The Keeping (23 page)

Clasping her hands
together to prevent any further slips, she inhaled deeply ignoring
the tingling in her hands and chanted ‘don’t touch, don’t touch’
over and over to herself. Her deep inhalation had made her more
aware of his scent, a combination of spice and woods and maleness.
With him sitting so near, she could feel the heat coming off of him
and fought the urge to snuggle up close, just as she had in her
fantasy moments before.

Damn, what was the
matter with her? So what if he was the sexiest man she’d seen in
ages. Getting all hot and bothered over him was not part of the
game plan, no matter how much her body might wish otherwise. She
snuck another look his way, and noticed the corner of his mouth
twitching. Quickly averting her eyes, she stared blindly at the
screen.

A moment later,
she felt Ryne leaning towards her. Out of the corner of his mouth,
he whispered to her. “See anything you like?” Her audible gasp
caused him to chuckle darkly. Crossing her arms, she compressed her
lips and studiously ignored him. Thankfully, the closing musical
score was now playing. The camera zoomed in on a particularly
gruesome corpse as a background for the credits and she shuddered
in distaste. Sensing Ryne looking her way, she pasted a nonchalant
expression on her face. There was no way she’d let him know the
contents of the movie bothered her; she’d never hear the end of
it.

The other two
stood, and between yawns, carried on a discussion about the special
effects they’d just seen.

“Oh man, when that
body ripped open—have you ever seen such realistic looking organs?”
Bryan enthused as he gathered the empty popcorn bowls.

“Yeah and that
zombie was awesome. The makeup was so real. I wonder how they got
the rotting flesh to just sort of hang there.” Daniel followed
Bryan’s lead, gathering the pop cans and then heading into the
kitchen. Mel gulped, forcing herself to
not
think about
rotting flesh and realistic organs. She got to her feet and
hesitated as to what to say.

Ryne was placing
the DVD back in its case. He looked over his shoulder at her. “You
okay?”

“Sure. Never
better.” Mel put on her perkiest attitude and snatched up the
pillow he’d set out for her earlier. “Can’t wait to go to bed and
get a good night’s sleep.”

She was sure she
saw a smirk pass over Ryne’s face before he nodded. “All right. If
you need anything, you know where I am.”

Mel hugged the
pillow and waggled her fingers at him. With one more assessing look
her way, he left the room.

*****

Sometime during
the night, Mel woke with a start, her heart pounding. She lay
there, trying to separate dream from reality, to convince herself
that she was awake and no longer running through the woods being
chased by a pack of wolves. What was it with wolves lately? Wolves
had never figured prominently in her life before. Now they were in
pictures, walking around her cabin, cornering her in the woods and
even chasing her in her sleep.

She withdrew her
arm from under the blanket and brushed her hair from her sweaty
forehead. Her hand was shaking with leftover fear. Pushing herself
upright, she hugged her knees to her chest and tried to calm down.
The room was cool and she shivered slightly, pulling the blanket
closer. Ryne’s t-shirt was long enough to cover her adequately, but
not overly warm. For a moment, she considered putting her jeans on
again, but decided against it; they fit too tightly to make for
comfortable sleepwear.

The house was
still; everyone apparently asleep, except for herself. Rain beat
down outside, tapping on the windows. An occasional flash of light
and a slight rumbling of thunder let her know that Ryne had been
right. A storm had rolled in.

As it got closer,
lightning flashes would briefly illuminate the room, casting weird
shadows on the wall. Mel shivered again, but this time due to
nerves. There was nothing in the room with her, she knew that, but
she’d never liked shadows. They always took on ominous shapes,
turning harmless daytime bits of furniture into scary creatures of
the night.

A tapping sound
began to make itself noticed and she stiffened, trying to locate
its source. It seemed to be coming from the window. Carefully, and
oh so slowly, she moved her head in that direction, wondering what
she would see. Of course, there was nothing there, but still the
tapping continued. Her overactive imagination began to kick-in and
Mel sought to suppress it with the weight of logic.

