Delaney's Shadow (35 page)
Authors: Ingrid Weaver
Tags: #mobi, #Romantic Suspense, #Paranormal Romance, #Fiction, #Shadow, #epub
The contact with his skin was electric. Tingles chased through her nerves, just as when Max touched her, yet the sensation was more intense than anything her imagination could have created. This was living flesh against living flesh, and the connection was so powerful it made her head spin.
John leaned closer. “What happened?”
“I know how Stanford got in the car. Elizabeth set it up. She’d claimed he’d called the police but she lied to me. So did he. I should have kept going, even if I’d needed to walk, but I felt sorry for him because he looked so old and sad, and damn it, she knew all this. She could have told me months ago. I don’t understand—”
“Who the hell is Stanford?”
She stopped. Max knew. John wouldn’t. God, this was too confusing. “Stanford was my husband.”
“The old and sad guy.”
“He wasn’t—”
“Who’s Elizabeth?”
“My stepdaughter. She might have been the one who hit you.”
“And I thought my family was dysfunctional.”
Without thinking, she slipped her hands from his grasp to cradle his face.
He appeared as startled by the caress as she was. “Delaney?”
The square edges of his jaw fit into her palms the same way Max’s did. The scent that rose from his skin was the same as Max’s. His nostrils flared, his eyes darkened, like Max’s, yet there was no distance, no disconnect between her thoughts and the man in front of her. He was
real
.
real
.
She wasn’t conscious of making a decision. Her instincts took over. His muttered curse puffed across her lips a heartbeat before her mouth touched his.
It wasn’t Max’s kiss. It didn’t bypass her senses. It was a kiss of the here and now, of reality, of firm, male lips and the taste of coffee and toothpaste, of soft grass beneath her legs and warm skin under her fingers. No phantom pleasure burst through her mind, because her mind wasn’t involved. Only her body. The connection was purely physical. Man to woman, with a need as simple as the desire to eat or to breathe.
Yet she was certain she’d felt his mouth before, not in her imagination but in her memory. His lips had been cool as he’d fitted them to hers. She’d felt his breath before, too. It had been warm, like his arms, and like his fingers as he’d wiped her tears.
The whirling in her head got worse. She pulled away and sat back on her heels. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I . . .” She swallowed. “I was thinking of someone else.”
The breeze tossed his hair over his forehead. The boughs overhead swayed, sending dapples of sunlight that softened his face. He seemed younger, like the lost boy she’d thought she’d glimpsed the day before. “No problem,” he rasped. He gripped her thigh, bunching her skirt under his hand. His jaw worked, as if he fought the urge to say more. In the end, he exhaled slowly, met her gaze, and smiled. “Anytime.”
This was the first time she had seen John smile. It deepened the lines beside his mouth and crinkled the corners of his eyes. It fully revealed the crooked front tooth that she knew so well, the one that had straightened since his childhood but not completely, leaving indisputable evidence of the boy he used to be in the man he was now.
John Harrison hadn’t been smiling in the photograph that had been taken for the Mapleview Gallery brochure. There was no possible way she could have guessed that he had a crooked front tooth.
Yet she’d always known he did, because this
wasn’t
the first time she’d seen him smile. No, the first time he’d smiled for her, she’d been lying flat on her back at the shore of the pond, and he’d been kneeling beside her, his hair stuck to his head with water. His white T-shirt and the jeans that were too big for him were plastered to his skinny frame with mud and bits of seaweed and . . .
wasn’t
the first time she’d seen him smile. No, the first time he’d smiled for her, she’d been lying flat on her back at the shore of the pond, and he’d been kneeling beside her, his hair stuck to his head with water. His white T-shirt and the jeans that were too big for him were plastered to his skinny frame with mud and bits of seaweed and . . .
And he’d wiped her tears and told her not to cry and said his name was Max.
TWENTY-TWO
MAX DROPPED A FISTFUL OF ICE INTO A GLASS AND regretted having no alcohol to offer. Delaney appeared as if she could use some. He topped up the ice with water and carried the glass to the sitting area in front of the fireplace.
She hadn’t moved from the leather couch where he’d left her. She’d barely spoken during the walk to his house, though thankfully some of the color had returned to her face. She was working things through, but he could tell by the stiffness in her body that she hadn’t yet lost the battle with her logic.
He’d given up his own battle already. Otherwise, he would have phoned her this morning instead of going to see her in person. He wouldn’t have returned to the yard when he’d sensed her distress, either. He wouldn’t have given in to his craving and touched her skin, and he sure as hell wouldn’t have let her kiss him.
This wasn’t smart. He didn’t need this girl from his past, stirring up his memories, messing with his head, slipping into his thoughts. He didn’t need the complications or the pain.
But it was too late for denial or for more games. In truth, this moment had been inevitable. The only wonder was that it had taken this long.
She took the glass from his hand mechanically and drank without looking at it. “It’s all so unbelievable.” She spoke aloud, as they had been doing since she’d recognized him. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“Okay, I’ll start. Why did you kiss me?”
She pressed her lips into a tight line.
“You knew who I was.”
