Nightwind (3 page)

Inez smiled, her lips cruel and twisted with contempt. “You aren’t his type, Lauren. Men like attractive

women, women with fire.” Her look ran scathingly down Lauren’s body. “Not cold fish like you.”

A shaft of anger went through Lauren. “I was not flirting with him,” she said again, her teeth clenched.

Long after theothers had left the store, Lauren was still shelving and logging in the crate of books that

had come in that morning. Outside it was raining, the sky occasionally lit by white flares of light. Distant

rumbling shook the plate glass front window, rattling it in its frame. The wind was picking up, moaning as

it cornered the bookshop. Lauren knew it was going to be a miserable two-block walk to her home.

At last finished with the cataloging, she glanced at the clock behind the counter and winced. It was eight

already and she’d had nothing to eat since eleven. A grumbling in her stomach told her it was well past

time for her supper. Putting the book register under the counter, she headed to the break room for her

raincoat. The phone rang and she jumped, startled by the sound. Not really sure whether to answer it or

not, she wondered if it was her mother, calling to ask if she needed a ride home in the rain. She pushed

that thought away as quickly as it came for she knew her mother would never venture out on a night such

as this. As the phone rang again, she reached out for it.

“The Composition Book Store,” she said.

There was a brief silence then the husky voice spoke. “Happy birthday, Lauren.”

A tremor of surprise shook her for she didn’t recognize the voice. “Who is this?”

There was another brief silence then the line went dead.

“Hello?” Lauren’s brows drew together in confusion. “Hello?”

There was nothing but the hum of the open line.

Slowly replacing the receiver, Lauren stared at the phone. For a reason she could not explain, the

mysterious phone call had made her heartbeat accelerate and her mouth go dry. She swallowed. Who

could it have been? It had been a man’s soft, resonant voice: sensuous and low. Almost as mesmerizing

as....

A thrill ran through Lauren like a current of stray electricity and her head came up.

“No,” she whispered. “It couldn’t have been.” She leaned against the counter. The man from that

afternoon, what was his name? Cree. Yes, that was it. Syntian Cree. He couldn’t possibly have known it

was her birthday. There was no way he could have known.

She locked up the bookshop and started the rainy walk home. No, Mr. Cree couldn’t have known it

was her birthday. She stopped suddenly in the pouring rain as an eerie thought crossed her mind: No one

had told him her first name, either, but he had known it.

Despite her rain coat and umbrella, Lauren was soaked by the time she reached her one-bedroom house

on Canal Street. She hurried up the short flight of steps to the screened porch, shaking her umbrella as

she reached the roof’s overhang. She laid it on the porch floor and shrugged out of her wet coat, laying it

on the back of one of the two tall porch rockers that stood on either side of the front door. She fished in

her purse for her house key, stuck it in the lock, opened the door and reached in to flip on the porch

light. She started to put the key back in her purse when her attention was diverted to the little wicker

table beside one of the rockers. She stopped, key in hand and stared at what was on the table.

A single, scarlet red rose in a fragile-looking crystal bud vase stood in the center of the table. Propped

beside it was a small white card.

“Who in the world?” she asked as she dropped her key into her purse. She walked to the table, lifted

the rose and sniffed it, inhaling its delicate scent. With the rose still in her hand, she picked up the card

and saw there was no florist shop name on the outside. Her curiosity pounding in her temples, she

opened the card. Inside, there were only four words on the simple white card: From one who cares. No

signature, no initials. Just those four simple, sweet words.

“From one who cares.”

Lauren jumped as her phone began to ring. Closing the door behind her, she ran to the phone and

snatched it up on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Did you like the rose?” he asked.

“Who
is
this?” Lauren’s heart had leapt up to her throat.

“Did you like it?” he repeated, his voice soft and caressing.

“Yes, but—”

“That’s all that matters.”

He hung up.