The house was
quite old. It probably shifted and groaned all the time, the noises
actually becoming comforting to those who dwelled within. She
speculated how many people had lived—and died—within the walls. Had
they been happy? Or had tragedy touched their lives? She amused
herself for a moment, populating the house with servants and
children, husbands and wives. Did the spirits of the people remain,
watching over the next generation?

Mel was never
really sure what she believed when it came to spirits and ghosts.
Logically, she knew they didn’t exist, but sometimes she’d read
something and wonder. Right now, she was wondering. It was a
perfect night for that line of thought, after all. Storms and
ghosts seemed to go together. In fact, this was very similar to the
movie they’d watched tonight.

The tapping was
growing louder, forcing itself into her awareness again. What was
making it? Mel’s fertile mind began to come up with answers.
Possibly there was some mystery surrounding the house; a long ago
resident out in a storm and locked outside, shivering as the rain
soaked their clothing. They had gone from window to window, tapping
away, trying to gain someone’s attention so they could come in out
of the cold and wet.

Her palms were
damp with sweat now and she surreptitiously wiped them on the
blanket covering her. She was trying to be as quiet and as still as
possible. No point in drawing attention to herself...just in case.
Nervously nibbling on her lower lip, Mel noted that the wind was
picking up as the storm got closer. It howled about the house, the
sound rising, and falling like the cry of a wolf. Were there wolves
outside the house, even now? Mel gulped at the very idea. Maybe
wolves had always plagued this house! This new idea took root in
her mind.

What if the person
tapping at the window never made it safely inside? What if they had
been purposely locked out as a punishment? And maybe, while they
were outside, a band of hungry wolves had come by and attacked! The
person would have screamed for help, but no one came to save them.
In fact, the occupant of the house might have sat in this very
room, listening to the pleas for help, laughing insanely as the
dastardly plan came to fruition. Outside, the ill-fated victim
would have known all this, and with their dying breath, placed a
curse on everyone in the house. Now, every time it stormed, the
horrible scene replayed and the victim came back, seeking revenge
on whoever was inside refusing to let them enter...

The storm was
almost over top of the house now. Lightning flashed, repeatedly
illuminating the room then plunging it back into darkness, while
thunder shook the whole house. The tapping was picking up speed.
Mel’s heart was pounding faster too, her breathing ragged.
Clutching the blanket tightly in her hands, she darted her gaze
about the room, expecting some evil entity to leap out at her at
any moment.

Closing her eyes,
she took a deep breath. This was ridiculous; she was a grown woman.
What she needed to do was to get up and investigate. She gathered
her courage and tried to throw back the covers, but her hand
refused to cooperate and merely grasped the blanket more
tightly.

Scowling, she
considered the situation. All right, so she was afraid. There were
options open to her. She could stay where she was, getting
increasingly more scared or she could go find Ryne—except he’d
tease her about it unmercifully. Neither idea was overly appealing.
Another flash of lightning illuminated the room, and she spied the
fireplace.

Ah-ha! If memory
served her correctly, a set of fireplace tools were by its side.
The poker could be used as a weapon. Not giving herself time to
chicken out, Mel leapt off the sofa and dashed towards the
fireplace. Her only goal was to grab the poker before something
grabbed her. With more speed than grace, she made her way across
the room, stumbling into an end table and causing the lamp on top
of it to wobble dangerously.

“Damn!” She’d
tried to grab the lamp, but only succeeded in stubbing her toe on
something. Abandoning the lamp in favour of her throbbing foot, she
let it crash to the ground. She hopped up and down whimpering in
pain while simultaneously glancing over her shoulder towards the
window. A burst of light filled the room and she was sure she saw
the shadowy shape of a person by the window. Through the noise of
the storm, the sound of footsteps reached her ears. Oh God! It was
coming to get her...

A scream ripped
from her throat and she turned abruptly in order to grab the poker,
only to crash into something hard. Hands grabbed at her and she
screamed again, hitting and kicking in an attempt to elude whoever
was holding her. Arms tightened around her as she lurched to the
side, the suddenness of her movement knocking her opponent off
balance. Together they landed on the floor, and she found herself
pinned under a heavy body, her assailant’s fingers pressed tightly
over her mouth. Luckily, her one arm was free and she swung it with
all her might towards her attacker.