“Maybe in here,” she said, tapping her chest with her free hand. She moved her hand to her temple. “But not here. It was too twilight zone. Maybe I’ve gone right around the bend, and I’m imagining everything that’s happening now.”
He sat beside her and laced their fingers together. They had twined their thoughts far more intimately. He’d almost convinced himself that was enough, yet it couldn’t compare to the simple joining of their hands. Hearing her words in his head didn’t include the impact of her voice in the air around him. Sensing her presence was a pale reflection of having the warmth of her body next to his. “This is real, Deedee.”
“Why did you lie?”
“I didn’t.”
“You said your name was Max.”
“It is. John Maxwell Harrison. I’ll show you my driver’s license if you don’t believe me.”
“But—”
“I was seven years old when I met you. Only my teachers and the cops called me John in those days. My mother called me Max, that’s how I thought of myself, so that was the name I told you.”
“Are you some kind of psychic? Do you talk to everybody in their heads?”
“No, just you.”
“Why? How?”
“It started the day you almost drowned. You weren’t breathing when I pulled you out of the water. I figure something happened in our minds when I resuscitated you. We formed a link.”
“You’re so calm about all this. You almost make it sound reasonable.”
“I’ve had more time than you to accept it. I use the power of my mind every day in my art.”
She set her glass down on the table beside the couch. Her head bowed, she studied their joined hands. “You gave me cake that day. You let me pet your dog. Your mother sang ‘Happy Birthday.’ ”
“I never had a dog or a birthday cake. It was a fantasy. I thought of it as painting pictures in my head. Somehow, you saw them, too.”
“It’s still incredible. You were only seven, yet you saved my life. Didn’t anyone know?”
“The pond was on your grandfather’s property; I was trespassing, so I ran away when I heard them coming. I didn’t want anyone else to see me.”
She squeezed his fingers. “Oh, Max.”
“I used to live here then, too. I built this house where our trailer used to be.”
“Then you really did come to play with me in the yard and at my grandparents’ house.”
“No, I never came back. After that first time, we only saw each other in our minds.”
“I thought you were make-believe.”
“I hadn’t realized that then.”
“But you were aware of it now. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried. You didn’t want to listen.”
“You could have tried harder.”
“What difference would it have made?”
She lifted her head. “What difference? Don’t you think I had the right to know?”
“You wanted to use me. I let you. You seemed happy enough the way things were.”
“Happy? I thought I was going insane!”
“Sure, but you enjoyed yourself, didn’t you? What did you call it? Fantasy orgasms?”
She yanked her hand from his. “You came to my bedroom. You made love to my mind.”
“I’m a man, not a boy. What did you expect me to do? Make mud pies?”
“That’s not fair.”
“I warned you.”
“You knew I didn’t believe you.”
“You weren’t ready to believe me, or else you wouldn’t have concocted all those screwy excuses to explain me away.”
“You took advantage of me.”
“No, Delaney. Our fantasies only work if we both power them. You were an equal participant. You came to me of your own free will.”
“You’re the one making excuses now. We met in person three days ago. You had plenty of opportunities since then to tell me the truth.”
“Why should I? Neither of us wants a real relationship. You were clear about that the first time you saw me naked. Your priority has always been your scumbag of a dead husband. You’re obsessed with remembering him.”
“You’re purposely twisting things. It’s what led to his death that I need to remember.”
“What’s the difference? You still wanted to use me.”
“So instead of acknowledging me when I called to you as Max, you toyed with me. You played word games. You teased me with little clues that you knew would confuse me. Did you have a good laugh?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Then how was it?”
“I thought we were better off leaving things the way they were.”
“You knew damn well that if I’d understood you were real, I never would have done what we did last night.”
“Yeah, I knew.”
Her eyes widened.
“You’re not the only one who’s been enjoying our fantasy orgasms, Deedee.”
“You bastard.”
“Exactly.”
She drew back her arm.
Max had had plenty of experience reading violence on a person’s face. He knew the way the jaw flexed, the nostrils flattened, and the chin thrust forward. He’d learned to watch for those signs out of self-preservation. At first, he’d used the split-second head start so he could cower or run. Later, he’d gotten even faster at raising his own fists. He hadn’t allowed himself to be struck in more than twenty years.
This time, he left his hand on his thigh and braced himself for the blow.
Because this time, he deserved it.
Yet the blow didn’t come. Delaney stopped with her hand poised in midair. She remained motionless until her arm began to tremble, then she curled her fingers into her palm and lowered her arm. “No,” she said finally. “That’s what you want. You’re trying to provoke me into severing our bond.”
“What I want is another taste of your mouth, but I doubt if you’re in the mood.”
“You just said you didn’t want a real relationship.”
“That’s right, I didn’t, but seeing as how the truth is out, we might as well make the most of it. Have some fun. Aren’t you curious to find out what would happen if we did sex the old-fashioned way?”
“You’re saying this to push me away.”
“Make up your mind. You just reamed me out for not pushing you away.”
She got to her feet. She walked as far as the fireplace and stopped. She spoke without turning. “You might have been playing games, but I wasn’t. I meant what I said, Max. I’ve loved you from the moment we met.”
“Wrong, Deedee. You loved what you believed was a figment of your imagination, not a real boy or a real man.”
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