Now You See Her Linda Howard(39)

"It's okay, sweetie. Nothing happened."

"The hell it didn't," she blurted, then blushed even more.



"I made you come." He kept his voice calm. "I did it deliberately, to get you warm."

"I would call that something," she snapped.

"Then call it heavy petting, to use a high-school term. I sure as hell wouldn't call it anything more, or I wouldn't be as damn frustrated as I am." Gently he brushed a curl back from her flushed face. "We need to talk."

She paused, looking truculent, but finally sighed. "Okay. Let me get up and get dressed, and put on a fresh pot of coffee—"

"I like you right where you are." Once she put some distance between them, she would throw up her defenses again, and he wanted some answers. Until he had them, he intended to keep her mostly naked and half under him. Touch was a powerful force, making babies thrive and gentling the most fractious of women. It had a powerful effect on him, too. Slowly he stroked his hand over her back, feeling the delicate vertebrae of her spine, the smooth warmth of her skin.

She must have sensed his determination, because she was motionless in his arms, waiting. "Unless you have an explanation for what's causing you to go into shock this way, I'm taking you to a doctor," he said. "Today. Even if I have to wrap you in this blanket and carry you the way you are. "

She exhaled through her nose, huffing her displeasure. She didn't look at him but stared over his shoulder. Her evasion made him think there was indeed something going on that was causing her to have such drastic reactions. "Richard—"

"Sweetie," he countered, with the exact level of impatience she had used. She darted a suspicious glance at him, not quite certain what he had said. He managed not to smile.

"All right," she said abruptly. "I'm usually cold, but not like—not like today."

"Or day before yesterday?"

"Or then," she agreed. "Both times, I walked in my sleep the night before." She pressed her lips together, looking both mutinous and worried.

She evidently thought that was explanation enough, but Richard didn't. "I've never heard of sleepwalking causing anyone to go into shock."

Mutiny began to override worry in her expression. "Well, that's what happened, whether you believe it or not."

There was more, and she was determined not to tell it. Without another word Richard got up and tucked the blanket around her, wrapping it tight so she couldn't get even her arms free. Then he picked up his pants from the floor and stepped into them.

"Hey!" She began wiggling frantically, trying to fight her way out of the blanket.



"Don't bother." He zipped his fly and buckled his belt. "I'd just have to wrap you up again before I take you to a doctor, and you know I can do it. I'm a helluva lot bigger than you, and a helluva lot stronger."

"Bully!" she threw at him.

"Yep, but a concerned one." He leaned down and kissed her forehead.

Whether it was the concern or the kiss that did it, or maybe her realization that he meant what he said, he saw her expression change. The look she gave him was almost frightened. "It isn't just sleepwalking," she said, her voice so low he could barely hear her. "Both times I've painted something in my sleep, too."

Sleep-painting? Interested, he sat down on the edge of the couch, trapping her between his hip and the couch back. "Why would that be such a shock to your system?"

She bit her lip. "There was an old hot dog vendor who worked a corner about four blocks from the gallery He had the sweetest expression of anyone I've ever seen. Day before yesterday, when I got up I noticed the canvas I'd been working on had been moved, and another one was on the easel in its place.

The ppainting on the easel was of the hot dog vendor, with blood coming out his nose and pooled around his head. In the painting he was.dead. That was the first time it happened."

"Painting in your sleep, or being so cold?"

"Both. That afternoon, I found out the vendor really was dead, though I had seen him just the day before."

He didn't know what to say to that. Bad coincidence? That was stretching the boundaries of logic, but unless she had a lot more to tell him, he couldn't think of anything else it could be but coincidence.

"And this morning?"

She gave a low, harsh laugh. "This morning, when I saw the canvas had been moved again and another was in its place, all I could think was that someone else I knew had died. I was too scared to look at it, because I was afraid—terrified—that I had painted you."

The meaning behind that admission went through him like a bolt of lightning. He clenched his fists to keep himself from reaching for her. He didn't dare touch her now, or they wouldn't get out of bed until sometime tomorrow. The look she gave him was stripped bare of the layers of prickly defenses she usually kept between her and the world.

"Did you?" he asked, and managed to keep his voice calm. He had the feeling she was grateful he hadn't pounced on that telling admission.

She laughed again, this time with real amusement. "No. I painted shoes. Two of them. One man's, and one woman's."

He grinned at the incongruity "Shoes, huh? This may start a new trend. Some people would be able to read all sorts of deep meaning into two lonely, mismatched shoes."