By Request Collection April-June 2016. Оливия Гейтс

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СКАЧАТЬ gotten the current owners to let her do some research in their library. The bad news is that about a hundred years ago, there was a fire. Many of the books were destroyed. But if there’s something on this end about Eleanor’s dowry, Mom’ll track it down. In the meantime, enjoy your reading.”

      That was exactly what he intended to do, Duncan decided as he disconnected the call. Moving quietly through the sliding doors, he closed them, turned on the security system and activated the cameras.

      When Alba lifted her head, Duncan signaled her to stay and retrieved his reading glasses from the desk. Then he let himself out into the hallway and locked that door also.

      PIPER SURFACED SLOWLY, drifting in that dreamy zone between waking and sleeping while sensations penetrated one by one: a low sound she couldn’t quite nail down, the soft press of leather beneath her legs, something with an edge to it poking into her cheek. And a prickling at the back of her neck.

      The prickling grew stronger. Someone watching her? The sound came again.

      A growl.

      Opening her eyes, she fought through a moment of disorientation. The library. She’d been working with Duncan and she must have dozed off. As she rubbed the back of her neck, she shifted her gaze to the desk where he’d been working earlier.

      Gone. She didn’t have to even glance around to see if he was somewhere else in the room. She would have sensed his presence, felt that low humming in her blood. Instead, she felt a pang so sharp, she had to rub the heel of her hand against her chest to ease it. Disappointment that he was gone?

      And if Duncan wasn’t here, whose eyes had she felt?

      The growl sounded again, starting low and building into an insistent bark. Alba. The dog stood on her hind legs, pawing at the glass doors that led outside. Piper sprang up from the couch and ran to join her. Stroking the dog’s head, she focused on the stretch of lawn beyond the low terrace wall. A storage shed sat near the line of trees that bordered the castle on this side. The doors were closed. To the left, she could just see the bright blue of the lake and the dark clouds that had formed on the opposite shore. To the right, more trees.

      No one in sight.

      Alba dropped to all fours and growled again.

      “I agree, girl,” Piper said as she stroked the dog’s head. Someone had been at these doors looking in.

      And that’s when she saw them. She’d been so intent on looking at the space beyond the terrace that her gaze had shot right over the flagstones. Slivers of fear shot up her spine.

      Red rose petals, hundreds of them, lay strewn across a white sheet. It looked as if it had been raining blood. She tried the door and found it locked. The security light on the pad was blinking. Duncan must have engaged it before he’d left. The cameras would have caught whoever had done this. She wouldn’t do much about it now, any case. And she’d be damned if she’d let this creep scare her.

      Alba growled again. Piper patted her head. The dog wanted to give chase.

      “Me, too,” she murmured. “But it wouldn’t be smart. That’s probably just what they want.” And if Duncan hadn’t slowed her down enough so she had to think, she might be out there right now.

      A faint rumble of thunder sounded in the distance.

      Where was he anyway? This time the fear was sharper. Had he seen the person and given chase himself? “Duncan?”

      Whirling from the window, she raced the length of the library and opened the door to the hallway. “Duncan?”

      No answer.

      Once Alba joined her, she locked the library door and hurried to the kitchen. But she knew he wouldn’t be there even before she entered. He would have answered. Turning on a dime, she ran back down the hall that led to the large foyer, calling his name again.

      The only answer was Alba’s bell as she followed.

      At the foot of the stairs, Piper made herself stop. Pressing a hand to her chest, she took a deep breath. Silly to panic. What in the world was the matter with her? Duncan was a smart man. Not only that, he was an FBI agent. She thought of his big gun. He could handle himself.

      But there was that person who’d followed them into the cave that morning. And there was Patrick Lightman, who seemed to have a knack for slipping away from surveillance any time he felt like it.

      Squaring her shoulders, she climbed onto the first step. She’d just search the castle, room by room, until she found him. Alba whined and she turned to see the dog standing at one of the glass windows that framed the front door. When she got there, she scanned what she could see of the yard. The drive was empty.

      Alba whined again.

      Piper spotted Duncan then. Because her view was partially blocked by the garden, she could only see the side of his face and his shoulder. He was in the stone arch. Even as she watched, he raised a hand to brush it through his hair.

      And he was wearing his glasses. Of course. Maybe he’d needed a change of scene. He’d probably taken a file out there to read. Maybe he was thinking the power of the legend would give him some insights.

      “He’s fine,” she assured Alba. The degree of relief she was feeling was ridiculous. And telling. It wasn’t just that for a couple of minutes she’d been afraid for him. When she’d woken up in the library and found him gone, she’d actually missed him.

      “No, no, no.” Alba’s bell jingled and Piper glanced down to see the dog was looking at her strangely. “I’m not talking to you.” She paced to the stairs and back. “It’s just the stress. It’s been a long day. Starting with digging that box out of the stones and refreshing my mind about that sexual fantasy I wrote with Duncan in mind.”

      Alba had stretched out on the floor and tilted her head to one side.

      “So, I decided why not? On-demand sex is simple, uncomplicated. The perfect solution to the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking about getting my hands on him. And I was nineteen when I thought it up.”

      When she paused, Alba just looked at her.

      “Okay, so I’m older now and supposedly wiser, and it still seemed like the perfect solution this morning. Maybe it would have been if it hadn’t been for the person who followed us into the cave or the fact that Patrick Lightman, aka the RPK, has decided to be my BFF.”

      Alba was looking at her as if she were taking in every word.

      Piper sank onto the floor in front of her. “It still is a good solution. I want him. He wants me. All I have to do is keep the complicated stuff in a bottle.”

      Closing her eyes, she pictured the bottle. Then she imagined the words that described what she’d been feeling in the library. Fear. That funny kind of emptiness. That incredible and scary yearning. And … she felt her heart take a little bounce. Okay—panic, too. Those were the emotions that she could put a name to when she’d woken up alone. In her mind, she did what she could to separate each word into letters and imagined them disappearing into the bottle. Then she jammed the cork in.

      “There.” She opened her eyes and looked into Alba’s. Leaning forward, she hugged the dog. “You’re a good listener.” She СКАЧАТЬ