She muttered fervently to herself about the absurdity of such a thing and went back into the kitchen. She threw away the pizza boxes and the empty beer bottles and swore softly as she washed down the table and the counters. She curled up on her new window seat, but she couldn't seem to take any pleasure in it. Then she heard a mewling and remembered that she still hadn't fed any of the animals-- his or hers.
"Okay, my loves. I'm coming." Alexi uncurled herself and started down the cellar stairs. The kittens played around her feet. “Samson went out without any dinner. Serves him right, don't you think? Men. They're all alike, and they deserve what they get, huh?"
Alexi glanced through the shelves of food. "Chicken, tuna or liver, guys?"
She shrugged and decided on cans of chicken. She picked up the bowls to wash them in the big, ancient sink and bit her lip against the temptation to cry again.
Rex had been in such a hurry to get out, to get away from her. He'd been counting the damn days, she thought spitefully. He wanted her to go back to work.
And then he'd grabbed the phone away from her. He hadn't thought her capable of dealing with John. But then, really, just what did he think of her, and what could she really expect? They'd met because she'd broken in--because she hadn't been able to get that stupid old key to work. Then she'd heard the footsteps of someone chasing her in the sand. And she'd been convinced that someone was in the house that night the lights had gone out. And then again, when they'd come back after their night out on the beach, she'd been so sure...
He thought she was neurotic, surely. He'd run out tonight because he just had to have a break from a neurotic woman who was perhaps becoming just a little bit too much like a clinging vine.
Alexi ruefully turned the water off, thinking that the kittens would surely have the cleanest bowls in the state. Then she paused, startled, her heart soaring with hope as she thought she heard the door open and close.
She dropped the bowls into the sink and hurried back to the bottom of the stairs. "Rex?"
She didn't hear anything, but she could have sworn that the front door had opened. Alexi started up the stairs and entered the kitchen. There was no one there. She hurried out into the hallway and saw that it was growing dark. The stairs to the second floor and the landing above them loomed before her like a giant, empty cavern, waiting to swallow her whole.
"You are neurotic!" she charged herself aloud. In a businesslike manner she turned on the hallway light, and she felt better. She moved on into the parlor and turned on the globe lamp behind the Victorian sofa.
"A little light shed on the matter," she murmured. Then she paused uneasily again, shivering. It felt as if someone was near. She couldn't really describe why--it just felt that way.
John.
Ice seemed to course through her veins. He had said that he was near, hadn't he? Had he been here all along, stalking her? Running after her on the sand the second night she was there, somehow slipping into the house once she had run into Rex, escaping when she had screamed...
No. It just couldn't be John. What could he want with her?
He said that he wanted to talk to her....
The shadow in the Chinese restaurant, watching them through the screen...could that have been John?
Who else? She gave herself a shake, then stood very still. She hadn't heard a thing. She was just nervous because Rex was gone and she was so accustomed to being with him now.
Alexi cut across the hall. She meant to go into the kitchen, but paused and walked into the ballroom instead. She turned on the lights and walked down to stand beneath the portraits of Pierre and Eugenia.
"You were really so beautiful!" she told them both softly. And she smiled, wondering if they had ever loved each other on the beach, watching as the sun came up in an arc of beauty. Had they laughed in the waves, played in the surf?
They had been great lovers, she knew, according to family legend and some documented fact. Eugenia's father had been a rich Baltimore merchant, but she had defied him to marry Pierre Brandywine, a Southern sea captain. They had eloped and run away to Jamaica to honeymoon, even as the conflicts between the states had simmered and exploded. In 1859, Pierre had brought Eugenia to the Brandywine house on the peninsula and carried her over the threshold of his creation.
Alexi studied her great-great-great-grandfather's handsome features and deep blue eyes. He seemed to be looking at her with grave concentration. Alexi smiled. "I don't believe you haunt this place, Pierre. And truly, if you did, you would surely never hurt me! Flesh and blood and all that, Pierre!"
She looked over at the picture of Eugenia. She loved that picture. She must have been such a sweet and gentle woman, so lovely, so fragile--and so very strong. She had been here alone with one maid and an infant through much of the war.
"I suppose I can deal with a night's solitude," Alexi told the portraits dryly. She turned around, squaring her shoulders, and left the ballroom. The poor kittens. She really had to forget her problems and her fears and feed the little things.
To her annoyance, she paused in the kitchen again. Now she could have sworn that she had heard a board creak on the staircase in the hallway. She hesitated a long moment, swearing silently that she was a fool; then she rushed back out to the hallway again. There was no one there.
She went into the kitchen and didn't hesitate for a second. She went straight to the cellar doorway, threw it open and started down the stairs.
She was about five steps from the cellar floor when the room was suddenly pitched into total darkness.
And even as she stood there, fear rushing upon her as cold and icy as a winter's storm, she heard a sound on the steps behind her. A definite sound. She wasn't imagining things, nor was it a ghostly tread. Someone was in the room with her. She turned, a scream upon her lips, determined to defend herself. But she never had a chance. Something crashed against her nape, hard and sure. Stars appeared before her momentarily in the darkness; then she pitched forward, falling the last few steps to land upon the cold stone floor below.
Rex kept the gas pedal close to the floor. He was going way too fast in the Maserati, he knew, but tonight it felt good. He'd felt so hot in the house, so hot and tense, and had been winding tighter and tighter, until he felt he might explode.
What the hell was the matter with him? He'd known she didn't really belong on the peninsula. He'd known she'd come to the place looking for a safe harbor, a place to lick her wounds, a place to stand up on her own two feet. He'd helped her to do that. Yeah. He'd helped her. And it was nothing to feel bitter about; he was glad.
He had to be. He loved her.
He just hadn't realized, not really, that she would be leaving. That she came from another world. A busy world of schedules, of ten-hour days. Hell, she had the face that could launch a thousand ships, right? She enjoyed her work, all right--she'd run from John Vinto, not the work. She was beautiful; the world had a right to her.
"Wrong, Samson, wrong," Rex sighed.
Samson, his nose out the window, barked.
He didn't want to share her. Ever again. Maybe that was selfish. He wanted her forever and forever. On the peninsula with him. With her hair down and barefoot and no makeup and--hell, yes!--barefoot and pregnant and together with him in their little Eden. He hadn't thought that he'd ever want to marry again. To take that chance, make that commitment. But nothing from the past mattered. It was all unimportant. Because he loved Alexi.
She didn't intend to stay. He'd known that. He'd known it, but it was a painful blow....