Time After Time Read online

  “So you just literally pulled up roots and came out here? What about your family?”

  “Don’t have one. My parents were killed when I was six, and there weren’t any close relatives. I was raised in a foster home.”

  “That’s tough,” he said, his ready sympathy stirred.

  “Oh, no, not at all.” Alex was cheerful. “They were good people. I left about ten years ago, just after I turned sixteen. I didn’t run away from there as much as I ran to something else.”

  “What did you run to?” he asked, curious.

  “The circus.”

  “What?”

  She chuckled. “I went to see the circus about a year before I left, and it kind of, well, obsessed me. So I decided to run away and join the circus.”

  “And that’s what you did?”

  “Certainly. It was a plan.”

  “A plan?”

  “I like to plan things. So I waited until another circus passed through town, and when they left, I left with them.”

  “No one tried to send you back?”

  “I lied about my age. Besides, I was good with animals and they needed a trainer. It wasn’t a very big circus,” she added ruefully.

  “So you became their animal trainer.”

  “That’s right. I trained whatever they asked me to train. Primates, elephants, dogs, horses, cats.”

  “Cats?”

  “The big cats.”

  “Don’t tell me you put your head in a lion’s mouth?”

  “You’d be surprised,” she murmured.

  Noah was more than a little incredulous. “How on earth did an animal trainer wind up being an interior decorator?”

  “Growth.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Growth. I believe that people have to change constantly in order to grow as human beings. I left the circus after about four years because it was time for me to change, to do something else.”

  “And what did you do?” he asked, fascinated.

  “Well, several things. I left the circus in Richmond and ran into a childhood friend; she had a business and asked me to join her, so I did. I got my high school diploma and took some college courses while I was there. When she decided to move her business—it was an arts and crafts place—I just stayed on in Richmond. After that I did different things. I worked in a bank, and a realty company, and a museum. Then I took courses in decorating, and decided to try that for a while.”

  The thumbnail sketch told him more, probably, than she’d intended. It told him she was versatile, strong-minded, and very self-reliant. She had spent ten years settled in foster care, then four years traveling the Gypsy circuit of circus performers before settling again in the East.

  Though he couldn’t help but believe that her life as a child had been a bland one, she had more than made up for that during the past few years. And he had an odd but strong feeling that if she had gone into detail, he would have found even more fascinating enigmas.

  At that moment Noah’s strongest desire was for a single match. Though lightning had flashed intermittently, the high glazed windows of the loft permitted little light to penetrate—and none at all long enough for them even to glimpse each other.

  And he very badly wanted to see her.

  “My kingdom for a match,” he muttered, unaware of speaking aloud.

  Alex clearly sensed nothing personal in the remark. “It is dark, isn’t it? I’ve never seen dark like this before. Why on earth did you leave the windows so high?”

  “I didn’t want to change the basic structure of the building,” he answered automatically. “Will it present problems for decorating?”

  “I doubt it: lofts look better without drapes anyway. But if you don’t have the power company put a couple of streetlights nearby, your other tenants might complain.”

  Amused at the critical advice, he murmured, “The power company’s coming out next week: there’ll be two utility lights out front and one in back. I’ll have floodlights around the pool too.”

  “There’s a pool?” she asked eagerly.

  “Just finished. It isn’t huge, but since this building is miles away from a health club, I thought a pool would be pleasant and convenient.”

  “And there’s quite a bit of cleared land around this building, isn’t there?” Alex sounded thoughtful.

  “A couple of acres, and fenced. It seemed like a good investment: I can always have more buildings constructed later if I decide to go that way. Apartments and lofts are at a real premium around here.”

  “So this is an investment for you?”

  “More or less.”

  “You mentioned in your letter that you’re a photographer, and that part of your loft will be a studio. Have you decided whether or not I’m to decorate your loft as well as the others?”

  “After seeing how bare everything is—definitely. If it suits you, we’ll take care of our lofts first, then you can work on the other three.”

  “Fine.”

  While the conversation had progressed casually, a part of Noah’s mind had been idly considering why he had fumbled his way across a dark room just to be near her. He remembered reading of various city-wide blackouts during which people had tended to stick together and form quick friendships—most of which had instantly dissolved when the lights came back on. Was that it? A very human tendency to find companionship in order to ward off the inherent danger of darkness? Rather the way cavemen must have huddled together around a fire with deadly wilderness at their backs …

  There was something about total darkness that stripped away the caution most people felt upon encountering strangers. Unable to see, there was no need to guard expressions or to wonder worriedly if dinner had left a stain on an otherwise clean shirt. There was only darkness that seemed to intensify each sound, each shift in movement.

  Noah wondered if his own fascination would dissolve when the lights came back on, wondered if Alex Bennet would be nearly as interesting when he could see her.

  And then his questions were answered.

  TWO

  WHEN HIS EYES had stopped squinting from the sudden light, Noah found that Alex had recovered her own vision with the quickness of a cat. She was looking at him, wide-eyed, and her obvious surprise gave him a few moments to try to cope with his own.