As her fist
connected with a solid wall of muscle, pain shot through her hand
and both she, and the person she’d hit, emitted a shocked ‘oomph.’
The only difference was that, while she stopped her assault to
focus on the throbbing in her hand, the other individual merely
flinched and grabbed her arm, effectively immobilizing her.

“Are you crazy,
woman?” A deep voice rasped in her ear.

Mel froze.
Somehow, even through her fear, she recognized that it was Ryne on
top of her. Ceasing her struggles, she blinked up at him, relieved
to see a comparatively friendly face—well, friendly compared to the
undead creature she’d been imagining. He cautiously removed his
hand from her mouth.

“You’re not going
to scream again, are you?” His hand still hovered near her face,
obviously ready to cover her mouth, should the need arise.

She shook her
head.

“Good, because my
ears are sensitive to high pitches. I’ll probably be deaf for the
next few days because of that scream.” He shifted so that his body
no longer pressed flush against hers. Instead, he was straddling
her. “Okay, what got you so worked up that you started screeching
and wrecking my entertainment room?”

“I...” Mel’s mouth
suddenly went dry. Now that she was no longer staring at his face,
she got a good look at him. Oh. My. Gosh. Ryne was on top of her. A
nearly
naked
Ryne was on top of her! The flashes of
lightning illuminated his body in amazing detail. Starting at his
broad shoulders, her gaze ran over his muscular chest, noting the
flat brown nipples, the faint trace of hair, the well defined
abdominals, and lean hips. Black boxer shorts covered his lower
half, but hung low enough that she could see the beginning of an
interesting ‘v’ that disappeared below his waist band. Under the
cover of the boxers...well...a certain something pressed against
sensitive portions of her anatomy.

She gulped and
forced her eyes back up to his face only to discover he was glaring
down at her impatiently. Oh, right. He’d asked her a question. Now,
what was it again? Umm... Ryne wanted to know why she was
screaming. Well... Now that she was no longer alone, the danger her
imagination had conjured up had faded into obscurity. Mel blushed,
feeling rather foolish and looked away, biting her lip.
Unfortunately, Ryne didn’t relent despite her obvious discomfort.
He just sat on top of her staring down. Mel licked her lips as she
realized he wasn’t about to give in to her silent plea. “Er...I
heard something.”

“Such as?”

“I know you’ll
think this is silly, but...it sounded like someone was tapping at
the window and...”

“And your
imagination took over?” He quirked an eyebrow at her and Mel felt
herself flush even more. At least it was dark so he couldn’t
see—

The thought wasn’t
even completely formed when the lights went on, exposing her to
Ryne’s gaze. She winced at the sudden brightness. Couldn’t anything
ever go her way?

“Hey, what’s going
on down here?” Looking up, in the direction of the voice, Mel saw
Bryan leaning in the doorway, his hand on the light switch. Muscles
rippled across his bare chest and his pyjama pants hung low on his
hips. Her heart gave a lurch as she realized nearly naked hunks
surrounded her. Unfortunately, none of the hunks seemed as
impressed by her, as she was by them. This latest one appeared to
be laughing as he took in the scene.

“Nothing. Go back
to bed.” Ryne didn’t move from on top of her and Mel shifted,
trying to give him the hint that he really should move.

“Doesn’t look like
nothing to me.” Bryan continued. “More like the two of you are
about to get it on.”

“Sorry to
disappoint you, my friend, but it was nothing that interesting.
Melody thought she heard a noise at the window.” Ryne completely
ignored her efforts to dislodge him.

Mel stopped
struggling, instead twisting her neck so she could better see
Bryan. “Yeah, something was tapping at the window and I was getting
up to investigate.”

A grin started to
spread over Ryne’s face, as he called her on the veracity of her
story. “Really? The window’s the other way. It looks more like you
were coming to get me to save you.”