Shifting Shadows (16 page)

She hadn
’t been feeling well. The raging headache had obscured her vision.

But she remembered the familiar aura he e
mitted. Never mind her eyesight. She’d felt him.

Dylan had been there.

After they finished eating, Phillip took her home and walked her to the door.

“
Thank you for dinner,” she said, immediately inserting her key in the lock, hoping to avoid another good-night kiss. The memory of Dylan’s lips on hers was too new, too old, too wonderful. She didn’t want it replaced or tainted.

“
Are you going to invite me in?”

“
Oh, well, actually I’m kind of tired. And that terrible headache...” She trailed off. She felt fine. There was no reason she shouldn’t invite Phillip in. No reason except she didn’t want to.

“
I understand that you’re still weak, and that’s one of the things we need to talk about.”

Reluctantly she opened the door and allowed him to fo
llow her inside. At least this would give her a chance to find out more about herself. He’d been the one eliciting information at the restaurant. This could be her opportunity.

“
How about a cup of coffee?” he asked.

She nodded and headed toward the kitchen, but he detained her with a hand on her arm. When she looked up at him, he kissed her gently on the forehead.

“You sit down. I’ll make it for you.” He guided her toward the sofa in the parlor.

She sat, but bounced back up the minute he was out of sight. This was her house. She could sit where she chose. In the kitchen the light was brighter
...and he couldn’t sit beside her.

She marched in and took a seat at the table. Phillip looked up from his coffee preparations and raised an eyebrow but made no comment.

Finally, when it was brewing, he turned to her. “Think we could invite Terence to have a cup? I haven’t seen the old boy in a long time.”

She
’d been prepared for him to try to kiss her, to try to argue her into coming home with him, almost anything but that. She smiled softly, nostalgically, for the Analise and Phillip who’d gone to the fair together.

She stood, pushing back her chair.
“I’ll go get him.”

He motioned for her to sit down.
“You’ve been ill. Just tell me where he is.”

“
In the closet in my office.” She started to sit again then remembered the chaos she’d left in that room. “I’d better go. Things are in kind of a mess up there.”

“
I’ve seen your office in a mess before.”

She caught him in the doorway.
“Please. I’d really be embarrassed to have you see.”
And worried he’d ask what she’d been looking for when she’d strewn the contents of her office.

For a long moment they stood, his stare locked with hers.

A contest of wills. Then he smiled, shrugged and gave way. “I was just thinking of you, sweetheart. I didn’t want you to have to go up and down those stairs an extra time tonight.”

“
I’m fine. Really.”

She left, returning shortly with Terence in tow.

“He’s a little grungy,” she said, placing him upright in a chair, positioning his front paws on the table.

Phillip set down steaming mugs of coffee for each of them, including Terence. He stirred sugar into
Analise’s cup, then reached over and squeaked the stuffed animal’s ear.

Analise
wrapped both hands around the warmth of her coffee mug and smiled. “You remembered.”

Tears misted her eyes as she wondered what had ha
ppened to the laughing young man who’d won the stuffed dog and the naive, tractable girl hanging on his arm.

Time had passed, and she
’d grown into someone else. Just as time had passed and Elizabeth had grown into Analise.

Incredible as the whole concept still seemed, she had to admit that she felt the same about her memories of
Elizabeth as about her childhood memories. Had her soul exchanged one body for another? She supposed that wasn’t any more amazing than exchanging the body of a baby for that of an adult.

“
Analise?”

“
I’m sorry. Were you saying something? I guess my mind was wandering.”

He r
eached over and briefly grasped one of her hands. “I was just saying how much I miss those days when we first got married, even though we were dead broke then.”

She nodded, easily locating the memory.
“We had that awful house where nothing worked, and the payments took your entire salary.”

“
But it was in a good neighborhood.”

Even in those early days status had been everything to Phillip. She chased away the dis
loyal thought. Everyone else at his law firm had been concerned about those things, so he’d had to be too if he expected to succeed.

“
We thought we were out of the woods the time you had five houses scheduled to close in the same month,” he said.

“
Oh!” She groaned then laughed. “I was so proud of myself. I hadn’t been in the business long enough to understand how precarious five deals could be with four of them contingent on the sales of each other. When the fifth buyer backed out, the others collapsed like dominoes.”

“
We stopped looking at new cars very abruptly.”

“
And bought a twenty-pound bag of beans.” She sipped her coffee, ruminating over the past.

“
We owe it to ourselves to try to recapture what we had back then.”

She reached over and stroked the stuffed dog
’s soft ear.

“
All those things happened to someone else,” she heard herself say. “We’re different people now.”

“
We changed once. We can change again. We won’t make the same mistakes this time.”

Change.
Get it right
. Wasn’t that what it was about?

But even though he was saying all the right words, even though her mind was go
ing along with him, her heart resisted.

“
At least let me take care of you until you’re yourself again. I won’t push you to make a permanent decision right now, but you need me. Tonight proved that.” He stood, picked up Terence and came around to her. “Give us a second chance, Analise. I’m trying so hard, but I can’t do it if you won’t let me.”

She cringed inside at his words. He was trying, and she continued to reject him. That couldn
’t help either one of them, could it? Elizabeth had given in to her desire for another man, had left her husband and died. But Blake had been cruel to Elizabeth. She couldn’t find any evidence of cruelty in Phillip. True, he’d grabbed her that evening when she’d come in with Dylan, but he hadn’t really hurt her.

