Into the Fire - Anne Stuart [77]
She could still imagine those eyes watching her, and she realized that she’d always had the sense that someone was there. She’d like to think that it was Nate’s ghost, looking out for her, but she wasn’t quite that naive. Whoever was watching her was no benevolent spirit.
The kitchen was cold. There was a single light over the sink, and the window was open a crack, letting a blast of icy air inside. The door to the garage was open, as well, and while she could hear the furnace working overtime, it was making little progress against the night air that flooded the building.
She stopped in the open doorway to the garage. The smell of exhaust had disappeared, and there were no engines running, no poison gas filling the room. The garage was dark—only a small desk lamp provided some illumination. Dillon lay stretched out on the sagging green sofa, sound asleep, a thin blanket covering him.
Not enough warmth in a cold space like this, she thought, shivering. At least Dillon didn’t seem to be troubled with sleeplessness, or a guilty conscience, or worried about someone trying to kill him. Maybe he’d been out getting drunk—she hadn’t been in any condition to notice whether he’d been using or not.
But then, she hadn’t seem him drunk since she got there. Hadn’t even seem him take a drink—the one time she thought he had it had only been iced tea. If she didn’t know better she’d think that Dillon didn’t use alcohol anymore.
She shivered, standing there, her bare feet icy on the cement floor. She glanced at the shadowy frame of her car—he hadn’t done anything about it yet, and she had no guarantee that he would.
There was nothing to stop her from leaving this place, right now. Walking to the nearest pay phone, calling a taxi and making it to the airport, where she could either spend a fortune on a flight or a smaller fortune on a rental car. Either way, the price would be cheap compared to her life. And her soul.
Her chest hurt, her feet hurt, her heart hurt. While he slept the sleep of the innocent on that huge old sofa, she was standing there freezing to death, awash in misery.
She walked across the garage, the covers trailing behind her, until she stood over him. He looked almost innocent in sleep, but Dillon Gaynor had never been innocent in his life.
She was about to turn and leave him, when his voice broke the silence.
“I’ll share my covers if you’ll share yours.”
His eyes were open, and he was watching her, lying on his side, up against the back of the sofa. A million arguments cropped up in her mind, and then they all vanished. Just for tonight she didn’t want to fight.
And he knew it. He lifted the threadbare blanket and she climbed onto the sofa beside him, pulling her covers around them both. It was a big sofa, but still only a sofa, and she had to move close to him so as not to fall off.
He didn’t say a word. Simply tucked her against him, her head on his shoulder, his arms around her, holding her loosely, protectively. He reached up and brushed the hair away from her face with a gentle hand, and unconsciously she rubbed her face against his hand, almost purring like a kitten.
And then she sighed, letting out the tension and fear and distrust. Letting go of everything. And just before she fell asleep she felt his lips against her forehead, and she wanted to cry.
He could see them in the darkness. Ghosts had better vision, and shadows didn’t stop him. They were asleep on the sofa, wrapped up close together, and the slow rage that fueled him was cold as ice. But then, he was always cold. That’s what happened when you were dead—all the heat left your body. Haunting the icy upper floors of Dillon’s garage was only fitting.
He’d watched them. He’d watched his sweet little cousin go down on Dillon on the floor of the garage. He’d watched them in the bedroom, heard the