Lauren’s mouth dropped open and anger replaced her astonishment of only a moment before. “Damn

it!” she spat as she slammed down the receiver. She glanced at the rose in her hand. It seemed to mock

her as she stared at it and she put it down on the telephone table, backing away from it as though it had

somehow become a deadly enemy. She had no idea what kind of cruel game he was playing, what kind

of fool he took her for, but the thought of a man like him taunting her made tears slide unbidden down

Lauren’s cheeks. She ran to her bedroom and threw herself face down on the bed.

Her sobs were lost in the wild torrent gathering outside her window.

His palm stretchedout over the candle, his flesh turning warm from the kiss of the flame. Outside the

storm was raging, the rain lashing against the windowpanes of his study. Now and again the wind howled

as it played around the eaves of the old mansion. The electricity had gone out long ago, plunging the

book-lined room into near-total darkness; but he preferred the candle light to the harsh glow of the

electric lights to which he could never seem to become accustomed. The shadows hovering around him

were comforting companions that whispered to him in words only he could hear.

A flare of lightning stepped down from the tempests above him and lit the room in a harsh blue-white

glow that caught, and held, in his dark eyes, turning them a murky gold for a moment. He blinked, ridding

himself of the lethargy into which the storm had cast him. Moving his palm from the candle, he put his

hands on the arms of his chair and stared into the darkest corner of the room, his attention settling there.

If he concentrated hard enough, he knew he could look past the plaster and wood and brick, peer out

through a ragged hole in the span of time and look right into her bedroom. He tried to keep himself from

doing just that, but his desire was building, the need in him so thick, he smelled his own body heat.

It wasn’t time. He tried to force his thoughts away from her. He knew it wasn’t time; but the ache was

throbbing, the pain almost too intense to bear. Slowly he pushed himself from the chair and stepped

toward the darker shadows. One moment he was standing in the candle-lit sanctuary of his study, the

next he was beside her bed, peering down hungrily as she lay sleeping. His eyes glow a feral red in the

semi-darkness of her bedroom walls.

“Not yet,” the taunting of his inner voice warned him. “It is not time.”

But his hand moved, swept downward and he touched her.

Inez Montes moaned in her sleep. Juan’s hands were on her body, stroking her, touching her, his hands

rough and demanding, his fingers entering the hot moistness between her thighs. She squirmed against the

invasion, clamping her thighs down on the hard heat of his hand. His thumb was on her clitoris, rubbing it

roughly, and her body reacted to the intimacy of the touch.

“Open your legs to me,” she thought she heard her husband say and she obeyed, her limbs stretching

languidly upon the mattress and she felt his weight hovering above her. There was a solid, steel-like

pressure against her womanhood and she groaned, aching to feel him inside her.

“Are you sure you want me, Inez?” came the silky purr and she nodded, licking her lips. “Then you must

ask me to take you.”

“Yes!” Inez mumbled. “Take me. Take me, now!” Her arms came up to hold him, but as she did, a

thrust of such power, such heat and force and tearing pain, entered her that she screamed with the agony

of it.

Her eyes flew open, her teeth drew back over lips snarling in pain, but there was nothing above her.

Although there was a heavy weight atop her thrashing body, rocking her in sexual union, thrusting against

her, there was no one there.

“Inez? What’s the matter with you?”

Her head twisted to one side and she saw Juan, on his side, facing her, his expression horrified as he

watched her moving back and forth on the bed.

As the ice cold burst of ghostly fluid shot deep within her, burning her, scalding her, Inez Montes threw

back her head and howled in abject terror.

“Do you knowif she’s going to be all right?” Karla asked Louvenia as the older woman unlocked the

shop doors.

“Juan said the doctors aren’t sure,” Louvenia answered, holding the door so Karla and Beth could enter.

She had seen Lauren walking toward her, but did not bother to wait for her. She let the door swing shut

as she walked behind the other women into the store. “They had to perform emergency surgery at two

o’clock this morning.”

“How the hell does someone get a perforated uterus?” Beth wondered.

“Knowing Inez,” Karla whispered so Louvenia wouldn’t hear, “she got slap-happy with something

battery-powered!”

