The Firstborn. Dani Sinclair

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СКАЧАТЬ know how to turn it off, either. But he couldn’t afford to get involved here. That road led to a pain he had no desire to repeat.

      Hayley stirred without waking. Carefully, Bram slid his arm around her, leaning his cheek against the top of her head. She was young. He had to keep reminding himself that he was too old and too jaded for the sort of thoughts he was trying not to have about her.

      His father had told him that he’d never really be free until he faced the ghosts that haunted his soul. Funny, he couldn’t help thinking that perhaps the time had finally come.

      DUST MOTES DANCED amid the sunlit rays filling the room when Hayley woke. She lay on the couch, covered in the familiar afghan. The house no longer felt empty—but the library was.

      Where was Bram? Had she really fallen asleep in his arms? She’d felt his lips brushing hers as he’d stretched her out on the couch. Memory? Or a dream-induced fantasy?

      Glancing around, she realized her overnight case was no longer on the floor nearby. Jacob must have seen it and carried it upstairs for her. Bram wouldn’t even know where her room was.

      The thought of him seeing her bedroom was unsettling. She folded and replaced the afghans before stepping into the main hall.

      The first thing she noticed was the door to the former parlor still standing open. She needed to use the bathroom, yet she was drawn across the hall by something she couldn’t explain. Even in daylight, the room’s atmosphere was depressing.

      “Looking for something?”

      Bram’s voice sent her spinning around. Her heart gave a leap at the sight of him. Last night, shadows had dimmed his features, but this morning there was nothing to soften the impact of that firm jaw and those dark brown eyes that seemed capable of reading her innermost thoughts.

      He was powerful rather than handsome. Now that she was feeling more objective, it was easy to see why Jacob had looked to him for guidance. There was an aura of leashed power, a sense of confidence, that made Bram a natural leader.

      He’d changed into clean jeans and a fresh T-shirt and had even shaved. He looked younger than he had last night, despite the tiny lines at the corners of his mouth and eyes. His hair was freshly combed and still damp, the ends curling, darkly wet against his neck. He must have just come from a shower. He looked perfectly at home and incredibly sexy.

      Abruptly, she realized several seconds had passed. Flustered to be caught staring at him, she gestured at the room in general. “I, uh, wanted to see this room in the light.” She stepped forward briskly, though it was the last place she wanted to be.

      A row of formal chairs gathered dust beneath the drape-shrouded windows that lined the outside wall. The Danish-modern receptionist’s desk looked ridiculously out of place in the formal room, but it did serve to restrict access to the heavy double doors that had once led to the old ballroom and now opened onto Marcus’s exam rooms. She had sensed the unseen watcher standing there last night.

      “Hitchcock would have loved this place,” Bram muttered at her back.

      Hayley couldn’t argue. Even in daylight there was a disturbing wrongness about the room. Moving around the desk, she reached for the door handle. Locked, just as Bram had told her last night. Hayley felt inexplicably cold.

      “What are you doing?” he asked.

      “I’m not sure. Searching for proof that I wasn’t imagining things last night?”

      Bram touched her shoulder, causing her heart to flutter foolishly. “Do you think you were imagining things?”

      “No.”

      He nodded without expression. What was he thinking? That she was a foolish, emotional young woman?

      “I carried your bag upstairs for you.”

      “You did?”

      “Mrs. Norwhich told me which room was yours.”

      He’d seen her bedroom, still decorated with posters from her high school days. “You’ve met Mrs. Norwhich then?” she asked, to keep from wondering what he’d thought about her room.

      “Uh-huh. She came in around six this morning. Didn’t seem at all bothered or surprised to find unexpected company in the house. She told me to help myself to a shower, and offered to fix me some breakfast.”

      “How did she know which room was mine? I’ve never even met the woman.”

      “Beats me. I put them in the third bedroom down, on the right-hand side.”

      “That’s my room,” she acknowledged. “Where’s Jacob?”

      “He went out—after suggesting to Mrs. Norwhich that she should count the silver.” His lips curved faintly. “I don’t think your friend Jacob likes me very much.”

      “You didn’t exactly make a good first impression,” Hayley pointed out. She tucked several strands of wayward hair behind her ears. “I’d better go up and grab a shower, too.”

      “I put fresh linens in your room,” said a dour voice from the doorway.

      Hayley spun to gape at a tall, middle-aged woman dressed in a flower-print shirt and baggy slacks. The clothes hung limply on her bony frame. Her stringy blond-and-silver hair was piled in an untidy mat on top of her head. Bony fingers pushed at the wispy strands trying to escape. Her long, seamed face was pinched and sallow and set in a permanent frown. She held a duster in one hand. A pail of cleaning supplies sat at her feet.

      “No one’s supposed to be in here. That’s what they told me. Don’t go in the front parlor, they said.”

      Once again Hayley was reminded of an old horror film. Didn’t those housekeepers always appear out of nowhere? “Mrs. Norwhich?” she asked tentatively.

      Beady eyes hardened. “She’s in the kitchen.” The woman turned and glided silently down the hall, her back stiffly erect.

      “Now I know why Jacob said to wait until we met the maid,” Bram whispered near her ear.

      “She moves like a ghost.”

      “Sort of looks like one, too,” he agreed. “Very skeletal. Want me to walk you upstairs?”

      “I remember the way.”

      He was suddenly standing much too close. She felt totally unprepared for the emotions he seemed to evoke in her.

      “Then I’d better get back to work,” he told her.

      His soft, deep voice slid over her, sending all sorts of inappropriate impulses to her nerve endings.

      “Thank you. For last night, I mean.”

      He lowered his head. Her heart thudded crazily in anticipation. He was going to kiss her.

      With one knuckle, he gently raised her chin. His gaze held her captive more surely than any shackles.

      “My pleasure.”

      While her lips СКАЧАТЬ