Chapter Seven

 

“Where the hell did you hear that story?”

The harsh tone of his voice startled her, and she snapped back to the present, out of the past that had been swamping her mind as she recited the Fairytale from memory. “I told you. It’s just a story I heard when I was...”

“It’s just the one story I’ve been searching for my entire life,” he yelled back, and it shook her to know he wasn’t raising his voice just to be heard over the wind. He was angry. “Just a story I’ve never been able to find, Brigit.”

“But—”

“Once more, where did you hear it?”

His face was hard. Granite lines and angles and shadows. And the wind came in stronger than before, whipping his hair into chaos. Roiling storm clouds obliterated the moon’s glow, now. But they were nothing compared to the ones raging in his eyes.

“An old nun,” she said softly, “told me that story on the nights when I was too afraid or too lonely to sleep. I used to think it was true. That I was really...” She let her voice trail off, shaking her head slowly at the expression he wore. “You don’t believe me.”

He said nothing, just got up as the first raindrops plunked and smattered the flat stone under his feet.

“Come on inside. You’ll get soaked.”

“But, Adam, you’ve heard that story before. I know you have. You knew about the forest of Rush.”

“What?”

He seemed so alarmed that she blinked in surprise. “You said you thought ‘Rush’ was the name of the forest in the painting. Adam, that’s why I assumed you’d heard my Fairytale.”

“Your fairytale?”

She lowered her head. “Well, I used to think it was mine. That someone had made it up just for me. I only realized it wasn’t when it became obvious others had heard it, too. You...and the artist who did your painting.”

She looked up at him, standing above her, staring down at her with an expression that combined so many emotions she couldn’t name them all. Disbelief. Confusion. Rage. Suspicion.

“Adam, I don’t know what you suspect me of here. But I only told you about the story because I wanted to know if the version you’d heard included the twin daughters.”

His eyebrows bent into question marks. “I’m damned if I’m going to stand out here in the rain and discuss something I know is impossible. A goddamn lie. There’s no way you heard that story.”

“It’s not a lie.” The rain fell harder. “Adam, that fairytale was the most important thing in my life for a long time. I clung to it when I had nothing else. And if you know anything about it, about where it comes from or...”

He stared at her, and she felt his eyes probing her soul. Felt his doubts. And something else...

“The only thing I know about it, Brigit, is that it doesn’t exist.”

Brigit got to her feet, leaning close to him as the wind came harder. Raising her voice to be heard over its deep moans. “If you heard the story, and the artist heard the story, how can you say it doesn’t exist?”

“I didn’t hear the damned story! I—” He pushed a hand through his damp hair. “I’m going inside.”

She closed her eyes, refusing to watch him go. Damn! She hadn’t meant to cause him any more pain. And she obviously had. She’d been worried he’d see through the lies she told. Now he was seeing lies when she spoke the truth. Why was he so certain her fairytale didn’t exist? What kind of cruel joke was this, anyway? He knew the story, but claimed he’d never heard of it? And what had he meant when he’d told her it was the story he’d been searching for all his life?

Oh, God, and what did any of this matter? She’d been foolish to let herself get distracted. She was here to do a job, not to find answers to the mysteries of her birth and bloodlines. Not to find out, once and for all, if she might really, truly have a sister.

She closed her eyes, released a long, slow, shuddery breath, and with it, forcibly, a bit of her tension. The sound of the rain was a comfort, and she stood still, feeling its coolness soaking her clothes, her hair. It didn’t matter that she didn’t know who she was. Or where she came from. Or what she was supposed to be doing in this lifetime. It didn’t matter.

She shouldn’t be asking anything from Adam Reid, anyway. Not when she was about to deceive him and steal from him. Let him go inside. She’d stay here. And maybe the rain would cleanse her stained soul. She tipped her face up to the droplets, felt them cooling her heated skin. And she couldn’t stop the tears of shame from falling from her eyes, but they mingled with the rain and were hidden.

Shit, this was too far-fetched to be for real. Now, more than ever, he knew that Brigit Malone was lying. Trying to convince him she held the answer to his childhood delusions. Trying to make him believe she’d heard the tale...that he’d finally found the source for those fantasies that had nearly got him beat to death by his own...

