Dead By Dusk

Grant flashed him a sharp and wary glance. "Yes."



"Really? I mean, sorry, but it does look as if you followed Stephanie here."



Grant stiffened. Clay observed him—physical features, stance, bearing. The guy was assured, and tall, broad-shouldered, and apparently composed of pure muscle. He was built like a rock, but seemed to have an easy coordination and agility.



"I've always had a fascination with archeology, the past, anthropology, you name it," Grant said. "I grew up in Chicago—one of my first memories is of the Egyptian exhibit at the Field Museum. This came up, and I came here."



"You didn't know about Reggie's place?" Clay asked casually.



Again, Grant shot him one of those looks that assured Clay that the fellow was barely controlling his temper. "I've seen Reggie three times. I knew she was Italian. That hardly meant that she was going to open a resort in Calabria and put a comedy club in her resort."



"Kind of strange, though, huh?" Clay said lightly.



Grant was assessing him as well, Clay knew.



"Strange. Yes. But then, a lot of things seem strange. Somehow, you just don't look like the usual comedian."



"No?" Clay said. He shrugged. "Well, hell, I always thought that actors and comedians came in all shapes and sizes."



Grant stopped suddenly. He'd veered very close to the water. Clay hadn't gone so far. The sand was deep, and the air was filled with the scent of the salt water. And something more.



The smell of death.



"There," Grant said.



Despite the darkness and the night, they could both see a clump of something ahead of them on the beach. They looked at one another for a split second, then headed toward it. They hunched down. The clump was covered in seaweed.



Grant let out a sound of relief. "Dolphin," he said.



"Poor thing," Clay murmured. "Looks like it beached itself."



"Maybe. I don't know a damned thing about dolphins," Grant said. He stood. He seemed inordinately relieved. "We'll have to tell Arturo. He won't have any tourists out on the beach for a week if they don't dispose of the carcass."



Clay nodded, and stood as well. "The cliffs are just there. There's nothing, no one, out here."



"I didn't think there would be, but what the hell," Grant said.



They started back. Again, Grant seemed drawn to the edge of the water. Clay kept to the sand, watching.



When they returned to the restaurant, the others were there, just as frustrated. They told Arturo about the dead dolphin, and he assured them that he'd have it taken care of by morning.



"Well, we should head back," Carlo Ponti told Grant.



Grant took a long, wary look at Clay. "Carlo, I'll be out first thing in the morning. I'm going to take a room here for the night… maybe for the week." He stared at Clay as he spoke, as if warning him.



Or threatening him?



Clay wasn't certain.



Grant kept looking at him. "I intend to be around here," he continued. "In case. Just in case Stephanie decides that she needs some help. You know, putting up the show."



Putting up the show. He didn't mean that at all. Nor did he mean "needs some help." What he meant was, "needs me."



That was fine, Clay determined, smiling deeply.



He was glad that Grant Peterson would be exactly where he could keep a close eye on him.



Just as, he was certain, Grant Peterson would be watching him.



She didn't owe Grant anything, Stephanie reminded herself. And still, that night, she locked the front door, and the back door, and when she went upstairs, she closed and locked the entry from the balcony as well.



Too bad. She had loved the breeze.



It was all silly, really—it had to be. Gema Harris had taken off for the bright lights of Rome, and the missing girl would be found soon as well. Maybe she had run away with a lover who would not be approved by her family. Such things were surely known to have happened before. By tomorrow, the mystery would be solved.



Still…



She wondered if it was more than Grant urging her to be careful that made her walk around the place with nervous determination. She felt edgy herself. She wasn't certain if she was really feeling anything unusual, or if the fact that there were missing persons in the area, and Grant's assertion that something was off, causing her to experience the unease.



She was really tired. Jet lag was a part of it. Her sleep having been beset by dreams was part of it as well.



Feeling certain that she had closed and locked every possible entrance, she showered and went to bed.



When she closed her eyes at first, they opened again immediately. She had locked the doors to the balcony, but hadn't closed the drapes.



The darkness outside seemed to hold shapes.



Stephanie rose, and closed the curtains, and went back to bed. The events of the day kept going through her mind. They would always end with one thought.



Grant was here.



And she would think about her cast again, and how pleased she had been with the few intense hours she had spent working with Doug, Drew, Suzette, and Lena.



