Highlander for the Holidays (27 page)

He pulled her back into his arms, threading his fingers through her hair to hold her against him. “And it helped, didn’t it?” he asked, his tone slightly scolding again. He leaned away just enough to look at her. “Have you had any flashbacks since you got here?” He gave her a squeeze. “Truthfully, have you?”

“Just two.” She wiggled her hand up between them to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “But they’ve been really mild, and I didn’t feel drained and didn’t walk around in a stupor afterward as usual.” She patted his chest and then stepped away. “And it’s a lot easier to find places to hide here,” she said, waving toward the window, “what with all the trees.”

A look of horror crossed his face. “You’re hiding in the woods like a wild animal?”

“Hey,” she said with a laugh, “it beats the hell out of a public restroom.”

One side of his mouth slowly lifted. “Yes, I suppose it does.” He looked her up and down, and his eyes widened as he looked down at himself and held out his arms. “Good Lord, now I’m green,” he said, snagging her hand as he headed into the hallway. “Come on, I need to clean myself up in order to finish cooking dinner while you take a shower. I am not feeding my gourmet masterpiece to a Dr. Seuss character.”

Jessie pulled him to a stop, but not quickly enough. Brad’s hold on her hand tightened at the same time she saw him stiffen. His gaze moved from the shelf over her bathroom sink to her, and his expression darkened. “The bastard has spent the night here?” he hissed. “You’ve
slept
with him?”

She twisted free and turned to head back to the living room.

“Jessica!” Brad snapped, pulling her back around. “Didn’t you learn your lesson with Eric?” His fingers dug into her shoulders. “You haven’t even been here three weeks and you’ve crawled into bed with some
ski bum
?”

“No, she crawled into bed with me.”

Shrieking in surprise, Jessie jerked away so quickly that she bumped into the sink and knocked several items off the shelf trying to catch herself as Brad spun toward the bathroom door with an equally surprised yelp.

“Ian MacKeage,” Ian said with a rather feral-looking grin, extending his hand to Brad. “Jessie’s boyfriend.”

It took some doing, but Brad pulled himself together, and after smoothing down the front of his sweater, he shook Ian’s hand. “Brad Dixon, Jessica’s . . . brother-in-law.”

It took even more doing for Jessie to gather her wits, especially when Ian turned that grin on her. “Is there a reason you didn’t wait to come home with me?” he asked.

“Last I heard, you were walking down the mountain because both of your skis had somehow gotten broken.”

Brad cleared his throat. “Yes, well, if you’ll excuse me,” he said, attempting to leave but then apparently deciding not to crowd past Ian. “I’m right in the middle of cooking Jessie dinner.” He smiled—quite civilly, actually—and Jessie suddenly realized what had always bugged her about Brad. “My biggest fear about Jessie moving here was that she’d starve to death without having me to cook for her.” He chuckled. “She’s not exactly Julia Child in the kitchen.”

Jessie plopped down on the edge of the tub, vaguely aware of Ian stepping to the side so Brad could escape. Her mind’s eye played images of Brad’s cultured face over the last four years, and she just now realized that Brad Dixon wore a far more elaborate mask than Eric had.

She couldn’t believe she’d missed it, because she thought she
had
learned her lesson with Eric. So how in hell had she not even noticed that Brad had methodically been making himself an integral part of her life? The man had set himself up to be her rock after the attack; coming to visit her every day, finding the perfect rehab center to move her to, sneaking in gourmet food to her—all of which is probably why his wife had gone on vacation to Nassau without him. And when Tracy had suddenly died in a freak boating accident, Brad’s daily visits had turned into mutual healing sessions that had grown into . . . into . . .

“Ye look like you’re seeing a ghost, lass,” Ian said, squatting in front of her.

Jessie snapped out of her daze, blinking around the otherwise empty bathroom, only to hear Brad in the kitchen handling pots rather aggressively. She reached up and touched the faint bruise on Ian’s jaw, and blew out a heavy breath as she darted a quick glance toward the hallway. “I think Brad and Eric are more alike than I realized,” she whispered, “only Brad’s far more subtle than his brother, apparently.”

“Did he never make an advance toward you, Jess?”

