Page 32 of Rainshadow

Sylvia smiled a tight smile. “Well, I think it’s bedtime. Let’s go to bed, Ethan. Say goodnight to Flora.”

Ethan smiled at Sylvia, a sad smile, and Flora felt deeply for him.

Flora found that the guest bedroom, a bedroom she’d stayed in before when she house-sat for Lisa, was nicely made up, with fresh sheets, ivory, a beautiful dark navy bedcover in rich satin, and two expensive-looking brass laps by the bed on dark wood nightstands. There was a window, and Flora knew that if it wasn’t dark and stormy, she’d be able to see the barn, and past that, the sea. Instead, it was a yawning darkness.

She found a book on the bookcase,The French Lieutenant’s Woman, and started flipping through it. Flora usually loved to read, but at the moment she was too in her head, distracted by being in the same house as Ethan and Sylvia after dark. She listened for them, but heard nothing.

After about an hour, she got up to get a glass of water in the kitchen. She found a wine glass in a cupboard, no regular tumblers, but filled that at the tap and drank, gulping it down and filling it again immediately.

“Thirsty?”

Flora gasped and nearly dropped the glass as she turned to see Ethan standing in the doorway. “Oh my god,” she said, pressing her hand to her chest.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, laughing and taking a step toward her. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“It’s fine,” she insisted. “I’m just easily startled.”

Ethan smiled, his face kind. “I was coming to see if you need anything. Looks like you can help yourself.”

“Sylvia knows you’re down here?” she asked. “She seemed to be?—”

“Asleep. Passed out, really. She drinks about a bottle of wine most nights.”

Flora nodded, sipping her water. “Is that why you left last week?”

“Last week?” he said, like he couldn’t quite remember.

“I found her in her room, lying in the bed, all pale and sickly looking. I thought she was dead. There were pill bottles and needles everywhere. It must be hard for you.”

Ethan was looking at her with an expression she couldn’t quite place. She wondered if she’d crossed some kind of line.

“Oh, yes,” he said finally, his voice quiet. “You’re right. I can’t be around it. I love her too much, or… I love the memory of her. Have you ever been wildly, passionately in love?”

“No,” Flora said, and felt her heart flutter.

“Sometimes I wonder… if you fall in love with someone and later you find out that they weren’t who you thought they were, were you ever really in love?”

She gazed at him, not sure what to say. “I don’t know. I think love…” Her voice trailed off. It wasn’t her place to ask the obvious question. Had Sylvia tricked him? Seduced him? He must have been so young, so easy for a beautiful older woman to mislead. Maybe, Flora thought, Sylvia really was evil. “I think love has to be true to be real.”

“True to be real,” Ethan said, and she watched his beautiful lips moving, hypnotic. “I like that.”

“We should go to bed,” Flora said.

“Yes,” he said, shaking his head as if breaking out of his own trance. “Right. Goodnight, Flora.”

“Goodnight, Ethan.” Her heart sank as he said it. She didn’t want to go to bed. Why had she said that?

“Flora,” he said, stopping and turning in the door. “What I really wanted… What I wanted just now, was to kiss you.”

She looked at him, stunned, her mouth hanging partway open.

“Kiss me…” she whispered, more of a stunned statement than a question.

“That would be wrong, though,” he said, looking at her. “Wouldn’t it?”

“It’s wrong the way she treats you,” Flora said, the breath catching in her chest.

He leveled his gaze at her.

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