Everlastin' Book 1 (13 page)

Beth gave herself a mental
shake and finally released the doorknob. For a moment there, she'd
thought he might be David, but it soon became obvious that this man
had never seen the inside of Baird House.

“I must say, I wasn't
expecting anything quite so elegant.” He reached for the door to
the parlor. “I'll just show myself around.”

“Wait a minute,” Beth said
breathlessly, walking up to him. Of average build and height, a tan
raincoat belted about his middle, he turned a smile on her, which
didn't waver when she peevishly asked, “Who are you?”

“I do beg your pardon.” With
a low laugh, he briefly shook Beth's limp hand. “Stephan Miles.
I've been checking into this property. I was led to believe the
house was vacant. Pleasant surprise finding you here.”

“Really,” she said dryly.
“Despite what you were led to believe, Mr. Miles—”

“Stephan.”

“—
this house is definitely
occupied.”

“Are you the
owner?”

“No. I'm
visiting.”

Stephan Miles stepped past
Beth and stood at the bottom of the staircase, looking up. “I would
love to see the rest of the house.” He flashed Beth a toothy smile
over his shoulder. “Have you time?”

“I must ask you to
leave.”

Turning to face her, he
slipped his hands into the pockets of his raincoat. “I would like a
word with the owner, if it's not inconvenient.” He reached into the
front of the raincoat and produced a small, white card. Passing it
to Beth, the hand went back into the pocket.

“I'm prepared to make a
sizeable offer for this estate.”

Beth looked up from the
palmed card and leveled an irritable look on the man. “The owners
are out of town.”

“I've come a long way....”
His words drifted off. A crooked grin twitched one corner of his
mouth. “Are you alone?”

Beth stiffened as a warning
red light went off in her brain. “No, I'm not. There's a burly
groundskeeper about. I've been led to believe he fertilizes the
gardens with the body parts of trespassers.”

A short burst of laughter,
incongruent of the man's tailored appearance, knotted Beth's
stomach. “Dear lady, I'm interested in the
estate.”

“Then I suggest you come
back at another time,” she said coolly.

A moment passed in silence.
Then he turned, stepped up onto the first step of the staircase,
and gripped the banister. “When do you expect them to return?” he
asked, not looking at her.

“Any time. I want you to
leave, Mr. Miles.”

Facing her, he absently
smoothed a hand along the mahogany rail. “You're
American.”

Beth heatedly headed for the
front door. The sound of a gasp gave her pause. Looking at the
intrusive stranger, she saw that he was frozen on the step, his
eyes wide with something akin to consternation. She returned to her
former position, a frown questioning his odd behavior. His face was
deathly pale, his jaw slack. Beth was about to ask him what was
wrong when she noticed his wet hair was moving, as if he was
standing in a strong draft. But the coat remained still, and she
could not detect anything, although she was standing reasonably
close to him.

“Mr. Miles?”

Woodenly, almost in slow
motion, his hands went to the front of his raincoat. It took Beth a
moment to realize he was cupping his testicles through the layers
of clothing. Agony contorted his features. His mouth opened wider
in an unfulfilled attempt to cry out.

Beth took a step back as she
thought she glimpsed a faint green mist escape the man's ears. The
mist swirled about his head then faded from sight, leaving Beth to
wonder if she'd seen it at all.

Stephan Miles jerkily left
the step and headed down the hall. Beth watched him close the door
behind him, and waited several seconds longer before releasing a
breath through pursed lips.

“Well...that was
different.”

Thunder roared ominously
above the house. The rain came down harder, the sound filling the
hall almost deafeningly. Beth glanced down at her leveled palm when
it tingled. A stab of shock impaled her, for the man's card was no
longer in her grasp. After a fleeting inspection of the floor
around her feet, she wearily headed into the kitchen where she
boiled water for a cup of tea. She sat at the table sipping the hot
brew, her thoughts a million miles away until she noticed a long
white envelope propped up against the salt and pepper
shakers.

Beth’s name was scrawled
across the front in Carlene’s handwriting.

She hastily opened it and
eagerly read the single page.

Dear Beth,

Figured I’d better let you
know what’s happening since a friend was

headed to Crossmichael and
said he could drop this letter off to you.

I’m so so sorry, but David
got called to Italy on an emergency. We’re not sure how long the
job will take. I promise to get back as soon as possible. I’m soooo
looking forward to spending time with you.

See you soon.

Love ya, Carlene

“Italy?” Beth groaned. She
folded the letter and returned it to the envelope. “Great. At least
they’re all right.” She sighed and scrubbed a palm on her brow.
“Sure, Carlene, I’ll be here when you return. But it would
be
lovely
to get to
spend some time with you before my vacation is up.”

Disheartened, she finished
her tea, placed the cup in the sink, and was about to head upstairs
when two ajar doors in the secondary hall caught her
attention.

Although her headache
steadily worsened, something compelled her to investigate. The
first was a sitting room, its plain furnishings suggesting it was
once the servants' area to relax. The second, larger room was a
well-stocked bar, with a counter, stools, and three tables with
four chairs each. A high-backed, red-leather settee was against the
right wall, above which hung a painting of olden times. Depicted
was an open room with men gathered by a blazing hearth, mugs of
lager in their hands, and a similar settee several feet
away.

She turned her attention
back to the bar counter. Alongside an opened bottle of scotch was a
short, thick tumbler. Lifting it, she dipped an isolated finger to
the bottom.

