'I'm not going to hurt you!'
'You attacked me!'
'I had to know who you were. I thought you were a thief, coming in that window the way that you did. You're all right now.'
No, she wasn't. She was sitting in complete darkness with a man who had attacked her, and she couldn't stop trembling. He sat beside her, and she wasn't sure what he was saying, only that his words were soft and reassuring. Then, to her horror, she was half sobbing and half laughing and he was sitting beside her, and in that awful darkness she was in his arms as he stroked her hair--and she still didn't have any idea who he was or even what he looked like.
'Shush, it's all right now. It's all right.' The same hands that had held her with such cold, brutal strength were capable of an uncanny tenderness. He held her as if she were a frightened child, easing his fingertips under her chin to lift her face. 'It's all right. My God, I'm sorry. I didn't know.'
She knew his voice, knew his scent. She knew the harshness and the tenderness of his arms, but she didn't know his name or the color of his eyes. She stiffened, her tremors beginning to fade at last with the reassurance of his words and the new security of his form.
'I'm, uh, sorry.' She pushed away from him, feeling a furious rush of embarrassment. She was apologizing, and he was in her house. Gene's house. A total stranger. 'Who are you?'
He stood. She instantly felt the distance between them. It was over--whatever it had been. The violence, and the tenderness.
'Rex Morrow.'
Rex Morrow. Her mind moved quickly now. Rex Morrow. He wasn't going to kill her. Rex murdered people-- yes, by the dozens--but only in print. Alexi had decided long before this miserable meeting between them that his work was the result of a dark and macabre mind.
She sprang to her feet, desperate for light. Rex Morrow. Gene had warned her. He had told her that he shared the peninsula with only one other man: the writer Rex Morrow. And that Rex was keeping an eye on the place.
He had promised that the electricity was on, too. She fumbled her way toward what she hoped was a wall, anxious to find a switch. She bit her lip, fighting emotion. Emotion was dangerous. Maybe she was better off with the lights off. She'd panicked at his assault; she'd fallen hysterically into his arms with relief. She'd screamed, she'd cried--she, who prided herself on having learned to be calm and reserved, if nothing else, in life.
The flashlight arced and flared abruptly, its glare of light showing her plainly where the switch was. She came to it and quickly hit it, swiveling abruptly to lean against the wall and stare at the man who already knew her weaknesses too well. Perhaps light would wash away the absurd intimacy; perhaps it could even give her back some sense of dignity.
He was dark, and disturbingly young. For some reason she'd been convinced that he had to have lived through World War II to have written some of the books he had on espionage during the period. He couldn't have been older than thirty-five. Equally disturbing, he was attractive. His jeans were worn, and his shirt was a black knit that seemed almost a match for the ebony of his hair. His eyes, too, were dark, the deepest brown she had ever seen. He was tanned and handsome, with high, rugged cheekbones, a long, straight nose--somewhat prominent, she determined--and a full mouth that was both sensual and cynical. He didn't seem to resent her full, appraising stare, but then he was returning it, and she was alarmed to discover herself wondering what he was seeing in her.
Dishevelment, she decided wearily. It would be difficult for anyone to break into a house through a window and be attacked and wrestled down and still appear well-groomed. 'Alexi Jordan--in the flesh,' he murmured. His tone was cool, as if everything that had happened in the darkness was an embarrassment to him, too. He shook his head as if to clear it, strode toward Alexi and then right past her in the archway by the light switch, apparently very familiar with the house. She watched him, frowning, then followed him.
He went through the big, once-beautiful hallway and disappeared through a swinging door.
The door nearly caught her in the face, fueling her anger and irritation--residues of drastic fear. She was the one with the right to be here--and he had assaulted her and mauled her, and had not even offered an apology.
Light--blessed light! She felt so much more competent and able now, more like the woman she had carefully and painstakingly developed. She paused, reddening at the thought of how she had whimpered in fear, reddening further when she recalled how easily she had cried in his arms when he had simply told her that he wasn't going to kill her. She should call the police. She had every right to be furious.
She slammed against the door to open it and entered the kitchen.
He'd helped himself to a beer. The rest of the house might be a decaying, musty, dusty mess, but someone had kept up the kitchen--and had apparently seen fit to stock the refrigerator with beer.
'Have a beer,' Alexi invited him caustically.
He raised the one he had already taken and threw his head back to take a long swallow. He lowered the bottle and pulled out one of the heavy oak chairs at the butcher-block table.
'Alexi Jordan in the flesh.'
What had he heard about her? she wondered. It didn't matter. She had come here to be alone --not to form friendships. She smiled without emotion and replied in kind. 'The one and only Rex Morrow.'
He arched a dark brow. 'I take it your grandfather told you that I lived out here.'
'Great-grandfather,' Alexi corrected him. 'Yes, of course. How else would I know you?' She should have known right away. Gene had told her that Rex Morrow was the only inhabitant of the peninsula. She had just been too immersed in her own thoughts at the time to pay proper attention. Thinking back, she should also have known that Gene might have him watching the place. She'd heard that Morrow had tried to buy the house so that he could own the entire strip of land. But, though Gene seemed fond of his neighbor, he would never sell the Brandywine house.
'My picture is on my book jackets,' Rex told her.
'I certainly wouldn't buy your books in hardcover, Mr. Morrow.'
He smiled. 'You don't care for my writing, I take it?'
'Product of a dark mind,' she said. Actually, she admired him. She couldn't read his books easily, though. They were frightening and very realistic--and tore into the human psyche. They could make her afraid of the dark-- and afraid to live alone. She didn't need to be afraid of imaginary things.
And his characters stayed with the reader long after the story had been read, long after it should have been forgotten.
Besides she felt defensive. She'd known him a few minutes; because of the circumstances, he had seen far too deeply into her fears and emotions. And he'd attacked her. He still hadn't apologized. In fact, it seemed as if he was annoyed with her.
'Would you like a beer, Ms. Jordan?'
'No I'd like you out of my house- I'd like you to apologize for accosting me on my own property.'
He gazed down, then looked up again with a smile, but there was a good deal of hostility in that smile.
'Ms. Jordan, it isn't your house. It's Gene's house. And I don't owe you any apology. I promised Gene I'd watch out for the place. You weren't due until tomorrow--and who the hell would have expected you out here, alone, in the pitch darkness, breaking into the house through a window?'
'I wasn't expecting anyone to be inside.'
'I wasn't expecting anyone to break in. We're even.'
'Far from even.'
As he watched her, she had no idea of what he was thinking; she felt that his assessment found her wanting.
'You won't be staying,' he said at last with a shrug and a smile.
'Won't I?'
She liked his smile even less when it deepened and his gaze scanned her from head to toe once again.
'No. You won't be here long.' He stood again and walked toward her. His strides were slow, and didn't come all the way to her. Just close enough to look down. She estimated that he was six-three or six-four, and she was barely five-six. She silently gritted her teeth. She wasn't going to let him intimidate her now. He had already done so, and quite well. There was light now, and he wasn't touching her. She could bring back the reserve that had