Then Clay Barton had arrived. In the night, her eyes closed attempting to sleep, she saw again the man's very unusual eyes. Cat eyes, lion eyes, dragon eyes. Like pinpoints of red-gold light in the ebony of the shadows.



Tossing and turning, at last she slept.



But only a few minutes were restful.



Grant was here.



She dreamed that he was in the room. The drapes were fluttering, and she thought that they couldn't be, because the doors were closed. The breeze was drifting over her. She was lying naked on the bed, and she could feel the air, as if it were part of an erotic seduction. She tried to tell herself that it was ridiculous, she had on a long T-shirt, she was swathed in cotton, but still…



The air against her flesh was cool, and she was mesmerized by the lightly billowing drapes; every inch of her skin seemed to be touched by the breeze, damp and cool, teasing, touching. And there was the man in the darkness, and by the shape, she was certain that she knew him, knew him so well.



Grant was there.



Broad-shouldered, a lean muscle mass, hot and vital, and moving with slow, sinewed ease, coming toward her. Sleek and bronze, fluid and sensual, the pad of his step silent across the room, his confidence complete, as if he knew the air rushing over her held her spellbound, and she wouldn't begin to protest…



not at all, she would be waiting, anxious for the liquid energy and spiraling heat that would come with his touch.



Grant… or someone like Grant.



Hard-toned, agile, and the darkness hid the face, but there was a smile of amusement and assurance, and a knowledge…



He reached the foot of the bed. Crawled there, crouched, with that same animal beauty of movement and ease and sleek agility. Fingers slid along her calf, and the pure, searing ember of a kiss slid with liquid seduction along the flesh of her leg, teased beneath her kneecap. Her limbs were parted to allow for the force of the body coming against hers with slow, sure solicitation and she was powerless to move. There was darkness now where the drapes had appeared to billow. As if something had come behind him.



Something winged and huge…



But she couldn't concentrate on it, couldn't remember to think, or even allow the rush of fear to touch her, because the sensation now streaming upward along her thigh was like a flow of lava, and she knew where it was coming, and she wanted it, and the hunger evoked was almost more than she could bear.



She wanted to reach out and touch the man's hair, dig her fingers into it, feel the warmth and power of the body, and the life within the man, but she couldn't move, because the pulse between her legs had grown to a desperate fever pitch, and if the surge did not come completely to her soon…



The darkness rose like a great, sweeping cape. It would engulf them both. She didn't care. She wanted the man with a growing urgency that eclipsed all else. She writhed where she lay, still unable to make her limbs move. She tried to whisper his name, and remembered that they were not together, that there was something wrong, something so very wrong, no matter how cataclysmic their passion could be…



Closer, oh, God, yes… closer.



Then…



Someone else was there. At her side. Sitting, as if it were perfectly natural for someone else to be present at the crux of such an erotically intimate moment.



No… you must be careful, you don't know who he is, the shadow is rising behind him, come to me, come with me, listen to me…it's here, in the past…



The man at her side was Clay Barton.



But then, the seduction between her legs became complete.



The shadow fell down, and she was screaming…



Stephanie awoke abruptly, catching the scream before it tore from her lips.



The glass doors were closed. The draperies were still. The room was empty. She was clad as she had been when she had gone to bed, in the soft, old, worn cotton T-gown. She was shaking, and bathed in sweat.



"Damn!" she breathed aloud, and she knew, of course, that she had been dreaming, and once again, the dream itself was simply embarrassing.



She flushed, jumped up, ran to the bathroom, flicked on the light, and doused her face with cold water.



And then, in the light, the whole thing seemed to fade, and be ridiculous.



"Damn Grant for showing up here!" she said aloud. She walked back into the bedroom. The shadows there then seemed entirely natural.



Still, she turned on the bedroom light. And despite the fact that the dream was already fading, and it was ridiculous to think that she'd really felt anything at all or that anyone could have been in her cottage in any way, shape, or form, she went down the stairs and turned the lights on throughout the place.



By then, she was feeling really silly, but she wasn't quite ready to go back to bed. She made a cup of tea, and turned on the television. There was an all-night music channel in Italian, she discovered.



Something like MTV or VH1. Curling into a chair, she watched the musicians on the screen.



When she fell asleep again, it was in the chair, with every light in the cottage on, and a rock rhythm permeating her mind.