Echoes in the Dark

“No,” she managed. “To be truthful, I’d expected a much older house.”

“The original house was destroyed by Hurricane David. Not a very romantic name for a storm, and that house was very romantic, steeped in history and haunted, I’m sure, by several well-authenticated ghosts. I built this house to replace it. It’s about ten years old.”

“You don’t miss the other at all.” Suzanne laughed. “He hated it. He couldn’t wait to design and build this one. He talked for months about what the site demanded and stresses and forces and who knows what else. I don’t know how the workmen ever got anything done with him adjusting every beam and pillar.”

“You’re an architect?” Caroline asked unthinkingly and knew by the tension, by the sudden movement of the small hand that finally released hers, the error she had made.

“Not anymore,” he said into the uncomfortable silence that fell in spite of their well-bred politeness. “I finance houses. I invest in companies that build them, but I don’t design. Not anymore, Ms. Evans.”

His voice had softened on the last, and she could almost hear the effort he made to speak naturally when he continued, a change of the awkward subject her remark had forced. “Suzanne, if you’ll take me in to dinner?”

He rose too suddenly, unaware perhaps of how close they stood to his chair or still bothered by the insensitivity of her comment. He moved so quickly that her instinctive step backward unbalanced her, and she grasped the nearest object to keep from falling. The solidness of the muscle under the navy silk shirt was reassuringly steady. She quickly regained her balance, releasing his arm as if she’d been scalded.

“I’m sorry,” he began, his words conflicting with her own agonized apology, so that they both stopped and waited.

“It was my fault,” she said finally, knowing she was blushing.

“I don’t think so, Ms. Evans. I hope you’ll forgive my clumsiness. Suzanne?”

He fitted his hand around his sister’s upper arm, and she led the way to the small table that had been set on the patio.

The meal was long and the atmosphere relaxed. The food was simple and delicious, a mixture of French and Creole dishes that reminded Caroline of New Orleans. The conversation flowed easily with Andre and Suzanne bearing the burden, seemingly without any conscious effort.

The man at the head of the table said little, and Caroline wondered if that were because his full attention was required for the process of eating. She was fascinated by the movement of his long brown fingers against the array of crystal and china. He never made a mistake. There was no clink of misplaced glass or fork, no need for the use of the napkin. She would never have known he was blind, she thought, not from this.

She wondered how long since he’d lost his vision. Less than ten years. She thought of those long years of darkness and wondered if he had ever been as laughingly sensuous as Andre, as confident of his power to attract. He was still, in spite of the dark glasses that hid the sightless eyes, a very attractive man.

At the realization that she had been watching those lean, tanned hands, she dropped her gaze to her plate and tried to concentrate on the story Andre and Suzanne were telling together, running over each other’s best lines. Something about a visitor to the original house who had been a sleepwalker. It was an old routine they had obviously used often in the past to entertain, but, although she laughed when they finished, she had lost the thread. Eventually, a relaxed silence fell over the group.

“Why don’t you take Ms. Evans to the deck and show her the surf,” her host suggested to his brother. The glasses moved toward her face when he explained, “You can hear it even from this side of the house. It’s a sound that will become as familiar as your own heartbeat, but the first sight is awe inspiring.”

Suddenly, she knew she didn’t want him pushing Andre to entertain her. It wasn’t necessary, and it was somehow insulting.

“Tomorrow,” she said, rising. She hoped she wasn’t being rude, but she was tired, and she wanted to sort out the impressions of the crowded day. “If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to turn in. I was up very early this morning, and in spite of the nap, I still feel the effects. Forgive me, please, and good night.”

Both men had risen automatically, but it was the older who again commanded.

“Of course. Andre, would you show Ms. Evans to her room? I hope you sleep well.”

“Good night, Caroline,” Suzanne spoke, still curled comfortably in her chair. “I’ll see you tomorrow. We’ll get started on the endless grind. I’m really very glad you’re here.”

Caroline followed Andre through the French doors and across the tile to the stairs. Neither was aware of the angry voice that spoke behind them on the patio.

“What the hell are you playing at? Blindman’s buff? Take you in to dinner.” Suzanne’s voice was rich with ridicule. “I almost threw up. My God, Julien, what kind of act was that?”