Not nearly beat to death. It was a few broken ribs, for Chrissakes! A half-dozen stitches in the back of the head. Kids get hurt worse than that playing high school sports.

He hadn’t been in high school, though. He’d been in second grade. He remembered thinking that if this was love, he wanted no part of it. And he’d held that lesson in his heart, ever since. Love and pain were one and the same in his scarred mind. And whether it made practical sense or not, the lesson was too well learned to ever be forgotten. Hell, he ought to thank the old man for teaching him so well.

It doesn’t matter.

Adam stood at the bank of windows in his study, and he stared out to the stone ledge. She was still out there. Had been for hours. He’d turned out all the lights so he could see her in the darkness and the rain. The yellow stars and moons on her dress made it a little easier to spot her.

She’d remained as she’d been, standing there and letting the rain pummel her body. He’d had to come inside. Jesus, she’d been so sensual, especially before she’d risen. When she’d been lying beside him on that cool rock protrusion, with her eyes closed and her dress getting wet. All he could think about was lowering his body on top of hers, of kissing the rainwater from her skin...

Not of the lies she was telling or of the reasons behind them. She couldn’t have heard the story when she was a kid.

Why not, Adam? You apparently did.

Only he didn’t remember it as a story. He thought he’d actually gone there. Seen that place called Rush, firsthand. Talked to a pregnant fairy named Maire, for God’s sake.

Yeah. And what are the chances of Brigit making up a name like that? What are the odds she’d come up with the same name you dreamed? Hmm?

But he hadn’t gone there. It had been a dream, instigated by a tale he must have heard...but one he couldn’t have heard, because he’d searched the world over for it, and he’d never found it.

Brigit must know about his dream. She must know details. How, though?

Made no sense whatsoever. There was no conceivable reason for her to deceive him this way. And even if she somehow knew all the details of his childhood delusion, and was making up all this about having heard stories of Rush, there was one thing she couldn’t fake. Couldn’t lie about. Her likeness to the woman in his fantasy. The woman he’d been told was his fate. The woman who was supposed to break his heart, because he had to let her go in the end.

In a dream, he reminded himself, turning to glance at the painting, the enchantress from his childhood fantasy. Only in a dream.

And that old doubt came whispering through his mind like a cool, bracing wind. It wasn’t a dream, Adam. And it wasn’t a delusion. It was real, and deep down inside, you know it. No other explanation makes sense.

A shiver worked up his spine. The practical part of his mind dismissed that whimsical voice, ignored it, but his heart couldn’t do the same. What if it were true? What if his experience hadn’t been a fantasy? And what if she were really...

His gaze returned to the ledge outside. She stood with her arms stretched out to her sides, head tipped back to the rain. And she turned in an excruciatingly slow circle.

She is a faery’s childe, and her joy is the rain. From it she draws comfort.

Jesus, he snapped inwardly. Quit thinking in terms of that damned Celtic text!

But he couldn’t stop thinking of it, because she was the embodiment of all it described. Damn, could she really be...

Finally she stopped turning, let her arms fall to her sides, and turned to walk along the path, and out of his line of vision. She was coming back to the house.

Maybe, he reasoned, as he built a fire in the grate and tried to convince himself it was for his own benefit, not hers, maybe there really were more things in heaven and earth than were dreamt of in his philosophy. Maybe.

So either she was telling the truth, and had no more idea than he, where the story had come from. Or she was lying in a deliberate attempt to perpetrate some complex scam.

Or maybe all of this was real. Part of his mind wanted to play with that theory, examine it, and dwell on it. But most of his mind rebelled. He wouldn’t let himself linger in those long-forbidden areas of his mind—realms he’d deemed off-limits, like the woods where it had all begun. But it kept coming back to him, teasing his brain the same way sounds on rooftops around Christmas Eve teased children’s minds the world over. Tempting his imagination to dare explore it.

