'I'm not kissing you, am I?' All innocence, Shane's eyes laughed into hers. 'Unless you want me to. Just wanted to get a hold of you for a minute. I swear you weigh less than a sack of grain.'
'Thank you so much for that poetic compliment. Put me down.'
'You've really got to eat more. Why don't you hang around? I'll fix you some dinner.'
'No,' she said. 'No, no, no.'
'You only have to say it once.' He cocked his head, enjoying the way the pulse in her throat beat like a bird's, just above the open collar of her silky white shirt. 'Why are you trembling?'
'I'm angry.'
'No, you're not.' Intrigued now, he studied her face, and his voice gentled. 'Did somebody hurt you?'
'No, of course not. I asked you to put me down.'
'I'm going to. If I did what I wanted and carried you inside right now, I'd neglect my cows and break my word. I wouldn't want to do either.' So he set her on her feet, but kept his hands on her shoulders. 'It seems to me we've got something going here.'
'I'd prefer to take my own time deciding that.'
'That's fair.' Because he was becoming fond of it, he skimmed a finger over her hair, tugged on one of the short, soft tresses. 'It occurs to me that I've already decided. I really want you. Not being a psychiatrist or a heavy thinker, I don't have to analyze that or look for hidden meanings. I just feel it.'
His eyes, green and dreamy, lowered to hers again, and held. 'I want to take you to bed, and I want to make love with you. And I want it more every time I get near you. You can put that into your equation.'
'I will.' It was a struggle to concentrate when his hands were moving in gentle circles on her shoulders. 'But it's not the only factor. Things would be... a lot less convoluted if we could back off from this while I'm getting my project under way.'
'Less convoluted,' he agreed, amused by the word. 'And less fun.'
Fun, she thought, feeling herself yearn toward him. It was a novel and interesting concept, when at-. tached to intimacy.
He watched her lips curve just a little, felt her body soften, saw her eyes deepen. A knot of need twisted in him as he drew her closer. 'Pretty Rebecca,' he murmured, 'let me show you—'
He could have committed murder when a sharp blast of a horn shattered the moment.
She stiffened, stepped back, as both of them looked over at the dusty compact that pulled up in front of the house. Rebecca had a clear view of the sulky-mouthed brunette who poked her gorgeous head out of the window.
'Shane, honey, I told you I'd try to drop by.'
He lifted a hand in a casual wave, even as he felt the temperature surrounding him drop to the subzero range. 'Ah, that's Darla. She's a friend of mine.'
'I bet.' The chip was back on Rebecca's shoulder, and it was the size of a redwood. She cocked a brow and curved her lips mockingly. He didn't have to know the mockery was for herself. 'Don't let me keep you from your...friend, Shane, honey. I'm sure you're a very busy boy.'
'Look, damn it—'
Darla called out again, her husky voice a little impatient. Shane saw, with unaccustomed panic, that she was getting out of the car. With anyone else, the meeting would have been easy, even amusing. With Rebecca, he had a feeling it would be deadly. She'd eat Darla for breakfast.
'Listen, I—'
'I don't have time to look, or to listen,' Rebecca said, interrupting him, desperately afraid she'd make a fool of herself in front of the stunning woman picking her way over the lawn in thin high heels. 'I have work to do. You and Darla have a nice visit.'
She strode off, leaving Shane caught between the willing and the wanted.
Chapter Six
During her stay at the inn, Rebecca had established a pattern. She rose early enough to join the other guests for breakfast. It wasn't the food, as marvelous as Cassie's cooking was, that nudged her out of bed and downstairs. She wanted the opportunity to interview her companions under the guise of a breezy morning chat.
It was work for her to keep it casual, not to fall into the habits of analyst or scientist. She'd been rewarded over coffee and waffles that morning by a young couple who both claimed to have felt a presence in the bridal suite during the night.
Now, alone in her room late at night, the inn quiet around her, Rebecca read over the notes she'd hurriedly made that morning.
Subjects corroborate each other's experience. Sudden cold, a strong scent of roses, the sound of a female weeping. Three senses involved. Subjects excited by experience rather than frightened. Very clear and firm when reporting each phenomenon. Neither claimed a sighting, but female subject described a sense of deep sadness which occurred just after temperature fluctuation and lasted until the scent of roses had faded.
Interesting, Rebecca mused as she worked the notes into a more formal style, including names and dates. As for herself, she'd slept like a baby, if only for a few short hours. She rarely slept more than five hours in any case, and the night before she had made do with three, in hopes of recording an event of her own.
But her room had remained comfortable and quiet throughout the night.
After her notes were refined, and her journal entry for the day was complete, she switched over to the book she was toying with writing.
She rather liked the title, though she could picture some of her more illustrious colleagues muttering over it at faculty teas and university functions. Let them mutter, she thought. She'd toed the line all her life. It was time she did a little boat rocking.
It would be a new challenge to write something that was descriptive, even emotional, rather than dry and factual. To bring to life her vision, her impressions of the small town, with its quiet hills, the shadow of the mountains in the distance, those wide, fertile fields.
She needed to spend some time on the battlefield, absorb its ambience. But for now she had plenty to say about the inn, and its original inhabitants.
She worked for an hour, then two, losing herself in the story of the Barlows—the tragic Abigail, the unbending Charles, the children who had lost their mother at a tender age. Thanks to Cassie, Rebecca had another character to add. A man Abigail had loved and sent away. Rebecca suspected the man might have been of some authority in Antietam during that time. The sheriff, perhaps. It was too lovely a coincidence to overlook, and she intended to research it thoroughly.
She was so deep in her work that it took her several minutes to notice the hum of her equipment. Startled by it, she jerked back, stared at the monitor of her sensor.
Was that a draft? she wondered, and sprang up, shuddering. The temperature gauge was acutely sensitive. Rebecca watched with amazement as the numbers dropped rapidly from a comfortable seventy-two. She was hugging her arms by the time it reached thirty, and she could see her own breath puff out quickly as her heart thudded.
Yet she felt nothing but the cold. Nothing. She heard nothing, smelled nothing.
The lady doesn't come in here.
That was what Emma had told her. But did the master? It had to be Charles. She'd read so much about him, the thought filled her with a jumble of anger, fear and anticipation.
Moving quickly, Rebecca checked her recorder, the cameras. The quiet blip on a machine registered her presence and for an instant, an instant almost too quick to notice—something other.
Then it was gone, over, and warmth poured back into the room.
Nearly wild with excitement, she snatched up her recorder. 'Event commenced at 2:08 and fifteen seconds, a.m., with dramatic temperature drop of forty-two degrees Fahrenheit. Barely measurable energy fluctuation lasting only a fraction of a second, followed by immediate rise in temperature. Event ended at 2:09 and twenty seconds, a.m. Duration of sixty-five seconds.'
She stood for a moment, the recorder in her hand, trying to will it all to start again. She knew it had been
