“Stronger than you think.”
“Stronger than me?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Why?”
“Just wondering if you’re going to kick my ass for kissing you.”
“But you didn’t—”
She gasped as he snapped an arm around her waist, tugged her hard against him and, cradling the back of her head with his other hand, captured her mouth with his. He kissed her with his mouth open, moving it over her lips and drawing on them. And just when she let her body relax against his, let her jaw relax so her mouth fell open, just as she wished he would use his tongue and keep on kissing her for a long, long time, he released her and lifted his head away. He sent her a wink, then turned and walked back along the driveway toward the road.
He didn’t look back. She stood there watching him out of sight, the sea wind blowing cool and damp over her heated skin.
“What,” Rhiannon asked, “was that?”
Sighing, turning to face her unofficial aunt, Amber said, “That was Edge.” She slid a look at Rhiannon.
She stood there, her long, jet-black hair dancing in the sea wind, arms crossed over her chest, stern faced. “What kind of a name is ‘Edge'?”
“A fitting one, I think. Where’s Pandora? I don’t see her.”
Her attempt at changing the subject was a lame one, and she knew it. Her aunt’s pet panther was nowhere in sight, and would have been had she been with Rhiannon.
“She’s getting old. Long trips do her very little good these days. She stayed behind at Wind Ridge, with Eric, Tam and Roland. And she thanks you for naming your little shop in her honor. Now, if we could get back to the subject at hand?”
“Will?”
“Edge,” she said flatly. “Just what is going on between you and this character, Amber Lily?”
“It’s too soon to tell, Rhiannon. But he’d better not turn up dead before I have a chance to decide.”
Rhiannon smiled then, picking up on Amber’s teasing tone. “Then you’d better decide soon. Having kissed my niece right under my nose, he might not have much time.” She opened her arms, and Amber went to her, hugged her gently. “How are you, darling? I’ve missed you. It’s been months.”
“I thought I was fine, until I heard the news about Will.”
Rhiannon thinned her lips. “He’s out right now. Yet another appointment with yet another doctor.”
“And ‘Fina?”
“Said she needed a few moments alone, so I drew her a steaming, scented bath and told her I was going for a walk along the beach. I knew you were close, and I wanted a chance to speak to you alone before you saw her.”
“How’s she doing with all this?”
“Amazingly well,” Rhiannon said. “Too well. It worries me.”
Amber licked her lips, lowered her eyes.
Rhiannon drew a breath, clasped Amber’s arm. “There’s no need to shield your thoughts from me, Amber, I’ve been consumed with the same notion.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
Amber pursed her lips, lowered her head.
“Did you bring the notebooks?”
Frowning, Amber brought her head up fast. “What notebooks?”
“Oh, please, child, we have no time for this. Stiles’s notebooks. The ones your parents think are locked up in their safe. You took them, of course.”
“How do you know that?”
“It’s what I would have done,” Rhiannon said.
Amber sighed. Dammit, her aunt knew her far too well. “Yes, I took them, but that doesn’t mean we’ll find any answers in their pages. God knows I’ve looked, but so far—”
A blood chilling shriek cut the night, and stopped Amber in midsentence. Even as the two women tore free of the shock and raced toward the house, there was a crash and a howl. “Gods. ‘Fina,” Rhiannon whispered, pouring on more speed, until she simply vanished in a blur of black.
Amber ran at a closer to mortal pace. She hadn’t been there in some time, and she didn’t want to collide with anything on the way.
When she arrived in the house, she hurried up the stairs and into a bathroom, the door of which stood wide. Sarafina stood in the room’s center, dripping wet, naked except for the white towel she held to her chest. The glass topped vanity was shattered; makeup and hair products lay everywhere.
“'Fina, honey? What happened?”
Rhiannon, who’d already sized up the situation and vanished from the room, appeared beside Amber, a thick terry bathrobe in her arms. “Let’s get her out of here before she cuts herself to ribbons,” she said, and she moved to Sarafina, her feet crushing glass on the way. “Stay still, ‘Fina. Don’t move.”
Sarafina was shaking, staring but not seeing either of them. As Rhiannon tried to slip the plush robe onto one arm, ‘Fina jerked away with a strangled cry, then sank to her knees amid the broken glass, tipping her head back and moaning like a wounded animal.
“By the Gods,” Rhiannon whispered.
Tears sprang to Amber’s eyes, and her throat closed tight, but she swallowed the urge to break down and cry, and instead joined Rhiannon. They crouched on either side of Sarafina, each of them pulling one of the woman’s arms around her shoulder, sliding their free arms beneath her thighs. The towel fell away as they lifted her straight up, doing their best to avoid the glass, and carried her out of the bathroom while she dissolved in uncontrollable tears and racking sobs. They lowered her onto a large canopy bed swathed in sheer black curtains. Amber glimpsed blood but wasn’t sure of its source.
“See to her. I’ll take care of the mess,” Rhiannon said. She retrieved the robe, which had fallen to the floor halfway between the bathroom and the bed, and tossed it to Amber. Then she returned to the bathroom.
Amber slid onto the bed beside the woman, sliding the soft robe easily onto her. Sarafina didn’t fight. She wept, her entire body jerking as the flood of emotion battered her like a storm.
“It’s all right, ‘Fina. It’s going to be all right.” She pulled the robe together in front, letting the bottom half drape over Sarafina’s long legs, loosely tying the sash, then leaning close to brush black curls from tear-wet cheeks. “It’s okay to cry,” she whispered. “You’re not made of stone.” She blinked back her own tears, but fighting them was nearly impossible.
‘Fina’s face pulled into a painfully twisted mask. “H-h-he can’t … I can’t do this. I can’t—”
“I know. I know.” Amber embraced her quaking shoulders, pulled her gently close and found it surreal to be comforting one of the two toughest, strongest women she had ever known. The other one was in the bathroom, and if Amber’s senses were on target, she was weeping, as well.
“It’s too cruel,” Sarafina whispered. “It’s too cruel. How can he be taken from me? How?”
“I don’t know.”
Sarafina shivered, pulling free of Amber’s arms to lie down, curled on one side in the fetal position, her back to Amber. “I knew I should never have let myself love him.”
“You know you don’t mean that.” Amber closed her eyes and told herself this was exactly why she would never lose herself to a man this way. Never.
“Everyone