She’d told him a tale of Rush. And in it, Maire had twin daughters. Brigit and Bridin. She’d asked him about that part of the tale, whether it was included in any versions he might have heard. Why? The only logical answer was that she, Brigit, believed she might be the Brigit in the story. And that somewhere, she had a twin sister named Bridin.

If that were true, then the pregnant Maire he’d dreamt of had shown him a vision of her own soon-to-be-born daughter. And told him she was to be his fate.

He blinked, recalling that fairy lady’s words to him when he’d been a little boy. “She needs you to show her the way...the way to her sister, and then show her the way back home.”

He gave his head a shake to silence that bell-like voice he remembered so well, but it went right on. “You mustn’t let yourself fall in love with her. She’ll break your heart if you do.”

A cold chill crept into his nape, and he shivered. As he passed the geranium on the end table, he paused, doing a double take. The thing’s leaves were vivid green. And if he wasn’t mistaken, those tiny nubs he saw were flower buds.

His stomach knotted a little. Just yesterday the plant had been withered and brown. He remembered the way she’d paused beside it, rubbed her fingers over the drying leaves.

Brigit, his mind whispered. She must be...

“She must be the owner of a nursery on the Commons, stupid,” he said aloud. “She must be applying her talents to save my pathetic house-plants. And that’s all.”

But overnight?

Tomorrow, he decided, dropping to his knees in front of the hearth and adding larger bits of wood, he would do some research on Brigit Malone.

He woke to screams so harsh and so frantic they made his heart freeze in his chest. And then he smelled the smoke.

“Oh, shit!”

He dove out of bed in his shorts, and took only the briefest second to feel his bedroom door for heat before flinging it open, lunging into the hall, and leaning over the railing, automatically checking the fireplace. He immediately saw what was wrong, and his entire body sagged in relief. There was no fire. Something had plugged the flue. Smoke billowed gently from a smoldering log on the grate and floated upstairs. Brigit had stopped screaming, so she must realize now that there was no danger.

He took the stairs two at a time, and used the brass pail and the matching shovel to scoop the offending log out. Smoke spiraled off the charred lump. He rapidly shoveled up a few other smoke-belching embers, and added them to the pail, then carried the mess outside, into the rain, and dumped it right into the first puddle of water he came to.

He left the front door open, and opened all the windows in the study before going back upstairs again. And then he tapped on Brigit’s door, wanting to check on her before going back to bed.

There was no answer.

Frowning, Adam pushed the door open and stepped inside. But she wasn’t in the bed. He flicked the light on, and then crossed the floor to open the French doors, and allow fresh air in to cleanse the room’s slightly smoky air. And that’s when he saw her.

She sat on the floor in the corner, knees drawn to her chest, eyes wide but, he thought, unseeing. She was pale, and trembling, and tears had burned tracks into her cheeks. She clutched a book to her chest with white knuckled hands. And she wore only that vanilla satin nightgown. One of the thin straps had fallen from her shoulder, and the way her knees were bent, the bottom of it was bunched up around her hips. She looked, he thought sadly, like a frightened little girl. And that was what did him in.

A shiver ran up Adam’s spine at the fear in her eyes. He’d never seen anything so desolate in her before. She always seemed so vibrant, so full of life. But right now, her eyes were vacant. Dead.

He crouched in front of her, his hands automatically closing on her shoulders. “Brigit? Hey...come on, talk to me.” He shook her a little. “Brigit?”

Her eyes seemed to focus on him. But her breathing was still ragged and too fast.

“It’s all right, angel,” he told her. And then he blinked, surprised the endearment had fallen so naturally from his lips. And then he decided it fit her. “There’s no fire,” he soothed. “Just smoke. The chimney was plugged. It’s no big deal.”

She closed her eyes, released a shuddering sigh. “I was so afraid...”

“It’s all right.” He sank to the floor beside her. It was a good spot. The night breeze rapidly filled the room with rain-washed air that swept through, whisking the smoke back outside with it before blasting more fresh air in.

She pressed close to his side, her head on his shoulder. “Sister Ruth told us to hold hands,” she whispered. “But I let go. I went back...for Sister Mary Agnes.”

