For All of Her Life (33 page)

“Shhh! Dammit. I didn’t mean to startle—”

“Scare the hell out of me!”

“Damn, Kath, I just now stepped in here. I couldn’t bang on the door and announce my presence!”

It was dark in the room. She could barely make out his form at first. He was wearing a knee-length terry robe. She looked at his face. His features were hard and taut in the night. Unnerved, she leapt out of bed, staring at him. Not that she could see much.

Shadows.

“Jordan you can’t keep doing this to me.

“I was worried. I couldn’t leave you alone.”

“My door was locked.”

“It wasn’t.”

“It certainly was! I locked it!”

“Kathy, it wasn’t.”

“Jordan—”

“My God, what do you want me to do? Swear on the lives of my daughters? Well, I do. And that’s exactly why I was so worried about you. You’re a trusting little fool—”

“Don’t you dare call me a fool!”

“Shhh!”

She fell silent, aware that she was still shaking. She was losing her mind in this house. She suddenly remembered the
click
she had heard. Someone opening her door? Or closing it? Had someone other than Jordan come into her room, and stood there staring at her? She had thought it had happened before, on the night she had first come. But none of the others had been in the house then, only Jordan.

That was it. He was trying to convince her that she was insane. Jordan had hated Keith, he had tried to get Keith to take more drugs, he had killed Keith...

God. She was losing her mind.

“Jordan, I swear to you, I locked my door.” Had she? Or had she only thought so?

“The point is, you didn’t.”

She opened her mouth to argue with him, then didn’t. She swung around, pacing to the window, parting the drapes, staring down to the patio, hoping the tranquil aqua water of the pool would ease the tumult that had claimed her. “The point is,” she said in a firm, angry whisper, “you shouldn’t be here!”

He was silent. His belated reply was a stark and angry whisper. “I was worried. I had a right to be.”

She looked at him. “Worried?”

“You don’t want the girls alone; I’m worried about you being alone.” He indicated the connecting door to Jeremy’s room with an inclination of his head. “Even if Muscleman is sleeping yonder.”

“Jordan, damn you, he could come in—”

“Will he? I thought he didn’t enter without knocking.”

“Which is more than I can say for you!” she muttered, looking back absently to the patio.

“He has no reason to worry about your well-being.”

“You’re not helping it any.”

“I just came to stand sentinel.”

“But—” Kathy broke off, stunned, as she suddenly saw a figure move fleetly across the patio.

A woman’s figure. Slim, wraithlike in the night, running from the main house to the guest house.

Long, dark red hair trailing behind her. White nightgown flowing in the moonlight.

“Jordan.” She tried to give sound to his name. She had no air in her lungs. She had to inhale before gasping out his name again.

“Jordan!” She motioned furiously for him to come to the window.

He arrived just in time to see the figure disappearing around the side of the guest house. Maybe she was seeing things. No! She could tell, staring at him, at the tension in his features,
he had seen the woman, too!

The woman...

Her.
That long-ago night.

He pushed away from the window, striding quickly for the door to her room. She raced after him, frantically grabbing his arm. “Jordan, wait!”

“Kathy, let go of me! I have to find out who it is!”

“No! You could get hurt.”

“By a woman in a nightgown?” he demanded.

“Jordan... it’s... me!”

“Right. But it’s not you.”

“It may not even be a woman. It may be a man. An armed man. An armed woman. Someone who hopes you will follow, someone—”

“Kathy, I
have
to go!”

He wrenched free of her. “Lock your door. This time really do it, and don’t open the damned thing until you hear my voice, got it?”

“Jordan—”

“Lock it! Dammit, I’m armed as well. I’ll be all right. Don’t make me worry about you! It could be my downfall, Kathy. For the love of God, do as I say!”

“Jordan—”

But he was gone. As if he were a wraith himself, he had disappeared from the room.

She wanted to follow him.

But he had told her he was armed. Would he really be better off without having to worry about her? She bit into her lower lip, closed and locked the door. Carefully. Certainly. Then she raced back to the window, just in time to see Jordan streaking across the patio area.