It was moist.

A droll grin twisted her
mouth. “So, Lachlan, you are playing mind games.” A low laugh
rattled in her throat. “Unless you expect me to believe old Lannie
enjoys a swig of scotch now and then.”

Placing the tumbler down,
she left the room. A stroll around the grounds would shake the rest
of the cobwebs from her head, if only the rain would stop. At least
she was a little wiser. Her jitters had played her right into his
hands.

The next time she came
across him, she would know better than to let his teasing manner
get to her.

C
hapter 5

Echoing midnight chimes from
somewhere in the house told Beth her birthday was almost upon her.
In four hours and twenty-two minutes, she would officially be
thirty years old, if the information on her birth certificate was
correct. With the last mournful dong of the clock, she continued to
vigorously brush her hair in front of the vanity mirror. The low
gas lighting in the room lent soft shadows to the contours of her
features, appreciably camouflaging the signs of fatigue she'd
noticed earlier in the day.

More than twenty-four hours
had passed since she read Carlene’s letter, during which her sense
of humor had been sorely tested. To while away time, she had
rearranged the cupboards in the kitchen, and reorganized two of the
linen closets on the third floor. It wasn't until later in the day,
when she'd gone to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea that
she'd realized someone had put everything back in the old order. To
her further disbelief, the linen closets were exactly as they had
been.

To the best of her
knowledge, she'd been alone in the house since Agnes' quick
departure after serving breakfast.

All in all, Beth was
getting pretty fed up with the isolation. She had
expected—and
hoped
—to see Lachlan. He had to be around. Someone was undoing her
deeds, although it didn’t make sense that he would care about
cupboards or closets one way or another.

She had tried to go to sleep
hours earlier, but he kept invading her thoughts. She wasn’t sure
psychics really existed, but she was hard-pressed to figure out how
he knew certain things that she hadn’t even disclosed to Carlene.
Like the roses. She did remember hearing a voice that night that
sounded remarkably like his, and even remembered how comforted she
felt by it.

Placing her hairbrush down,
she rose from the bench and padded across the floor to the gas
lamp. A twist of the key cut off the flame, plunging the room into
total darkness.

In Kennewick, Washington,
there were always street and yard lights to take the edge off of
the night.

Not here.

Such darkness.

Such encompassing,
dark...
darkness.

She was walking toward the
bed when two things stopped her; an unexpected, almost overwhelming
sense of despair, and notice of a thin strip of light beneath her
door.

Lachlan?

She was positive she had
turned off the hall lights before she'd come into her room
earlier.

The night before, she had
lain awake for hours, hoping to hear him go to his room. Although
she was sure he was the one playing the pranks on her, she would
have liked to have known another living creature was in the house
besides herself. If he had returned and left again last night, she
wasn't aware of it.

With a hand over her
thumping heart, she opened her bedroom door. Two of the lights were
on in the hall. And there was light beneath Lachlan's
door.

Forgetting the fact she was
wearing a thigh-length nightgown, she tiptoed across the hall and
placed an ear to his door. The only sound she could discern was
that of a crackling fire.

Sinking her teeth lightly
into her lower lip, Beth turned the knob and eased the door
inward.

You know what he expects
from you,
said her mother’s voice in her
mind.
Don’t you dare air out our dirty
little secret, Beth. I’ll never forgive you!

Beth boldly pushed the door
open a little more — then again until she was able to squeeze into
the room.

A thousand objects vied for
her immediate attention. The huge, four-poster master bed carved
from walnut. The masculine furniture and heavy, royal blue drapes
on the far windows. The sword arrangements on the walls. The
paintings. The photographs.

Her gaze swept over the
polished, high wainscoting then the canvas ceiling divided by wood
moldings.

Stepping further into the
room, she finally focused her attention on the man standing in
front of a white-marble fireplace. His hands gripped the
mantelpiece. His brow was pressed to its surface, his back hunched.
He wore dark trousers, but his feet and broad back and arms were
bare. His hair was tied back at his nape by a dark piece of thin
leather.

Beth's hand remained
between her breasts as she watched him. The despair in her heart
swelled and for a moment, she couldn't help but wonder if in fact
she was somehow
“connected”
to him. He straightened but the slump of his
shoulders suggested he was distraught. How could she continue to
scoff at the concept when she was reasonably sure what she was
feeling at the moment did not spring from within
herself?

And it struck her that her
own loneliness the past years in no way equaled his. Despite his
merry airs, she was vitally aware of his need for
companionship.

His need for
her.

Her feet soundless upon a
thick Persian rug, Beth took several steps in his direction,
stopping only when she inadvertently looked up at a portrait
hanging above the fireplace. Her heartbeat pulsed loudly in her
ears as she stared in wonderment at the face in the painting.
Larger than life, it could have been Lachlan who had sat for the
artist. The likeness was so startling there was no question in her
mind that Lachlan had to be related to the Baird clan. Perhaps a
direct descendant of that unfortunate man whose dreams were cut
short by a knife thrust into his heart.

It was little wonder Lachlan
loved the house. It was a part of his history.

But how had he come to be a
mere employee within the grand walls?

Her heart skipped a beat
when she imagined his expression as he searched the face of the man
in the portrait.

Taking care of her mother
had made her painfully empathize with anyone suffering. She didn't
know a thing about the man across from her—except that he could be
an infuriating tease at times, could certainly kiss, and had shown
her kindness whenever her need for comforting had
arisen.