“Once, about two years ago.” She smiled sadly. “But I flew into such a panic when . . . when he . . . well, he apologized profusely, saying he didn’t know what had come over him, and he’s been a perfect gentleman ever since.”

“Yes, maybe too perfect,” Ian said, using her own words from the other day. He stood up and smiled down at her. “You want me to give you a bath first, or Toby?”

She snorted and also stood up. “I’ll take a shower down here, and you can give Toby his bath upstairs,” she said, figuring it might be wise to keep them both away from Brad while she was in the shower. She started to pat Ian’s chest but quickly changed her mind and touched his jaw again. “How come I didn’t see any bruises on Duncan?”

“Because I had it coming,” he said with a sigh, touching her shoulder. “Did Dixon hurt you just now?”

She dropped her gaze to his shirt. “Not nearly as much as I just hurt him.” She looked up. “I can’t believe I misread his intentions that badly. He had
four years
to tell me how he felt; why did he take so long?”

Ian shrugged. “He probably was waiting for you to make the first move. Only instead of moving into his arms, ye moved a couple thousand miles away.” He looked toward the kitchen then back at her. “And it’s my guess that he has—or had—every intention of taking you back to Atlanta with him, since you didn’t seem to be coming to your senses. That’s why just telling him I was your boyfriend wouldn’t have worked.”

She walked over to the linen closet, took out several towels and Toby’s shampoo, and handed them to Ian. “Thank you for not . . . well, thank you for being civil just now. And thanks for offering to give Toby his bath, because—”

“Jessie, do you have a colander?” Brad asked, his voice moving toward them.

She pushed Ian out into the hallway ahead of her. “Yeah, I think Merissa put it in one of the bottom cupboards.”

“Jess,” Ian said, making her stop. “Does Toby enjoy baths?”

She stepped into her bedroom. “Not particularly,” she said, closing the door and turning to lean against it, covering her face and sighing.

If Roger had been right about two men extending their hands to her, then she had to assume he was also right about neither one of them being exactly what he seemed. So if Brad Dixon was more like Eric than she’d realized, what secret was Ian hiding from her?

 

 

JESSIE STROLLED OUT THE FROG POINT ROAD BESIDE Brad, marveling at how well he was taking his . . . disappointment, although it wasn’t stopping him from giving one more valiant effort to talk some sense into her before he left. But maybe more amazing was the fact that Ian was actually giving Brad the chance to try, since she’d been sure his highlander heritage would have reared its atavistic head and he’d have dragged her off to TarStone with him this morning. But he’d kissed her good-bye and climbed on the snowmobile he’d driven home last night, even giving a wave to Brad just pulling in the driveway, and zoomed off toward his mountain as if he didn’t have a care in the world. And that had Jessie wondering if Megan and Katy hadn’t been exaggerating about the men of their clans being unreasonably overprotective.

Brad had spent the first twenty minutes of their walk reminding Jessie of all he had to offer her; not material things, since she was basically set for money because Eric had kept at least one of his pie-in-the-sky promises and changed his will and insurance benefits within a week of slipping that diamond-encrusted band on her finger, leaving her everything he owned except his share of the gallery. No, Brad was speaking mostly to Jessie’s emotions, gently reminding her of the tragic histories they shared, their mutual interest in the arts, gourmet dining, and crossword puzzles. Oh, and long walks, he’d added with a tender smile.

Although she did notice he hadn’t mentioned offering her his love.

But then, neither had Ian.

Brad had tried to hold her hand that wasn’t holding her walking stick, but Toby had inserted himself between them, causing Brad to shove his hands in his pockets as he continued his persuasions—only now instead of trying to compete with Ian, he’d started comparing Atlanta with Pine Creek.

“I’m sorry, Jessica, but I still can’t see how you feel moving here is going to help you remember anything except why you were living in Dallas when Eric met you.” He arched a brow. “Or did you also forget how much you dislike snow? Didn’t you tell me that’s why you chose the job in Dallas over the one in Chicago when you graduated?” He pulled a hand out of his pocket to wave at the lake on their right. “Trees and snow and ice for as far as you can see.” He then gestured to their left, at the Randall house. “And the isolation, Jessie; your nearest neighbor is over a quarter mile away.” He touched her arm to stop her and turned to face her. “How is any of this going to help you remember anything?” he growled softly. “Or isn’t that why you came here?”

