guess this is a bad time to remind you about the civic development dinner. I was going to suggest that I stop by and we walk over to the restaurant together.”
She ran an agitated hand through her mussed blond hair. “I’d forgotten about it. I don’t think I’ll be going.”
“It’s important that everyone pull together to make the area a financial success,” he said in a reasonable tone that added to her irritation.
“I know that,” she snapped. “Save your chamber of commerce speech for someone else.” Then she instantly felt ashamed. She leaned back in her chair and threw down her pencil. “I’m sorry. It’s just that…well, I wouldn’t be very good company.”
“You have to eat,” he answered reasonably. “And I could round up a snail or two to put on your plate if that will make you happy.”
She was surprised at his light tone. She could picture a slight smile on the edge of his lips. Well, why not, she thought. Maybe she just needed to share her problems with someone who would understand. Besides, she really wanted to see him again. He’d been in her thoughts more than she was willing to admit.
“Forget the snails, bears and rattlesnakes,” she said. “Roast beef will do fine.”
“Good. I’ll pick you up about seven-thirty. The restaurant’s only a few blocks away. If you don’t mind walking…?”
“I don’t mind. See you then.” She hung up, surprised to find that their brief conversation had somehow restored her equilibrium. With new energy, she cleared off her desk and then left the office. She walked all over the hotel, checking on the work.
She was on the third floor talking to a painter, when a brush of cold air hit her face and she broke off in midsentence. At the same instant, she heard the sound of running water, and a woman’s soft laugh came from a nearby room that had originally been a shared bath. When Della jerked open the door, she couldn’t believe her eyes.
A voluptuous naked woman with red hair piled high on her head was taking a bath in the old claw-footed tub. She hummed contentedly and poured water over her face with cupped fleshy hands.
Della gave a choked cry.
“What’s the matter, miss?” asked the small wizened man who was filling his paint tray a few steps away. Della pointed.
He walked over, looked into the bathroom and shrugged. “Just an old tub. Don’t see nothing to get excited about.”
“That’s all you see? An old tub?” An arctic chill crept up her spine.
“Yep.” He gave her a queer look and returned to his painting.
Della looked again. The old tub was empty and dry. And yet she was positive she could still hear humming and splashing water. Like someone caught in a nightmare, she turned and walked away. When she reached the stairwell, she looked back down the hall. The shadow of a man stood watching her, his stance frighteningly familiar. Colin?
She pressed her hands against her temples. I’ve lost my mind. Crazy people couldn’t distinguish between reality and fantasy. And neither can I. The woman in the bathtub, the old-fashioned ladies wandering through the hall, the man in the shadows, they were all in her mind. No one else was aware of the invaders. No one else seemed to notice whiffs of cheap perfume overriding the paint smells. She was the only one aware of the ghosts who had taken over her hotel.
When Colin came to pick her up, he eyed the strained lines around her mouth and the dull glaze in her gray-green eyes. She was like a tight spring ready to pop, every muscle tense and rigid. Her soft appealing lips were taut. Her nervous hands smoothed the skirt of her simple white dress and tugged at a soft pink scarf looped in a puff at her neck. “You weren’t kidding about having a bad day, were you?”
She opened her mouth as if to say something but then closed it and only nodded.
He was puzzled by her behavior. She’d always shown extreme self-direction and competence while handling the business end of buying the hotel and arranging for its renovation. More than once, he’d admired her direct, unemotional approach to problems. She was a rare combination of strength and feminine softness. From the first moment he’d met her, she’d intrigued him. Intelligent. Fascinating. And beautiful. The direct unblinking beauty of her large eyes haunted him. The proud lift of her chin made him want to cup her face in his hands and taste her sweet lips. He wanted her.
But he knew better than to bring any woman into his life. His mother had warned him that Delaney men brought only destruction to those foolish enough to fall in love with them. His heart constricted when he thought about Elena, his first love, who had drowned before his very eyes. God forgive him if he’d already betrayed Della Arnell by selling the hotel to her.
“If you really don’t want to go…?” I should have stayed away from her, he thought when he saw her ashen face.
“No, it’s all right. I have to get out of this place.” She turned away abruptly and preceded him out the front door.
He silently swore. It was the hotel. The blasted hotel. The past was like a cancerous growth that would not go away.
They walked in silence. After a couple of blocks, Della was aware that Colin was striding beside her with a ferocity that did little to ease the tightness in her chest and stomach. Why had she agreed to go with him? Her lips quivered. Desperation, that’s why. She hadn’t wanted to be alone in the hotel—alone with ghosts of the past.
He stopped abruptly when they reached the restaurant. “I don’t feel like going to any meeting.” He put a hand on her elbow and guided her past the café. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.” She was relieved that he’d been perceptive enough to know that sitting in a room full of businesspeople, making polite remarks and trying to listen to a dinner speaker were more than she could handle.
She glanced at his profile and saw tight muscles flickering in his taut cheeks. Had her mood affected him so much that he was willing to forgo his civic duty? What was going on behind those deep-set eyes of his? His dedication to upgrading Market and Larimer streets was almost a religious passion, as if he felt compelled to single-handedly eradicate all evidence of the town’s early red-light district. Once again she wondered if his obsession with the past could somehow be responsible for her terrifying fantasies. Had he mesmerized her in some way, so that she was seeing the hotel through a historical haze?
He caught her apprehensive look and pulled her to a stop. “What’s the matter? You’re looking at me as if I have horns sprouting from my forehead. Tell me what’s going on.”
She moistened her lips. I’m going crazy. Old-fashioned ladies of the night are wandering around my hotel. I even found one taking a bath upstairs. For a horrid moment, she wasn’t sure whether or not she had spoken her thoughts aloud. When his expression remained the same, she knew that he was still waiting for an answer.
“I…I’ve been having bad dreams,” she stammered. That was close enough. Dreams were accepted as a sane phenomenon and she couldn’t tell him the truth. She couldn’t tell anyone. She kept her eyes focused slightly to the right of his face so she wouldn’t have to meet his eyes.
“What kind of dreams?”
“I…I don’t remember,” she lied.
His
