Touch Me in the Dark Read online

  She felt Susan’s loneliness as she huddled in this constricted world, hoping the man she loved would rescue her. Those parents must have been maniacs. You didn’t lock an unwed mother like the proverbial madwoman in the attic, even in the 1940s.

  Ian was still braced half in and half out, straining to hook the louvered casing. “Damn hinges are loose.”

  His foot must have skidded on the rain-soaked balcony. Sharon saw him start to slide and grab the frame. With a thrust of the shoulder, he shoved the shutter into place.

  A cracking noise shot through the attic. “Bloody hell!” Ian reached above the outer doorway, grabbing a support. More steadily, he called, “Thank God the flagpole held. The whole thing might have gone.”

  “Get in!” She caught his arm and pulled.

  Ian staggered in, damp and windblown. The impact knocked her off-balance, and they caught each other instinctively. She registered his solid power and the gentle way he tried to avoid putting too much weight on her.

  When he was inside, Ian held on for a beat longer than necessary. “I told you this house was dangerous,” he said ruefully.

  Boldly, his mouth grazed her cheek. Sharon trembled, less from cold than from the stimulation of Ian’s nearness. When he drew his head back, his eyes locked into hers. She had only to tilt her chin to send an invitation.

  This man stirred a wildness that she’d worked hard to restrain ever since her teen years. No matter how much he tempted her, she never wanted to visit that side of herself again.

  When Sharon pushed against Ian’s chest, he yielded. Desire and regret played across his face. “I don’t know what came over me. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” Her words surprised her. “I mean …”

  “I wasn’t imagining it, then. You react the same way I do.”

  Sharon refused to confirm the claim. “Let’s keep this light. We’re neighbors.”

  “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

  “A minute ago you were warning me off.”

  He smiled reluctantly. “You’re right. I plead guilty of inconsistency. And I respect your wishes.“ With a jerk of the head, he added wryly, “Let’s go. I hear I’ve got a lot of stuff to haul up.”

  “Darn right.”

  Greg was yawning when they collected him. Leaving the toy soldiers for later, Sharon escorted the sleepy boy downstairs.

  What the hell did you think you were doing?

  He’d been wrong to drag Sharon upstairs, Ian reflected as he entered his studio after hauling up the suitcases, boxes, TV and other belongings. He deserved sore muscles and a kink in his back, and worse.

  A man ought to protect a woman, even if she did radiate self-sufficiency. He had no business acting as if a chance similarity in an old painting gave him the right to disturb her peace of mind. And he certainly shouldn’t have tried to kiss her.

  Now he couldn’t stop thinking about that vivid face and that body—tall, slender, full-breasted—exactly as he’d dreamed. A trace of innocence lingered in her gaze, tantalizingly mixed with eagerness.

  Lord, he wanted to lower her to the bed and watch that red hair tumble across the pillow. Wanted to hear her moan with pleasure and feel her arch against him.

  Absolutely not. He understood the danger as well as she did. No, better.

  Beyond the circle of lamplight, the darkness waited. It had waited a long time.

  In his youth, Ian had dated recklessly. He knew the pleasure of making love to a woman with nothing at risk. He remembered those days as if they’d happened to someone else. Since the accident, he’d quit trying to form relationships after a few disastrous attempts. His unpredictable moods always ruined things.

  Physically, he had healed from his accident. Inside was a different story. Not only flesh had been torn in that crash. Some kind of membrane deep in his brain had burst, releasing a torrent of ancient impulses. Where once Ian had lived a calm, even cheerful existence, now he saw pain in the scarlet skeletons of leaves and threat in the glare of headlights against a rain-dark street.

  Then, tonight, he’d looked into Sharon’s eyes and found something he’d been seeking without realizing it.

  He reached for a sketchpad. Swift strokes brought forth her face, the eyes challenging, the lips parted. As he created the image, he had the sensation that she somehow belonged to him.

  Was this how Bradley had felt about Susan? How could a man harm such a woman, no matter how angry he became?