A cold chill raced up his spine as she whispered the words, and he wasn’t certain she was even aware who she was talking to. His arms went around her in an effort to stop her shivering, but it didn’t work.

“B-but I couldn’t find her,” she said. “There was so much smoke...and then the flames...”

“There’s no fire, Brigit. You’re safe.” He clasped her nape, turned her head so he could look into her eyes. They were still closed, so tightly it was as if she were fighting not to see something. But he had a feeling she was seeing it anyway. “Open your eyes, Brigit. Dammit, look at me. There’s no fire, you understand?”

Her eyes opened, but he wasn’t sure if it was in response to his command or to her own nightmares. They opened wide. Too wide.

“I couldn’t get out! I couldn’t breathe!”

A lump came into his throat, so large he nearly choked on it. This was no dream. No nightmare. This was a real memory.

“You’re safe now,” he told her. He took her hands, pressed her palms to his own face. “Look at me, will you? It’s Adam. There’s no fire. You’re safe, Brigit.”

She blinked several times. “Adam...” She sat up a little straighter, searching his eyes, then she covered her face with her palms and muttered, “Oh, God, oh, God.” Her entire body shook with the force of her sobs. She drew her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, and she rocked back and forth.

There was the slightest hesitation on Adam’s part. Slight...as his wariness kicked in to analyze her behavior. Real trauma, or clever ploy?

No. She wasn’t acting. Whatever was happening to her, or had happened to her, was real. And frightening. And like it or not, it was tearing his heart out to see her in this state.

Adam got to his feet and bent over her. He slipped one hand beneath her legs and one around her back, and he picked her up, took her to the bed. He lowered her onto it. She rolled to one side, her back to him, and drew herself into a little ball. She reminded him of the woolly bear caterpillars he used to search for as a child. The way they’d curl themselves up when he touched them. An act of self-preservation. She was every bit as scared right now as those insects had been. She trembled, and every few seconds a sob racked her body. She still clutched that book to her breast, whatever it was.

Adam swallowed hard. He looked at the door, even then knowing he couldn’t leave her. Not like this. He whispered a prayer to St. Francis of Assisi, and then he laid down on the bed beside her. He snagged a handful of covers, pulled them up to cover them both.

It was right. He knew it was a second later, when a sob choked her, and she turned to him. When she curled up against him, burying her face in the crook of his shoulder, pressing so close and curling her body up so tightly it was as if she’d like to crawl inside him. As if she’d like to hide there, from her memories.

And dammit, he knew that feeling all too well. He had a few memories of his own that could put him in a similar state. And he couldn’t turn away from another person who’d had a childhood full of nightmares. He couldn’t do it.

He wrapped her up in his arms and he held her, and all his pent-up breath left him in a rush. The rigidness left his shoulders and his spine. He stopped grating his teeth. This was right. This was where he needed to be, right now. He stopped fighting it, and let his instincts have free rein. His hands stroked her hair, and rubbed her back, and squeezed her tighter. He whispered to her that it was all right, that she was safe, that he wasn’t going anywhere.

Her trembling body relaxed in his arms. Her face lay tight to his unclothed chest. He felt her hot tears there, and her warm breath. He felt her quivering lips each time she parted them on a sob. The scent of her hair and that of her tears mingled to create a bittersweet perfume he’d remember always. Her skin slid beneath his hands like silk.

He kept it up until she cried herself to sleep.

And then he wondered what demon had possessed him to end up in bed with this woman. Was he so far gone that, even knowing she lied with nearly every breath, he was still this...this...

Enchanted.

Yeah, that was the word for it, all right. If he didn’t know better, he’d think he was under an enchantment.

And maybe that’s exactly what it was. And maybe it was about time he remind himself that if all of this really were true, if his childhood fantasy had really happened, and if Brigit Malone were truly the woman he’d been shown...then lying here, holding her this way, was the stupidest thing he could do. Because it made him want more, and it made his heart go soft when it had been a solid lump of granite for such a long time. And he couldn’t let himself care for her. He couldn’t.

Because if this fairytale were true, he already knew the ending. And it wasn’t happily ever after.