Then around the side of the guest house...

Eons passed. An ungodly time. She aged a thousand years. She kept staring at the guest house. Watching, waiting, afraid to blink. She felt like screaming, like dialing 911, bursting into Jeremy’s room and waking him up.

Just when she thought she could bear it no longer, she heard a tapping at her door. She nearly leapt a mile, right out of her skin.

But then she heard his whisper.

“Kathy!”

She flung open the door. He stood alone, a small pistol shoved into his pants. He quickly stepped into her room, quietly closing the door behind him.

“Well?” she demanded breathlessly.

But he shook his head in disgust. “No one.”

“But—”

“I looked all over. Inside the guest house, outside the guest house. I walked around the halls, the bushes, the dock—everywhere.”

“But we both saw—”

“Yeah, we both saw,” he agreed quietly. He walked back to the window himself, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the wall, staring down at the patio. “We saw what I must have seen ten years ago,” he said softly.

“But who... what?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“It’s like my book,” Kathy said, walking over to look out at the now still night once again.

“What?”

She looked at him. “You know, the manuscript I just bought. What we see with our own eyes isn’t really the truth—circumstantial evidence means nothing. And sometimes things are just so damned evident that we can’t see them.”

He arched a brow, a slow, crooked smile curving his lip in the shadows of night.

“Nothing is evident to me. I admit to being more baffled than ever, so if anything seems evident to you—”

“Not really,” Kathy said. “It’s just that... I think, what we saw,
wasn’t—
”

“We’re really making sense now.”

“It will make sense, at some time, I think.”

He shrugged, then glanced toward the door. “Lock it again.”

“You’re staying here?” she demanded.

“Me and my trusty pistol.”

She sniffed. “You’re lucky you haven’t shot your balls off, the way you’re wearing the damned thing.”

“The safety is on, but I’m delighted that you’re concerned about my anatomy.”

“Jordan—”

“Let’s get some sleep, Kathy, huh?”

He suddenly sounded not just tired but bone weary. Beyond all tension. He set the gun on the nightstand on the left side of the bed, and lay down, casting an arm over his eyes. She stared at him a long moment. He seemed oblivious to her.

After deciding that she would sleep better with him in the room, she started across the room to her bed.

“Check the door,” he said. She paused, both irritated and glad that he had heard her near silent, barefoot step.

She did as he asked and then crawled in beside him.

He lay on his side. She lay on hers. Silent.

At length she whispered. “Jordan,
who
was it?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t know
why
she—”

“Or
he!”

“Right. Was running across the patio. And yet...”

“Yet?”

“I think we’re somehow closer.”

“Sure,” Kathy agreed dubiously.

“Let’s get some sleep. We can’t afford to be exhausted.”

“Right.”

“Good night.”

“Yeah. Good night.” She lay down. Sat back up. “Jordan?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re not going to shoot me with that thing by mistake?”

“Or on purpose,” he said dryly.

“Not amusing.”

“Not meant to be. Kathy—”

“I know. I know. I’m going to sleep.”

Once again, she lay back down. She stared at the ceiling. She felt him, not touching her, beside her.

After a while, she was amazed to realize that her eyes were closing, the tension was easing from her body. It was better with him here. She did feel secure. There might be a maniacal killer in the house, but she felt more secure. She slept. Deeply.

Very deeply. And dreamed.

She was somewhere cool, a place where soft, sweet breezes caressed her body. She lay in comfort, deep within the down of clouds. Delicate wings brushed her flesh, smoothed her hair, slowly, sensuously...

Hmmm. Wings. Like hell.

Hands...

Great hands. Masculine, seductive, long fingered. Gentle one second, more demanding the next. Atop the satin of her nightgown, beneath it. Her flesh felt like fire.

She wasn’t going to move, wasn’t going to fall for this. Wasn’t going to allow him...

Oh, God. That touch. Against her naked flesh. Insistent. A touch again, a thrust. His hands, his body, in her, on her. Her breasts. His body. Seeking... finding. Moving...

Ummm, she was going to fall...