  He’d promised Jane to start a new series of paintings. Forcing himself to set the drawing aside, Ian picked up a series of photos from parks and beaches. He’d focused on patterns and textures, fighting to find new subjects that inspired him.

  Hell, he was thirty-four years old. He ought to have discovered what he wanted to paint by now. Still, as Jane had observed, this wasn’t a race.

  Selecting one shot, Ian gave a short nod of recognition. The scene that had caught his interest along the cliffs of Laguna Beach showed an elderly woman and a small girl feeding a squirrel. The angles and curves formed by their shadows interested him more than the figures.

  After sketching the scene onto canvas in charcoal, he began laying down thin layers of grayish-brown tones. At this stage, the painting was mostly a monochrome, the people more outlines than humans. He worked doggedly, trying to prolong his concentration.

  In the midst of rinsing his brushes before the next stage, Ian realized he’d lost the impulse. The painting engaged him only on an intellectual level, like a debate in which he didn’t care who won.

  He was removing the canvas to be reused later when a bout of dizziness threw him off balance. Brain waves throbbed into bands of color and noise. Not another seizure, not so soon!

  As he sank into a whirlwind, Ian heard someone speaking in a deep incomprehensible mutter. In the split second before losing control completely, he grasped a single word.

  It was “Revenge.”

  Chapter Three

  Ian sank into a white space that might have been unconsciousness. After a while, he drifted back to awareness. When he checked his watch, he saw that several minutes had passed.

  His gaze fell on the sketch of Sharon. Someone had ripped it from the sketchpad and skewered it to the wall with an X-Acto knife. Across her face, in red ink, slashed the words—“Get out!”

  Had someone—or something—controlled his hand, or had he done this out of deeply buried rage?

  Ian pulled the knife from the wall and stared at the picture. The paper trembled in his grip. He wanted to throw the thing away where no one would ever see it again, but despite the damage, her face was so lifelike that destruction seemed an act of cruelty.

  Smoothing the sketch, he laid it in a drawer.

  Saturday didn’t turn out the way Sharon had expected. She’d planned to have lunch with Karly’s family, finish unpacking and shop for groceries.

  Instead, she spent most of the day in bed, struck low by a stomach virus. The return of the rain, harder than ever, intensified her sense of physical and mental depletion.

  She spoke briefly on her cell phone with Karly, declining an offer to hurry over. No sense in spreading the virus.

  Instead, they made a date for Sunday afternoon, conditioned on Sharon’s feeling better. Karly’s husband Frank would be away at a computer conference, seeking clients for his consulting business.

  The only bright spot in the day turned out to be Jody. The older woman seemed to enjoy battling Greg at her new videogame. Later, finding Sharon dozing, Jody volunteered to take the boy to the Fullerton library. She agreed gratefully, glad the boy seemed in high spirits and that his cut hand was mending rapidly.

  They’d been gone half an hour when a tap at her apartment door was followed by Ian’s voice calling, “Hello? Feel up to eating?”

  Almost too weak to lift her head from the pillow, Sharon couldn’t summon the energy to worry about what a mess she must look. “I haven’t kept anything down all day, but I’m feeling a little better.�
�� Honesty forced her to clarify, “Well, less lousy, anyway.”

  “I’ll take that as an invitation.” In walked a more civilized version of the man she’d met last night, the shaggy hair brushed into a semblance of neatness and a smile softening his angular features. On a tray, he carried a covered bowl and a ceramic cup from which drifted the scent of cloves. “We’re talking chicken soup and tea from a shop on Harbor Boulevard. Think you can manage any?”

  “Maybe the tea.” On the other hand, chicken soup supposedly had healing powers.

  Ian set the tray on the bed, its feet spanning Sharon’s body. “I’m afraid taking you into that cold attic last night didn’t do you any good.”

  “I’m sure the virus was already in my system.” Sharon liked being taken care of. No one had done that for her since her mother died ten years ago. Illness had made Jim uneasy. “I hope Greg doesn’t catch it.”

