Chained (4 page)

No more.

Not when she was wrapped in the security of Matthew’s
embrace.

He rubbed his lips against hers, but she sensed that he was
ready to pull away if she protested.

Not likely.

She felt him smile as he increased the pressure, moving his
mouth against hers with the skill of a man who knows how to make love with a
woman.

She marveled at the softness of his lips, at the hard
pressure of his fingers on her shoulders.

Without thinking about it, she opened for him so that his
tongue could slip into her mouth, stroking her as he had done the night before.

But she didn’t want to be the passive partner. She met his
tongue with her own, sliding along the edge, then pressing forward, into his
mouth, tasting him deeply as she had always wanted to do.

He drew back, maybe in shock.

“Where did you learn to do that?”

She wanted to open her eyes and look at him, but deep down
she knew it was the wrong thing to do. “I’ve grown up.”

“Into a very sexy woman.”

As he spoke, he stroked one hand down her body, cupping her
bottom and pressing her hips against himself.

When he did, she felt the erection straining at the front of
his jeans. That was a shock. Yet she gloried in his reaction to her.

He was turning her on, and she was doing the same thing to
him.

Not exactly a classic ghost story. Yet nothing she had read,
nothing in her life had prepared her for this. Not even the meeting with her
granny.

He slid his mouth to her cheek and then found the tender
coil of her ear with his tongue.

When she snuggled closer, he wrapped his arms around her and
leaned back against the tree trunk behind him, splaying his legs and equalizing
their heights so that her center was pressed to his erection.

She moaned as she clung to him, moving against him,
frustrated by the layers of clothing that separated her heated skin from his.

He shifted the top of her body so that he could bring one
hand between them, cupping her breast, gliding his fingers over the aching tip.

She heard her breath turn ragged, felt the fire rushing
through her veins. She had longed for him, and now—finally—she had him where
she wanted him.

It was a dream come true. As real as she wanted it to be. He
moved her body against his, increasing the friction and her need for him.

Where was this leading?

She heard him gasp her name, and then in an instant,
everything changed. He reversed their positions, leaning her back against the
tree before stepping away from her.

“Matt?” she gasped. “Matthew?”

When he didn’t answer, her eyes flew open and she found
herself alone and staring into the sycamore grove.

CHAPTER FOUR

Far away, in a facility called Garrison Care, Gloria Romano
was holding a conversation with a drop-dead gorgeous guy she’d known for five
years. She was the one doing all the talking, because the man never answered.

In her thirty years as a practical nurse, this man had
affected her like no other patient. If she’d been younger, she might have
thought of him in romantic terms. But she was old enough to be his mother, and
she thought of him like a son.

“Hey, sweetie, how are you doing today?”

She kept up the cheerful chatter as he lay in the special
bed that shifted his position periodically, preventing him from getting
bedsores.

“I had a tuna salad for lunch. I guess you don’t think
that’s very exciting. I know guys aren’t much for salad. You’d like a steak and
twice-baked potatoes, wouldn’t you? Want me to bring you some next time I’m
here?”

Turning away, she looked at his chart, thinking it was a
damn shame this guy was never expected to wake up. But that didn’t mean she was
going to give up on him. Her status as a practical nurse put her low in the
pecking order at Garrison Care, but she’d read a lot about comas. They were
unpredictable. Although it wasn’t likely, a person could suddenly wake up after
years.

But one thing she did know from her reading: You should
never assume a person in a coma couldn’t hear you. Which was why she liked to
chat with him.

Still, every time she washed him or shaved him or brushed
his hair, she lamented his condition. He was never going to have a life. Or was
something going on in his sleeping brain that nobody knew about?

Sometimes, when she gazed at his face, she saw his eyes move
beneath his closed lids, like he was looking at something. Something only he
could see.

He never opened those eyes to look at anyone, even when the
physical therapist was working with him, keeping his muscles toned, at least as
much as the muscles of an unconscious man could be toned.

Because she’d been curious about how he’d gotten here, she’d
gone back through his records. He was thirty four years old and had worked for
an outfit called Decorah Security. His name was Matthew Houseman, and he had
been horribly wounded in a raid on a militia compound.

He’d been found on the ground in a pool of blood, presumed
dead. But when they’d discovered he was still alive, they’d rushed him to the
hospital, where the doctors had done everything they could for him.

Since he’d been discharged from the hospital, Decorah
Security had paid big bucks to keep him here. Sometimes she wondered why,
because his life was a waste with him lying here in this bed, day after day.

“I’m going to wash your hair now, Matthew,” Gloria said.
“And give you a scalp massage. Then we’ll have a nice sponge bath and a shave.”

She was just reaching for a basin of warm water when his eyes
snapped open.

For the first time in her life, she stared into their dark
depths, wondering what he was seeing.

“Matthew?” she breathed.

“Isabella,” he answered.

“What?”

“Isabella.”

“Who is Isabella?” Gloria pressed.

“She needs help.”

Then his eyes closed again, and she wondered if she had made
up the incident, or if it had really happened.

oOo

 Isabella would have called Matthew’s name again, but she
knew on some deep, instinctive level that he would not respond. He was gone.
For good?

Her heart squeezed painfully.

They were just getting to know each other again. Then he had
vanished.

Why?

Her face heated when she thought about what they’d been
doing. They’d both liked it. She knew that. Then he’d suddenly . . . what?

Decided it was wrong? For him? For her?

She’d never been in a situation like this before.

That brought forth another one of her laughs that bordered
on hysteria. Who on earth had been in a situation like this?

She’d been making out with a man who she knew was dead. A
man she could see through. A man who could come and go as he pleased.

A faint breeze rustled the leaves. Was Matthew doing that?
Maybe he was trying to tell her something. She didn’t know, and any answer she
gave would be pure speculation.

