A Shiver At Twilight Read Free Page B

chimney. I smelled the fire.”
     
    She spoke the last as if the addition of olfactory perception would make her claim indisputable. No matter that the lights weren’t working now and the hearth was as cold as her blood, she’d smelled a fire.
     
    She saw something flicker in his expression and knew he must have seen the lights too, maybe even the smoke from the chimney. Why else would he have come here looking for . . . the thought ended in an unsettling question.
     
    “Why are you here?” she asked suddenly.
     
    “I saw your car up on the highway. It was still running and the headlights were on. I thought there might be trouble so I pulled over to help, but there was no one there.”
     
    Carly watched him, suddenly certain there had to be more to it than that.
     
    “It looked like something was down in the canyon—I couldn’t tell what, so I came to see.”
     
    “How did you get down here?”
     
    “There’s a road—it loops back and around the base of the canyon.”
     
    “Can we get out the same way? Up to my car?”
     
    “Tonight? In this storm? Maybe. It would be risky, though. It’s a good ten-twelve miles. Up. You don’t even have a coat.”
     
    True and already the cold had made her numb. “But . . . You came all that way without even knowing what you were looking for?”
     
    “Yes,” he said. “Someone could have been hurt down here.”
     
    She stared at him standing there like some unflappable hero in a bad action flick, flashlight in hand, cool confidence radiating from him.
     
    “What are you, a boy scout?”
     
    She hadn’t meant to sound sarcastic or ungrateful, but in a night when nothing made sense, his “rescue” seemed nearly as bizarre as the absent old man and the fire that no longer burned.
     
    His chin lifted a fraction and his eyes narrowed on her face. Embarrassed by her own harsh words, she tried to look away, but he captured her gaze and held it.
     
    “Looks to me like you could use a boy scout,” he said softly.
     
    He had her there. Face hot, she broke his spell on her and glanced down at her feet.
     
    “How did you know your friend was in an accident, anyway?” he asked. “Did you see it?”
     
    “She called me,” Carly said, keeping her lashes lowered so he couldn’t look in her eyes again.
     
    “After it happened? So you know she’s okay?”
     
    “No, I was talking to her when it happened,” she lied. “The police said they couldn’t find anything so I raced up here.”
     
    JD studied her for a long moment and she had the uncanny sense that he’d seen through her deception to the truth. But that was impossible. No one would guess how she knew about Jillian being run off the road. Even if she told him, he wouldn’t believe it.
     
    Softly JD sucked in a breath. “Christ,” he said. “You must have been nuts, hearing that. No wonder you jumped in your car and drove through this storm.”
     
    Relief washed over her, but with it a strange sense of disappointment. In those moments when he’d held her, she’d felt a connection like she’d never experienced before. Maybe this man might be different.
     
    Ridiculous.
     
    He turned away and continued his inspection of the house, bouncing his flashlight beam over the room. Shaken by her own thoughts, she went with him, noticing with uneasy surprise that the rocking chair had broken runners and a layer of dust and dirt coated the blankets in the corner.
     
    “Did she call you back? Afterwards?” JD asked.
     
    Carly stared at the chair, clearly remembering that it had been rocking when she entered the room the first time. As if the old man had just stood up from it.
     
    “Carly?” JD repeated. He touched her shoulder and had her immediate attention. “Did your friend call you after the accident?”
     
    Without thinking, Carly shook her head. JD gave her a sideways look, frowning. “Then how did you know where to go? Where to find her car?”
     
    Mouth dry, Carly cursed herself