler to warp the wood. If the piano wasn’t in tune, well then, that would be a perfect excuse not to play, and it wouldn’t be her fault at all.

She stopped by the big black upright and played a quick scale. The notes rang out true and clear in the big room. The piano was perfectly in tune.

This was something she was simply going to have to face.

Clenching her teeth, she sat down. She turned, surprised, when Jack lit the candles in the brass holders on either side of the upright with one of the long matches kept by the hearth.

“Looks so pretty like this,” he said, and blew the match out.

Caroline sighed. Yes, it was very pretty.

She looked up at him. “What would you like for me to play? Do you have a favorite Christmas carol? I have a pretty good repertoire of carols.”

“No, no carols, please. I’ve been listening to way too much Muzak in airports lately.” He tapped the score in front of her. “How about this? It must have been the last thing you played.”

Caroline froze. “This” was the score to Phantom of the Opera. She’d played it incessantly for Toby the last two weeks of his life. Please God, not this.

A Christmas carol would have been easy. She could choose one with no particular memories attached. “Silent Night,” maybe. Or “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” The only thing they reminded her of was school.

But the Phantom of the Opera…

Oh dear sweet God. Anything but that.

This was going to be so hard. Caroline touched the keys, stroking them, familiarizing herself with the touch of the ivory and wood all over again. Music had always been her refuge, her place of peace. It was a sign of how deep her grief had been that she’d stayed away from music for so long.

She looked up uncertainly and met his gaze. Dark and steady and penetrating, as if he could reach inside her mind and read all the painful emotions swirling around inside, including her panic and fear. This was a man who’d faced gunfire. How could someone like that possibly understand a fear of a keyboard?

He couldn’t.

Do it now.

Taking a deep breath, Caroline slowly started playing a few, halting notes with her right hand. The notes were discordant, too slow, but the song was recognizable.

The opening bars of “Think of Me”—the haunting melody Christine sang to the Phantom—came out. The song was forever branded in her heart as a hymn to pain and loss.

Her hand faltered, and she kept her index finger down on F for a long moment, wondering if she could go on.

She had to. She had to not only out of courtesy to her boarder but for herself. And for her own sanity.

You must do this, Caroline ordered herself, her spine stiffening.

Her right hand picked out the notes of the opening again, faster, smoother, more melodic. The left hand came up, reluctantly, to provide the counterpoint to the lush melody. Muscle memory took over. The notes started flowing as her hands moved lightly over the keys, the song as familiar to her as her own name.

Think of me…

Mom and Dad and Toby had flown from Seattle to meet with her in New York for Thanksgiving. She’d taken the Amtrak down from Boston, where she was studying music and men, having a great time with both. Dad had booked a two-room suite at the Waldorf. The Lake family had four magical days together, taking in the sights by day and going to plays and musicals by night. Their last night in New York they’d all gone to see Phantom at the Majestic Theater. She’d been just old enough to sigh at the romanticism of the love triangle. The doomed, scarred lover banished forever to the shadows, the handsome young viscount and the beautiful young woman loved by both men.

Remember me…

Toby’d been just young enough to get jazzed at swirling capes, chandeliers crashing to the stage, candles rising from the water, a mysterious boat on a lake under the Opera. Toby’d been still hopping with excitement the next morning when they accompanied her to the station. She remembered boarding the train back to Boston, looking through the window at Mom and Dad blowing kisses and Toby excitedly waving good-bye. A happy family with their whole lives in front of them.

It was the last time she saw her parents.

It was the last time she saw Toby walk.

For years, he refused to listen to the CD of the musical. Caroline understood completely. It reminded him too much of what he’d lost, of the carefree boy he’d been, a boy with a whole lifetime ahead that had been cruelly snatched from him.

Then, suddenly, a couple of months ago, he started insisting that she play the music for him, over and over as he grew weaker and weaker.

Toby knew he was dying, Caroline thought suddenly, the hairs rising on the nape of her neck. That was why he asked her to play the music so often. Toby felt his death approaching and he wanted to hear the music that reminded him of the last time the family had been together, the last time he’d been a healthy boy.

She bent her head, her hands moving on their own, without her having to think of the notes.

The delicate, romantic music filled the room, filled her head, filled her heart. Her hands floated over the keyboard, the music coming from the deepest reaches of her being.

…please promise me…

She forgot where she was, she forgot about the large, dark-eyed man by her side watching her, as she was swept up in the haunting melody. A song of yearning and the promise of love when the hope is gone.

…that sometimes you will think of me…

Softly, softly the song ended on one last lingering note that echoed, then died away. Her hands slipped from the keys to lie in her lap.

Caroline bowed her head, a loose tendril of hair falling forward to lie on her shoulder.

A sudden current of ice-cold air swept through the room, ruffling the pages of the score, chilling her to the bone. Goose bumps rose on her skin. She looked up, startled, as the candles in their brass holders guttered, then died. The heavy curtains fluttered briefly, then stilled.

It was over almost before it began. The air was suddenly still once more. Wisps of smoke from the smoldering wicks rose straight up. Nothing moved.

Something had come—and gone—from the room.

To her dying day, Caroline believed that it was at that precise instant that her brother’s soul departed from this life, finally, finally breaking free from the broken cage of flesh he hated so.

He’d heard her play one last time and had left the world.

Caroline had just played Toby’s requiem.

Now he was finally, truly gone. And she was alone.

One large tear slipped down her cheek and fell on the keyboard, plopping so heavily that the key made a ghost of a sound.

Jack hadn’t moved, but something in the very stillness of the air to her side made her turn. He was standing next to her, one big hand on the top of the piano, watching her steadily. She had no idea what he could be thinking.

Probably what a crazy, crazy woman she was.

Suddenly, Caroline was so very weary of her grief and loneliness. Something had to happen to break her out of this icy shell of sorrow that encased her. She needed human warmth and connection. She needed to touch someone. She needed for someone to touch her. Other than an occasional handshake, she hadn’t touched another human being since Toby’s death.

She looked up into the dark eyes of a perfect stranger and spoke the truest words she knew out of a painfully tight throat.

“I don’t want to be alone tonight,” she whispered.