Suddenly she couldn’t stand being in the grove any longer.
Whatever had taken place here was wrong, for so many reasons.

Matthew had known that, even if she hadn’t.

She walked back to the house, wishing she could get into her
car and drive away from this place. But she’d come here to hide out, and she
needed time to decide what to do.

Uncertainty made her stomach knot as she stepped into the
kitchen. Last night it had been too dark to evaluate the property. Today she
walked through the rooms, giving each a close inspection.

The interior of the house was in remarkably good shape
considering that nobody had been here for years.

Nobody.
That stopped her.

Matthew Houseman was here. At least in some sense of the
word.

She forced herself not to think about him as she checked the
supplies in the pantry. Maybe they were even edible. And the wine had been
okay.

Then she went into her father’s study with its
old-fashioned, rolltop desk and book-lined walls. As a teenager, she’d thought
it was a waste to have so many books in a house where they weren’t going to be
staying for long. Now the volumes made her feel closer to her father. He had
touched these books, read them.

And Matthew had borrowed some of them, too.

“Stop thinking about Matthew,” she told herself. “You’ve got
work to do.”

Under the desk chair was a rug. And under that was a
trapdoor. She pulled it up and shined a flashlight down a ladder and into the
dark passage below. Papa had shown her this escape route long ago. Now she’d
better make sure it still led to safety in case she was trapped in the house
and needed to get out.

Tucking the light into her belt, she awkwardly climbed down
the ladder, feeling the temperature drop several degrees. It was damp and close
in the confined space, and she stood for a moment fighting off a feeling of
claustrophobia. Her breath shallow, she made her way down the passage that was
something like a miner’s shaft with crossbeams every few feet holding up the
ceiling. She’d only been here once. Shivering, she headed toward the exit. It
was a stout wooden door that opened on the far side of the sycamore grove,
where an outcropping of rocks hid it from view from the house and ranch yard.
The door was barred with a heavy beam. Experimentally, she lifted it a few
inches and then pushed it all the way up. The door opened with a groan, and she
stepped into the sunlight, blinking. When her eyes had adjusted to the
brightness, she looked around. A rock formation loomed behind her, and the
grove blocked her view of the house. After closing the door and lowering the
bar again, she retraced her steps.

There were a couple more things she should do. As she walked
back, she felt along the side of the tunnel until she came to an invisible seam
in the earthen wall. Knocking some of the dirt away with the end of the
flashlight, she uncovered a metal door. The safe. It was locked, but the key
was with her others.

The lock was rusty with disuse, and at first the key refused
to turn. But finally she got the door open and reached inside where she found a
heavy canvas bag. Opening it, she shined her flashlight on the money inside.
Most of the bills were hundreds. But there were also larger and smaller
denominations. A note in her father’s handwriting said there was a hundred
thousand dollars in the bag, along with the numbers of Swiss bank accounts
where she could get more funds if she needed them. Back in San Marcos, her
father had come from a rich family. He hadn’t even needed to work as a
reporter. But he’d wanted to make a difference in the lives of the people.
Which was how he’d gotten into trouble.

After taking out five thousand dollars in cash and stuffing
it into her purse, she put the bag back into the safe and locked it again, then
shined her light around the tunnel, looking for another panel that her father
had also shown her.

It was hidden behind a screen of dirt, which she scraped off
with the flashlight, then opened the little door. Her hands trembled as she
examined the mechanisms. They seemed to be in working order. But there was no
way to be sure after so many years.

With a shudder, she closed the door and turned away, then
climbed the ladder back to the study, where she replaced the rug and the chair.

The trip into the tunnel had been unsettling, and she needed
to ground herself. Turning to the shelves, she scanned the books. They were
organized into fiction and nonfiction and arranged in alphabetical order in her
father’s methodical way. Many were familiar to her, and a couple of old novels
caught her eye. The Egyptian and Arrowsmith. She’d read them as a teenager,
although Papa had thought they weren’t suitable for a girl her age. Maybe she’d
revisit them.

After putting them on the desk, she went to the nonfiction
section and looked for information on the Sedona vortexes.

There was no book, but she found a folder of brochures that
had been put out by local organizations. They had maps with the locations of
vortexes and information about tours which she obviously wasn’t going to take.

In the kitchen, she read some of the material. When she got
restless, she went out and explored the stable and some of the other
outbuildings on the property. At first she didn’t admit that she was looking
for Matthew, but she knew that was in the back of her mind. As far as she could
tell, she was alone.

The ghost had vanished. Maybe forever. Another situation she
couldn’t control, she realized.

Feeling a little foolish, she stopped in the shade of the
barn and called his name.

He didn’t answer.

“Do you think I should go into town and get some more
groceries?” she asked.

No answer.

She had half a mind to find out if he’d try to stop her, but
she knew that she shouldn’t venture off the ranch property unless she had to.
At least not in broad daylight. Instead she filled a bottle with water, put it
in a knapsack with her gun, and pulled on a hat and her hiking boots.

She had ridden into the desert with Matthew. She had no
horse now, but she had always been a good hiker.

Her destination was a red rock formation where she’d once
felt the power of a vortex. It turned out to be an hour’s walk from the ranch.
When she got there, she sat with her back against one of the rocks, drinking
from the water bottle and looking out across the desert, letting her eyes drift
out of focus.

A lizard looked at her, then scurried noiselessly across the
rocks and disappeared.

In the quiet, she felt the energy of the place, a tingling
sensation that made her skin prickle.

Since the vortexes were supposed to boost the power of
prayer, she opened her mind and her heart to the spirit of the universe. Of
course she’d been raised Catholic, but since becoming an adult, she’d felt more
comfortable with a spirituality that embraced a greater vision of religion.