Trace let my hand go to trot to the center of the driveway and the feeling lingered. His energy level seemed to increase with each step. “I got here about ten or so.” He looked around. “I snuck through there.” He pointed at some boxwoods, strode ten feet and pointed again. “Here’s where I found the spade.”
I watched him in awe. Watched how everything he’d had bottled up, spilled out. He was reliving it all, but instead of crushing him, this visit appeared to free him somehow.
His gaze darted in one direction after another as he spoke. “I grabbed it thinking the gardener had dropped it by mistake.”
I came up next to him. “It was clean?”
He nodded, clasped my hand and led me over a bowed bridge overlooking a small, man-made pond. The carriage house lay just beyond it. Once there, I gave him the keys and after he’d fiddled with the lock, the brass-studded door thundered open like a giant who’d been startled awake from a long nap.
I stared into the musty darkness as the doorknob thumped the wall. I didn’t move when he ventured inside, opening shades and blinds, testing doors. The sun, muted as it was, meshed with the light spilling from a hole in the roof.
A sense of detachment settled over me as I crept past the threshold and ambled around, taking it all in. A splintered wooden table. A stack of water-damaged oil paintings. Rusty tools strewn across the floor. Spider webs and mounds of dust. I could hardly contain my relief, it was so acute.
There was nothing to fear, nothing at all, nothing until….
I stepped on that floorboard.
The familiar squeak hit me like a sledgehammer. Age and time had given the sound strength. Intensity. Everything blurred, and tears filled my eyes, falling with blinding speed. Now I remembered the sight of Mother lying in a pool of blood, her dead eyes staring up at nothing. Now I remembered how I’d felt—the realization that I was an orphan. No father, no mother, a child’s worst nightmare. I gasped when my back smacked a wall. It felt like I was teetering on a ledge, and I was terrified of falling.
Trace immediately snatched me into his sheltering arms.
“The s-squeak,” I sobbed. “It squeaked when I f-fell to m-my knees—b-by Mother’s b-body. F-first sound. It s-squeaked.”
“Hey…hey. Breathe, Shannon. Breathe.”
“This is why I…couldn’t…come here. On my own. Too afraid.” I keened. “I’m a coward.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Y-yes, I am. The w-worst kind. That’s why I never went…to her grave. That’s why I never came back here. I was s-scared. Deep down I suspected something wasn’t right in my head…with all…all the memories. So I avoided anything that would…challenge what I believed—M-mother, oh, Mother.”
“Shhh.” He tenderly lifted my hair from my face. “Hey. I wouldn’t even be here if not for all your pushing and badgering. You’re the brave one,” he whispered kissing me as I sobbed. “And I admire the hell out of you.” He hugged me close. “Go on now. Cry all you want. I’m not going anywhere.”
My knees gave and I sank to the floor, taking him with me. Twelve years of grief flooded my heart. Years of pain denied. The child I’d vanquished was back, had never left, and now that little girl wanted her due.
Trace cradled me in his lap and murmured words of comfort. Once more, he told me how much he admired and respected me, and that I wasn’t alone. He swept my hair aside, kissed a tear away, and sipped at the next one. Each healing touch stirred something hidden, until I responded in kind, and in a flash, the mood shifted. He dragged his lips over my eyes, and lower still, to kiss the tip of my nose, all the while whispering assurances. How could desire come alive here, in this crypt of death? But it had, and want him, I did.
Feelings we’d tried to bury clawed to the surface. Breaths tangled, and lips fused in an untamed rhapsody. This wasn’t the childish lip banging I’d given him years ago—in this very room—when I’d surprised him while he was sleeping. This kiss was deep, dark, and carnal.
His fingertips drifted over my face, imprisoning me while his hungry mouth moved over mine. The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was wild and seasoned with tears and pain. He fisted my hair, ate at my lips, ripped his mouth away on a gasp, then came back. And I was right there with him, matching his passion.
But our kisses ended all too soon when Trace drew back. We stared in bemused silence, battling for breath, neither of us comprehending what had just happened. Outside, the building groaned against the gentle lash of the wind. Inside, tension vibrated like a plucked wire.
I swept my gaze over him as his Adam’s apple dipped and climbed. His lips were as swollen as mine felt. That I’d lost control with him again, in here of all places, confused me even more. What the hell was I doing?
Gasping for air, Trace knelt before me, his eyes searching my face. “Listen up, ‘cause I don’t want you to miss a word of this.” He pressed his forehead to mine and stroked my cheeks with his thumbs. “Doc says that the best way to kill a monster is to embrace it, and then create new memories. In your case, the monster’s right here, and we’ve just stared it down.”
He brushed my lips with his once more. “As for creating new memories, if the monster rears up again—what I’m about to tell you…I want it to be the first thing that comes to your mind.” He ran the fingers of one hand along my shoulder, trailing them up and down my arm. “Remember when you woke me with a kiss in this room? And how I gave you some song and dance about you being too good for me? Well, just the memory of your lips made me ache. All day. It got so bad I had to do something about it.”
He swallowed, looked away, then focused back on me. “So I did. Right here in this room…and many times after it.” At my stunned stare, he stroked my cheek tenderly and said, “Yeah, Shannon. I finished myself off, on just the memory of that kiss.”
My heart was thumping so hard I could feel it in my throat. I should’ve been disturbed by his confession, but I wasn’t. If anything, his shocking words aroused and excited me.
Trace slipped a bloodstained handkerchief from his pocket. The one I’d given him. He brushed it along my neck, raised it to his nose, and closed his eyes to sniff long and deep. Then he smiled down at my widened eyes.
“It lost most of your scent since the limo ride,” he said, “but there was still enough for me to finish what we’d started that night at my house.”
My mouth fell open in shock, but he smiled again. “I didn’t just take a shower while you were waiting. I went to my room, pulled this thing from a drawer, and dealt with the hard-on you left me with. I buried my nose in this hanky and pretended my other hand was yours.” I swallowed as he tucked the hanky away, then cupped my cheek. “So the next time this room comes to mind, I want you to remember me and what I just told you.”
My cell phone screamed at my hip. I jumped. Breathless, I snatched the gadget from my pocket.
My voice came out husky…uneven. “Th-this is Shannon Bradford.”
“Hi. It’s Bev O’Dell.”
I immediately looked to Trace who’d since gotten to his feet. He drew away as I shoved up. “Um, I have to take this,” I said, still stunned and trembling from his words. He nodded as I slipped outside and whispered, “How did you get this number?”
“Your office. I said I was a client.”
I paced the bridge, hugging myself against the cold wind slapping me in every direction. “What do you want?”
“I needed to say I’m sorry. For Patrick. For my silence.” Beverly sighed. “You can’t forgive me, can you?”
I licked my kiss-swollen lips, still tasting Trace. “It’s not for me to judge.”