  Ian pulled up the desk chair. “You’re a gutsy lady. I’m afraid I went overboard with the dramatics last night. By the way, I told Jody about the widow’s walk. The workmen will be here next week.”

  Through the thin shell of the cup, the heat burrowed into her hands as she sipped. In addition to cloves, she tasted cinnamon, mace and an exotic fruit juice. “This is good.” Her stomach stopped roiling.

  “Glad you like it.” Ian’s tongue swept across his lower lip, as if savoring the drink with her.

  Her mind flicked back to their encounter in the attic. She realized abruptly that she’d dreamed about this. The details had vanished, leaving only a faint realization that they’d done more than kiss.

  She must be on the mend if she could think about any such thing. An hour or so earlier, her only desire had been to move permanently into the bathroom.

  “We both grew up around here,” Sharon recalled. “Do you suppose we ran into each other?”

  “I’m certain I’d remember.” Nevertheless, they compared notes. Ian was right. They’d gone to different high schools and graduated four years apart.

  She gathered her courage to broach a touchy subject. “I’m curious about the painting in my front room. Who’s the woman?”

  “I suppose you noticed she looks like you.”

  She nodded.

  “She’s Susan, or my take on Susan.” Ian gazed into the distance. “That portrait in the attic imprinted itself on my soul. I visualize her even when I use another model. Frankly, it’s cramping my style and blocking my career.”

  “I hate to suggest therapy…”

  He didn’t seem angry, only resigned. “I had plenty after my accident. I got broadsided during a pursuit when I was on the force. Seeing a shrink helped to a point. I still have issues to work out for myself, though.”

  “What kind of issues?”

  He shrugged. “My therapy focused on adjusting to losing my career as a police officer. The insurance only paid for a limited number of sessions. We didn’t spend much time on unresolved issues from childhood.”

  He certainly had more of those than most people. “Losing your parents when you were five must have been horrible. I was twenty-one when Mom died and I felt like she’d been ripped away from me much too soon.”

  “You lost your husband recently?” he asked.

  “Last year.”

  “How did he die, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Heart attack. He collapsed at work.” Her throat caught.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Confiding in an adult after trying so hard to be strong for Greg’s sake came as a relief. “It didn’t seem real at first. I kept thinking I must be dreaming. He was only thirty-seven. Even though his family had a history of heart disease and he smoked, I wasn’t prepared.”

  Sometimes she still felt numb when she thought about Jim, as if their marriage of seven years had happened to someone else. She’d loved him, but not madly, searingly, dangerously.

  Ian smoothed a strand of hair from her temple. “You look tired. I’ll tell you what. I’ll put the soup in the refrigerator and reheat it later if you want. Give me a call.” He jotted his phone number on a pad.

  “You seem to be coming to the rescue a lot.” Sharon hadn’t forgotten how he’d patched Greg’s hand.

  “I didn’t become a cop for no reason. I like to help.” A twist of the lips hinted at wryness. “You know, now that I’m over the initial shock of seeing you, I think maybe you belong here after all.”

  “No more trying to chase me out?” she teased.

  “I hope not.” He picked up the tray. “I can’t make promises about things I don’t control.” He appeared on the brink of saying more, then reconsidered.

  The man was nothing if not mysterious, Sharon reflected after he left.

  Her eyelids drifted shut. When she began to dream, she found Ian already there.

  Despite the rain, Ian went to the Argyle Gallery late Saturday afternoon after a few hours at the gym. He hadn’t talked to Jane in several weeks. Although he doubted she’d like what he had to say, she deserved the truth.

  The gallery occupied a converted store that had once sold women’s lingerie. Shops had come and gone over the decades along Harbor Boulevard, which had suffered first from the growing popularity of malls and then from the disruptive effects of redevelopment. However, gracious landscaping, picturesque signs and frequent area-wide festivities had brought the public back to its boutiques, curio shops and restaurants, as well as art galleries.

  When he entered, Jane was standing atop a ladder adjusting a spotlight on a canvas of a star-flung galaxy. The science fiction-inspired display by a Northern California cover artist opened tonight with a wine and cheese reception, according to a flier in the window.

