Her Forgotten Betrayal(14)

The only legitimate thing she seemed to have to fear was the dissociation that was making Swiss cheese out of her mind. Which meant he needed to secure the house, then disappear from her life again. Only he was no longer certain of his ability to let her go.

“There’s nothing wrong with the lights, is there?” she asked bleakly.

“I’m sorry,” he said. Her sweet features were hardening with self doubt, and he couldn’t stand it.

“There was never anything wrong with them. You’re telling me that I was wandering around in the middle of the night, scared out of my mind, and there was nothing wrong. Except that now I’m managing to frighten myself when I’m awake, too, even more than when I’m having nightmares.”

“Shaw, don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

She paced the few feet to the other side of the room. She kept her back to him, her gaze on the floor.

“Don’t face facts?” she asked, her dispassionate tone betraying the analytical, just-the-facts scientist lurking within her. “Don’t admit that what startles me most in my dreams, the only things I can remember clearly once I’m awake, are the blast of a gunshot and trying to stop a man with no face from killing me? And, oh yeah, there’s evidently a fire now. And my mind’s decided to project a phantom attacker into my waking world.” She lifted her gaze to stare out the open door. “After this, how am I supposed to know what’s fact and what’s not? How do I trust anything, when every sound in the night freaks me out? Nothing happened this time, either, but according to you I panicked and ran anyway. And none of it was real.”

“Shaw…”

She swallowed. Then she turned to face Cole. Her chin came up.

“How do you know my name?” she demanded like the queen she’d been raised to be. “Tell me who you are, damn it.”

Her show of courage and the delicate curves of her heart-shaped face, the honey-colored hair floating around the shoulders of her soft, pale nightclothes, were mesmerizing. He wanted to tell her he’d been watching over her ever since she came back, the same as he’d protected her every long-ago summer of their youth. That there was something still inside him willing to stand between her and whatever harm she encountered. Especially after she mentioned fire being a new facet of her dream.

That definitely fell under the heading of new information. Someone would need to investigate further what it meant to her case. Currently, that someone would seem to be the task-force agent on site. Him.

Suddenly, Shaw flinched. She brushed him aside to get a better look at the wall past his shoulder. He watched incredulously as she traced her finger over a bullet hole. A bullet hole he’d overlooked because he’d been too damn caught up in her emotional breakdown to properly do his job.

“You did this,” she whispered, her voice shaking with the same near-hysteria as when she’d first woken up. “You scared me to death and shot at me, then you brought me in here, for some sick reason, to convince me it never happened.” Suspicion clouded her features. “You actually had me believing you just wanted to help. You almost got me to trust you. Tell me who the hell you are, damn it, and why you’re screwing with my mind!”





Chapter Five


Shaw still didn’t even know this guy’s name. Who walked around a secluded house in the middle of the night with someone who refused to tell her his name? Just because she liked his eyes and his voice and touch and nearness had made her feel secure for a few lonely minutes…

She felt her tenuous hold on sanity slip a notch further. She’d let him lead her around her house as if he belonged there. Had he brought her to the kitchen to toy with her some more? To flaunt how he’d terrified her in her own home, lie to her face, get her to believe him, and then…

Then what?

She’d been freezing since she’d awoken in the parlor. But now her body felt as if it were on fire, especially where this stranger had touched her. Because he didn’t feel like a stranger, regardless of how just the sight of him made her heart want to beat its way out of her chest.

He ignored her tirade and scowled at the ugly hole a bullet had made in the wall.

If he’d really meant her harm, why hadn’t he finished her off when he found her in the woods? Instead, he’d taken care of her until she woke. He’d been trying to reassure her ever since. And in the process, he’d managed to look drop-dead gorgeous and perfectly at ease amidst her grandmother’s ultra-feminine world.

As if this were exactly where he belonged.

A soft meow announced Esme’s appearance through the back door. She scampered toward Shaw, her tail twitching in irritation. The cat must have followed her outside when she’d run. Thank God her pet hadn’t been shut out in the confusion. Halfway across the room, the Siamese spotted their intimidating visitor for the first time. She froze and crouched, ears back, her slanted eyes assessing her unexpected adversary. Then she sniffed, edged closer, and without dropping a beat began to rub shamelessly against the black denim of the man’s jeans.