If she gave Phillip another chance, would they find the rainbow
...and avoid the specter of death?

“
Why don’t you just go upstairs and pack an overnight bag?” he suggested. “We’ll take this one day at a time. Stay with me tonight, and we’ll renegotiate for tomorrow night.”

Could she ask for more? He was being wonderfully
reasonable. All he was asking was that she not close the door on their failed marriage. Against everything her treacherous heart screamed for, she forced herself to nod, to slide back her chair and rise.

Phillip
’s face radiated triumph.

As if in a trance, she climbed the stairs and went into her bedroom. But once inside, she froze. Try as she might, she couldn
’t force herself to go to the closet and take down her overnight bag.

As thoug
h she was being led, she could only move in the direction of the window. Slowly parting the curtains, she looked next door. The window was dark, the curtains closed. But she knew he was there.

As if in answer to her thoughts, he parted the barrier and stood staring at her.

And she knew, even if their relationship never went any further, never passed beyond the two kisses they’d shared, that she couldn’t go home with Phillip when she felt this way about another man. Not even if it meant risking her life.

She whirled from the window and raced downstairs, coming to a halt on the last
step when she saw Phillip waiting for her in the foyer. “I can’t,” she said breathlessly. “I’m sorry, but I can’t go home with you.”

Phillip
’s pleased expression vanished. His face seemed to darken though his eyes were alight with pale, cold fires. “Why not?” he snapped.

She backed upward another step, cringing away from him, shaking her head helplessly.

His jaw clenched, his thin lips compressed, and he took a slow, deep breath then let it out. “Sweetheart, this constantly changing your mind is just another symptom. You’ve been through a lot. You’re not well. I must insist that you come home with me and let me take care of you until you’re better.”

“
Phillip, I want to do what’s right, but you’re going to have to give me a little more time.”

“
Time for what?” he demanded.

“
To understand what’s going on. You didn’t try to stop the divorce. Why are you pushing me so hard now?”

He stared at her a long moment, his gaze unreadable.
“You’re getting better fast, aren’t you? Or maybe you never really had a problem in the first place.”

There it was again,
the obsession he and Dylan shared, questioning whether or not she really had amnesia. She wanted to ask Phillip why it mattered so much, but he turned and strode out the door.

She stared after him regretfully. She hadn
’t meant to make him angry. But relief that he was gone mingled with the regret, overwhelmed it.

Slowly she climbed back upstairs to her bedroom.
Perhaps Phillip would be so upset he’d never come back. She searched for sadness at that idea but found none. She was drained, she thought, too exhausted from all that had happened that day to feel any emotion.

Tomorrow, after a good night
’s sleep, she’d decide what to do about Phillip.

However, the instant she entered her bedroom, all thoughts of Phillip fled from her mind. Dylan was still there, still watching. She could feel him.

She went to the window and confronted him. Energy surged between them, sparked through her body. The windows, the open space, the houses, the years, the different lifetimes...none of it really separated them. He was there with her and she with him.

For an infinite moment they stood, transfixed, absorbed. Then he whirled away, and she could trace his progress as surely as if there were no walls between them.
Out of his bedroom, down the stairs, through the living room. His front door opened, and he appeared on the porch. For an instant he paused, looked up at her. She could almost see herself through his eyes...see the desire and need for him that must be glowing all around her.

Then he was stalking across the yard.

Her blood surged through her veins, raced as her heart pumped faster and faster, thudding impatiently against her ribs. He was coming to her. For good or evil, he was coming to her, and she was waiting for him, the waiting almost at an end.

Her own front door slammed, and she heard his footsteps in the hallway, felt his presence beneath her. She
’d left the door unlocked when Phillip went out...deliberately? Had she known, somewhere deep inside that this would happen? Planned for it to happen?

It didn
’t matter. All that mattered was that Dylan was coming up the stairs to join her. She turned away from the window, moved across the room to welcome him.

He charged into the room and rushed to pull her into his arms
...or she threw herself into his arms. She didn’t know. It didn’t matter.

His fingers thrust into her hair, moving, caressing,
tugging her head back until she could see the dark flames leaping in his eyes, until he could find the matching emotions on her face.

His image blurred as his head descended toward her, his lips crushing hers, taking all of her and returning all of
himself. She opened to him...needing, welcoming. His tongue slid over hers, tangling, dancing, sending impossible sensations vibrating through her. His kiss was hot and smooth and liquid. He tasted of midnight—dark and clear and free. She’d never known anything like it, yet recognized its familiarity.

His hands slid down her waist and cupped her buttocks, pressing her against him jus
t as he’d done in the field earlier in the day. But this time she knew who touched her. He was Shawn and Dylan, and she was Elizabeth and Analise, and they were all one and the same.

He picked her up, laid her on the softness of the patchwork quilt that covered her bed. His eyes were wild with his need for her as he loomed above her in the darkness. She stretched her arms up to invite him, though she knew he needed no invitation, could read her heart as surely as she could read his.

He sank onto the bed beside her. His hands fumbling behind her for the zipper of her dress and drew it downward. This would be no languorous, gentle merging. They’d waited too long, their desire held in check past all endurance.