As she made her way up the center of the steps, she thumped each one with her hoe, announcing her presence. The smell of rotting wood and insects filled her nose as the wide steps squeaked and splintered. She watched carefully where she placed her feet and tried not to think of what might have taken root or made its home in the recesses under the raised porch. Once more she wished she’d taken the time to slip into a pair of shoes.
Clutching the hoe like a walking stick, she cursed the stubbornness that kept her moving toward the front door of Ryder Hayes’s house when what she wanted was to turn and run as fast as she could away from the oppressive gloom of this house. Her lungs were constricted, leaving her dizzyingly short of oxygen as she trudged across the warped expanse of porch.
Her stubbornness would be the death of her someday. Anybody with half a brain would know when to quit. But she hadn’t had a choice, not really. Not with those dogs running wild—
She shut off her brain. She wouldn’t think of the children.
A prickling awareness made goose bumps on her skin, stayed with her.
Taking one final step, she swallowed as she paused in front of the huge, heavily carved front door and raised her fist, pounding on the grinning faces, the grimy wreaths and grapes chiseled into the wood, unleashing her frustration and terror and grief against the unyielding mahogany.
The door should have creaked. It should have groaned. There should have been cobwebs hanging from the frame and a humped Igor to open the portal a crack.
Instead, the door swung inward, and a gaunt figure appeared in the dim foyer, shading his eyes against the sunlight. A draft of air coiled around her ankles and up her thighs like the brush of an unseen, cold hand.
The door had been opened so silently that she hadn’t heard it, and her fist, still raised to pound against the door, slid against the cool cotton shirt of the man who leaned against the doorjamb. Her knuckles brushed against the thin black T-shirt, against the cords of his stomach, and she heard his swift intake of breath. His head snapped up and his dark gaze met hers.
Ice and heat burned her fingertips.
Josie jerked back, one heel scraping against a splinter. She couldn’t help her reaction. Power rising toward her, threatening to swamp her and suck her under, sweeping her out beyond safety. Coming from him.
Slumped against the door with his aloof burning gaze meeting hers, he looked too weary to speak, too weary to live, and yet waves of energy came from him, battering against her, and she took another step back, stunned by the force of his presence.
“What do you want?” Exhaustion made his low voice gravelly and he shaded his eyes again, taking a step back.
Josie gripped the hoe and stepped forward. The man looked ill. “Ryder Hayes?”
“Most of the time. Usually.” He sank more heavily against the frame as he glanced at her hoe. Slurred in a rough drawl, his words sounded as if he’d dragged them up from some dark cavern within himself. “Unless that’s a weapon?”
“What?” Josie frowned.
With a barely perceptible movement of a long index finger, he pointed to the hoe she held in a death grip. “Have you come, lady of the moss green eyes, like some medieval villager with torch and hoe, to burn me out?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Confused, Josie reached into her pocket for the cylinder of capsaicin.
“I see. Not a weapon, then.” He shook his head and pulled himself upright, almost disappearing behind the shield of the door. “Sorry, but I’m not interested in buying farm tools.”
“Good. Because I’m not selling anything.”
“Of course you are. Everyone’s selling something.” Cynicism curled the edges of his words.
“I’m not. I’m here to see Mr. Hayes.” Josie thumped the hoe emphatically. “Are you Ryder Hayes?”
“I’m afraid I am.” Slavic cheekbones sloped down to a full, sharply delineated mouth that curved down at the corners. “Not that I seem to have any choice about the matter.”
“Then I’ve come about your dogs, Mr. Hayes.”
“My dogs?” Straight white teeth flashed under the hood of his hand as his mouth stretched in a yawn. “I can’t help you.” He edged the door shut.
“You know good and well what I’m talking about.”
“Do I?” His voice became only a drift of sound.
“The dogs that almost attacked me this morning. Those beasts. Your pack of dogs.”
White lines scored his beautiful mouth, nothing more than a minute pull of muscle. He lowered his hand and his dark eyes met hers again, eyes so tortured that Josie dropped the hoe and stretched her hand to him. Clattering to the porch, the hoe fell between them and she bent down to pick it up as he said, “I have no dogs.”
“I saw you with them,” she insisted, stubborn in the face of his denial and confused by the torment she’d glimpsed.
“Did you?”
“Near my house. In the woods,” Josie said.
“Perhaps you imagined you did.” His voice was remote, disinterested, but underneath the polite dismissal she heard a disturbing note that kept her standing on his porch.
“I don’t imagine things. I know what I saw.” She gripped the hoe until her hand hurt.
“Unlike the rest of us, then? How fortunate for you. To know what’s real. What’s not.”
“I saw you. You stopped the dogs from attacking me.”
“Did I? Fascinating.”
Wanting to shake him out of his indifference, needing to make him admit the truth, Josie reached out and grasped his arm. With her movement, the capsaicin cylinder flew out of her pocket and racketed across the porch into the grass. His forearm was all muscle and bone under her fingers.
“Hell.” He doubled over and groaned, yanking his arm free and brushing his hand across his eyes. His hand trembled. “Damn.”
“Are you all right?”
“I suppose it depends on your definition.” He straightened and stepped away from her, putting the edge of the door between them before she could help him.
“Do you want me to call a doctor? Are you sick?” she repeated, concerned about the pallor that swept over his face.
“Sick?” His laugh was humorless and sent a ripple of shivers along her spine. “Spirit-sick, ‘sick almost to dooms-day,’ as the poet put it, but, no, lady green eyes, I don’t believe I need the services of a physician. Thank you for your concern.” Preparing to shut the door, his narrow, long fingers gripped the edge.
Glimpsing the strained white knuckles that tightened as she watched, Josie had the strangest impression that he was falling over the edge of a chasm and holding on with the last of his strength, but she couldn’t let him escape without settling the issue of his animals. “Wait!”
“I thought we were through. Wasn’t that all you wanted to know? About the dogs?” he drawled, his voice bored.
“They’re dangerous. You were there. You saw them start to come after me.”
“So you said.” A flicker of pain stirred in the depths of his eyes. “And I’ve said, they’re not my animals.”
“You controlled them,” she said flatly. “They obeyed you.”