  For an instant he felt a hazy yet jarring sense of déjà vu. Another face flashed across his mind. But the memory fled before he could know anything except that it was not this face. The eyes were the same, though, the enchanting green eyes. Or perhaps the soul behind them …

  A violent mental shove sent the unnerving idea spinning away, and Noah forced himself to think only of this face and this woman. It was not, in the end, very hard to do.

  Stephanie Alexandra Cortney Bennet was a woman tiny enough to match her voice; she might have been five feet tall on her very best day and wearing three-inch heels. She had on a white robe that looked more like a scanty beach coverup, the lapels barely covering curves that were startlingly generous for so petite a woman, the hem only just reaching the middle of her thighs. She was tanned a golden brown over every inch of exposed flesh.

  And she possessed the kind of delicate, fragile beauty that would always turn heads and stop conversations in mid-sentence. Blond curls, thick and with the texture of spun silk, tumbled to her shoulders, framing a face that was right out of a dream. It was an oval face, golden and flawless. Delicate brows winged above large, expressive eyes of such a clear green that Noah half-expected to see a siren beckon to him from their depths; dark lashes tangled in a long, curling thicket that was a sooty frame for the green. Her nose was finely etched and straight, her mouth gently curved with humor and vulnerability.

  Noah caught himself leaning instinctively toward her, and felt a jarring shock. There were sirens in her eyes, he thought dimly, innocent sirens beckoning with guileless smiles and the timeless grace of ancient seas. Then she spoke, and although the sirens continued to exist in green depths, now the
y laughed like forest sprites….

  “I thought you’d be short, fat, and balding!”

  “Thanks,” he shot back, conscious of the huskiness in his own voice.

  “Sorry, Noah, but I was going by past experience; all the photographers I’ve known have looked like that.”

  Trying to distract himself from the sirens, Noah tore his gaze away to look around the room, and he succeeded very well when he saw Fluffy. “Good Lord!”

  Incredibly, the stuffed bear was of the polar variety, standing very tall and wearing a fierce grimace of bearlike rage. Noah marveled fleetingly that the stark white had been so invisible in the darkness, realizing that the room had been even darker than he’d thought. His gaze flitted over the confusion of boxes, crates, and furniture, absently noting that the “boulder” he’d barked his shin on was in actuality a large crate that lay open and empty except for a pile of clean straw.

  Straw? he thought. Now, why on earth—

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Alex said solemnly, holding out one small hand.

  “Same here.” Holding that soft slenderness in his own hand, Noah found it impossible to believe—“Are you sure you tamed lions?” he blurted out.

  “Very sure.” Her amused smile made it quite obvious that she’d heard that question before.

  Noah found himself wondering if the sirens in her eyes had bewitched even jungle beasts, and hastily pushed the speculation away. He also released her hand when he became aware that he’d held it longer than necessary. He felt rattled again and wasn’t at all sure he liked the sensation. Alex didn’t seem to notice.

  She rose to her feet, smiling. “Let me get changed and I’ll put on some coffee. Unless—?” Her lifted brow made the question clear.

  “I’d love some coffee, thanks,” he responded. As he watched her move gracefully through the jumble toward the bathroom, Noah told himself that his desire to remain was simply a landlord’s intention to get to know a tenant, and a client’s desire to better know his decorator. He told himself that several times, more firmly with each repetition.

  And he believed not one word of it.

  By the time he made his way up the stairs to his own loft over an hour later, Noah had stopped pretending even to himself. Alex Bennet was the most captivating woman he’d ever met in his life, and even after seeing the polar bear she clearly meant to keep in her own loft, he felt no misgivings about her decorating ability; she could have done every loft in the building in bamboo and stuffed wildlife and he wouldn’t have said a word against it.

  He’d even given Fluffy an absent pat on his way out.

  It wasn’t until much later, sliding between the sheets of his bed and reaching to turn out the lamp, that Noah wondered about Caliban. Alex had not suggested that he meet her pet, and he had been too intrigued by the woman herself to care about anything else. Now he wondered, but only fleetingly. He lay back and closed his eyes, looking forward to tomorrow.

  He dreamed of mermaids and sirens, his dream-self incredulous that Ulysses had lashed himself to a mast instead of leaping happily overboard….

  Noah woke once in the night, and during the hazy moments between abandoned dreams and wakefulness, he could have sworn he heard a voice. The voice was feminine, familiar yet strange, and the accent was one he’d never heard before. And his sleep-fogged mind told him the girl spoke to him—but to someone else as well.

  “Oh, see! Our lifelines match! We are bonded, my love. Fated to share all our lives together!”

  And then he was awake.

  Noah frowned into the darkness, feeling an oddly displaced sensation. Green woods, he thought, not a dark bedroom … Then he shook his head, pounded his pillow, and fought to recapture sleep.

  But he never recaptured the dream.

  Alex puttered about her loft for a while after Noah left. She let Caliban out of the bedroom and fed him, reminding herself to be sure to go shopping early the next day. It was late, the storm long gone, and she waited restlessly for her pet to finish his dinner so that she could take him out for his much-needed exercise.