  She favored Ian with a steely eye. “I gather things didn’t go well with your new model.”

  Her comment took him aback. “What makes you say that?”

  “You’re not lugging a canvas.” Jane studied the angle of the light before shifting the fixture a few degrees

  “I’m afraid you’re right.” He made no excuses. She already understood the problem.

  “I hate artistic temperaments, so why have I chosen to make my living working with them?” She shook her head. “Did I mention your deadline? August.”

  “What’s August?” He’d heard nothing previously about a deadline.

  “The show.” The gallery owner descended the ladder with a series of thumps. A sturdy woman, she radiated an air of self-possession. Ian imagined she must have been born in sensible shoes and with that gray streak through her hair. An odd-looking baby, perhaps, but a formidable woman. “I’m putting together my top talent. There’ll be publicity, and I plan to round up art critics and collectors from LA even if I have to blackmail them to get them to Orange County.”

  “Jane, I wish I belonged in that group.” The admission that he didn’t tore at Ian.

  “Like hell. You have more talent in your little finger than most artists have in their—in their...” She paused for effect before concluding, “In their big toe.”

  He laughed. “I’m not sure how to take that.”

  “Take it as a kick in the butt.” Trust Jane to use blunt phrasing. “A deadline is a godsend. Don’t fight. Yield.”

  She made no threats. Ian had no idea what it would take to lose her confidence and he wasn’t going to find out. One way or another, he had to live up to her expectations.

  “I surrender.” He dodged barely in time as the ladder swung, nearly smacking him. “Let me carry that.”

  “Not necessary.” She positioned the device beneath the next spotlight. “As for your work, if you’re not finished with your red-haired-woman period, you need to find a fresh approach.”

  He considered mentioning Sharon and decided not to. “That might be possible.”

  She planted hands on hips. “You told me once that someone inside you was pushing to get out. Well, let him. Stop thinking with your head and paint from your gut. To hell with what anybody else thinks, including me.”

&nb
sp; “This guy inside, he might not be very pleasant.” Ian chose not to mention how he’d defaced his own sketch.

  “Art isn’t supposed to be pleasant.”

  August. Eight months might seem a long time, except when you understood the complexities of creating a body of work. Especially for him.

  Ian’s hands curled into fists. He wanted to be part of this exhibit. He wanted to build a reputation and a future. “I’ll do it.”

  “Go thou and get thy ass in gear,” Jane commanded.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Only after reaching the car did he remember that he’d forgotten to say thank you.

  The work would have to speak for itself.

  He drove home cautiously. For two years after his injury, he’d been denied a license. Relying on buses had intensified his frustrations, and since his doctor cleared him, he’d gone out of his way to avoid infractions.

  So far, his seizures had occurred only when he was home.

  Ian arrived at the studio with fresh resolve. He sat down with a sketchpad and let his mind roam.

  What he craved was to paint Sharon. She’d dominated his thoughts for the past twenty-four hours.

  To capture her would require his utmost skills as an artist and as a man. Blood had to rise and sparks ignite until the two of them exploded together, he thought, and wondered if he was musing about painting or about making love.

  Both, most likely.

  You told me once that someone inside you was pushing to get out. Well, let him.

  As usual, Jane was right. Ian decided to work with the theme of the past returning, of old things overtaking the new.

  As his hands began to move, he lost track of time. Coming up for air at last, he stared at the drawing he’d roughed out.

  Two figures, neither clearly male nor female, intertwined in a struggle. Their angry rawness bulged from the paper.

  He’d never managed to get such power onto paper before. And, for a change, he’d managed to release his demons without incurring a seizure.

  Energized, Ian pulled out a canvas and began copying the figures on its surface. For whatever reason, he felt on the brink of a new stage. He was going to plunge into the primordial muck of his creativity elbow-deep to drag out new life forms. Some of the creatures would be deceptively beautiful. Some of them, he realized, might look like Sharon.