Page 77 of Dangerous Secrets

He moved excruciatingly slowly. Out of politeness, Charity stood behind him in the open doorway, freezing. The gelid morning air sent painful frozen fingers of ice deep into her bones. She tucked her hands into her armpits in a vain attempt to keep some warmth in her system.

It was still early morning but very little light penetrated the slate-gray cloud cover. It was almost too cold for snow. A few tiny frozen flakes tried to settle on the ground, but the wind whipped them into a frenzy before they could. Charity felt the ping of sleet needles against her cheek as she waited impatiently for Vassily to leave.

Finally, he was over the threshold, walking haltingly towards Ivan waiting at the top of the steps, his arm out. As soon as Vassily was safely in the care of his chauffeur, she scrambled to shut the door behind him, trying not to slam it in her haste to have him out of the house. Once she heard the snick of the latch, she sagged against the door, eyes closed. Panting, exhausted.

Alone again. Thank God.

After a while, she heard thewhump!of an expensive car door closing and the deep purr of a powerful engine. She watched through the living room window as the limo pulled away. The windows of the limo were tinted but she thought she saw Vassily’s pale face pressed against the glass. Looking at her.

Oh, God. What had she done?

Charity pulled the living room curtains closed—she’d had enough of the outside world—put the tea glasses, tea pot and jam onto a tray and carried it into the kitchen. She was feeling so weak the tray shook in her hands, the tea cups rattling. That moment standing in the open doorway had sucked what little warmth she’d had right out of her, together with what little strength she’d been clinging to.

She stopped and leaned against the sink, arms around her midriff. Such a bone-deep chill, as if her insides held a core of ice. She felt completely ground down, reduced to bone held together by skin. Not too far from the grave herself.

The trembling grew stronger. Bile rose in her throat again. Tears leaked out of her eyes. She didn’t know whether to try to make it to the bathroom to throw up, or simply collapse to the floor and throw up there.

With difficulty, she swallowed back the bile trickling up her gullet, then waited while her stomach settled. She locked her knees.

No vomiting, she told herself sternly. No collapsing to the floor. There will be no one to pick you up if you do.

The thermostat was on high, the temperature in the house clocking in at 76°. She knew that in her head, but her body didn’t get the message. Her body was in Antarctica, chilled to the bone.

It felt as if there couldn’t possibly be enough heat in the world to warm her up. The only thing that could make her warm again was Nick, and he was in a coffin in the stony cold ground.

Oh, how he had warmed her! She hadn’t felt cold once in the week they’d been together. Sleeping naked in the dead of winter hadn’t been a problem with Nick in bed with her. He was a furnace. A constant source of spine-melting heat.

Had been. Now what was left of him was frozen bones.

She would never be warm again, for the rest of her life.

Oh God, how she missed him! A sob wanted to rise from her chest but she repressed it, clapping her hand over her mouth. Her throat shook. A wild keening sound escaped from behind her hand.

She couldn’t cry again. Crying required an energy she simply didn’t have. The tears would be wrung from some irretrievably shattered place inside her and she would never be whole again.

She pressed her hand so hard against her mouth she could feel her lips pressing against her teeth and waited. Waited for the upswelling of grief to subside, like the lash of a scorpion’s tail. All she needed was for it to go down a little, just a little, just enough for her to make her wobbly way back to the bedroom and collapse onto the bed.

She hugged herself even more tightly, in a vain attempt to give herself the warmth Nick had so easily given her.

This sharp, lancing pain had to stop at some point. Didn’t it?

Didn’t all the books say grieving eventually abates?

It was all she had to cling to, that some day this wracking pain would lessen, even if it would never go away. She was like someone who had been grievously wounded in battle. The surgeons and nurses could give her blood transfusions and stitchher up, but deep inside her, the tissues were rent, and the wound would never completely heal.

Surely the craziness would stop some day. It would have to, wouldn’t it? Prewitts were long-lived. She could easily live to ninety. Her skin crawled at the thought of another sixty-two years of this and madness.

Over the past two days, she’d felt Nick’s presence a hundred times a day. He was around the corner, behind that door, he’d just left the room. And each time her heart would soar and then crash and burn when he wasn’t there.

He wasn’t there. He would never be there again.

So why was her body tormenting her so? Wasn’t it bad enough that her husband was gone, without having these flashes of his presence?

Like . . . now.

Every hair on Charity’s body rose as she walked slowly towards her bedroom. Her feet dragged, her heart thudded. A big boulder of terror pressed down on her, cutting off her breath. Spots formed in front of her eyes, like a big buzzing cloud of gnats.

For she could feel Nick, feel his presence. She couldsmellhim. He was here, in this house, right now. Thinking that was craziness, she knew it, but she couldn’t stop herself.

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