early for Alice to be up and preparing to return to the camp.
He rose from the bed with just as much haste and alarm as that first time, but on this occasion with more certainty that he knew where to find her. The knowledge didn’t quiet his worry any. He flipped on a bedside lamp and hauled on some jeans.
On that other night, he’d found a half-wild, disoriented Alice blindly seeking in the pitch darkness of the west hallway. When he’d flipped on the hall light, he’d cringed at the vision of her searching hands, pale face, and huge haunted eyes. The ghosts of the past could come so close to her at times—even leap from the deepest recesses of her unconscious mind until they seemingly took form in front of her. Alice had said she’d seen a woman in that hallway on that night, a woman that Dylan knew for a fact had died nearly two decades before.
The human mind was as mysterious and vast as the night sky.
That night, Alice had seen her biological mother. It was as if her long-buried, resurging memories were too foreign to process in her everyday consciousness. Instead, those memories had been projected into her nightmares and even into the solid reality of her surroundings, like a weird unconscious hologram effect or a ghost taking shape. Or at least that’s how psychiatrist Sidney Gates had tried to explain it Dylan.
Presently, he found Alice standing square in the middle of the large empty bedroom suite in the west hall. Her long, toned legs were naked. They looked especially vulnerable in the bright glow of the overhead chandelier.
Tension coiled tight in his muscles. It was so hard at times, not knowing what to expect from her from one moment to the next. Sometimes he felt like he could only be certain of her when he was making love to her, and he felt her to be entirely present in the moment with him, abandoning herself wholesale to pleasure.
To him.
“Do you remember to whom this room belonged now?” he asked from behind her, his voice echoing off the bare walls in the mostly empty room. She’d accused him of manipulation and lying when she’d realized he’d purposefully kept her from entering this room. That was before he’d told her the truth of her identity.
He was glad when she started slightly and turned her head, meeting his stare. Since Alice had come to Durand Castle, there were a few times when she’d go utterly still in his presence, and he’d seen the ghosts of her past flicker eerily in the depths of her eyes.
Is that what
he
was to her? A ghost?
“Was it Addie Durand’s room?” she asked slowly, her low, hoarse voice causing his skin to roughen.
His heart knocked uncomfortably against his sternum, even though he knew his appearance remained calm. No matter how hard he was trying—no matter how much he understood—he couldn’t entirely adjust to Alice’s distant, disconnected attitude about what he’d told her about Adelaide Durand.
He nodded and stepped toward her. “It was originally Addie’s nursery, and it had just been remodeled for her before she was taken. Are you remembering?” he asked her again cautiously.
She shook her head adamantly. Her short, dark hair was growing some. Her spiky bangs fell into her eyes. She stuck out her bottom lip and blew up on them to clear her vision. The uncontrived, potently sexy gesture distracted him.
Just like almost everything about Alice did.
“I don’t remember anything,” she said
Despite her quick, firm denial, he wasn’t entirely sure he believed her. “Then why did you come here?”
“I was curious,” she replied, her eyebrows arched in response to his quiet challenge.
“And how did you guess this was Addie’s room?”
She shrugged. “You tried to keep me from it. And it’s the most ideally situated in the house, so large and airy . . .” She faded off, glancing around at the ornate crown molding, the bluish-silver silk wallpaper and the enormous bay window with a built-in, curving cushioned bench
He rose from the bed with just as much haste and alarm as that first time, but on this occasion with more certainty that he knew where to find her. The knowledge didn’t quiet his worry any. He flipped on a bedside lamp and hauled on some jeans.
On that other night, he’d found a half-wild, disoriented Alice blindly seeking in the pitch darkness of the west hallway. When he’d flipped on the hall light, he’d cringed at the vision of her searching hands, pale face, and huge haunted eyes. The ghosts of the past could come so close to her at times—even leap from the deepest recesses of her unconscious mind until they seemingly took form in front of her. Alice had said she’d seen a woman in that hallway on that night, a woman that Dylan knew for a fact had died nearly two decades before.
The human mind was as mysterious and vast as the night sky.
That night, Alice had seen her biological mother. It was as if her long-buried, resurging memories were too foreign to process in her everyday consciousness. Instead, those memories had been projected into her nightmares and even into the solid reality of her surroundings, like a weird unconscious hologram effect or a ghost taking shape. Or at least that’s how psychiatrist Sidney Gates had tried to explain it Dylan.
Presently, he found Alice standing square in the middle of the large empty bedroom suite in the west hall. Her long, toned legs were naked. They looked especially vulnerable in the bright glow of the overhead chandelier.
Tension coiled tight in his muscles. It was so hard at times, not knowing what to expect from her from one moment to the next. Sometimes he felt like he could only be certain of her when he was making love to her, and he felt her to be entirely present in the moment with him, abandoning herself wholesale to pleasure.
To him.
“Do you remember to whom this room belonged now?” he asked from behind her, his voice echoing off the bare walls in the mostly empty room. She’d accused him of manipulation and lying when she’d realized he’d purposefully kept her from entering this room. That was before he’d told her the truth of her identity.
He was glad when she started slightly and turned her head, meeting his stare. Since Alice had come to Durand Castle, there were a few times when she’d go utterly still in his presence, and he’d seen the ghosts of her past flicker eerily in the depths of her eyes.
Is that what
he
was to her? A ghost?
“Was it Addie Durand’s room?” she asked slowly, her low, hoarse voice causing his skin to roughen.
His heart knocked uncomfortably against his sternum, even though he knew his appearance remained calm. No matter how hard he was trying—no matter how much he understood—he couldn’t entirely adjust to Alice’s distant, disconnected attitude about what he’d told her about Adelaide Durand.
He nodded and stepped toward her. “It was originally Addie’s nursery, and it had just been remodeled for her before she was taken. Are you remembering?” he asked her again cautiously.
She shook her head adamantly. Her short, dark hair was growing some. Her spiky bangs fell into her eyes. She stuck out her bottom lip and blew up on them to clear her vision. The uncontrived, potently sexy gesture distracted him.
Just like almost everything about Alice did.
“I don’t remember anything,” she said
Despite her quick, firm denial, he wasn’t entirely sure he believed her. “Then why did you come here?”
“I was curious,” she replied, her eyebrows arched in response to his quiet challenge.
“And how did you guess this was Addie’s room?”
She shrugged. “You tried to keep me from it. And it’s the most ideally situated in the house, so large and airy . . .” She faded off, glancing around at the ornate crown molding, the bluish-silver silk wallpaper and the enormous bay window with a built-in, curving cushioned bench
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