He laid awake, bathed in her warmth and her nearness, telling himself to leave her alone and holding her tight in his arms, for the rest of the night.

“Adam...?”

Brigit lifted her head from the firm, warm, male cushion beneath it, and realized it was Adam’s naked chest. Her first impulse was to return her head to that wonderful pillow, after trailing her lips over it to see how it would taste.

Fortunately, she came a little more fully awake before giving in to that impulse.

“Oh,” she whispered, and then, more softly, “oh.”

His eyes were opened, clear, and focused on her face with a mingling of concern and awareness. “Yeah. You can say that again.”

They were incredibly dark this morning, his changeable eyes. Like the needles of a blue spruce on a cloudy day.

She remembered last night. The smell of smoke...the waking nightmare. And Adam, coming to her, holding her and making it all disappear. Her eyes widened as she thought of her book. The Fairytale. But a quick glance confirmed she’d tucked it back under her pillow as she did every night. She sighed and sat up, then belatedly clutched the blanket to her chest. Her choice of sleeping attire hadn’t been exactly modest.

“Too late, Brigit. I already have intimate knowledge of that nightie.”

She lowered her eyes, feeling her cheeks burn.

“Don’t be embarrassed. You look...incredible in it.”

“This shouldn’t have happened.” She spoke quickly, softly, keeping her eyes averted.

“Nothing happened, Brigit.”

“I slept in your arms.”

“Yeah. And I was warm until you moved away. Now I’m freezing.” He flung back the covers and surged to his feet, heading toward the wide open French doors. She couldn’t take her eyes from his scantily clad body...those hair-smattered thighs, hard as tree trunks, that small, compact butt covered only by a thin pair of boxers. The broad, smooth width of his shoulders. The way his golden hair touched his nape. The way it curled slightly there. The way she wanted to touch it.

He closed the French doors, and turned to face her. And the color of his eyes turned darker still. They took on a gleam she hadn’t seen before. He took a step toward the bed.

“I...I’m sorry,” she said softly. “About last night.”

“Don’t be.” He took another step.

She met his gaze, held it, and very slightly, she shook her head. “I can’t...”

He stopped in his tracks, blinking as if snapping out of some trance state. He lowered his chin to his chest, blew all the air from his lungs.

Then he came the rest of the way to the bed and sank onto the foot of it. No longer the predator. She wasn’t afraid of him now.

“Tell me something, Brigit,” he said, and he ran two hands back and forth through his hair roughly, as if it would somehow invigorate him. All it did was make the hair stick up like feathers. Make her long to smooth it down again. “How old were you when you got trapped in that fire?”

She closed her eyes. He knew it was real, and not a dream. There was no use denying it. She already knew he could see right through her lies. So she opened her eyes again, and met his. “Eight or nine.”

“Jesus.” He lifted his brows then, not asking, just waiting.

“It was an orphanage. St. Mary’s, in New York. Sister Mary Agnes...she was the one who used to tell me the story...she died that night.”

He was searching her face. For what, she wondered?

“But you got out.”

She nodded. “A homeless man who spent most of his time in the park across the street came into that hell and carried me out.”

“No kidding?”

“No kidding,” she whispered. And as she did, she thought of Raze, and all he’d done for her. She adored him. There was nothing in this world she wouldn’t do to keep him safe.

And unfortunately, that included betraying the man who sat in his underwear on the foot of her bed, staring into her eyes as if he were seeing her for the first time.

 

Adam had left her in the bed. He still wasn’t sure how he’d worked up the will to do that, but he had. She’d been lying there looking sleepy and vulnerable, and very much as if she’d rather he stayed.

Right. And she’d told him things, things she’d been holding back before. And now maybe he had a jumping-off point. He had to know everything about her. He had to find a way to determine once and for all if there were even the slightest possibility she was...what he suspected she was. God, he couldn’t even complete the thought without feeling ridiculous.

But he had to know the truth. Before she destroyed him. Because if that was her goal, intentional or not, Adam was sorely afraid she was going to succeed.

Funny how a woman he was afraid would destroy him could manage to heal him while he awaited the killing blow. Because that’s what she was doing. He realized it this morning. It was the damnedest thing. She seemed to have the same effect on his heart that she had on his houseplants.

