LITMIR.BIZ

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dark again. The light’s gone, the stars are gone. There’s a corridor, and her heels echo like the thunder that follows lightning. It’s coming after her, hunting her in the dark while the walls close in tighter and tighter.

      She can hear the elephant trumpeting, and the lightning flashes closer. She crawls into the cave and hides like an animal, shivering and whimpering like an animal as the lightning streaks by her….

      “Come on, sweetheart. Come on, honey. It’s just a bad dream.”

      She clawed her way out of the dark toward the calm, steady voice, burrowed her clammy face into the broad, solid shoulder.

      “Blood. So much blood. Hit by lightning. It’s coming. It’s close.”

      “No, it’s gone now.” Cade pressed his lips to her hair, rocked her. When he slipped in to leave her a robe, she’d been crying in her sleep. Now she was clinging to him, trembling, so he shifted her into his lap as if she were a child. “You’re safe now. I promise.”

      “The stars. Three stars.” Balanced between dream and reality, she shifted restlessly in his arms. “I’ve got to go to Paris.”

      “You did. I’m right here.” He tipped her head back to touch his lips to her temple. “Right here,” he repeated, waiting for her eyes to clear and focus. “Relax now. I’m right here.”

      “Don’t go.” With a quick shudder, she rested her head on his shoulder, just as he’d imagined. The pull on his heart was immediate, and devastating.

      He supposed love at first sight was meant to be.

      “I won’t. I’ll take care of you.”

      That alone was enough to ease her trembling. She relaxed against him, let her eyes close again. “It was just a dream, but it was so confusing, so frightening. I don’t understand any of it.”

      “Tell me.”

      He listened as she struggled to remember the details, put them in order. “There was so much emotion, huge waves of emotions. Anger, shock, a sense of betrayal and fear. Then terror. Just sheer mindless terror.”

      “That could explain the amnesia. You’re not ready to cope with it, so you shut it off. It’s a kind of conversion hysteria.”

      “Hysteria?” The term made her chin lift. “I’m hysterical?”

      “In a manner of speaking.” He rubbed his knuckles absently over that lifted chin. “It looks good on you.”

      In a firm, deliberate movement that made his brow quirk, she pushed his hand from her face. “I don’t care for the term.”

      “I’m using it in a strictly medical sense. You didn’t get bopped on the head, right?”

      Her eyes were narrowed now. “Not that I recall, but then, I’m hysterical, after all.”

      “Cute. What I mean is, amnesia can result from a concussion.” He twirled her hair around his finger as he spoke, just to feel the texture. “I always thought that was bull or Hollywood stuff, but it says so right in the medical book. One of the other causes is a functional nervous disorder, such as—you’ll excuse the term—hysteria.”

      Her teeth were gritted now. “I am not hysterical, though I’m sure I could be, if you’d care for a demonstration.”

      “I’ve had plenty of those. I have sisters. Bailey.” He cupped her face in his hands in such a disarming gesture, her narrowed eyes widened. “You’re in trouble, that’s the bottom line. And we’re going to fix it.”

      “By holding me in your lap?”

      “That’s just a side benefit.” When her smile fluttered again and she started to shift away, he tightened his grip. “I like it. A lot.”

      She could see more than amusement in his eyes, something that had her pulse jumping. “I don’t think it’s wise for you to flirt with a woman who doesn’t know who she is.”

      “Maybe not, but it’s fun. And it’ll give you something else to think about.”

      She found herself charmed, utterly, by the way his dimples flickered, the way his mouth quirked at the corner just enough to make the smile crooked. It would be a good mouth for a lover, quick, clever, full of energy. She could imagine too well just how it would fit against hers.

      Perhaps because she couldn’t imagine any other, couldn’t remember another taste, another texture. And because that would make him, somehow, the first to kiss her, the thrill of anticipation sprinted up her spine.

      He dipped her head back, slowly, his gaze sliding from her eyes to her lips, then back again. He could imagine it perfectly, and was all but sure there would be a swell of music to accompany that first meeting of lips.

      “Want to try it?”

      Need, rich and full and shocking, poured through her, jittering nerves, weakening limbs. She was alone with him, this stranger she’d trusted her life to. This man she knew more of than she knew of herself.

      “I can’t.” She put a hand on his chest, surprised that however calm his voice his heart was pounding as rapidly as hers. Because it was, she could be honest. “I’m afraid to.”

      “In my experience, kissing isn’t a scary business, unless we’re talking about kissing Grandmother Parris, and that’s just plain terrifying.”

      It made her smile again, and this time, when she shifted, he let her go. “Better not to complicate things any more than they are.” With restless hands, she scooped her hair back, looked away from him. “I’d like to take a shower, if that’s all right. Clean up a little.”

      “Sure. I brought you a robe, and some jeans you can roll up. The best I could come up with for a belt that would fit you was some clothesline. It’ll hold them up and make a unique fashion statement.”

      “You’re very sweet, Cade.”

      “That’s what they all say.” He closed off the little pocket of lust within and rose. “Can you handle being alone for an hour? There’re a couple of things I should see to.”

      “Yes, I’ll be fine.”

      “I need you to promise you won’t leave the house, Bailey.”

      She lifted her hands. “Where would I go?”

      He put his hands on her shoulders, waited until her gaze lifted to his. “Promise me you won’t leave the house.”

      “All right. I promise.”

      “I won’t be long.” He walked to the door, paused. “And, Bailey? Think about it.”

      She caught the gleam in his eyes before he turned that told her he didn’t mean the circumstances that had brought her to him. When she walked to the window, watched him get in his car and drive away, she was already thinking about it. About him.

      Someone else was thinking about her. Thinking dark, vengeful thoughts. She had slipped through his fingers, and, with her, the prize and the power he most coveted.

      He’d already exacted a price for incompetence, but it was hardly enough. She would be found, and when she was, she’d pay a much higher price. Her life, certainly, but that was insignificant.

      There would be pain first, and great fear. That would satisfy.

      The money he had lost was nothing, almost as insignificant as the life of one foolish woman. But she had what he needed, what was meant to be long to him. And he would take back his own.

      There were three. Individually they were priceless, but together their value went beyond the imaginable. Already he had taken steps to recover the two she had foolishly attempted to hide from him.

      It would take a little time, naturally, but he would have them back. It was important to be careful, to be cautious, to be certain of the recovery, and

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