“You’ll have to fill in for Inez, Miss Fowler,” Louvenia said when Lauren entered the shop. “She’s going

to be in the hospital for a few days.”

Lauren’s face showed her concern. “Is she ill?”

“She wouldn’t be in the hospital otherwise, now, would she?” Beth snapped.

Lauren blushed. “I just wondered what happened. She didn’t seem sick yesterday.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing to concern you,” Louvenia informed her. “You’ll have Inez’s work, as well as your

own, to occupy your time.” She punched open the cash register and began to put in the day’s cash.

“You want to go with me at lunch to see her?” Karla asked Beth.

“We’ll send flowers, of course,” Louvenia told them.

Lauren felt a stab of hurt go through her. The day before had been her birthday and not one single soul in

the shop had said anything to her. Not that she had expected it, but it would have been nice. She turned

away.

The phone call came at lunchtime when there was no one in the shop but Lauren. At the last moment,

Louvenia had accompanied Beth and Karla to the hospital to see Inez. Lauren answered the phone and

knew even before he spoke who it was.

“How are you today?” he inquired.

“Mr. Cree?” she asked.

“Syn,” he corrected.

Lauren’s chin went up. “Did you leave the rose on my front porch?”

“Would you have dinner with me this evening?”

His question stunned her. And brought her anger of the night before back. “Mr. Cree, I’m sure you find

this amusing, but I assure you I do not. I don’t know who put you up to this, but it’s not funny. It’s a very

cruel thing to do. Please don’t call me again.” She hung up the phone, her hand trembling and her lip

quivering.

She felt an aching in her heart she couldn’t explain and a sense of devastation so complete it brought a

pounding to her temples.

“Who were you talking to, Lauren?”

She jumped, spinning around to see her mother peering at her with a steady evaluation. There was a

look on the older woman’s face that made Lauren ill at ease.

“No one, Mama. Just someone playing a joke.” she tried to smile, but her lips felt frozen. “What are you

doing today?”

“Was this someone a man?” her mother probed. A hateful sneer drew the woman’s lip up. “Are you

seeing some man, Lauren?”

She shook her head. “No, Mama. I’m not seeing anyone.” She fumbled with a button on her blouse.

“You know I’m not seeing anyone.”

Maxine Fowler studied her daughter’s flushed face and took note of the way Lauren wouldn’t look

directly at her. She looked down to the girl’s nervous fingers that were toying with a loose button and her

gaze sharpened. “Don’t lie to me, girl,” she snapped. “I don’t hold with lying, you know that.”

“Who would I see, Mama?” Lauren asked, her eyes coming up to plead with her mother. “I’ve never

had a date in my life.”

Maxine sniffed. “It’s just as well that you haven’t.” She pulled a handkerchief from her purse and blotted

her face. “Men are the devil’s work. There’s not a one of them what’s worth a plug nickel.” She stuffed

her handkerchief back into her purse and closed it with a snap. “You’ll do yourself a favor by staying

clear of them all.”

“Yes, Mama,” Lauren answered, wondering how her mother could possibly think any man would find

her attractive enough to ask out.

But
he
had, a little voice whispered to her.

“I hear tell that Montes woman’s in the hospital. Ruptured uterus, I hear.” Maxine Fowler picked up a

romance novel and turned it over to read the back cover.

Lauren’s brows shot up. “I didn’t know why she was admitted. Mrs. Yelverton didn’t say.”

“That’s what comes of having to please a man,” Maxine grumbled as she put the romance novel on the

counter and began to fumble in her purse for the money to pay for it. “There’s no telling what them

Spanish men do to their women. Only the good Lord knows how he constructed such heathens.”

Lauren winced. “Mama, I’m sure Juan didn’t cause Inez’s problem.”

“What do you know of it?” her mother snapped. “You, who’ve never had to endure the vile touch of a

brutish male like I did!” Her stare turned as cold as glass. “You know as well as I do, missy, that given