Oh, God, she was a damned rock; she’d fallen in a plummeting whirl, incredibly awake and aware, on fire with sensation, hungry for him, startled, awed.
Glad
to have him spooned around her, hands holding her taut to his tempo, his breath against her nape, his lips, his whisper, his movement, harder and harder against her, inside of her...

She bit into her knuckles rather than shriek out when the drenching sweetness of climax suddenly burst upon her. For seconds she felt nothing but the bliss of stars exploding within her, then she became aware of him, one last frantic movement, a surge of heat...

He kissed her neck. Without a word, eased himself onto his back.

She stared into the night.

Hmmm. Go to sleep, Kathy. Right. Great. He’d seduced her in that sleep, taken her swiftly from behind...

And gone back to sleep.

Hell.

What did he think?

That they were married or something?

She should have thrown him right out of the bed—if one could throw Jordan. She should have shouted, protested.

Instead, she smiled slightly. Fool. Well, she was glad to have him and his bedside pistol.

And other things.

She slept again. Like a baby. And for the moment, it just didn’t matter if she was a fool or not.

“B
OY, OH, BOY. WE
were really into hair in those days, weren’t we?” Larry said. He idly tapped his chin as the group stared at one of their old videos. They were up in Jordan’s soundproof studio, their instruments awaiting them on the dais. Jordan had suggested they take a minute to look back before getting started.

It was so strange, like watching a time capsule that had come of age.

They
had
been into hair, Kathy thought dryly. There was Keith on the drum, his head swinging with every beat, his hair flying right along with every strike upon the drums. Her own hair had been down her back, past her waist. She was tossing it as well. In fact, the lot of them were rather heavily into hair tossing.

“Seems like some of us are still into hair!” Shelley teased, tugging on Larry’s ponytail.

“Careful,” he growled teasingly. “It’s harder to keep the hair on the head these days.”

“The hair doesn’t matter, the sound does,” Jordan advised. “Listen, this is what we’ve got to try to achieve again—Kathy, Shelley, you’ve a perfect harmony going there. The breaks and bridges are just right. Our harmonies were a large part of what made us special, along with the fact that we wrote almost all of our music. That’s what we need to achieve again—the harmony, the balance. Okay?”

“Rusty harmony!” Larry said ruefully.

“We’re going to be all right,” Miles assured him, confident.

“Yeah. So let’s get to it,” Jordan said.

And again it was strange. Damned strange.

Everyone took his or her place. Jordan had said he didn’t want anyone but the group in on the first jam sessions, which excluded Larry’s sweet, young Vicky Sue, Jeremy, and Tara.

Judy, however, was in place in front of them, critically watching, just as she had always been.

“Let’s go with ‘Shadows,’” Jordan said.

“Shadows!” Kathy gasped.

The others were silent.
Dead
silent, she thought, feeling a little bubble of hysterical laughter forming in her throat. It was her song—not that that meant anything special. She had written—or helped write—the lyrics to most of their songs.

This was the last song she had written. The last song they had really rehearsed.

The last song for which Keith had written the music. They had worked on it the day he died, had introduced it at the party that night.

“Yeah. ‘Shadows,’” Jordan repeated, looking around at the lot of them. “If we can get it together, we can use it for the benefit opener, do a recording, and make some money for charity. Does anyone have a problem with that?”

Silently, one by one, they shook their heads at him. Jordan stared at Kathy last.

“It’s a great song. The music and the lyrics are perfect together. Right?”

She found herself nodding. Oh, yeah. Perfect. It brought back to mind Keith’s last smile, his enthusiasm. The anger that had been boiling over in all of them.

Was that what Jordan had in mind?

“Let’s get it right, guys, shall we?” he said lightly.

No one argued with him.

He slipped his guitar strap over his shoulder, looked at Miles behind the drum set, then tapped out the beat with his foot, nodding to the others.

Amazingly, they all started off right on the beat. The music, then the lyrics, Shelley’s sweet soprano blending with Kathy’s throatier alto.

“Shadows here and shadows there,

Shadows haunting everywhere...

Shadows rise and shadows fall;