Read Online The Presence by Heather Graham - Free Book Online Page B

right,” she said, tossing back a length of hair. “I don’t want you to feel that we’re any more of a burden than you already do.”
    â€œSo go to sleep,” he said.
    â€œI won’t scream again, really.”
    â€œI’m going for the paper,” he told her.
    When he returned, she was still standing there uncertainly. There was a conflict of emotions in the deep blue of her eyes. She obviously wanted to tell him to jump in a lake, but she was doubting her own rights. For her own sake, and that of her friends, she didn’t wanthim as angry again as he had been when he had first arrived.
    Yet…he sensed a strange touch of fear in her, as though she really didn’t want to dream again. That she would prefer a living, flesh-and-blood stranger in her room to being alone in it with her dreams.
    â€œLook, I’m serious!” he said. “Go to bed, get some sleep. I’ll be here.”
    â€œYou’re going to sleep in the chair all night?”
    â€œFrankly, there’s not a lot of night left. When the dawn breaks, I’ll head over to my own bed. If you wake up then, it will be light so you won’t panic. It always works that way.”
    â€œHow do you know?” she demanded suspiciously.
    â€œBecause people never panic in the daylight. You know, the light of day. Reason and sanity. They go together.”
    She stared at him uncertainly, then headed for the canopied bed.
    â€œThis isn’t fair to you,” she said, turning her back to him.
    â€œGo to sleep.”
    She crawled on top of the bed and pulled the covers around her.
    He shook out the paper and took a seat before the fire. But though he tried to read, he couldn’t pay attention.
    He glanced over to the bed. So much for her having difficulties sleeping. Her eyes were closed. She was on her side, facing his way. An angel at rest. Ivory features so artistically sculpted. Full, dark lips, parted just slightly. Arms embracing a pillow.
    Oh, to be that pillow!
    She had to be a shyster, he told himself angrily. Nomatter how innocent or vulnerable she appeared, she couldn’t have just made up his history, not down to the name Annalise. He had to take care around her, despite the fact that she could twist something deep inside of him. Or maybe because of that.
    Annalise.
    Impatiently he tried to read again, but then he gave up, folded the paper and simply watched her sleep, doing his best to stretch his length out comfortably in the chair.
    After a while, he dozed.
    Then…he awakened with a violent start.
    He didn’t scream; he made no noise. But his dream had been no less the terrible.
    He had seen her…facedown, hair flowing in the bubbling water of the little brook in the forest. Facedown…as he had found the murdered girl.
    He reached for his brandy glass and swallowed the pinch of deep amber remaining within it. He gave himself a fierce shake. Looking to the window, he saw that the dawn was breaking at last. Silently he rose. One more brandy and maybe he could get a few hours of sleep. One more brandy…and he might quell the tension that was ripping up his insides.
    He walked to the door of the dividing bath and then paused. He returned to the bedside.
    She slept, an angel still. That spill of hair…
    It might have been any hair.
    He hardened his jaw and swore softly, decrying his own nonsense. It was fucking dawn. He needed to get some sleep.
    Â 
    Thayer Fraser shivered as he walked along the path, heading down toward the stream, valley and forest. “Anice brisk walk in the lovely morning air!” he said, speaking aloud. “Actually, that would be fucking cold morning air!” he added. His voice sounded strange in the silence of the very early morning as it echoed off the stone walls of the run-down castle. Eerie, even.
    At the base of the hill, he turned back. Most folks outside the country didn’t know that there were still many such