Pure, impossible magic.

Facts. He needed facts.

He sat in a booth at Hal’s Deli right now, across from the man who could get them for him.

“Don’t worry about the money, Adam. Look, you paid me plenty for trying to track down that lousy wife of yours, even though I offered to do it as a favor, and even though I wasn’t able to find her for you.”

“Successful or not, you put a lot of time into tracing her, Mac. What kind of friend would let you do all that for nothing?”

“Yeah, well, I’m doing better now. The business is thriving. Anything you need I’ll do at no charge.” He looked Adam in the eye, his expression intense. “I mean it. You offer me a dime, I’ll blacken your eye. You’re my best friend. Just tell me what you want.”

Adam nodded, admitting defeat. “Thanks, Mac.”

“So what’s up?”

He sighed, feeling inexplicably guilty for what he was about to do. “She goes by the name of Brigit Malone,” he said finally. “And she spent some time in a shelter called St. Mary’s, in New York. I take it she was an orphan. She mentioned that she might have a twin sister, but that she doesn’t know for sure. There was a fire at St. Mary’s while she was there. Burned the place to the ground. Now she owns a shop on the Commons. Akasha. And that’s just about every goddamn thing I know about her.”

Except, he added silently, that she loves the rain. And that having her around seems to make dying houseplants thrive. And that her eyes...

He gave his head a shake. He also knew her address. And that she’d lied about the construction going on there. He gave Mac the former.

“But you’d like to know more?”

He nodded, and took another sip of the best coffee in the state of New York. “Yeah. Everything you can dig up, okay?”

“You got it, Adam. It would help if I could see her. Do you have a photo?”

“No.” But I have a painting, he added silently.

“Well, could you arrange for us to run into each other somewhere?”

“You could come to the house” Adam suggested, barely following the conversation. Why, when she was the one lying to him every time she opened her pretty mouth—probably—was he feeling guilty for asking a P.I. to check her out? Why?

“Oh, that’ll work,” Mac said. “Assuming she’s brain dead.”

Adam frowned, trying to get his mind on the matter at hand. “Hmm?”

“If she’s plotting something, she’ll have reason to be suspicious of me, Adam. And if she is, and she has something to hide, she might take measures to keep it hidden.”

“Oh.”

“So take her out somewhere. Some university function or other. There’s always something going on, isn’t there?”

“Yeah. There’s always something,”

“Adam, are you okay?”

He met the other man’s eyes, and nodded. “So far.”

“If you’re so sure she’s lying to you, why the hell don’t you just toss her out?”

He shook his head. “I can’t. I can’t explain it, Mac, but—”

“Don’t put yourself through this again, pal.”

He met his best friend’s eyes. The concern he saw there was genuine. He wished he could tell Mac everything, but he knew he’d sound totally insane.

“Look,” he said at last, changing the subject. “There’s a thing tonight. Cocktail party for university alumni, to kick off a fund raiser. Starts at nine. Okay?”

Mac sighed, but shrugged in resignation. “Okay. Meanwhile, I’ll see what I can find out about her.”

“Thanks.”

Mac slid out of the booth, apparently out of reasons to stay and try to talk some sense into Adam. He could be overprotective of his friends. It irritated some of them, but Adam saw it for what it was. Genuine caring. The guy felt things deep. Especially loyalty. His friends were lucky people.

Adam lingered after Mac had gone. He still had time left on his lunch break. Customers came and went, sat and ate, chatted and read their newspapers. But he wasn’t seeing them. More and more, he saw only one face in his mind. A face far too innocent to be involved in trickery or deceit. Maybe too beautiful even to be merely mortal. If she’d lied her way into his life, then it was only because he’d let her. And he would let her remain, because he was so desperate to find out her true connection to the tale that seemed to have been a part of her childhood as much as his own. And its connection to the painting that hung over his mantel and haunted his thoughts.

He still had to know those things. But now...he had to know them before she managed to lie—or to enchant—her way right into his heart.

It scared the hell out of him to admit, she already had a pretty decent start.

