But the sun would be up soon. And this place was the only haven he had left. He could create others, but that would take time. No, for now, he could only stay here.
But he was going to have to avoid the woman at all costs. Never had he experienced that sort of mind link with a mortal. Never. Nor had he with others of his own kind. What the hell did this mean?
He walked out toward the cliffs and, at the familiar spot, looked down at the stone ledge, some fifteen feet below. There was a small opening in the stone wall that backed that ledge. It was still shrouded by the vines he had planted ages ago. They sprouted around his feet where he stood and grew from the bits of soil along the cliff-face, draping downward to cover the cave’s entrance like a curtain.
He hoped the passage that ran beneath the earth all the way back to the house hadn’t collapsed by now. And he hoped the rooms hidden beneath the old house hadn’t disintegrated to dust after so much time.
She was dreaming about Dante again.
He stood over her bed, staring down at her. Just stood there. He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t touch her.
She lay there, staring back at him, wishing he would do or say something. Anything. But he didn’t.
She opened her mouth to speak and found she couldn’t. So instead she looked at him. It was odd that she knew his face so well, she thought idly as she perused it in her dream. It was angular, and cruel. Longish and shadowed. His jawbone was sharp, his nose narrow. The eyes set deep, and so dark that he seemed to be looking out at her from somewhere deep within. From his soul, maybe.
He wanted to see her. Her eyes, once held by his, were locked there. And she knew what he wanted. All she wanted was to please him. She lifted a hand, peeled her covers away and lay there, completely naked and unashamed, as his dark, intense eyes burned over her. Every part of her.
Touch me, she thought. For the love of God, just touch me.
She blinked—and he was gone.
Just that suddenly.
Awake now, Morgan lay in her bed. Her covers were on the floor, and her body was alive. But she was alone.
God, these dreams were taking on a life of their own, weren’t they? Maybe she needed to think about some sort of therapy. Not that she hadn’t dreamed about him, over and over, night after night, since she had come to live here. But this time it had been different. It had been. real.
She sat up slowly, ran a hand through her hair and got to her feet. She pulled on a satin robe the color of cream, walked to the glass doors and opened them, stepping out onto the balcony, inhaling the night air deeply. It tasted good.
Then she paused and stared straight ahead.
A man stood on the cliffs, wind buffeting him as it was buffeting her. He was staring out toward the sea, and she couldn’t really see his face. And yet there was something so incredibly familiar about him. The fall of his hair. His stance. Something.
A fist seemed to close around her stomach as clouds skittered away from the moon and, for just an instant, his face was touched by moonlight.
“Dante.” She whispered his name, breathed it.
And as if he had heard her, even though it was impossible from that distance, he turned sharply, looked right at her.
“It can’t be …” Morgan closed her eyes, took three openmouthed breaths as her heart hammered in her chest. “It can’t be.”
She opened her eyes again.
The cliffs, the sea, the wind, and nothing else. No one was there. No one was there at all.
6
Maxine leaned back in the ergonomic chair and blinked her eyes several times. You didn’t blink often enough when you stared at a computer screen all day. She’d read that somewhere. It wasn’t good for your vision.
The front door opened, and Storm came in, a big white bag from the bakery in one hand and the morning mail in the other. “Time to take a break!” she called. “Carbs, calories and cream filling, just what the doctor ordered.”
Max sighed, pushing the chair back. It rolled on its casters from the computer desk to the middle of the floor in what used to be the living room and was now an office. If you used the term loosely. It more closely resembled an explosion in a paper-and-file-folder factory. With computers. Lots of computers.
Storm dropped the bag on her own desk, sat down and peered inside. “Mmm, I got jelly and cream filled, and now I can’t decide.”
“How many are in there?” Maxine asked, lifting her brows.
“Half dozen.” Storm didn’t look up. The doughnuts had her mesmerized.
“Better go for one of each, then.”
She looked up then, brows arched. “You think?”
“Oh, yeah. Far better than the risk of making the wrong choice.”
“I like the way your mind works,” Stormy said, smiling, as she reached into the bag to pluck out a doughnut.
Max got out of her chair and wandered into the kitchen, which was still a kitchen, where she poured two cups of fresh coffee. “Did you ever wonder just how screwed up I must be to be in the same town, in the same house, in the same rut, after all this time?”
“No.”
Max smiled at the sound of the word, because it was doughnut muffled. She carried the two mugs back into the room in time to see Stormy taking another bite and closing her eyes in ecstasy.
Max set Storm’s cup down in front of her and bent to help herself to a doughnut, knowing they would vanish if she didn’t.
“You care to elaborate on that answer, or are you just gonna go with the one-syllable reply?”
Stormy swallowed, licked her lips, took a sip of her coffee. She still had a ring of powdered sugar around her mouth, but what the hell?
“Who wouldn’t be in the same house? Shoot, girl, your mother gave it to you free and clear. You’d have been nuts not to take it. And I fail to see any rut. You’re running not one, but two, businesses. Both turning a profit, I might add.”
“Barely,” Maxine muttered. She sighed, dunked her doughnut and took a big soggy bite. When she finished, she dropped the first of her two bombshells. “Web page design is getting boring, Stormy. To tell you the truth, I’m thinking about dropping it.”
Stormy blinked. “Dropping it?”
“Closing it down.”
Setting her coffee mug on her desk, Storm got to her feet. “Why would you do that? That’s where you earn most of your income.”
“Yeah, but it was never my life’s work. I mean, it’s okay. I’m good at it, but it’s not my dream job. Never was.”
“So what are you telling me? They’re hiring over at Spies-R-Us?”
Max shot her a quick glance. “Don’t even joke about that.”
“Then what?” Storm threw her hands in the air, turning in a slow circle and searching the ceiling for an explanation. “I thought this side business of yours was enough to satisfy your inner snoop, Max. I mean, hasn’t it been?”
“No, it hasn’t. If anything, it’s only whetted my appetite.” Max had kind of stumbled into the realm of Internet crime investigations when one of her Web clients asked her advice in dealing with a cyber-stalker a year ago. Since then, she had helped track down a half-dozen others by tracing them through their super-anonymous,