“It’s only
part
of why I came here,” she said, clutching her walking stick to her and rubbing a thumb over one of the burls. “But I also had to get away from Atlanta to stop feeling like a victim. Everything about that city reminded me of how foolish I’d been to let Eric deceive me like that.” She reached out and touched his arm when he started to say something. “And I am remembering. Several days ago I remembered that I was moving out that night because I’d discovered Eric had lied about the mumps making him sterile, and I realized I was just another piece of the fairy-tale image he wanted the world to see. And that’s not all,” she continued before Brad could say anything. “I’ve just recently remembered that Eric was having an affair,” she said, thumping her stick on the ground. “The entire three months we were married and I was carrying his child, and during our long-distance courtship, and the week we spent together in Dallas; he was involved with another woman the entire time.” She shook her head. “Why didn’t he just marry her, whoever the hell she was?”

Brad took a step back, his face having gone deathly pale. “You’d learned just that day that Eric was seeing someone?”

Jessie stepped up to him. “Did you know?”

He held up his hands. “No. I mean, I suspected Eric was seeing a woman even after the Dallas conference, but I had hoped he would stop once he married you.”

“Who was she?”

Brad took another step back and held his hands up again. “I don’t know, Jess. Eric never brought a woman around.” He snorted. “But I suspected that was because she was married.” He stepped closer and took hold of her shoulders. “You’re right. Eric had this grand image of himself as a world player, and it didn’t take me long to see that you were just window dressing.” He shook his head. “My God, that damn museum of a house he built and kept filling with art nearly bankrupted the business, and then he walked in without any warning and introduced you to Tracy and me as his wife, and I . . .” Brad let Jessie go and paced away, then spun around and shoved his hands in his pockets again. “Eric told me once during an argument we were having over the cost of that house that he wanted to bury his pedestrian roots so far under a ton of fine art that kings and sheikhs would have him on speed dial.”

He walked up and cupped her shoulders, his anger suddenly dissipating into a tender smile. “You were what, Jessie . . . twenty-three, twenty-four when Eric saw you at the conference in Dallas? When you walked in on his arm, I swear my house filled with fresh air. You were so vibrant, so beautiful, so . . .” He shook his head. “So damn naive.” He laughed softly. “You were also as green as you were yesterday, and right in the middle of the introductions you ran into the powder room and threw up.” He just as suddenly sobered. “I’m sorry, Jessica, for not protecting you from my brother. And I’m sorry for not getting to the house in time that night to stop that guy from reaching you.”

She gently pulled out of his grasp and turned and started slowly walking toward home as Toby placed himself between them again. “You got there in time to stop him from killing me,” she said, absently rubbing her thumb over the burl above her hand.

Brad reached across Toby and pulled her to a halt. “No, Jessica; you had already stopped him with the revolver Eric always kept in his nightstand. I told you myself how it happened once I felt you could handle it. I just showed up—almost too late—and without even thinking, I merely finished what you had already started.”

She began walking again. “I’m not so sure about that, Brad,” she whispered. “I’ve been getting images of that night, but they . . . they’re jumbled,” she said, glancing over and shaking her head. “I can’t seem to put them in order, but I do remember he . . . I could . . . I heard him killing Eric,” she whispered. “And I was so scared, and trapped, and I didn’t know what to do. Then the guy started kicking the bathroom door, and I remember breaking the window over the tub with the vanity stool, because . . . because I figured jumping two stories to the ground was better than letting him reach me.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “But he broke down the door just as I was trying to pull myself onto the sash, and that’s when I felt the knife plunge into my lower back.” She started walking faster, the images rushing through her with the force of a train as she lifted a hand to her throat. “And I fell back and saw . . . I didn’t even see his face, just that knife coming at my throat and my arm rising to push it away.”

“Jessica,
stop this
,” Brad growled, reaching over and pulling her to a halt again. “You need to stop remembering. Stop
reliving
it.”