  Absently unpacking a box filled with decorative pillows, she piled them on the couch and then sat down among them, finally thinking about what she’d been trying to avoid considering. There were several things, and heading the list was her new client and landlord.

  The return of electricity had brought a definite shock, one she still hadn’t entirely recovered from. Her supposedly short-fat-and-balding client was no such thing; in fact, any comparison with that mythical gentleman was ludicrous.

  Noah Thorne was a man somewhere in his mid-thirties, somewhere over six feet tall, and somewhere over a ten in the half-serious rating system Alex’s friends always used.

  Alex had never even met a ten before, much less a man who would easily jolt the needle over the top.

  He had the kind of hawklike good looks one never expected to encounter in a real person, and if that smile hadn’t been breaking hearts for a good many years, she mused, then Noah Thorne had met a lot of blind women. His thick hair was raven-black and stick-straight, his eyes a curious light blue that was almost gray and almost silver—but not quite.

  Half the women Alex knew would have killed to possess his long eyelashes, and the other half would have killed to possess him. After seeing him move around the loft, Alex had been reminded irresistibly of a warrior walking cat-footed on the hunt, silent, dangerous, and nearly as wild as the game he stalked.

  When he smiled, that lethal image was overshadowed by charm and humor, but Alex felt faintly unnerved by the instinct telling her that nature had intended just that; even the wildest of beasts could look cuddly and unthreatening at times, lending a feeling of safety that was, to say the least, misleading.

  Alex was determined not to be misled.

  However, it was one thing for her to tell herself that, and quite another thing to ignore the instant attraction she’d felt. She’d seen the ridiculous images in her mind of Cleopatra meeting Antony, of Guinevere gazing upon Lancelot, of Cinderella raising her eyes to meet those of Prince Charming.…

  Ridiculous! She was twenty-six years old, on her own for ten years, and she certainly knew better than to indulge in childish dreams and unrealistic expectations. Men were men; the best of them possessed annoying habits and beliefs, and the worst of them had some redeeming trait. Period.

  Still, there was just something about the man. She’d had the odd feeling that they had met before, yet his face had struck no chord of memory.

  Alex drummed her fingers silently on a particularly colorful pillow and tried to think reasonably. He was a very attractive man, and in the moment of surprise following the darkness she had seen his interest in her. He had drunk her coffee and gazed at her almost constantly, making her feel breathless and curiously unlike herself—and that was a danger signal.

  In fact, it was a hell of a potential problem.

  Because Alex wanted very much to get to know him better. It wasn’t his looks that prompted that desire, although they had certainly been a jolt to her system. No, she thought, it wasn’t because he was a handsome man. It was because of the humor in his deep voice and the charm and danger of his smile.

  Danger. Alex knew then why she was so attracted to him. For nearly four years, while most girls her age had been playfully experimenting with boys, Alex had learned to handle creatures of the wild. She had learned to read the signs of rage in the posture of a big cat, in the abrupt movement of a bear, and in the flashing eyes of a stallion. And she had survived those years and experiences unscathed because she was very good at reading such signs.

  Smiling a little to herself, Alex allowed that instinct to search her impressions of tonight’s meeting with Noah, and her instinct summed up the situation neatly. A caged lion, a tethered hawk, a chained bear … call him what you will, Noah Thorne is a dangerous man.

  Not dangerous to life and limb, of course, but dangerous to something far more vital. Alex had the strong feeling that any i
nvolvement with Noah would literally change her life forever.

  So what? You approve of change, a voice in her head pointed out reasonably.

  So there was a problem. Caliban.

  Alex looked up as he padded silently around the low partition dividing the kitchen from the rest of the loft, and rose to her feet. “Ready to go out, boy?” Caliban rumbled something that might have been a yes, his big yellow eyes gazing at her with a gentleness she could read and no one else would ever believe.

  “Now, look,” she told him, scrabbling through a box for his collar and leash, “we can’t let anyone know you’re here. So you behave yourself, all right?” After nearly six years of successfully hiding her pet, Alex normally would have had little fear of exposure. Except that now she’d met Noah.

  Whether he would keep her secret or not she didn’t know, but both her job and her interest in him promised a closer involvement than she’d ever had to deal with during the past six years. Noah had her definite interest, but Caliban had her heart—and sooner than lose him, she knew she would quietly fold her tent and steal away into the night.

  Sighing, wondering how long she could keep Caliban’s presence a secret from her landlord—to say nothing of future tenants—Alex fastened the heavy collar around his thick neck and snapped the leash in place. Then, while he waited patiently, she went through the routine of finding out whether or not there was anyone in the vicinity outside the building.

  Feeling fortunate to have a ground-floor loft with a back entrance, Alex checked the rear of the building and felt even luckier. The pool was to the right of her back door, new wooden decking surrounding it and a decorative fence surrounding that; the gate stood open, giving her a good look inside since the moon now shone in a cloudless sky.

  Directly outside the sliding glass door was an equally new deck matched by another several yards away for the other ground-floor loft. Looking up, she could see that each loft boasted a deck with a view of the pool. Alex sighed, hoping that neither Noah nor any of the future tenants would spend late nights out on their decks. Then she gazed at the fenced land surrounding this building.