The way it was going, she’d be finished within a day or two. Brigit was more careful when she carried the canvas up the stairs this time. She’d worked on it most of the day, and barely given the paint any drying time at all before she’d had to move it. Dangerous, lugging a wet painting around like this. It could smudge or smear.

But it didn’t. Not this time.

She heard a car out front, and looking down at her paint stained fingertips, she panicked. But then she narrowed her eyes, tilted her head, and listened closely. And she knew the sound wasn’t coming from Adam’s Porsche.

Wiping her hands with a soft rag, she continued down the curving staircase, hearing the doorbell now. She dropped the rag on a table as she passed, and went to open the front door.

Zaslow stood there leering at her.

Brigit gasped. “What are you doing here?”

His smile was slow and deliberate. “Came to check on your progress, Brigit. Wouldn’t want to think you were pulling one over on me.”

Brigit ignored him, her gaze shooting past him to where his car sat in the driveway.

“Raze isn’t there. You think I’d be stupid enough to bring him along?”

“Where is he? Is he all right?”

“Relax, Brigit. He’s fine. And as long as you do what you’re told, he’ll continue to be fine.” His hands snatched hers without warning, and his grip was unnecessarily cruel as he lifted them, turned her palms up, and examined her fingers. She tried to pull free, but he was too strong. And he smiled at the paint stains still visible on her fingertips.

“Looks like you’ve been a good little forger, Brigit. How much longer?”

“Let go...dammit, Zaslow, you’re hurting me. I said let go!” Her words were firm, and delivered as commands as she tried to twist her hands free of his grip.

He smiled fully, but the smile died a second later. A large hand came down on Zaslow’s shoulder, jerking him backward, out of the doorway, so he stumbled on the stairs. He released his grip on her, more out of surprise, she thought, than anything else. She was surprised herself.

“Adam,” Brigit breathed.

He didn’t look at her. His eyes blazed with midnight-blue fire, and they were all Zaslow’s. At some point, she wasn’t certain when, he’d grabbed a handful of the other man’s shirt, and held it now, bunched in his fists.

“When a lady tells you to let go,” he said, his voice dangerously soft, “you let go. Got it?”

“You misunderstood, mister. Brigit and I are old friends...” Zaslow tried to wrest himself free. Adam finally let go, but did so with a little shove that sent Zaslow the rest of the way down the front steps.

Adam glanced her way, one brow lifted in question.

“Tell him, Brigit,” Zaslow said, and she grimaced, ready to declare that the very sight of him made her skin crawl. But before she got a word out, he added, “Raze wouldn’t want you to bad-mouth me. You know he wouldn’t.”

The fury that had been bubbling inside her froze, and slowly turned into fear. The bastard had her firmly in his control. She had to say and do exactly what he told her, or dear, sweet Raze would suffer for it. Damn Zaslow for using a helpless old man this way. Damn him for this!

She saw Adam watching her, saw his eyes narrow.

She lifted her chin, swallowed hard. “We’re old friends,” she confirmed with a slight nod. “Just had a slight disagreement.”

“That’s right. A slight disagreement. But we’ve settled it now.”

A muscle worked in Adam’s jaw. He held her eyes captive, refusing to look away. Merciless in his probing and searching. And there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that he knew she was lying. For once, she was glad. She didn’t want him to think she’d have anything this vile as a friend.

“Brigit doesn’t need friends like you,” he said, never turning to look at Zaslow, never taking his intense stare from her. “If you darken my door again, you’ll have to be carried out of here.”

Zaslow’s icy eyes flared with anger and maybe a hint of fear. The way Adam delivered the threat left no doubt he meant every word of it, even without eye contact. And though Zaslow was the bigger of the two, Brigit found herself believing Adam could and would do exactly what he’d said he would.

Zaslow never answered, just turned and headed down the driveway, got into his car, and drove off, spitting gravel in his wake.

Brigit closed her eyes, her breath escaping her in a rush, her back bowing a little.

Adam came inside and closed the door. He stared down at her. She could feel his intense gaze even before she opened her eyes.

