Her Forgotten Betrayal(11)

“Stay with me this time,” he said. “Don’t faint again. It’s going to be okay. Trust me.”

Her breath caught. His words, his calming tone, were straight from what little of her nightmare she could recall.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked. His deep voice was a perfect match for the rough angles and plains of his unshaven face. He was starkly, frankly male, striking in both size and in the intense way he was studying her.

“No…,” she said. “I don’t know who anyone is anymore.”

What was he doing there? How had she gotten to the parlor? She grappled for the truth, but her thoughts were chaos, the same as every other time she woke with her dreams still too close. Once more, she didn’t know what or whom to believe, including her own instincts or anything she saw with her own eyes. And now someone was watching while she battled for her sanity.

“What happened?” she asked, feeling the thrum of fresh panic race through her bloodstream.

“You were running in the woods. You were pretty out of it. I found you and brought you here.”

The woods? Just three weeks out from her being shot, her doctors still didn’t believe she was well enough to leave the house. Not on her own. Her mind wasn’t ready for her to interact with anything or anyone beyond the controlled environment she’d agreed to remain in when she’d been released to the manor. She wasn’t ready for it. What on earth had she been doing in the woods?

Then it flooded back—her terrified dash through the night. Why had she been running away? What had spooked her this time?

The stranger was holding her hand. She wrenched free of his grasp. A confusing shock surged through her at the loss of contact, an overwhelming sense of regret. He’d said he’d carried her. She could remember being held in the forest, feeling…terrified by the sight of him. Now it was almost a relief, waking to find him sitting beside her. That couldn’t be right. How could that be right?

She scooted farther away, deeper into the cushions. He let her go, his hard features more soothing to her nerves, less threatening, the longer she stared at him. Or maybe it was the shaggy, dark hair that lovingly framed his face. It softened him, if that were even possible for someone with such a forceful presence. It made her want to run her fingers through the thickness of it and feel it brush against her skin.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” Compassion filled his cool blue gaze, tempting her to believe him. “You can trust me.”

His eyes. There was something so familiar about his eyes. Something that convinced her he wasn’t the killer who still haunted her sleeping mind.

“Who are you?” she demanded, reminding herself that she could still very much be in danger. She shoved away her body’s reaction to him as more snippets from her last disjointed nightmare rolled from his lips. “Why are you here?”

“I wanted to make sure you were okay. What were you doing, running around in the dark this time of night?”

She looked up to the stained glass chandelier that glowed a cheery rainbow of color down on them.

“The lights went out in the kitchen,” she said, “and I was scared.”

“I brought you in through the front.” He nodded toward the enormous mahogany door. It led to a porch encircling the entire first floor. “The lights seem fine in this part of the house.”

“The front door was open?”

Beyond the man, she could see that it was ajar. The outer screen was all that stood between the parlor and the brittle night air.

She kept her windows locked. Inspector Dawson had given the central alarm system a once-over when she moved in, and it was always on. Even though she’d been assured it was still operational and that she was perfectly safe moving into a home the locals continued to think was vacant, she was obsessive about checking the alarm’s control panel before going to bed each night. She kept every window and entrance securely locked.

“How did you get in here?” she asked.

“You should keep things better secured, as far away from town as you are.”

“I…I do.” He hadn’t answered her, she noted. She sat straighter. “Someone… Someone was here. He was stalking me. Upstairs, then in the dining room and kitchen. And you’re the only person besides me who’s stepped foot in this house in nearly a month.”

“Am I?”

She tensed, waiting for a sign, some signal from her damaged brain telling her whether she was sitting inches away from a person she could trust…or from the very threat she’d run from. The man raised one of his too-dark brows and gently took her hand again, helping her to her feet.