He laughed in the darkness and stood, holding out his hand for her. She finally took his fingers, and he pulled her up. They walked arm in arm to the edge of the patio, but she wasn’t the guide this time.

“I thought it was wonderfully affecting. A moment full of poignancy. Personally, I was deeply touched,” he said, smiling, but the mockery was all self-directed.

“Damn it, Julien, you explain what you’re doing, or I swear I quit. I swear I’m on the next flight to Paris. You almost knocked the poor girl down.”

“The poor girl?” he questioned softly. “I thought you didn’t want her here. I thought your sympathies were all for me, your concern.”

“When I think you need it. Not when you’re putting on some helpless blind-man routine for the tourists.”

“And how did the tourists respond?” he said softly. She knew suddenly from something in that carefully emotionless voice she was used to reading how much he wanted to know about their guest’s reaction to his blindness, and to know that, he needed her help.

“She did all right. I’d say she even...”

“Even what?” he asked finally when she refused to go on.

“She watched your hands. At dinner.”

“And?”

She could feel the tension in the hard body beside her, leaning lazily against the stone railings of the patio.

“She was all right. It didn’t make her nervous. As a matter of fact, I’d give her an eight, maybe even a nine.” They had devised the code years before, rating reactions to his blindness.

They didn’t speak for a long time, and in the silence she could hear the surf booming against the rocks. Like a heartbeat.

“Take me up to bed, Suzanne,” he said softly, hugging her small body close.

“You go to hell, you bastard. You always get your way. You go to hell,” she said.

She could hear his laughter following her inside and up the stairs to her room. She didn’t know why she was so angry with him, but thinking about that dark laughter, it was a long time before she slept.

Chapter Three

Caroline awoke suddenly in the cloying darkness and sat upright in the tangled sheets. A nightmare. It had been so long. The stresses of the day, she supposed. She took a deep breath and found she could smell, almost taste, the salt, the flowers from the garden below, the heat of the sun leaving the tiles beneath her windows.

It had been a mistake to leave them open. She was gathering the energy to climb out of the clinging sheets and close them when she heard it again. The sound that had dragged her, panting and shivering, from a too-sound sleep. The faint mewling cry of a newborn. She had heard babies cry through the years, and none of them ever sounded like this. So lost. So sick. As the last echo died, she buried her face in her hands. Not again, she prayed. Not again, dear God. Please, not now.

She waited, hoping, and after so many long dark minutes that she had begun once more to breathe, deep shuddering breaths of relief, the wail whispered again. Not through the open windows, but from the hall outside her room.

She had the door open before the sound had stopped, but in the darkness of the long hall she had no idea of its direction. Here there was no echo to guide her. It had stopped as soon as she opened the door, not fading into the blackness, but cut off.

She cried out against the unfairness of it. Realizing where she was, she pressed both hands against her mouth, attempting to suppress the racking sobs that always left her exhausted, incapable of any rational thought. Not again, she begged, feeling the blackness of her fear close around her.

“Caroline,” the voice spoke softly beside her, “what’s wrong? Why are you crying? What’s happened?”

She tried to regain control, to answer his concern, but she was too far into the panic the dream always caused.

Finally hard masculine arms enclosed her, offering the timeless comfort of human closeness that penetrates even the deepest hysteria, and she leaned into the warmth, the alive solidness of his chest. She let him rock her gently until the sobbing eased. Until the blackness retreated again to a manageable distance. She could smell the cologne he used and, underlying that, the scent of his body, warm and hard against her cheek. That evidence of life and sanity overwhelmed her with gratitude, so that she rubbed her face against the smoothness of his chest, turned her head to savor the reality of muscle and skin.

She was aware of the deep breath he took, and then he turned her face up to his and touched her trembling lips with his own. She wanted that touch. Her mouth opened automatically under the invasion of his tongue. She was surprised at the depth of her desire. She of the frozen emotions, the frigid indifference, wanted the lips that were moving over hers so skillfully, evoking memories that made her knees weaken and her hands clutch his shoulders.

He broke the contact, lifting his head, trying to see her face in the moon-touched darkness of the hallway. “What’s wrong?” he asked again, gathering her close.