“He’s no friend, is he Brigit?”

“No.”

“Lover, then? Or a former one?”

Her eyes flared wider. “No!”

Adam nodded thoughtfully, pursing his lips. “You called him...Zaslow?”

She only nodded.

“He has some kind of hold over you. That much is obvious.”

She held his gaze, said nothing.

“But you don’t want to tell me about it.”

Drawing a long, deep breath to battle her constricting throat, she whispered, “Yes I do, Adam. I want that more than I’ve ever wanted anything, I think. But...I can’t.”

Adam frowned, searching her face, waiting.

“I’m sorry,” she added, finally forced to lower her gaze from the power of his.

He was silent for a long moment, and she knew his eyes were still probing and searching her face. Finally, he sighed, and turned away. “Do you like parties, Brigit?”

Frowning, completely thrown by his change of topics, she looked up quickly, turning to stare after his retreating back. “Parties?”

“Boring faculty thing. Lots of pretentious fools, sipping punch and spouting intelligencia to anyone who’ll listen. A string quartet. Dancing.” He turned around, sent her a wink and a sheepish smile. “Hell, it’s free food, if nothing else. My attendance is pretty much required. It might be a little more bearable if you’d come with me.”

She just stared at him, and she knew she must be gaping, but she couldn’t move or speak,

“If you don’t want to, that’s—”

“No. I mean, yes, I want to.” Oh, why had she said that? She should have stayed here. It would have given her more time to work on the painting. “When?” she heard herself asking.

He glanced at his watch. “Two hours.”

She had a feeling she’d regret this. “I’ll be ready.”

“Good.” He turned as if their conversation were over, resumed walking toward the study.

“Adam?”

He stopped, not turning around.

“Thanks...for not pushing me about...about Zaslow.”

“Don’t thank me, Brigit. That conversation isn’t over yet.” Then he walked into the study, closing the doors behind him.

 

He grated his teeth, closed his eyes, and told himself he was a hundred kinds of fool. He’d been shaking with anger. Shaking with it. It had taken every ounce of will he’d had in him to keep from knocking that bastard on his ass when he’d come in and seen the way he was manhandling Brigit.

Zaslow. She said his name was Zaslow.

It was ridiculous to feel so protective of her. Stupid, when she obviously knew the man, and when the man obviously knew things about her that she hadn’t shared with Adam. Hell, he was a fool. For all he knew this Zaslow might be in on whatever plot Brigit was working here.

His instincts, though, balked at the notion that Brigit would willingly have anything to do with the brute. He obviously had something on her. Something powerful enough to make her lie for him. She’d been ready to spew venom when he’d claimed to be her friend. And then he’d said something cryptic. Adam bit his lip, trying to recall it exactly as Zaslow had said it. “Raze wouldn’t want you to bad-mouth me.”

So who or what was Raze? What was Zaslow’s hold on Brigit? What was her true reason for being here, in Adam’s house? And what did Zaslow have to do with it?

Damn, the longer he knew the woman, the more questions he had about her. No answers. Just more and more questions.

He was turning into a freaking basket case. And in his rush to get to the house to see who the hell the stranger in the doorway was, he’d left his briefcase in the car. Yup. A basket case.

He left the study, headed through the foyer to the door. As he passed the marble-topped pedestal table at the base of the stairs, he glanced at the now-thriving houseplant there, wondering again at her green thumb—or was it fairy dust? Then he absently snatched the wadded rag from the stand’s surface, thinking Brigit must have been dusting and forgot it.

He stopped, opening his hand and staring down at the soft bit of cloth on his palm. It was smeared with colors. Greens and blues and gray here and there. He lifted it to his face, sniffing.

Paint.

He furrowed his brows and sent a questioning gaze up the stairs, but Brigit was nowhere in sight.

Paint.

And a slimebag of a man holding something over her head, something deadly.

And knowledge of a forest that had existed only in his own imagination.

And the ability to make him forget all of it, just by looking into his eyes.

“Just what in the hell are you up to, Brigit Malone,” Adam whispered, staring up the staircase she’d just ascended. “Just what in the hell am I going to do about you?”